Pokemon Champions Reality Check

Pokémon Champions looks like the clean, modern home for Pokémon battling, and for a minute it feels that way. We jump in with real first impressions and quickly hit the weird contradiction: the game hands you a gym leader premise and a “champion-level” setup, then gives you almost nothing to do besides online battles. If you love competitive Pokémon, ranked ladders, quick matches, and tweaking teams, you’ll hear why the core battling is genuinely strong. If you play Pokémon for collecting, training, and the journey, you’ll hear exactly where the excitement drops off.

We break down what the game gets right (battle flow, time limits, customization, approachable visuals across Switch, iOS, and Android) and what makes it feel barebones (tutorial overload, unclear training, no story mode, no NPC battles, limited long-term goals). We also talk free-to-play monetization, battle passes, memberships, and why Pokémon Home connectivity helps but still leaves the experience feeling disconnected from the broader series.

Then we widen out into the rest of our current media spiral: Mafia games as story-driven comfort, travel gaming and Switch battery reality, Mega Man X and Persona 4 Golden updates, the eternal “should we delete Fortnite” debate, plus what we’re watching right now. We get into Star Wars Maul curiosity, Mario movie hype, and the darker side of big entertainment companies with Disney layoffs and the push toward AI in film and TV production. We cap it off with some all-time bad movie memories and set up a DC character conversation that we save for part two.

Subscribe for part two, share this with the friend who lives for Pokémon PvP, and leave a review with your biggest fix for Pokémon Champions: what would make you actually stick with it?

Transcript

Beyblades And Dangerous Childhood Toys

SPEAKER_02 0:00

We are back. We're so back. For the next one it's not live, but it's not live.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

That's we're live right now.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

I can't lose my career today, so recording gonna be live.

SPEAKER_02 0:17

Yeah. So episode nine? What are your thoughts? Almost to the double digits?

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Yeah. I mean, it's quite the accomplishment. I mean, if you really take I don't have it right in front of me, but the vast majority of podcasts probably don't even make it this far. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

And if you think about it, like if you had what, like nine people, you could almost fill an arena. Nine people? Yeah. This is a very small arena.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Thinking like a Beyblade arena. Oh yeah. Did you ever have a Beyblade arena?

SPEAKER_00 0:58

No, but I'm about to. Are you really? Yeah, so there's this uh there's this set of like Evangelion themed Beyblades I saw in Big Bad Toy Store. Um, dude. So I had a Beyblade Arena.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

I never had a Beyblade Beyblade ever. I had a couple Beyblades. I I don't remember a lot about it. I mainly remember it not they didn't really work in the arena that well.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Yeah, because it's made of plastic, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Yeah. Yeah like light plastic.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

And these things are made out of metal.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Yeah, and if you got hit with one, which your fingers were getting hit with them all the time, it was really painful. I mean, they were cool and it was a cool concept, and I think I did watch the show for a short amount of time, but and I I liked it, it was cool, but it just it just didn't work in practice like it was supposed to, and it was obviously extremely dangerous if you were a younger kid, which I think I was probably I heard that they moved back to plastic for a while, and they've just now started making premium metal ones again, because for a while they were like canceled, like they quit making them.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Um but they have this like 30th anniversary Avangelion set, and it comes with the hangar bay uh to store them in because each one's painted like a different robot, and they have metal on them again. So I I'm curious. I've never had a bay blade before. I was like, oh I'm an adult now. I can buy a bay blade for myself. Have whatever you want, yeah. Dude, there were these things called flywheels. Do you ever have a flywheel?

SPEAKER_01 2:40

No, I don't think I did. I think I know what you're talking. Alright. Let me there was this a thing. Flywheel.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

That's not it. Well, not the real flywheel, not I think it was made by the Beyblade company. Yeah, like this. And they're just a tire. It's like a runaway tire. And it says it goes 200 miles per hour, but that's completely not right. There's no way 200 miles per hour. You just launch it in your house and it rips through a wall.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

I mean, even at that size, if it was going 200 miles an hour, it'd be pretty dangerous.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Rip a hole in the in the uh what do they call it in DC? The something wall, the source wall or whatever. Source.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Man.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

So how you been? I I've been good. I do want to follow up a little bit on this Beyblade question, though.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

So are the Evangelion like so they typically when I was a kid, the Beyblade top was like a character, like an animal or whatever. Is so are they the Evangelion like mech suits are tops? Yeah. Or how are they?

SPEAKER_00 4:00

So each one. Oh wait, that's not switched over. Yeah, each one is like its unit zero is the yellow one. You can see its head there. Unit one's the purple and green, and then unit two is the orange and white and red. Okay. And they put the the heads on top.

SPEAKER_02 4:18

And then I wonder.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Oh, go ahead. I was just gonna say, like, when you were talking about with the plastic, I wonder how that went. If they were if they went to plastic, it went horribly.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

They did quit selling them for a long time because they just were not selling.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Do you think that was because well, I mean, we did we weren't doing it, but did they not work? Did people just not like them? I don't know. Because I mean the metal definitely very well.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

It propels them having the metal, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:48

Yeah, they're heavier that way. And I mean, it looks cooler. I think to a kid, you're you'd rather have metal. But obviously the metal's gonna be more painful if it's a big thing. Oh well, but I wonder if the plastic broke too. I mean, that's yards of plastic flying.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

That might actually be more metal. Yeah, in a way. It's like a blunderbuss.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

I mean, it doesn't get much more metal than that. This reminds me of like I saw some show on the History Channel, which is usually not very reputable. But uh, talking about aliens. Yeah, so anyway, they were doing this thing talking about like the most dangerous toys that they made in different decades and stuff, and a lot of them would be extremely dangerous, some of them were like radioactive and stuff like this. And so they were like incredibly dangerous, but some of them were stuff like this where they would have like exploding plastic and like shards of plastic would be hitting children. Oh, and that's what I'm thinking of with a plastic bay blade, is just have you ever heard of the gas-powered pogo stick? Uh, I don't think so, but that sounds super dangerous.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

Immediately pulled off of shelves. They were like, Oh, this is a great idea. People were dying left and right with this thing. Like, it is not something that should be gas powered, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:12

No, I mean a pogo stick in and of itself. I was saying this to somebody the other day. A pogo stick, I mean, obviously for a kid you think it's cool, but is a terrible idea. It's so dangerous. I cannot believe they let us on the elementary school. I honestly, I I guess I probably was on a pogo stick at some point. I wanted one as a kid, and my parents didn't get me one, thankfully. Yeah. But I would I I can't really remember ever using one much. Um you and I went to the same elementary school.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

Yes. They had pogo sticks there that had been there for a long time. You did you guys ever use them?

SPEAKER_01 6:54

I don't remember using them, but I may have. The main thing I remember like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Those little wobbly things that you sit on. Yes, parachute. What was the deal with the parachute? Is that like teamwork empathy thing? Like, where did they come up with the idea for that?

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Yeah, I don't know. And I mean it was fun, but it's kind of like why are we doing this?

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Yeah, how much money did they pay for that thing? That has to be expensive, right? Well, you would think not very, but then it's a custom thing. It's not like an official parachute. It has like a big hole in the middle, it's a rainbow color. Like, where'd they get this thing from? Man.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

Yeah, that's funny that like I think that's just something like a lot of schools just did. They're like, okay, now we're gonna hold up this parachute and you're gonna run under it, you know, and and try not to hit each other. Dude, what's uh somebody oh, sorry. I was just gonna say, I heard somebody talking about Red Rover the other day. Oh, yeah. I only got to play Red Rover one time, but we did play it in school. And thinking back on it, I'm like, that is such a bad idea. Like, I loved it as a kid, and I think most kids would probably love that, but I'm sure there's been a lot of injuries.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

We did it one time at the daycare that I went to after school, and uh it was like a special day. They had a little like water slide inflatable, and like for some reason they had a can of Reddy Whip, and they were just like letting kids take a hit off the Reddy Whip, right? Horrible idea already. And then we do Red Rover, and someone like almost gets a concussion. And then we never played Red Rover again. Somebody gets a hand. Dude, I think we should do an episode about like um like old school memories and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

I think I haven't thought about stuff from elementary school in so long.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

I just kinda like suppressed it all. It just wasn't important to me.

SPEAKER_02 8:57

It's like this is not efficient. So Yeah, dude. Maybe I'll be efficient for some content.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Yeah. Everybody goes to elementary school. Well unless you're I guess.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

But same thing. I mean, I I guess that's still elementary school. I don't know how to do it.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

No, that's home.

SPEAKER_02 9:19

That's just being at home. Yeah.

Pokemon Champions First Impressions

SPEAKER_02 9:22

Well it's episode nine. Episode nine, and it's not about elementary school. It's it isn't.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

It's about a lot of it. Surprise, surprise. No Beyblade. What is it about Beyblade? Yeah. It's uh it's actually about Pokemon champions. Yeah, that is definitely part of it. We'll start out with Pokemon Champions. Then we're gonna talk about some things we've been up to, and then we're gonna roll into a conversation about our favorite DC characters.

SPEAKER_02 9:54

So be prepared for that. Yeah. If you don't like it, get out of here. There's a door over there.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

So I'll talk a little Pokemon Champions. Um I have not played. So this just came out. I only just downloaded it, what, two or three days ago. Uh I all I had seen was negative about it. All I saw was that everyone hated it and uh it was terrible and buggy and nobody liked it. So that's what I had seen. Well, I downloaded it and I I was playing it pretty late one night, and my first impression the first day that I played it was very positive. Um I played it for about two or three hours the first night, and I'll say the things that I like about it and the things that I don't like about it. So when you first start the game, it's very heavy tutorial, which I don't like. However, in a way, that's the most fun part of the game because I like that there's a fair amount of customization, customization for your character, uh, hairstyles, clothes, whatever. You can customize a lot of different things uh if you want to do what their poses are, if you want to do what music plays when you're battling, all this kind of stuff. So I like the customization features. And I think I've seen some people criticizing the graphics of it. I actually like the graphics, I thought they were pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

I have seen people it's worth noting that it's on iOS, Android, and Switch.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

So they have to have it uh tuned to like multiple. This is not a Switch 2 game. I am playing it on Switch 2, it is a mobile game. And so that is part of what I'm gonna talk about, probably more negatives, but um so when you start, you make your character, then you're introduced to this guy who's been a Pokemon trainer for like 55 years, and he's leaving, he's been a gym leader, and he's leaving the gym, and he's seeing if you are a good enough trainer to take over the gym. So you battle him with some of his Pokemon. Obviously, you win, it's a tutorial, and he says you have a lot of potential, blah, blah, blah, makes you the gym leader. Okay, sounds really cool. So you get to use like six of his Pokemon, and they get to stay in your team, and they're pretty good, strong Pokemon. So then you get introduced to some of the mechanics of the game, recruiting Pokemon from it's like a farm. You can go and it'll give you like a select small selection of Pokemon randomly chosen, and you get to pick one of those that you're going to either temporarily or permanently recruit. The first one is completely free, doesn't take any of your points in the game or anything like that. Um, and so then you start doing some battles, and typically the battles are it's either a single battle that is three on three, or a double battle, which is four on four. And I'm gonna say here, I haven't even done any of the double battles, only done single battles. But anyway, so then here's where it starts to go downhill already. Oh boy. So following some of the early battling stuff like that, it wants you to do the training tutorials, and they're really basic things, stuff you already know about Pokemon battling if you've ever done played a Pokemon game before. Um, but then there's this whole training segment that I assumed was, you know, training up your Pokemon and making them better. I found that entire section of the game, one to not be very clear, and two to be mostly pointless, as in you don't do anything, you don't do anything to train the Pokemon. Uh, you basically just give them some points or a ticket or whatever, and it supposedly trains your Pokemon. Well, I did it on one of mine, and I didn't even really see much of a stat difference afterwards. And so there is no training in the typical Pokemon game sense where you battle, train your Pokemon, help them get better, anything like that. And then there's some other things that become negative. So when you start the game, it sets it up with uh the owner of the Pokemon Champions Battle Arena and the mayor of the town or whatever, and they're presented as essentially champion level trainers. Okay, well, the game makes it out like you are going to have almost like a story mode of being a gym leader, progressing, hoping to eventually battle them. That's not the game. The game is there is no story mode whatsoever. There is no battling NPCs computer. It is exclusively battling other people online.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

There is

Why The Game Feels Barebones

SPEAKER_00 15:36

if I can interject, I th I think what they also mentioned, this is like where competitive battling for all of the games is eventually going to go, right?

SPEAKER_01 15:46

Yeah, the game is it's all competitive battling. And there is a casual mode, but it's the same premise, and then there's a ranked mode. And so, I mean, I'm not saying like it was mismarketed. They said basically what it was going to be.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

For a while, I thought it was going to be something like Coliseum, to be honest.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Yeah, it's basically like take Pokemon Stadium on the Nintendo 64 and strip a lot of the parts of the game, the story mode, all that kind of stuff. Strip all that out of it, just have the battling, and just make it against other humans on the internet, and that's what you have. So what I like about the game is I like the graphics, I like the battling. I like that it a battle takes less than seven minutes. Really? There's a time limit. You can go through a lot of battles really quickly. I like the graphics. I like a lot of the mechanics of like doing the battling. But there's just no, unless you're really super into moving up ranks and competitive battling, which I've never done competitive battling, I don't care anything about it, then there's no incentive to play the game. And so I played it for a few hours and reached the point where I was like, oh, this is literally all this game is. I'm probably not going to play this anymore. So here's my last thoughts on it before I, you know, let you say whatever you want to say about it. I think this game has all the bones to be a really fun game, both for people who do competitive battling and people who don't. But it's not going to be put in there because it's a mobile game. All they would have to do to make this game, in my opinion, really fun is add like a story mode where you are progressing until you can battle and take on these other two trainers, uh, a ranked system, kind of like either in the anime, the World Coronation series, or you could say sort of like what they did with Legends CA with the ranking system. Andor, I thought the concept of making you a gym leader was a really fun, different thing to do in a Pokemon game. Why not just have me part of it be, you know, trainers coming and challenging me at my gym and me becoming a better gym leader, raising the prestige of the gym. Neither of those things are in the game. There's not really any training in the game. And if I think if they would just add a few of those features as just a in-game mode without playing online, I think that would make the game fun for everybody. As is, I think it's good for what it's supposed to be, but it just doesn't really interest me because all you're doing is the same thing, competitive battling over and over and over. And so I find that kind of boring pretty quickly. So that's my thoughts on it.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

You gave me a great idea for a game. You got a mobile game, right? You're a gym leader. When you earn rank, you earn reward coins or whatever to get items to upgrade your gym and change the layout and the amount of trainers that are in your gym so that when people come through, they have to fight them to get to you, you know? Make your own puzzles and stuff. I think that would be a really cool idea. Um I think that's a great idea. I have a hard time believing this guy's been fighting Pokemon for 55 years, considering Pokemon hasn't existed for that long. I think he's a liar. First of all, I think second them all, I think he's just trying to get out of his timeshare. Just pass it on to you.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

Yeah. Yeah, he's made the whole thing look like a gym so he can get rid of his timeshare.

SPEAKER_00 19:49

Everything is it the guy that looks like the luchador in the promotional pictures I was looking at? It is not him. He is the mayor. Oh, okay. That makes so much sense that he's the mayor. Yeah. They got Rey Mysterio is the mayor.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

And I mean, it's got some good features. There's mega evolution in it. Um, I do like it. There are is the obvious typical paid or uh free-to-play mobile game where they're trying to get you to spend money all the time. However, you don't have to spend any money, and you can have good Pokemon and have good items and things like that without spending money. So that's a good feature. But I just don't think I'll play it very much because and I don't really understand. It's confusing to me, and maybe I just haven't got to whatever it is yet, but it's confusing to me to have those two characters and really play them up as a big deal at the beginning of the game, like really goes out of their way to make them out to be a big deal. And then you're not ever going to battle them. You don't ever you're just battling trainers online competitively.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

I don't understand that. I wonder if they'll do an event where like everyone has to keep battling them to like as a community rank something up or something. Yeah. But yeah, it is weird.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

And I the Oh sorry. I was just gonna say, I again, I'm not familiar with competitive battling, but if you lose a battle, you go down a lot. Like, even if you win more battles than you have lost, like I don't really know what my record is, but I've definitely won more battles than I've lost. I have not gone up like at all, because every time you lose, you lose so much of what you built up. And so it takes a long time, which again, I've only done a handful of battles, but I will say it gives you some good Pokemon. Like, okay, so one thing that it's given me that I used a lot in the beginning and to a lot of success was it gives you or gave me a hydrigen and gives gave me. A uh I'm gonna get the name of the item. It's either a white herb or a white uh flower or something like that. Okay, so you can use uh Draco Meteor, which would severely lower your special attack after that. Well, because you have this item, it returns your stats back to normal. So then you can just hammer people again. So anyway, it just put it just gave that to me. I I didn't have to pick the items or anything like that. It was already on there, and I was like, man, that's good.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

But anyway, dude, the last time I played competitive, I I was really into it in X and Y. Like I played so much of that game. I had the whole national decks and boxes of legendaries and Chinese. I was like, my friends and I were all super into it, and there was this meta at the time where you could have a team of six Ratata, and as long as you didn't go up against a ghost type, you could have them all level one, and they'd have quick attack, and what was it? Uh focus sash or something, and endeavor. Yeah, I think I've heard of this. And essentially they would hit you, bring you down to one health, you would hold on with one of your items or abilities I think it was endeavor holds on, and then they would go back down to that amount because of your help item, and then you'd use quick attack to attack before them. And that was the last time I played. I got really far because I was using the dumbest thing ever, but everyone was to. And um, and then they patched it, and they were like, Yeah, no, you can't do that in competitive. They like were banning items and Pokemon, so I didn't play any after that, but I do remember during the 3DS, a lot of people with the um communication stuff in that would make themselves themed gym leaders and kind of make their character look like a gym leader and say, Water type gym must do this or this or this or something in the description. And um they'd have their own like leagues, so that was always cool.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

Um Yeah, that would be very neat. Yeah, yeah, I really liked the gym leader concept. I wish I wish you could like I mean I have a gym, but I don't ever get to play in it. I'm constantly playing online. Like I'm only ever exercising in my gym. So um so I mean I s I I overall like this could be a really good game, and if all you want to do is online battling, it's a good game. I want to try it still.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

And you know, I've talked to you about this. I really like catching Pokemon, I love trading for Pokemon. I'm not a big fan of the battling, and some people get really like snippy at people for that, but like, you know, it's a collecting game too. Like it's it's 50-50, it's not all one thing or another. And when you have these divisive things, although I don't really like competitive much being such a focus in the main game, I I do think it is nice to have this outlet, but also maybe still have something in the game for the people who do want it. Like, I I I don't know what the answer is, but I don't know if bringing it all completely outside of the game is the answer, you know.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

Yeah, so on my perspective on this, I love battling in games. However, for me it's more the training your Pokemon, winning with a team, making a team that becomes champions, you know. It's not so much that I just love competitive battling and love battling strategy. I don't really care about all that.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

And I did know there was no strategy in Legends EA, so you just don't lose obsessing over what item to use.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

I to be quite honest, I hardly ever even use very many items. Yeah. And so I just like to train my Pokemon up, have strong Pokemon that I like, become a champion, that sort of thing. And so, like this game, there is no real training feature or or really growing with your team in my I think something similar to the PokeAmy would be great for this kind of game.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

Like leveling up the EVs and or IVs, sorry. I don't know why I said that. You can level up your Eevees or with IVs. I literally thought you were talking about like a and feed 'em like poffins and do the punching bag thing. I I always like that kind of thing. And I think that'd be perfect for a game like this, but I haven't played it yet. I can't give a good I don't know, good advice.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

Yeah, and I'm not gonna totally give up on it yet, just in case I'm gonna show something. No, I'm just kidding. But I'm probably not gonna play it very much anymore.

SPEAKER_00 26:52

Uh what do you give it out out of ten? Just first impression.

SPEAKER_01 26:56

Okay, so I'll give it two separate scores.

SPEAKER_00 26:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 26:59

So if you went into this and

Monetization And Competitive Grind Talk

SPEAKER_01 27:02

you knew exactly that it was going to be an online battling thing, and that's all it was gonna be, and that's all you wanted it to be, and you didn't care about training or anything like that. I would say eight out of ten, I may I mean, it does the battling well. I like I like it. But as far as like a game for me, how much do I like it? I would give it like a five because after like three hours I'm already bored of it.

SPEAKER_02 27:33

So well, I think it's I think it was at least worth them testing.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

I I do like when they uh when they try new things. They've been trying a lot of new things lately, but like you were saying, bare bones. Like they have a lot of good ideas that they can't flush out before they release. And and I've seen like uh for Legends ZA, like there was a whole playtesting team of people who came as consultants to Game Freak, but I don't know if they're afraid of giving advice or if Game Freak ignores the advice, but it seems like someone would have mentioned some of the things you've said easily during that.

SPEAKER_01 28:19

And I don't know if it's just I don't know what goes into a phone game and what it doesn't. So I don't know if it was just it had to be so limited for phones.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

I don't know because I I played some games like that Zenless, and that game is like 30 gigabytes on my phone, and it looks just like it plays on the PlayStation 5 or my PC. And it's like a it's a massive game. Like you walk around and do stuff and like has fighting that's like a 3D arena kind of thing with a bunch of enemies. I I don't even think it's that, because this game from the screenshots I saw, it's not very graphically like intensive.

SPEAKER_01 28:59

No, yeah, it's it's kind of just like any other Pokemon game only.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

And I'm sure it's like sub three gigabytes, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

Yeah, I downloaded really fast. I didn't look at the size, but yeah, I downloaded super fast.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

So I can't imagine it's very intense.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

I like what they did.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

I'm glad they didn't need to be like a crazy looking thing. Like Pokemon doesn't I I I'm kinda tired of this narrative that Pokemon needs to look incredible all the time. Like it was a pixel game. Like not to say that they shouldn't win anyway, but like I'm okay with it not being like that, and it's it's not a bad thing. Like it's still charming, it has a cartooniness. You not everything has to look like a hyper-realistic picture.

SPEAKER_02 29:54

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 29:55

I mean I my only complaints are just you know, not enough to it.

SPEAKER_00 30:02

Too much water, seven out of ten.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

Yeah, I mean, I just I need a little more there for me to want to invest a lot of time, you know, so I saw the Metacritic score was pretty low.

SPEAKER_02 30:17

Um I was scrolling earlier, wasn't what was that? Now I've lost it.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

Um I think Metacritic it was like a 33 or something like that, and then another platform. I think IGN gave it like a 6.6. So, you know.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Yeah, I think 33's a little low. Because I mean they didn't market it as a all-encompassing. Right.

SPEAKER_00 30:46

It looks like a solid like five or six.

SPEAKER_01 30:49

That's kind of how I feel about it. It's a five, it's somewhere in there. It I think it's worth if you're a Pokemon fan, it's definitely worth free trying to do it. So, like it's free.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

You need to pay for it. But I do. I think having this as the primary outlet for competitive might be a little controversial. Yeah. Especially with the access to mobile, that could be a problem for people cheating and doing whatever, disconnecting during things.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

That's one thing. I haven't had anybody quit on a battle yet. There was I haven't even clicked on it, so I could be misreading it, but there looks to be a an icon you can click to leave a battle. And there's been some situations where I've been in a battle where it was very obvious I was going to win, and they had no way to win at that point, and I expected them to quit because that's what people do online games, but they did not. I have not had a single person do that.

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Oh, I'm looking at the uh monetary packages. So it's free to start, and then you have a seven to ten dollar starter pack as the one-time boost, increasing box slots from thirty to eighty along with in-game currency. Premium battle pass is ten dollars per season, typical clothing hair items, gotcha. Wait, there's a gotcha. That's not good. And then there's a membership that's five bucks a month or fifty a year, essential for competitive players, adding a thousand slots, more teams, and exclusively weekly missions.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

So it sounds like Yeah, if you are really wanting to get into the game, it's a racket.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

That sounds awful.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

You like you can only make three teams. And this is completely disconnected from Pokemon Home or anything that you have already, right? No, you can from what I've read, I so I know you can connect your Pokemon home. And from what I from what I have read, because I haven't done it, it is very easy to connect and transfer in and out. It's like you can transfer them in and then transfer them right through.

SPEAKER_00 32:54

The limit shouldn't be a problem. It's just if you don't want to keep transferring back and forth. Yeah. Or I wonder if they put a hard limit for like a certain amount of time, and that's why.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

And I haven't even used any of my own Pokemon from a game in it because I just was kind of like, I want them in that game, and I just want to see how this works. And I mean, the Pokemon you get are good. And like when you're recruiting a Pokemon, you get to see all its stats, its nature, um, and and they're not all gonna be the same. So I mean, you can get the Pokemon you want. And so I don't feel a need to transfer in a Pokemon because I've you have good Pokemon. It's just yeah, I mean, uh unless you're very meticulous about how you want your team constructed, which I'm not.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

So man. Well, I think that's enough about Pokemon Champions for this stuff. Definitely. I think that was thorough. We got a good review out there, even though I I haven't tried it. Don't take my word for it, because I'm not gonna I'm not gonna give my word for it. I'll take your word for it, because it sounds like you you actually gave it enough of a chance to be able to like let everyone know how it was.

SPEAKER_01 34:16

Yeah, and the first night that I played it, I was like, oh, I like this a lot, and I stayed up late playing it, and then after that it was just kind of like, oh, this really is all there is to the game.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

Yeah. That's uh that's something else. So

Recent Games And Travel Gaming Habits

SPEAKER_00 34:31

um games and movies and TV that we've been interacting with lately. I um I might start this one. I I've actually been playing some today. Um, the Mafia games I got on sale at some point, and I played the first one and really liked it. And the second one I've been playing, um, I think I'm two missions from the end right now. And something just happened. I thought they were completely disconnected, and something just happened that tied it directly into the first game, and it was super cool. Um it's a it's like a period piece as a video game. And this one takes place in like the 40s and 50s. The first one take took place in the uh I wanted to say like 20s and 30s in Chicago. This one's in New York. And um, I don't know. Like it's it's just a really good story type game. This one I don't think is as good as the first one. The first one was very strong in its characterization and um just overall themes and coherent storytelling. This one's a bit disjointed, very video gamey. You end every chapter by going to bed and waking up and there's a phone call for you. Um it's it's not to say it's bad, like it's still very good, still very well done, but you know, sometimes it just feels like things are happening because they're happening. Like at one point I was like doing a mission, and then like five seconds later I go to bed and I wake up and someone's like firebombing my house for some reason. And I was like, why is this happening? Like, there's no explanation for the solid 10 minutes of why this is happening.

SPEAKER_01 36:13

And I was like so that kind of makes it not feel like a story.

SPEAKER_00 36:18

Yeah, and it doesn't feel convincing. Like the first one felt more convincing as something that could have actually happened. Like someone got wrapped up in this. It's being told from the perspective of someone who's going into witness protection, telling the story of them getting caught up with the mob. The second game is someone who was in World War II and he came back home, and the mob gets him out of having to be redeployed, and it's his struggles with I don't know, life in the forties and fifties, especially after getting arrested for something in the middle of the game, and the game transfers into the 50s where the map changes, and it's really neat, but yeah, just it feels like it's just missing something, you know?

SPEAKER_02 37:05

So Pokemon champions. Yeah, just like Pokemon champions, but with a lot more violence and cursing.

SPEAKER_00 37:18

So not not a big fan of how much cursing there is.

SPEAKER_02 37:24

A team rocket game would be so good. I want to steal people's Pokemon and start a casino.

SPEAKER_00 37:32

There should be a uh another part of that gym leader game needs to be you pull you plays at Team Rocket Grunt who starts a casino and then you keep putting like slot machines in, you get to pick what the prizes are, so you can put like Porygon like in the first game. You know? Michael was really good at the casino games for some reason.

SPEAKER_01 37:52

Okay, if Michael. Master Gambler. I had never heard of anything like this. I mean And he didn't know like a trick to it, he just constantly won.

SPEAKER_02 38:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:04

I mean, I've never won hardly anything, which I haven't played it very much because I don't enjoy it, but I have never won like hardly anything out of those coin machines on the Pokemon games. And he was hitting huge like all the time.

SPEAKER_00 38:20

So also, if it sounds like I'm super out of breath tonight, I'm just like very like I think I'm starting to lose my voice or something. So I'm not able to like yep for too long in a time. We're wearing you down, they sure are. All that traveling, dude. Um did I tell you I'm going back Tuesday? Yeah. I hope I don't have a triple connecting flight this time, but that sucked.

SPEAKER_01 38:46

Is it to the same plan? Yep, sure is. They're like, we really need you to finish this right now.

SPEAKER_00 38:53

On my last flight to from DC to where I I came back home, I was at the very, very back of the plane in the middle seat between two people. It was the most like cramped seats I've ever sat in. It was from left and right, it was horrible. That sounds awful. On the way there and back, though, this time I was able to book window seats on every flight. So a little bit of extra room.

SPEAKER_01 39:19

You need to get them to give you first class seats.

SPEAKER_00 39:22

Dude, that's not gonna happen. Not even if I'm the right hand man to the CEO.

SPEAKER_01 39:29

I mean, you are gonna be one of those people who like I don't know what the frequent flyers or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 39:36

Dude, I they let me use my Sky Miles number, so I you know, I'm I'm racking up points. And for hotels, because we always stay at the same hotel type. So Man. Yeah. Except they keep not giving me the points for the hotel. For like I've only gotten like two of the I I don't know, they just haven't been like giving me the points. So for like two I I've only gotten them for like two of the hotels I've been to.

SPEAKER_02 40:03

Even though I've entered the rewards number every time. It's the weirdest thing. Um But yeah, it's very odd.

SPEAKER_00 40:14

But yeah, uh on the plane, I didn't really play much. I was playing oh dude, I I replayed the first mission or the first several like parts of Mega Man X like so many times. I I I love that game. And it doesn't take very much battery on the Switch 2. I've I've noticed the Switch 2 does drain a little fast. Um, especially if you're playing some intense games, and I couldn't get the charger to catch up. Yeah. Yeah, I was having trouble. I couldn't get the charger to catch up at the airport at all, at any airport. So I I just had to like thug it out, you know. Um play some low-intensity games. So Mega Man X, Mario World, those were some of my go-tos. Um Persona 4, Golden, I've been playing some of, but there was a dungeon I was in, and I kept getting my butt kicked. I had to put it on like the easy difficulty, because so for some reason I kept getting in these random encounters with enemies that would self-destruct, and if the main character in your party dies, it's game over. And they kept targeting the main character instead of the other characters, so I kept getting game over, and I kept quitting this. So over the past several months I've just kind of been out of that. And I came back and I finally beat the boss of this dungeon, so I'm to the next part. So we'll see what happens there. Nothing nothing crazy outside of that. My dailies on Zenless every day. That's about it. Oh wait, I've been watching Daredevil and the Mall show.

SPEAKER_01 41:49

Oh, oh, okay. Wow, okay. When you said that, what I heard was M-A-L-L. And I was like, what show are you talking about?

SPEAKER_00 42:00

Speaking of the mall, uh new Strokes album coming out. They had a song called I'm Going Shopping or something like that. And I I ended up getting tickets for a concert in Cincinnati.

SPEAKER_01 42:16

This is not the one that they made you miss.

SPEAKER_00 42:17

This is a No, that was a Hatsune Miku concert. And I dodged a bullet that didn't have the hologram. It was just a screen. I was gonna go as a like one of my buddies was like, hey, let's go see this. And I was like, Yeah, that that sounds fun. Um, yeah, no, it was just a TV screen. Like, why why would I I don't know. But I had to go for work to another place and I had to miss it, so missed out on the fun. But yeah, this this one is gonna be exciting. Um The Strokes only you know make an album every time there's a conflict in the Middle East or something. So yeah, I mean the la I think the last time they had an album was maybe 2020. I think that was their best work. This new one, it the new song that they released has a lot of auto-tune. And the lead singer has been doing a lot of auto-tune with his like sideband. But like the best part of the last album was the vocals, so I'm a little worried about this one. Because ever ever since he was in a Daft Punk song, he's been using like the vocoder.

SPEAKER_02 43:21

He needs to chill out. But it's it's still good, it's a catchy song.

SPEAKER_01 43:30

Well, for me, uh so I'm not very excited with this stuff. I haven't been playing a lot of video games. So what I have been playing other than Pokemon Champions is I picked back up. I had been playing Coal Silver, which I have never completed that game because I never had it as a kid or anything. Yeah. So this is essentially I started playing it once and didn't finish it and started it over. So you would call this my one and a half. Second playthrough, I guess, but never completed it.

SPEAKER_00 44:02

Hit me up whenever you finish that game. I have an action replay DS that you can use for all of the events. Oh yeah. So uh I'll just have to find that. Do you still have? I gave you some of the three DS games, alright? Did I give you the action replay with those? I don't think so. Okay. I'll I'll look for it. Continue. Sorry about that.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

Oh, all I was gonna say. So first thing I'll say, a little bit of I guess it's in a way humorous. So I have a 3DS that I got secondhand, bought off eBay or whatever. Okay. I don't have the stylus. So in Heart Gold Soul Silver, if you want an evolution stone, you pretty much got to do the poke Ethlon thing, dude. And so anytime that I've done it, I don't have a stylus. And so last night I was playing it and I was like, it's Wednesday, I can get a water stone. I'm just gonna grind through this.

SPEAKER_00 45:03

Your fingers are bleeding.

SPEAKER_01 45:05

Yeah. Okay, so and I was playing it like I was laying in bed trying to play it, and so my wrist was hurting like so bad because what I found is I'm a lot better at the stamina and the speed competitions than the other ones. Well, both of those involve swiping constantly in the relay race and hitting a screen.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

Absolutely jack to play guitar now. Maybe playing like 64th notes like it's no one's business.

SPEAKER_01 45:39

And hitting the bricks and breaking them. So I stumbled upon a really good team like by accident for the stamina thing, and ended up crushing it a couple times, got a water stone last night, finally, after who knows how long of doing this. And so, but like yeah, my fingers and my hand and everything were hurting so bad from swiping that. But um, so with Soul Silver, I have found this game kind of both times I've been playing it, and part of this was true with Golden Silver too. But there is a very large selection of water Pokemon that are good, but in a lot of the other typings, there's not a lot of really good Pokemon selection. And one thing that I don't like about Soul Silver versus Golden Silver is in the original games, when you got the Eevee from Bill, it was like level 20 or 25. When you get it in Soul Silver, it's like level five or level one or something. And so at that point in the game, that's already really, really weak. And so I've been I've only got it up to like level two.

SPEAKER_00 47:04

But you also get the XP share now, right?

SPEAKER_01 47:08

Uh you I don't have like an automatic XP share. I have I don't think I've even been given the old XP share item yet.

SPEAKER_00 47:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 47:19

Which that might be, I need I need to look and see if I can get it. And but like, so I've got six gym badges in my Eevee's level 20. And I've also had kind of the issue of especially with how many water Pokemon there are, I really don't like doing this. And I it's happened in a couple of games I've been playing lately. I can't really decide for sure what I want my team to be. And so through the game, I end up leveling up some of these Pokemon and wasting a lot of potential experience points on Pokemon I'm not going to keep in my team. And so then I get farther in the game and I don't have my team leveled up like I want. So right now, I would say my Soul Silver team's pretty weak.

SPEAKER_00 48:00

I will say that's something that's been great about Legend ZA is that you don't have to worry, like you will level up your Pokemon as you play to like maximum. You don't even have to worry, it's so natural the progression of them.

SPEAKER_01 48:13

New games and ZA is far and away one of the best. That is such a good feature to me. I remember because I was out of Pokemon for a long time, and the first game I watched you and Michael talking about and playing was Sword and Shield. And I saw that the like the XP boost, everybody was getting it on your team.

SPEAKER_00 48:32

I was like, Are you kidding me? The XP shear and our gold soul silver, if I'm not mistaken, you have to put it on one Pokemon, and then it shares the XP with the primary party member.

SPEAKER_01 48:44

No, it's it's such a benefit. And that was one thing I was gonna say on here. So we had said both of us had totally quit playing Legends ZA after we completed the story, and I didn't think I'll be playing the DLC for a while if I do.

SPEAKER_00 48:57

I might get into the story just to finish it, but it's the same gameplay loop.

SPEAKER_01 49:03

It's there's nothing new to a So what I was gonna say is I've I've been super bored with the DLC and everything, and I I still am. I'm not saying I'm not. But after s probably a couple months or more of not playing it, I did go back and play it for a little while the other night, and I still felt that same tone that we liked of there's something nostalgic and heartwarming about the game. And so I enjoyed it. I think how I will play it from going forward is just here and there, every now and then, play it for 30 minutes or an hour.

SPEAKER_00 49:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:45

And I'm not gonna grind through the post-game DLC of this game.

SPEAKER_00 49:51

I was playing completionist before, and I I cannot keep doing that. I was already at like 150 hours.

SPEAKER_01 49:58

Yeah, crazy. And the DLC for this game is just not that no fun. So you and me had to both totally quit playing it, and so now probably just every now and then when I'm killing some time, I'll probably go in and play it a little bit and just because I like the game. I just the DLC's kind of boring, but yeah, like well, any uh so that's really all I've been playing. I will say, and everyone's gonna be like loser, but I've really been wanting to get back to playing some Fortnite again, and some of the stuff I've been seeing about it sounds funny. Play the karaoke or whatever. Oh, dude, yes, please.

SPEAKER_00 50:45

But I almost completed Fortnite today.

SPEAKER_01 50:49

But I haven't played it in several months, and I don't know. I want to play it again, but like you and me have said, it's it's really only fun when you have somebody else to play with and Yeah, and I it's just kind of you know, I this is gonna sound really sad.

SPEAKER_00 51:06

My friends and I have been playing and getting to level 200 for the past I'm I'm gonna say like four chapters. Right. Like chapters. Yeah. And we all just kind of quit in the middle of the season with Marty McFly and the Bride from Kill Bill, whatever that one was. Because it just they switched back to more realistic stuff again, and that's not really what makes Fortnite fun. And I see that they just added Save the World for free finally after lying about it like four times, but they didn't even have the whole thing. Oh, really? Yeah. So you just get the tower defense part, which is the best part, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_01 51:49

But I've never played the Save the World thing.

SPEAKER_00 51:52

It's it's a good fun. I I thought about deleting the game today, though, because it's been sitting on my PlayStation and it's a hundred something gigabytes, and I really need that space. So I don't know. I the I I went on there today to see what was going on, and it just does not look appealing to me right now at the moment. The I don't really care much for the uh festival artist or battle pass, the OG Pass looked cool. The Rocky's bigger one.

SPEAKER_01 52:22

Is this the Battle Pass with uh uh Bugs Bunny in it? Yes. See, I wanted Bugs Bunny, Bugs. I saw that they had a story.

SPEAKER_00 52:32

Yeah, Zerg and Buzz Lightyear in the shop.

SPEAKER_01 52:36

So really, those are the only things pulling me back to the game is like when they add a character or something I'd like to get. And that's probably not a good spot. Which has happened several times that there was gonna be a character in it that I was like, oh yeah, and I came back to playing it. That's what happened with the Power Rangers season. I heard Power Rangers are gonna be in it, and I was like, Did you ever get that second wave of skins that was in the shop?

SPEAKER_00 52:59

The gold I didn't.

SPEAKER_01 53:01

I didn't even go back on there. So Power Rangers was the last one that I played the last season.

SPEAKER_00 53:09

Yeah, that was the last one that I enjoyed. They also took away the XP from creative stuff. So no more, no more of that. Yeah, why not? Why not make them separate?

SPEAKER_01 53:25

Like I have all the Mighty Morphin, but dude, give me all the Power Rangers.

SPEAKER_00 53:31

There's some uh some games I'm looking forward to. The new Forza Horizon game is coming out in May. Um I'm sure it'll be another Yeah, I'm sure it'll be another 150 gigabytes or something. It this one's in Japan. This is a it's the you know how they have two series? They have the motorsport one and they have Horizon, which is like the explore the open world map and do barn finds and stuff. It's it's more like the fun one, right? Less focused on serious racing. This is that one. And it looks really cool so far. You have like all the drift tracks and Mount Fuji and stuff going on. It looks super cool. I'm I've been really excited about that. Um there's uh a game from a podcast that I listened to. The uh one of the hosts has his own studio and they have this game called uh Saint Slayer, and you play as like a what is it? You know Castlevania?

SPEAKER_02 54:32

Like the NES game.

SPEAKER_00 54:33

It's like Castlevania, but it focuses on Catholicism and you know how they have all their artifacts and stuff. And so it takes place in like the 1500s or something like that, and you you play as this like I I I don't even know. I'll have to find out, but it there there's an interesting premise behind it.

SPEAKER_02 54:59

So um I don't know. There's what else is coming out soon? Other games we got. I can't really think of many.

SPEAKER_00 55:12

There's an Alan Wake crossover with Phasma. Oh dude, the new control game is coming out. I'm super excited about that one. Um also, uh Tamadachi Life, uh Living the Dream just came out, and I accidentally ordered it back home. So I'm going to have to wait like uh maybe half a month to play it or something like that. But I think that would be an excellent stream game, because we can make characters together and like uh do crazy things with them. I've I've been seeing a lot of funny things about that game.

SPEAKER_01 55:47

Have you played any more Pocopia or however you Yes.

SPEAKER_00 55:52

Um I want to give a better review when I play more of it. It just hasn't really been catching my attention. I am like, you know, borderline autistic. So when I play the game, I'm just watering the ground for hours. Um I haven't really made it that far because of it. There's not really there's objectives, but they're very far and few and far between. So I I I don't know. It just hasn't hooked me like it has a lot of other people. It seems very tedious and overwhelming. Um that's what I get out of it. More so than anything else that I've played in that genre. Like I really like Animal Crossing, I really like Minecraft, but it's like I I like being able to structure things immediately, but when you're making the habitats for Pokemon, it's a little messy. Like you're doing spots of four tall grass or like a rock and three tall grass and like all these different things, right? And it just becomes very disorganized very quickly, and also the entire landscape is dry and you have to water it to make it look good. So I've been hung up on that, and it's kinda stopped me from playing anymore. But I'll play more soon.

SPEAKER_02 57:14

And it also takes a lot of batteries, so I haven't been able to play it on travel. Yeah. Oh, that's lame. Yep. I concur.

SPEAKER_00 57:25

Because I thought it'd be a perfect travel game. But when I'm playing it traveling, I'm like, man, I just used 20% looking at the ground for three seconds.

SPEAKER_02 57:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:38

But yeah, that's anything else you want to talk about with gaming recently? Any games you're looking forward to or TV shows?

SPEAKER_01 57:47

Um movies?

Shows We Watch And Disney AI Fears

SPEAKER_01 57:49

I don't have anything to report on games. Uh TV shows and movies. I haven't really been so it's baseball season, so the thing I've been watching is baseball.

SPEAKER_00 58:00

But uh Spider-Man invest in the Mets. It's all about the Mets, baby. Go Mets.

SPEAKER_01 58:04

Oh, not the Mets. Do I hate the Mets? I hate the Mets. Yeah, I'm a Braves fan, so same division rivals, definitely. And the Mets are doing terrific. So uh so yeah, that's what I've been watching. But as far as like TV shows and movies, I still want to go see the Super Mario movie. I still wanted to go see Project Hail Mary.

SPEAKER_00 58:26

I thought about going to see them today and I didn't, but I think we do maybe a review on both of those if you get a chance to see them. Yeah, I'm I wouldn't mind going back to see Mario if it's still in theaters when I come back home in a couple months or a couple months, couple weeks. I don't think we I wouldn't mind going to see it again just to get a refresher. Um if you wanted to go see them together, we can uh go check it out and then record something.

SPEAKER_01 58:53

My thing is just forcing myself to go to the movie theater and you know, sit.

SPEAKER_00 58:58

I'm a really big fan of going to the movie theater, so I don't ever mind. Oh, I didn't mean to hit the mic like that. I'm so sorry. Just punched it with my hand by accident.

SPEAKER_01 59:08

As far as anything else, like I'm looking forward to, so again, I don't have Disney Plus, but I would like to watch the new season of Daredevil. I would like to watch Maul. Um I'm so I loved the first couple seasons of Mandalorian. I am way behind now. I kind of want to go see the movie, I kind of don't. So that's kind of where I'm at with them. I'll probably go see it.

SPEAKER_00 59:39

Uh the maul thing is interesting, but it feels very novel so far. Like he's just aura farming for like most of what I've seen.

SPEAKER_01 59:51

There's I'm a little bit worried that okay, I love what they did with him in the Clone Wars series, so please don't anyone misunderstand what I'm saying there. But I feel like they're stretching this character a little thin in that he had like five minutes or less of screen time in the first movie, gets cut in half. We think that's the end of it. They resurrect him for Clone Wars, make him a major character in that, and now he's getting his own series, and you're like, you're kind of shoehorning the into this so that you could do a show for Maul because it's everyone wants to see it.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:29

I almost think they're trying to make this a transition into Darth Talon, who was supposed to be the villain of the sequel series when George Lucas was writing it. Um or the sequel trilogy. Um, and then of course he passed it over to Disney and they did what they did with it. But yeah, she's she's like a uh Tweelick, who's also a Sith Lord.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:56

So I saw that Disney is laying off.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:00

Oh yeah, their whole visual arts team pretty much. I saw where the guy who designed the uh the key art that was on the meeting room got like laid off in the meeting room with his key art on the room. Yeah, I saw that on social media. It was messed up. Oh Epic Games. Did you see how many people Epic Games laid off? No. Dude, major. Like it was in its own.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:23

I've been saying about Disney is trying to buy Epic Games, which makes me really sad.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:29

They're also trying to make a Fortnite, or they had plans for a Fortnite theme park at some point. So not sure how any of that's gonna work out, but Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:40

I mean, if you're firing all these employees, what's that gonna look like for future media and everything?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:47

Well, you see, they're trying to push for AI and all special effects going forward in Marvel movies. Oh, brother. Yeah. I I saw someone make a joke about it because Captain America's holding a baby in like a preview or something like that, and they were like, we kept trying to like tell the AI prompt to make him hold a shield, but it kept making him hold a baby, so we just went with it. Yeah, that sounds like something they would do.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:11

I mean, it's just like you're this gargantuan company, and I'm not gonna go on a huge rant here, but Disney is in the situation they're in because of decisions that they made. And so now you've been hemorrhaging money, so now you're gonna lay off all these people, and then you're gonna turn to AI to fix all your problems. Yeah, and now you're the like the largest media company in the world, and you're going to go to all AI, which is going to open the floodgates. It's like you have the money and resources to have creators. You don't need AI. The only people like I'm not saying AI as a whole, good or bad. I don't want to get into that discussion right now. But the only people who the only people who I feel like really have a good argument for using AI in anything creative are people who like you and I can't make a movie. So if you and I wanted to film a movie, you know, and we wanted to use some AI in it, okay, well, we don't have any money to make a movie. Disney has everything they need to make a movie. And so it is just ridiculous to me for a company that size who owns virtually everything now to be using AI. That's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:32

Yeah, they should be setting the trends, not following them.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:37

Like it's a really weird. Well, and that's all they've been doing for the last 10 or 15 years. It's just claw. And some of the decisions that they've made, it's just like you didn't have to do this, and you just Well, yes, but no. There's just no vision for at Disney anymore.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:58

It's just well, there's no vision in the Marvel movie anymore either.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:04

Yeah. And yeah, so we'll see what happens, but Yeah.

Movie Theater Anxiety And Bad Movies

SPEAKER_00 1:04:12

Man. Dude, I'm so excited for you to see the Mario movie. There's a character that I I have a specific attachment to from from playing games growing up that I'm really excited to talk about.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:24

Um Yeah, I definitely want to see it. I dude. I'm my mom, I tried to get my mom to go see it with me. It's so much fun. She was like, absolutely not. What? So I told her even my sister liked it. She went and saw it with her kids and she loved it. But it's it's such a cute movie. I might see if I can talk my sister into bringing my nephew and us going and seeing it. But I don't know. Or I might just go by myself. But do not go by yourself to see a Mario movie.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:59

Well, if I went like the middle of the day on a weekend, it's it's like that that video of uh Ryan Gosling, like just like standing there and it's like raining, and he's just like looking at the like the neon or something like that, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:13

That's a big part of why I don't go to the movie, is pretty much anytime I go to the movie, it's by myself.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:20

Like I went to go see Iron Lung by myself, and I was like just sitting there. I was like, dude, I'm so weird.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:26

Yeah, people think that you're weird.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:29

Or maybe they don't, and it's just a perception.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:33

Yeah. Because your brain is turning against you.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:38

Why do you guys do that?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:40

What is what why?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:42

I went on a little run there where I was going to several movies by myself or whatever, and then I just have not been in very I just don't even do anything anymore.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:51

I just do what they did in the forties. I look at a wall until I go to sleep after work. Turn your radio. Turn the radio on, maybe do the little singing. Wiggle dance while I'm sipping a cup of Joe. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:07

Doing the transatlantic accent.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:11

Which was completely made up, by the way. But they still use it in Speed Racer, so I'm gonna say it's historically accurate. I was watching Speed Racer, the movie on a flight. That movie is so bad. I hate that.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:24

I know people love that movie, but what are you talking about? You and I went and saw that movie together at the It's so bad. Artsy Theater here, and it was a cinematic masterpiece, and don't you dare say the racing scenes are awesome.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:40

The rest of the movie is so bad. It looks like a modest mouse music video. It was really bad. But that made it fun. So and people are like, oh, it's so much like the Speed Racer cartoon. I'm like, have you seen this cartoon? No. It's so fun, but like, dude, even when I was like when it came out and I was a youngster, I was like, dude, this this sucks. Like, this is bad. We went to the drive-in and I stayed up super late. I was reading the novelization of the anime that they had at like Books A Million. I had the books of it, and I had my like toy cars, and I was sitting in the car waiting for the movie to start. And then we get done. Latest I've stayed up. Um, and I was like, man, that was awful. That was I think that was the first movie I can remember ever being disappointed in.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:36

That's bad. When a kid that grew up on Speed Racer is that excited to go see the movie.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:41

I was like seven or nine or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:44

And you could tell it was bad. I mean, that's the age that kids are watching things like Power Rangers. Yeah. And you knew the groupie was terrible. That reminds me so much of, and I don't know if we've told this story on here. So I think it was you, me, Mac Ryan, and Michael. And we went and saw the Fantastic Four movie.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:05

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:06

And we were so excited. Like, that was one of the most excited points we had been. The Fantastic Four. Say that again? The Fantastic Four was so bad. Like we went into it with absolute hype.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:22

They put slinkies on his arms.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:25

And when we walked out of that theater, none of us said anything.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:30

Dude, we waited for the post-credit scene, and then there was not.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:34

Yeah. And we walked out and just stood in the parking lot and said nothing for like a long time. And then we were just like, well, that was the worst movie I've ever seen. But it really stuck with me, though.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:50

It really set the tone for the rest of my life.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:54

That was a clip of where the Marvel stuff was going to go from there. Which I mean, I know at that time it wasn't Marvel Studios, but like it was so bad.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:09

It was sometimes it'd just be like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:14

I really do.

DC Favorites Tease And Cliffhanger

SPEAKER_00 1:09:16

Well, do you want to get to our topic first?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:20

Yeah. Well, we probably should specify before we can't. There's been four different Fantastic Four movies.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:26

Yeah, this was the this was uh The Jordan wife. They use the Four as the A. The one where they throw rocks at Dr. Doom. And Doom like pops people's heads for some reason. Yeah, for some strange reason. Yeah, and Mr. Fantastic built a computer out of like 500 Nintendo 64s, which retailed for 300 US dollars the year they came out. So he had like 500 of them in his garage for some reason as a kid. In a middle-class neighborhood. Yeah. Like he could have just bought a supercomputer. He would have been fine. And I'm not even convinced that you could even connect those together to do anything of value.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:10

Uh Mr. Fantastic is so smart. Well, he can do whatever he wants. I don't even remember very much about that movie now. Just otherwise.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:20

It was more like exposition, like a lot of exposition.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:24

There's not one thing about the movie that I can go back and be like, I enjoyed that. Like Dude, I love that movie. It's like one of the best movies I've ever seen.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:34

Alright. Now we'll get into the topic. Also, just to let you know, we're at an hour and eleven minutes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:42

So hey, we honestly could just split this into two episodes. We could. We could do that. But that disappointments Ryan.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:48

We don't want to make Ryan sad.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:50

I mean, we'll do the first episode is talking about Pokemon Champions and Fantastic War. And then the second episode is just talking about our favorite DC.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:59

Should we cut it and put it on a cliffhanger? Cliffhanger? Well. Um Yep, that's what we're gonna do. See ya in part two.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:12

See ya.