Legendarily Bad Nintendo Game Finally Coming To Switch

We don't often hear about Nintendo releasing a bad game, but if the online grapevine is speaking the truth about the just-announced Everybody 1-2 Switch due out later this month, we could be looking at a rare bomb from the famed publisher.  See, it all goes back to 2017 when the Switch had a tiny library and people were caught up in that fever of buying lots of stuff for a new console.  The Switch was the new kid on the block, everyone loved it, and games were bought rather they were good or not.  One such title, 1-2 Switch from Nintendo, was a collection of tech demo mini-games in the style of Wii Play aimed at the family and casual markets, and apparently it sold a lot after being produced for a modest cost.  That's when things get weird, as last year over at Fanbyte, Imran Khan told us about a sequel in the works that, at the time, seemed like it would never be released because Nintendo's own internal playtesting pegged it as absolutely terrible.

When playtesting groups received the game, the feedback to the development team was brutal. The target audiences Nintendo was hoping to hit — families with children — found the games boring; many didn’t even want to play through entire rounds. In the Bingo example, one player would use the joycon to mime digging out a number before reading it off the TV screen — a process that playtesters reported as tedious.

The main mode of the game, the Team Battle Mode, pit at least two teams of players against each other in various minigames. This mode prominently featured Horse, who would give color commentary during the games. During the localization process, sources started calling the game “Horseshit” as shorthand.

Yikes.  There's a few theories as to why Nintendo is releasing this game now, and most of them involve the company having spent so much on development that they can't just cancel the project (including an angle that the publisher printed up the cases and title cards long before anyone knew how bad the game would test).  I jokingly say that Nintendo needs to get Horse out there now so he can appear in the next Super Smash Bros.  There can be an allure to bad media (I enjoy the films featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 and RiffTrax, for instance), so there might be some value in spreading the word through the mists of the gaming community that the new Nintendo party game is so bad, you just have to see it, but it seems obvious this game is being sent out to fail and be done.  Not every game can be The Legend of Zelda!

Power Button - Episode 361: Wandering Hyrule In The Legend of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom

Link and Princess Zelda are back in Hyrule for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom for the Nintendo Switch which means that so are we, and we're spending this episode's discussion talking about my time spent wandering around Hyrule seeing the sights and checking out whatever interests me without accomplishing any of the story which means there are no spoilers in this episode.  We'll circle back to the meaty stuff later.  This week is all exploratory fluff.  Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTunes, Amazon Music Podcasts, and Google Podcasts, toss this RSS feed into your podcast aggregation software of choice, and be sure to catch up on past episodes if you're joining us late. Remember that you can reach us via , you can leave a message on the Power Button hotline by calling (720) 722-2781, and you can even follow us on Twitter at @PressTheButtons and @GrundyTheMan, or for just podcast updates, @ThePowerButton. We also have a tip jar if you'd like to kick a dollar or two of support our way. 

Ghostbusters: Special Edition Hack Adds New Characters And Surprises

The famed Ghostbusters franchise has spawned many video games over the years ranging from the original 1984 business simulator from Activision to last year's Ghostbusters: Spirits Unleashed for modern platforms, but one of the games that tends to be forgotten is a 1990 title for the Sega Genesis developed by Compile.  Titled simply Ghostbusters, the game is a basic action platformer featuring an original story in which players can choose between Peter Venkman, Egon Spengler, and Ray Stantz to walk, jump, and shoot through a series of standard 2D levels, as was the style at the time.  It's a fun diversion, but fans noticed the absence of the fourth member of the team, Winston Zeddemore, who is entirely missing from this adventure.  Now, decades later, game hackers BillyTimeGames!, Linkuei, and Danielo Dias have worked together to create a special edition of the Genesis game that not only adds Winston into the mix with his own unique graphics and moves, but also adds a built-in save feature, new uniform colors, a more challenging difficulty level for those who want it, secret cheat codes, and even the fifth Ghostbuster himself, Louis Tully, as an extra playable character (his stats are the worst of everyone)!  Check out the RomHacking.net to learn how to apply the patch file to the game and give this expanded experience a try.

Power Button - Episode 360: Metroid Prime Revisited

After twenty long years I have finally completed Metroid Prime from Nintendo and Retro Studios, so with the game now back for another encore on the Switch, let's spend an hour discussing it.  We'll also cover another 2002 hit, Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection, if we have time, but we won't have time.  Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTunes, Amazon Music Podcasts, and Google Podcasts, toss this RSS feed into your podcast aggregation software of choice, and be sure to catch up on past episodes if you're joining us late. Remember that you can reach us via , you can leave a message on the Power Button hotline by calling (720) 722-2781, and you can even follow us on Twitter at @PressTheButtons and @GrundyTheMan, or for just podcast updates, @ThePowerButton. We also have a tip jar if you'd like to kick a dollar or two of support our way. 

Power Button - Episode 359: Movie Mode: The Super Mario Bros. Movie

We When Nintendo makes a movie, it's basically required that we go see it, so on this week's podcast it's time to spend ninety minutes discussing The Super Mario Bros. Movie.  Break out the spoiler warning for this one because we cover our thoughts on the plot, casting, soundtrack, potential sequel, and so much more.  Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTunes, Amazon Music Podcasts, and Google Podcasts, toss this RSS feed into your podcast aggregation software of choice, and be sure to catch up on past episodes if you're joining us late. Remember that you can reach us via , you can leave a message on the Power Button hotline by calling (720) 722-2781, and you can even follow us on Twitter at @PressTheButtons and @GrundyTheMan, or for just podcast updates, @ThePowerButton. We also have a tip jar if you'd like to kick a dollar or two of support our way. 

Link Gains New Abilities In The Legend of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom

Nintendo's Eiji Aonuma took to YouTube today to show off some of Link's new abilities in the upcoming The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom for the Nintendo Switch.  Following on from Link's skills in Breath of the Wild, Link will now spend more time crafting weapons and vehicles thanks to his new power to combine objects.  Fuse a weak tree branch with a standard boulder, for instance, and wield a mighty makeshift hammer.  Combine logs with some wind emitters to create a basic boat.  The whole thing has a very Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts vehicle creation vibe, but I trust Nintendo to do a better job with this gimmick.  For those who dreaded climbing mountains in the previous game, Link can use his new Ascend power to skyrocket up through ceilings, allowing him to bypass climbing and just zip to the top of any surface provided he can get underneath it.

There's going to be so much to see and do in this sequel.  Moreover, I can already hear the game hackers and modders out there gearing up to try and import Breath of the Wild's maps into Tears of the Kingdom's engine to attempt to mash these new powers into the previous game where they don't belong.  That's a project for another day though.  For now, let's continue to look forward to Tears when it launches in May 2023.

Farewell To Wii U And 3DS eShops

Nintendo is taking both the Wii U and 3DS eShops offline today, ending the ability to purchase content from those digital storefronts.  It's always sad to see a digital shop go, but Nintendo delisting content in this manner always seems to hurt a little more because we never know if some of it will be back.  Sure, Super Mario Bros. 3 isn't going anywhere; in fact, it's already possible to play three different versions of it on the Nintendo Switch provided you pay the subscription fee instead of a one-time purchase price.  Other games from the company's more experimental whims such as Rusty's Real Deal Baseball, Nintendo Badge Arcade, Pushmo, and Boxboy! may or may not resurface one day.  Virtual Console games such as Bionic Commando and the Mega Man Game Boy titles may or may not be relicensed for the Switch.  We're surely not going to see the 3D conversions of famous games such as Kirby's Adventure or Sonic the Hedgehog 2 again.  I don't even know where to begin with how this impacts the classic Pokémon games and Pokémon Bank.  And all of that is just on the 3DS eShop! 

Power Button - Episode 358: This Game Must Be Terrible

We all make snap judgments from time to time, and sometimes those quick decisions take us in the wrong direction.  On this week's podcast, we're discussing games that we immediately dismissed for one reason or another and then later tried only to discover that they are actually fantastic.  Would you believe that we initially passed on such classics as Mega Man, BioShock, and Sly Cooper?  There's plenty more where those came from in this supersized episode. Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTunes, Amazon Music Podcasts, and Google Podcasts, toss this RSS feed into your podcast aggregation software of choice, and be sure to catch up on past episodes if you're joining us late. Remember that you can reach us via , you can leave a message on the Power Button hotline by calling (720) 722-2781, and you can even follow us on Twitter at @PressTheButtons and @GrundyTheMan, or for just podcast updates, @ThePowerButton. We also have a tip jar if you'd like to kick a dollar or two of support our way. 

1993's Super Mario Bros. Movie Wasn't That Bad

With the new Super Mario Bros. film from Nintendo and Universal on the horizon, it's the season for looking back at the original Super Mario Bros. film from 1993 starring Bob Hoskins that bombed at the box office and has been held up for decades as a terrible film.  The thing is, watching it as an adult with fresh eyes, it's not so bad.  Yes, it has problems and is very far from a faithful adaptation of the source material, but there's some fun stuff going on in it, and Joe Ramoni at Hats Off Entertainment is going to tell us why.  His latest look back at cult classic media focuses on the movie, outlines how it went wrong, and clues us in to the good parts still in the film and the good parts that were cut during editing.  Ramoni says in the video that the movie isn't currently streaming anywhere, but that's not quite true.  RiffTrax Friends has it with the riffing commentary baked right in.As I've said before, I saw the film on opening night when I was in the sixth grade with a group of my school pals, and while it wasn't the best movie ever, I had a good time with it and even now is a fun memory. 

Power Button - Episode 357: Tales! Of! Hardware!

Stand back!  This week on the podcast we have assorted tales of interest about our recent hardware adventures.  Blake's MacBook that he uses for recording his half of the podcast unexpectedly died the day before we recorded this episode, so we're playing fast and loose with no editing this week.  Listen to how Blake upgraded his pinball table to contain over two-hundred additional tables, thrill as I more than double the internal storage of my Sony PlayStation 5 with a new Samsung 980 Pro hard drive, and marvel at Blake's new Steam Deck.  We're coming alive with seventy minutes of discussion. Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTunes, Amazon Music Podcasts, and Google Podcasts, toss this RSS feed into your podcast aggregation software of choice, and be sure to catch up on past episodes if you're joining us late. Remember that you can reach us via , you can leave a message on the Power Button hotline by calling (720) 722-2781, and you can even follow us on Twitter at @PressTheButtons and @GrundyTheMan, or for just podcast updates, @ThePowerButton. We also have a tip jar if you'd like to kick a dollar or two of support our way.