 Hey everyone, welcome to the Nintendo Prime Podcast, episode 22! Just two of us this week, as always, I am your host, Nathaniel Rufflejadz, joined by Mr. Eric Moore. How's it going guys? And this is a bit of a special week, you might see our eyes drift a little bit because we're recording this during draft week. And when I say draft week, I'm of course talking about the NFL. Doesn't mean I don't get excited about the NBA draft, my bucks just got, or our bucks just got eliminated. But they fought valiantly, which is nice. But the reason I bring up the draft, because I'm not going to talk a ton of sports on this channel, is because we are going to do our own draft. And we're doing a draft of 30 Nintendo characters. Now, the thing is, is the 30 characters have been all pre-selected. There was no input by anyone but me. Well, the idea is, we'll go back and forth drafting our first, drafting a team of 15. And then we're going to put our 15 characters in a poll down in the comments, or down in the comments, down in the description. You guys know what's going on. If you're listening to the audio version, I will put a link to the poll on Podbean, if that's how you obtained it. Otherwise it'll be a link to it obviously on our website and on our YouTube video. And in that poll, you'll be able to decide who built the better roster. Now, how you want to decide who built the better roster is totally up to you. We're going to have some trash talking. We're going to do some swaying over which characters are better than others. You know, whether you want to consider which characters are going to be better in all a fight, like a Smash Bros. style, maybe you want to think about all these characters competing in a Mario Kart match. You know, however you think these characters could be used, it could be in tennis, it could be in bowling, it could just be, and who is the best speed walker. The reality is, however you guys want to decide who has the best group of 15 Nintendo characters. And it's key that I say Nintendo characters because I'm only including characters on this list that are in games that are exclusive to Nintendo platforms. Primarily IP that are owned by Nintendo. As an example, there are Fire Emblem characters here. Fire Emblems may be by a second party studio, but Nintendo owns the IP. On the opposite side, you're not going to see characters like from Banjo-Kazooie or, you know, any company that Nintendo does not own the IP rights for. And we limited the selections down to just four characters per franchise. So as an example, for like the Mario series, we have Mario Luigi Bowser and Peach included on the list, but Yoshi does not make the mix. And that sucks because Yoshi has his own games. However, Yoshi started as a Mario character. So, now there is one exception to this and that is that two characters from Donkey Kong are included. However, I decided that Mario doesn't count as starting with Donkey Kong since the original Donkey Kong release was just called Jump Man. So I'm not, even though it was later renamed to Mario, I'm not counting Mario as part of the Donkey Kong series, if that makes any sense. But yeah. So, totally at random, you might think the roster is terrible overall, but it's who has the least terrible roster lineup out there. That's probably going to be more real when it is. Who has the least terrible roster? So in the video version, in the background right now, you will see the 30 characters available to be drafted, which is insane. I don't know. This is going to be the most video I think I've ever done. I'm pretty excited about this. So, Eric just tried to be like, oh hey, here's what I'm going to study. Those first odds even random number generator. I'm thinking of Rock, Paper, Scissors, man. Remember, we're on a video. Oh, we get second and fourth, okay. Yeah, Packers traded their pick in the first round. For those who care, you guys already know the results of the draft by the time you watch this. But this is the Nintendo Prime Nintendo character draft. So, let's go with a little Rock, Paper, Scissors action. I do like the random number generator, but this is more competitive. You know, I like to compete. I know, I know, I know. So let's do it. So we're going to go one, two, three, shoot, okay? And then, yeah. On shoot? So Rock, Paper, Scissors, shoot. Okay. Best two out of three. Okay. So Rock, Paper, Scissors, shoot. Rock, Paper, Scissors, shoot. Rock, Paper, Scissors, shoot. Dang it. So Eric is the number one overall pick. I got to look at my list here. Right, right. So, we're going to have to name our teams, by the way. Right, right. But you know what? I'm going to not name it yet. The name might be up here when you guys are looking at it. But that's because we figured out our names later after we see what our team is. Right. Oh, God. I, going first overall, I don't know how you, you can't, I mean, obviously go with Mario. Oh, okay. You have to. Going with the mascot. You have to. I mean, it's, it's one of those things that's just, yeah. Man, that's, that's tough to beat. It's tough to beat. Oh, I got to go with my main man, Link. That's got to happen. Yeah, I kind of think. Come on, come on, people. Come on, Link. Most popular Nintendo game out right now. Breath of the Wild. Yeah. Come on, baby. I got to give you that one. Come on, baby. If you have Mario, I have to have Link on my side. Yeah, I know. I was hoping to actually you won, but I shouldn't have known better. The good question is, if I would have went Link, would you have gone Mario? No, I would not have. Damn. All right. Well, I want to go for the win, baby. All right. I want to go for the obvious. Although, I just totally could not be speaking. What do we got over here? Down the clock, baby. On the clock, on the clock, on the clock. Let's see. God, I think I'm going to have to go with another kind of fairly popular choice with Pikachu. Because that's not saying that that's my favorite pick, but it's. Hey, it's your team. You want to go with Pikachu. Be my guest. I like Pikachu, but you know. Man, this is tough. It is. It is. So I'm going to kind of go off the wall here because he's one of my favorite characters in a series that we don't talk enough about, but is really, really popular. Mr. Tom Nook from Animal Crossing. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Come on, man. Not a bad pick. Not a bad pick at all. Especially if people are trying to judge our list based on who makes the most money. I mean Mario Vash just did, but Pikachu don't make any money. No, Pikachu doesn't. Tom Nook. Yeah. But he's practically a thief. Don't forget, don't forget Link. He was charging you for everything. Doing other stuff. Yeah, right? He's breaking into the Tom Nook store. Yeah. Yeah, right? Right? Oh, gosh. Hmm. I see two names that kind of jump out at me right now. And I think I'm actually going to have to go with Fox McCloud. Fox McCloud. So why do you go with the Foxy? It's between two of them. Well, you don't tell me the other one. Why Fox? Why Fox? I think it's just a little bit more popular pick right now. I'm hoping that my other one's going to be there in either this next round here or the round after that. So I don't know. It's possibly risky, but you know. Okay. So I'm looking at the list here. Part of me is thinking, you know, maybe a little Pouser action. You know, maybe go Luigi. Try to go Team Green. Link, Luigi. Yeah. Yeah. You know, just look for all the green characters. You know, King K ruled. But I don't think a solid color is going to get it done. If I have a color coordinated team. Right. Don't think that's enough. I never know. People might like green and go off of that. Don't think that's enough. So I've got to go. I've got to go with my main man. The Professor Oak. Ah. Okay, okay. Because who can go wrong with a professor who's studied Pokemon his whole life, but then needs you to complete a Pokedex for no reason. He's really one of those useless characters, but he's so iconic. He is. I'm basically going off iconic status between the TV show and the games. Professor Oak. Yep. Not a bad pick at all. Um, I think a little high for me, but you know, that's just me. I'm looking at your team. Mario Pikachu, Fox, Samus, Aran next. And then what? Actually. Donkey Kong. And then what? You know me too well. I know you too well. Let me guess. Here it comes. Here it comes. Give it to me. I know you're taking her. Yeah, actually I was. That wasn't actually the other pick that I was thinking of, but I actually actually So clarify for our audience who you've taken. Samus. Samus Aran. Of course. Well, right now I've got like the Mario, the most popular Nintendo character. Pikachu, the most popular Pokemon. Fox McCloud, which people just like him a lot. Like he's just iconic. Samus Aran from another iconic role. And I got Link, Tom no Confessor Oak. Nothing's wrong with Link. No. Oh, Tom no Confessor Oak. Yep. No, I don't like this. I don't like this. But see, that's the thing. You're like going with the popular choices. I think I'm going more with a well rounded team that can compete multiple tasks. Right, okay. But I do have to do this just because it is my favorite. Charizard is on my team. Gotta happen. In fact, I basically included Charizard on this list because I knew I wanted to draft him. Whether I got a chance to draft him, I don't know. But I'm sorry, Charizard kicks Pikachu's ass any day. Yeah, more than likely. I mean popularity-wise, but whatever. Charizard should be the main Pokemon that never changes. Not Pikachu. Right. Although Pikachu's changed too. Oh gosh. Now, do I come back with one of my favorite characters of all time? Yeah, I think because you just took yours, I better take mine before you swipe in and take them. Mr. DK. Donkey Kong? Yeah. Okay. So I got a little Donkey Kong action. He was one, I was actually thinking about taking him before Charizard, but I was like, I don't think you're going to take Charizard yet, but I had to go in for the kill. This means that I got to keep going with the oddball mascots. Okay. I got to give that little pink puffball action. Mr. Kirby. Ooh, that is a good pick right there. See, I love Kirby. There it was. I told you. I'm kind of upset because Wisconsin linebacker TJ went to Pittsburgh and we were hoping to go to the Packers in Round 2, but it's all good. So Mr. Kirby, he, obviously, we love him in Smash Bros. What we love is games. Unfortunately, again, Kirby's not a very popular series, so I'm kind of going with the fact that we have a smaller audience that respects everything. Plus, we used to be the Zeldinformer YouTube channel, so I'm kind of hoping that that link action drags him over. Anyways, don't just roll for me. Go ahead. You can go ahead and roll for me because the link is fine. Who cares about the rest of my team? Come on. Come on. I know I'm mad right now. It is what it is. I know. Getting down here. What do you got? I don't know. What do you got? Let's see. I think. Oh, God. That's staring me in the face. That's staring me in the face. Let's go with Captain Falcon. Captain Falcon. The Falcon Punch. My team's going to Falcon Punch you right in the face. Oh, yeah, whatever. Who gets hit by a Falcon Punch? Get out of here. Everyone's going to fly off the stage. Oh, my God. Bad players flying off the stage. So I got to do it. And I know this is going to, you know, this will play well if we have a big Japanese audience, but we don't. We have a big United States audience, which means this is probably a bad pick, but I'm relying on the irony of how much I look like him and I'm picking Tingle. Okay. Yeah. Fat guy who wants to be a fairy, you never grow up. That's me. Well. In a nutshell, I have children. I was going to say, you are kind of a fairy. I have kids. I guess you can still be a fairy. I don't know. Anyways, I, I'm pretty, that's my, I feel like that's my riskiest pickup taken because I know how hated this character is. I'm hoping that it's like the irony of the hate comes back to life. Right, right. Comes back to life. Because I'm looking at your team. My God, you just have like crowd favorites. All right. I got to find a new strategy. Can't go for crowd favorites. Okay. We still have a long ways to go. Oh, so the back half of my draft might be what does it for me. The back half drafting for the win. Oh, let's see. Well, I think I'm going to have to do with what I was planning on doing last time that I didn't go with. And I'm going to go with Luigi. No. I was taking him next. It wasn't because of team green either. I just wanted those superior Mario brothers. Right. You can't believe you took Luigi. You little turd. That throws a wrench in my plans. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. I don't I'm honestly. Oh, yeah. Sorry. Donkey Kong. I'm honestly at a loss. I'm looking at this list. You know, I'm hoping I'm hoping I get a little love here because he you've got you've got like the ultimate hero female to get that female vote on your side. Right. And Samus Aran. It's so hard to compete with her. Right. I have titles on this list. Right. So I have to just just to kind of even things out of it. I'm taking Peach. Oh, that's that's happening. Peach is a very popular character, at least in my household. Yeah. Everyone liked playing with Peach or was told. But yeah, whatever. Told it's pretty cool too. That's actually where I thought you were going. No. It's not where I thought I was going to go either. And I'm like, no, I have to. Right. Because no, I can't let Peach and Mario be on the same team. It's over. It's game over. Peach and Mario. Same team. So what do we got? Oh, let's see here. I think I am now going to have to probably go with, even though I've never actually played the game, I am actually going to go with Captain Olimar. Okay. Not a bad pick. Remember folks, he's never played the game. Remember, you can use any creature you want to vote for. So choosing characters of games he's never played. Yeah. But the fact that I know who he is. I guess that it is impressive for you since it's not an old generation game per se. Gamecube. Yeah. Okay. It's not bad. It's not bad. I mean, again, another iconic character of Nintendo IP. Yep. See how you're building your roster. I'm going for the powerhouse team, man. Oh, you want to go. You want to talk powerhouse. It's time to go for the king of evil himself, Mr. Ganondorf. Ah. Try Force of Power on my side. I was thinking, do I really want any enemies on my team? Like any bad guys. Right, right. But I'm like, you know what? Sometimes you got to go bad to win. Right. And even though I really, I'm okay. I can't say this because it'll make people not like me. So for now, I'm just going to go with the king of evil. Ganondorf. I have an opinion. No, you can definitely go ahead and say whatever you were going to say. That's why I'm here. No, it's okay. I'll save it for another time. Okay. Okay. Let's see. I think you made a dang good pitch for female characters. So. I know. I think I'm going to have to go with Princess Zelda. No. You turd. I was going to take her next. So I had the full triforce on my team. Yup. Sorry, I had to slip into that. I should not have said anything about peach. Grab that one. That makes me upset. That really does. Okay. Well, man. You know, I'm going to go on the hype level here because Xenoblade Chronicles is supposedly coming out this year. We've been told. So I'm going to go with Shulk, the star from the original Xenoblade Chronicles. Okay. Okay. I don't know how popular of a character he is overall with Nintendo, but I like that game. Yeah. So JRPG. There was a whole group of people, Operation Rainfall to even get the games over here because Nintendo wasn't going to release it here. So. Shulk, baby. Probably good thing they did. Well, obviously it was a good thing. Of course, they did exclusively a GameStop bad move. Yeah. Anyways. Oh, let's see. Again, I'm kind of torn between two here. Um, so... I think... Where was my other one? Oh, yeah. They're okay. They're right there. I think... I'm going to have to go with Falco on this one. Of course. I see. I thought about taking Falco because you already had Fox. Yup. He's like, oh, he's more popular, Falco or Fox. Um, but again, this doesn't have to be a popularity contest, so... Yeah, no, I don't. It's fine. Yeah. So, you know, continuing my theme of baddies, I'm obviously going to have to take Bowser. Yeah, that's... You have the Mario Brothers, and I need... Good. I need the person who always opposes them, even though he always loses. But, you know, this isn't a... This is whatever competition you want to be. That'll work well on your team. He wins a Mario Kart. Team at Loser. Alright, Cloudy pushes you off the course. Yeah, yeah. So, it depends how you guys want to determine these lists. So, that'll be good for your team, a team of losers. Whatever. That is true again, in North Bowser. Tingle. Professor O. Must be a loser. Right. Oh, God. I didn't even realize how bad this team is. It's okay. You're a team of like guys that get games that no one cares about outside of Mario and Pokemon. Yeah. Like the last Star Fox game. Yeah. It wasn't so good for Mr. Fox McCloud. Yeah, well... Mr. Falcon, do you remember the last time he had a game? No. And I don't mean Smash. No, yeah, yeah. What the heck is it? Why can't I think of the game? Wow. And Pikmin's not exactly super popular either. Ramcheck just won. But hey, Luigi. That's okay. Ramcheck's not in this draft. No, I know. But... Mr. Luigi, one thing I like about him is he does have his own spin-off now with the Mansion series. Yeah. That's pretty good. Yeah. I almost like that better than the Mario games. Yeah. So, back to the draft here. Sorry. No, no, no. We're good. We're good. It's a good discussion. Right. I think this is going to be an interesting pick. But I'm going to go with the Villager here. Villager? Okay. Okay. Now, technically, there was no name for this character before Smash Bros. gave him the name Villager. Obviously, we're talking about the main character for Animal Crossing, that you are in the very first Animal Crossing that is. So, I'll just give you kind of an idea of what the character is. Because now, there's a ability to modify them a little bit and customize them. The original, the Villager. You know, as I said, I'm having a tough time here because your team's looking strong. I got to admit. So, I'm just going to keep continuing that the villain love. I'm going with Andross. Okay. Again, I know not a lot of people might know who he is. Main enemy, and the Star Fox 64. And obviously, the reboot that I'm trying not to mention because people don't like it. For Wii U. Yeah. You had no problem mentioning it with BiPak. Of course I did. Just remember people. He did mention it. It's okay. Oh gosh. Even losers got to win once. Definitely. Even a blind scroll finds none. Let's go with, I think I'm going to round out the Pokemon with Mewtwo. Popular, popular, popular. That's okay. I figured you were going to take Mewtwo eventually. I kind of left him floating out there because like, I don't want him. You can have him kind of thing. Okay. So, thanks for taking him. Okay. Because I got to continue my enemy theme. It's King K. Rule Time. Okay. The King K. Rule. Again, another failure who can't beat Donkey Kong. But it's okay. Because we're uniting so much failure together that it equals a win. Ah, that's right. Okay. Okay. Now it gets interesting because there's no more enemies left. Right. Right. Now I have to. We're getting up to the end. Yeah, we are. We are. I think I'm actually going to go. I know what you're going to take. What? I can't say it all out. What pit? No. No? Oh, well that's who I'm going to take. Dang it. Dang it. Mr. Pit. Obviously fantastic pick. This is tough. These last four are probably equal. But I'm going to go out there because I know you're not going to take it, which I know means I probably shouldn't. I'm going to go ahead and take Dr. Kawashima from Brain Age. Okay. Because after my team gets wrecked in this voting, it's going to need a doctor to help it out. I've got a professor. I've got a doctor. Yeah, yeah, hey. But also you've got to remember that like one thing I like about Dr. Kawashima is it's a dark horse. Because when Brain Age came out, I was like, oh, whatever, whatever. It was one of the it was like the first title to blow up the Nintendo DS. So I'm kind of relying on it. It's like a dark horse. Yeah. How many people even remember who he is? Yeah. And when once you realize who he is and the game is from Brain Age, by the way, that you might start realizing, yeah, I had a lot of fun with that game. That's a good pick. It's a pick that Eric would never have the balls to make. You never know. You got to be bold, Eric. Your team's to vanilla. Yeah. Yeah. It might be extremely vanilla. So speaking of vanilla, I think I'm going to go with another absolute vanilla character with Mr. Game and Watch. That's not that vanilla. I mean, based on what's left, it is probably because you just like him in Smash Bros. Did you ever play any of the Game and Watch games? No. No, I really haven't. Again, folks, another character he's never played. Just throwing that out there. I have, by the way. Which is why I'm disappointed because I actually was going to pick him next. So I got to go... There's a lot of Fire Emblem happening lately. You know, you got Fire Emblem Heroes that's out there, Fire Emblem Echoes coming out, Fire Emblem Warriors, a brand new Fire Emblem game coming to Switch. And I'm going to rely on the popularity of a certain Fire Emblem character from Fire Emblem Awakening and some other games. Mr. Crom. Okay. You know, I'm surprised he actually lasted this long because so much Fire Emblem going on out there. Yeah. I had to go for it. Yeah, no. Not a terrible pick. Oh, let's see. How am I going to... I think I'm going to have to round out his squad. Talking about Fox McLeod's squad with Slippy. Just a few to address. So that leaves me with the final pick in the draft. See, I thought I'll put 31 characters on there so it'll actually be a pick at the end. But I get Mr. Rosetti. Ah, yeah. I'm not too happy with Mr. Rosetti. I love him in Animal Crossing but it's just like... It's just not a character I really care to have on my team. I mean, who wants a mole on their team? I have... If it was bottles, I would. I don't care. It's not a bottle. I know. I have a mole on my team. It's going to be cheating and helping your team come ahead. Yeah. So, a rundown of the final rosters. Here's Eric's team. But Eric, before I go over the rosters, why don't you come up with a name for your team? Oh, good God. I got to come up with a name for my team. Put me on the spot. Yeah, thanks. It's okay. I'm thinking over here to myself. Total domination? Is that what you're going with? Sure, why not? Total domination. So we're with Eric's total domination team. All right. Just writing this down. It's just notes for me. So my team right now, let me see. Oh, I have a hard time getting off of this one name. Stick it in my head. Yeah. But I feel like I can do better. I got to go with it. I'm leaning heavily on my leader. This is, my team is called Link's Paradise. Ah! Nice. Link, I'm lying on you, buddy. You better take me home. So I figured, Link gets to chill out with Ganondorf. It never happens. Yeah. He's always trying to get in Zelda. Who cares? Yeah. Well, anyway, so it's all good. Yeah. You know, he's got Peach as a side dish. Right. Right. You know, he's got the professor who can give him his favorite Pokemon Charizard. Yeah. You know, a little Tom Nook action. So he's a store to go and break all the pots. Yeah. Yep. You know, he's got a little Kirby. I don't know. It's kind of like his replacement for Naby. Uh-huh. He's got a little annoying ball in the corner. But he has uses. Yeah. He has a little sidekick and shulk. It's like the character at the bar that he just hooks up with. And everyone's like, hey, man, let's have a few and talk about the days if he used to kick ass. Yeah. You know, Bowser, I don't really know. He's just that turtle. Yeah. He didn't really, I don't know. Maybe he's a chill with Ganondorf. Yeah. I don't know what's going on. Peach is on my team. Maybe they're going to come up and make a plan. And Amdross is just like that God figure in the sky that looks like, yeah, I printed the Triforce to fly to that thing someday. Yeah. Only to get destroyed because who wants to go fly to a god in the sky and die? Except for FoxbyCloud. It's slippy. Yep. Anyways. King K rule. I don't really know. That doesn't really fit in with my, the doctor is just there for emergency cases. Yeah. Chrom is just really cool. And I hate Mr. Rizzetti. So, yeah. Link's Paradise. I just went all over the roster on my team for total domination. Why don't you go over your roster quick? Oh, let's see. I have Mario Pikachu, FoxbyCloud, Samus Aran, Donkey Kong, Captain Falcon. Luigi, which again, I'm surprised, slipped that far. Captain Olimar, Princess Zelda, Felco, The Villager, Mewtwo, Pit, Mr. Game and Watch, and Slippy. So Vanilla. So Vanilla. That's the thing. Vanilla is silky smooth. Everyone likes it. It is. So, yeah. Again, there'll be a link down in the description for you to vote on which team you think is best at whatever thing you want to pit it up against. Again, I've made a pretty strong case for my very out there team, and you've made zero case for your very Vanilla team. I don't have to. My team speaks for itself. Please. Please. Chop, please. All right. So that ends the draft segment. Hope you guys enjoyed. Hope it was a little entertaining, like all the trash talk.