The empty spaces in this series make me feel a nostalgic kind of loneliness. It's like if you're within the normal bounds of the game, the developers keep you company, but when you step out it's just you and the one guy pulling a late night in the 90s finishing the textures.
My nostalgic kind of loneliness is playing these games endlessly by myself without internet or siblings so inevitably you begin exploring things and places you’d never think to sit and think about. I assume this is how these videos came about.
I spent an unreasonably long time hanging out at Peach's castle on Royal Raceway, the idea of an area from one game being in another game blew my mind as a child. Sitting at Peach's castle always made me feel so weird, as if I was somewhere I shouldn't be because the area was from a different game.
Playing smash bros on n64 at my cousin's house blew my mind as a kid for that reason. All these different characters in all these different places interacting with each other. Insanity.
@@hectorg5809 Yeah pretty much. Sometimes my sister would play with me too, we would love to go over to Peach's castle and just mess around for awhile. When you are a little kid with an imagination even the smallest things are amazing.
@@HahnKirby That's pretty cool! Thanks for elaborating. My younger sister would play it with me too and if she fell behind in a race, she'd just go in reverse and explore
The outlines on the trees are an emulator oddity - I just loaded up MK64 to check because I didn't remember it being that bad, and sure enough on a real N64 those outlines are far less pronounced. You have to get right up close to see them and they're far less aliased. Great video as always, keep 'em coming.
@@any_austin If you're curious, I think you have No/Nearest Neighbor texture filtering set. The N64 forced 3-point filtering on all textures at a hardware level, I think. I'm pretty sure it's actually super difficult for N64 devs to get pixelation outside 2D elements like the HUD.
@@FLYNN_TAGGART this is correct- if you are using an emulator that supports angrylion's video plugin, that will produce FAR more accurate results. even project 64 3.0 running angrylion produces a result much closer to real hardware. there is still a BIT of black aliasing along the edges when you get up close, but it's a lot better
@@any_austin You might as well make an "art appreciation show", where you use a black and white printer, that doesn't even work very well, to review classic pieces of art... Maybe you should mention that you are using an emulator to review the graphics of old games on a LCD screen... At least have some awareness...
My favorite odd and unremarkable fact about Kalimari Desert is that as far as I know, it's one of if not the only track in Mario Kart history where it could be necessary to completely stop and wait, on account of the railroad crossings. That was always charming to me.
4:18 I had noticed that Wario's stadium was outdoors in a night sky, but weirdly enough what I never noticed was that big screen showing the race. Those kind of details have an interesting feeling to it, like trying to give a realistic touch to something so cartoony.
@@C.I... I think it's for two reasons, it was fairly new tech and could be bragged about, and nowadays it would be not worth the amount of gpu rendering power to be running the same screen twice, similar to why we dont get split screen games as much anymore.
@@coffin7904 On the PS1, the effect is essentially free, as you're just reading from the display buffer as if it was any other texture (which it kind of is). Can't modern GPUs do the same?
I think the first Sonic Adventure game would be PERFECT for a series like this. There's so msny unremarkable and odd places in that game's overworld you could write a whole essay about it.
You should take a look at some of the shooter games they had on the N64 - Goldeneye and Shadows of the Empire have some amazingly unremarkable areas worth checking out.
iirc the approach goldeneye took to level design was to create spaces that seemed plausible first and then put missions in them, so that could work really well for a video (hm. when i say that, it sounds like just an obvious approach to environment design. i gotta remind myself how many old games designed the environment around the missions and then couldn't manage anything better than being evocative of real places rather than being real places)
GoldenEye is, as a whole, an interactive liminal space. Especially the Siberia maps (and particularly that map at night). Tree walls, sky boxes, faceless men with blocks for hands, just everything.
Oh shit, yes. Shadows of the Empire had so many! Two I can think of right away are the part in the beginning where there's an earthquake and a jagged chasm opens up in the floor. You can get stuck there and just get lost in the moment. The other is the train level where you fight the robot bounty hunter (ig88, I think). There's a lot of background that moves past that I always imagined exploring.
Going back to Mario Kart 64 like this made me realize how "linear" Mario Kart 8's tracks are. Like, no shit, it's a racing game, you're on a track. But it doesn't really have off-track areas like Peach's Castle in Royal Raceway like 64 does. I think the best way I could put it is that Mario Kart 8 tracks are designed like they're tracks in a racing game, and Mario Kart 64 tracks are designed like they're actual locations that just happen to have a kart track running through them. Kalamari Desert is probably the best example, if it were in Mario Kart 8 instead of the endless expanse of the desert there'd be barriers around the track and the instant you tried to go in the train tunnel Lakitu would pull you out as if you fell off the course. These are certainly "better" for fast-paced races and keeping players from getting lost, but it makes it so they lack the mystique Mario Kart 64's tracks have. EDIT: Yes, I know Kalimari Desert was just announced as part of the Booster Pass, no need to inform me.
Driving around peach’s castle in Mario kart 64 has the same weird vibe as when a house gets torn down or destroyed in a hurricane and then the owner tries to rebuild it exactly the same, but it’s also not exactly the same because it’s a different house
I was born 93, I love early 3D games, I love the nostalgia I have with them and I love the history and how much they gave to the industry moving forward- But damn even as a kid I thought MK64 looked crude
I remember hating that tunnel in DK parkway as a kid. For anyone who thinks that looks bad now, imagine it at 1/4 the resolution because of 4 player splitscreen. It basically looked like brown TV static and we'd always run into walls or get turned around because the screen always looked the same.
For whatever reason, instead of reading that as "Born in 1993", my immediate reaction was to treat that statement as you making a joke that you were born as a 93 year old. But yeah, apart from Peach's Castle, I can't think of any places I'd spend any time exploring in MK64 as a kid, because I thought all the off-track locations looked boring. This was a pretty interesting video, though. Always fun to see areas I never really looked at, and give them some attention. I feel like some of these areas were legitimately interesting.
4:53 I'm surprised he didn't comment on the spikey balls that fly out. I never bothered to wonder where those things came from. It turns out they just pop out of the wall. And now I'm wondering what the spike ball itself is supposed to be in the first place. Maybe monkeys are throwing seeds from fruit they're eating?
I think I recall the instruction booklet saying it was the local natives throwing coconuts to tell you to stay out of their jungle. They don't really look much like coconuts, though, so maybe that's just an English translation thing.
Since I was a child I imagined that it was monkeys or gorillas friends of DK that threw them on you to stay out of the jungle and go racing. I never knew about that instruction booklet thing. Lol
I thought I was the only one that had this fascination with places like this in games. It's sort of serene and peaceful to find a part of a game that is largely empty or seldom seen. It's like a secret little hiding place and there's a kind of comfort that comes with that I think .
One of the most impactful things about playing these games as a kid was these moments where you grow tired of actually playing the objective, so you would just spend hours driving aimlessly and exploring all the weird details. Pilotwings 64 is like the prime example of that to me. It's a part of the experience of these games that I feel like is completely forgotten as adults. Now we just watch speedruns and compete, but we miss the real magic that was hours of aimless wandering and soaking in detail and feelings.
I never realized Wario Stadium was an open stadium before either. This series is awesome and I’d love to see more. Maybe something like DK64 or Banjo-Kazooie? Either way keep up the great work.
right? i always thought wario stadium was some sort of indoor doomed motocross arena. i literally never noticed the skybox before and i've played this game a ton.
i played mario kart 64 to death and i literally never realized it was an outdoor stadium til watching this video. it definitely feels like some sort of motocross dome / indoor arena.
The thing that gets me most about Wario's Stadium are those inner walls. They just look unreasonably thin for what looks like dirt/mud/rock walls. It's an interesting vibe racing along that and catching a glimpse of how thin they really are. That whole track is kinda eerie now that I think about it lol.
@@TheSquareOnes you could say that about literally anything. cooking mama is the scariest game ever because "bro you just don't understand the ViBeS" see how stupid that sounds? words have meanings for a reason lmao
@@subtleusername5475 Yeah, and words relating to emotional responses and "vibes" have meanings meant to convey our individual subjective experiences. You can ask them to explain their experience but it's pretty stupid to just yell "nuh uh" in response.
Ugh I’m crushing so hard on this guy😭 great video and music as always. I feel for those that never bothered to explore maps like this, you haven’t truly experienced the game if you didn’t lol. I remember as a kid being fascinated and yet weirded out at the fact that I could go up to the castle but not open the door
Another space in this game that I've always liked is the rooftop battle stage, though that's probably fairly "remarkable". A more _unremarkable_ space, however, might be halfway up one of those colored platform things in that other battle map, the one with red, blue, green, and yellow towers with ramps at the corners and gray bridges connecting them. You didn't normally stop halfway up, after all
We had such an odd fascination with the skyscraper as kids. My siblings/cousins and I played it more than any other mode in MK64, we had a nickname for that odd space you fall down when you fall through one of the holes on the stage. Whenever someone fell down we lost our shit and said they're gonna see the lighties lol. Also the music just being that repetitive circus groove adds a lot to why map feels so weird.
I love that this is a series, I always liked exploring weird places in old 3D games like this as a kid. The vibes are so cozy Some of the texture issues you saw I think are just emulator issues, N64 emulators are known to be a little shoddy in some places. The trees in DK Jungle aren't so pixelated on the real console, so there's that at least
This is literally my favorite series on youtube right now. Like FINALLY somebody GETS IT!! Video games are already such weird synthetic spaces, and games of this era feel so oddly bleak to me at times, almost like they're the most artificial spaces that humans could possibly create. I always look forward to these 🥰 By the way, if you're looking for recommendations of odd and unremarkable places, I feel like Banjo Kazooie has a TON of them. I spent a lot of time as a kid, after beating the game, just wandering around the empty levels, no more objectives left to complete, and I found it absolutely stuffed with weird vibes.
They kinda have that "liminal space" vibe because they look like places that should have people, but they're empty. They have details but are rather barren, since the amount of things you could add was very limited.
Man these are all places I remember thoroughly exploring as a kid. It makes sense that MK64 looks like shit since it shows the player a relatively large amount of content at once and has to handle all the racers at the same time vs Mario 64 which had more culling options since it was singleplayer.
I think the feeling of lonliness and artificiality is what does it for me. Love what you do. The lil corner wedged to the side of Hyrule castle was one of my places to stand and reflect as a child. I have many others, and you have brought many other unremarkable "nothing" places to my attention. It's funny what we decide to notice in the moment, and what we just let us pass by. Even as a very much "this is the target audience for whatever this is"-person, there are a lot of places you miss or don't care about from person to person. These kind of places have a special and unremarkable place in me heart.
I'd been thinking about that corner beside Hyrule Castle, the early beta map found in the Spaceworld 97 demo had a gravestone texture on the wall there.. seeming to indicate a door was once planned to be there. Pretty wild imagining where it would have led! The lonely, artificial "Liminal space" vibe is really strong in these classic 3D games. More mysterious and fascinating than real life liminal spaces, which can feel a bit more.. dreadful?
I'm new to your channel, but liking this series so far! Your chill style goes very well with the subject matter, and I always love seeing people talk about time with games spent outside the normal intended experience. Keep up the good work!
My cousin & I used to just drive around the train track in Kalamari Desert and warn each other when a train would show up. I guess we found it fun cuz we managed to waste probably an hour or more just doing that crap. I really miss when Mario Kart let you actually explore areas a little more even if they weren’t beneficial to the race at all. Also, I would LOVE to see you do videos on Mario Kart Double Dash. I used to drive around in that game and just look at all the fun little details and intriguing (and often “unremarkable”) places that aren’t paid any attention if you don’t stop to look. Would love to see a video (or two) on that. Awesome video as always. Big fan of your work.
That note about the back corner of the roller rink...wow. You just tapped into some weird part of my brain and explained something that was a deep feeling, but never put into words until this moment.
I love that this channel just seems to capture experiences that a handful of people experienced but have probably never said out loud. For example that feeling at 3:01 of the skating rink and being on the dark side far away from everyone else just triggered so many memories of when my local skating rink was open, it’s just one of those things I would have never thought about again if not for this video
Dude, I just discovered you the other week and been having a blast catching up. Lame I missed such a gem all these years. Loving the vibes and the very glad you are becoming more articulate and mispronouncing less big words as a 23-1/2 year old man! You’re growing up so fast! Btw that roller rink analogy brought me back so hard. Man it totally does have that weird feeling
Wario Stadium was fantastic because it had the best wall jump shortcut glitches. Easiest one was right after the starting line on the dirt bumps, and it's harder but also possible to jump the walls with red & white arrows (eg the one directly facing the airborne ramp). I managed to get lap times of 20 seconds and people refuse to play with you after that. Adds to the whole mystique and delight of Mario Kart 64 🤣. I think they built that area of Peach's Castle to use as the ending animation and obviously cut corners on lots of stuff since it's technically only needed for a cut scene. But I love the fact the area is accessible in the game and sort of ties the whole game together when you see the ending. Yoshi's Raceway also had some very odd vibes, possibly because each player only drives their own favourite route. So if you take any other turn it suddenly feels "off" and kind of like getting lost in a familiar place.
Another great video! With one of my comfort games. These videos are so comforting to me and I love them so much. Yeah wait what!? I always thought Wario stadium was inside! But I’ve never stopped to look. I LOVE DK jungle parkway! I have never noticed that side of the cave even tho that’s my favourite track in the game (next to Kalimari Desert and Koopa Troopa Beach). Also that bridge is a little unsettling to look out over. Also I am both of those players, I drive in the little secret areas and I’m good at the game :p An Odd and Unremarkable places in Mario Sunshine would be amazing (all your videos are). I think of many little areas in Gelato Beach, like the swing on the tree off on a little island, the little coral reef area, the rope high above the smoothie place. Anyways great video Austin! Always amazing, time to watch it 3 more times 💕
As a child, I always loved exploring out of bounds and trying to understand what the developers had in mind. Of course there were times where I’d only be concerned with winning, too.
there's a spot in Xenoblade that, to me, always felt like one of those massive indoor parking garages.. just this endless night with an understanding of a ceiling above it, and crummy dim tinted lighting.. then in the remaster i realized oh wait no, there are huge skylights, you can see daylight coming in and everything. sometimes your brain just doesnt pick up on stuff.
One thing that really makes the lifelessness sink in with this game is if you play the multiplayer with enough players that the music channel gets shut off. Mario Kart 64 without music feels hollow and lonely.
I like this series of videos. The first time I saw Peach's Castle was in Mario Kart 64. I hadn't played Mario 64 at the time. I did a mix of spending like 30 minutes exploring each track and winning races. I still do.
Hey dude, these are all awesome videos! The vibes are all too comforting, kudos for the concept! I really want to see you do one on Diddy Kong Racing, I think that game is full of weird places and some curious skyboxes.
Loved the vid! Your deadpan humor killed me 😂 “waxing poetic” lol keep it up! I played a lot of Lego Racers as a kid and remember finding similar weird dead spots in there too 👽
These videos are my spirit animal. Your apposite comparisons to being in the back near the Exit sign in a roller rink or behind a restaurant near the dumpster just resonate so perfectly, there must be some 21-letter German words for them. I wasn't too shabby at Mario Kart 64, but since I had no friends to race with and was driven to explore and memorize my 3D worlds in autistic detail, I quickly became a Royal Raceway castle/Kalamari Desert tunnel type of gamer. It also creeped (crept?) me out imagining what sort of shadow beings must be piloting the riverboat near DK Jungle Parkway or the tractor-trailers on Toad's Turnpike.
This video and it’s commentary is unremarkable and odd itself, and yet beautiful and masterful. Great job describing and showing an aspect of video games seldom named or spoken of, yet oh so visceral and oftentimes universally experienced! I love this series!
When I was a kid I always wondered in Mario Kart 64 ‘s tracks looking at little details like you did in this video!!! Thanks for bringing the memories back
I like that when Kalimari Desert was brought to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Mario Kart Tour, they utilized the railroad tracks to be alternate paths you have to drive through after the 1st lap. Now driving on the tracks can be something you can do without losing the race.
Man, I spent soooo much time doing things like this in Star Fox Adventures as a kid. Especially in the multiplayer maps. My brothers and I would always try to ride on the arwing's wing to get to places we shouldn't have and I just loved hanging out in those maps.
There needs to be a word for the weird vibe you get from old 3d games. It's very distinct but there's no word for it or good way to describe it but we all feel it.
No, we didn’t think the graphics looked horrible. Because at the time it was an amazing game that brought the SNES version to the next level. When you go from pixels to polygons it’s a generational leap. And you gotta play this on a CRT to see it the real way.
I think this video proves that Diddy Kong Racing was the superior kart racer on the N64 😂 In all seriousness, another great video! I remember being so bewildered by Peach's castle the first time I stumbled upon it in MK64. Definitely felt odd!
This is the first of the whole series that I can personally relate to. Because I played this game more than any other game as a kid. I explored every corner of Mario Kart 64, and the Castle and train tracks were definitely a huge point of nostalgia for me. Also the yoshi track with the branching paths was always a good one. But you easily picked all the best tracks for exploration of the somewhat unremarkable but interesting parts of this game. Possibly my favorite video you've made.
the main reason the game looks so "Lifeless" I think is that they had to make it so the game worked in split screen - it had to be rendered 4 times over. even with stripping elements from it(including the music!) they couldn't have the split screen game look *too different* from the single player so it probably put a bit of an aesthetic dampener on what they felt comfortable pulling off.
I love these types of videos. For a long time now, I felt like I was the only person who felt this inexplicable feeling of strange wonder and mystery when looking at certain corners/walls/dark spaces/isolated areas in seemingly unremarkable places. (unremarkable is a great way to put it btw). I get that feeling with lava lamps in dark rooms, or the backway of movie sets and empty underground court rooms in gyms etc. I wish these were hours long, maybe sometime you can make a long form video of you casually walking through nostalgic games discovering new unremarkable and odd places.
I haven't played MK64 since the 90s but a few weeks ago I randomly remembered Kalimari Desert and the train. It always gave me such an empty but comforting (?) feeling, and you've completely summed up my thoughts about it. Love this series!
An out of bounds/freecam type of series could be great. Tons of weird angles and new viewpoints to turn areas you thought you knew inside out would fit the vibe of the channel perfectly.
This is beautiful. So glad I discovered you suddenly. You know, I was obsessed with riding on and exploring that riverboat way back when. It seems so tiny now.
Been loving this series! There's really something about the vibes in racing game courses if you take a moment to just absorb it, when you're normally speeding by. Makes me feel validated I wasn't the only kid back in the day to just stop and think about the world around the course! Used to do it a lot with snowboard kids 1 and 2, if you're looking to seek out more vibes. While I actively played a lot more of 2, 1 had immaculate mysterious vibes that were good for soaking in, would highly recommend Night Highway in SBK1 for that purpose.
I really enjoy this type of video, this was often how I played games as a kid. Your sense of humor coupled with exploring the lesser-seen areas of the game makes this very entertaining. Thanks!
Ten years?! How have I JUST NOW discovered this channel? I've only seen a handful of videos, two Odd and Unremarkable and three Unemployment vids, but this was a niche of video game YT I didn't know needed to be explored. I think you're somebody I'll have to share with my roommate. Thank you, and keep on keepin' on.
Thank you for this video, Mr. Any. I love your chill attitude. Kinda uncommon these days. I hope your channel sees a great deal of growth in the future! It deserves it.
I think I’ve said this before but Austin you’re doing my dream job. I’ve always loved just stopping and walking around levels and inspecting anything I can, all sorts of explorations like that. If I had known this type of content was… super interesting content other people watch, I would’ve bought a capture card many months ago. Thank you for your valuable service of inspiration (I will credit you for that).
In regards to the "crude" graphics, for a long time it was just expected that a racing game would have less detailed graphics because you were supposed to be speeding through them and not examining anything too closely. The Gran Turismo series seemed to be the one that started the trend towards impressive graphics in racing games.
It's actually insane that my mental image of Wario Stadium was always that of a large indoor warehouse, even as I looked at the Skybox as you drew attention to it I still seemed to hold onto that belief that "Yes this is an indoor arena of some kind" and it wasn't until you explicitly said that it is in fact outdoors that that belief broke down. Memory and Nostalgia are immensely powerful things and really scrutinizing them through your videos has been a joy.
Great video, great series! I never realized that Wario's stadium was outdoors either, blew my mind when you pointed it out. I never even noticed that there are stands for on the sides, or huge floodlights. Crazy. Great video, great series.
This just reminded me that Diddy Kong Racing was absolutely full of unremarkable and odd places, I hope he eventually gets around to covering that one too. The overworld alone could probably fill a video.
I had a strange fascination with driving in infinite loops backwards around toad's turnpike. The entire level felt like an odd place, but there was this specific synth in the music that felt to perfectly illustrate the feeling of driving by lampposts over and over that intrigued me for whatever reason. Loved the video though dude, keep 'em coming!
My favorite unremarkable places are those hidden in the corners of theme rides like in disney. I used to fantasize about walking around and lurking in the background of displays away from all people in melancholy, and watch them until closing hour and just stay there laying in the dusty display. That's also how I feel when I play N64 by myself if I just forget about the plot.
Awesome video. There is a ton of potential exploring other games with other interesting spaces. I find it fascinating how I can still close my eyes and walk around game maps I played 20 years ago. Some of my favorite memories played out in those spaces. ✌️
I like this video. I've always liked your content. Please make more! you are one of my favorite content creators for years. I remember egg busters. Your vibe is the best.
I liked the video. Also, as far as I know, this type of ability to go completely off the track like in Royal Raceway and Kalimari Desert doesn't really exist in other Mario Kart games. It seems like in MKWii and MK8, the game mechanics arbitrarily push you back onto the track, or like you say, the tracks have side rails or are walled in. It fits in well with the era of N64 games like Mario 64 that encouraged gamers to explore 3D worlds. So by including these elements without forcing the racer back onto the track it was adding the element of exploration to a racing game, which is quite unusual. I want to say it was adding an "open world" element, but I actually liked your description when you said, it felt like you were "breaking the rules."
I love this video because I totally understand all the comfortable vibes in random corners and other unexplainable vibes from certain areas in games lol
There's a LOT of spaces like this in Kirby Air Ride for the Gamecube, if you've played that in the past I'm sure you'll remember and agree! IN particular City Trial there's all kinds of nooks and crannies that don't feel like a part of the main map that give this feeling very powerfully.
Quick suggestion that doesn't really warrant its own entire video: In the PS2 game Gran Turismo 4, the track New York has an "accurate" recreation of Times Square with an unnecessary amount of licensed franchises. This includes McDonalds, and ad for LG televisions, ESPN, and even a Toys R Us for some reason. This is all in a racing game with absolutely no reason to stop and sightsee, so I'm just wondering why Polyphony/Sony even bothered to ask completely unrelated companies for licensing permissions.
The empty spaces in this series make me feel a nostalgic kind of loneliness. It's like if you're within the normal bounds of the game, the developers keep you company, but when you step out it's just you and the one guy pulling a late night in the 90s finishing the textures.
Austin needs to be a contributor to the 'Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.' His descriptions so well capture so many indescribable feelings.
I love this idea
My nostalgic kind of loneliness is playing these games endlessly by myself without internet or siblings so inevitably you begin exploring things and places you’d never think to sit and think about. I assume this is how these videos came about.
Lmao perfect description
@@Flavorful_Chunt You unlocked a memory I had buried deep in my mind. Thanks, my fellow single-player friend.
I spent an unreasonably long time hanging out at Peach's castle on Royal Raceway, the idea of an area from one game being in another game blew my mind as a child. Sitting at Peach's castle always made me feel so weird, as if I was somewhere I shouldn't be because the area was from a different game.
Playing smash bros on n64 at my cousin's house blew my mind as a kid for that reason. All these different characters in all these different places interacting with each other. Insanity.
Would you just roam around the castle area and not care about the race? Not making fun, genuinely curious
@@hectorg5809 Yeah pretty much. Sometimes my sister would play with me too, we would love to go over to Peach's castle and just mess around for awhile. When you are a little kid with an imagination even the smallest things are amazing.
IKR?? As soon as I saw it I recognized it from all the time I spent imagining the games' worlds and gameplay styles clashing
@@HahnKirby That's pretty cool! Thanks for elaborating. My younger sister would play it with me too and if she fell behind in a race, she'd just go in reverse and explore
The outlines on the trees are an emulator oddity - I just loaded up MK64 to check because I didn't remember it being that bad, and sure enough on a real N64 those outlines are far less pronounced. You have to get right up close to see them and they're far less aliased. Great video as always, keep 'em coming.
I was wondering about that when editing. Thanks for confirming.
@@any_austin If you're curious, I think you have No/Nearest Neighbor texture filtering set. The N64 forced 3-point filtering on all textures at a hardware level, I think. I'm pretty sure it's actually super difficult for N64 devs to get pixelation outside 2D elements like the HUD.
@@FLYNN_TAGGART this is correct- if you are using an emulator that supports angrylion's video plugin, that will produce FAR more accurate results. even project 64 3.0 running angrylion produces a result much closer to real hardware. there is still a BIT of black aliasing along the edges when you get up close, but it's a lot better
@@any_austin You might as well make an "art appreciation show", where you use a black and white printer, that doesn't even work very well, to review classic pieces of art... Maybe you should mention that you are using an emulator to review the graphics of old games on a LCD screen... At least have some awareness...
@@realityvanguard2052 those are all great ideas
My favorite odd and unremarkable fact about Kalimari Desert is that as far as I know, it's one of if not the only track in Mario Kart history where it could be necessary to completely stop and wait, on account of the railroad crossings. That was always charming to me.
With good timing, you can actually drive between the box cars safely.
How bout Wario Stadium when ur about to do the jump and get hit by the lightning 🌩💀
@@ShadowGaro Wario Stadium is loaded with wall jump shortcuts to compensate, depending on the rules of the tournament.
I aint ever stopping, I always tried to be faster than the train, or just drove into it because seeing the character flying was funny
This series is so comforting to me, I love places that are unremarkable and/or odd
I've honestly never found a series of videos that are so right up my alley before lol
Same here, would love me to take a stroll and hang around some in those places
4:18
I had noticed that Wario's stadium was outdoors in a night sky, but weirdly enough what I never noticed was that big screen showing the race. Those kind of details have an interesting feeling to it, like trying to give a realistic touch to something so cartoony.
I always assumed it was inside as well
Speaking of realistic touch to cartoony things, Mario 64 has textures from realistic photos, yet is cartoony
Showing your screen on a screen within the game is so rarely done these days, but it was a fairly common effect on the PS1.
@@C.I... I think it's for two reasons, it was fairly new tech and could be bragged about, and nowadays it would be not worth the amount of gpu rendering power to be running the same screen twice, similar to why we dont get split screen games as much anymore.
@@coffin7904 On the PS1, the effect is essentially free, as you're just reading from the display buffer as if it was any other texture (which it kind of is). Can't modern GPUs do the same?
I think the first Sonic Adventure game would be PERFECT for a series like this. There's so msny unremarkable and odd places in that game's overworld you could write a whole essay about it.
oh man yeah! I only ever played the DX version on gamecube but even that would be great
No sonic adventure 2 would be better
@@amandaclaireon4065 adventure games includes sa1 and sa2
Please make this essay I beg you
Yes! Sonic Adventure would be perfect!
You should take a look at some of the shooter games they had on the N64 - Goldeneye and Shadows of the Empire have some amazingly unremarkable areas worth checking out.
Second this. Goldeneye has a lot of them and I loved it.
Both great recommendations! I think Shadows of the Empire especially had some really nice vibes.
iirc the approach goldeneye took to level design was to create spaces that seemed plausible first and then put missions in them, so that could work really well for a video
(hm. when i say that, it sounds like just an obvious approach to environment design. i gotta remind myself how many old games designed the environment around the missions and then couldn't manage anything better than being evocative of real places rather than being real places)
GoldenEye is, as a whole, an interactive liminal space. Especially the Siberia maps (and particularly that map at night). Tree walls, sky boxes, faceless men with blocks for hands, just everything.
Oh shit, yes. Shadows of the Empire had so many! Two I can think of right away are the part in the beginning where there's an earthquake and a jagged chasm opens up in the floor. You can get stuck there and just get lost in the moment.
The other is the train level where you fight the robot bounty hunter (ig88, I think). There's a lot of background that moves past that I always imagined exploring.
Going back to Mario Kart 64 like this made me realize how "linear" Mario Kart 8's tracks are. Like, no shit, it's a racing game, you're on a track. But it doesn't really have off-track areas like Peach's Castle in Royal Raceway like 64 does.
I think the best way I could put it is that Mario Kart 8 tracks are designed like they're tracks in a racing game, and Mario Kart 64 tracks are designed like they're actual locations that just happen to have a kart track running through them. Kalamari Desert is probably the best example, if it were in Mario Kart 8 instead of the endless expanse of the desert there'd be barriers around the track and the instant you tried to go in the train tunnel Lakitu would pull you out as if you fell off the course. These are certainly "better" for fast-paced races and keeping players from getting lost, but it makes it so they lack the mystique Mario Kart 64's tracks have.
EDIT: Yes, I know Kalimari Desert was just announced as part of the Booster Pass, no need to inform me.
Ditto
You were completely right about the tunnel thing, he pulls you out instantly.
Kalimari Desert was in Mario Kart 7 and if you try to go through the tunnel in that version you get picked up by Lakitu.
Oooff they massacred Kalamari Dessert
Driving around peach’s castle in Mario kart 64 has the same weird vibe as when a house gets torn down or destroyed in a hurricane and then the owner tries to rebuild it exactly the same, but it’s also not exactly the same because it’s a different house
I was born 93, I love early 3D games, I love the nostalgia I have with them and I love the history and how much they gave to the industry moving forward-
But damn even as a kid I thought MK64 looked crude
I remember hating that tunnel in DK parkway as a kid. For anyone who thinks that looks bad now, imagine it at 1/4 the resolution because of 4 player splitscreen. It basically looked like brown TV static and we'd always run into walls or get turned around because the screen always looked the same.
For whatever reason, instead of reading that as "Born in 1993", my immediate reaction was to treat that statement as you making a joke that you were born as a 93 year old.
But yeah, apart from Peach's Castle, I can't think of any places I'd spend any time exploring in MK64 as a kid, because I thought all the off-track locations looked boring. This was a pretty interesting video, though. Always fun to see areas I never really looked at, and give them some attention. I feel like some of these areas were legitimately interesting.
4:53 I'm surprised he didn't comment on the spikey balls that fly out. I never bothered to wonder where those things came from. It turns out they just pop out of the wall. And now I'm wondering what the spike ball itself is supposed to be in the first place. Maybe monkeys are throwing seeds from fruit they're eating?
I think I recall the instruction booklet saying it was the local natives throwing coconuts to tell you to stay out of their jungle. They don't really look much like coconuts, though, so maybe that's just an English translation thing.
Since I was a child I imagined that it was monkeys or gorillas friends of DK that threw them on you to stay out of the jungle and go racing. I never knew about that instruction booklet thing. Lol
They’re kiwanos (spiked fruit) being thrown by jungle natives😊
As a kid i wondered that too, and my brother came up with the idea that it was Witches throwing Coconuts
As a kid i would call them cookies. They remind me of chips ahoy.
I thought I was the only one that had this fascination with places like this in games. It's sort of serene and peaceful to find a part of a game that is largely empty or seldom seen. It's like a secret little hiding place and there's a kind of comfort that comes with that I think .
One of the most impactful things about playing these games as a kid was these moments where you grow tired of actually playing the objective, so you would just spend hours driving aimlessly and exploring all the weird details. Pilotwings 64 is like the prime example of that to me. It's a part of the experience of these games that I feel like is completely forgotten as adults. Now we just watch speedruns and compete, but we miss the real magic that was hours of aimless wandering and soaking in detail and feelings.
I never realized Wario Stadium was an open stadium before either.
This series is awesome and I’d love to see more. Maybe something like DK64 or Banjo-Kazooie? Either way keep up the great work.
right? i always thought wario stadium was some sort of indoor doomed motocross arena. i literally never noticed the skybox before and i've played this game a ton.
really interesting that you feel that wario stadium gives off indoor vibes, always felt 100% outdoors to me
same. can't see the indoor feel.
I never noticed it was outdoors until he pointed out the stars. It always felt almost like an indoor monster truck arena to me.
I'm not sure how I felt, I'm not even sure I ever thought about if it was indoors or outdoors until this vid... I wanna say I thought it was indoors.
i played mario kart 64 to death and i literally never realized it was an outdoor stadium til watching this video. it definitely feels like some sort of motocross dome / indoor arena.
I just realized its outdoors with this video, i am mindblown
I always wondered as a child if there was some way to free the green thwomp in bowser's castle and see what was in the room behind the cell bars.
Thank you for the shout-out! 🐱
The thing that gets me most about Wario's Stadium are those inner walls. They just look unreasonably thin for what looks like dirt/mud/rock walls. It's an interesting vibe racing along that and catching a glimpse of how thin they really are. That whole track is kinda eerie now that I think about it lol.
I don't think you know what eerie means
@@subtleusername5475 I don't think you know the vibe they're catching.
@@TheSquareOnes you could say that about literally anything.
cooking mama is the scariest game ever because "bro you just don't understand the ViBeS"
see how stupid that sounds? words have meanings for a reason lmao
@@subtleusername5475 Yeah, and words relating to emotional responses and "vibes" have meanings meant to convey our individual subjective experiences. You can ask them to explain their experience but it's pretty stupid to just yell "nuh uh" in response.
@@subtleusername5475 have you ever seen a liminal place on the internet ffs
Ugh I’m crushing so hard on this guy😭 great video and music as always.
I feel for those that never bothered to explore maps like this, you haven’t truly experienced the game if you didn’t lol. I remember as a kid being fascinated and yet weirded out at the fact that I could go up to the castle but not open the door
Another space in this game that I've always liked is the rooftop battle stage, though that's probably fairly "remarkable". A more _unremarkable_ space, however, might be halfway up one of those colored platform things in that other battle map, the one with red, blue, green, and yellow towers with ramps at the corners and gray bridges connecting them. You didn't normally stop halfway up, after all
Those were some great transitions! Simple, angular, god-awful and perfect.
We had such an odd fascination with the skyscraper as kids. My siblings/cousins and I played it more than any other mode in MK64, we had a nickname for that odd space you fall down when you fall through one of the holes on the stage. Whenever someone fell down we lost our shit and said they're gonna see the lighties lol. Also the music just being that repetitive circus groove adds a lot to why map feels so weird.
Block Fort is the best battle course ever.
Please never stop this series! Keep up the good work! :)
I love that this is a series, I always liked exploring weird places in old 3D games like this as a kid. The vibes are so cozy
Some of the texture issues you saw I think are just emulator issues, N64 emulators are known to be a little shoddy in some places. The trees in DK Jungle aren't so pixelated on the real console, so there's that at least
This is literally my favorite series on youtube right now. Like FINALLY somebody GETS IT!! Video games are already such weird synthetic spaces, and games of this era feel so oddly bleak to me at times, almost like they're the most artificial spaces that humans could possibly create. I always look forward to these 🥰 By the way, if you're looking for recommendations of odd and unremarkable places, I feel like Banjo Kazooie has a TON of them. I spent a lot of time as a kid, after beating the game, just wandering around the empty levels, no more objectives left to complete, and I found it absolutely stuffed with weird vibes.
They kinda have that "liminal space" vibe because they look like places that should have people, but they're empty. They have details but are rather barren, since the amount of things you could add was very limited.
Man these are all places I remember thoroughly exploring as a kid. It makes sense that MK64 looks like shit since it shows the player a relatively large amount of content at once and has to handle all the racers at the same time vs Mario 64 which had more culling options since it was singleplayer.
this is a whole series of content i had no idea i related to
I think the feeling of lonliness and artificiality is what does it for me. Love what you do. The lil corner wedged to the side of Hyrule castle was one of my places to stand and reflect as a child. I have many others, and you have brought many other unremarkable "nothing" places to my attention.
It's funny what we decide to notice in the moment, and what we just let us pass by. Even as a very much "this is the target audience for whatever this is"-person, there are a lot of places you miss or don't care about from person to person. These kind of places have a special and unremarkable place in me heart.
I'd been thinking about that corner beside Hyrule Castle, the early beta map found in the Spaceworld 97 demo had a gravestone texture on the wall there.. seeming to indicate a door was once planned to be there. Pretty wild imagining where it would have led!
The lonely, artificial "Liminal space" vibe is really strong in these classic 3D games. More mysterious and fascinating than real life liminal spaces, which can feel a bit more.. dreadful?
Melodramatic much?
The unremarkable places series is my favorite of the bunch. It's rare getting to relate to someone on something so obscure.
I'm new to your channel, but liking this series so far! Your chill style goes very well with the subject matter, and I always love seeing people talk about time with games spent outside the normal intended experience. Keep up the good work!
My cousin & I used to just drive around the train track in Kalamari Desert and warn each other when a train would show up. I guess we found it fun cuz we managed to waste probably an hour or more just doing that crap. I really miss when Mario Kart let you actually explore areas a little more even if they weren’t beneficial to the race at all.
Also, I would LOVE to see you do videos on Mario Kart Double Dash. I used to drive around in that game and just look at all the fun little details and intriguing (and often “unremarkable”) places that aren’t paid any attention if you don’t stop to look. Would love to see a video (or two) on that.
Awesome video as always. Big fan of your work.
That note about the back corner of the roller rink...wow. You just tapped into some weird part of my brain and explained something that was a deep feeling, but never put into words until this moment.
Love what you’ve been doing here man. The looser editing is chill too. Keeps it from blasting viewer with overstimulation. CRT effect nice touch.🤙🤙
I love that this channel just seems to capture experiences that a handful of people experienced but have probably never said out loud. For example that feeling at 3:01 of the skating rink and being on the dark side far away from everyone else just triggered so many memories of when my local skating rink was open, it’s just one of those things I would have never thought about again if not for this video
Dude, I just discovered you the other week and been having a blast catching up. Lame I missed such a gem all these years. Loving the vibes and the very glad you are becoming more articulate and mispronouncing less big words as a 23-1/2 year old man! You’re growing up so fast!
Btw that roller rink analogy brought me back so hard. Man it totally does have that weird feeling
these scenes are perfect examples of liminal space
Wario Stadium was fantastic because it had the best wall jump shortcut glitches. Easiest one was right after the starting line on the dirt bumps, and it's harder but also possible to jump the walls with red & white arrows (eg the one directly facing the airborne ramp). I managed to get lap times of 20 seconds and people refuse to play with you after that. Adds to the whole mystique and delight of Mario Kart 64 🤣. I think they built that area of Peach's Castle to use as the ending animation and obviously cut corners on lots of stuff since it's technically only needed for a cut scene. But I love the fact the area is accessible in the game and sort of ties the whole game together when you see the ending. Yoshi's Raceway also had some very odd vibes, possibly because each player only drives their own favourite route. So if you take any other turn it suddenly feels "off" and kind of like getting lost in a familiar place.
Another great video! With one of my comfort games. These videos are so comforting to me and I love them so much.
Yeah wait what!? I always thought Wario stadium was inside! But I’ve never stopped to look. I LOVE DK jungle parkway! I have never noticed that side of the cave even tho that’s my favourite track in the game (next to Kalimari Desert and Koopa Troopa Beach). Also that bridge is a little unsettling to look out over. Also I am both of those players, I drive in the little secret areas and I’m good at the game :p
An Odd and Unremarkable places in Mario Sunshine would be amazing (all your videos are). I think of many little areas in Gelato Beach, like the swing on the tree off on a little island, the little coral reef area, the rope high above the smoothie place.
Anyways great video Austin! Always amazing, time to watch it 3 more times 💕
These places sure are odd, unremarkable, and Mario Kart 64
hey quick question, do you carry any good loot?
As a child, I always loved exploring out of bounds and trying to understand what the developers had in mind.
Of course there were times where I’d only be concerned with winning, too.
there's a spot in Xenoblade that, to me, always felt like one of those massive indoor parking garages.. just this endless night with an understanding of a ceiling above it, and crummy dim tinted lighting.. then in the remaster i realized oh wait no, there are huge skylights, you can see daylight coming in and everything. sometimes your brain just doesnt pick up on stuff.
One thing that really makes the lifelessness sink in with this game is if you play the multiplayer with enough players that the music channel gets shut off. Mario Kart 64 without music feels hollow and lonely.
I like this series of videos. The first time I saw Peach's Castle was in Mario Kart 64. I hadn't played Mario 64 at the time. I did a mix of spending like 30 minutes exploring each track and winning races. I still do.
“Ludicrously dangerous” is hilarious
Hey dude, these are all awesome videos! The vibes are all too comforting, kudos for the concept! I really want to see you do one on Diddy Kong Racing, I think that game is full of weird places and some curious skyboxes.
Loved the vid! Your deadpan humor killed me 😂 “waxing poetic” lol keep it up! I played a lot of Lego Racers as a kid and remember finding similar weird dead spots in there too 👽
I never ever realized that the Wario stadium is open air! Until now. Man, that feels so odd… Great Series, keep up the good work!
These videos are my spirit animal.
Your apposite comparisons to being in the back near the Exit sign in a roller rink or behind a restaurant near the dumpster just resonate so perfectly, there must be some 21-letter German words for them. I wasn't too shabby at Mario Kart 64, but since I had no friends to race with and was driven to explore and memorize my 3D worlds in autistic detail, I quickly became a Royal Raceway castle/Kalamari Desert tunnel type of gamer. It also creeped (crept?) me out imagining what sort of shadow beings must be piloting the riverboat near DK Jungle Parkway or the tractor-trailers on Toad's Turnpike.
bro wake up new unremarkable and odd places just dropped
This video and it’s commentary is unremarkable and odd itself, and yet beautiful and masterful. Great job describing and showing an aspect of video games seldom named or spoken of, yet oh so visceral and oftentimes universally experienced! I love this series!
I think Austin is a pretty cool dude.
Cool and remarkable
I don’t
Eh shows unremarkable places and doesn't afraid of anything
When I was a kid I always wondered in Mario Kart 64 ‘s tracks looking at little details like you did in this video!!! Thanks for bringing the memories back
Me and the boys hanging out in the Calimari Desert train tunnel
I like that when Kalimari Desert was brought to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Mario Kart Tour, they utilized the railroad tracks to be alternate paths you have to drive through after the 1st lap. Now driving on the tracks can be something you can do without losing the race.
Man, I spent soooo much time doing things like this in Star Fox Adventures as a kid. Especially in the multiplayer maps. My brothers and I would always try to ride on the arwing's wing to get to places we shouldn't have and I just loved hanging out in those maps.
Huh, I don't remember those... Are you thinking of Star Fox Assault?
@@renakunisaki omg 😂 I meant Star Fox Assault
Thank you I don't know how I got that mixed up
Such a simple and benign concept but this series is (remarkably) interesting.
There needs to be a word for the weird vibe you get from old 3d games. It's very distinct but there's no word for it or good way to describe it but we all feel it.
No, we didn’t think the graphics looked horrible. Because at the time it was an amazing game that brought the SNES version to the next level. When you go from pixels to polygons it’s a generational leap. And you gotta play this on a CRT to see it the real way.
I think this video proves that Diddy Kong Racing was the superior kart racer on the N64 😂
In all seriousness, another great video! I remember being so bewildered by Peach's castle the first time I stumbled upon it in MK64. Definitely felt odd!
I loved Bowser's Castle. I used to spend a lot of time just to look around the place. Odd and mysterious.
This is the first of the whole series that I can personally relate to. Because I played this game more than any other game as a kid. I explored every corner of Mario Kart 64, and the Castle and train tracks were definitely a huge point of nostalgia for me. Also the yoshi track with the branching paths was always a good one. But you easily picked all the best tracks for exploration of the somewhat unremarkable but interesting parts of this game. Possibly my favorite video you've made.
The fence continues straight also. In mario 64 its jags off creating a small triangled grass area.
Bro your channel is a gold mine. I live for these types of videos.
I’m in Austin’s house rn, does this count as an odd and unremarkable place?
the main reason the game looks so "Lifeless" I think is that they had to make it so the game worked in split screen - it had to be rendered 4 times over. even with stripping elements from it(including the music!) they couldn't have the split screen game look *too different* from the single player so it probably put a bit of an aesthetic dampener on what they felt comfortable pulling off.
I love these videos 👑
I love these types of videos. For a long time now, I felt like I was the only person who felt this inexplicable feeling of strange wonder and mystery when looking at certain corners/walls/dark spaces/isolated areas in seemingly unremarkable places. (unremarkable is a great way to put it btw). I get that feeling with lava lamps in dark rooms, or the backway of movie sets and empty underground court rooms in gyms etc.
I wish these were hours long, maybe sometime you can make a long form video of you casually walking through nostalgic games discovering new unremarkable and odd places.
Please do goldeneye 007, I would really appreciate it, and keep up the amazing videos!, they are amazing and we love them
I haven't played MK64 since the 90s but a few weeks ago I randomly remembered Kalimari Desert and the train. It always gave me such an empty but comforting (?) feeling, and you've completely summed up my thoughts about it. Love this series!
An out of bounds/freecam type of series could be great. Tons of weird angles and new viewpoints to turn areas you thought you knew inside out would fit the vibe of the channel perfectly.
This has quickly become one of my favorite series. Thanks Austin.
such a chill voice & vibe w your vids... i loved exploring that sm64 castle area in mk64 as a kid
This is beautiful. So glad I discovered you suddenly. You know, I was obsessed with riding on and exploring that riverboat way back when. It seems so tiny now.
Been loving this series! There's really something about the vibes in racing game courses if you take a moment to just absorb it, when you're normally speeding by. Makes me feel validated I wasn't the only kid back in the day to just stop and think about the world around the course! Used to do it a lot with snowboard kids 1 and 2, if you're looking to seek out more vibes. While I actively played a lot more of 2, 1 had immaculate mysterious vibes that were good for soaking in, would highly recommend Night Highway in SBK1 for that purpose.
I really enjoy this type of video, this was often how I played games as a kid. Your sense of humor coupled with exploring the lesser-seen areas of the game makes this very entertaining. Thanks!
Ten years?! How have I JUST NOW discovered this channel?
I've only seen a handful of videos, two Odd and Unremarkable and three Unemployment vids, but this was a niche of video game YT I didn't know needed to be explored. I think you're somebody I'll have to share with my roommate. Thank you, and keep on keepin' on.
Thank you for this video, Mr. Any. I love your chill attitude. Kinda uncommon these days. I hope your channel sees a great deal of growth in the future! It deserves it.
I think I’ve said this before but Austin you’re doing my dream job. I’ve always loved just stopping and walking around levels and inspecting anything I can, all sorts of explorations like that. If I had known this type of content was… super interesting content other people watch, I would’ve bought a capture card many months ago. Thank you for your valuable service of inspiration (I will credit you for that).
In regards to the "crude" graphics, for a long time it was just expected that a racing game would have less detailed graphics because you were supposed to be speeding through them and not examining anything too closely. The Gran Turismo series seemed to be the one that started the trend towards impressive graphics in racing games.
It's actually insane that my mental image of Wario Stadium was always that of a large indoor warehouse, even as I looked at the Skybox as you drew attention to it I still seemed to hold onto that belief that "Yes this is an indoor arena of some kind" and it wasn't until you explicitly said that it is in fact outdoors that that belief broke down. Memory and Nostalgia are immensely powerful things and really scrutinizing them through your videos has been a joy.
Great video, great series! I never realized that Wario's stadium was outdoors either, blew my mind when you pointed it out. I never even noticed that there are stands for on the sides, or huge floodlights. Crazy. Great video, great series.
love it. you've got a unique vision yet it clearly resonates with a lot of people!
Bro back in those days we were having so much fun with these games. Pixel were the last thing we would worry about.
This feels less like commentary and more like a nice friend showing you something he finds neat and saying his take on it
It’s kinda nice :)
6:03 Love how the boat just disappears for a frame
Love these vids. I am unable to pay attention to these things on such a deep level. But when you point it out, it helps me.
This just reminded me that Diddy Kong Racing was absolutely full of unremarkable and odd places, I hope he eventually gets around to covering that one too. The overworld alone could probably fill a video.
I had a strange fascination with driving in infinite loops backwards around toad's turnpike. The entire level felt like an odd place, but there was this specific synth in the music that felt to perfectly illustrate the feeling of driving by lampposts over and over that intrigued me for whatever reason. Loved the video though dude, keep 'em coming!
My favorite unremarkable places are those hidden in the corners of theme rides like in disney. I used to fantasize about walking around and lurking in the background of displays away from all people in melancholy, and watch them until closing hour and just stay there laying in the dusty display. That's also how I feel when I play N64 by myself if I just forget about the plot.
I immensely enjoy these videos. They continue to provide nostalgia and some cool smoke spots 🔥
Awesome video. There is a ton of potential exploring other games with other interesting spaces. I find it fascinating how I can still close my eyes and walk around game maps I played 20 years ago. Some of my favorite memories played out in those spaces. ✌️
I like this video. I've always liked your content. Please make more! you are one of my favorite content creators for years. I remember egg busters. Your vibe is the best.
Thanks for making these videos Austin they've become a source of comfort for me and I love them 🥰
I just want you to make more videos! Your perspective on videogames captivates me so much, amazing and unique content 😊
Great series. Please continue. This is so niche and weird and so my thing.
I liked the video. Also, as far as I know, this type of ability to go completely off the track like in Royal Raceway and Kalimari Desert doesn't really exist in other Mario Kart games. It seems like in MKWii and MK8, the game mechanics arbitrarily push you back onto the track, or like you say, the tracks have side rails or are walled in. It fits in well with the era of N64 games like Mario 64 that encouraged gamers to explore 3D worlds. So by including these elements without forcing the racer back onto the track it was adding the element of exploration to a racing game, which is quite unusual. I want to say it was adding an "open world" element, but I actually liked your description when you said, it felt like you were "breaking the rules."
Your pace and voice is very contrary to the typical RUclipsr, I enjoy it very much thanks for your content
I love this video because I totally understand all the comfortable vibes in random corners and other unexplainable vibes from certain areas in games lol
I would love to see at least one but up to five of these videos for Mario Sunshine. I love that game and it has so many weird quirks.
There's a LOT of spaces like this in Kirby Air Ride for the Gamecube, if you've played that in the past I'm sure you'll remember and agree! IN particular City Trial there's all kinds of nooks and crannies that don't feel like a part of the main map that give this feeling very powerfully.
Your commentary resonates with me in comical and off beat kind of way. Great video!
Quick suggestion that doesn't really warrant its own entire video: In the PS2 game Gran Turismo 4, the track New York has an "accurate" recreation of Times Square with an unnecessary amount of licensed franchises. This includes McDonalds, and ad for LG televisions, ESPN, and even a Toys R Us for some reason. This is all in a racing game with absolutely no reason to stop and sightsee, so I'm just wondering why Polyphony/Sony even bothered to ask completely unrelated companies for licensing permissions.
Yo Austin, loved this video, and any and all videos you make. Please make more! 🤘