I don't come into these articles with a plan in mind; they're a kind of free-association riffing in essay format. It's a bit of the opposite of how I draft "editorials," where I map out a number of the jokes ahead of time - but often the conclusion isn't scouted until I've crested the hill. In this case, as it is every week, the conclusion is I tell you about the latest episode of Radio Free Nintendo. This Shangri-La's location is known, our meandering about the Kunlun Mountains is a choice.

Today we're in uncharted territory; previous articles had been kicked into their topic naturally, and I have no desire to turn this into a meta-narrative on how I draft articles, especially since I've only been using this format for a month.

Here's the point where I deleted 124 words that had nothing to do with anything in particular: Clerks: The Animated Series, Enki, the various ways one can define a "week."

Here's the point where I had to delete a second digression that involved the French Republican Calendar.

Speak of "a week," in a week, give or take, we'll be playing Donkey Kong Bananza. However, you wont be invited to our early impressions. This is not an act of exclusion, we just wont be talking about it on the next episode. Our recording scheduling is fixed, and it changes for no man. Or ape. Excepting when it does, of course, which it wont today. Or next week, to be more accurate. We'll be crushing rocks with you in two weeks. Presumably we will also talk about Donkey Kong Bananza, but the future is unknowable.

In the meantime, I was able to reenter the NWR Forums, which I had been locked out of for nigh on a year due to the corrupted Core Theme. It turns out all you need to do is put ;theme=1 at the end of the forum URL and you'll be golden, assuming you're still on the list of impacted users. I'll be biding my banana time there.

In his absence, James has accumulated a bit of New Business. First he wraps up Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time (00:10:03), this time with much less rambling. He also decided he needed more New Business, so purchased Arcade Archives2 AIR COMBAT 22 (00:16:16), only to find its total runtime of five minutes presents its own downsides. Lastly, he kicks off some conversation about single player activities in Mario Kart World (00:31:56). Guillaume details his unsuccessful attempt to daisy-chain Switch docks (00:57:25) but Nintendo is not having any of that. He also details how to hide all your anime girl slide puzzle Virtual Game Cards. Balatro (01:05:44) has come into his life, and the addiction is setting upon him. Jon is accidentally timely with Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty (01:21:05), now on Switch 2. Greg closes out the show with Mario Smash Football/Super Mario Strikers (01:31:57) on NSO.

Also, we talk about Acclaim and Bloodvertising again. RFN will always be RFN.

You can be responsible for it.

This episode was edited by Guillaume Veillette. The "Men of Leisure" theme song was produced exclusively for Radio Free Nintendo by Perry Burkum. Hear more at Perry's SoundCloud. The Radio Free Nintendo logo was produced by Connor Strickland. See what he's up to at his website.

This episode's ending music is "Katina" remix from Star Fox Assault.. It was selected by Greg. All rights reserved by Nintendo Co., Ltd.