Another version of Naruto is in Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker, as Naruto Uzumaki (Baryon Mode) DLC appeared. There is also a Hidden Leaf Forest renovated battle map available. The map is free, but people need to pay for the DLC. Bandai Namco also shared patch notes for the update and a trailer for Naruto (Baryon Mode).

First, here's the trailer for the new Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker DLC. It goes over all of this version of Naruto's new moves. For example, it starts with Baryon Bullet Barrage. After that, Naruto uses Baryon Tail Breaker. That’s followed by Secret Technique: Baryon Mode. It also notes that it involves Baryon Breakthrough as a Substitution move. People who get this add-on also get Naruto Outfits 3 and 4, Naruto (Sexy Jutsu) hair, Naruto’s Knitted Hat “hair,” and the Duty over Flesh Honorary Title. All of the avatar parts can be worn by both male and female avatars,

The newest DLC arriving to #SHINOBISTRIKER is here!

Naruto Uzumaki (Baryon Mode) is a force to be reckoned with and is sure to bring that strength to your battles in-game!

Unleash your mightiest chakra now! pic.twitter.com/4qNHI5C9Vm

What began as an endeavour to expand the world of PUBG: Battlegrounds has instead morphed into an original narrative-driven horror experience known as The Callisto Protocol. Crafted by Striking Distance Studios, home to veteran Dead Space developers, the game leads the charge back into the depths of sci-fi horror. With promises of intricately detailed visuals and authentic character rendering, The Callisto Protocol stands to deliver one of the most visually striking Unreal Engine games to date. We'll examine what makes it special, including its reliance on ray tracing and its 60fps performance mode, focusing on the PlayStation 5 version of the game.

Based on our testing, PS5 is most obviously the lead platform for development - it's been solid throughout the review period, while we've had a bunch of problems with Xbox Series and especially the PC versions of the game (the latter of which is essentially unplayable right now). We'll be talking about the various issues on other systems in a separate article, but to see Striking Distance's vision best realised, it's PS5 that's the best place to play for now.

The Callisto Project was created with one of the final iterations of Unreal Engine 4 and with access to a full motion capture studio - and this game makes full use of both in its stand-out character rendering, with a cast rich with Hollywood talent. Performance and motion capture help bring these characters to life, but what separates Callisto is the fidelity with which these characters are presented in-engine.

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We already covered the PS5 version of The Callisto Protocol in our tech review, but some major issues in the PC and Xbox versions of the game's pre-release code meant that we want to cover these platforms separately.

Let's start with PC, where DF crew member Alex Battaglia has been testing the game for the past few days. Sadly, there's no good news here - the game is a disastrous state as of launch. First up, this is yet another Unreal Engine 4 title that doesn't precompile its shaders, meaning that the first appearance of new models and effects is accompanied by a hefty stutter that can bring even a high-end Core i9 12900K and RTX 4090 rig to its knees - with even longer hitches on weaker systems. What'a happening here is that shader code is compiled as it's needed, resulting in continual freeze-frame hitching every time you encounter a new effect that requires a new shader.

Shader compilation stutter is a massive problem with this game, ruining the sense of immersive dread the game is trying to create, and is only solved by playing through the whole game so that your second playthrough is stutter free - where's your Shader Butler when you need them? This issue could be solved by having the game precompile shaders on first boot, and even though this would delay the action and require redoing each time the game or GPU drivers are updated, it would at least ensure a smooth experience once in-game.

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Reviewed on: PC
Platform: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, PC
Publisher: 2K Games
Developer: Firaxis Games
Release: December 2, 2022 (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC), TBA (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch)
Rating: Teen

We concluded 2022 by returning to our Super Replay roots by tackling an old-school survival horror game. That means replaying one of the greatest games of the PS1 era, Silent Hill! 

If you’ve been following the dizzying dramatics around the Smash World Tour, you may have seen Nintendo’s new statement regarding the tournament’s sudden cancellation. The Mario maker has said it “cares about Super Smash Bros. fans,” expressly stating that esports organization Panda Global had no influence whatsoever…

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Activision Blizzard’s playbook came up short again. Despite delays, legal appeals, and threats to workers that organizing would lead to lower pay raises, quality assurance developers at the Diablo production studio Blizzard Albany voted 14-0 to unionize today. The Game Workers Alliance Albany are now the second group…

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Are you flourishing at the game of life, or are you floundering at the very bottom? Give this ATM your debit card, and you can find out. Art Basel, a ghoulishly lavish art show, is hosting an ATM that takes your picture and ranks you on a public leaderboard according to your debit bank balance. Some people have $0.…

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Xseed Games and Marvelous Europe released a new English trailer for the upcoming coming-of-age JRPG Loop8: Summer of Gods.

The video showcases an in-depth look at the gameplay of this JRPG that certainly feels a little bit Persona-ish in the fact that the relationships you forge influence gameplay.

That being said, this goes a step further, ad they influence your success in combat much more directly, while the protagonist has the ability to “loop” back time to learn from his mistakes and turn defeats into victories.

The trailer also provides a look at the characters, and at the story, which is set in the town of Ashihara, one of humanity’s last remaining sanctuaries in a world on the brink of extinction at the hand of mysterious entities named Kagai.

You can check it out below.

As mentioned above, the game is set eight months after a disaster that “shattered the hopes of humanity.” The hero named Nini has lost his family and home due to said disaster and moves with his relatives to a small and peaceful countryside town. There he is welcomed by Konoha, a girl who says she’s his relative.

The titular gameplay “loop” includes two parts. In the first Nini will try to find people possessed by the mysterious Kagai who are a threat to humanity. During his everyday life, he will build relationships and train for future battles.

Riot Games has made it clear that Valorant’s map pool will only ever number seven at most at any one time. Following the launch of Pearl, that meant taking one map out of the rotation to make room, and Split was chosen as the sacrificial lamb. Ever since then, many players within the community have been hankering for its return, and by the sounds of it, they won’t have to wait too much longer.

Joe “Pearl Hogbash” Lansford, part of Riot Games’ Valorant Map Design team, took to the game’s official website today to discuss the changes to map rotation coming soon. The long and the short of is that Split is coming back but Breeze and Bind are being removed from the Competitive queue.

The news of Split’s return is likely to prove a hit, but removing two maps is an interesting decision. Breeze is a map that has proved very divisive for its large size, while Bind has been in the map pool ever since the beta.

When Is Split Coming Back to Valorant?

The release date for Split’s return has not yet been confirmed, but it is due in tandem with the release of Patch 6.0. As for when that is, we’re not exactly sure. It is highly likely that it will be the update that comes along with Valorant’s next Episode, which should be in 39 days once the third and final Act of Episode 5 comes to a close.

In related news, check out the big nerfs coming to Chamber in next week’s Patch 5.12.

Splatoon players, beware. Nintendo has confirmed a persisting glitch introduced in the newly released of Splatoon 3 version 2.0.0, aptly named Chill Season. On December 2, 2022, the official Splatoon Japanese account went into more detail.

The Splatoon 3 Chill Season glitches involve the Roller and Brush weapons. When firing any of these type of weapons too close to terrain, some bullets may not fire. Nintendo is aiming to patch this glitch as late as the end of next week.

A different issue was fixed earlier on December 1, 2022. It involved communication errors when using Special Weapons under unspecified circumstances.

Here is the available information from Nintendo of Europe:
https://twitter.com/NintendoEurope/status/1598701235581997058

Fortunately, this new season adds things other than glitches. With version 2.0.0 of Splatoon 3 also comes the new Chill Season, including a plethora of new content. Three new maps, three new weapons, multiple weapon variants, and new gear were added to mix things up. In addition, with Drizzle Season ended, the previous catalog is inaccessible and a brand new one took its place. People can complete it before the end of the season in March 1, 2023.

Crunchyroll announced new and returning anime series coming to the streaming service in 2023 at CCXP 2022 in Brazil. A number of notable shows will be available online. Among the notable ones coming back to Crunchyroll are Bofuri: I Don't Want to Get Hurt, so I'll Max Out My Defense season 2 and season 3 of Sorcerous Stabber Orphen, Chaos in Urbanrama. It will also add new additions like Chillin' in My 30s after Getting Fired from the Demon King's Army and The Reason Why Raeliana Ended Up At The Duke’s Mansion.

There are four additions coming to the service in January 2023. That’s when Crunchyroll will get Bofuri season 2, Chillin' in My 30s after Getting Fired from the Demon King's Army, The Fire Hunter, and Sorcerous Stabber Orphen season 3.

The next three will show up on Crunchyroll in April 2023. All of those are entirely new to the service. A Galaxy Next Door My Home Hero, The Reason Why Raeliana Ended Up At The Duke’s Mansion will appear that month.

Finally, one series only has a general 2023 release window. Sometime next year, My Clueless First Friend wiill debut.

Part of Square Enix's drip marketing for Theatrhythm Final Bar Line involves sharing tidbits on Twitter about the game. These teases can show off characters or gameplay elements. The latest involves a way to share user data. It looked at the Theatrhythm Final Bar Line ProfiCards players get, which let them show their top characters and songs and share Summonstones.

The new images show what the Theatrhythm Final Bar Line ProfiCards entail. On the page dedicated to them in-game, you can see your own card, edit it, see your collection of cards, exchange them, get a password, or enter a password. The front of a person’s Theatrhythm Final Bar Line card will show their three top songs played, while the back shows their top five most used characters and current party.

It also shows how someone can set a Summonstone. People’s full collection of available stones appear on the left. You can then choose which one is attached to your card and “given” to people who get your Theatrhythm Final Bar LineProfiCard. For example, the Knights of the Round Summonstone in the example has the benefits “CollectaCard drop rate+20%,” “item drop rate +10%,” and “trigger damage dealt +15%” when used.

Bandai Namco announced a sales milestone for Digimon Survive. The game, which is a hybrid between a tactical title and visual novel, passed 500,000 units sold worldwide. This comes following multiple discounts in November 2022 that dropped its price.

Here's the official announcement. As a reminder, the game debuted worldwide on July 29, 2022. This means it took about four months to reach almost half a million units sold.

Wow! #DigimonSurvive has sold over 500,000 Units Worldwide!
Thank you so much to everyone who has supported Digimon games.

If you haven't played it yet, Digimon Survive is 30% off on Nintendo eShop through 12/4: https://t.co/vDTeKdDAdw

Your #Digimon partner is waiting for you! pic.twitter.com/JWxBH8eCDL

— Bandai Namco US (@BandaiNamcoUS) December 2, 2022

My keyboard is broken, so this has been a fun week of workarounds that sort of work but not quite enough to play most things. That'll teach me to spend more than the £5 one that lasted for a decade I guess.

Fortunately, a few of the little turn based tactics games I'd had on the backburner for a while was Immortal Tactics Colon War of the Eternals, an excellent little fantasy combat game set on miniature hex grids. On paper, it's a stock fantasy game with a himbo, edgelord, and nerd fighting to kill monsters and unlock new characters. But what does paper know?

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Warhammer 40,000: Darktide launched on November 30th following several weeks of pre-order beta, but some players are already rather ticked off that the full-price game includes microtransactions. In particular, Darktide players are miffed that the co-op action game offers bundles of its Aquila premium currency that fall just short of the cost of some items in the store, meaning you’d have to stump up for several bundles to afford those. Taking to Darktide’s Discord to ask why you can’t just buy a specific amount of Aquilas for the items you want, one player was told by a spokesperson for Fatshark that adding such a feature would be “immeasurably complex”.

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At the beginning of November, we announced we were going to write a bumper crop of supporter articles for the month to celebrate the launch of our new introductory offer on our monthly Standard subscriptions. Normally, these exclusive supporter articles are reserved for our Premium subscription tier, but because we wanted to give those Standard introductory folks a taste of what Premium has to offer as well, we decided to make a bunch of them visible to all subscribers.

About a week into November, we realised that we didn't have a very good way of flagging which of those articles Standard subscribers could actually read (our bad), and due to a combination of holidays, illness and general busy-ness, we completely failed to come up with a solution. Apologies! To remedy that, I've now listed all of them below. Enjoy!

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I was dismissive of my first few games of Marvel Snap, intrigued by the next few, then hooked within ten. Second Dinner's lightning-fast CCG manages to pack a surprising amount of nuance and strategy within six turns, while cleverly leaning on that brevity to play around with ideas that wouldn't work elsewhere. It's neat! And free! You should try it.

All the more so, now that the latest update has added Collector Tokens that let you buy specific cards rather than leaving you solely at the mercy of booster packs. There are also 16 new cards, nerfs to some old ones, and a smattering of other improvements.

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Nintendo has shared a lengthy statement in response to recent claims it told organisers of the unofficial Smash World Tour that the popular fan competition, including this month's concluding Smash World Tour Championships, could "no longer operate".

The Smash World Tour, an "international tournament circuit in which competitors for both Ultimate and Melee can qualify for the Smash World Tour Championships", is described by organisers as the "the largest esports tour in history, for any game title". This year's event, which ran between March and November, incorporated 6,400 live events around the world, attracting 325,000 in-person entrants.

With the tour now concluded, this year's Smash World Tour Championships was due to beheld between 9th-11th December, but organisers announced on Tuesday (as reported by Kotaku) they had "received notice the night before Thanksgiving from Nintendo that we could no longer operate". As such, December's Championships and the entirety of next year's Smash World Tour have been cancelled.

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Earlier this year, I flew to Los Angeles to learn about the making of Mina The Hollower, Yacht Club Games’ new Game Boy Color-inspired follow-up to Shovel Knight. Following the studio’s successful Kickstarter earlier this year, Game Informer sheds light on Mina The Hollower’s origins as developer Alec Faulkner’s side project, how he pitched the game to the Yacht Club, and ultimately, how the team hopes to deliver a game as prolific as Shovel Knight.

This multi-part video game documentary, directed by yours truly, debuts next Wednesday, December 7th, on our YouTube channel. Want to support this work? Consider sharing the trailer on your favorite social media platform, watching it with a friend, or purchasing an annual subscription to Game Informer Magazine. If you’d like to share your feedback with me, reach out on Twitter or Instagram.  

Although Netflix fumbled the bag with its marketing of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean, it managed to avoid a hefty copyright strike from Disney by removing one of the most beloved scenes in the manga.

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With today’s launch of The Callisto Protocol, a consensus across the games media is that this is a decent PS5 Dead Space-like, but a terrible PC game. The reason being, the game is grimly stuttering, even on top-end machines. I’m here to tell you it doesn’t have to stutter, but you do need to switch off some bells and…

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Ah, the battle pass. Once a feature seemingly reserved for the battle royale, it’s now as ubiquitous in the gaming industry as everyone’s favorite dripless MC. In the past year or so, franchises like Halo and Overwatch embraced the battle pass for the first time, likely in the face of proof that the live-service…

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As far as I’m concerned, Call of Duty’s new DMZ mode isn’t just CoD’s best game type, it’s one of the best shooter game modes I’ve played in years. It’s the familiar rush of a good shooter with great, roaming tactics that demand smart and reactive planning. But recent adjustments to the AI in this hybrid PvPvE game…

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Within the many, many aspects of the new Pokémon Scarlet And Violet (PSV), from its Gym campaign to its Titan-battling storyline, is one feature that is easily forgotten: its Academy lessons. For the most part, that’s for a good reason—they’re astoundingly boring. But there’s one moment, in the middle of a math…

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If you’re wondering whether Netherrealm Studios might announce its next game at The Game Awards next week, the answer is no.

Creative director Ed Boon himself took to Twitter to manage expectations mentioning that the studio is not ready to announce its new games yet.

Boon cited the surprise reveal of Mortal Kombat 11 at The Game Awards in December 2018, which according to the developer turned out great, but may have led some to believe that a repeat was coming this year. This is not the case, so we’ll have to wait longer for the next game by Netherrealm.

It’s worth mentioning that we don’t even know whether said game will be a new Mortal Kombat or not. While the studio is primarily known for the gore-infused fighting franchise, the possibility that we might see a new Injustice exists.

As a matter o fact, a few weeks ago, Boon himself teased that said game would be either Mortal Kombat 12 or Injustice 3.

Mortal Kombat 11 was released in 2019 to critical and fan acclaim, and on top of the usual chain of DLC characters fighting game fans are pretty much used to, by now, it also received an expansion titled Aftermath in 2020.

“Honestly, I haven't analyzed it much,” Miyazaki replied. “It’s true that sales were higher than those of our previous games, but I have no idea what the reason was. So even if I wanted to reproduce that success, I wouldn’t be able to,” he laughed.

He said that he intends to continue making games “the same way as before,” without allowing himself to be affected by the success of Elden Ring.

The Steam Deck can be a handy way to enjoy all sorts of games from players' libraries. After all, getting to play things on the go is always a boon. But given how many titles are out there, pinning down specific ones can get overwhelming. So for this week's Siliconera's Speaks Up, we figured share some of what we would consider the best JRPGs on the Steam Deck and see what everyone had to recommend.

I mean, I don't own a Steam Deck yet, but I'd think FFVII Remake would be one of the best RPGs to play on it. It's a very demanding game, and that the handheld can manage it is great! Also, this is the only possible way you can play it essentially as Square Enix intended on the go. There's no Switch port, after all. Plus, it's a really interesting reimagining of FFVII, and given FFVII Rebirth, aka part 2, is on the way, it could be a good way to catch up. — Jenni

Bravely Default launched ten years ago, and Square Enix is commemorating the occasion with a pack of special merchandise. The Bravely Default 10th Anniversary goods pack contains several pieces celebrating the game's birthday. The company also held a special Anniversary exhibition in October 2022.

The Bravely Default 10th Anniversary set contains four items. A mini-folding screen shows off the cast of characters, specially illustrated in a lineup over six panels. The screen measures 43 inches wide when fully unfolded. A set of four plushies represents the four main characters of the game: Agnes, Tiz, Edea, and Ringabel. There's also a glass "3D" crystal that shows off Airy the cryst-fairy, as well as iconic scenes from the game. A set of two clear files protects documents in Bravely Default style. Finally, a tote bag with the 10th Anniversary logo keeps all that stuff in one place.

The Bravely Default 10th Anniversary merchandise set costs 20,000 Yen (about $148 USD) and is available through the Square Enix online store.

[gallery columns="4" size="medium" ids="941926,941927,941928,941929,941930,941931,941932,941933" link="file"]

After its initial reveal during the PlayStation State of Play, there has not been much information on Tekken 8. However, that changed this week. The official Tekken 8 Twitter account tweeted a short teaser with the hashtag #SAVETHED8, as well as the date December 8, 2022. This teaser is likely saying that Tekken 8 will appear in some form during The Game Awards 2022.

https://twitter.com/TEKKEN/status/1598739581381349394

The Game Awards 2022 will take place on December 8, 2022. The nominee list is already online for people to see what games can potentially win awards for this year. However, this announcement implies that a trailer of some sort for Tekken 8 will appear during the ceremony as well. During the State of Play, we only got a brief video of Jin and Kazuya fighting. So the trailer on December 8, 2022 may give a more concrete look at the game’s playable roster, stages, or gimmicks.

Bandai Namco first teased Tekken 8 during Evo 2022. At the time, there was no official confirmation as to what the video was. From the trailer, it appears that this entry will have cinematics throughout the battle, with lots of close-ups and different camera angles.

The results are in for the PlayStation Partner Awards 2022 Japan Asia. This year, the Grand Award was given to 2 titles: Genshin Impact and Elden Ring. In addition to the Grand Awards, Sony also gave out Partner, Special, and Users' Choice Awards.

The PlayStation Partner Awards dates back to 1995, a year after the platform was first released. Originally titled the PlayStation Awards, the annual event is held to honor hit PlayStation titles sold throughout the year and the creativity of the people who made them.

A total of 14 awards were given out this year to games released between October 2021 and September 2022. The Grand Award was given to the top 2 bestselling titles worldwide that were made by Japanese and Asian developers. The 5 Partner Award winners met the same criteria but also had particularly noteworthy user metrics. The first Special Award was given to the bestselling title in Japan and Asia that was developed outside of those regions, while the second was given to the bestselling title globally that was developed in partnership with Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios. Lastly, the Users' Choice Award was given to 5 of the top 30 most-played (based on total number of hours) titles as voted by players in Japan and Asia.

Check out the full results below:

If you want to get spooked in space, you're probably best off avoiding The Callisto Protocol for now - unless you want to face the horror of stuttering framerates. Hordes of people on Steam are reporting the same issues that Alice Bee did in her review, plonking Callisto's rating into Mostly Negative. Developers Striking Distance Studios have acknowledged the issue and say they'll drop a patch later today to fix it, but we'll see.

They've also revealed their post-launch roadmap, so hopefully it'll run well enough by February for you to enjoy the New Game+ and Hardcore modes.

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Unlike buses, Valve games do not come in threes. That isn't about to change anytime soon, but one of the main writers behind both Portal games has revealed that they've got a "pretty awesome" idea for Portal 3. Erik Wolpaw say he and fellow Portal 2 penner Jay Pinkerton have even floated that idea around Valve, to a positive response. It's totes on the cards, is what it sounds like.

The news comes from Wolpaw's recent interview with YouTuber DidYouKnowGaming, which is also worth a watch to learn about all the ideas Valve didn't wind up using in Portal 2. At one point it had bullet time.

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Developer Digital Extremes has announced the long-awaited arrival of cross-play support for its free-to-play sci-fi shooter Warframe, meaning Tenno on Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, and PC can finally join forces wherever they may be.

Cross-play was initially announced during Digital Extremes' TennoCon fan event in July 2021, with the developer saying it hoped to launch the feature before the end of that year. It obviously missed that target and then some, but, 12 months later, cross-play is finally here.

"Warframe will always be a game best played and enjoyed with friends and that's why launching Cross Platform Play is such an incredible moment for us," Digital Extremes' chief operating officer Sheldon Carter said in a statement announcing the news. "Together with our partners, we have broken down the walls that have prevented our players from experiencing the thrill of Warframe as one united community."

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This week on All Things Nintendo, Brian and Wesley catch up on all the news from the past couple of weeks, including some updates for games like Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, Sonic Frontiers, Nintendo Switch Sports, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and Overwatch 2. Then, Marcus joins the show to chat about several recent games that have come to Switch. Finally, Brian, Kyle, and Marcus give their instant and after-the-fact reactions to the second Super Mario Bros. Movie trailer.

If you'd like to follow the people from this episode on Twitter, hit the following links: Brian Shea (@brianpshea), Wesley LeBlanc (@LeBlancWes), Marcus Stewart (@MarcusStewart7), Kyle Hilliard (@KyleMHilliard)

The All Things Nintendo podcast is a weekly show where we can celebrate, discuss, and break down all the latest games, news, and announcements from the industry's most recognizable name. Each week, Brian is joined by different guests to talk about what's happening in the world of Nintendo. Along the way, they'll share personal stories, uncover hidden gems in the eShop, and even look back on the classics we all grew up with. A new episode hits every Friday!