Hello, and welcome to side Quest. This is our weekly video game show
here at Geek First. I'm your host, La must and I hit with
me the Pirate of the High Seas. I added that part Taylor Field,
how's it going with my friend? It's going very very good, very very
good. I'm excited for this episode because this is I was going through a
whole debacle whether or not I was gonna purchase what we're gonna be talking about,
and this is just me a good episode because fate has bestowed upon me.
Yeah, the tides they come and go, but a Fallen Bones has
finally drifted up on shore and we could talk about it, which is,
Yeah, it's a long time coming. Not that this was like a hugely
anticipated game from us at Geek First, but we've been talking about it for
years and years and years, all these E three directs and then I don't
know, Summer Game Fest wherever it showed up at. We'd always talk about
it. So it's crazy that it's finally here. Ish we're gonna be talking
about the beta that they had for a few days, their open beta before
the full launch, which I believe is in a few days here. So
that's pretty crazy stuff. Other than that, just talk about some of the
games we've been playing. It's gonna be a pretty low key episode here.
We're a bit on the clock as we are going to be recording our coverage
of the Super Bowl trailers all that after this, so you can go and
check that out as well. We're also covering the Halo show that's officially started,
so me and Taylor here did episode one and two. Kirklan will be
joining us from here on out as we do that weekly, so check that
out. We have a review for Madham Web going on this week, so
yeah, a lot, and then even just looking at a recording calendar,
like, there's gonna be a ton of things going up early on Patreon in
the near future here, so make sure to, you know, join us
over there to get episodes early and ad free. Of course, what's up?
I think later this week we know that the Xbox they're finally they're gonna
do that business event that they talked about in the form of a podcast where
we're gonna finally get some follow ups to the topics that me and Travis talked
about last week. So that's on the fifteenth, So next week's side Coust
we'll talk about that. There's also been rumors of Nintendo Direct circling, as
there always is, and usually they do something in January February, so I
don't know, maybe that would be this week and then we be in next
week's side quest. We'll have to wait and see. But Taylor, I
know you weren't on that episode with me and Travis and your big Xbox guy.
Any any thoughts on that or is it more just like I kind of
want to wait until the dust has settled after we see what Phil and team
I actually have to say this week, or any any additional thoughts about I
mean, yeah, there's there's been some interesting rumors and what knots that have
been kind of pouring out from that exclusivities along those lines, and so I
don't really know what to think or make. Yeah, and there's even a
bunch more rumors in the last few days. They are like, actually,
no, Starfield's not like these other things have come out, So I don't
know if that's like they pivoted last minute, But yeah, anyway, it's
it's it's got even more complicated since we talked about it last week. Yeah,
I'm excited. I'm excited to tune in and see what's going on.
Mm hmm. Yeah, it'll be huge one way or the other. So
tune into next week's episode of Side Quest to hear about that. So,
yeah, skull Bones, that's gonna be remained topic. But before we get
to that, anything else you've been playing these days, Taylor. I'm sure
Sculled Bones could be busy. The last week's a week or so here,
but anything else you've been checking out? Yes, scull and Bones has been
keeping me busy. Primarily there was I guess really it is just back to
some call of duty to take a work from Assassin's Creed. Back to call
of duty because they brought back Fortunes Keep, which is one of the older
maps, and they've added a lot of the war zone thing. It's just
regularly it's a resurgence warzone. Okay, So fortunes Keep was something that they
introduced I think in Warzone one, if that's what you had meant. No,
I really don't remember that name at all. So that's that's why I'm
puzzled. Is I just don't recognize it. It's yeah, it's not I
thought it's fun, but it really wasn't like a staple of a map,
something that's really gonna be cemented in your memory. But we were playing it
and me and Travis we've got to win on duels, which is kind of
cool. But they've added a lot of other things too where you go into
like the main keep. I don't know if people are aware of this,
but they've added like perks Maximo stuff like that, like zombie style perks,
and then they've had it. If you go into the main keep area,
there's an easter egg where you light two torches and then you sit on the
King's chair and then the floor opens up and you go follow like the staircase
down below. Then there's a vault and you have to throw a thermite at
the vault and it lights up a certain pattern and you have to light the
torches to match the pattern. You go in and there's tons of gold and
then like good loop boxes that you can get with good guns and everything like
that. It's really really fun. Is that like a holiday contested spot on
the map? Are tons? Oh yeah, we'll get in there. It's
broo. Me take a long time to do all that, so that's crazy.
You have to be quick. It does We have to fight for and
when we get in there, like we instantly get tons of money at kill
streaks and our guns. Like it's great, and so you have to hold
it. And then you would think the only way out is to go back
up the staircase, but there's a repel that you can take behind you that
goes up and as when you take it, then it opens up a bookcase
in the wall that you can go out to the main map, so no
one can flank you. It's a cool little easter egg. That's really cool.
Cool. Yeah, I definitely want to check that map out. That
sounds fun. Sweet. I was away this weekend, away from home,
so I picked up some things for the Switch, which i've been playing.
One of them is this game called Backpack Hero. I don't know if you've
heard of this game, but I remember following it because it was on like
Steam Early Access. It's been out for like a couple of years, I
guess in early access, but I think it just went one point zero as
of a few months ago, sometime in twenty twenty three, and I just
never got around to it. But this weekend, since I was needing something
on the go, I decided to pick it up and it's a really fun,
interesting roguelike game. The kind of setup of it, there's kind of
the two parts of it. There's the good dungeon crawling part and then there's
like in between runs where you're building up a town. But the main conceit
of the game is it's all the gameplay is mostly based around I kind of
Resident Evil or like Diablau inventory system where you have those specific spots in your
grid and some things take only one spot, where it's like a beer weapon
will maybe take like three spots, and then you have things that are like
diagonal or twisted, and so it's kind of like a management game of trying
to fit all the as you're going through the dungeon, trying to fit interesting
weapons different spots, and then like slotting in whatever kind of healing you can
fit in the sides, and as you're going through your expanding your backpack and
you can fit more things in there. And I'm just like, I'm only
what maybe two hours in or something, but I'm just amazed at how much
variety there is so far in it, where you have different runs where you
start with different weapon classes and stuff, and that will there's all sorts of
mechanics of like, okay, archers, you kind of have to put your
bow on the left side of your backpack, and then you want to put
your arrows to the right of that, and then you want to leave like
empty space and then you'll deal more damage. So you're trying to like organize
your pockets and upgrade your backpack in a way that you can maximize that type
of damage. And then like magic is kind of all about making lines between
items, so the magic kind of surges through all these different items in your
inventory, or like armor, you kind of want to bundle it to get
so you're trying to come up with interesting ways to tetris and jangle all these
pieces to fit in the right way. So that's like a really fun gameplay
loop. And like I said, a lot of variety just in terms of
weapons and classes. It's really dense, Like there's so many icons in this
game when I'm still learning stuff all the time, is very confusing at first,
but I think the first couple of runs you have a pretty simple class
and you know you're still find a lot of things, so it makes it
at least it kind of breaks you into the mold into the I guess flow
of gameplay in a pretty good way. But yeah, just tons of variety,
really really fun, and yeah, I just haven't played like a new
interesting roguelike in a while, and this is such an interesting gameplay method.
So as you're going through and clicking all these things, you are doing battles,
but you're pretty much just like clicking on things in your inventory, like
clicking on your sword and then you'll strike or click on your shield to get
prepared to defend, or clicking on your healing and whatnot. So yeah,
really interesting, weird game. I think it's like twenty bucks or something,
so definitely recommend it. And then there's the other part of it where in
between runs you're kind of building up your town. This is the part I'm
less interested in so far, and I'm hoping it will get a bit better.
It kind of seems like something that was added later on. Like even
the art there is a lot less interesting and good than I think the pixelart
of the standard like dungeon crawling part of it, and it just seems like
a lot of incremental like put down this wood shop and it'll build five wood
every run, and it's like that's such a small amount. It means like
nothing to me, and I guess like once you have a hundred of them,
then they create so much wood that that helps you build out other stuff.
So I don't know. Maybe I'll get more into that when I'm deeper
in, but right now it's just like getting quests from people in the village
and going into the dungeon and trying to accomplish different goals or trying to do
different challenges and whatnot. So yeah, Backpack Hero really really cool, interesting
game, and I definitely recommend it for the Switch. It's a really good,
just kind of a game to play on the go, and you don't
really need to play it on the big screen before what the art style is
here, So shout us to that one. That's pretty cool. I also
started Hades. I don't think I want to talk about that yet because I've
only played a tiny bit of it, But of course that's a huge roguelike
that I still haven't got to, so I need to get to that more
at some point. I'll share that on the future on a future podcast.
But the other one that I've been playing, which is actually on Xbox Game
Pass here is toem t o E m and then there might be a subtitle
in there. Have you have you seen this one when you're bumping around that
library? No? Pull it up? Yeah, I don't. I don't
know how long it's been on there. It might have been a recent ad,
or maybe I just finally decided to download it and check it out.
But this came out a couple of years ago as well. It's an indie
game, and I am freaking loving it so far. Once again, like
a couple hours in. I don't think it's a super long game, but
I could be surprised. But essentially, the art style is like all black
and white. It's kind of very cartoony like look like almost look pant like
comic panels or something like that is the art style there, like Nickelodeon,
I guess, but like black and whites that gives a different vibe. And
you're in these locations. You start it in like a kind of a town
air and then you're going to a beachside sort of area and you're the core
of the gameplay is you're taking pictures of things. So it might start out
pretty simple of someone is asking you to take a picture of like a mossy
stone and then acts, So you just have to go around the area,
try and find these things that they're asking for, take a picture of it,
and then bring it back to them. But then it gets a lot
more complicated, and there's all sorts of other quests that come in there,
and you're trying to find things and unlock like secret entrances and solve little puzzles
here there, or you're trying to get like maybe you want someone to have
a specific reaction, that's the picture you need. Do you have to figure
out how to make them react in that certain way by doing these things,
and you're unlocking different items, like eventually get a tripod so that way you
can put your camera down and go take a picture of yourself in the distance,
and so you have to like specifically put yourself in locations and whatnot.
But yeah, really great game. I think the art style is super cute
and which is perfect for a photography game. It reminds me a lot of
Chickory, which is another game I really that I finally got to last year,
another indie game. But it's just like pretty simple puzzles, but a
ton to do in these small little environments to explore around, and you know
what, This game is freaking funny, and not many games are funny.
I feel like Calmedy doesn't come across the world, but it's like the characters
are so weird and eccentric, and then the art style mixed in there,
and then like the voice acting, which is just sounds like the developers making
like like dirty little noises and then putting modulators in on them, and it's
it's just such a funny and like charming game. So yeah, definitely worth
checking out. I don't know how much it typically is, but yeah,
we're over there on game Pass, so an easy, easy pickup. How
did you spell it again? Sorry? T O E M. And then
yeah, I swear there's a subtitle too, so let me see a photo
adventure there you go. That's probably a yeah, a photo adventure. That's
the one I think. Well on Steam is just just toe the the photo
adventures on there. Maybe that's just part of the thumbnail that they put that
extra little note in there, but yeah, great, big show out to
that one, really really fun game. I'm definitely gonna play through the rest
of it. So yeah, I think those are the two kind of indie
indie shout outs. I had for this week's episode. So how about we
get right into Skull and Bones here. So this game's finally, As I
said earlier, coming out had its open beta period where you go in for
free and check out the game. I don't think there was really a limit
to how much you could play the game, right, other than like that
that that period was for five days. But I think you could like go
ham in that five days if you want to put seventy hours in. I
could be wrong about that, But did you bump into any wall at any
point? I didn't bump into a wall. And I noticed that when I
was making port there were some players with huge ships. So I'm thinking,
okay, some people like they did nothing over these five days. They were
they were living a pirate's life. Yeah, but Taylor, if you don't
mind, can I just start with a Ranta? So you know, I
went into this game, I think with like, I didn't really have expectations,
so to speak. But I did not ever see myself playing this game,
just because like, I'm not going to spend seventy dollars to play Skull
and Boats. But then when there's this open beta period and I can go
check out the game for free. I'm like, oh, sure, I'll
go check it out, so I think, And I didn't even know about
that until like a few days before it was happening. So I went,
and I'm like, oh, I'm fresh. Like I've seen a couple of
trailers. I've got overwhelmed, but like, I'm totally down to see what
this is. Like, I love to see of Thieves. That's a great
game, so to see something else in this sort of setting with a slightly
different gameplay is something I'm into. Very bad verse impression because I tried to
boot up the game and then my Xbox just like had this green, glitchy
screen and I could hear the sound, but it was like these green boxes
everywhere and black lines, and I'm like, man, it fucking skull and
bones like bricked my console. I am gonna be so freaking mad that I
decided to give this thing a shot and destroyed my console. Thankfully, I
just had to turn my Xbox off and back on and then it worked,
and then it took like a while to load in all the online elements of
the game, but eventually I was able to get in there. This demo,
this I don't know if it's just this beta, or if this is
how the game typically starts, I would imagine this is just the regular game
releases as is. You're like, drop into this big battle and there's a
bunch of ships burning, falling into the water, and it's I think it's
it's supposed to be kind of like a cold open. You know, trailers
will just throw like ten seconds of intensity, or like a movie will have
a huge ten minute fight sequence and then it kind of slows down and gets
into the more. Here's actually the story Skull and Bones kind of does a
similar thing. You're dropping in to this huge battle, you're learning how to
fight, and it's long, and within like two or three minutes, I
was like, man, I am bored at this combat, Like I am
immediately just completely. My mind is turned off here. I'm not thinking about
anything. It's so simplistic, and I was like, oh, this is
this is not good. And then at some point during that they eventually overwhelmed
me put so many ships that you I believe supposed to die there, and
then you like wake up and then you have like the true start, kind
of like a dark soul as how A lot of the games have that sort
of start to it, and then at this point and then you on,
you're on your this dirty little raft and you just have to go. You
just have to go. There's an objective mark away in the distance. No
joke. It took me probably longer than that common sequence, like ten minutes
how to put my saale down and move. There's like no button prompt on
the screen anywhere. And the funniest part about this is that there's like other
players in the world open area whatever at this point. So I'm seeing like
three or four other players, and they're all just durply like tilting on space,
like in their one standing still spot without being able to drop those sales
as me. So I'm like, this is clearly not just me, and
hopefully Taylor, hopefully you didn't have that same moment of not being able to
figure out what freak ad button to hit to move. But yeah, I
swear to clit every button on my controller multiple times and then eventually it just
worked. And I saw that for a couple other players, they seem to
have that same experience as me. So I'm like, I don't know why
there's not a button on screen telling you which button to hit in this moment,
So that was a bad first impression. And then I'm going and I
do a couple quests, and you know, it's it's pretty basic. It's
fine. Very quickly, I'm like skipping cuttings. I'm like, I don't
this story, this acting and these like this mo caap is no good.
This game feels pretty old in that way. And then I don't know,
you go around for a bit and then eventually you're kind of dropped on land
and I didn't even really know that this game had that. I thought it
was like that was a thing with it is that it's always on the boat.
You're not really walking around in person. So I guess that changed at
some point and I totally tuned out from the messaging or didn't watch the trailer
that showed that kind of thing. But man, that is I'm surprised they
didn't just cut that completely because moving around on land is like some of the
worst feeling gameplay ever. There's invisible walls everywhere, and you know, it's
giving you these quests to like you have to rebuild your ship. So it's
like, okay, go talk to this guy and then go find some acacia
wood, and I'm looking at my map and I'm like, the wood is
so far away, and I like, I'm trying to go through this little
shortcut here, but it's just just an invisible wall. You can't walk that
way. There's no jump button, so you can't really move at all.
You can't do anything safe. I'm like walking around for a while, cannot
figure out how to get there. There's a waypoint, but it doesn't like
have a thing on the ground to tell you where to go, and I'm
like, man, this is the worst, Like this is just a chore
to do, like the very first question in this game. But then all
of this is like as I'm going through this sequence, I'm starting to realize,
like I'm gonna do all of this just to get to that point that
the cold open was where I'm gonna be fighting on the open seas like this,
and that was boring to me, like almost immediately, So what is
it all for? Why would I do any of this? And I ultimately
decided like, you know what, fuck this game, this game is not
for me, and so I bailed pretty quick. So you know the disclaimer
there that I didn't play a lot of this and this is a beta,
this is gonna be the full game, though, there's no difference they're gonna
make in four days of the game being out there, So this is gonna
be the same as the full game, I'm certain of it. Hopefully they
put a freaking button on there to tell you how to move your ship.
But man, Taylor, this, like I said, I when it was
such like no expectations, not even low expectations, and this game just wildly
disappointed me. So I don't know what to say. I did not play
much and I will never play the game again. That's that's where I stood.
So I have some more specific details we could talk about, but that
was my that was my rant there. I am. I am not a
Skull and Bones fan. I will go back and play Your Thieves any day
of the week, over spending seventy dollars to play more of this freaking game.
Wow, holy smokes. That's uh. I'm sorry that it was such
a bad time. What was What was your experience like with the game?
And I how much I guess how much have you played? Would be my
first question? Roughly, I I put in a I put in a few
hours. Actually, okay, I I was not digging how it started but
I was determined and telling myself, like, Okay, there has to be
a silver lining. It's got to get better. Because when that when that
first that first mission starts and overwhelming force, like you get destroyed in first
second, I thought like, man, did I just get killed? Like
do I got to redo this? Yeah? Fucking kidding me. I was
not happy with that. But then I thought I saw, okay, no,
we're getting into the main storyline. I was supposed to fail. These
pirates just decide they rescue you, and then they just dem you their captain,
which is a really poor story if you ask me. Uh, And
then you have this tiny little ship. And I didn't want the tiny ship.
I wanted the big ship. I wanted to get right into it.
Yeah, but no, they start you off small, and I understand that
because you go to one of the you get to like the Pirates city or
whatever it's called, and then you can see, okay, you buy ships
or you have to build ships, get blueprints and when whatnot. So I
was determined. I did the missions, and I got a bigger ship.
It's this one up from the smaller one, and really I actually really liked
it once I got that and I was able to do some more quests and
get some cannons on there, cannons on the front, canons on left and
right. Really, that's when it started to really feel like, Okay,
now I can I enjoy this because this is this is my own ship,
and I've been able to cosmetically enhance it and really suit it up to how
I like. And so I really I really indulged in that, enjoyed that
quite quite a bit. So getting out there getting money destroying other ships was
exceptionally easy. I wish that there was maybe a bit more of a challenge
on that regard, but I loved it being an open world and seeing other
people with their ships sailing around, and I love seeing that this island is
being attacked and there's like a fleet of ships that are attack on the island.
And then this one guy was in his ship just fighting it off fire
and cannon. It's like, you know, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna
help, And so both me and him are like just slide by side,
Pirates of the Caribbean style, just going at it. And I was like,
man, this is pretty cool. I'm really I'm really digging with this
and I can see where you can create your own parties and you can have
your own fleet of friends and just like go ham and take out like ten
ships. That's really really interesting to me, and that's those are the kind
of things I really enjoyed in this beta. But it's very repetitive. The
combat is not great. You can choose to destroy a ship and loot the
loot out of the water, or you can just be zoomed in when you're
near a ship and you can cast your lines to do a boarding and there's
nothing, there's really any difference that I could tell. The boarding is super
fucking frustrating because I'll be side by side with the ship and I hit why,
and you see all the hooks go out and they land in the water,
and there's no way that you can time it to increase your chances of
grappling on in boarding, it's all just as far as I can tell,
it's random. You just keep hitting that button and hope for the hooks to
go and land on it. Once the hooks land on the ship, then
you begin the boarding. You don't like an animation, like you're not actually
going into just an animation. Nothing not Assassin's Creed Black flag style, and
I've seen a lot of a lot of controversy about this where people are like,
oh, there's not even any boarding or anything like that. This is
But then I see other people saying, well, black flag people wanted to
kind of drift away from that and have more of just the ship battling experience
out there on the ocean, And thought, okay, well, there's pros
and cons to this, I guess, depending on where you stand and what
you wanted. But I don't like that boarding thing. I think that it's
just it's aggravating, it's annoying. A pro with the ship combat, I
liked how you can unlock blueprints for different types of cannons and then you can
put those cannons on different parts of the ship, So your left side of
the ship you can have close range, the right side of the ship can
be long distance mortars whenever you want. And it's very seamless, which I
appreciate. When you have your cannons up front and you're aiming on the front
and you're firing, and then as your shift or your ship drifts to the
side, then it just seamlessly transitions to your side cannons. When you're engaging
in combat. It's really really nice, and I like that you can also
control your speed while you're zoomed in and controlling your cannons. That's really handy
to I didn't run into the issue that you had where you're trying to get
your sales going. Uh. For me, it was just trying to figure
out how to properly navigate the UI and figure out, Okay, how do
I select this quest? How can I track this affair? What these supplies
are? Because I just this is fucking horrible. I don't know where else
supposed to go. And after the main first mission, I think I spent
just too much time trying to figure out how to do how did do some
of the quests at the start. But once you once you figure it out,
and once you get going and you get your ship upgraded, then like
I said before, things just come easily. You get money and everything.
How did so where you're at now with the ship upgrade you have and the
cannons you got, how did how was? How does that compare in complexity
to that like cold open section? Like would you say you've surpassed like the
ship that you had in that opening? Or or I feel like I okay,
I feel like I've surpassed or am kind of identical. I'd say I
surpassed just because I've I've upgraded my ship's cannons. That's good. I was
I was fearful if that was like a very late game kind of ship,
But it sounds like sounds like not, which is a good thing too,
because then hopefully there's a lot more complexity to the combat as well, because
what you said of it being simplistic, I definitely agree with. I mean,
I like the I like that the cannons have that sense of gravity to
them, and it can be farther away someone is like, you really got
to lead your shot and you're moving, they're moving, so that gets pretty
complicated pretty quickly. But yeah, hopefully there's some other good stuff other than
like I don't sound like the boarding element wasn't great, but hopefully there's some
other cool weapons that you get along the way. There definitely is. I
mean, I don't know if I've seen all of them, but I just
could see certain ones that the smith the smithies what he was, what he
was offering, and there are some cool there were some cool weaponryes, but
I didn't really have a proper understanding of what certain supplies do. I feel
like, oh my god, there's so much like crafting and there is,
yeah, all this stuff, there really is, But i'd like to I
wish I had more time because I'd like to get a bigger ship. That
would have been one of my goals, just to try and really push it
and get that larger ship. But when I looked at the schematics, there's
there was I think at least like seven or eight different types of ships that
you could go go through. And I saw again other people had bigger ships
in the harbor, and you can circulate them too. You can have fleets
of ships. You can move cargo between ships as well, and can you
have you know, I think it was ten ships. That's good. I
think you could probably do double double down on like multiple the same type of
class of ship or something. I was looking at their roadmap for things to
come and there was something about fleets as well. I'll bring that up later,
we can look at it. Yeah, it sounds like maybe even more
improvements to that. I don't know if that would just be capacity or just
other other features, but that sounds good. That sounds even better than Starfield's
option how many ships you could have. Yeah, one thing I really like,
you know, because see if Thieves. I love it. It's a
very different kind of game, much more cartoony and silly. But obviously like
whatever the max size, like I think it's four people on that you can
like really have commanded to ship. You know, that's not very realistic how
many people are actually controlling these ships. And that's one thing I did like
about this is when you're cruising around or you're doing your combat, is just
seeing all your little guys, like they look like little guys, you know,
running around at the front, or maybe they're running to the sales like
pull on stuff or activating the cannons. That was something that I found pretty
enjoyable. Not I don't know how much you're like hiring those people are picking
people specifically, but even just like the visual of it, I thought was
pretty engaging Like that, it just makes it feel like a very sim sort
of game, which is which is good. You can change their outfits,
you can get different customized outfits for them, and you can also get like
the whole fleet. Not I'm guessing you can't like pick like just I think
for just for the crew for the ship. Yeah, that's yeah, and
then you get pets too. They have like lemurs and there's like a cat
with like a wooden leg that you can get on there too, stuff like
that. So they would just kind of they don't really do much gameplay wise,
more more of a cosmetic thing. It sounds like I think it's only
cosmetic. Yeah, yeah, interesting. What did you think about the because
I was fighting a shark at one point. That was the only creature I
was fighting. Have you seen any more creatures? No, sharks are the
only ones I've seen. Yeah, and have you How do you fight them?
I guess when you have your bigger ship now, do you still fight
them? No? Like I see them, but I just kind of like
sail past them. They don't do anything. I don't even think I could
really shoot them necessarily. Yeah. I'm gonna bring up the roadmap here because
that seems to be like a big part of how they plan to uh roll
this game into the future. Is with is with more let me see.
I don't know if you can read that super well, but just gets me
excited looking at this. Oh my goodness, yeah, like all of these
have or did I say legendary sea Monster. Legendary Sea Monster. The first
one. There's a in a Kingpin Tyler saurus right, all that in one
of their trailers actually, so yeah, it makes me like, I don't
know if that's just the same sort of combat or if there would be different
things you're doing, because you're obviously needs like a little harpoon to fight that
sharp that's kind of just before you even have a ship proper, is when
that kind of stuff's coming in. Yeah, i'd be curious. I mean
bigger, these guys would obviously be much bigger to fight, and it would
kind of be easier to use your cannons. I would not want to go.
I mean, it'd be funny to go up against these bosses in the
little harpoon boat just to see what would happen. But yeah, I guess
you could put one of those in your fleet and do that as a as
a challenge or something to yourself. And yeah, like most of this this
roadmap, which is this is the year one road maps, I think each
one of these seasons is supposed to be three months long. That would make
most sense. Yeah, Like the first one obviously is pretty filled out because
that's going to be coming soon, and the later ones just says like a
new major feature, new major features, Like, well, what does that
really mean? I think a Halloween event. It sounds like it would be
really fun. Fleet management, that's what I was talking about. I don't
really know what that entails exactly, but that's the thing. And then battle
against like specific characters, other cosmetics, and apparently the season pass road map
stuff is all free. And then maybe there's like just paid cosmetic micro transactions.
I don't, Oh, this is rich in micro transactions. Yeah,
Like do you have to pay for the season pass? Though in the way
that like other like a Marvel Snap or Call of Duty or whatever make you
pay for some of that stuff. I don't think you'd be selfist drifted away
from like to two wards free seasons passes. Even with Assassin's Creed, I'm
pretty sure you pay for all that stuff. Yeah, because that's the thing.
Like I guess they've never they've never talked about Assassin's Creed is a live
service game though, right, that's true, they haven't. That's the difference
here where they're really peddling this as a live service game. And that was
another article I had brought up, which I thought was funny where the CEO
was talking about the game and in the article they're like asking, like,
why is this a seventy dollars game? It's the live service game with all
these micro transactions and stuff, and he says that you will see that Skull
and Bones is a fully fledged game. It's a very big game, and
we feel that people will really see how vast and complete that game is.
It's a really full triple A, no quadruple A game that will deliver it
in the long run, which is just like I feel like that's becoming more
and more of a thing. Is CEOs and stuff using quadruple A as like
a marketing term when it really has no meaning. I mean, you know,
double a, triple A, all these things are. They don't really
have like set in stone meetings and more just it's more of like a feel
thing of like team size and budget of games of course, But I hate
that we're throwing around quadruple A. I feel like that's just a justification for
this game taking ten hundred years to develop. But yeah, I'm very curious
to see how the live service element of this game is going to go.
I just don't I just don't see it having that kind of life cycle to
it, And I think comparing it to Assassin's Screen where they have these really
big DLC packs that are pretty expansive, and even like I was seen with
this Skull and Bones when it seems like dipping more into like fantasy elements,
like not deep in fantasy, but the way that you were talking about with
Valhalla, how you're like, I don't really like that all these like that's
what the DLC is is getting less realistic and more into fantasy, and it
seemed like a similar sort of trajectory. But then so then I'm wondering,
like, well, what really is the difference then between this being a live
service game and these new Assassin's Creed games not It doesn't really makes sense to
me, mm hmm. And maybe maybe that's just because of history, because
Assassin's Creed hasn't always been that way, whereas Skull and Bones is the new
IP and they got to bring it up in this new way. One of
my concerns, and you just you quickly alluded to it there. I think
the longevity of just the community engaged in playing this game. I don't think
it's gonna be there, and I fear this could be like an anthem kind
of scenario, which is upsetting us. Another reason why I'm not investing in
this and media h I was gonna ask you about that. Have you decided
after this sounds like you're into it but not enough to make the purchase.
To be honest, I would wholeheartedly make the plunge and do it, but
at my only con as to why I'm not is the fact that I think
the community's just not gonna be there. I don't think that it's gonna pop
off. And well, while I was playing the debata, there was a
lot of people actually playing Yeah, but I think that a lot of those
people are not going like yourself, they're not gonna be getting the main game
that's gonna be Yeah. I wonder I feel like this game is still gonna
have at least like a few months of popularity, and like maybe even through
those first two seasons would have like a pretty active player base, and then
I don't know, if that content's really good, maybe people stick around,
But I feel like how many times this game's got delayed, Like I don't
know, it was part of those delays that they could really build a lot
of that content before the game's even out, and that way they can really
make sure they hit those deadlines of these seasons being every three months. But
it's like if you start pushing that stuff and like, oh, sorry,
we're not ready for season three, come back in two more months, and
if there's no new content drop in that time and people have hit max level
and they've done all their upgrades, then even like the fans at that point
might just start dipping. And then by that time, three more live service
games will have come out and maybe they've hopped on a new one and that
one's bigger and better. Like it just it feels like an uphill battle for
sure. And so I guess it's maybe it's the online element too of why
they're calling this a live service game rather than just a game that has DLC,
because I don't know, like I guess what the I need the content
you're doing, Like everything was optional for multiplayer, right, Like obviously these
random events in this world, like that's that's cool. Only stuff that's gonna
happen to multplayer, hopefully when there's a lot of players around. But it's
not like there's quests like that are you know, you need to have a
group of four to go do, right. I hope not. I really
hope not. I mean that that would suck if you want to face the
meg you want to face that to that trick, to whatever source you need,
at least up and party size of four. I would be so crushed.
I want to do things solo. Well, yeah, like I have
to think that allow you to do that kind of thing. So when you
pick up this game ineviably when it's twenty dollars on sale a year from now,
a lot of that contents out and then like hopefully you have like a
huge game, as he's saying, a quadruple a game to play and like
have all this content if it makes it, I don't know, like that
stuff they wouldn't timegate hopefully hopefully just in the game and you can access it
whenever you want. Yeah, what was the exploration like for you? Since
you've played a lot more than me, because you know, you do an
early area there, like that intro dutorial area, and then you like you
just go to the water at some point. Then it's like a loading screen
but like alviously there's like no wall or door you're going through, but it
just loads into a new area. It's like, how seamless is the exploration
or you've only mainly just been bumping around in the same area or two.
I found it to be pretty seamless because I'd be I would leave and go
to other not I guess islands is a proper term, like larger, bigger,
bigger islands, and it's just like, Oh, you unlocked a new
region here, and you go out there and you find new fleets of ships
you can loot from and whatnot. The little ship there were certain areas and
I didn't understand it because it was like, oh, your ship isn't strong
enough to handle this, and like the waves are doing damage. I haven't
had that happen with a bigger ship, at least not yet. But I
found the exploration to be kind of fun. I thought it was kind of
weird how you harvest things. You go up next to resources on an island
and you just have to like time it where you harvest like the resources off
of like trees and whatnot. I thought it was kind of kind of lame.
It works for what they're trying to do, but uh, is that
similar to like the I think it was like a lock picking mini. I'm
trying to remember what it was that you do in that tutorial section, but
there's some like timing puzzle you like hit the grid. It's like trying to
get like the charge shot and strikers pretty much, right. Yeah, yeah,
so that's the same thing you're talking about for like these bananas whatever.
Same thing, yeah, forgetting like the bananas, getting all those kind of
resources, which I'm not a fan of. So, but I mean when
you're on the island, I mean, you're only exploring one island. But
well, there's not even really that much exploring to do when you're on like
on foot and not on your ship. It's really much like you said,
like a lot of like walls and all that. Has that got any more
interesting at all? Though? No, I just I just really got lost,
kind of like rumming ju arounds through through there and trying to figure out
where things are. And I'm hoping, I'm hoping they add more places we
can go on out on your own. I thought that when I was going
near certain islands, Okay, I get to dock here and then I can
leave the ship and I can walk around. This will be so cool.
But no, that's not the case, Okay, it's only specific like loading
zone areas where you it's only yeah, those those safe ports I guess where
you can't do combat and you disembark and whatnot. Yeah, I guess that's
not super shocking to me, just based on like how many invisible walls there
were just in that main city that it's yeah, not shocking to me that,
like they wouldn't go through the effort of figuring out how to make all
these areas work when I don't know if most of them are just supposed to
be just areas you're passing by and they're supposed to look visually good from Afar,
but you're not supposed to actually go on the my that makes sense,
but I can see why that would be disappointing. I think for me,
it's like the movement on land was so bad that I don't necessarily want to
do more of that, but like from the variety side of things, I
would want that. Or if it's a game that I'm investing in, it's
quadruple a game. You know, let me go on that freaking iron and
seeing over there. I'm pretty sure that the walking around is an afterthought.
I think that they put it in after the fact, because when this game
was unveiled, I'm pretty sure it was just like fivey five PvP and pirate
ships and now it's got open world and it's got walking around outside your ship
all those things. Yeah, it it feels like that when you're playing the
game, and it feels like it's changed direction a bunch of times in the
past to get to to where it is now, and it's it's weird that
like, Okay, this is what they finally decided to ship with. This
is where they were like, Okay, we're happy with this. And I
don't know, I don't see anything on that roadmap of like better ground stuff,
but like they're not gonna say they're going to like admit in their roadmap
that like moving around the ground sucks and is not fun. So I don't
know, I don't know if that is a thing. Looking at the roadmap
again, like I don't know, I don't Maybe that's what a major new
feature is and they're just not talking about it, but I have to imagine
that, like, well, you know, at the very worst, like
just focus on what you're good at, focus on what the game's strengths are,
and that's probably ship combat and ship exploration and getting new ships and then
teaming up with people, especially when like it's not like there's any guns or
swords right when you're walking around on land, like there's no combat there now,
which is like it's too bad in the way because even like see if
thieves, like that's not great. That's not a great part of that game.
It's very limited in terms of that combat as well. It's more fun
to do the ship stuff. But at least there is some of that where
is this game just doesn't even have that? So it feels feels weird.
It does, it really does. I saved a screenshot of my pirate Would
you like to see him? Oh, I'd love to Yeah, okay,
here here he is. Oh wow, you have like a call of duty
like ghost mask going on there. Yeah. I saw it. I thought,
oh, he's that's pretty cool. I gave him the classic pirate boots.
I like that that pirate style. It's not like your classic pirate hat.
It's like like you're out, you're like it's kind of like a Japanese
like rain hat exactly. Yeah, like something that they'd be wearing out there,
and then some van braces. This has got a little Assassin's Creed inspiredness
to it. But but yeah, I was. I was enjoying decking them
out. I don't know if it serves any benefit when you're actually on your
ship, but I get satisfaction walking around like that instead of like just when
you start off with your character. You know, your chest is hanging out
with this ragged like shirt and you wear it looks like you're wearing like a
sail You know, you don't got pants, you don't got footwear, like
you're just you're just scraps. Yeah, so I had to change that up
fast. No, I think it. You know, the benefit could be
that people like griefers out on the open seas, they might see you and
feel like, I don't want to fuck with that guy. I don't want
to mess with him. What is that of it? Like the online because
I think when I was going through one guy just started attacking me and then
he seems like he just got bored. But yeah, like is it like
see if he's in that way where like any of these online players can just
start killing you anytimes. Is they're like safe zones danger zones? How does
that work? I haven't had anyone come at me actually and fight with me.
I've just I've I've just have you instigated? Have you thought like I
deserves a can into the back? No? I mean I thought like,
this person is trying out the beta. I thought, why am I going
to ruin their experience. Let's just let them do their own thing. I
want to do my own thing. So I was only killing computer players.
So the only safe zones I noticed are at port when you're going to an
area where you're gonna disembark, and then it has like the boys and it's
like, yeah, this is a safe zone, no combat, but everything
outside of that it's you can fight. I just I didn't even notice crossfire
shots hitting other players doing damage. So I wonder if there's certain areas because
I know, for example, the Division, it's a whole multiplayer online world,
and then there's the dark zone where you can go into that, and
then that specific area is PvP, right, So maybe that's something that would
be Skull and Bones related, like, oh, you're gonna go to this
part of the ocean, this is like a PvP area, better loot that
you can get, but it's also you can get killed and they can loot
you. That's cool, and that would make sense as something that they don't
maybe open you up to right away, like they let you play for a
few hours, get some upgrades before you do that, because that could be
frustrating for new players. If you're just trying to do a basic fetch quest
and you're getting destroyed by random players who are seventy hours in over the course
of five days, that could be frustrated. Yeah, I want to go
back to the character creator. You know, it's pretty limited, like there's
not a lot of options, which ultimately doesn't really matter because how often you're
gonna really see your character up closed. It looks like just from your image
alone, like you can get some fun clothing options, and I'm sure that's
gonna be a better part. And I think for a pirate game, that's
more what you want. You want the clothing, the masks, the hats,
the parrots on the shoulder, that stuff that's like more important than the
character creator. But one thing I thought was really funny, Well, one
thing I thought was cool, and then one thing I thought it was funny
was when you're making your character, you're like looking into a reflection on like
a puddle. Oh yeah, like a plank, which is like I like
that. I like that it's contextualized in the world. I like when games
do that, Like you know, follow out. It's like you go to
your bathroom in your house, and that's where you look at yourself in the
mirror and customize your character. So I like when a game has like a
context for why you're doing that. But then it's funny, like there's a
couple of the things in there that are like one of them is picking your
body type, and you can pick out your body size, but like you
can only see your face, like you can barely even see your neck,
So I'm like, what am I even picking here? I could like you
have just a little icon, can't really tell. And then there's certain things
where it's like scars and tattoos and some of them like I don't think are
on your face. I'm like, I don't know where this is or what
it looks like. It's a weird choice here, And once again, I
didn't know if it was something where I just don't have the button that I'm
supposed to click in order to pull the screen out. But I tried everything
to zoom out and see my character's full body, but I couldn't do that,
so that was a goofy thing that happened. But yeah, it's cool
to see that there is some good customization at least like even early on for
you, and especially as a free to play player. Hopefully there's some good
options there and you don't have to cosmetic micro transaction your way into all the
cool stuff there, I guess. So another question, so you you mentioned
some of the looking at some of the weapons and things you could unlock through
that trader guy, Like, what what kind of things does it seem like
there's gonna be for like weapon combat outside of basic cannons that you've seen.
Well, there's your standard mid range canons of course, and that looks like
there were some mortar ones, and there was stuff that do heavy damage really
up close and personal. There there was a lot of like specific damage types
and ranges. Like, so you have like a lot of different types of
canons, I guess would be a lot of different types of cannons, and
then you have different types of armor as well, so you can get different
types of armor that I needed to explore a little bit more, but because
I only had access to two different types, but it seems like it protects
your ship against different types of attacks. Ramming is also a thing, and
if I remember correctly, I want to say that the type of ship you
have is more set up for being a ramming ship as opposed to actually getting
like weapons for it. If that makes sense, then I think that goes
hand in hand with certain ships being more set up as like a class.
Certain ships are going to be much faster and maybe you want them to be
healing ships or something like that, so right, or yeah, if you
if you have a quest where you know you just have to go a long
way to pick an object, maybe you use your speed boat for that situation.
Or if you're going to go into the PvP zones that we're theorized on,
like maybe that's where you obviously use your your big scary ship. That
would make sense. Mm hmm. That's good that you're canna have a bunch,
as you mentioned, like upwards of ten in your in your fleet there
that you can just just switch out whenever you want. That's good. They
put little cut scenes in there too, which is cool. When you buy
the cannons, it shows like the smithy guys forging the cannon, which is
cool when you buy it ship. It shows the people the pirates like building
the wood and planks and building your ship. So I like those things.
It gets old fast, but I still like it. Right. I'm sure
you can do a bunch of stuff too, like changing the color of your
sales and putting different logos or emblems on there, and changing the color of
the wood and all these things as well, and obviously mentioned changing the the
look of your characters. Are the clothing on the on the crewmates, so
that's a good stuff as well. Yeah, they have, they have all
of that, and it's it's really really nice. I like going for a
this black and red kind of theme. You can get like these brutal spikes
sticking out the sides of your ship, not for any actual damage. It's
just purely cosmetic. You can get obviously like that wouldn't do more like with
ramming. With ramming, you you would think, and I mean maybe it
did, but it's just listen, it listed as cosmetic. So I'm not
one hundred percent sure you can get cool, as you said, emblems on
your sales. So I got a couple of those. I did, like
the red and black kind of color scheme. And then you can get a
piece of statue kind of thing on the front of your ship, and then
you can get it's like almost like a bumper sticker. You can stamp like
this big wooden sign on the back of your ship like pirateers stuff like that
to fun little little saying. So there's lots of fun little things nice.
I guess maybe the last thing I'm curious about was just your take on the
story or like the characters in you. And I feel like a lot of
live service games maybe have a short campaign like Suicide Squad teams to have that
or Avengers had that. You do that, and then you're like dropped into
the live service games and service sort of situation where you have kind of endless,
endlessly you generated missions and whatnot. So I don't know, like did
you get that vibe from this game, like is there kind of a set
campaign or story or is it more of just like, yeah, you're doing
random quests just whatever feels like most interesting at that time. Which way would
you say goes? It definitely felt like just random quests. I know,
point felt like I was connected to the story or these characters. I had
pirates telling me like, oh, you got to work your way up because
all these pirates here they don't like you. There's some new new like there's
a rep system in this game, so make sure you're doing stuff. And
I didn't care for it. I didn't care for the story. I didn't
connect with any of these characters. So yeah, that's something that's different between
Black Flag. Obviously Assassin's Creed is Assassin's Creed game and you get into those
characters. But even the pirates that they introduce that you just you really connect
with them, and they're familiar pirates. And I'm not saying we need familiar
pirates in here, like big names, but I think the most of most
of the part, most part of the story, most part. For the
most part, you're on a ship, and your ship is basically your main
character more than your character on the island. So who do you have to
connect with? Yeah? No, I mean I feel like that's such a
big part of pirate media, is like these eccentric characters and these personality types.
I don't know, it just feels like such a distinct part of it
is. That's what adds to the culture of it, not just being the
boat part and the fact that they went the extra mile to include this ground
element where you're walking around towns, talking to people, exploring a little bit,
which even if it's not very good, you know it's still in there,
so you'd make it. Probably think that they would want to focus on
that, especially if the crew members on your ship are all like nameless individuals
and you're just your captain. I guess once again, this goes into the
idea of like, oh, Fallout seventy six, we don't need NPCs because
you're gonna run into other players and that's how you're gonna interact with people in
the world. And I get that idea to a certain extent, but yeah,
that feels in this game. It just feels like they even have characters
and they're trying that, but they're just not succeeding at it. And that
was definitely the perspective I had too early on, just like none of these
characters were particularly grabbing me in an interesting way, So that's too bad.
I mean, it seems like that's a big part of their Once again,
looking at that roadmap, like the top section of it was like, here's
this big new what I assume to be like famous pirate and it's cool,
like they're all different nationalities and so you get a good variety there. But
yeah, I wonder if that's something they're gonna try and build up more or
maybe just once again. Later on in the game there's like these bigger name
pirates that have more of a personality, I guess, and then they add
some more stakes to this combat. I don't I don't know. I don't
have high hopes for that, but maybe that's something they can line down the
line. Taylor, anything else that we haven't mentioned yet. I appreciate the
sea shantys as you just sail along and your crew just starts to like go
at it, like we're going hard and the sea shanties just come in.
I really enjoy that. It's fun. I love seeing the world. I
love how you see lightning storms in the distance. That's really cool. There
are certain times where I had to realize like wow, like I thought everything
was really stable, environment, calm, I guess, I could say,
and then all of a sudden I was in combat. The waves were like
heavy and you're going up and down, and it's like, Okay, this
is cool. This is at world's end. Davy Jones versus Black Pearl going
on right now, and so that was really cool. But I guess closing
for me, the lack of instruction for how to get from point A to
point B is horrendous. There's a lot of things that you just have to
wing and guess well, I didn't I understood how to pull my sales out.
I didn't understand how the speed factoring works when you can like go faster,
and how you have a limited bar of energy that allows you to go
faster. That's also shared with bracing for impact as well. So there's a
few other little things that they just really need to detail and instruct you on
how to maximize your place your play through because you're just gonna get caught up
in a situation that's gonna make you frustrated. You're not gonna know what to
do for this quest, You're not gonna know how to track. You're just
gonna get stumped and it's gonna ruin your experience. So mm hmmmm, Well,
there you go. Everyone, that is our thoughts on Skull and Bones,
and you might not hear about this one again for a while from us
here, but who knows. I feel like Taylor when this is on sale
far in the future, I could see you picking us up, and I
would be very curious to hear your thoughts on this game, un once it's
had a few months of being out and whatnot. But yeah, I don't
think I will be one of those people. I will not be joining you
out there. If you do want to hit up the c's, just let
me know. I'll redownload the See if These any day and play that game
because that game is great. But yeah, thank you for joining me,
Thank you everyone for listening, And like I said, next week, we'll
be back for some juicy Xbox stuff as well as whatever else we're talking about
here. So thank you everyone for listening. We'll see you again next time.
Bye bye bye