Hello, and welcome to side Quests. This is our video game show here
at Geek First. I'm your host and marcaster Delmas Night with me the Geek
kirkla Patzer. How's it going, my friend, it's going very good.
Uh. Spent the morning skiing and now well, I guess technically snowboarding.
But now now I'm here to talk about some fun stuff with you. It's
just easier to say ski, you know, it's rhyme, just rolls off
the tongue a little bit easier. It's the so much easier than snowboard ski.
It's like ski, I don't know, I'm pretty tired ski snowboard,
I guess snowboarding and you're you're you're, you're shaving off one syllable. So
you know if that that could add up over the course of a lifetime potentially
exactly. Yes. Yeah, today we have a fun almost a bonus episode.
This is this is coming out on the actual like regular side quest release
date. Uh. But yeah, this is gonna be a what we've been
playing episode. We're gonna talk about Bulgers Gate, We're gonna talk about Dragon's
Dogma returnal some Kirby, another game called Dear Esther, so a lot of
a lot of stuff. It should be all very fun. And then yeah,
later this week, probably Thursday or Friday, don't know the exact drop
date yet, is when we're gonna drop our video game draft for the year
of twenty twenty four, So that should be fun. And then next week's
side quest is lined up as well because the Xbox Direct has been announced for
I think January eighteenth or nineteenth, which is gonna have info on Indiana Jones
game, which Kirkland is rumored now to be coming out this year, which
true, and you look at when you look at what that studio has been
working on, it's like, okay, it makes sense that they're ready to
release in twenty twenty four. Since we've only seen like a brief cinematic it's
kind of surprising, but I'm very excited for that. Avowed is also going
to be there hell Blade and Our History I'm told I think that game is
called, So I'm expecting all this to be twenty twenty four releases. However,
we're doing our draft before we actually get that, so that'll be interesting
in terms of how that affects our draft picks. But yeah, I'm very
excited for that. Since you're on Xbox guy, don't. I don't imagine
we'll be joining, but you're welcome to. I'd love to hear your take
on these games. Check the schedule. You're getting close to the final exams
week, so it's getting a little bit stressful here. But yeah, well
yeah, we'll bring in Taylor and Travis or I don't know. I don't
know who, but I'll hopefully have someone next to me. It'd be a
bit sad if I was there by myself. And then what other show does
you know? Check out patron get episodes early and add for you, such
as that draft, for example, recording it Tuesday night. I'll put it
up on Tuesday night on Patreon, but it might, you know, might
not see the feeds for another couple of days. You get that one nice
and early add free episodes as well. And I also want to show this
out that I recently went back through and made a YouTube playlist for all of
Side Quest, which I don't know why I hadn't done, but man,
it took a long time to go back through the feeds and add all these
videos to that playlist. But it's up there now. It's actually the YouTube
has like playlists and then they also have like podcasts. I don't know what
that's supposed to be used for, but I'm like, yeah, I'll put
it as a podcast. So either way, if you go on geek First
YouTube channel, I'll see playlists or podcasts and you should should see side quests
there, so that way you can go back and easily find all the episodes,
because I know we have a ton of releases on our YouTube channel with
the Ultimate Alliance and all that and stuff, so yeah, check that out
as well, and I think with that we're gonna get right into it.
The first thing. This is just a quick shout out, but they announced
that they are making DLC for Sea of Stars, which is going to be
more meaningfully connect the game to The Messenger, which is the studio's previous game
that we already knew was in the same universe, but it was kind of
a not very important connection, and I don't know, in my forty hours
of See the Stars, I didn't see anything that connected to that, and
I think it's very different eras. But anyway, this DLC is supposed to
bring things together in a meaningful way. So what does this do for you?
Kirklan, I don't think you played the Messenger, But does this make
you intrigue to want to, like go finish that game? Now? I
know you kind of got big sidetracked by Boulder's Gate, but do you do
you plan on finishing it? I definitely want, honest I definitely want to.
I feel like I I don't even know if I am halfway through the
game, honestly, but I am like a good chunk in and it was
enough playtime to really get me lashed onto the story and just the characters and
really just feel attached to it. I feel like this is just some good
motivation. Did they say a date on this? I don't think so.
I would well, all they said is that they didn't. They haven't started
on this until like now, until since the game has actually been out,
So I don't know if, depending on the scale of it, it could
be this year, but I would probably say twenty twenty five considering just how
big, and I kind of like, I don't even the Pixar alone in
that game. I feel like every boss would take six months to make,
So I don't know. I feel like I'm gonna guess twenty twenty five.
But who knows, maybe it could be a late twenty twenty four drop.
Okay, yeah, but I was gonna say maybe if I have like a
straight up date, I could try and plan my completion around that time.
But I mean, I'm still plugging away at it a little bit here and
there. Baldersgate definitely is just just the big, the big time sink right
now. But luckily, like I'm just kind of doing a campaign with Shay,
so when I'm not playing with her, that'll be a good reason to
jump into there. But yeah, I have had another game. I was
trying out this this last week, and yeah, just excuse after excuse,
I gotta get you still suns and the queue, all these on the backlog.
There's so many, there's so many games. But yeah, I mean,
obviously it's been long enough now, so I can I feel, okay,
spoiling my Game of the Year list. But Steve Stars was ultimately my
number one game of the Year for twenty twenty three. So whenever this drops,
I will be there day one to check it out. Really excited,
And I did play through the messenger as well. That game kind of has
like a big post game section. I didn't really do that I just kind
of beat the game in the first way and I liked it, but it's
nowhere near like the quality of See the Stars is for me, So I
don't know. Maybe I'll replay that or even just jump back in for an
hour or two just to get a feel for it. But either way,
really exciting stuff. Just just more to get the DLC announcement, not even
so much the messenger part of it. But I still think it's cool when
a studio like this can kind of connect their their different indie games into one
connective universe. So we'll keep an eye on that. Okay, let's talk
about some of the games we been playing. I want to start with this
because man, over the weekend Kirkland, I just downloaded so many things through
game Pass on PC, and I was checking out all sorts of things on
like Switch, like kind of Sitch Online. I just did not know what
I wanted to play, and so I just downloaded a bunch of things and
tried a bunch of different things out, like I checked out City's skylines like
the first one, and my god, just some of the worst saturalization I've
ever seen in the game. When I was looking it up to see if
that was like a thing that other people thought, and people who are you
know, really well versu with the game, we're like, oh, yeah,
I just watch like a few YouTube videos and you'll eventually figure out.
I'm like, I want to play the game. I don't really want to
like watch YouTube videos. Uh so yeah. I I was like, I'm
out of here pretty quick. I downloaded and checked out both what Wasteland one
and two Wasteland one even though it has like a it was like a remaster
because I guess came up with the freaking eighties, which I didn't realize,
but this was like a more modern remaster that happened in the last decade,
but it still felt very dated. So I was, Okay, I'm gonna
go check out Waistline two and that has been a bit more interesting, but
still maybe not the most compelling. I don't fall continue with it, but
I just feel like post Balder's gating outpost because I'm still deep in the game
and I have a lot more to play of it. But I'm like,
man, I feel like CRPGs as a genre is a real big blind spot
for me, and I want to see what more of that genre is like
so that's where I wanted to check out some Wasteline, and man, I
just I just love character creators in games like this, and just RPGs in
generals, but CRPGs where you can make the whole team as well. Like
in Wasteline, you make all four of your people if you want to,
and I feel like that's my favorite part. I just spend like an hour
making characters, and I play the game for a half an hour. I'm
like, yeah, okay, I kind of cat the vibe here, so
might play some more of that. I have been checking out a bit of
Pillars of Eternity, which is no city in's CRPG, and so this the
reason for that is I knew I've wanted to check this game out recently,
but even more so now that A Vowed I feel like it is pretty imminent.
We know that A Vowed is set in the same fantasy world as this,
so I wanted to go back and you know, just study up,
so to speak, get a little bit of knowledge there on the history and
the classes and all the lower element of it. And so I've been playing
a bit of that as well. I think I'll I think I'm gonna keep
chuck trudging through that one. So I'll report back on that when I've played
a bit more. But one game that I was able to play and really
get into and I played through the entire thing because it's a very short game,
is dear Esther. Do you know this game or do you remember this
game? I feel like we might have talked about it back when me and
you did a walking sim focused out of Man episode like three years ago.
Yeah, I definitely I feel like we talked about it. I talked about
this with someone recently. I want to pull it up here because I just
don't remember what the gameplay looked like. Yeah, it's it's one of those
classic like first person narrative walking sim sort of games, adventure games, so
to speak. And yeah, I guess it was interesting. After playing it,
I was just looking into the history of it a bit, and like
I guess, first, this game was a source mod that was like way
back in the days, a mod, and then they kind of remade the
game from the ground up in a more like commercial way, and that was
what the game ended up being, like the version I played on Steam here,
And so that's pretty cool that it started as like a source mode.
Then that was very successful and then became its own game. We've seen that
with like The Forgotten City and other other games as well. It's always interesting
when things start as a mod and then they ended up going the distance and
making it a full thing. But you know, even as far as these
these very these kind of walking symp games that we talked about in that episode,
or Finch likes, as we determined in that episode, is a more
fun name is like, this might be the first one of that style.
Actually, because Edith Finch was what twenty seventeen, Firewatch was twenty sixteen,
Gone Home was twenty twenty fourteen. I'm making up numbers too off the top
of my head, but I think it's me around that ballpark, and so
this, I mean, the mod was like two thousand and seven, I
think, and then this, whatever it is, it predates Gone Home and
all those, So I'm pretty sure this might be kind of the first of
this sort of game that has become more popular in the last few years.
And yeah, it was interesting to play through. I don't think it had
the same It didn't have the same It didn't hit me in the same way
the story of some of those other games, like Edith Finch and Gone Home
are like really deeply emotional games that really affected me. I feel like I
just missed a couple Wind's a dialogue in this one, so I didn't fully
get it. And then like, this game is short. This game I
beat it in less than an hour, so walk in somes are typically shorter,
but this is especially short for one of these sorts of games. But
I think the biggest thing I got to showed up this game for is my
God, it is so freaking beautiful, and the fact that it is pretty
old now, it still looks like a modern triple A level game, and
obviously it's like a very small scale, but it looks so freaking good.
The wind going through these like Scottish highlands and you're going into these caves which
have all sorts of crazy lights and stalagmites coming down. It is beautiful and
the music is fantastic as well. Looking into like the studio, which is
called the Chinese Room. They the two like studio heads people made the original
game, I guess, and then brought this team together make this game.
Like one of them is the composer for it, So I feel like music
was probably a big part of this game from the very beginning of it and
making that very important, and it's really really good. It's weird though,
because I look at it, like looking at more in the history of the
studio, I'm like, I wonder, what are they doing now? And
they are working on this game called fuck what's it called? That's a somewhat
of a generic name if you could look it up, Chinese Room. I'm
curious what the their current game. It still Comes the Deep, Here Comes
the Deep. It's something like that. It's a horror game that we talked
about at Summer Game Fest last year, or I think I maybe talked to
Taylor about it, maybe Travis, I forget who. So they're still making
stuff, but it seems like they've gone on quite the journey where they got
acquired at some point. Uh still still Wakes the Deep. Yeah, so
that's it looks a bit more horror like, but it could be immersive simmy
too, which I mean all these games like even Edith Finch Gone Home kind
of have like their scary horror elements to their right. Yeah, But I
mean I also feel weird about this studio because it seems like after this game
came out, those two like studioheads that I was talking about, just like
laid off the entire team and then like went into hiding for a couple of
years, and they eventually came back and made some other game. Then like
they got acquired, and then like one of those studio heads left. So
it's like I don't even know, Like it's probably not meaningful who's working on
that still wakes the d game compared to what this was back in the day,
but still interesting to go through. And you know, walking sims are
kind of an interesting genre because since they're so short and they're generally pretty cheap,
and all of them are pretty much still like on Steam or other platforms,
Like, it's a genre that it's really easy to have like a very
solid understanding of. Like I feel like I've played so many of these games
now and I can really speak on like the biggest ones in the genre.
But it's just because it's such a small one, and there's there's certainly other
ones and ones that are on my wish list and whatnot that I might check
out in the future too. But I'm glad I finally played this game because
I bought it, Like I don't know, probably a year ago and it's
just been sitting in my Steam library, but it was a good one to
go check out, and I think you would like it too from the Walking
sim perspective. But I yeah, like I said, I don't think it's
quite as quite as strong as the games that followed it, But I can
also see like the inspiration for those games definitely coming from this one as well,
So it's interesting to go back to maybe what some of those games played
got really inspired by and decided to make their own game. Yeah, I
mean something that I love about Walking Sims, which I mean probably already talked
about when we did that Edith Finch episode way back in the day, but
just the fact that you can it and play through it in one city and
it's it's almost like rewatching like a movie that you really like, and the
fact that this one's like less than an hour. I'm definitely gonna have to
add it to the list, especially just knowing that this could possibly be the
earliest one like the first one, which we call them esther likes, you
know that genres. We really should, We really should, although maybe fuck
the studio because of how they treat their employees, So I don't know one
of their pitch likes. I mean, I don't I assume that I have
never not heard any controversy about that studio. But you know what's weird,
man, I was looking because then I went on a whole tangent of looking
at other walking sims and stuff, and like they that Giant Sparrow is the
developer of Edith Finch and like they announced at some point like, yeah,
we're working on an extra game. We'll you know, post on Twitter when
we're ready to talk about it. That game come on like twenty seventeen,
and yeah, they've like poorted each other consoles and stuff. But like,
what the fuck are they doing? Did they make that much money from that
game that they can work on their next project for at this point seven years?
It's too big, because it's say to me, I know, we're
at that point for a lot of like big Triple A studios, Like yeah,
like like GTA or other studios, But man, that just seems insane
to me. And like, I'm just so curious what they're working on.
I'm very excited for it, but at the same time too, like I
don't know, is that still the same team after all these years? Maybe
some of those people have left, so I don't know what. I'm very
excited for whatever their next project is. I have high expectations, that's for
sure. Yeah, Edith Finch as well as that amount of time, like
they better be cooking up something. It's weird with it when you get to
a certain points, like the hype keeps rising, but then it like stagnates
and then it I feel like it chaotically goes. It wavers up and down
based on the day. I don't even know if I'm excited at this point
because I don't know. There's just nothing to there's nothing to chew on there.
Yeah. So anyway, there you go. There's dear Esther interesting game
to go back to. And then the other quick hit I want to mention
here is that I went and checked out some Kirby games on intend to Switch
online that I've never played before. I know you're a fellow Kirby fan.
Yeah, I checked out two games. I checked out Dream Course, which
was a SNS game, and then Magic Mirror. Oh. I love that
the the Sword mode. I've always the Sword mode just has like the link
had and yeah, very linked inspired. Yeah. So I checked out Drink
Course, which is like a golf a golfing sort of. I don't even
know you've ever play those those games. Back then it was like just an
isometric like Marble and you have to like move it through it. I don't
know what the hell those games are called, but yeah, I feel like
everyone it was maybe like a flash game sort of thing or I don't even
know where, like a mini clip. Yeah, media shout us to mini
Clip. Truly inspirational stuff. But anyway, it's kind of like that,
but mixed with Kirby. And then the other one, yeah, Magic Mirror,
which is just a game Boy Advance Kirby game. And I just had
this realization that made me really happy about after playing, like checking out both
of these games, is that, like Man Kirby is such like as a
as a series, as a character, as a collection of games, it's
such a just amorphous blob of genre, Like there really isn't a set genre
you think of, like two D platform but I just love how perfectly that
is. Like the character is this character who can just suck up enemies,
take their abilities, and become whatever kind of character he wants to be.
That's like the same way the games are. And I think that's such an
interesting idea because you think of like those the first games where like just very
basic two D platformers. The first game didn't even have the copyability, right,
and then they eventually added the copyability and that became more of that classic
like level based two D platformer. But then like there's been all sorts of
uh. There was like Dream Dream Buffet on the Switch, which was just
this weird like Fall Guys sort of game to it. There was you know,
Kirby the Frotten Land, which is like the three D the three D
platformer sort of thing. There was Kirby Air Ride. I was gonna say
back in the day, yeah I had that one on GameCube. Yeah,
that game is so cool and so different. And then yeah, Dream Course
here with this kind of physics marble D based game, and then Magic Mirror.
Was surprised me about that, is it. It seems like a straight
ahead two D platformer as far as Kirby goes, but it's truly more of
like a metroid vania. And I didn't realize that Kirby had a metroid vania.
That was the genre. I wasn't aware Kirby had hit before. But
the game is so interesting in the structure where you go through these levels in
what Yeah, like I said, for the first two or three levels,
it seems like a basic a basic Kirby game. But then you're having to
backtrack through these levels. You're unlocking like all sorts of portals or I guess,
these mirrors and you're going through these mirrors and they teleport you to different
spots and then man, at some point, you get like this map that
it just looks like a subway map, you know, when you like look
at a transit map and it's like, if you live in the city,
that transit map makes a lot of sense. You're like, oh, I
know all these roads are, but if you're in a city, you don't
know. It's like this is complete fucking nonsense. And that feels like that
too. Him. I'm looking at this map. There's a world map too.
I'm like, I have no idea what this means. But as I'm
playing more and more, I'm like, Okay, I think I don't really
know where I'm supposed to go, but based on this map, maybe I
haven't explored in this place, and I'm gonna go try and look for a
secret entrance or a secret wall or something like that. And it works really
well for Kirby because this idea of like Metroidvania is of like, oh,
you go, you keep going along, you see that there's this thing you
can't jump to, but eventually get an item that lets you jump high enough
and you can go back and check that out. That works so well for
Kirby because it's, oh, I just need to go get certain ability,
that ability to help me break through this wall, and so it feels like
a bit more of a light version of a Metroidvania, And so that's been
really cool as well. But going back to Dream Course as well, like,
man, that game is super fun as well. Really Jakie controls hard
to like figure out what's going on for the first half an hour, but
man, I just got like addicted to it. It's really fun where it's
that kind of marbleie sort of game physics shooting. Kirby has a ball around
rolling around, but then of course you're like scooping up enemies on the way
and then you're turning into their form electric Kirby, so you can like blast
through objects and the parasol so you can slowly float down and try and like
land in a specific spot cool like puzzle physics game. So checked out both
those games. Definitely gonna keep playing both of them. Just gave me even
more appreciation for Kirby as a genre and being this genreless blob which is just
so accurate for the character. So that was a that was a good time
checking out those games. It really has no set genre. It's just takes
on any form at wants. It's like water, you know, Yeah,
I mean at this point, like when's the last like just standard two D
Kirby came out, Like I feel like I don't even know if that's that's
what the genre or what the character is by default. There's the Kirby the
epic yard one where you're like drawing lines and ridden around Like I don't know.
There's just been all these different genres, like even Mario, who of
course has all these like sports games and racing games, but then all these
different types of platforms, Like I feel like Kirby's up there in terms of
the genre count. That's my character and I can't think of any other usually,
Like, of course, there's a lot of games that started as to
be platformers and then became three D and more explorative in that way, like
Metroid or any game. You know, as we went to the three generation,
but I feel like Kirby doesn't stop there. Kirby is like, let's
see what other freaking genres we can craft up and weird amalgams that work with
this copyability, which is like the general conceit of the character. It's really
cool. I'm waiting on the Kirby Guitar Hero release that genre. Man.
I wonder if there's like a rhythm type game where it has rhythm elements to
it that seems like it would work. Definitely do it? Uh, Kirk
Compounder, tell me about Returnal, Yeah, tell me about Uh, tell
me about this? Pick up this game? I like, it's been on
my radar for a while, but I feel like I just kind of discounted
it as just like a, I don't know, some sort of basic shooter
game. I didn't know if it was a first person shooter or anything like
that. Do you know about this game? I'm assuming yes, you sounded
YEA. What I mean this is this has always been one where I'm like,
Okay, whatever game finally pushes me to pick up a PS five,
I'm gonna on day one by Returnal as well and play it and talked about
it a lot with Dante because this was like his by far game of the
year of nice was that twenty twenty one when that came out, I think,
But when we did our best of categories, like every category, he
was praising it. So yeah, I've talked to him a lot about Returnal.
It's a favorite of his for sure. Yeah, I like I didn't
realize it's a rogue light game. It's very similar to Risk of Rain two,
which is a big game that I absolutely love of where you just you
have like one run that you go on, especially the fact that it is
a third person shooter, and the movement in this game just feels so satisfying,
and it's it it's similar to kind of a Soul's like game, where
like It's it can be very punishing, but like a lot of it has
to do with your own mistakes, Like you can really pop off in this
game and just like feel so satisfied with yourself. But it is one that
like takes constant just awareness of what you're doing. I feel like it's it's
really easy to be deep in a run and then just like let your guard
down and you just get completely messed up. And it's very fitting with the
story because it is just this extremely hostile planet. They'll getting too much into
the end of the story because I don't even know too much about it yet,
Like it's you kind of unravel things as you go along, but you
crash land on this planet and then you find just like like I think you're
just answering like a distress call, and then you find like bodies on the
ground and then they're they're revealed that it's actually your own body, and you're
just like seeing different versions of yourselves going like basically just just treading their path
and trying not to die in the same way that you have in the past.
And it's just really really like engaging story without like a lot of cinematics,
and if that makes any sense, Like I feel like it is ninety
percent gameplay, which is just so much fun because that's that's why we play
games most of the time. But like, I just feel invested in the
story even though there isn't like a big deep cut scene or a lot of
dialogue with other characters. Yeah, you'll find like when they do the story,
they make it count like it's percent, and there's like there's so many
little things hinted off early in the game that it reminds me of like a
really good old TV show, like maybe the first time I watched Lost,
and they would just like like reveal something that I'm like, what the hell
is that? And like like when is it gonna be revealed? And then
of course, like a couple couple episodes or maybe seasons downline, you get
those answers. But do you think we'll do Geek first long enough that I
will ever retro Lost? I don't know what, like would have to like
Lost too or something like that. Now I feel like they would do like
a Lost movie. I feel like at that point that would be huge.
Like with every old series getting like remakes or sequels these days, I could
see them doing it one hundred percent. I'll get back to returnable quickly.
On Lost, I I watched it way back in the day. I absolutely
loved it, and then Shaye wanted to watch it, so I watched it
through with her until like maybe the third last season, and I just forgot
how truly awful those those later seasons can get. Yeah, that's weird.
Early portions I dipped after probably the same amount of time. Yeah, early
portions of the show though, oh my gosh, fantastic. But yeah,
in Reternal the reason why I made the comparison to Risk of Rain is just
the fact that you are on this hostile planet and you are doing these roguelike
runs, and like, really they can go either way depending on maybe what
items you come across or which areas are just revealed in certain orders, because
I find I don't know if it changes at later points of the game,
Like there has been times where I'll get like an artifact or something and then
it basically gives me like a redo as like, because normally if you die,
you'll just restart from like the start. It's as if that character dies
and then the next one like wakes up on the ship. So it's it's
really cool how that works. But you can get like little things that help
you out there. There's also different area, like something that you can unlock
that will instead of dying and then waking up at your ship, you'll wake
up there. But all those things have to basically just be one like one
use. It's like a consumable type item, And yeah, just having lots
of fun with just the like the the combat involved in the movement, and
just very very punishing bosses. And there's some bosses that I feel like I
just completely bop and then the next time I play against the exact same types
of bosses. They're movements, I just like I'm slow or something and I
just get like one shot by them. This game is cool too because there's
not really like a menu for it. You can't just save and quit.
It's like you can suspend your cycle, as they say, and then when
you come back, you're literally in that exact same spot. And then if
not like you just die and like if you don't save or suspend your cycle,
I guess you'll just respond at the ship at the start of the game.
I was like controversial at launch because runs can be like several hours long.
Yeah, so I think they've improved it from launch. I think there
was like no way you could even OK or something. I don't know,
maybe because I don't know what it was, but it seems yeah, they
must have added some things post launch to just make it a little bit more.
It's it's like seafood that that seafood issue, where like the game was
just too difficult to actually like make it through and then they ended up adding
like an easier difficulty later on the line. But yeah, I absolutely just
love the whole cycle mechanic of it and just yeah, like I think the
biggest thing is the gameplay though. It's just so fun to play, and
you move really fast in the game, but so do the enemies, like
it can be very punishing. There is a melee that you can kind of
like cycling with your attacks, so you can get a little bit creative there,
and just the different like firing modes and stuff. And I'm not really
big on the haptic controller at all. It's usually like a little bit annoying
with the triggers, but for some reason, this game it's just really satisfying
because if you like slightly pull the trigger, you'll aim, and if you
fully hold the trigger you'll do like an alternate fire, and I don't know,
it just feels really good with the controls. So I'm so glad I
eventually tried this one out. The reason why I did was because I just
heard that it was like a Rogue Lake game, and like, what the
hell? I thought it was like a story game mixed in with uh well,
like I said, but like mostly a just first person campaign type story
where you're just going through levels of shooters. But yeah, it's definitely difficult,
but I highly highly recommend just for the actual gameplay and how fun it
is to play and so satisfying when you're able to like beat a boss after
I mean, it's the soul's thing. If you're banging your head against the
wall then you finally get through it, you just feel like you're on top
of the world until you get smushed by the next monster that comes along.
Yeah, is this game on PlayStation Plus in any Yeah, so I have
the As I said in the past, I have like the PlayStation equivalent.
I think it's like PS extras or Premium or whatever it is, and it
was on there and I really wanted to download it and just try it.
And the reason why I love Risk of Rain two is I could just jump
in and do a run and then like that's it. And that's the same
sort of idea with this game. It definitely satisfies just the big explosions that
you can get from a first person shooter, and the gameplay is just really
fun. Right. Yeah, I couldn't remember if Housemark had been acquired.
It was very close around this game's release, I couldn't or if it was
right before to right after it. Either way, the game would have started
outside of the PlayStation acquisition, but obviously they're another first party, makes sense
that they they would put it in there as part of the catalog. So
that's a nice, nice addition. So when I finally get that PS five,
I don't even need to pick up the game anymore. Well I don't
need to buy it anymore, still pick it up. Yeah, you know,
it's interesting because we've seen now like there's this Lastless Part two coming out
with the roguelike mode God of War just callt that roguelike mode. I wonder
how much of the decision of that was that those studios seeing the success of
Hostmark with Eturnal. It was a very successful game, even though Houstmark was
maybe more of a smaller niche studio before that, and I wonder if that
kind of inspired these other PlayStation studios or it was even like the head the
higher ups at PlayStation were like, hey, you should try this formula out
as like an expansion for your your previous games because Returnal was such a big
success. But either way, it's it's cool to see roguelikes which were just
strictly indie games for years, smaller scale, a bit simpler to get these
big three D versions of it now, as you mentioned, like we've seen
so many of them now at this point, I feel like Returnals definitely like
the cream of the crop, as it were. It seems like God of
War. It's very much falling in the footsteps because it was also very story
focused as well as being just the roguelike. So it's cool to see that
happen more too. Obviously, again, like Haites really implemented the story,
but then you have other some of my favorites like Buying Adviser or Splunky,
which really have no meaningful story. It's more just like they connect the story
afterwards. But yeah, it's cool to see. Obviously, these Sony studios
are known for making great stories, so it's cool to see them implement it
into the roguelike format. Yeah. I like the lead to in it.
She uh case most of the time, right, Yeah, most of the
time you're just finding audiologues of yourself. So it's kind of interesting just how
that happens, just you know, finding your old old corpses. But I
don't know, She's she's got a good uh whatever she's got for the little
story that I've at least seen her about. I've also heard her death cry
multiple times. Yeah, I know there was a DALC that came out for
this game to do you know. Yeah, so I guess I forget.
I forget how it was implemented in there. But I don't know if that's
something that would be a free update that therefore you would have access story or
if that's okay, it again ascension. It looks like, so, yeah,
oh that is co op. I know that was one of the parts
of that of that update, So I do know about that because early on
in the game you see the Giant Tower, and I think that's what you
go and do co op mode in. But I know there's also like a
challenge rooms, and it might be the same sort of I think that.
I think it's probably the challenge room for more the update, so I have
that available. It's like right by the ship when you start. But I'm
like, that's probably really hard a challenge exactly, very cool, man,
I'm glad you're playing that. Excited to hear more about that in highly recommend
whenever I get that PS five especially since on the cattle some co ops.
Once you get that, that would be super fun. I love that.
I would love that. How about we take our first break and then we'll
get back and we'll start talking about some some nice dark fantasy games. We'll
be right back. Okay, we are back, so let's let's let me
talk about Ball or Dragon's Dogma. Sorry, and then we'll get into Tempted
Me. We'll get to Bather's Gay. Don't worry, we'll be there soon
enough. But yeah, I mentioned this on our preview last episode. Form
who listened to that? But I have been jumping back into Dragon's Dogma,
which came out like well over a decade ago at this point. And then
I think the version I'm playing was like a slight maybe remaster. It had
some DLC content in there, the Dark Risen DLC whatever it is, That's
what I'm playing on. They switch version. So yeah, this is a
holy fuck. This is a weird fricking game in so many ways, and
the mechanics in the story, in just the layout and presentation of it.
It is a very very odd game. And I don't really know much about
the studio specifically that makes I know it's under the capcom umbrella. But yeah,
really really Weird Games is a dark fantasy game that starts out with well,
you started with in like the small tutorial area, and you're playing like
not the character you make. You're just kind of learning the controls and whatnot,
and like already a lot of controls, and like it has the controls
on screen because there's so many different like button combos and like oh, hold
the trigger and then you can do this special bonus and you're like controlling your
party as well. You're telling the back off or going and all this sort
of thing. So it's really like over the top. Right at the beginning,
this short tutorial sequence like fifteen twenty minutes long, you get like a
big cinematic create your character, and then your boom into the game. And
this is a part that's pretty insane about it is that like from that moment,
after that first fifteen to twenty minutes, the entire map, the entire
open world map, is accessible to from the very beginning. Uh, and
it's not the structure of this game is like I don't know, there are
what feels like a bit of a main quest, but then you're also just
picking up like I within an hour of playing the game, I had twenty
five quests in my in my journal, just like all in there, and
a lot of them are just like sleigh fifteen bats, slay three ogres,
like it's a lot of that sort of stuff. But then there is are
a couple story specific ones as well, and it just really hams it up
there. But I've even found this so far that man, I'm getting like
destroyed by certain enemies and it's like, well, I guess I probably shouldn't
go that way. But the game does not make it very clear where you
should go or what you should be doing. And that's also very intentional.
And it's supposed to be a hard, punishing game where you're trying to like
learn and figure everything out. But because of that, there's been some friction
in there. But yeah, for the most part, it's the third person
action game, action adventure, and it's very much you know, it weirdly
feels like a lot a lot like an MMO, which I haven't really playedmos
for years and years. I played them a decent amount when I was younger,
with like Tales of Pirates and Last Chaos is one I never played like
Wow or any of the big ones. I was just playing the small like
very cheap ones with my with my friend McCall who's been on geek First in
the past. But yeah, this game feels very much like an m and
the the enemies are very bolt spongy. It's very much about stats and equipment
and weapons rather than players skill, I will say, although that's definitely a
part of it as well. Uh. And then like the party element of
it. So you're you're recruiting these characters called pawns, and I'll talk about
those in a minute, becase that's this whole thing. Uh. And and
you know, you you're kind of like, okay, maybe I'm a fighter
class and I want to bring like a magent so they can like heal,
So you're trying to do your composition. But then you're also sort of controlling
them. But then also they can just die, so you have to like
make sure you're like reviving them. And it's just it's a lot to manage
at one point, and very early on you're getting into big battles. I
have like, you know, fifteen enemies and then they all the other runnom
MPCs who take in on the fight, and it just becomes this very like
large scale thing, which works really well for the fantasy setting that it's in,
uh makes it pretty overwhelming too. But so this pawn system, this
is what maybe what the game's most famous for, UH and what people look
back and when they talk about Dragons Doc when they're usual talking about the pawn
system. So essentially, you create your character at the start of the game.
Cool makes sense, and then at some point, after a couple of
missions, you create a pawn. And a pon is just like the way
to describe them in this game is that they're like they look like people,
they sound like people, they fight, talk like people, but they are
not people. They're otherworldly beings. But instead, like because of that,
they just end up being like these very like they they never really make any
sort of facial reactions, they don't talk in the story at all. But
they're just like these freakish like puppet people that exist in the world, and
like you can recruit them sometimes just be walking along a trail and you'll see
a random pond. You can recruit them. You obviously make one of the
beginning. But then this is where like the online component of the game comes
in a bit, so you can go into like this other realm and you
can recruit pawns, and these ponds can be other people's creations. So when
I went in my first room where I was, you know, it's essentially
like an interview. I went in, I was meeting all these different pawns,
deciding which one I wanted to recruit. Someone had made Severa from Fire
Emblem Awakening, and I don't I remember that character Kirkland. She's like the
redhead girl with like the two like her hairs coming up both sides. Oh
yes, she's like a Mrmadan, I think, right in that game.
So one of the first ones I see is just someone recreating this character in
here. And from when I've heard people make all sorts of you know,
funny connections to make them look like other characters. But all the faces in
this game are super dirpy. So it's Severa with like the dirtiest face you've
ever seen in your life, which is a funny thing. So, yeah,
you're you're bringing these pawns and then some of them are like really high
level, but then you need like a bunch of points to recruit them.
But it's it's interesting. It's kind of like you're controlling this this little party,
and you start to get attached to them, and like they all are
very goofy and dirpy and have funny names. But yeah, you get like
attached to them and you start growing on them, and you can like favorite
them so you can recruit some of them later on. Like maybe I see
one it's like very high level, like someone made Tifa Lockhart from Final Fantasy,
but like she's very expensive. I'm like, okay, I'll just favor
her and I'll go get Tifa later. It looks nothing like Tifa, but
I mean this person, this person tried their very best. But yeah,
so that's maybe one of the more interesting parts about it is this pawn system
that incorporates the online element of it. And then obviously it seems like if
you, you know, if people are recruiting your pond, using your pond
leveling up, you as the player will get a lot of rewards. I
don't know what that'll look like for me now playing game all these years later,
maybe someone will pick my pawn and I'll get some some bonuses there,
but I haven't really seen any of the fruits of my labor there at this
point. One thing I loved about at the class the classes at the beginning,
you have kind of the classic, uh you know, thief warrior mage
type, but the the thief type is called the Strider class. I'm like,
of course I'm picking strider, like like Errgar and I'm I'm just being
a strider over here. So you get like the daggers and a bow and
arrow and that. That's been a very fun class, like very high attack
rate. I like using the bone arrow. You get all sorts of other
powers and stuff in there. So yeah, it's it's been a a fun
time, but also very confusing time and a lot of friction in there,
but it's it's pretty pretty enjoyable. I think I'm gonna keep going with it.
Another thing, too, is it seems like they kind of incorporated a
little bit of like my go, what the what's that game called the classes
game? What's my god? Shut? Yeah, I incorporate some of that
part. So one of the buttons you have at all times, it's just
a grab button, so you can like grab on enemies and like climb up
them. And this is like a big part of it where it's like Venemi
has like a huge tail if you target the tail. Eventually they'll chop off
the tail and then it'll do like a big damage bonus, like certain Dark
Soul's bosses have that sort of thing, right. But then also you can
like climb up on an ogre and like try to slash them on the head
like a legoless in the minds of Maria there. So that's a fun part
of it too, and it's it is janky, but it's fun just climbing
on this huge serpent creature and you're just climbing up them for so long.
So yeah, it's it's an interesting game. I don't know if I can
really recommend it. I think it's a very grindy, bullet spongy game,
which is typically not my cup of tea. But I also think this's like
a huge part of it where it's really just stat space and like maybe I
just don't have the right equipment yet and so maybe that'll change. But yeah,
it is. It is a hard and weird game. But yeah,
for anyone who's looking for like a weird dark fantasy thing now, it would
be a good time to check this out because the sequels coming out this year
and I don't know, just like the next gen version or I guess kurrt
Gen version of Dragon's Dogma. It looks fricking great, so I haven't decided
it if this is pursuing me, we want to pick up that sequel at
launch or anything. But still a very interesting game, and I'm glad I
finally have gone back and checked it out a little bit. Yeah, I've
always heard the name, I feel like, mostly because of just we're getting
into that or getting close to the release date at least for the second one,
and I've always been somewhat intrigued. I didn't know like what it really
was though, or the gameplay or anything really about it, so it's interesting
just hearing some of the mechanics. I feel like, I'm not really a
big bullet spongy type type guy, like I tried to get into MMOs back
in the day just because I had friends that played them and wasn't really a
big fan. And even the division that's was a Tom Clancy game, like,
it has that effect for sure, where it is very bullet sponge boss.
It's never really been my thing, but it's just the whole pond thing
is kind of funny. I was googling about it. When you're talking.
It's just a big meme, I guess amongst the right the Dragon's Dogma fans.
But yeah, I mean it's interesting just hearing your takes on it.
I didn't realize just all all of the effects and of the ponds and just
the different creatures and characters that are in there. Like seems like you can
get pretty creative with the character creation. Although the faces look a little dirty.
Yeah, seen some like feline type characters. Got some Kajite like characters
in there. Oh yeah, because it's the classic thing like obliving where you
can just you can turn up like the Gamma whatever of the of the skin
cars. You can make it like just like Shrek and other you know,
weird beasts. But yeah, it's it's a it's a weird element of the
game for sure. Yeah, the bullet spongy part of it. Because there's
even like a tool tip early on that it's like, based on your stats,
you might deal zero damage to enemies. If that is the case,
go do something else. It's like what or it's like some fights might be
too hard, don't be afraid to run away. And it's like it's very
counterintuitive, you know, you always think like games hold our hands so much
that it feels like if you're early on in a game and you're wandering around,
you should be able to fight the things that are in your area if
you've unlocked that. Even in open world games, it's like usually the harder
call, it's gonna be like really far away. But like very early on
in this game, you can just come across this group of fifteen lizards that
are invisible, and you deal like one to one hundredths of the damage every
hit, and like they insta kill your pawns, and your pawns are healer
and so you're getting destroyed. It's it's like a total mess. But then
it's like, I don't know, the game is like very much embracing that,
it's just not holding your hand. So I don't know. Maybe I
should watch a couple of YouTube videos on it to get some early tips and
tricks too, because that's something I feel like I could do even early on.
Like you, I was making a bunch of money and I had just
like my basic gear, and I'm like normally in a game like this,
I will save my money for the first fifteen hours. I will not buy
anything unless I like need a health potion or something. Mostly I'm just like,
I'm saving money to later in the game when I feel like I understand
the game. But I'm like, no, immediately in this game, I'm
gonna go by even just the next tier of equipment, and it made a
huge difference to how much damage I was doing to like the level one goblins
in the world, and it made the game a lot more enjoyable. But
yeah, like, man, my ideal world is the Ghost of Sushima,
like highest difficulty that they patched in where you kill enemies and two hits,
but they also kill you in two hits. Like that's that's ideal to me,
Like a zero bullet sponginess, just like super high stage, like deal
tons of damage. I want more games to adopt that, because yeah,
I'm definitely not not into the bullets bonging typically, but it makes every fight
feel like a boss wait in this game, which is a good thing too.
That's fair. Yeah, uh so there you go. I'll probably report
back on that one when I have some more takes, but we'll see when
that happens. Kirkland. Two weeks ago, me and you, or more
so me, I was talking about ballers Gate three. You were asking a
lot of questions about it, and then I got the discord ping I think
that night or a couple of days later or something within an hour that you
trial that you had downloaded the trial, and then not long after that another
ping, that's that I bought the game. I've been playing ball just gate
through this opro and I've done all this stuff already, like oh shit,
let's go. So yeah, you obviously you jumped in, you picked up
ballders Gate three. Tell me about it, man, I'm saying, you're
how this journey has been going for you? No? I I mean yeah,
Like on that cast you could just tell I was super eager asking all
the questions. And I've been really just itching for D and D lately.
I haven't been in a campaign for a little while. It usually goes the
way for all campaigns where it's like you got a schedule and then one person's
like I can't do it this week and next week, Oh no, I
can't do it this week and then, which is understandable. It's very hard
to be Dvan, so you know, shout out all the dms out there.
But I've just been like getting that itch for it, and yeah,
just hearing all the positivities about Balder's Gate. I've always said that I know,
I knew I was gonna get it, but I'm just gonna I'm just
gonna wait until I have a little more free time. Fuck free time.
We're gonna just cram it in there with our busy schedules, and I when
you love something, you will find free time. That's one thing I've learned
for exactly. I downloaded uh yeah, the free trial, so on PlayStation
you can get the free trial for some games if you're a PlayStation Plush members
for two hours, and uh, you know, I I downloaded that.
I was in the character creation for who knows how long, and then you
know, and then well, yeah, well while I'm in there, Shae
was home and I was just telling her all about it, and I was
I convinced her to want to jump in with me. I'm like, you
want to add your character, you can do right now. She's like,
all right, let's do it. So by the time both of us were
done making our characters, it was about like an hour and a half.
So I think we had like thirty minutes of gameplay before the actual before the
trial expired. So has Shay ever had interest in D and D. She's
been she's been in two campaigns, which OK with me, a couple buddies.
Yeah, so yeah, and we've had fun there and especially because we
learned it together, so we kind of like somewhat of a base, which
I think helps jumping into Balder's Gate because there's a lot of a lot of
ways to handle situations in this game, and you can you can go just
head on and you'll usually die because this game is actually very challenging in a
good way though, because I feel like it really forces you to think outside
the box. But yeah, just my initial thoughts were about I don't know,
like six or so hours into the game. I think again, like
an hour and a half. That is character creation. I don't know how
like accurate the time is compared to where we should be, but we are
both having a complete blast play in this especially just the way that certain situations
play out. It's it's a D and D thing, like like you can
really have an idea of where you're going with a path, and then you
just you don't get a good role. Now this character like hates you or
something, or or maybe one person makes a decision that the other person wouldn't
wouldn't necessarily choose, but you're just you're going with it now or rolling with
the dice. And I'm really just loving like the world building that they're doing.
I really like the main story that they set up. I thought it's
just a really great idea to set your character out on their journey. And
the party members that we've had are really really interesting, and like I said,
were like six hours. I feel like I'm literally on the tutorial still,
like I still feel so early in the game, and there's so many
maybe little storylines that are hinted in some certain side characters, and maybe those
characters aren't even in my party because I have a whole party. I'm like,
I kind of want to swap that guy out because I find him a
little bit interesting and I want to know more about what's going on with them.
But I feel so bad whenever I kick in one out and they're like,
are you sure? Like I do? I do, but have four
spots like the valuable spots. It's really tough, but I just think that
is such a great job, but really fleshing out the h the act,
like the side characters, the party members, and the fact that you don't
like. You can make decisions that they just don't like, and they could
leave your party and like that's just that and you you don't experience them and
you run, or maybe they just die and you don't revive them and they're
just they're just dead there. But yeah, no, I I really really
like how how it plays. It looks absolutely beautiful too, and it runs
really great on the PlayStation. I know you've had a lot of drops yourself.
You had any crashes yourself? We have. We've had I think two
or three, and I think two of them were literally in the exact same
spot when we we were like leveling up from level two or three. If
we both leveled up at the same time, it would just crash the PlayStation
every single time. It was really annoying. So I just before you we
went like split screen, I would just level up all the characters and then
I added her back in. But since then that hasn't been an issue,
fortunately. But yeah, no, the third one, I think it was
it was literally just like a dialogue thing that like froze and then the game
just crashed. Right. Is the split screen actual split screen or are you
still like sharing the same screen. It is split screen. Yeah, it
is split screen, which is really nice actually because I mean, as you
know, as you're saying that, you guys, what the hell you want,
you don't need to. And that has been anything so hilarious because you
know, sometimes maybe people in release whis could be a little stubborn. It's
like, no, I'm going this way, okay, whatever, you go
that way, I'm going this way. And then all of a sudden,
two different like cut scenes activate. It's like, oh, I really got
to end this cut scene because I think she needs me, and then I
have to. That's literally what happened. I activated combat through my dialogue because
I just I didn't want to back down and whatever, and then I maybe
failed like a chrisma check or something, and her and I were both in
like a one v five on each end. It was just so hilarious that
we're both like freaking out and we don't have any idea what the other person's
dealing with. I mean, it's split screen, but you're so focused on
your own situation what's going on. So that has been really funny and a
learning curve of just you know, getting us to stay a little bit closer
together. And yeah, like it definitely is challenging. We're on the main
whatever it's called, like the balanced game game mode there, and I still
feel like there is times that we've we've been very lucky with combat, like
a lucky role here there can work. And but it's nice because it forces
you to kind of really think outside the box, as I was saying earlier,
and I feel like we have a pretty good, well rounded party right
now. I'm ye. My character is a te fleeing paladin, both of
the Ancients, I think it is. It's it's more so like a like
a healer type paladin class. Definitely defensive and very fun. On a previous
Deed You campaign, I had paladin character and then she's playing a half ol
fighter believe it is. I can't remember what the subclass is. And then
we have Will in our party because we're doing something story related with him.
He's a really interesting character. And then Carlac I believe we have or no.
I we had Karlac and then we had a we had to leave her
behind, which I love her because she's just a barbarian and she pops off
and I really like her aesthetic. She's she's crazy. We have Lazel though
for for r now good story, good main story character to have. But
it's I love how they just each have their own different personalities and like if
you recruit a new individual, you can kind of just hear their takes on
what they think of them. And some characters you know, don't necessarily like
each other, especially in the case of you know, Will and Karlac when
you first meet them. But yeah, no, I this game is so
amazing. I tell all my friends who have who don't have it, who
are in my same position, I'm like, just just get it, like
it's gonna be so worth it, especially you know my friends that I do
play D and D. I'm like, I know it's gonna be right up
your alley. And I feel like every session we play, I find a
new thing that you can do of like, oh, like I never even
thought of using something like that, Like never thought that you could use just
mage hand to like pick up a javelin on the ground and throw it at
an enemy, Like that's just so so genius. Or maybe entering like an
area that has trap doors that was such a funny moment for us because I
don't I don't remember what area we were in, but we definitely activated a
trap. I think it was my character that just opened up a sarcophagus and
just these firebolts were going everywhere. Oh I think I did that. Really,
that's like in that early area in that temple thing. Yeah, exactly,
literally murdered everyone in our party except for Shay and I and we're just
like in a corner. I'm like, oh, they'll turn off, don't
worry about it, and like they were not turning off. Just the firebolts
were going forever. And then we ended up finding like a button that she
shot an arrow at which which deactivated them, and just really satisfying having that
like resolution and that scroll around one room alone probably took me half an hour
just to slowly each turn, just very slowly navigate and trying to get those
perception checks to find all the yeah, different traps. Eventually found that that
button as well. You know, it's so satisfying with how those checks happen,
because of course, when you're playing D and D, like your DM
will just be rolling for those sort of things to maybe just randomly occur.
Maybe you're you have to do like a perception check or something on your own.
But when you just enter a room and it says like perception check failed,
and you're like, oh, what did I not see? So things
like that, or there's so many little hidden things that you can just come
across, whether it's like a hidden chest or something that if you have the
right perception you can just find it there, as well as just I don't
know, like just random things you can come across that maybe you just thought
it was like a dead end, but then it leads to like a cavern
with just really like strong enemies and like, yeah, I can't believe they
designed this whole area and this tiny little thing that like I feel like such
a small percentage of people would actually like go in here, but you know
it leads to a full spider dan or something like it's just so insane how
expanse the world is. And like I've already said, like I'm so early,
I'm still at the tip of that iceberg. I can't wait to keep
going on it. Talking to my one buddy, uh, you know,
Tyler, one of the tires that we know, one of the many tires
that we know, I guess, and and just hearing like how he's handled
certain situations versus mine, and like he he doesn't even know who Karlak is
and he's in like act three I think, and I'm like, man,
that's crazy to me. Uh, but like it's fair because like there's certain
NPCs that I I don't even I don't even have that that he has,
like Gail the Wizard, like Shade. I never encountered that guy. That's
also insane to me. Yeah, that's like so early on. Yeah,
yeah, it's just she's like down by the river, like hidden by the
tree her. Because Gail's like in that portal type thing that you find early
on, and like when we went up to it, I'm like, that's
dangerous. I don't want to touch that. And we just get so we
just we just we just stay in that realm. Yeah, poor guy,
you know, he's just in the Quantumanium realm now. But he's going through
some stuff all I won't say much, but yeah, he's he's going through
some ship in the in the story. Yeah. So I absolutely love the
game. I don't really know what else to say other than just are you
still at the Goblin camp? Is that wor that's the last time I talked
to you? So yeah, when we were we were progressing through that,
and it ended up going a bad route where she like committed a crime or
something in it, so like she literally got thrown in jail, not just
like violent with the goblins, and then she was in a different area than
us. Then like my crew just started attacking the goblins, and then it
was she was in like a different room that couldn't get out of and then
we were just against like the whole cab goblin camp and it's like were you
on the interior, We're on the interior. Yeah, we made it through,
like we made it without spoiling too much. Like we got to an
area that we were talking to one of the Drow people or like the Drow
lady in there, and then we were like friendly with everyone up until that
point. And then she just like randomly opened like a red box, you
know, the one that you get a bounty on, and then she just
went to jail and it's like, oh, okay, I guess that's it.
And then by the end of that like the combat wasn't going well like
we did we draw like two characters, like let's just reload that save and
then we haven't jumped back in yet. And that was our schedules just haven't
fully aligned this week, so but so I think that was last weekend when
we played. But uh, yeah, I'm excited to get through that because
I'm not sure how much further than that there still is an Act one.
Like when I was talking to Tyler there, he was saying that he felt
like there was still a lot of things in Act one that he just didn't
do, and like when when he got through Act Act two, he was
maybe under the impression that, like there is multiple ways to kind of end
that act. But you know, he was saving spoilers from me, But
I've heard about just some of the things that he's he's gone against, Like
he was telling me a little bit about the Beholder battle that he went up
against, and I'm just like, man, what an iconic character in D
and D. I can't wait to find I don't even know what that means.
Okay, there you go. Yeah, yeah, I I feel like
for Act one on my single player save, I probably spent like fifteen to
twenty hours in Act one. Okay, yeah, so I feel like they're
a lot. But then also, like when I was spending with my my
friend in our coal play through, like there's a whole area that we just
didn't even happen upon Inact one. So obviously you can skip past certain things.
I tried to do as much as I could because I was stuck at
this really, really tough encounter and I was like, I need to get
any amount of XP I possibly can. So I was going around the map
trying to clear any quest, trying to just murder anything I could, essentially
to get enough xpedd Charlie, I was think I was trying to hit level
five because I was I was just struggling so much with the sequence, and
so that's where I found a couple of quests that I'm like, man,
I totally totally miss this. So there's definitely a lot you can you can
skip past. But now I just I just had so much fun exploring that
whole area. So I think I've seen, Like I mean, obviously there's
a million permutations where these things can can roll out differently, but in terms
of like Act one, I think I did kind of everything in that big
loading zone area with like the village there, going over to the Golden Camp
and whatnot. I think I saw most of that stuff. I'm sure there's
a couple of caves I missed on the way, but yeah, I was
pretty thorough. But I since I haven't had my Xbox with me for the
last week and whatnot, I don't think I've actually played more since we talked
of it, so it's uh. But like I said on the episode,
I am in no rush to play through the game. If I finish it
this year, that's great, but I have twelve months to do so.
But we'll see. I'm not not in any sort of hurry. But I
think it would be fun, like once I'm I have way more knowledge on
the game or finished a play through, if I'm still wanting to play more
to do like a co op run on like the hardest play through, that
could be really interesting. Yeah, you as like the tactics, guys,
I feel like we could we could throw down. It would probably be pretty
pretty tough, but more knowledge on the game and just having that that tactics
history, that could be that could be fun. Because honestly, I think
but it is, my favorite part of the game is the combat. As
much as I love the dialogue, conversations, exploration, I think if I
didn't zero on one part, I really do love that that combat system that's
kind of turn based tactics e but not on Not on the Grid a little
Midnight Sunsy As I mentioned to Travis, like it's it's got a little bit
of this little bit of that. There's so much variety in terms of the
parties and enemies and the locations and set pieces. So I I really really
love the combat in it. Yeah, I started a single player character that
like, I'm only like an hour or so in, Like I didn't really
get too far and I'm really just close to that starting area. But I
made a wizard on that tactical difficulty and it's nothing too crazy, but I
did find that like a lot of the like the way that combat can go
is like if you have a low roll and they get high roles, like
you could just get one shot before you even do anything at the start of
combat, so you do, like obviously it does come down to the roles
at the end of the day. But that is also what's kind of forced
me to be a little bit more tactical when it comes to the combat or
whatnot. So I feel like I'm just getting better because on the heart of
it, you're kind of forced to do that. And then yeah, so
is there is there any other change, Like, is it just like health
and bullet sponginess for the hardest difficulty or is there other changes to the to
the gameplay or combat? Yeah, Like I know, like certain characters can
kind of react a little bit hard. Sure, Like if you use like
person for example, right, I guess just any interaction might be like a
higher role required, right, and uh yeah, Like and then if I
use like charm person on someone to just like get success on a certain I
don't know charisma check and I fail it, they'll like know that I try
to charm them, and then they'll be even more upset. So things like
that's cool. Transfer that seems like it, Yeah, really kind of double
incentivizes playing to your character and really roll playing and not just being in jack
of all trades. And if you have low stats, but like the role
you need is attend, you could probably still get away with it. Whereas,
yeah, if the roles are more harshing, more harsh there, even
if you're not necessarily rolling worse, but you just have to roll a lot
higher more consistently, that would Yeah, that makes sense. You really want
to depend on the sequence of your about to going to maybe bring the right
party members who have have certain stats and that sort of thing. So yeah,
sounds sounds cool, But I I'm pretty far away from another play through,
I think at this point, so much to do yet. Yeah,
any anything anything else on boulders Gate that you wanted to mention, Not yet,
It'll be a never ending, you know, update cycle. I'm sure
once we get further along, I will say. It's so nice that you
know Shay's enjoying it as well, because it's been a lot of fun just
going through those situations together. And yeah, no, it's it's good cool.
Uh yeah, I mean I think that's one me and you will probably
be talking about for months and months and months at this point, so we'll
we'll talk about that more in the future. But I think, yeah,
a nice, shorten sweet episode is due here, because we do have that
draft coming later this week, like I said, and all sorts of other
rankings and drafts going on right now as we ever. MCU Golden Geeks coming
up, follow by the other regular Golden Geeks and whatnot. So a lot
lots lots coming on here, lots of fun stuff to check out. Thank
you everyone for listening, Thank you for uh yeah, check this one out
and we will see you again later this week. Bye bye B.