He'll be don't be ber, it's the Internet. You're busy. Let's do
this from March thirteenth, twenty twenty four, for the next hour or so,
let me help you sort through the world of gaming on Game Mess Mornings
Live with Me Jeff Grebb. Today we figure out if Mega Man is important
and don't believe the propaganda about flying bugs and hell divers too. But first
please join me and welcoming today's co host a Game Mess Mornings. It's Lex
Luddy. Everybody, LEXI, how are you doing well? This needs to
be said. You should watch Showgun. You should just watch it. Yeah,
it's happening. It is. I've officially decided to watch it. Now
it's a matter of actually following through on that decision. I have Hulu,
which is where I believe I could watch it here in the United States,
and I've been like ie in it a whole bunch of time. I just
haven't had time for it. But it seems real good now for me.
It looked cool from the outset and I was like, this looks really neat.
I hope it's good. And then I heard the showrunner or one of
the showrunners is Justin Marx who did Counterpart, which is one of my favorite
shows. It's that's the JK. Simmons Jake. Yeah, I always mix
his name up with Jay Jonah Jamison. JK. Simmons a show where he
plays two characters from two worlds that got created when someone did like a quantum
test and it like split time off and then there's this hallway and you could
walk from one world to the other and they would. It's a whole thing.
It's a whole allegory. It's great. It's a great show. I
had two seasons on not Show Time Stars. I think either way, I
love that show. It's like a very good show, like to watch like
during the pandemic as well, because it deals with some stuff about that as
well. But I'm like, Okay, they're doing the showgun show. I'll
show it for that. And I also like crying. It's based on a
book that's pretty old. I'm like kind of interested in checking out the book
as well. So, yeah, have you watched all the episodes so far?
Yes, everything that's come out. Anna I think is her name.
She was also in Monarch Legacy of Monsters and Pachinko and she is fucking great
in it. And the main dude, Cosmo Javis, which is just the
most made up actor name I have ever, but I'm so happy he chose
that name when he was getting into acting, and she is the most He's
the British man that I like the most currently in the world. And he
looks a lot like Tom Hardy without you know, all the Tom Hardy.
Yeah, he looks like a match up between Tom Hardy, Logan Marshall Green,
and like five other white guys with a beard. If I were a
director and writer in Hollywood, I would be making a movie where all those
guys that look exactly like our brothers and telling the story about that. It's
like, that's half the battle, right there is. Man, those guys
do look alike. That rules to make a movie about that. But yeah,
Cosmo Jarvis's incredible name. What's the deal with white people in this show?
Like I was watching it first, Yeah, yeah, tell me,
Yeah, So it's it's basically like it opens with like a master and command
of fucking black screen and a bit of text which is already like oh hell
yes, and it's sesh. Basically, Spain has been in Japan for a
while and basically told Japan hey, we're like the only other continent. Let's
trade. And then this Portuguese vessel shows up and he's like, oh,
sorry, other way around, and the Portuguese have been there, They've been
telling the Japanese that they're the only people there. And then a Spanish vessel
shows up with this British pilot Armish and he's like, hey, there's more
of the world than like just the Portuguese. And then war starts happening because
shit is also going down to it's real good and the who are the folk?
Like, who are the primary characters are they? Are they the Japanese
characters or is it like, is it a story about white guys in Japan.
It's like what I'm like wondering Portuguese people in Japan and Hispanic people.
I suppose, Yeah, so they all speak English, but when they're speaking
English, they're usually in the universe speaking Portuguese, because like they'll be a
Japanese character who understands Portuguese and she'll speak in English with with Cosmo, and
so the idea is is that she's one of the main characters, and then
it's also one of the members of the council. Right before this the shogunate
was dissolved, and so now it's a council leading Japan, and there's a
bunch of infighting between the councils. So it becomes a very not game of
thronesy. But suddenly there's factions at play and they realize like, hey,
maybe having a foreign army might fucking help. Pretty soon, it's really it's
really good. Well, I'm gonna check it out. I've been looking forward
to like spending some time with it. Maybe I'll mix it time this weekend,
make it my workout show. I suppose we'll see. But you know
what, we should explain what we do here most weekdays, I Jeff Grubwelt,
piece your gaming life back together. That includes breaking news and maybe even
some of our own original reporting. For all these topics, I'll get the
input of a bona fide expert who will make me look smart. If you
are watching live on twitch, welcome. You can always listen to the show
later on podcast feeds by searching for Game mess Mornings, or find the RSS
on giant bomb dot com. You can also catch the show later with chapters
and timestamps on YouTube. Hello YouTube. All right, we have a lot
to get into so let's start the morning mess with. Arika's vice president has
shared an image of a mysterious Mega Man design ins and outs to the story.
This is from Chris Scullion at BGC. The vice president of Japanese developer
and publisher Areka, who's doing Endless Ocean for Nintendo at that last Nintendo direc
and they also do like street Fighter ex in the past, has shared a
mysterious image of a previously unseen Mega Man design, as reported by Rockman Corner.
Arika vice president each Heiro Mahara was responding on Twitter to a message posted
about Mega Man, known as Rockman in Japan by Menga manga artists Hotshi Ariga.
Ariga has previously worked with Capcom on a number of Mega Man projects,
including numerous manga comics. I used to draw Rockman manga and create encyclopedias and
books with Capcom's official artwork, so I know a little bit about Rockman,
Ariga wrote, alongside an illustration of Mega Man. Mahara responded Mahara from Arica
with a post he had redacted himself, saying I used to make Rockman's blank
blank and blank and official blank. So I'm a bit familiar with Rockman.
This was accompanied by a close up image of a Mega Man helmet helmet which
has puzzled fans because the design of its paneling, the positioning of a bolt,
and Mega Man's glowing eyes don't fit with any previous game in the series.
So basically, this is a new Mega Man design that people have not
seen before. You can see it here if you're watching the video version now.
Mahara was the producer of two thousand and three GameCube title Mega Man Network
Transmission, so some are suggesting it may be unused concept art from from that
game. Others believe that Mahara's decision to censor the post may suggest he's teasing
a future Mega Man project. Last year, Capcom said that they are trying
to investigate and consider how to approach making a new Mega Man game in the
future. Uh this rings to me as there might be something happening here,
and especially because it's Arica. I think Arika is the kind of team that
Capcom would approach and say, hey, what are you working on? Could
you give us some help making a game like this? What do you think?
Yeah, it doesn't seem like something they'd make in house, purely because
Capcom has bigger money makers at the moment that they would probably put their in
house teams to work on first. Maybe this is just more concept art for
Mega Man in Exothimal. Yeah, that's that's got to be what they just
know they need more content for Exo Primal. Capcom wild about that. Yeah,
this looking this look of Mega Man here with the glowing eyes, I'm
like even, I'm like, hey, I don't recognize this at all,
and I'm not like someone who's consuming all Mega Man content. But it's like,
no, this does look like something new, and it is. It
is very zoomed in. I suppose that, like because of the pixelation of
zooming in on a JPEG. It's like, yeah, that could be old
concept art that you were making for something for the GameCube. But I don't
I guess I don't know why you just don't show the whole thing if that's
the case, because that is twenty one years ago. You were probably okay
to share that that art without breaking any Japanese NDA's at that point. So
the fact that it's like it is censored and it is kind of teasing makes
it feel like, hey, something is happening here, and Capcom is not
going to be done with Mega Man despite all the success with like a Resident
Evils growing, Monster Hunter's growing, we expect Dragons Dogma two to grow in
a big way compared to the first game, and all these things are skyrocketing
and Mega Man not necessarily having that same trajectory necessarily. I think that doesn't
mean that Capcom's like, well, we abandon anything that's not growing that fast.
I think they're like, well, we allocate the appropriate resources to keeping
our mascot Mega Man as relevant as possible. And sure we're not going to
like be having our core teams work on a Mega Man game that takes them
away from working on one of these other franchises, But that doesn't mean that
we're done. I think a lot of these pieces fit together where Capcom doesn't
want to be done with Mega Man. Arika is a work for hired studio
that has and has a producer that has a history of working on the franchise.
I think they probably make this happen. My question to you, Lexi
is does Mega Man matter to you as a younger gamer? Is a very
strong word? Sure, yeah, Well, how would you describe it?
It's like important. Mega Man is something that like you know of if you
are into games to any certain extent, purely because it's just Mega Man.
I don't think when I was young there were any Mega Man games that were
like catching my eye. Bear in mind that I started playing games around the
PS two and so I don't think that anyone in that generation has had any
big, main mainline Mega Man games that haven't been retro throwbacks. They've all
been you know, Mega Man eight or nine were very odd nine to ten
very much so throwbacks to the classics. So I don't know if there's like
a young audience for this, but there is an audience for it because people
in who are older are still playing games. Obviously. I think that like
thing that's kind of exciting about all of this, And I only realized the
other day is with Dragon Sogma two coming out, we're like finally escaped the
whole Capcom leak, Like there's no more games left on that leak as far
as I can remember, that haven't been announced. Yesh. So now it
was a Mega Man game on there, but I think it was that mobile
game that came out a few years ago. I think I think that's how
what it was the Dive something X dive or something. But yeah, it's
interesting that we're now back in the place where we don't quite know what Capcom
is working on anymore other than like informed guessing, so who knows. Yeah,
And I think Mega Man is has a sort of sonic like appeal where
I think the character just looks cool, people respond to it. That's why
it works so well as a mascot. And and people were like, yeah,
I still want like the merchant stuff. Of course, even if the
games aren't the first thing I think when I think of Mega Man anymore.
And that's something that you know, for a game company, they can play
on that and if they have a good idea, could bring that back,
get people excited, get people back into the game. I you know,
for Capcom, their strategy of doubling down on the things that are working is
correct, but I think that opens up opportunities for them to take risks here
and there, and like smart, you know, relatively safe risks would include
let's try to do something new with Mega Man again. You know Mega Man
eleven. I know that internally they weren't thrilled with the performance of that game,
but you know, things change, and if you could deliver something that
is I think, you know, nostalgic and at the same time doing some
new stuff with a either a two D game or maybe they go the Legends
route. I'm not going to try to get the fans of that series as
hopes up because they're lunatics, but you know, maybe something along those lines.
I think they could get a big pop and get people excited again.
And at the very least it's not gonna be something that won't make its money
back. It'll do that at least. It just might be a small opportunity
costs where it's like, I guess we could have spent that money we spent
partnering with Arika doing something else that maybe would have made more money. But
I think they view it as any investment into Mega Man to keep him,
you know, floating up to the surface every once in a while, will
be worth it in the long run because Mega Man is valuable to them in
other ways. I think something that's also interesting I'm just looking at like Capcom's
announced Slash after Dragons Dogma two. The only other game announced from Capcom is
Monster Hunter Wilds, so at some point soon it feels like we're due form
announcing a bunch of other games, and Pragma has obviously also announced, but
the game isn't real. Yeah, and that's who let's not that's gonna be
at the same time as deep Down. For the PS four the the they
had a Capcom event like last week and the ext they had stuff like a
Kuma or street Fighter, and I had no idea this thing even happened until
I started seeing like sporadic headlines from that thing. They did a second stream
last night with even smaller announcements, just like more. That's where they announced
Mega Man for them for Exo Pimal because he is coming to Exobimal Wild.
What I'm not looking forward to, LEXI is when they remake Residable five.
I'm not I don't want to deal with that again. I played that game
in twenty twenty one, and you know, as someone who defends tank those
tank controls, Like I really I think that Deadly Premonition is like a fun
game to play in the modern day because of those terrible controls. Yeah,
no, that game kind of fucking sucks five. I just like there was
the controversy around it where it's like, hey, you're you're playing as this
white guy and you're throwing down all these tribal people in Africa. Boy,
that looks pretty racist on its surface, and like, let's talk about that.
And then there was such a backlash of like, we know, how
dare you even suggest it's racist, and it's like, we're going to do
it again, and it's going to be a nightmare. It's going to be
so frustrating. I also just don't think that like that game would benefit a
remake as much as some of the other games, Like it's for sure,
Yeah, like it's kind of like remaking six because ultimately the big problem with
six is it's just not that engaging. It's overbloated, there's way too much
in it, and it's kind of a fucking mess. And yeah, I
think that there's like interesting things that they still could do with the Residentieval franchise,
the Zero there's all those other games that they haven't remained, there's one
which could still be remade in the modern sense. And yeah, I'm curious
if they do decide to go back to five, because I just don't think
that game is interesting in twenty twenty three, Yeah, and I think they
will. I mean what they want to keep that gravy training rolling. What
choice do they have other than I mean, I know Kdaronic and stuff like
that. That stuff could happen still as well. But they will eventually get
to a point where it's like, the only thing left to remake is five
and six, and I think they will do that, and you're but you're
right, it's just gonna have much less of an impact. For one,
you know, those games have mixed reputations. I think five is a fine
game when you're especially when you're playing a co op six that is bad,
but you know the chapter, Yeah, six has one good chapter, And
someone in chat bought this up that they should remake six, but make it
only the Leon Kennedy section because that section that is like actually not terrible.
It's like a fun action ramp. But then by time you get to the
one where it's like, let's do Gears of War, You're like, this
is fucking miserable. Yeah, and you know, they could make it a
lot better with remakes. So I suppose that's one thing. I just you
know, I think there's a strong chance that they won't be able to make
them that much better. We saw that happen kind of with three a little
bit. Now. I suppose that could be down to the teams that are
working on it. There's a number of factors. But just like hey,
five and six inherently are less interesting to me, like you said, but
hey, I'll give them a chance once they come out. Doctor Ryan and
Chap just said that six is better than the original four. And I think
you should adact his medical license. Yeah, well, I'll send the board
after him. Don't worry, everybody. I know what to do with doctor
Ryan, all right. Moving on, Saber Interactive has removed references to Embracer
from its site, suggesting it's been sold. This from Chris Scullian at VGC
as well. Saber Interactive has removed references to Embraser Group from its website,
suggesting the reports of its sale are actually accurate. Late last month, a
Bloomberg report, citing a source familiar with the transaction, said the studio was
being sold to a group of private investors in a deal worth up to five
hundred million dollars. At the time, the Saber website featured the studio logo
above the words an Embracer Group company. The site's bio also read Saber Interactive
as a US based developer and publisher of video games, consisting of over twenty
studios and more than two thousand, five hundred employees worldwide. We are one
of the key operative operative businesses or operative business units of Embracer Group, and
hey, when business people just make up terms. However, as noted by
Twitter user Lee june A, at some point in early March, the site
changed to remove references to the Embraser Group, with an Embraser Group company message
removed from underneath the logo they Farazomore. It's still have not like publicly confirmed
that this has happened. This has all been reporting and now people putting two
and two together with what's happening on the website. If I were Saber,
I'd be shouting from the rooftops. We don't work for Embracer anymore. Holy
shit, we got out. We got out. Look, it's possible you
could save yourselves. This is good news for someone. As for me,
who's in a Saber Interactive fan and proud of it, I'm glad that they
are will make this happen. There is such a stink of death around Embracer
that there is a world in which a company like Saber just dwindles and falls
apart. Because of Embracer. I'm glad that they were able to get basically
what it sounds like. They were able to get private investors to come in
back their bid to buy themselves out from Embracer for around five hundred million dollars,
and now they are going to take their twenty studios and go out and
be into it yet again. And they have a lot of stuff in the
works, including apparently still that Knights of the Old Republic remake, although again
Sony doesn't seem to want anything to do with it, they're still making it,
so Yeah, a lot of stuff still happening over there, including you
know, expeditions, which I'm still playing and really enjoying. But yeah,
this is good news for a studio and a publisher that has a lot of
games in the works. Yeah, I think I'm fascinated by Embraser. I
know you are too, and you've been on the speed as long as I
have. But like ever since games Com twenty nineteen was when it really hit
me of like, oh, Embrasa is like throwing around money and you'd see
it on the show floor because Embracer owns a bunch of publishers, and each
one of the publishers would have their own booth on the show floor. And
by the end of it, they were taking up like maybe like just under
a quarter of the business space in games Calm, Like it was ridiculous how
much they were spreading out. And as the years have gone on, it's
become like this thing of like, hey, do they do they know that
they're like the Roman Empire? Do they know that? Like this isn't gonna
last? And I feel like literally everyone has been telling them that it wasn't
gonna last. And I double checked the numbers there. Embracer bosh Saber Interactive
for five hundred and twenty five million euro and the reporting that came out the
other week was that Saber bart themselves back for five hundred million. And so
they're really fucking good at business over there at Embracer, they're really good at
maximizing their investments. And yeah, I would just fucking love to see someone
interview Lars Wingerford because very often based on my attempts in the past, Yeah,
and man, what what Embracer has done should be fucking illegal when you
look at it, like the damage they caused the way that they so recklessly
just bought companies to inflation their value. And now they realize like, oh,
we have to make games like oh shit, like what and no matter
how much those games make, no matter how much Dead Island makes, it
will never be enough. Like they have racked up too much dash. And
yeah, I get really fucking angry thinking about Embracer. Yeah, I mean,
I mean, just the the picture you painted of a game show floor
where all these booths are owned by the one company. It's like, clearly
we understand at a very basic level how inefficient that is. And it's like,
well, you know, it's one thing when all these companies are separate
and technically competing and trying to like, you know, get the most attention
for themselves. But when you're a one big company and you have all these
subsidiaries competing with each other for attention, it's the inevitable conclusion for any sane
person running that is, oh, we've messed up here. We could save
a lot more if we slim down and streamlined, and that means cutting a
lot of these companies, cutting jobs, and all the all this other stuff
that is inherently bad for the industry. So it's like just from the beginning,
this was set up as a bad thing and it only got worse.
And we were all like, okay, well, Lars, what's the upside
here, buddy, Like, what what's the positive? How how is this
good for anything? And it was well, we look like we're growing that
motherfucker, and some interviews said in that interview, I think he's talking to
investors, said some shit like about organic growth and how they're going to continue
to organic growth. Fucking angry, I could slap a motherfucker. The still
growth of any company that whatever thing to say. I think like that became
the most apparent when they announced, oh, we're setting up our own pure
company and not all of their pre goes through that company. Yep, Like
the other parts of Embracive Group still hire out other PR companies to do that
PR. Why the fuck would you set up an entire PR company and still
hire out other companies. Yeah, it's like, and you know why,
because they're so big, one PR group inside of company would never be able
to handle all of the requests and all of the time needed of them.
It's like so unwieldy that again it's just it is self evident how this doesn't
work. And you know, you don't have to come listen to this show.
You don't have to listen to us talk about these specific incidents. Everyone
everyone's gut reaction from the beginning. Every time Embracer picked up something told them
the truth about what was going to happen here and here we are. Yeah,
I'm just I'm just glad for the most part that a team like Saber
was able to extract themselves. That's that's some good news at the very least.
Oh no, Hell Divers has flying bugs to deal with now, or
does it. Don't believe all the propaganda. This is from Darren bamf Use
at GameSpot Held two players have a new threat to watch out for following this
week's patch, as a new breed of termined enemies have been introduced to the
game. While de terminive ground forces live up to their name and terrain,
these new bugs are an airborne minist that have been gun appearing in the game.
But are they even real? Helldivers two director Johann Pilstett took to Twitter
to rubbish these claims, rejecting the reality of flying bugs and substituting the own
Ministry of Truth approved spin on the claims. I've heard rumors of flying bugs
and helldivers two, Pilstatt wrote, I want to officially refute such preposterous claims.
Everyone knows that bugs can't fly, and I'm not alone in thinking this.
The Ministry of Truth agrees that this is propaganda from bugs sympathizers that want
to brainwash good people. This is a fun game. This is so fly
down, fly down, This is so much fun that they are taking this
route with like their new features in the game, it's, you know,
kind it's it's kind of cheesy in hokey a little bit, but in a
completely fun and harmless way. I think the more interesting thing about how they're
treating as a live service is it isn't like they're not doing seasons. They're
just doing, Hey, this week, we're adding one thing, We're adding
a couple of weapons, we're adding a like it's a trickle to the realistic
sent that I've ever seen with a live service game, where it does feel
like things are like arriving right on like as they're done being manufactured within the
universe, and they're building that intoish and I think it's keeping people engaged way
more than you've seen with other seasons, because people arrive for the first week
when there's a new Fortnite season, and then they drop off once they realize,
oh, I'm never fucking completing this battle pass. Yeah, but if
there's always a new thing to check out, and it's an evolution of the
kind of live service storytelling slash content drops that we've gotten from other games,
but done in a really cohesive and fun way. I mean, Fortnite's like
evolving. Man was always something that, like early on, people have their
problems with these days, but early on it was like Man that they got
rid of this whole town and replaced there was something else. We got to
go check that out and see what that's like. And you know, there
was not. There wasn't a ton of low reasons early excuse me, early
on. They added some stuff later, but it was never as interesting or
in world truthful as this is. And then there's like stuff like Hitman twenty
sixteen and its sequels, where they would have all these live service things like
here's an elusive target, and it's like that stuff never had the connective tissue
of here's why this new target is here. Here's how it fits into the
story. Here's like what's happening in the wider lore all that stuff, and
it's like that would have been very cool, but I get why that's also
difficult. So them coming in with this, it doesn't feel like a roadmap,
like when Destiny comes out. It's it's kind of weird that, like,
oh, the big event always happens once every six month, right months,
And I do think something that's worth highlighting and diego over a polygone tastic
piece on this about how the bit of in the way that they're treating a
lot of their communications in an in world sense has had a adverse effect on
the community in some circumstances and has limited their ability to actually like moderate their
community in quite a serious way. And it's a really interesting read because on
one hand, this like in universe stuff, it's fun and it's really good.
On the other hand, there are people who don't fucking get that it's
satire still, and by playing into that, they're feeding a lot of the
people who don't get that, like this game is mocking the fascists, And
so you've had situations where there are groups of players who are becoming emboldened by
their toxicity because they see the developers essentially approving it by staying in character.
It's kind of like the Warhammer effect where you have a bunch of fans who
are like, oh no, these guys are fucking great because the Warhammer company
is like always promoting them and like they love them, and they don't realize
like, oh wait, maybe God Kings are bad. Yeah, it's it's
depitely played with player a little bit. I think that's it's important to point
that out because this could you know, turn on a dime and suddenly,
yeah, there is these people role playing or actually being kind of fascisty,
you know, the fascit and and towards other players and then towards the developers,
and they, like you said, feel emboldened. That is definitely something
that could burn out the studio really quickly, and you know, a couple
of years from now, it's like why did they stop doing that? And
then we look back at the history, it's like all these new stories of
either you know, harassment or people not just getting it, or players treating
other players poorly, which is something that does happen a little bit with like
the people being kicked if they're not properly. If they don't have the proper
metaspec for their character and they join a certain like leveled mission, the other
people be like, well you're not you don't have the right gun, so
we're gonna kick you. And the studios like, hey, we don't we
don't know how to deal with this. We need help figuring this out.
And it's like, eventually, I think they're going to get to a point
where they've learned that the community is not going to be helpful with solution.
Even if they're pointing this is a problem, they don't know what the solution
is. And if you're looking at the community to help you with that,
especially one that you're like keeping on a string with with this lore, it's
yeah, they could step in it in a bad way and it could burn
them out. Yeah. I think that it's something that other companies have learned
the very hard way. Bungie definitely learned it, Like it's definitely one yes.
Yeah, Like community management and community development is a core part of being
a developer with a live service game. It's important and if you don't have
a healthy relationship that also like puts boundaries on like where the community can and
can't step like you wind up with straight up. You know, these relationships
where the community basically decides they're making the game as much as the developers,
and things can get toxic very quickly. Yeah. I think that Hell divers
is fucking awesome. I really like playing it. I just worry that there
are parts of it that they have like it seems like they're shocked by the
success by it as well. And when something breaks out as big as that,
there's always an element of like, Okay, people are going to interpret
this in the worst possible way, and you lose control of your art once
you put it into the world, and that's kind of what's happening here,
is they're losing control of their ash. So yeah, I really hope that
they can keep their community. They can keep their community moderated and positive in
a way that keeps that like role playing going and it's fun but also doesn't
entertain dipshits. Yep, agreed. All right, we are going to take
a quick break when we get back. We have a lot more headlines to
get into right after this. All right, we are back, and let's
head right back into it. Actually, first, apparently the House of representatives
just devoted to ban TikTok. So that's fun. People have a hard time
convinced me that this is anything other than if you were to search the term
capitalism on TikTok. You get a lot of people telling you why it's bad,
and I think that's just Yeah, they're frightened of its ability to sway
people and their opinion. Obviously there's bad sides of the TikTok, of course,
but it's not worth banning. I hope it's just freedom. Yeah,
I love freedom so much. But don't worry. Bobby Cootyck's gonna buy it
because she has such a good relationship with all the American senators. I'm sure
he'll be able to smooth talk them once he buys it. As the Finals,
too did announce its new season. It has private matches, and yeah,
maybe we'll return to that for T and T at some time. That
would be fun. I would like to check that out, all right.
Here's the next headline. Unicorn Overlord physical copies sold out at retail in Japan.
This is from Aiden at Mins Window News. Atlas, the publisher of
Unicorn Overlord, recently announced that physical copies the game have sold out at retail
stores across Japan. Released worldwide on March eight, twenty twenty four, the
game has seen an overwhelming response from fans, leading to a sudden shortage of
physical copies and a statement addressing the shortage, Atlas expressed its apologies for any
inconvenience caused by the sold out status of Unicorn Overlord. The company also conveyed
its deep gratitude for fans for their overwhelming support. This is a combination of
things, LEXI. Obviously, they probably did not print a ton of physical
physical copies. It was probably difficult to predict how well this was gonna do.
And then also I think demand is significantly higher than they would have even
expected on the high end. I remember earlier this week we did a poll,
Hey are you gonna play Unicorn Overlord? This is not like you don't
have to put any money down to vote yes on that, but almost half
of respondents said yes. And that it's like way way more of a response
than I was expecting for that game. And I think it's coming down to
strong word of mouth, great reviews of Vanila Ware, having a good reputation
among developer among gamers, and the game just kind of like filling niche.
That's like, hey, it's it's different and and and familiar at the same
time. It's like, you know, this turn based strategy kind of thing,
but it's got auto battles and and and I think it's like, Okay,
well I'm going to get in there, and it's just experienced something new.
I think it has a ton of mechanics people I haven't seen before.
And then of course it just looks really nice. Yeah, you're you're a
great industry analyst. But I'm kind of surprised that you have forgotten the most
major factor in all of this. What's that game is b horny? Yeah?
The mommies. Yeah, there's real fucking horny for for the characters in
that game. Yeah. I mean that's that's just that's true across the all
Vdillaware games. Uh. And I think they're embracing that here as well.
Yeah, the m and chat for mommies. Uh. I am. I
have not touched this game yet. I will. It's I keep forgetting it's
not on PC. So I'm always like, what is that new game I
want to play? And I'm like checking the Steam Store. I'm like,
huh, nothing news come out what I must be making it up, and
I'm like, oh, yeah, I gotta go down on the steam.
Are the switch to actually play this game, which I suppose I will do,
But yeah, I'm this game is due. They're going to do way
better than what seems like any previous vanilla ware game. A big part of
that is going to be the power of the switch driving the excitement for that
game a little bit. But also I think it's just like this is the
right game at the right time, and hoariness has never been more popular.
ATLEASO having a big year between this Persona and Metaphour, we Fantasio. They
have like three games that could sell really fucking well this year, which will
only embolden them to be more weird. Yeah that's what we need. Yes,
absolutely all right. We could be getting Final Fantasy seven Rebirth rebirths Queen's
Blood expansions. This is from Georgiang at GameSpot. Square Enix is open to
expanding Queen's Blood, the in game card game in Final Fantasy seven Rebirth.
The mini game has been incredibly popular and well received. There are one hundred
and forty five cards in total. He's a quote we haven't decided anything in
terms of future development for Queen's Blood, said director Naoki Hamaguchi in an interview
with Red Bull. But so far the media who played it have provided very
positive feedback on it, so we want to consider further expansions as a possibility
real quick. I love that, Like, in this world where media companies
are closing, Red Bulls still doing their gaming stuff. I'm glad that that's
still not I'm glad that's not been shuddered yet. That's something. Yeah,
hey, Queen's Blood. I like Queen's Blood a ton. It's like my
favorite mini game in Final Fantasy seven Rebirth. I think it could stand alone
very easily, and I think that they should expand it and do a ton
of fun stuff. I don't know if they should necessarily expand it within the
confines of a rebirth though. I don't know how that would work necessarily,
But if it's like, if they make that like something you could play,
I guess if you could boot it up from the menu and just start playing
games from Final Fasty seven Rebirth and you could get booster packs there, I
think I would be down. But as it stands, it's like I'm not
looking for them to like hide a character in the world I gotta go talk
to that will now suddenly show up and sell me more inside the world of
Final Fantasy seven Rebirth. Yeah, I'm super torn because I beat Final Fantasy
seven remake the other week and I did not enjoy the back half of that
game, and I thought it was straight up pretty bad. But every time
I hear something about Final Fancy seven Rebirth, I'm like, maybe I should
like give it. I've bought it, I know I'm gonna play it at
some point. But then I hear like one thing that's like, oh,
I'm really gonna like this, I'll lose a bunch of time to Queen's Blood.
And then I hear something else where it's like, oh yeah, it
gets even more like bullshit and no more like nonsense. Towards the end,
I'm like, oh, that doesn't sound like a great use of sixty hours
for me. Yeah, right. I think, like, if that stuff
is something that you're worried about, Dan's strategy of playing until you're done is
because there's a great game in there. There's a lot of fun stuff,
so uh, I think you probably will know when you're done. Uh.
And and that's a completely valid way to play that game. I think I'm
not gonna let it discourage me too much, although upcoming games like Dragon's Dogma
two and and some other stuff, it's gonna probably pull me away a little
bit, But like I want to, I do want to get back to
more Final Fantasy seven Rebirth. I did. I was playing that this morning
a little bit. I was actually just trying to like get you. I
hadn't played it really since the stream. I'm like, how do I open
up the map? So That's where I'm at with that game now, which
is always frustrating, but I'll give it another shot. But yeah, I
think that, like they're like stuff, stuff like Queen's Blood is worth experiencing,
and you could set the story aside at least, especially how it ends,
because characters are great, the world is great. I think the way
it looks is fantastic. I think the open world is really well done.
It's like one of the better RPG open worlds. So yeah, I think
it's still worth getting in there and checking out. Yeah, I do think
that. Like the thing that suck out most to me about Final Nancy seven
we Make was how much I enjoyed the first half where I was just hanging
out with these characters and I was getting to know them, and I was
like, Oh, they made these characters who've I've only known through memes and
references for all these years, like super likable and I actually care about them.
And then when it became more of an overarching end of the world plot
towards the end, I was like, Okay, a bit less about this.
I'd just like to hang out with these cool dudes and do debts.
Yep. And I yeah again, I think that's a completely fine way to
experience that game. Uh see. WW two K twenty four feature has players
uploading porn yet again to the game from LEAs one Joshua James Harris at GameSpot.
WW two K twenty four launched last week, but in the game's community
creation hub, some players are already up up to their old tricks. The
new creative sign feature allows users to create, the create and share custom signs
for audience NPCs to hold during matches. Instead of having signs with the usual
WWE banter on them, some players are uploading sexually explicit images. It's worth
noting that there is a system that allows players to flag content as inappropriate if
you're a goddamn nark. But despite that, many of them have made their
way to the top of the most downloaded and most uploaded pages. Some images
are featured prominently despite even being days old, making it unclear whether the flagging
system is unreliable or if players just aren't flagging them in the first place.
WWE two K is rated T by the ESRB, but wrestling games are often
played by younger kids, and in any event, the sexually explicit content exceeds
even in M rating. Having adult content in WWE games isn't new in the
past. Some players use the games create a logo feature to upload sexually explicit
images that would make their ways to the top of the most downloaded and most
uploaded pages according to Reddit threads that are sometimes months or even years old.
Yeah, the online games, especially with user created aspects, are the wild
West definitely the kind of thing where if you are parent of a kid,
you gotta you just gotta be watching that or not even letting the kids engage
with that stuff in the first place, because it is it's not really part
of that that rating, that TEA rating is it really has nothing to do
with what's going to happen once you go online. That is a whole other
world. It goes back to what we were talking about earlier, like jobs.
I would not like to have community management for a live service game,
running a Twitter account for a brand, and working for the WWE right now,
and this combines all of those and it just seems like a fucking nightmare
trying to manage that. Like, how many fucking vinces have people created and
uploaded to that already? Do you want to besh? Yes, it's probably
just a fucking nightmare on there. I mean I always have, Like Chrispinoire,
I think is like always one of the most creative characters that people download
and stuff like that. So yeah, that's there's a long history of that
sort of thing. Yeah. And I saw Alex over at Nexlander was playing
it and this like fucking thumbnail for it was just Peter Green and I was
like, okay, yeah, this this game is still this, This is
still what people do every time it's the Nevers, they just create Peter Griffin
like okay, yep, and uh and that's I mean, it's uh the
wild West and it's uh, there's going to be porn on there. But
it's also the best part of the game, all the all the user created
stuff and messing around with the creativity features, uh and telling your own stories
and you know, setting up matches with that are impossible, and look,
you know the game facilitates that to a certain extent. Like Damn was talking
about having Muhammad Ali fighting God. I can't remember who it was now,
but it was like, yeah, it was yeah, like these dream matches
and it's, well, you could do that with the characters that they give
you, but obviously they know that the creator wrestler and sharing those creations is
important because it's these things are downloaded tens of thousands of times and they do
enable even wilder matches of like Ultraman fighting al Gore or whatever, and that's
like, that's a ton of fun. Ultimately, we joke about this,
but like I would be devastated if they ever removed this like system, because
you look at like what kind of funny do you look at? Like dead
Meat has been doing one for horror movie characters, and like those are really
fucking fun. They're really dumb and really fun. Germa used to do ones
on Twitch that would get like thousands of youers watching Live that were just fucking
ridiculous, Like, yeah, I would be. It's some of the best
stuff in that game because it is the most player driven thing that you can
do in that game. Yeah, it's You're right, like if this went
away, and it's like, there's always the risk of that with things like
this, and that's why the moderation is so important. You got to keep
things on the up and up. You have to keep things sort of cool
because it could ruin it for everybody. And you're never gonna be able to
stop some idiot kid uploading a picture of a butthole to assign creator in WWE.
You're not gonna be able to stop that. So what you have to
do is you have to then cut it out and cut it off as soon
as possible so it doesn't spread and don't take that literally so you don't have
more of that everywhere. And then you start attracting unwanted attention for people,
and like, we can't have this. Someone needs to do something. The
only thing that's left is to have the United States House of Representatives and WWE's
create a wrestler mode, which you know you could easily get to. That's
the kind of thing that that creates moral panics all the time, So you
kind of want to get on top of this if you're two k and stop
the buttholes. The latest side. I just wanted to make sure there was
a clean lead on that final line. Yeah, of course. Yeah,
it's a good show, everybody, it's a good show. You don't have
to tell me it's a bad show. I know it's a good show.
The latest p S five system update adds dual shock improvements and it also lets
you dim the console light. This is from Chris going at VGC. Shout
out to Chris for all the hard work. The version nine point zero firmware
update improves the volume of the controller speakers. It also uses AI machine learning
to improve the quality of controller microphone. Don't improve that thing. Don't encourage
people to use that stupid microphone. To disable it permanently. Yeah, just
like, get rid of it, Please get rid of it. The amount
of times that I've like joined into multiplayer games and it's just someone who has
not never turned that thing off. Yeah, fucking red hot Chili Pepper's playing
in the background, their child is crying and you can hear them eating chips
all the time, and it's like, oh, man, fucking video games.
What a mistake. Uh huh, Brenda Chili Pepper's being called as the
boomer band of the of the guy that does not intern out the microphone.
It's harsh, but fair, Alexi, You're absolutely right. Uh yeah,
So they're going to improve the sound quality of that. I please just use
a headset if you actually are going to talk online, everybody, please.
There's a whole bunch of other additions, but yeah, I mean, hey,
I guess mostly with this, I'm wondering, like, you do you
think that the PS five like user interface and and menu system and all that
stuff is good. So I've been visiting my parents a lot recently and my
PS four is there, and loading up the PS four and using that again,
I'm like, this is just so much fucking better. Like it's not
that much different, but it's just more intuitive in every single fucking way.
And also, like everything in the PS five UI is designed to annoy the
shit out of me. Specifically, if you go to the PlayStation Plus Games
and you subscribe to their tier that gives you the electro games, they'll have
a thing that's like sort by release stage, but it's not actually fucking release
state. It's when they added them to p s N two titles that are
Yeah, they have PS four and PS two titles that are sort hit as
newer than PS four and PS three titles. I fucking hate it. It's
just it's not that hot, it's not that hard. It's wild that they
do things that way. For me, it's like I could just see so
transparently through what happened here they this is the PS five interface is basically built
on top of the PS four interface. They took that and they slapped a
bunch of shit on top to make it feel new and different for you know,
before stops the lessons reasons that we always talk about, and it's just
like, okay, we're past that period. You should start peeling away some
of this horseshit and just going back to what you had with the PS four
that was like that just worked. This doesn't. This is annoying and I
but you know, it's it's never gonna be the thing that stops people from
buying the games, right, So this is not like a priority for them
to fix. And yet boy, I wish they would. I wish they
would just take a little bit of time to make it less shitty. I
just know there's like UX designers who every time you bring up the fact that
they swapped the way that you hold down the bush in or press the station
bosion to shut down the console, Like who fucking decided that? Who was
like, let's just invertish from from one game to another, like h from
one console to another. Who Jesus Christ. Even the stuff that was cool,
like when it launched, like being able to keep track of whether I
want want to play inverted in every game, like the PS five launch dance,
Like we're gonna like have something set across all your games that just stopped
working, that just stopped working at some point and I got to go into
every game and invert my controls again and set my stuff to performance mode instead
of graphics mode. I mean, maybe I saw I'll go back to check,
maybe that stuff got turned off, but I'm pretty sure it's on the
last time I checked, and it's still. Some games are like, yeah,
we're not. We don't get about that because it came up on content.
I went back and I've been playing sac Boy on the PS five because
I played it on PC when I reviewed it, and I was like fucking
shocked when one of those game cards came up and it was like pick up
your activity where you're going? And then I finished a level and I was
like review the challenge like stars on a five? Would you hear this?
I was like, what the fuck are these notifications? I think I went
to a game card in a recent game, or tried to go to a
game card and like like like I clicked it and it was basically the PlayStation
five O cool than like four oh four not found. It's like, we
don't know what you're trying to do. This is not connected to anything.
This is just a box that exists here. Oh okay, I mean,
and it's what we all kind of predicted. It's like saying the things are
cool if they're going to use it, but we know they're not. Yes
said at the beginning, and here we are. Whatever. It doesn't once
you're in the games, it's fine. They play great. Play Station five
is a good console. But I'm more and more appreciative of Xbox not changing
things and be like, listen, our shitty thing is kind of you're kind
of used to it, right, Just keep using the shitty thing and we'll
make it a little bit better here and there. Uh, as opposed to
like, let's just remix everything because we're playing so long trying to make the
Xbox ones you are fucking usable, and we're just about there. We are
not sounding from square one again. And Nihilox says ranking of console You why
I would do a tier list of consoles. Yeah, I would be way
into that. That sounds incredible. I We'll find some time on a BCR
in the future for that. Uh okay, let's see here. Yeah,
there are David Bowie. There's just straight up a David Bowie song, Let's
Dance in sac Boy and the level is set to the music and it's incredible.
And then you go to the next level and it's an instrumental version of
like a Virgin by Madonna without it, and that's like, that's just as
good. It's such a good game. There's there's the level with Toxic as
well. Yeah. It's like that game is really annoying to me in one
way because I when I play it, I'm like, oh, this game
is like so close to being a nine out of ten, and then I
remember that if you get hit twice, you die and you have to go
back to a check bo and I'm like, this is really annoying. Why
is why are you my kids? For sure, it's close if it's really
close to being great, and if they had just, like what, I
don't know, if they had just taken a few different approaches to balancing.
I think the movement in that game actually feels super good. Yes, yeah,
it's like it's not quite Super Mario three D World in terms of quality,
but it's like the closest thing from that anyone else has ever made.
And the needle drops, the very illumination animation style needle drops are better than
they are in any illumination movie. It's so yeah. I think they just
did a great job with making that game feel fun and alive, and the
kids really do love it. And she's passed out, all right, Cool,
she's mad at me, and now she's sleeping, all right. Resident
Evil four has sold seven million copies. This is from Jonas Mackett Game Reactor.
It was the remake everyone was asking for, and almost exactly a year
ago, Capcom finally released completely reworked Resident Evil four. The Predecessor is often
considered one of the best games of all time, and that legacy has preserved
and improved, leading to great ratings and satisfied fans. When it was released
in March twenty twenty three, in just two days, three million copies were
sold with and within a week four million games have been sold. Since then,
it has continued to grow, and recently an Apple version was launched.
Has anyone played that version? I just I think it's an insane thing to
buy that game on your iPhone and have it take up half of your storage
on your phone. But whatever for seventy dollars. Yeah, but the game
has now surpassed seven million copies sold, which is I think that's like right
in the range where that's a huge success for these games Residny Evil in the
past. It's like some of the best games before this spat of remakes.
We're right around seven million. I think that's what Resident Evil six did,
which is unfortunately that was the best selling one for a very long time.
And then this game is probably going to continue to sell. I guess it
gets more sales. It's gonna easily get over to ten million, I think
in the next couple of years. So that's pretty good, and I think
it's it's it's you know, they're going to be very happy with that.
Are you surprised by that number? Would you expect more? What do you
think? No? I fucking love the Resident Evil games. At the moment,
really wanted to talk shit about Resident Evil for just to upset Mike,
But I love that getting too much. Yes, And I do think Resident
Evil is like one of my favorite gaming franchises at this point. It just
hits the hits every note. Yeah, looking at the sales for or E
to remake, the latest numbers on that were like twelve point six million,
So this is going to keep selling. I think that it's just a really
fucking well made game. It's like everything about it is designed really cleverly.
It like feels really good to play, and they made really sensible changes to
both the story and the gameplay. Yep, that's right, and it's it's
getting the sales it deserves, and I think Resident Evil will just keep getting
bigger. The way that they're making these games and the quality coming out of
Capcom right now, they're just they're nailing it, and Residevil forres is benefiting
from that. One of these days they'll figure out how to turn it into
a movie. Is attempts that seems impossible, all right. Last story here,
a new Nintendo switch emulator has a few tricks up at sleeve to avoid
getting sued. This is from Alex Hopley at Game Reactor. Yuzu, the
most popular switch emulator out there, recently shut down, and already we are
seeing another emulator take its place. Do you know what it's called? Cleverly
sue you? Sue you is looking to avoid a similar laws It's the giant
bomb naming scheme. What's the dubbest fucking baby we can call this thing?
Sue you is looking to avoid a similar lawsuit from Nintendo, is preparing to
utilize some legal loopholes to get around one. Sue YOUU is currently currently existing
in a legal gray area, and we are trying to work out work our
way out of discord. Moderator sharply told as are excuse me ours technica.
There are multiple plans and possibilities for what to do next. Things are still
being organized in planned but the general plan is to avoid promoting piracy. They're
not going to include official tutorials on how to download copyrighted games, and they
will not monetize it. Seems to be their plan is the plan we don't
commit crimes. Yeah, we like read the DMCA and then don't do those
things. Yeah, that seems to be it. Honestly, youzu again the
emulator itself, even when it was suing it. They're not saying you can't
build an emulator. It was the end, never the emulator. It was
bypassing encryption. It was explaining how to bypass you know, the copyright law
things like that that Nintendo was going after. That's what they built their case
on. And if you can avoid those things, like many emulators do,
you should continue to be fine. So Sue, you look out for that
at a shady place on the internet near you. What an incredible name.
All right, Lexie, I have a poll question. I'm gonna get to
you while I get that set up. Why don't you tell people where they
can find you what you have going on, all that good stuff. Yeah,
so you can find me all over the place. At the moment,
I'm on statmanu dot co dot uk, a website for young people trying to
break into the industry as game journalists. We try to have like a safe
and supportive place for people to find opportunities and to get working with an editor
and get their work out there, and you will also be able to find
me on Shock News over the next couple of weeks. There is a game
Somish on in Galway that I will be attending and interviewing a few people Lash
so you can see my ride ups from Nash sometime early April, and you
can see me around the place in the giant bomb jash annoying people with my
own emote. Now, and let's get some lex wins in chat for that.
Absolutely, I'm really I'm discovering I'm really good at Superman sixty four.
Oh really, you always when I always win. It's we'll get to more
of that here in a second. Let's see, let's do this poor question
all right, did you ever play an adult swim game? Fifty three percent
said yes, Forty seven percent said no. Adult swim games. I real
soft spot for them. I just every time they were putting out anything,
I was like, I'm at least interested. They were the team I would
seek out whenever I was at any sort of indie gaming event at a show,
because I knew they would find something that had like an attitude, and
that's what that's like. The thing I prized the most from an indie game,
lex is, give me something with a voice, give me something that's
like screaming at me in some way, and adult swim games always did that.
I if someone knows a way to play Unicorn or yeah, Unicorn Rainbow
Attack? Is that what it's called Rainbow Unicorn Attack? If someone knows how
to play that original one still somewhere, let me know. I would appreciate
that. I want to track that down. My kids I think would really
dig that. That does remind me quick shout out to my old co worker
Andy Kelly, who used to work at The Gamer and now Rock Evolver.
He now works at Devolver, but he's been doing like SNS style manuals for
all their games coming up. So he did one for Pepper Grinder, and
he did one for Children of the Sun and they look fucking great like they
they're real cool. So yeah, those indie game studios that have a bit
of money behind them or polish to have a bit of money behind them,
and we're funding weird shit. There's not enough of them, and it's a
real shame that is less every month. Fuck w B. Let's see next
pole. Question is Mega Man important? Yes or no? You can vote
on that right now. By going to YouTube dot com slash at giant Bomb
under the community tab, there you will find our poll questions. I will
talk about this on Game Mess Mornings here on Giant Bomb tomorrow. That's where
we'll discuss the results. Speaking a Giant Bomb later today, it's Blake Club
with super Dance sixty four, the Dan of Steel. It's it's gonna be
a big moment for him. He has to decide because Mike did go back
and beat Shinak for shoot. In Mortal Kombat mythology sub zero, Mike is
number nine in the world if his speed runt gets accepted. He is a
sick sick man. But his sickness has effect. It affects us all,
mostly Dan, though, who agreed to beat the game on Superman difficulty,
the highest difficulty, to steal the to see the shoot credits. If Mike
beat Shanak, well that's happened. Now Dan is into Superman sixty four.
He has to decide if he wants to take the chance of playing it on
the normal difficulty and then just playing the last level on the Superman difficulty to
see if that works, which someone said, but we don't know if that's
the case, or if he was going to restart the whole game right now
and play it on Superman difficulty, So tune in for that. You're not
gonna want to miss it. As always, Blake Club is gonna be so
much fun. Do you think Dan is more of a Zack Snyder Superman or
more of a James Gunn Superman or is he more of a Leaves Superman?
Yeah, he's He's a mix between a Snyder and a Richard Donner Superman.
Yeah, so like Richard Donner. It was actually like went to prison for
a little bit, right, I gotta look into that. I can't remember
why she went to jail. I think that's right though. So yeah,
so a criminal director and a real criminal director in Zack Snyder. O' lock
in chat said, he's more of George Reaves. I know, no,
let's not do that, all right. Yeah, he's a Brandon Ralph.
He's a Ralph Superman. Yeah. And if you missed that first episode,
go watch it right now so you're ready, because I had some fun stuff
happening there, and that's continues to be one of my favorite franchises that we
got going over here at Giant Bomb Lexie once again. Once again you've won.
Thank you so much for spinning today with me talking about video games.
I really appreciate it. Anytime, anytime. Thank you all for watching as
well. You're the best audience in gaming. Until next time, have a
good one, take care of yourselves and goodbye. Thanks for being cool too.
Appreciate everybody.