Welcome everyone to another episode of the jays B Games Cast. I am your
host Rob aka Zen joining me today we have the usual suspects. Ryan,
you have relearned how this show works. How are you? Yeah? Doing
all right? Just yeah? I had to remember how hitting record and everything
works, So yeah, but doing. I guess you could say I'm doing
okay. Can't complain okay, yeah, yeah, I will take that if
in a state of like, I can't really complain we're doing okay. You
know, Drew, you are here as well. I hear you are are
alive from the fields of high Roll, where your soul has been trapped for
the past like months, longer than a month. I start this game,
okay, yeah, No, I think I started like right after the last
episode, and I actually played a few games since the last episode, but
I don't remember what they were. So that's how lost you are in the
high Roll fields. How is I mean the game? I'll get into it,
but how is it? It's hot? I see, I see,
I understand, But I am on death Mountains, so I mean that's to
be expected. True, I very true. I've heard the reviews. This
time of year is bad for death Mountain. Yeah, Yeah, it's not
a great time of the U to visit that place. Nah, not in
season as they once. I No, I was like that one area and
Alden Ring, I forget the name of it, but yeah, cayleb Yes,
that one Florida, Yes, that one Ohio, Ohio. Well that
as well. I mean, as someone that is originally from Ohio, yes,
I can that as well and confirm. That's the reason why I never
went back. Understandable. But yeah, it has been a minute. You
know, we all had we took that break around like Thanksgiving issues the holiday
times, right, so like schedules were all over the place and we just
need to take a little bit of breather. But we found some time this
week to just kind of like reconvene before the next round of holidays hits.
Right, I'm on vacation, Christmas is coming up, New Year's all that
jazz. We're working on the Game of the Year episode, which that's going
to be fire, trust me. But yeah, my segment soon. Everybody
has until December twenty ninth to get their segments in and then I will stitch
it all together and we'll have a pretty good show. But I did want
to, you know, at least have one more episode before the year is
over, to check in, see where everybody is at, seeing how everybody
is feeling, what games that people have been playing, see if maybe we
have a light discussion on like what are your possible front runners for Game of
the years. We'll see where the conversation takes us, right, But I
am happy to be back and talking with you guys about video games because there's
been a lot of that going around. So let's like just kind of jump
right into it. I want to start with Ryan, what have you been
up to in the past like five years since we have recorded gaming wise,
it's been a lot of nik A. It's been a lot, Yeah,
a lot of nik I never thought that that would be a game that would
consume as much time as it has for me, but it has. And
like they recently just celebrated their one year anniversary, which that anniversary celebration was
really good. On top of the fact that they had a lot of cool
like things, they gave away a lot of you know, gifts for the
one year and everything. The one year anniversary like story thing with red Hood,
who was the banner character, was really neat to to kind of see
like the back like story of the first like Niek Squad in a sense basically,
and it's kind of funny like seeing the uh basically that whole Nique story
revolved around red Hood Uh snow White who was small white in this one,
Dorothy Rapunzel, and Scarlet and like seeing how like Scarlet was like so different
back then than compared to like what you see her as of now, which,
by the way, I still want that outfit of Scarlet's where she's basically
medle gear rising Scarlet. Yes, I cannot wait, because that is a
dope outfit for her. But like it was kind of interesting to see,
like, you know, like how things were back then and like how they
ended up being where they are now basically is a but it was a very
good uh. It was very good, like first Anniversary pack, and now
they're doing the uh Christmas pack now with the Christmas version of Lamilla and Mika,
which very first rule. I get the the you know, hot spring
Lamilla, and I'm like, yes, I'm good now, and apparently like
she's also a really really strong unit too right as well, So it's just
like, yeah, I'm gonna go ahead be dumping all my resources into her
basically, and it was weird because, like I'm not, I wasn't like
a really big fan of her original look and anything, but like the hot
Spring look, I was like, dang, this is a really really dope
outfit, which kind of goes to what we've kind of talked about in the
past, where like these alternate outfits for a lot of these characters are a
lot better than their original ones had some really cool casual fits. Yeah right,
Like as far as like the casual alternate outfits go, they they're kind
of batting for me personally, I feel like they're at like a ninety percent
on hit rate. Yeah, where like most of these characters look really fucking
cool and I'm like, damn, dall'll know what y'all doing, mm hmm
at which, speaking of which, I'm so glad the Wars was just a
season pass instead of a Oh y'all got y'all got lucky with that, y'all
got extremely Like I don't, I don't like Nora's outfit, Like I feel
like it's it's it's there's so much potential there. It's it's almost a good
fit in my eyes. But I understand the market they are catering to I
mean, but but I'm like, there had to be some modifications in order
for her to fit in that outfit in areas, No, they did that
right, but they again, they know their audience, they know what they're
selling to. They know me, I am in the minority here. But
like, y'all definitely like dodge the bullet because they could have easily put that
in the costume, gotcha and would obeyed a bundche million dollars mm hm,
so y'all getting it only for like what twenty bucks? I think something like
that, which is also the same for Bloc's outfit too, which is I
was like, well, if they're gonna have a Noir outfit, they have
to have a Blanc outfit. They come as a shair. They did,
that's the Bloc outfit. And it's funny too because like cats who uh you
know, because got me on a Nik. We've been talking about Nick ever
since I played it, like when it launched on PC and stuff like everything.
It's basically like Mika Blanc and Noir are this winner's version of The Counters,
which was Rappi, Anis and Neon. So so like they showed like
this is what the outfits would have looked like if it was a nice Rappi
and Neon that was with them, but instead they're going with Blanc in their
and Mika for those ones. I was like, okay that man, I
was like, and that kind of checks out, you know, that kind
of makes sense since that's kind of the way that was decided, but backed
up a little bit as far as like the anniversary event goes. I thought
what was really cool about that event was that they did do the Vampire Survivors
mode yes, which was very cool night. So for anybody that's played Vampire
Survivors, it is one of those type of games. They built that entire
game inside of nik like in spared no expense at it. It is a
fully fledged game inside of this mobile game. Well it's really and they're also
going to be bringing it back from what I understand too, is it going
to be a permanent thing or yep. One of one of the developer notes
was that everyone had such a positive response to that that they what you call
it, were like, Okay, we're gonna make this like a full mini
game that's gonna just be with the game, so they should. Yeah,
so they're taking input of like what things can they improve to, you know,
like make it like better. Yeah, but like yes, that was
probably like of all the different mini game that they've done, that was probably
like my favorite mini game that they did by far. Its right work on
that was really good because they even did it down to like the sixteen bit
sprites and everything, and it was like, this is really fucking cool.
Mm hmm, Yeah I was. I was, really, I was really
Yeah, that that was like I said, that was definitely you know,
like you said, that was definitely the best mini game that they've had in
a collab or like any of their like their special story packs that they've done
and everything. So yeah, definitely second that. But yeah, I've been
just dumping a lot of time in a nik basically and everything. I have
been trying to finish another game, okay, which is probably gonna be maybe
potentially my game of the year. It's either going to be that one or
Lost Judgment. Since I didn't talk about Lost Judgment last year. I might
make Lost Judgment my game of the Year this year and cheat a little bit.
But the other game I've been putting time in is Signalis and yeah,
and one I had to restart it because it got removed off a game pass
and I'm like, damn it. So I looked and see what it was
on like the Xbox like Marketplace whatever, and so it was like like ten
bucks cheaper on Steam, and I'm like, all right, well, I
guess I'm getting on Steam and going to have to start this over, which
wasn't necessarily a bad thing because I had to like refamiliarize myself with things and
stuff like that and everything. Yeah. Man, that game has been incredibly
fun to like play because of the fact that it is such a throwback to
like the old school Resident Evil and things like that and everything with the way
the game plays and stuff, and like the puzzles are very very unique in
that game too, especially like later on in the game. So I just
got to the excavation site basically, so like I'm ground now and everything,
and it's it's a little tricky to navigate because there's no map information, so
like I'm literally winging everything and I'm like, fuck, I don't know where
I'm going, which is a crazy choice, right, Like you're so used
to having a map, and then you get down there and it's just like
that unavailable and you're like, wait a minute, and it's pretty dark,
like at least for the initial portions of it too, and you're just like
hmmm yeah, like yeah, and it's just one of those deals is like
like yeah, so used to that and everything, and like now that's like
I'm missing piece and I'm like, oh man, I'm really having to wing
this now. And I'm kind of like feeling the effect of feeling the effect
of like not sure how much resource management I have left as far as like
MO and a few other things. I don't know how much is left in
this excavation site. And I'm kind of like, am I boned here?
Like am I? Like? I don't? Like I don't know, so
like it's definitely got me a little concerned. I'm like, well, man,
it's a good thing I got some extra save points because like the whole
management side of things is like a big focal point in that game, especially
like when you start accumulating items and stuff like that and how you have to
manage it all and like it's a lot of remember, right, you only
have six slots, right yep, yep, yes, And there's no six
inventories and there's no option to like increase your inventory at all. Like you
can't pick anything up to like increase your inventory spots. So it's very much
like when you played the original Resident Evil or even like the an even remake
that was for GameCube originally but then got re released and stuff like that.
Everything it's like it's like, especially if you're playing Chris side, Nope,
you got six slots and that's it. That's it. You cannot improve,
And I'm like, oh boy. So it's a like of a lot of
like constant like return trips to like the sav rooms to like put your stuff
back in, or like trying to reaccumulate the keys and stuff like that,
because like it's not like, for example, like you have these that are
specific for the inventory items, and then like there's another like side thing it
was like, well, the keys don't take up those inventory slots or whatever.
Oh no, the keys take up the inventory slots as well. Yeah,
everything takes up the inventory slots, and so like there's just a lot
of unique micromanaging when it comes to that, which is like not something that's
really a big vocal points in game games anymore. Like I know, like
in the remakes of Residential stuff like and you still had some of that and
everything, but it was a lot more lenient with how that works compared like
giving yes, whereasnalos Nah, there's not a lot of forgiving with that is
very much kind of like you get you basically take one gun, like,
take one gun you're comfortable with, uh, probably reload it to max,
and then you're deciding do I want to take AMMO or not, and then
just leave the rest of your inventory blank. Yeah, right, like you're
kind of going out on like a quick like Okay, let me see what's
out here first and then kind of plan your attack afterward, you know what
I mean. Yeah, And it's also trying to like just manage all that,
and you know, you also have your sub items and everything that you're
hoping that you use up first before use up in AMMO, because yes,
AMMO is very very scarce, and it's very very important. Like I have
the bad habit of wanting to take out everything in sight so I don't have
to worry about it again. And it's just like, no, this particular
spot, I should probably just avoid the enemy and just exactly and just continuously
avoid it, knowing what you should avoid and what you should in is like
a key part. Yeah, and especially like when you go like against the
boss fights and stuff like that, which I've done too. I don't know
how many actual boss fights there are, and like I don't even know where
I'm at with me being at the excavation point or excavation site. I don't
know if I'm like close to the endgame or whatever the case may be.
But it's been, like I said, it's been a very unique experience because
of the fact that it's such a throwback to how the you know, older
games like that worked back in the day, and it's going to be like,
oh man, I got to rethink how I have to approach all this.
So so it's definitely been a learning experience and definitely a lot of trial
and error and like, thank goodness, I've had to use some different save
spots and everything. And the puzzles are puzzles are unique, like especially like
the one rooms where you go in and you gotta like pick a certain frequency
that flashes on the screen stuff like that, and then try to find which
enemy it is that you have to shoot based off that frequency or whatever.
They get very very creative with how they did their puzzles, especially when it
comes to using like the radio frequency aspect. Yeah, so it's been a
very fun GAMEO. Like I definitely say, if you have a chance,
definitely play Signaliss, especially if you like the old school resident Evil like tank
style games and everything, which is yes, I understand it's definitely an archaic
feeling, but I don't know, it's been kind of refreshing and rewarding in
this regard. Definitely give Signalis a try because of the fact that it's like
for me, it's you know, checked all the boxes as far as like
how fun a game has been. And also it's from what I understand,
it's a pretty short play through too, so it's probably taken me a little
longer because like I don't know what to expect on certain aspects, so like
there's certain things that's taken me a little longer than normal. But it's definitely
been a very fun experience. To say the least. I would say,
I think you're probably like a little over the halfway mark, like you're you're
getting towards like the back half of that game. Yeah, very much so,
so you you probably don't have like that much left to go. Yeah,
I don't think so. But you know, there is a bit,
there's a bit that comes up that like I had to use a guide for
like I got confused, So like I'd be very curious to see like how
your progress going forward for it, probably will be using a guide as well.
Yeah, yeah, do not hesitate, like you'll you'll know when you
get to it, and like if you feel the need pull up a guide
for it, like, don't even hesitate. Yeah, I'm definitely going to
have to pull one up for sure for that. But yeah, that's It's
been a really fun game, Like I definitely have been enjoying my play through
with it. There's a couple other games have been trying to meaning get back
to, Like I still want to get back into See a Stars. I
haven't been able to because, like I said, I feel like I need
to set aside a good a good slot of time to be able to like
make some progress in a game, which I typically would which unfortunately, on
the gaming side of things, I haven't had a lot of time because of
other things that's been happening with stuff. I won't get into it too much,
but yeah, things have just been going pretty okay on the other front.
So I just kind of leave it at that. So that's pretty much
it though. That's pretty much everything I've done as far as the gaming stuff
goes. Love that. Hell yeah, Ruth Deffer, howdy, So what
have you been up to since we've last talked? He said, you you've
played a couple of video games which you no longer remember it. Your your
life is what's what's happening. It's coming back, it's coming back. I
think the games that I've played on the last the last recording, I feel
like I've just beaten something. We talked about, Sumaro Wonder you finished,
can we talk about Yeah, okay, then I have my feelings on Wonder,
like after beating it and whatnot, But like there was also something that
I had just beaten, because like I played Wonder after beating something, I
guess I must have talked about it last episode. Are you talking about I'm
just trying to remember what that game was. Oh. I think it was
Miles Morales. Oh yeah, yeah, we talked about Mouth. Yeah,
Miles was great. I still have not started Spider Man two, but given
how jam packed this year is, I think it was inevitable given how my
schedule worse, and I was going to miss out on some games. Uh,
despite my best efforts to fit in as many games as I possibly could
this year, and I think I did a pretty good job. Well.
I think I've played more games this year than I have in previous years.
That's good. So I did finish Super Myer Brothers Wonder, and I've had
some time to cook on that, and I think, ultimately I walk away
from that game to be disappointed. I think because I feel Wonder is just
I don't feel it's aptly named. I feel Wonder is a very same.
Like the more I think about it, the more I just can't pick out
what stands out about that game, even with like the Wonder effects, because
like, yeah, because the Wonder effects, they were interesting at first,
and then they like they never really did anything like that crazy in the end,
even when you got to like the bonus world level, right right.
So I just I come away from that game being like this was good,
Like it's an incredibly it's a polished two D Mario platform. I think it's
really good, but at the same time, I think it's incredibly safe.
They don't really do much like it does not separate itself from like that new
Super Mario Brothers sort of realm in terms of like content and level design.
I think I think the new art style and and and all of that is
a great step in the right direction. Like it really made that game pop,
very colorful. It felt like that game had personality, But in terms
of like the actual content, I wasn't too big of a fan, Like
it didn't leave a lasting impression on if that makes sense. Okay, yeah,
I still think it's a good game. I just I still don't think
I can put it in the same like sort of tiar of like Mario Brothers
three D Mario World asimary as it comes to two D marios. And I
think after Odyssey, I was looking for them to sort of like Odesty kind
of stretched what they could do in the three D space. Like I think
Odyssey was an amazing game. It's probably one of my favorite three D marios
ever. And I was hoping they were going to like sort of hit that
same bar with Wonder and it just didn't resonate like that with me. Okay,
Okay, I could I could see that, Like definitely our conversations on
that game was leading in that direction. I can definitely see you coming off
of it like that. Yeah, Like, I'm not trying to be a
down it's just it's how I flatter because again, I do think it's a
great game. But it's like there are times where I'll sit here and I'll
think about Mario Brothers three or Mario World. I'll be like, man,
I can play through a couple levels of those like right now and just have
a grand old time. I don't see myself doing that with Wonder, nor
do I like do that with any of the new Super Mario Brothers games or
anything like that. It's something about those games that they just haven't left the
lasting impression. And you know, maybe it's me. Maybe I've just outgrown
that sort of two D Mario and that like Mario Brothers three and Mario World
get a pass because of how ingraining those games are in in terms of me
as a gamer, as it were. With stuff like that, there's definitely
like an inherent bias. Right, That's just like this is this is a
nostalgia thing. This is something that I know to my core and like it
stuck with me. Thus I can always go back to it, right,
And for some like that that resonates harder than others. Right, And like
I feel like you as a person very much like like really values that,
right, So I can definitely see you having this sort of like takeaway from
Wonder and being like, yes, I can go back to the older things,
right, that makes sense to me as you talk about it. M
h, there is that, but there is also things of like in Mario
Wonder, I Julie didn't care for the elephant power Like, I don't think
the elephant power up really added and it felt like a raccoon jail without the
ability to find the elephant was like by far the least interesting one out out
of powers that in that game. But it was marketed as like the main
power up and like when when when it's put on like the same like level
as sort of like hey, this is your you know cape or your raccoon
tail or your h you know boomerang bro suit like or your cat suit or
something like that. Like it had a very high bar to little up too,
and I feel like it just didn't do that. I think a lot
of a lot of it too, was mostly in like the visual aesthetic of
it and like the meme that came of it, right, and it's like,
Okay, we're leaning into the meme side of the Elephant Powers. I
don't think anybody walked away from Elephant Power going like, man, that was
really cool. It's just like, oh, this is a really funny looking
thing, right, but like characters like this. On that same token,
you have Super Mario three D World and the cat Suit, and the cat
Suit was very meanworthy but also a really cool power up. Like I actually
forgot I forgotten to bring up Super Mario three D in terms of like it's
not just Mario Brothers three and Mario World. Mario three D World, which
like, technically isn't a two D Mario, but it kind of is,
and it's not a three D Mario, but it kind of is. Like
I don't know, three World kind of might be like what I think a
perfect Mario game might be. Really yeah, I know that's pretty wild to
say, but I mean, well, the game I think it's I don't
think it's not wild. Honestly, three three D World is awesome, right,
Uh, It's not one that like I would go back and play,
right, But I had a good time playing that game. I thought it
was very cool. I think that was a furious fucking dope that that whole
package is like a really cool slice of like a weird three D two D
Mario kind of thing. It's very much it's its own thing. It's its
own unique thing. And that's also like another game that I think about and
like I can go back and playing the game again. The game I had
my one to play through. I was like, I'm good, but that
was cool. That was a great experience. The cat suit, like,
I think it looks cool. It's kind of whatever in terms of its actual
like use. I'm not that blown away by it, but it's it's very
cute. I think it's a very suit. I think that's probably my other
issue with Elephant Marios. It's not a suit. He actually turns into an
elephant, and I just have with that. It just raises implications that are
not necessarily comfortable with me. Hates elephants. You heard it here first,
but but ultimately, like those are my feelings on one here. Again,
I think it's I think it's a good game, but it's not going to
stay with It's worth a play. I think it's probably more fun multiplayer,
uh, because it fixes a lot of the issues that the new Super Mario
Brothers games have, Like you don't run into people and all that, and
like local local multiplayer with that, Yeah, like I have fun when you
and I played it together. Yeah. Yeah, it's a fun multiplayer game
to go through for sure, to content continue my train of Nintendo disappointment.
So after after beating Wonder, I hopped onto Tiers of the Kingdom. But
we'll get to in a minute. But over the Thanksgiving break, in between
Tiers of the Kingdom, so Mario Rpgmate came out. I played that because
I don't enjoy playing Zelda in handheld mode, because Nintendo is a bunch of
obstinate, like archaic assholes. We'll get to that anyway. So I played
Super MARIOPG the remakes and I played it. I beat it, I did
all the new content, and I take away from that, like I need
to preface this with Super Mario RPG. Legend of the Seventh Star is my
favorite game of all time. It is one my favorite game. I think
about this game constantly. I'm constantly humming the soundtrack. I know everything about
that game by heart. You're saying a game that is not a Falcon game
is your favorite game of all time. Isn't that sacrilege. No, because
some people will tell you that Lean to the Past is my favorite game,
and I would say that you're wrong. They're close to my second favorite game.
But Mario RPG is the reason I am the person I am today.
Mario RPG is the reason I even care about Falcon Wow, huh, I
see interesting, interesting a little parallel, Like this game defined why I love
the RPG genre so much, and like I played it a million times growing
up. Like again, I know literally everything about this game, and I
don't understand why this ringmak exists for a new audience that never plays right so
well, I guess, but like I mean that that's really like the actual
answer, that that's what it is. Yeah, I know, but like
but for people that have have like played this game before, there's not that
much reason to go back to it. There's not. And like the things
that they added in the remake, Like what pisses me off about this remake
is that like they added in things without even like taking into account how this
would affect the overall balance. I'm not saying Super Mario RPG is a hard
game, but like one of the cool things about Super Mario RPG is like
it introduced this idea of time hits. It introduced an action component to a
turn based RPG, which was a great way to indoctrinate, like people who
would be like, I don't want to play a game about menus. That
sounds super boring, quote unquote, like nine year old Drew. So like
you have this new mechanic of like time hits where you're actually interacting with the
combat even though it's still turn based combat. And like things were challenging if
you couldn't do the time hits despite being you know, a relatively easy thing
to do, Like it was an engaging combat system, and like all the
new changes that they made in the remake just completely ignore that. Like they
made all these changes that simplify and like streamline the game, but it doesn't
take it into account, like how it would affect the game. For example,
like everything becomes trivial in that game because they increased like the timing windows
for like how to do perfect attacks, how to do perfect dodges, Like
there were so many boss fights or so many battles where I just never took
damage because I was able to perfect guard things, or I was able to
perfect guard things that I wasn't able to perfect guard before because they made those
changes as well. Uh, battles were a joke because now perfectly timed attacks
did AoE damage and you could just kill everything in like one hit. Stats
were buffed like through the roof, so like everything just died before you even
saw how they attacked. Like it, there's this all of these changes,
but like that base game wasn't changed to like go along with it. So
like these changes just trivialize the game, and I feel like people who were
playing it now, even for the first time, are gonna be this aunt
I don't get well, I know lot. So it's like the it's it's
it's a weird thing because like I think from like the very pure, like
casual perspective of it, like people really for the changes, like they're digging
it, but a lot of the complaints do come from the people that like
have played this before and are looking for something else or wish there was more
to it. So it's like I think they they nailed sort of the time
audience, but they're not thinking about the audience that was there before, if
that makes sense maybe, because like yeah, a lot of that stuff to
like streamline things to like widen the window for time hits and dodges, to
doing the AOI attacks. All that stuff was done to help facilitate like more
casual people getting into this game and enjoying this game. Right, it seems
that from from that point of view, it seems like that has been an
actual success, right that that's that that's the thing. But but us that
want more feel kind of like left behind in a weird way. But it's
like it's not even like wanting more, it's I don't understand the design change
because the original design was so perfect even from like like I'm not saying that
it couldn't have been been made to appeal to even more casual players, But
the things that made Mario RPG so great just don't come off as great in
the remake because of these changes. In my opinion. Yeah, and that's
not like your point. Yeah, but that's not even like I want new
things or like I wish this REMA did more. It's the changes that they
made don't make sense to me because you're from like a game design perspective.
I think it makes sense from like for specifically targeting like more casual audience.
Though, like all those changes you you list it out makes sense for someone
that like, hey, this is my first time playing this thing, like
I guess, but like Mario RPG was already designed for like a person's first
RPG outing. I mean sure, but also like you could you can improve
that for quote quote improve or streamline it better for like a modern audience as
well. Right, I'm personally think they didn't do that. Well, I
think they did, but hey, that that's I think from from that specific
viewpoint of like a casual audience of just like hey, I've never touched one
of these before. They feel it out, they play it, and like
this feels good and it makes sense to them. May not make sense to
us, but it makes sense to them. I mean, I suppose I
just from when you when you throw like the structure of the game out the
window, but it's not it's not really thrown like it still works like you
hit a lot of hits black damage, and it's like, all right,
people get this. They see the extra damage. It's like, oh that's
cool. That strikes a thing in their brain and it's like, all right,
this this is clearly like like making it better for some yes, but
like things where at the end of the game where you don't even need to
bother with time hits because your damage is so Like, why is it designed
like that? Like you don't even have to interact with the game systems in
order to win battles. Makes it easier for people to win the battles.
Like also from a cast perspective, it removes the stress of having to do
it. But if you can be serious, that is cool, I guess.
I just it's not a viewpoint that will make sense to you. It's
from the way that you think about video games. I guarantee you it will
not make sense. I can get behind things being easy. Kirby's Adventure is
easy and designed for like anybody to pick it up, and like I can
get behind that game from a design perspective. I cannot get behind this remake
from a design perspective. It does not make sense to you. No,
it's not that it doesn't just make sense to me. I feel all the
changes go against the spirit of the game. Yeah, well all right,
I don't know. I don't know how to talk around that then, I
mean, and ultimately, like that's one of the issues that I have with
that remake is I played through it and like it is y RVG, like
it is again still a good game. I just I wish that these changes
were done with more purpose. I don't understand why there's two difficult like from
the normal difficulty, which is what I played on, and like there's an
easy mode of breezy difficulty. I don't understand how those I don't understand how
those two could be different. Uh, timing is even easier in breezing.
I think your damage is higher, enemies do less damage, they have lower
HP. Like it's mainly like I just want to play the story, which
okay, that's mine, hand down to your six year old. Yeah,
like those modes existing not you. Those modes existing are fine, like for
people who just want to play a game for the story and just want to
breeze on through, that's for that. That's great, But like I don't
understand like why those two difficulties exist when I feel like the normal difficulty is
already that but that aggreance not to beat a dead forward. I just I
think they could have done what they'd done if they had just balanced the rest
of Like I really wish they had done more, Like Okay, to put
it this way, it feels like they just threw this in as like hey,
we're just gonna throw this in and we don't care. And that's what
annoys me is like this they they took the time to say, hey,
we're remaking a beloved classic, but it feels like they put so little work
into this game outside of like the graphical overhaul, which is hit or miss
depending on who you are. I think it was fine. I know some
people like Rob, I know you were the biggest fan of the art style,
I think I know it's a miss. For me, Like, I
think it is aggressively fine. It is aggressive, aggressively fine. When I
think about that original game, it's like there's a very there's a very specific
idea I had in mind for like what that game could look like in a
modern setting with especially with all the technology and like the creativity that people have
these days with visual styles. So I'm like, now, could it did
something really fucking cool, even like coming off of like the Links Awakening remake
that where they had like that whole diorama effect, And I was like,
oh, this is a really cool, interesting take. Love it or hate
it, Like they they took a chance in a swing at something right and
it's like I wish they just took more of a swing at a at a
visual style or I think about like Fantasian, how they had another like cool
like weird clay Nation diorama kind of aesthetic to it. I'm like, you
know, these kinds of things. I feel I could have fit that game.
But I mean they went with a very safe, like traditional Nintendo three
D look, and it's fine. Like the cut scenes cut yes, I
do like seeing like the cut scenes in the game, and the characters like
are very emotive, like they're not very like still or anything like that.
And like because if you watch the Super Nintendo cut scenes, like the characters
are very expressive, like they may like Mario makes a ton of faces for
like being a standard silent protagonist and everything. It's great. Yeah, and
all of that translates into the new game, like none of that spirit is
lost. Like playing through the remake, like I'm still laughing at the same
old jokes. They use the same script pretty much from the Super Nintendo version,
the Ted Woolsey script, outside of changing like a few pop culture references
here and there, which that makes sense, Like I imagine your average gamer
like between the ages of eight and twelve. Do not know who like Bruce
Lei is, so that makes sense or I'm trying to I'm trying to think
there is a couple other like pop culture around, like Ted Woolsey loved his
pop but like the script is fine. There was like one joke that they
took away that I was a little bit sad on and it's when like Mario
is pretending to be a statue and like the sculptor is describing to the villain
of like, oh, this is like my masterpiece. And in the Super
Nintendo version, he's like very insulting of Mario, which is kind of funny.
Yeah, but in the remake, it's more of a like a positive
thing, and I'm like, I don't like, it's fine, there's nothing
wrong with that, but like, I don't understand why you changed it unless
it's just we're not negative around here, and we're not negative around here.
It's it's for everyone Nintendo, We're not negative here. Yes, I don't
know. I didn't even think the original was like that effect, especially since
the was like straight up offensive jokes that they just left in and I'm like,
bro okay, Like the Peaches Mystery thing in her room is still there,
And I'm like, well, they changed the text around that though,
right, So it's not like the exact same thing. No, they changed
it. There's been a whole like the whole thing about like they them changing
the text about that. Oh, it was the exact same Are you sure
I'm about to look this up right now, because I'm I've been looking at
this, I've been hearing about this this entire time. They tell the text
around that, yeah, Peach's question mark, question mark question Yeah, the
text around the exact same. Yep. Let me see here, Rob,
I know, Rob, trust me. Okay, I've been listening to discussions
about supermar RBG for the past three fucking weeks and this is the one thing
that is consistent around every single discussion around that game. I trust you.
That's weird. They didn't change it, okay, all right, Like I
was very surprised they didn't change it like in the Japanese version, Like in
the Japanese Super Nintendo it's Peaches x x X, but it's never been like
Peaching like xxx in the States. Even in it was the question mark,
but it was the comments around it that was changed. No, still the
same, all right, okay, all right, now now you got me
fucking down. All right. You're confident, You're so confident. You know
this game like the back of your head, very very confident. Now now
I have to look it up. Yeah, I'll find it. What was
it or what was I supposed to say? Originally it just says peaches question
mark, question mark, question mark, and like it's hidden behind like her
fireplace, and the first time you can find it is when the Mushroom Kingdom
is taken over by uh the sword mac or Clay Morton in the remake,
and uh, like the retainer that's in Peach's room is like, hey,
you shouldn't touch things in other people's rooms. Put that back and I'll give
you this instead. And then like when you do it, when Peach is
actually in the party, she's like, hey, don't go snooping in people's
rooms. And she says that in the Superintendent version too well, because like
Google images says, found Toadstool's question mark from our question mark. Yes,
because in the Superintendent version, Peach is known as Princess Toadstool. But then
that was before like a thing here, but then it was changed to Peach
for the remake or did it still stay toadstool, No, it still says
Peaches, or no, it says Peaches in it says Princess Peaches question mark
question question mark, right, okay, and then in the Superintendent version says
total's question mark question question because Princess Peach did not become Princess Peach until sixty
four, gotcha, okay? And yeah, I'm not saying anything on Google
row. All right, all right, keep keep up, hey, you're
if you're right, you're right, keep it going. If I find the
difference, I will send it forward. I could be wrong, you might
be wrong. Yeah, please get it. And this history of Super Mario
brought to you by the Mushroom Kingdom. Indeed, visit them this year.
There were some other changes that I was like, I don't like this,
but that's fine. That's just my nostalogia kicking in. Like the first boss
in the Mushroom Kingdom is Mack the Sword, and in the remake he's now
Clay Morton, which makes more sense because I think the original reference was like
Mack the Knife, which is like a it's a musical reference, I think,
I think anyway, And so I never understood it as like a kid,
like why is this called mac? And then like the other guys are
like weapon related names. I don't understand that. And so he's called Clay
Morton in the remake, and I'm like, Okay, I don't like that,
but that's because I'm old. That actually makes more sense. The only
one that I don't like is because it feels like a like just weird to
say is the difficulties fight boss, which is Yuridovich. You fight him after
you beat the Pirate Ship and you fight him in Seaside Town, and like
in the remake, so Yari in Japanese is just it's Japanese for spear.
So they rename him in the remake as spirit Spirridovic, and that just sounds
so much harder to say than Ridovich. Anyway, now we're cutting really really
tempotated chips. It matters. It matters. Okay, enough of them matter,
you know, that's up enough. Yeah, you know you get pringles.
But ultimately, like, uh, the game itself is fine because it's
super MARIORPG. It's a great game. It's one of my favorite games of
all time. The remake still does express that to a certain point. It
is still a great game. What pisses me off the most is that you
unlock all the new content after you beat like the main game mm hmm.
And like that's when they have like done remixes of the boss battles, and
all these remixed boss battles are done in like super interesting ways, And I'm
like, where the fuck was this? Like why was this just not its
own separate difficulty, right? Like this could have like you just put in
an arranged difficulty with like all these new like boss challenges that would have been
so sick. Yeah, yeah, Like that should have just been its own
difficulty added to the game, which actually utilized the changes from like like the
new stuff that they added in the remix. For example, when you do
the remix fight for Punchinello, he has like super armor on, so you
can't do more than one damaged in with any of your normal attacks. What
you have to do is he summons bombs and you have to reflect them.
And the way you reflect them is by getting like the AoE attack, and
then that turns the bombs around and the bombs attack in and that's how you
do damage to me, right, or like when you do the culix refight,
that's when you like you actually utilize like the triple attacks, because there
are triple attacks that will help you like protect to from like his instant killed
move that he does after a certain amount of ferns, and like they're just
it utilizes all the new mechanics in a way that I'm just like, why
wasn't this just made as a separate part of the game and not just like
a two hour at best, like post game that is incredibly archaic that you
have to find out. So the way it works is like after you beat
the game, it unlocks, and like you have to go back to Mario's
house and sleep there, and then when you wake up, Toad shows up
and he's like, hey, here's a sleeping pass for the hotel and Mary
Moore, and so you have to go to Marymore and then you fall asleep
at Mary Moore and there's a cut scene where like Geno scenes, something that
happen on Star Hill and you have to go all the way to Star Hill
and there's like all these new wishes that show up on Star Hill, and
like these wishes are like the Remix bosses, but every time you want to
fight a Remix boss, you have to go all the way to Tadpole Pond
top to frog Fuchius, then go to the boss, and then after you
beat that boss, go all the way back to Tadpole Pond and Frog Fucius
find out where the next boss is. They can go there and then back
and forth like six songs. Huh hmm. Yeah, that's not annoying.
It's very annoying. And like the entire time I'm doing this is like,
this is the best content of this remake, but it's so irritating. And
then also the remix soundtrack was hit or miss with me. I think that's
a subjective thing. Like I don't think the remix songs were objectively bad.
I think they're fine. I think they're just I prefer, like I prefer
some of the new ones, and I prefer some of the originals, Like
it didn't like win me Out. It's it's fine, aggressively fine. It's
aggressively fun. I feel like, be the title of the podcast. Aggressively
fine. It's looking like a strong contender today. Everything's fine. Aggressively fine.
I mean, ultimately, that's where I land at the end of the
remake, is it's aggressively fine. It had the potential to be so much
more, especially when we live in a day and age like where. I
didn't say they needed to do an f F seven remake to this game,
because it definitely didn't. But and they're guilty of this with links Awakening as
well. Nintendo needs to understand that a remake is more than just a fresh
coat of pain. I understand that maybe they're just selling their games to a
new audience. Fine, but like even some kickbacks to like their veteran fans
wouldn't be nice. Mm hmm. Like you could have put a hero mode
in links Awakening in the in the remake, you could have had an arranged
difficulty in Mario ork G. You could have added any new content to links
Awakening. There was zero new content outside of like the Dungeon Builder, which
had zero longline and that was a completely missed opportunity. Hell, that could
be a game on their own. They just never did anything with it,
right. Nintendo frustrates me, Like a long time Nintendo fan, they just
really irritate me. It's so weird how they can be like so innovative but
also very safe in a lot of different ways. And it's just like,
bro, why why can't y'all find the right balance for this stuff? You
know? Yeah, It's like it's like you go two steps forward, two
steps back, and then like one side to the adjacent exactly, you fucking
spin around six time and then boom, ye have again. Mario. Just
mind that it sounds like Nintendo's development process in a nutshell yep. And so
like when I consider the thousand Year Door remake, like I've now granted thousand
your Door is not an Nintendo gain, it's an Intelligent Systems game. Those
are two very different things. M So it could be a safe Nintendo rebate
or it could be really really good because like I think Intelligent system is like
Nintendo's like braver company, because like they just try shit like have you looked
at fire Emblem Engaged and Gage is crazy like ironically very safe in terms of
like fire Ember fire Emblem formula, but like also incredibly crazy. It's very
good. It's very crazy. Yeah, I mean, Tokyo Murra Sessions is
more at less than it is, but that's still Intelligent Systems. Like that's
still like the fire Ample property. All of the advanced word games are like
really like out there and like have soul and so like I really hope that
the Thousand Year Door remake like still sort of has that intelligence intelligent system soul
like before me A Moto sucked it out from Sticker Star. I fully anticipate
that game being a one for one remake. Yeah, I probably will.
I do not anticipate that being anything more than that. I would be pleasantly
surprised if it is, though. That's where yeah, that's where I am
on that. But I mean, like, if it's a one for one
remake, I think I'm okay. Well, no, I don't know if
I'm okay with that. No, I want them to do more. Yeah,
no, I want them to do like if we're gonna revisit like I
actually didn't got to play Metro Prime remaster. But that's more of a remaster
than touted as like a remake, right, it's a weird in between.
They did a lot of work. Like here's how I described that. Uh,
And it's the same way I do for like uh, for for like
the Blue Points remakes and stuff like that. It feels like how you remember
it playing basically, it's where I land on it, where like you have
a memory of how good something is and sometimes when you revisit it, you're
like, oh, it's kind of yanky here and there. It's like they
cleaned up Metroid Prime to where like it feels how you remember it should play,
like the Resident remake, probably like RI four. Yeah, there's one
in specifically that I am thinking of, and it is do you having me?
Crazy? Shadow of Colossus is what I was thinking of. Like they
cleaned it up enough to where like, Okay, I remember this game being
fucking tight, but I completely blocked out all of the negatives and it's like,
yeah, but what if that game just exists though, where it's just
perfect and it's like all right, well there. But again, like they
weren't touting that as a remake though they they claim it's a remaster, but
when people got their hands on it, they're like, there's way more work
under the hood for this than they they gave credit for. But again that
was more retro than it was. Nintendo. Nintendo when it comes to like
their main SA and for like, for whatever reason, the company that did
the Super Mario RPG remake, they're actually a company that worked on like the
DS Dragon Bus games. Yes, uh, and like this is Square NX.
You know, it's sure. It's not Nintendo First Party technically, Like
it's not a Nintendo studio. It is Square X. I bet you NINT
had a lot of inpute possibly probably, but but it is. It is
both of those companies. I mean, Squere has its own problems. So
if you put those two together. What if you put problematic company with another
problematic company, you put them together, you get super rpt, you get
more problems. Yes, ninete ninety six, I would say the best game
ever, but or ninety ninety eight anyway, Like Nintendo was really tight lipped
on who was working on the remake for whatever reason. I don't know why,
Like I think when they were asked or like, just check the credits
in the game, bro, and I'm like, okay, dad, with
crediting in general, Like I feel like a lot of times you have to
wait until like the release before you find out who actually developed the thing.
Yeah, it's very Nintendo is very dumb. Anyway, I've ragged on the
remake enough, like again the final word expressively fine. Yeah, so I'll
move on to the final game that I've been playing that I was hoping to
have done by now. But it turns out. There's a lot to that
game. I finally have sunk my heath into Tiers of the Kingdom. Hell
yeah, I was planning to play Sea of Stars first and then play Tiers
of the Kingdom because I wanted to beat I wanted to make sure those two
games will be before I designed. My game of the year was See Stars
Looking dicey right now, I know, I mean, we're close to the
end. I got sixteen Shrians left for fourteen, I have very few shrines
left. We're almost done. I put two hundred hours into this game.
I don't believe it, but that's a lot. I want the record to
know that. I say Drew will beat it in three hundred hours. He
is currently on track for three hundred hours. You're kidding me. I can't
imagine there's much more after where I'm at, Like I'm on the final dungeon,
the the final you at the beginning of the game, what I said,
Bro, you spent eight almost eight and a half days on this thing.
Yeah, yeah, told you. He's reporting to his live from Hirol
literally, so there's there's a lot of this game. Do you have real
state out there? Like I mean, I actually do I have a house
he actually does. I was on the discord call when he bought a house
in Hirol, I mean two weeks, potentially two weeks in high Role.
There is a lot to this game, I think at the very first thing
I have to say is this is a very better game the Breath of the
Wild. I think Breth of the Wild was probably one of like in twenty
seventeen, Brother Wild was supposed to be my game of the year, it
was not. Stead gave that choosing a play Chronicles too, because I felt
like examad Pronicles to the better job of rewarding the player for exploring its open
world and just having a more engaging story and more engaging characters. So here
we are in twenty twenty three and Cheers the Kingdom has released. It took
seven years, six years, almost seven years for us to get a sequel
to Breath of the Wild. That being said, Cheers of the Kingdom is
both the same game and not the same game. Now true, What could
you mean by that? It's the same engine. It is the same engine.
It is the same sort of lane gameplay loop, the same sort of
line goals that you're trying to do. That's all pretty much the same for
Breath a while that has not tame. If you were hoping that this game
was going to sort of like change your mind on how you felt about Breath
of the Wild, I would say, yeah, maybe, but maybe not.
And there's there's a few reasons for that. I think the physics system
in this game and like what this game allows you to do is absolutely insane.
I think how you feel about that depends on how much you're willing to
engage with this game and like how much your imagination is able to like utilize
it and how much time you will spend them. So in Breath of the
Wild, they gave you like the four glyphs at the beginning of the game,
which was like the bomb glyph, the magnet glyph, the ice like
building pillars glyph, and I forget what the fourth one was. I don't
think it was important. Oh it was the It is important because it's the
one that freezes and like you are able to like store momentum. Those were
like the ones that had the craziest Twitter clips. You guys are still there,
right, I'm just talking, okay, sure, because yeah, I
made you're you're on the tangent. I didn't realize you were getting into the
breath of the Wild. But here we are, so Chare's the Kingdom nixes
all that instead they basically give you developer jus uh where uh Link is just
an actual god. He has the ability to you know, move anything and
take it together and create a million different things. And like you can create
vehicles, towers, bridges, you name it. It's there. Uh.
This game probably will let you do anything you put your mind to. It's
that insane, like paired with like the physics system that was introduced in with
the Wild, you could probably do whatever you wanted in this game. It
is a physics sandbox. Plenty of clips of people building actual gundoms and actual
like gundoms that Rex built in it. You have like again like gun dams
that will deploy many gun dums that will auto like seek out enemies to destroy
them. I have seen the full range of things that people can create in
this game Wild. Yeah. No, Like, I definitely don't interact with
the game on that level, but you also don't need to. But I
feel like you would probably get a lot more enjoyment if you did, because
if you're not interacting with a game, like that. The game is like
a much more polished, much more improved Breath of the Wild. So to
get this out of the way, durability still exists in terms of like you
know, weapon hit points and bows and arrows and having to deal with that,
and that's annoying, but the game introduces like the fuse mechanic, which
sort of like mitigates that. For example, Breath of the Wild, like
you would get special weapons, like elemental weapons that were really cool and like
you could freeze or shock or burn enemies, and like you never really wanted
to use those because it's gonna break, and like what if you really needed
for like a certain kind of fight, Whereas like in Cheers of the Kingdom
you can just make your own and then that's fine. So like you can
like you'll find like random weapons and they have durability, but you confuse them
with monster parts. And they introduced monsters that have elemental parts, like Lizzelfoss
have like there's a fire one, there's a nice one, there's an electric
one, and they drop their horns when you kill them, and you confuse
their horns to your thwarts and boom, you have an elemental sword. Pretty
cool. So like I feel like that sort of idea of durability in terms
of the combat is mitigated completely. I think the combat overall is whatever in
these Zelda games, like they're fine. Zelda has never necessarily been like a
combat first game anyway, And the kind of is what a kind of isn't
like it's it's it's a very simple. Yeah, wrong with that, there's
really wrong with that, except like sometimes the enemies and in tears they can
and can be a bit damaged slungey and that's unfortunate. But I digress.
Uh So, like one of my main complaints from Breatha Wilde has been solved.
Fuse mitigates a lot of that, and so I'm able to, uh,
you know, use weapons without that much of the care in the world.
There's a few weapon types that I will hoard and I have actually found
octaros on the map and marked on my mat, so I when they're about
to break out, we'll go find them and like repair my weapons. So
like that's an option to which is really cool. The second problem that I
have with Breath the wild So it's it's very interesting approaching tiers of the Kingdom
after playing a game like elden Ring, and I've had a lot of time
to think about my feelings and Tears of the Kingdom, and my feeling is
the Breath of the Wild and my feelings about elden Ring, and like Brother
the Wild, I walked away very disappointed. Elder Ring, I walked away
very impressed. Tears of the Kingdom is like somewhere in the middle of that,
whereas like Tiers of the Kingdom still has a lot of the same problems
Breath as the Wild does, and that I think this system, like especially
due to durability, especially due to the open world, and like how the
developers want you to find shrines and like that's where you interact with the puzzles
that they have developed, and they give you like an order of light so
you can raise your heart containers or your your standard to gauge ship. My
point was so long that I forgot where are you going? I feel like,
since you're bringing up the Elder in comparison, we're talking about like reward
being rewarded first, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, I'll
take a guess. I feel like Tears the Kingdom still does not reward the
player in a substantial way in a way like the game Elton Ring does,
which I find very unfortunate, Like it's very frustrating to be playing in this
game and like you see something cool, Like it actually happened to me today.
I was working in like the southeastern coast of Iral and like I'm just
going along and like I'm gliding and I see like a wall with like some
ruins on. I'm like, oh, what's that? And I go over
there and I check it out. It's just a qure ox seed. Yeah,
thanks. Or Actually this one happened pretty close to recording and a message
rob about it. I was doing some shrines in the sky and I noticed,
like over off in the starting area there was like a giant light coming
from and I'm like, that wasn't there before? What's that about? And
then I go over there and it's like, oh, I'm going to tell
you the point of like why this island's here. I'm like cool. And
also give your award after like beating this trial. I'm like cool. And
it's a skin for my parent Glidder. Don't you like cosmetics? And like
that's what a lot of the rewards in this game are outside of like the
different armor pieces that you can find, which, honestly, like there's a
part of me that's like, Okay, I'm really glad there's like a lot
of legacy sort of outfits that you can unlock. Like I've been rocking the
Fierce Deity armor from Majora's Mask pretty much the entire game, because that is
my favorite Zelda thing of alt and I'm really happy that this game like lets
me do that. But at the same time, like I thought about onlie
Man, it's kind of a cop out that like the only things that I
can find are cool things from others, all the games. Mhm. I
mean, it's it's cool that like they do reference a lot of those older
other games, but like they feel out of place. I don't feel part
of this world that they're trying to build. Well, it's clearly Therey just
for like, oh it's the thing, right, Like they're not building anything
off of it where they could, right. But also that also gets into
like I feel like, if you're going to go that mile, you need
to kind of have like a pretty coherence all the like timeline. Then we
know that's very iffy to incorporate all of these things. But like, but
it's definitely a case with not only two The Kingdom, but just like open
world games in general, post like Eldon Ring, It's it's really one of
those things that just like can our developer's gonna find a way to make us
feel rewarded for our time exploring these places? Right? And like the enjoyment
I get out of chairs of the Kingdom for well, exploring really does just
come from like I really enjoyed the Shrine puzzles, and like I'm not in
it so much for the reward. It's just like, oh, this is
a neat thing, but I wish there was better rewards, right, Like
that is something I want out of all of these types of games. And
I don't know if like they had enough time to like really think about that
post elden Ring, right, like they're very late into development cycle, but
like I hope lessons are learned from that game so that going forward we can
see better things. But that is definitely uh an area where that game still
still kind of struggles. Yeah, And like I agree with you, I
enjoy doing the things and like learning more about the lore and everything about this
world that they have built, because I do think that narratively this game it
leaks about Breath of the Wild, Like, let's start talking about positives about
this game narratively, Okay, actually, this one's like a half and half
simply because of how like how it does open world. We've discussed this at
length, bron I do feel yeah, I do feel like that that's worth
mentioning. But I do think like narratively, this game is leads better than
Breath the while I care more about these characters. I care more about like
what's going on in the world. They have like an actual, like physical
villain that feels menacing and I'm like, it's it's cool and the badass and
like all. I wish this game had a bit more structure around its narrative
because depending on how you play the game can determine like the impact of said
narrative on you, Like basically because Cheers of the Kingdom lets you go and
do whatever you want from any point in time, so long as like you
find a way to do it, it will and like the way it does
the same thing as Breath of the Wild, where like to find like the
general story of like what's going on, you go and you memories which are
flashbacks of like what's going on and like why things are happening in High Rule
as of right now, but like they're total like specific cutscenes are in specific
spots and so like depending on what spots you go for, will be the
cut scenes that you see, and they're not necessarily in order. And the
problem is is they developed cut scenes that have like stingers, and then like
you go and you watch the cut scene that is after the stinger first,
and then you go and watch the cut scene with this thing and you're like,
oh, well, okay, I guess that leads to that cut scene.
It would have been a lot better if I watched them like reverse and
then like finding out the overall payoff of like this cut scene quest super early
and then having to do the cut scene quest was kind of a bummer.
Also very mad at Google, by the way, what are googled? There?
They recommended an article about the game talking about how Nintendo wants to have
a playable Zelda in the future, and it's very clearly a screenshot of what
is probably the ending. Oh oh dang, Yeah, I'm very pissed.
I'm very pissed Google. Please, So, like I knew something about the
ending now, which I was like, well, all right, that makes
me have some feelings about what I already know. But you see the game
out to the end, But I think what kind of annoys me of Like
if this game just had more structure and in terms of like how it tells
its story, I think it would just overall be better for it. I
was thinking about it today and like, I think, even after I beat
Tears of the Kingdom and granted, and I need to see how the ending
plays out, but I think even after Tiers of the Kingdom, Skywitzward will
probably remain the strongest narrative for me. But what sucks is Tears of the
Kingdom had the potential to beat that out if I had just interacted with the
game a little bit differently. So you think, because of how you experienced
it, it can't. So you think the what is here? From what
I'm understanding is that you're saying that what is here potentially could have been way
better, or it could have been better than sky Resort, but because of
how you the order, you experienced it, and it can't go over it.
Yes, so like you're acknowledging the quality is better there, But like
skyrisword is going to stick with you harder where that kind of quality. It
sounds like you're saying it's better, but like because of how you experienced it
it it can't be better. So it's like you're acknowledging like one thing.
It sounds like you're like saying both things. Yeah, Like I think the
payoff is probably better than like, well because Starward Sword, like I think
it's it's narratively the strongest Zelda game up to this point, right, I
would agree star Starward Sword doesn't necessarily have like any like huge revelations, but
it had like some really good emotional scenes, and like that's why it sticks
with me. I think the narrative of Tears of the Kingdom had like some
really good reveals that would have been so much better. If I had experienced
it differently, I would have pushed it over Starward Swords. For me,
wrote like on an emotional level, I think that's where I'm at, and
like I can't help but walk away like a little frustrated by that. I
am frustrated hearing that. I understand. I understand. I mean, it's
not your fault, it's the game's fault or my fault because of how I
decided to interact with world and explore like I did what the game told me
to do and I got punished for it. It be that way, unfortunately.
I think this is the strongest reason is my question. I don't let
me put it this way, I will, I will say definitively, I
think this is the strongest narrative they have ever done for his health game,
like point blank, and I don't And I don't think it's because of the
order, Like I think you can watch this out of out of order,
and I think still as a whole, this story is stronger than Skyward Sword.
I think the I think the emotional beats of this game are stronger regardless
of order. I think if you look at like what is happening and the
implications of how it all happens, I think it is stronger than Skywardsword.
But I also think up to this point, Skyward Sword was the best.
I don't know. I feel like the reveal as far as like the main
cut scene Quest Goes Again, I feel like it would resonated with me so
much better if I hadn't discovered the things that I had discovered so early on.
Maybe like resonated in the moment, I think so, right, like
I agree with you, But if you sit and think about the out that
story, though, like you're gonna tell me that's not stronger than what also
that character has gone through in Skyward Sword. I mean there are like alternate
implications as well, like there are things that I appreciate about Skyward Sword that
are and Tiers of the Kingdom. And again I haven't seen the ending of
Tears of the Kingdom yet, so like I can't definitively say that. I
think where you're going to land, we'll see, we'll see. I'm very
curious to see where you land. I'm very curious, but like I don't
know. I just I wish the structure was just a little better. I
think it would have been better because for for me, I think of like
how I feel emotionally in the moment, and like that's how I resonate on
things, like when I think about them further along, like and how they
resonated with me in the moment, And like I wish I had that feeling
in Steroid's Sword, like or not star Ward Sword cheers the game point,
I kind of do, but like knowing that it could have been so much
better is so irritating and like diminishes from it a bit, and like to
you it might seem like a dumb thing to like focus on, but like
I can't help it. I don't think it's a dumb thing, but I
like, I understand what you're saying, right, Like, I get it,
But I think I still think, like the overall quality of this story
is a higher quality. It's such that like the moments are taken away from
you, but I think those are kind of like two different things, I
guess in my mind. So like I understand, like I could see you
saying, like Skywards Sword resonates with me harder than Tears of the Kingdom,
And I think it can also be true that Tears of the Kingdom has a
better story than Skyward's Sword, right, I think, I think, I
think, no, go on, I think, like objectively, I think
this has a stronger story than Skyward Sword. I think is what where I
land. And I was hoping you would feel the same, right, but
maybe not. And I'll be very curious to see, like at the end
of this where we can compare both games, like coming first. So I
mean, we're not gonna talk about it until twenty twenty four, So so
like I think both things can be true. Like, I get the feeling
in wanting to be in the moment and all that stuff, Like, I
understand that, But I think aside from that, I think Cheers of the
Kingdom still just has a stronger narrative overall. Then maybe I think I have
to admit this. There is also the aspect of I think there's aspects of
Skyward Sword that like, I don't know why I'm comparing Skyward Sword and Cheers
of the Kingdom so hard. I think I think there is a lot to
compare, Like, having freshly played both of those games, I think it
is very fair to compare those games in a lot of different ways. Unlike,
there are other aspects of Skyward Sword that like, I also compare.
For example, the first dungeon of Tiers of the Kingdom was really really cool,
and then I did the second dungeon, and then I did the third
due dang, these dungeons are kind of saying and that is disappointed. I
think the dungeons have a lot more character than the dungeons and Breath of the
Wild like, for sure, I think they're a lot cooler, like,
uh, the aesthetics are a lot more exotic, like they feel more like
dungeons, but they ultimately are all the same thing, and I feel like
that's a bit of it, like a little bit of a missed opportunity.
Granted, I think that's a product of like the game systems and that's just
the way it is, right, but like that's another reason why Skyrot Sward
skart Sward in my opinion, and you know what, feel free to tweet
at me and tell me how wrong I am. I will disagree with you.
Skarrotward has the best like designs elder dungeons of all time, And like
I was really hoping, like one of one of my major hopes going from
Breath a while to two the game, especially after playing elden Ring, was
that we would have more fleshed out and like really needy dungeons. Because I
was talking to a friend earlier today about like why elden Ring has resonated with
me more even though I really liked here as the Kingdom, is that ellen
Ring is this open world, but it still has like it's areas, It
still has the legacy dark souls areas. Legacy, yeah, legacy Dune,
which I didn't realize. I didn't know that until today when I was talking
with Wrong about it and I was like, oh, well, why does
an indenda just do that? They could totally do that. They could,
they could. I wish they would lean into it more like baby steps are
being taken, but like they they should lean into it more like to compare
Teams of the Kingdom to another game that I played this year, I compared
to Octopath two a lot in that it's very it does a lot of the
same things Octopath two does, where like it's moving in the right direction of
what I wanted to do, Yeah, but it's not there yet. It's
not moving fast enough. Yeah, And again I still need to see you,
like where where the end of this narrative is, and like there is
structure there clearly because there are things that are in this world that I cannot
interact with, and it's clearly waiting for me to beat certain things. And
that's another reason, like I probably should have done things a bit differently.
I played this game like I would play Breath of the while I probably should
have finished like the main dungeons like fucking one hundred hours ago. I wanted
to do that. But at the same time, it's just like you figure
it out on your own, you know. Like I'm not trying to like
push you, you know what I'm saying. It's like, yeah, you
have to discover the game at your own pace, you know. Yeah.
And I kind of wish I had, you know, just made that decision
earlier. But like, at the same time, I just kept getting distracted
by something. Be like what's it says something for like a game that it
does a terrible job of rewarding me. I still like went and fucking did
shit. It's still fun to play in that world is a game to play,
right, So like stuff is still fun. I do want to like
preface this or not, but I want to state I really liked this game,
like it is a contender for top five Zelder games. Like, despite
all of my complaints, I still think it's really good. This game is
incredible. It's really really good. It's contender for game of the year.
Like that is better the Breath of the Wild can say it is contender for
game of the year for me. So like, I really do like this
game, But like, at the same time, everybody already knows what's good
about this game. I need to, like, I want to be a
bit more analytical and critical of like where like they made a great game,
but they could have also made an even better game. No, granted,
it's not entirely fair compared to elden Ring because elm Ring came out and they
had like a year, So like a lot of the things that elden Ring
like really established, they had no way of like really implementing that. Yeah,
but like going forwards that they had for Breath of the Wild Tears came,
they could have fixed the UI. There's like a lot of things they
could have definitely fixed and like they kind of fix but they didn't, and
so like I can't help but like point those out. But I do really
like this game. I think it's so much better than Breath of the Whild.
It is definitely like the kind of improvement that I wanted to see and
I look forward to, Like like, all right, I'll put it to
you this way. I did not finish all the shrines in Breath of the
Whild. I got to a point where I was like I'm done. Yeah,
I have not gotten like I've gotten to that point in Tiers of the
Kingdom of I've been playing this game for two hundred hours I would really like
to play something else, but I also keep playing it because like, don't
get me wrong, I was saying the exact same thing at our two hundred
of Eldon Ring Online. I really like this game. I really wish I
was playing something else, but I have to finish this game, right,
and that's where I'm at in Tiers of the Kingdom. So, like all
things said, like despite my complaints, and the game is really cool.
I think the world is amazing. I think the engine that they built in
that game is cool, like being able to build something and like just like
build a flying machine or build a car. I don't understand why horses exist
in this game. Like the Fuse Mechanic is really cool because I can make
all all sorts of like different weapons and arrows, and like I can gush
of like why I really like this game. I can, but none of
that is good for discussion, So like I want to talk about these things
that are good for discussion, but like here's the Kingdom does do things right.
The Feuse Mechanic fixes so many complaints I had from the first game,
and like I have like I think it's really cool that you can take the
katanas that you got from the Yiga clan and like you can now have like
elemental shots on like your wind attacks. Yeah, I think that's really cool.
And so I hoard those weapons that I'm trying to like exclusively find them,
and then if they're about to break, I'll go and get them repaired.
And I'm like, Okay, that's really cool exploring the underground in the
sky and like finding like just getting around is cool and fun. And see,
this is this is not a good discussion. This is mee of judging.
We had we had to get through, like the thirty minutes of like
me fucking tearing the game shreds. First. No, I think James the
Kingdom's really good. I think it's definitely contender for game of the year,
like for your own personal game of the year. I've been told that because
it's too similar to About the While, that it doesn't hold a candle to
Balder's Gate. But I mean, I think that's a subjective viewpoint. If
it's your game of the year, it's your game of the year, and
I understand why it's definitely a weird viewpoint. These are the video game opinions
that I get on a daily basis. Is why I'm so glad I have
you in my life. I understand. It's so funny because like what Tears
of the Kingdom does for like not just Zelda, but kind of like the
freedom of expression out of an open world game, right, Balder's Gate does
the same exact thing, or CRPGs. It is very fun comparing both of
those games and like how they bust open like the genre that they're playing in
and kind of the same, like how we talked about how like tis the
Kingdom, lets you build a gun dum metal gear rex, but also like
we can be really stupid and we're just going to build a raft out of
three logs and a fan. Yeah right, We're build a bridge out of
twelve logs, or build a bridge out of twelve log But somebody else is
building a fucking warship right that has like heat seeking lasers and shit right on
the other show. I mean, I was really proud of myself when I
built a boat with like a single laser to deal with off the rocks in
I came across and I'm like, you know what is really cool that I
can do? It's pretty tight. And then you have like Bulder's Gate which
on the CRPG side of things is just like, I'm too stupid. I'm
just going to swing sword and kill enemy and this is fine. And then
someone with a three thousand IQ play is like, but what if I stack
forty five crates on top of each other so then I can use teleport to
get over this castle building. Well, basically like Balder's Gate three, lets
you do the dumb shit that you would try to do in an actual D
and D campaign, right, yes, and it equates for it, like
yeah. So like, for example, if you're playing a D and D
campaign and you're a sorcerer and you're on an enemy ship and it's thinking,
you could be like, all right, dungeon master, I want to cast
explosion on the deck of the ship and use it to propel myself back to
my ship. Yes, and your dungeon master would be like, okay,
make a roll check, make make a role for it, and then yeah,
that's it, walters Gate says roll check, and then it's just like,
yeah, go for it. And I feel like Kame does the exact
same thing in just a different way. It does right. It's fun comparing
those two games wildly questions and actually I'll close with an anecdote of like why
like Tears of the Kingdom was really getting in my view for a Game of
the Year is that I was coming across like a lake and I didn't really
have the materials to make a boat. So I was like, ah,
shoot, I need to get across the side of the lake, and I
don't want to have to swim. I don't have a lot of stamina,
And like I was able to like shoot an ice arrow into the water to
make like an ice block, and then infuse that ice block to like a
stick to make an ice fan, and then I was able to use the
ice fan to just make a bridge of ice to cross the lake. And
like I immediately thought about me playing Majora's Mask when I'm a kid, where
like there's near the water temple in Majora's Mask, Like you can see the
water temple off in the distance, but you have to ride like a turtle
to get there. But for whatever reason, when I was a kid,
I wanted to try to see if I could get there without the turtle.
And so I drank like the potion that gives you unlimited magic, and I
mean, and I just shot ice arrows to try and make a bridge to
get to this dungeon. Obviously, like I never got to it, but
like to be able to like come up with that idea in a Zelda game
and then actually see that idea realize in a future Zelda game, it's really
cool. Yeah, And like that's where I said that. I like this
game is like letting you live my adventure, like how I dreamt I would
play Zelda when I was younger, And like in some aspects, Tiers of
the Kingdom does that better than elden Ring, Like I think I think Tears
of the Kingdom ember Reth the while like on adjacent makes exploring and getting around
a lot more fun than elden Ring did. Absolutely. I mean elan Ring
you had Torrent. You're like he had a double jumping horse, and like
that's really cool. But like just getting places in like Tiers of the king
and like that's why I enjoy playing is like figuring out, like well,
how do I cross this? Like anytime I get to a cave, like
I can just like make a bridge out of ice, or like I can
find a way to like crawl through it, or I can make a boat.
Now in Tiers of the Kingdom, and like that's really cool, and
like that's what things I really like about Tiers of the Kingdom. And when
I want to see more, just give me like a super six sword at
the end of that cave instead of a fucking hoorock please, that's all I
want, totally want and like and like you could still have the durability,
but like especially when they put in like the legacy weapons. Most of these
legacy weapons don't have special effects, oh man, because I can give him
special effects and I'm like, oh, okay, that's really cool. There's
like small things that they could do to just make it that much better.
Yeah, And I hope to see it in the next one. I think.
I g on Uma already said that he's working on the next one,
but it's not a sequel two Breath of Wild or Tiers of the Kingdom.
So it's very interesting they said that because like next year, I think,
or no, earlier this year, they were definitely talking about like how they
were working on the next game or they're thinking about the next game, and
that it would be like an evolution of like the current engine. But I
guess maybe those plans may have changed, and I have a different idea in
mind, and you know what, I'm sure or it is an evolution of
the currency, or maybe it is in like they just pushed it. Maybe
it's more of emerging of like the ideas in elden Ring and the ideas of
I don't even know what to call these elders, like just the Open World's
elder, like I think, I think there's a lot of potential there.
I mean, Anoma makes great games, like he sturd towards, so I
trust the guy, and The Kingdom is a great game, so I'm very
excited to see what the next Elder brings up. For sure. Yeah,
and again I think Tiers of the Kingdom is a vast improvement of Breath A
while I won't say I couldn't have asked for more, because I definitely could
have. This episode is any evidence of it. But it is a seven
light like Octopat too. It's a step of the right direction and I like
what I am playing, and it's definitely contender of game of the year for
mere incredibly stacked here, Oh yeah, oh god, it's this year stacked
cool. I love that. I'm tired of talking. That's fine, I
will take over for you. Sir you. Oh look, we haven't been
here for a while. I had a lot to talk about. I see.
My man's was like, I'm taking up all the clock. That's cool
though. I love I love that. I'm glad you are. You are
finding this level of enjoymentality is the Kingdom. I wasn't sure. I was
like, is true gonna like this guy? I wasn't sure, But I
am glad that you do. That makes me happen. That's it's some serious
Dookholm syndrome if you didn't. But cool. Since we have last recorded,
I've played through many a video game. I've beaten several. I don't have
time to talk about everything, but some of that stuff we'll be talked about
on the Game of the Year episode. I'm sure, because I'm sure I'm
going to talk about like five different games during during that bit, I did
finish like a Dragon Dragon Guy Den, the man who erased his name.
That is something that I do plan to talk more about at a later date,
But just no very quick thoughts on that. I appreciate that it is
a much smaller focused game. It is like the Miles morales of this of
this series, right, so instead of being like a forty to fifty hour
game. It is like a very clean twenty twenty ish hours to do one
hundred I never one hundred percent. Yeah, because of games like there's always
substories I leave on the table, there's always extra stuff I leave on the
table. I did every substory in this game. I did just about everything
you could doing this game, aside from the Coliseum, which is just like
a little too grindy for my taste. But I do kind of want to
go back and do it though, because it's very annoying seeing like, hey,
you only have like two more achievements to go, and I'm just like,
I just finished this out. You know, there is a I need
to get back into the Yakaza series just so I could play this, just
so I can see the one side story that I saw a screenshot of.
Yeah, I I need to live through this side story. You would appreciate
that game does a really good job of connecting all of the universes, everything
that RGG Studio has done so far. That game like shouts out everything and
it's just like this, this world now truly feels complete. I have decided
that next year is going to be the Drew Riakos for a year, and
I'm going to start in the series next year. Please please do I think
this This game originally started out as DLC for Yakuza seven. It was just
supposed to be a very small thing, and then it blew up into being
its own self contained story, which has in my opinion, uh and I
think Chase is also an agreement. From what I've talked about, this has
the best ending of any game that the studio has done. Oh wow,
that's that's a high bar saying something. That's a high fucking bar, because
there's some there's been some good endings that I've seen from RGG Studios in some
of the games I played. So they all hit, like Judgment, Lost,
Judgment, Yoxon Seven's Kiwamie zero, all of them, they all hit,
But this one, like it is a different It is a different tone
for like the last like hour of that game, because they're always like very
bombastic, but this one has a very like, very different but intentional tone
to it, and it hits so fucking hard. I was crying at the
end of this, like ugly crying, which was very funny because Lewis was
sending me memes at the same time, So like I was crying and then
looking at my phone and then like laughing and then looking at the screen and
crying again, And it was a very like awkward like back and emotion Lorne.
But like it, it hits. It is like the perfect capstone to
like this series as a whole. And now I'm very much excited to see
like where we go from here with Infinite Wealthycase eight. So yeah, Drew,
I'm excited for you to start the games. I think you will fall
in love with, like at least the narrative of them. Some of them
maybe hit or miss in terms of like combat. I don't know where you'll
fall on that. They're they're very much like Arcade beat them up games,
Like they're they're yanky uh in, just like very goofy stuff there. But
I think you're really going to get into the narr especially very early iterations of
early Dragon Engine. You're gonna end up going back and forth, right because
like you have like zero and like some of the more like modern takes on
them, and then you have like the three through six remasters, which is
like I'm playing a PS three game, you know, So like you're gonna
go back and forth in terms of controls. But like, I think you're
going to enjoy it all and I'm looking forward to uh hearing your thoughts or
watching you stream stream them if you do. Uh, none of those,
none of those are coming off a game pass anytime soon, right, No,
they're almost like permanently there games even better. Yeah, but yeah,
they they left game Pass for a little while and then they the contract got
renewed, so they're all up there. So it's very very easy for anybody
to check them out if you haven't, including the latest one like a guide
in uh or like a guide like a dragon, like a dragon. Guidan
is also on there, and I think Infinite Wealth will also be on game
Pass, so Issians not on game pass, so right, yes it is
oh is Yes, I need to play. You need to play, you
need to play Isshian, please play. I need to play. That's also
a very good one. So yeah, that was a very emotional game.
I finished playing Little Goody two Shoes. It's very good. What is it
Little Goody two Shoes? You can look it up on Steam and check out
the trailer. It is a It is a horror game that has a very
nineties anime aesthetic to it. It's a very simple game of you play a
girl, and a girl named Elise. Elise Uh actually lives in this town
that is seemingly tormented by a witch and the town is very paranoid about who
this switch is. So you're you're operating on so like you have like a
morning section, an afternoon section, and even a section in a late night
section where you're going around, you're talking to the town, you're doing little
mini games. There's romance in the game. There's three bachelorettes to choose from.
There are two correct answers, and I will leave it at that.
Yeah, And you have like you're kind of managing different meters in that game.
So you do have like a hunger gauge, which every time the time
transitions between like morning and afternoon, you lose one hunger, and then you
have a health gauge, right, so if you get hit by enemies,
you lose health. There's also a suspicion gauge, right, so as you
talk to NPCs and they start questioning you, they might start thinking, oh
is Alisa which and you have to like keep that suspicion down, right.
It's a very it's not stressful at all, So I wouldn't say it's like
like you really have to worry too much. You have plenty of resources to
buy food items, by healing items, by things that help you progress through
the game. I don't think at any point you can really lock yourself out
of anything, you know, but it is something that's just very fun to
see play out, as like paranoia starts like ripping through this village. I
will say, as far as it being like scary, I don't think the
game is necessarily scary. I think there's like two or three jump scares that
got me pretty good, right, one that is very early on, and
then it just kind of chills out for a while. But overall, like
it is not a scary game, but it is a tense game at times
as you walk through like these weird landscapes, or you have a lantern,
right so at night it gets very dark and like your paranoia gauge kind of
goes up a little bit and you're like, Okay, I need to light
this lantern and you have like matches you kind of have to manage right as
the light goes out and you have to strike another match, and like walking
through these dark areas. You just like, is this game gonna fuck with
me? And you know it's bad when like you go through parts of the
game and it doesn't do anything, but like you're tense, right because you
know at some point this game is going to fuck with me, right.
It's that it's that kind of feeling. It reminds me of Evil Tonight.
Yeah, yeah, this makes me really happy. There's some Evil Tonight vibes
in there. So I don't think it's anything too hard for people to play.
And it does have multiple endings, right, because it follows like the
romance options, and there's a few other endings in there based on if you
survive, right, But I got one ending with the romance option, and
it was so good that like, I don't need to play the rest of
this, Like I don't need to see the other endings. I am like
content with what I had. And I was like, this was a very
good story. I will go back and play through the rest of it.
But where my character ends up at the end and how the story unfolded,
I'm like, yep, this is it. This was very very good.
It's not going to be like top five in my Game of the Year.
Or anything. It might not even slip into like top ten, but I
think it is a very good game this year, and it is a cool
thing out of Square NX to publish, which, like Square Enix now has
published two games, two horror games this year that like kind of stuck with
me, right, the other one being Paranormal Site, which was an in
house Square NX developed game, and this one is just published. So it's
very cool that they're like taking chances on like some smaller things here and there,
you know, very very pleasant surprise because that game kind of came out
of nowhere, right, It's just like in October they announced it and you're
like, what is this? And it's very short too, It's only I
think that was like ten hours that for that first playthrough, and I think
subsequent playthroughs would be much shorter since you already know what to do. The
mini games in that game are like unhinged with what they do. Like the
visual the visual aesthetic of that game I think is like some of the best
this year. I think it is amazing what they do for their visual style
and how they transition to like mini games, and how they transition to like
the night stuff and there. There are certain segments of the game where it's
just like you start questioning, what are you actually playing? They come out
of pocket with some with some scenes. It's a great time. Please go
play it. And it's only like I think fifteen bucks on Steam. I
think it's also on Switch. I'm not sure, but definitely give it a
look. See every christis finally got its PC version. I pop that on
today. Hey please white Girl, white Girl, please save me, save
me White Girl ever crisis, Final Fantay seven Ever Crisis. Yeah, yeah,
they finally Yeah. The Steam version dropped a couple of days ago.
Oh wait, I think I did see someone about that. Did they ever
get the servers up and running? Yeah, it's all. It's up and
it's up and running. Everything is up and good. I think our friends
over in Southeast Asia are still locked out, so like they may need to
do some VP and stuff to access the game, but we're good. It
is still that game. It is just a PC version with like with higher
resolution textures and like it's really pretty all. It's basically just mobile game version
of Final Fanta seven remake Integrate. Like the models are so high quality that
I'm like, oh, this is super pretty. This is great. I
think I'll do all of the story segments on PC going forward. I'm pretty
pretty impressed by it, honestly. And they have like keyboard shortcuts and stuff
too, so that like you don't have to use the mouse to play it.
This is some like thoughtful like porting that went on for this version that
I found very interesting. And then also they do have the Christmas manner,
so like I did get both Tifa and Erith's Christmas outfits despite having to spend
all of my gems, but I got there. I was saved by white
curl. Uh. But yeah, it's good. I if people like f
F seven, right, I think it's a pretty solid gotcha game. Like
you know, don't don't expect too much out of it, but enjoy the
story out of it. There's some good stuff there, especially with the first
Soldier stuff. I think they're they're doing some interesting stuff there. I thought
it Spider Man two. Don't really have much to talk about it on Spider
Man two. The only other thing I really want to highlight here at this
point is a Lethal Company is a game that that Stealth dropped recently came out
of nowhere that is kind of uh seen the clips. Huh, I've seen
the clips. Yeah, yeah, it's it's making its rounds right. Everybody
is on Lethal Company. I played it the day came out. I got
a chance to actually sit down and I got together with with Asher and Carry
actually and we we hopped on Discord and played some Lethal Company. And that
game is great. That game is really fucking fun for to set up what
it is, essentially, you basically clock into work. You have a you
have a Greek how you worlded that. It's it's what it is. You
listen, I clocked out of work so that I can hop on this Gordon
clock back into work. You gather up with up to three other friends,
so you can have up to a party of four. Though there are mods
to make the room bigger. I think that kind of takes away from the
game a little bit. I think five players it's a cool sweet spot.
I think anything more than that starts to get like it kind of like makes
a game a little easier, right with more hands on deck. Though it
is fun with like the right group of friends obviously, but I do think
like a sweet spot is like four or five people. But ultimately what you're
doing is you're you're hired on this company by this company to go find resources
on other planets and bring them back. Right. You are given a quota.
Right, so like the first day, you have three days to get
like four hundred and fifty dollars worth of merchandise. Right, And it's very
fun. The first time you start playing, they give you they take you
through like a whole orientation. When you're on the ship, you have this
computer that's talking to you, just like, welcome to the company. This
is what blah blah blah, this is what you're gonna do. So you're
clocking in for work and you land on a planet and you enter a building,
and it is just go find the things. The lights may be off,
there may be monsters in the building. Crazy shit happens. And I
highly urge people to, like, if you haven't engaged with the game much
in terms of like either playing it or watching it, I would suggest go
play it a little bit before watching some stuff, because like a lot of
the fun of the game is like not knowing what these creatures are or how
they react. Right, So it's like I really get a kick out of
like you see a monster for the first time and you're just like, Okay,
maybe if I don't make any noise, it's not going to bother me.
And it's still kind of functions with you and you're trying to figure out,
like how do I deal with this thing? Right, and you see
people like go through it. It's very very entertaining and there's a wide variety
of like enemies that do like a bunch of different things. The game does
have proximity voice chat, which is also very fun too, so like you
know, if someone's too far off into the distance, you can't talk to
them. But you can purchase like equipment, right, everybody can purchase different
items. You can get flash lights, you can get shovels, which is
mostly used as an as a weapon to hit things with. You can buy
a boom box if you just want to make noise. Like there's a bunch
of goofy items in there. But you also get like a walkie talkie for
example, which, like the sound design in this game is really good too,
so like when you're talking over the walkie talkie, like it sounds like
you're actually talking through one, and it's just great. It's it's just wild
chaotic fun in like every time I play, you find something new and it's
just like you're having your goofing and gaffing and just trying to make quota.
If you don't make quota, it's game over. But like there's a fun
scene about it too. There's also seems to be like some some other stuff
hidden about the game that kind of tells a narrative. I'm waiting to see
people kind of crack that. Maybe some goofy like a arg stuff. I
don't really know. But there's a lot of things planted around the world.
It's it's a great time with with with the right group of friends. I
gotta say a blast. There are there's like quicksand and like things where like
you know, you can drown in water or falling quicksand stuff. And one
of the credits to like the sound designe of this game is like if something
is covering your mouth, you sound muffled to everybody else, right, So
like there's a really fun clip of like a friend of ours drowning and we're
like, dude, you drop the quick sid He's like what this group and
we're just like rocking up. It's so good. That's pretty good. It's
a real treat. The game's only made by one person. It's a single
developer that put this game together, and it is a whot. I think
it's only ten dollars on Steam. Definitely worth checking out. Great time.
It might slip into like my Game of the Year talks because I think it
is incredible what it's doing and I want to see more of that game.
I want to play more of that game. My schedule doesn't really sync up
with a lot of people, so like real opportunities to play it as ill
say, real life work, Yeah, real life, real life work interrupts
my in game work. I can't clock into work because by the time I
clack out of work, it is too late for me to clock into work
with friends. But I'm glad I got to experience it at least a little
bit and got a taste for what this game is now that it's blowing up
everywhere, yeah, watching people stream it. There is one clip by Saul
where, uh, one of this guy was like putting out the ladder or
something like that, and like the he took out one of his buddies with
the ladder. Yeah, because but like what killed him was like the bunk
sound it made as it hit the person in the head. Yeah, as
the ladder fell, I was he ejected the ladder and it just like falls
over on them. Yeah, I've seen that. Yeah, that one.
That one made me. That one made me laugh. I was like,
okay, I kind of see why people are raving about this game. It's
it's got a really goofy tone to it. When you order items, right,
like you have to wait a little bit for it to get delivered onto
the planet, and when it does, the shuttle comes down playing the ice
cream truck music, like, and you're just like, yo, ice cream
is here. That's pretty good. It's very very good. You're like,
why is it playing this? We don't know. It's goofy, it's silly.
But yeah, there's a lot of really good strategy in the game too,
so like depending on your teammates and how you want to tackle it,
there's a lot of different ways you can tackle this game and progress further,
which I think is also I don't know how intentional some of this design was,
but it feels all brilliant and it's designed. But all of it,
I'm sure some of this is very unintentional. All of it was intentional,
but it's it's a pretty well thought out game. It is yanky, right,
there are some glitches in there. We've had monsters like clip through a
wall into the ship to kill somebody and goofy stuff like that. But you
kind of just roll with the punches with that game, you know, it
just kind of happens. You burst out laughing and then just keep going when
somebody dies. Right, sounds like the game Anybody is intended working as intended
if it's developed by one person, right, it does work like among us,
right, So, like if people die, the people that are dead
can talk to each other, but they can't communicate with the living. Also,
it is very important to like, if somebody dies, try to recover
their body, because you do get a fine if you don't recover their body.
Oh it's a it's a minor fine. But also, like in a
game where you're trying to make quota, like any little bit helps you know
or could work against you. So I say, does that countas quota?
You know, they don't give you money for it, They will just take
it away if you don't bring the body back. There are some cool items
that can help you with that too. So yeah, great game, fun
game. I hope to play it some more. If I can't, I
will enjoy watching people stream it. So yeah, that's about it from from
me. There's play more that I could get into, but we're running a
little late here. I don't want to keep people up too long, so
let's let's wrap it up. Let's get out of here. Let's prepare for
a Game of the year. It's gonna be great, It's gonna be really
good. I'm excited signing off Ryan. What's going on with you? Where
can people find you? And all the cool things that you're doing? Promote
yourself? Let's see what do I want to promote. I don't know all
of it. I guess you can find me on Twitter RCB Draws. It's
where I post a lot of my artwork. I also will promote my online
store where I've started selling a lot of my merchandise with stickers, keychains,
prints, and the first ever T shirt that I launched, which has been
a pretty big hit to say the least. We're also working on on future
designs as well of said shirts, so be on the lookout for those.
Also, I'm starting to do some commission work for a independent comic comingy that
I'll be talking about stuff with as well. I don't know how much I'll
be able to share with that as far as, like you know, things
I'm working on and things like that, but be on the lookout for some
potential stuff there, because yeah, there's some there's some stuff happening to say
the least, so, but that's where you can primarily find me is basically
Twitter, RCB draws, and then, like I said, check out my
online store, especially since I got like a twenty five percent off sale going
right now for like stickers, printing key chains. So definitely check all that
out if you can. Cool for sure, Drew Stifferr, how about you?
All right? You can find me on Twitter at JSB totally Drew,
Uh, I have really been active. I mean I mainly just post video
game opinions at this point. Well, fighting game complaints. L felts real
tight. I didn't get to talk about that, but l Felton Strive is
pretty cool. Mm hm hmm. She is pretty cool. Hopefully I can
make time to check her out. You can follow me on Twitter at zenos
k z n on s u k E. But yeah, it's it's just
a lot of video game stuff, a lot of a lot of anime retweets
and uh general impression on things. You can follow us at Jack Savage Race
as well if you want to learn more about the various things that we got
going on or what's coming up where we're working on figuring out, uh starting
back up the JSP animecalfs. We're trying to trying to get that in order.
We're working on the Game of the Year stuff, so like you know,
when when that stuff ready, probably gonna be like the first week of
January that that gets released, So stay tuned for that. We are going
to go on like a little bit of another break before our next recording session,
so like sometime in January, I'm sure the show will return, so
like keep your eyes on that for when we u when we start everything back
up. So like have a good new year, you know, and we
will talk to y'all later. Bye later, bye, not time. Got supp suppos