Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to side Quest. This is our weekly
video game show here at Geek. First, I am your host,
Dylan Muznev with me the Undefeated Kirkland Pats or how are.
Speaker 2: You doing tonight? I'm doing very good.
Speaker 3: I like how you read that as the undefeated, even
though it's it's actually the defeated.
Speaker 2: That's just how much I think of you. I think
I feel like I'm.
Speaker 3: In full of veins though I feel undefeated and yet
defeated at the same time. Maybe I'll go into that
once we get there, but now I'm excited to be here.
This has been I feel like I messaged you sometime
last week and I'm just like, man, I can't wait
to get on the side Quest.
Speaker 4: I feel like I have so much to talk about.
Speaker 3: And it's kind of funny how that happens, where sometimes
I'll be like leading into you know, we record these
on Mondays. It's just like I'm leaning into that. I'm like,
I have so much to talk about. I check the
schedules like, oh, I'm not even on until next week,
of course, and then sometimes it's the opposite where it's like, oh,
I'm on this week, but I haven't been playing anything,
so kind of ebbs and flows that way.
Speaker 4: But now I'm very excited to be here.
Speaker 1: Now I'm glad that it works out that way, because, Yeah,
sometimes on side Quest, it's even like a day of
or the day before, I'm like, there's an no news,
I haven't really been playing new things, there's no new
game release, like I just kind of scrambled to come
up with something for the topic. Then there's weeks like
this where it's great that you had a bunch of
things you want to talk about, and my two most
anticipated games of like this whole year came out the
same day, so you're you're getting like best best mood,
Dylan you can possibly have, where I'm just feasting on
games that I have been just craving for for so
long at this point. So it's gonna be a fun episode.
It's really just a games we've been playing episode. We're
talking about the Plucky Squire, we're talking about you have
about fifty, and then Kirkland has some mystery. He always
like likes to leave it like a nice mystery game segment,
So I don't know what he's can talk about, but
we'll have some other stuff in there. So yeah, we're
just gonna get ri into it. We'll do some loose
some plugs later on, but I want to start with
this one. So Ufo fifty is a game that I
swear was announced in like twenty nineteen or something, and
then it has just been waiting in the wings. And
I think part of the reason for that is because
it's a it's a culmination of many different game developers
who were kind of just working on their own little
things and kind of made it to one big collection.
Speaker 2: So I think that's why it took so long.
Speaker 1: It's because for a bit there, you know, one of
the developers on this game is the great Derek you
who I love so much, who is the creative for Splunky,
and obviously he had to go ahead and release Splunky too,
and a billion updates for that game, all these patches
and stuff, so he was obviously busy.
Speaker 2: For a while, which delays the game.
Speaker 1: And you factor them with multiple developers who are all
doing their own thing, that kind of tends to happen.
But for anyone who forgets what UFO fifty, as I've
mentioned it a few times on side Quest, but it
is a game that I feel like has not been
like had I had a trailer at a big showcase,
and so it might be going under some people's radars.
UFO fifty is a collection of fifty games, as I said,
made by kind of like a little dream team of
indie game developers there, and they kind of framing of it.
The narrative overarching element, I guess you could say, is
that they kind of framed as like this is in
an alternate timeline. There was this company in the eighties
called Ufosoft who made a bunch of games like kind
of in the nessn Yes era. But obviously in our
timeline those games never existed. So this is like a collection,
and we get in so many these modern day collections,
you know, the Marvel first Capcom collection just came out.
This is like a modern collection, but for a bunch
of games that never actually existed. It's kind of just
this imaginary world. And so yeah, it's fifty games in one.
There's no weird micro transactions. They're all unlocked from the beginning.
You just you buy the game for thirty bucks, you
get fifty games. Fucking have ad or do whatever you
want with this. This is your piece of you know,
this is your game now. You can play it however
you want. And I think that's one of my favorite
things about it is there's just one.
Speaker 2: It's like it's so cheap.
Speaker 1: Man, Like, if you enjoyed half of these games, then
what is that You're playing like fifty cents per game,
you know, like whatever, Like you're getting an insane value here.
And yeah, so I've played a bunch of this game
over the weekend, but I also wasn't split between Plucky
Squire and playing a bunch more Elden Rings, So I've
only played so much of it so far. But man,
right off the bat, I fucking love this game. This
is this is a weird one in terms of expectation
because you know, it's fifty games. So I'm like, okay,
these games, you know they're gonna be these and they're
gonna be fun sort of games. But like, these are
not mini games or micro games. Like these are full
length games. They all have their own title card, they
all have their own credit sequence. Some of them take
hours and hours to some of them are a bit shorter,
some of them are like, you know, one of them
is like a two D plaf or two D fighting game,
so obviously you can do a bunch of battles, or
you can just play once and you know, never play
it again kind of thing, And so it's like it's
pretty expansive. And also like, Okay, I knew Derek you
was somewhat involved, but also there's a lot of games
not developed by him, so it's like I didn't I
didn't really know what to expect going in, and that's
why I'm just like blown away so far. And I've
only played like maybe twelve of the games, and I've
only beat one of them at this point in time.
So it just goes to show, like, man, I cannot
wait to keep exploring this collection even more. As I mentioned,
they're kind of set up as neys type games. That's
in like the graphical fidelity of them, but also like
a bit in the design ethos. But obviously forty years
have passed since those days, and developers have learned a
lot of lessons. They're better at game design, and they
can learn from games from the past, and so I
feel like even like the simplest games, which would like
one of these games in here is pretty much just
like if Ice Climbers was actually a fun game to
play in the year twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: And it's just that.
Speaker 1: But I have been addicted to it, and I've you know,
gone back and played some Ice Climbers on Nintendo Switch Online,
Like that game fucking sucks. It's not fun to play.
It's really planned. There's not a lot to it, and
so it's like, yeah, I'd rather play just like a
modern version of that. And there's quite a few of
that in here, Like there's one of these games. It's
just like what if Splatoon was like kind of made
on the nes. It feels kind of like that. It's
a different art style and stuff. But I think also
one thing that's and I known going over the place,
but it's hard to talk about this game in like
a linear way because it's just I think one thing
that I'm really happy with about it and I didn't
really expect, is that it is very cohesive, even though
and once again I haven't played all fifty games, so
I'm only just speaking for my experience so far. But
there's a lot of ways that's very cohesive. One is
that it's like, you know, all the developers here are
making multiple games, are working on each other's games, they're
play testing each games. You might have Eric Sirk, who's
a composer did Splunky soundtrack. He's composing multiple games, so
there's a lot of things that tie them together. They
also use like a very specific color palette, so every
game in here uses like the same I forget if
it's sixteen or thirty two colors, like they they went
with that specific palette and all games bound are bound
to that. So it feels very cohesive in that way.
And then there's even like continuity between games in here,
like some of the games are sequels to each other,
but none of them are just like okay, they just
chopped up the games levels and like doled out as sequels.
Like they're all very they're pretty much like the same
general idea, like what's the core concept of the game,
but it plays completely differently. And some of the sequels
are made by different people too, so they're not really
just it's not like they're cheaping out on like the
fifty games, Like you're getting fifty games in here, even
though they don't need to.
Speaker 2: You know, they could have cheaped out on five to
ten of them. Again, maybe they have.
Speaker 1: I haven't played all the games yet, but but they
haven't so far, so I am just in.
Speaker 2: Love with it. You know, you're getting roguelikes in here, platformers,
you're getting puzzle games, you're getting racing games, fighting games,
you're getting games I don't even know what you would
call the genre of, Like there's just some freakish things
in there.
Speaker 1: So it's just amazing, Like, everyone, go buy this game.
I'm sure you'll find some stuff in here that you're
into a lot of. It has coach co op stuff
as well, So I'd love to get this set up
on our twenty four hour stream and play some of
these games together. Like them is kind of like Dodgeball,
but like with hacky Sacks instead, so like the physics
are really wonky, and you can like bank hacky sacks
off other hacky sacks and like clip and the enemies
and get special abilities that it feels very like a
Mario Tennis kind of thing and the energy there, so
that's pretty cool as well. I think maybe if I
did have one criticism of this game, it's that there
is an online multiplayer. It's only split screen, you know,
if we're really being specific with it, Like, Okay, the
games at that time in the eighties were obviously limited
to split screen multiplayer, but you know, I think that
that's something they should have maybe spring to have in here.
I understand that it can be very difficult when you're
making fifty games like to make that work with all
these different games can be difficult, but it's something that
would have been nice. Who knows, maybe down the road,
I'm not I'm not holding out for it.
Speaker 2: So yeah, this this game is just unreal.
Speaker 1: I think part of the joy for me is just
exploring the catalog and deciding what's what am I in
a mood for. Do I want to play a puzzle
game right now? Do I just want to turn my
brain off and do some fun platforming? And so I
might jump into a game and be like, this is
not my mood right now. I'll come back to this
one later. And that's why I've only played a handful
of the game so far, is because so far that's
been the case, where I jump into a game, maybe
I'm confused at first. I play for a little bit,
then I'm like, you know what, I'm not gonna go
play this other game that I'm really enjoying, and then
I'll like come back to it later and really discover
what's interesting about it. And now these games have like
tutorials either, so you're kind of just thrown in there.
You can pause and see like the buttons, but like
you're kind of just thrown in there. So some of
them are obviously a little more straightforward than others in
that way. But yeah, let's let me just highlight a
few of my I guess favorite games in here are
some ones that I'm really enjoying so far. So the
first one I jump too, unsurprisingly is this game called
Pilot Quest, because the character of pilot Quest is a
guy named Pilot who's a character from Splunkie two. He's
just one of the playoff characters there, and then they've
kind of made him like the mascot like ufosaft, like
he flies around in a UFO and that's like the
branding is largely based off him, and he appears in
multiple games, which is just amazing because that is also
that has been forever my main character in Splunky two.
Is the fact that he's randomly like the protagonist a
bunch of other games is really fun for me, and
I'm kind of breaking down like the lower of like.
Speaker 2: What does this mean? Like do these games take place
in the Spluggy universe?
Speaker 1: And like, I don't think they really thought about that stuff,
but for me, it's just like a fun bonus. But yeah,
pilot Quest ended up being kind of the perfect game
to play first because Kirkland, have you ever played like
a like an idol game or like a clicker game?
Speaker 2: Are you familiar with those games?
Speaker 3: All? Yeah, I mean I think it's funny. I'm pretty
sure there's one called Idle Heroes and one called Clicker Heroes,
and I've played one of or if both, but no,
Clicker Heroes was a big one. I feel like around
high school time, I had my one friend his like
most played game on Steam is Clicker Heroes just because
he like sets it up so he never even has
to interact with it. But yes, I'm aware of those. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I remember playing one back in high school called Tiny Tower,
which was like a great phone game where you were
just building this insane tower and adding like residential suites
for people, and then you get different restaurants and like
build an arcade and literally all you do is like
go on the game and like re stock shelves by
clicking on things, and then like you know, it takes
eight hours in real train for that.
Speaker 2: Thing to regenerate.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of that idea, and pilot Quest is
kind of that a little bit at the start. It's
kind of a clicker where you have your yo yo
and there's a little crystal and you smash the crystal
and crystals come out and you pick them up, and
then eventually you like buy a thing, buy a seed
that generates crystals over time. And I was like, that's
kind of a weird idea, but I'm kind of into it.
And then I think where it kind of clicked for
me is that all that stuff happens while you're outside
pilot Quest. So while you're playing other games in the collection,
you're building up crystals in pilot Quest. So when you
come back to it, okay, shit, I have a ton
of resources.
Speaker 2: Now I can go do a few more things.
Speaker 1: And so that's one that I play pilot Quest for
twenty minutes, I go play other games for like a
couple hours, come back to pilot Quest, play for twenty minutes,
and I keep coming back and forth, and I'm so
curious to see what other kind of meta games there
are in this collection, and that that really just does
happen to be the perfect game to pick up first
in this collection because I can just get start building
up those things right away. So it just worked out
perfectly in that way. But on top of that building
out your whole base, and whennot you're you know, going
take out dungeons and exploring and you're having to repair
your ship and all that. So it's just a fun
game on the side, but like the weird clicker element
to it and the idle game element to it is
is like an interesting twist on it, but that makes
it really interesting. Another one that is just so wild.
I don't even know how to describe the genre of it.
It's called Party House, and the objective of the game
is just like pretty much just throw the perfect party.
There's different scenarios and so you're trying to build up
both your popularity and your cash so that you can
like buy things that make the party better and buy
a bigger house, and then popularity so that you can
you know, get more and better and more interesting people
at your party. And there's I just love the names
of everything in here. Like you have essentially like opening
a door and you're letting one person in and then
you can decide, Okay, do I want to let another
person in because they could be a bad person or
a good person. And then you decide when the party
is over, either you've filled up the house completely and
you're good to go, or you're taking that risk door
by door and so everyone's in a while. Like they're
called wild buddies, and a wild buddy will enter your
house and they're just fucking rowdy. They're just trashing the place.
And if you get too many wild buddies, the cops
show up and then you just you don't get any resources.
So that's like the main thing is you're trying to like, Okay,
I can't if I'm risking if I open this door
and there's a wild buddy there, then there's so many
ways that it expands on that where one of the
guests you can have is just a dog, and the
dog will spot who the next person that the door is,
so you can see, oh, maybe it's a wild buddy,
so I know I'm not gonna let them in. You
can like get police officers in or like security guards
and like kick out wild buddies.
Speaker 2: I love too.
Speaker 1: You can get you can invite hippies to your party,
and hippies will balance out the wild buddy. They kind
of bounce with the flow of the party. You can
get like auctioneers and like DJs and dancers and like
all this crazy stuff and yeah, like this. So there's
different scenarios, different wind conditions, but for the most part,
you're just trying to optimize the money variable of it
with like the popularity and I'm still trying to figure out.
I haven't beat a run of it yet, but it's
just like such a weird, funny idea. The art is hilarious,
and I just love the naming convention of everyone. It's
so it's such a funny, weird little game in there
that I never would have thought of. But it's also
so simple, like not to bragg or anything. I feel
like I could program that game in like a month,
Like it's very.
Speaker 2: Simple, but it's super fun.
Speaker 1: And I feel like that's just everything in here is
so well designed, even if it's just like the most
basic of platform or it's just super fun to play.
And that's why I'm just like addicted to this game totally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it seems like a great resource for just like
inspiration even just being a game developer, right because you're
getting so much different games with different mechanics and different
little interactions among themselves in a game you know that
has fifty and as you already stated, like you're what
twelve games into a pack of fifty.
Speaker 4: That's awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's just like as I mentioned with
Ice Climbers, and that's the case for so many games
when I go back and play them on any like
Nintendo Switch Online, Like man, these games do.
Speaker 2: Not hold up there very fun.
Speaker 1: A lot of them do typically ship with a manual
back in the day, and if you don't have the manual,
it makes the game like impossible to understand. Of course,
that's like one level of disconnect there. But it's like
even the original Mario Bros. I don't really like that game,
the original couple Zelda games, they're not really for me.
I don't really find them that enjoyable. And so I
just think it's cool that, like, okay, what it would
be like to make a modern game that as using
those limitations but with modern sensibilities, and it's like, oh yeah.
The result is that you get really really fun games
that are very simple, because like, if you don't need
much for a game to be a hoot. Another game
that I really want to do show up because.
Speaker 2: I think you will particularly like.
Speaker 1: This is a game called more Toll and the basic
ideas it's weird. It's a two D platformer, kind of
puzzle platform where you're going from left to right trying
to just get to the exit. And when I as
soon as I hopped in, the most striking thing to
me was that I had twenty lives. I'm like, what
kind of platformer gives you twenty lives? Is this game
just incredibly difficult? What's going on here? But it's because
with every time you die, you know another guy respawns down,
and it's kind of contextualizes that it's not you respawning,
it's like different guys. Like you have twenty people overall,
and there's it's pretty simple. You move back and forth,
you jump, and then there's three abilities you have. One
is you can turn into a rock kind of like
Kirby's down Beat and smash. One is you can just
self destruct, so you blow up blocks and other things,
but you die in the process. Yeah, And then the
third one is you just like turn yourself into a
fucking dart and fly horizontally across the stage and you
like stab into walls and then you can like jump
on that guy's body, so.
Speaker 2: They but it's like a pigman like game where you're using.
Speaker 1: Each other's bodies and like you know, blowing up blocks
with one guy so that the next guy can walk through.
Speaker 2: And so it's kind of yeah, it's kind of like
that idea.
Speaker 1: But then the cool thing that ties it all together
is there's like ten levels in the game, so not
too many, but the idea is you're trying to replay
it and almost like golf, like get your score down.
You're trying to get like really optimize your runs. Because
once you go through that first level with twenty guys,
if I burned, let's you can gain guys, you can
lose guys. But let's say overall ended with twelve guys
left it at the end of the level. Now for
level two, I only have twelve guys, and so that's
where the freaking seafood angle of it comes in. As
you get further in, you're going back to earlier levels
optimizing the way you're playing, try and decide, oh, how
can I get all these bonus lives and minimize the
ones I'm losing, and then just execute until you have
so many bonus guys for the later levels, and then
the final boss.
Speaker 2: You just need fucking bodies everywhere. You gotta just sat.
Speaker 1: You can't gaining their lives. You just got to sacrifice
a ton of people. So that's kind of where the
challenge comes in. So it's just like that's and borrowing
that little piece from Seafoo, it was like, yeah, totally
changed everything about it into just this totally genius game.
And I had just I was just I couldn't stop
playing that game until I paid it. I was like,
I have so many other games in this collection checkout,
but I'm beating the hell out of this game because
I love the idea and there's a sequel to it
in the collection, so I can't even wait to go
see how like it changes up that formula using that
general idea. So yeah, that game is is absolutely sick.
Speaker 2: And on top of that, to it a.
Speaker 1: Lair I really like to it is whenever there's enemies
all throw the level, you know, if they hit you,
you die, so you just lose a guy.
Speaker 2: That's that's not ideal.
Speaker 1: But if you if you blow up and kill an enemy,
every time you kill three enemies, you get a bonus life.
So as you're going through this level planning at your
roote trying to optimize it, you're also looking at like, okay,
how can I blow up these blocks and also maybe
take out an enemy or two as well, And so
just the speed run like route planning.
Speaker 2: Of it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so satisfying. So once again, super simple game,
Like I think it took me two hours maybe to
get that first complete. But then each game has like
a gold rating when you like roll credits on it essentially,
but then there's also you can get a cherry in
each one, so if you that's like a super difficult goal.
So now I gotta beat the game with like seventy
five people remain. I don't even know what the hell
I'm gonna do that. I play perfect on like every level,
So there's additional kind of tiers of challenge if you
really want to get super deep in the weeds, which
maybe I will over time, but right now I'm just
gonna kind of, you know.
Speaker 2: Share the load a little bit and check out about
these different games.
Speaker 4: That's awesome. What are you playing it on?
Speaker 2: I'm playing it. It's only on Steam right now.
Speaker 1: Actually, Okay, so I imagine this game would be hard
to port just because of how many different games are
in here, Like I've found a couple bugs in here,
which it makes sense, you know, how are you gonna
play tests?
Speaker 2: Play test? A one game is hard? I can tell
you that from making one simple game of Potion problem,
but making fifty all at once, where.
Speaker 1: People could be doing things in different orders, playing games
in different ways. Like, yeah, it's so, I've I've found
a couple bugs. Nothing like too crazy, but yeah, definitely that.
I this game is gonna be an absolute hit on
the Switch though. It's gonna be perfect for that, like
when it comes out, just in terms of like having
it on the go and checking out these different games
for different moments. And the coach co op I think
is gonna be a great angle for the Switch, So
I'm looking forward to that. Like at this game, I'm
definitely like Splunky too, I own on every console imaginable.
Speaker 2: That's gonna be the same for this.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna pick it up everywhere so I can
check it out at all. And because you don't have
to lock the things again, you're good to go right
from scratch. You can just jump right in and play
whatever games you most want to play.
Speaker 2: In that moment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, that's awesome. I like that it takes the
best parts of those old retro games. You know, you
buy and you get what you get. You don't have
to fucking beat the game to unlock another level or
something like that.
Speaker 4: You can kind of go wherever you want.
Speaker 3: And yeah, I do like the idea of them keeping
like the same color palette across the whole board to
just unify the whole thing. And like, I imagine the
art style of different games is still very different, but
the palette is still like it makes it kind of
feel it's like it's in the same realm. But yeah,
I know that's awesome just looking at screenshots of some
of them, Like, I like how different the games are,
and I had no idea that it was going to
be something like how you like they're kind of linked
together with like your Spolunky Chap pop off and a
couple of different titles there.
Speaker 4: That's awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then there's it's it's fun too, Like the collection,
you can organize it in different ways.
Speaker 2: At the bottom.
Speaker 1: You can be like I want to play a reflex
type game. It'll narrow those down. Oh, Okay, that's I
want to play a thinky game and it'll like narrow
those ones down, which is fun, but by default it's chronological,
and like the chronological element of is like just totally
manufactured by them, of course, but it starts with like
the first game that came out in nineteen eighty all
the way to like whatever it is in nineteen ninety,
and so you can kind of see also this progression
of like the graphics maybe get a little bit more complex,
and obviously the sequels will like come out after each other,
and then for each one there's like a little biography
which is kind of just like a fun fact about
the game, but of course, once again they're all kind
of just like fabricated, like, oh, the character for this
game was based on a character from this other game
in this in this collection, but it's written from the
perspective of like I don't know, a little blurby root.
Speaker 2: And like an old video game magazine or something like that.
Speaker 1: So it's just the commitment to the collection angle of
it and what that means for it, I think is
such a great way to contextualize it rather than just like, yeah,
here's fifty games, you know, like they really went out
of their way too tide all together, and I'm sure
that's why the game also took a lot longer to
come out from that original announcement trailer. Is just like
they really put a lot of effort into connecting everything
in a meaningful way.
Speaker 4: So yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't really feel the need to like spoil
too many of these games. I want people to check
them out. And I know it just came out a
few days ago and it's a huge game obviously to
like get through all of it, So I think I'll
just leave it at those shout outs for now. But yeah,
I if anyone else picks it up, I'd love to,
you know, let me know.
Speaker 2: In the discord.
Speaker 1: I'd love to talk about the games even playing. And
you know, just like Splunky, tons of secrets seem to
exist in here, and just from some chatter I've seen
on like the Subredded and Discord and stuff, seems like
there's some more more going on here, just like lying,
like hiding underneath the surface too. So that's exciting in
terms of the longevity of it.
Speaker 2: So yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1: There is UFO fifty, an absolutely amazing game that everyone
should pick up I'm just gonna say it everyone. I
think everyone will find many games that they enjoy here,
not just one. So it's absolutely worth worth the ticket there.
So yeah, there you go. There is UFO fifty Kurkling.
I know you have quite a few things, so I'll
toss to you. At some point. We got to work
an ad break in here, so I'll let you kind
of figure out how you want to meld that in here.
But at some yeah, just take it away. Where do
you want to start?
Speaker 4: Sounds good.
Speaker 3: I want to mention two quick ones that you brought
up on the podcast in the past. I didn't physically
play these games, but I witnessed them through Shae. Shaye
picked up Monami Lane on the switch. Yeah, it's I
don't think it took her too long to get through it,
but she she absolutely adored it. It was totally the vibe
of a game that she was looking for and just
from what I seen, like I remember you talking about it,
so it's seen just clips from here and there.
Speaker 1: But having a chill City Builder, it's great. Those don't
ever and I've been on the relaxing one is so enjoyable.
Speaker 3: Oh exactly, And like just great switch game. You know
you can just kind of chill back us on the
on the switch with the handheld. So yeah, she she
really enjoyed that one. And then she also picked up
Unpacking because that was on the PlayStation collection. And I did,
like I didn't do a whole level, but like, you know,
when she would go in the kitchen or something, I
would just start putting some things away, and man, what
like a relaxing game similar to like Monomi Lane, but
like totally just it's like doing like like a coloring
book or something like it's a way to just kind
of get your brain focused on some something with some
nice chill music. And she really enjoyed like just the
progression of kind of following the person's life and kind
of witnessing their you know, their life through just their
stuff that you're putting away.
Speaker 4: So yeah, she she really enjoyed that one.
Speaker 1: Man, how satisfying is like when you beat the level
and it does like the quick fast forward of placing
plunking down all the items at the sound effects. Yeah,
so and like anytime you like fucked up and like
have to move something around, yeah, shows all that.
Speaker 2: It's so satisfying.
Speaker 4: There's a little snapshot.
Speaker 3: It's like very like ASMRI I find with just like
the little audio effects. But it was funny because she
like was putting everything down, putting like the last things in.
But then she forgot to like flip the pillow back,
so like when it takes the snapshot, the pillow just
like fold it over.
Speaker 4: It's like, but no that she she really enjoyed those.
Speaker 3: I want to bring them up just because you brought
them up and in the past there and oh, actually
little asterisk will unpacking. That was a part of the
PlayStation collection extras whatever whatever tiered it's at. And unfortunately
it was removed like the same time that Plucky Squire
came out, because I guess they just shuffle the catalog
around kind of how like Netflix ads and takes off things.
And she was so bummed because she got like eighty
nine percent done, so she'll never be able to finish
it off there, and I think it's like a twenty
five dollars game.
Speaker 4: I'm like, I don't think you really.
Speaker 3: Need to buy that for uh for how much you're
almost done it? Oh yeah, actually I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, if she got that enjoyment out of it like,
what's twenty bucks to you, but twenty bucks for indie developer?
Speaker 2: You know it means the world. I don't think a
good point, Like every level is great.
Speaker 3: So even if she only has one or two more levels,
I don't know, maybe maybe in like a year if
she like forgot how how you know, like just to
play through it again on like a fresh little yea.
But yeah, those were those are the two that were
played not by me. But I still want to mention
what's some quick ones to mention you mentioned elden Ring.
I also will mention elden Ring here because I hit
a wall on my first character that I made. I
just I don't know if I told you this, but
I like made a new character.
Speaker 2: Do I tell you this?
Speaker 4: I told someone this. I can't remember if I told you.
Speaker 2: I think you might have.
Speaker 4: Yeah maybe Okay, Well.
Speaker 3: This time around, I like going full on commitment to
actually following like a like a guide, not necessarily like
how to get through the game, but just how to
build a character.
Speaker 4: Because I feel like my first character.
Speaker 3: I just really I don't know, like Jack of all
trades type avenue and not really like focusing my my
my spec or like just focusing all my like my
my weapon upgrades on like a specific weapon, Whereas now
it's like I don't know, I feel like I'm just
gonna commit to a nice basic easy play style to
just get through the game and learn the game properly.
Speaker 2: And what a what a more.
Speaker 3: Efficient way it's been. Even just like beating like a
certain boss for example, like the first guy Hagrid, the
the whatever his name is, I feel like I freaking
squeeze my head into the into that hole for like
four hours the first time that I that I ever
played that game. And this time around this new character
of course, like I've beat him, so I kind of
know his mooset first try, and it was like so fast,
like I just was like dodged all of his attacks.
I'm just like totally chopping him down right now, I'm
rocking the this vihander like the giant colossal sword, which
is just like yeah, two handed, big, big colossal sword.
I have the ash of war that changes my my
heavy attack into a charged attack. And then like the
idea of the build is to just be like able
to tank hit, so you you focus on armor that
has a lot of poise, so isn't like it doesn't
knock you when you're doing those charge attacks, and man,
they hit so hard, especially now that I have like
I think I'm only at like plus six or something
on my byhander, but like still, that's like so much
more than I had on the first character that I made,
and I like, I had so much more playtime on
that character. But no, I'm just focusing on Yeah, like
I think I'm gonna do like the whole game if
I can with that weapon, unless it.
Speaker 4: Gets like a better upgrade.
Speaker 3: But the guy that I saw at least just recommend
like you can beat the whole game with that one
that one play style, and yeah, I'm just I'm having
lots of fun with it. I'm I think I'm just
like I'm still early on in the game just because
I don't know, I think I have like ten hours
or eleven hours on this one character right now. But no,
just having lots of lots of fun. And it's interesting
because I feel like because although I treaded a similar
path that my first player did, I just found like
different avenue. Like I feel like I thought I like
discovered it like a full area and then you like
go down a road, and it's like, what the hell,
there's like there's a uh, what do they call like
a sight of grace whatever they're called, Just like what,
there's more down here? Then you just kind of go
down a rabbit hole and you like recover a whole area,
or you get like a little map piece that just
like opens up the whole map, Like, wait a minute,
I had no idea this was down And the amount
of times that happens is always surprising every time.
Speaker 4: Something I will.
Speaker 3: Say too, I feel like this time around, I'm utilizing
Torrent so much more than I did on my first
play through, And because I have this giant byhander colossal sword,
Like when I do my charge attack on the horse,
she does this like drag type ability and it's just
like you can just chop like five enemies in a
row with it, and it's just so satisfying. Torrent is
just fantastic, super best mood with the movements. I agree
with you now, I feel like the first time you
brought up it's like I don't think about that, but
definitely in comparison to like so many horses can feel
so rigid and like you don't feel free on you know,
on Torrent but just kind of double jumping around like
I'm a fucking gazelle in the Sahara double jumps.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's fantastic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just actually beat or I just got the
last map piece on the DLC, and I only have
one more of the mandatory bosses and then I've like
pinged like three or four other ones on the map
that I caught and was just like, oh fuck this,
I'm not doing this guy right now, so I'm like close.
But also this boss that I have to fight at
this point is like insanely difficult. So yeah, I think
I just kind of I think I'm at the point
where I'm getting a little like I've done all the exploration,
which is my favorite part about Elden Ring, so I
don't think I'm gonna worry about too much about some
of these optional bosses, and I think I'm just gonna
try and really figure out a strategy for this final
boss and then roll credits on the DLC, and then
when i'm when I have an itch when I hankering
for it, and come back and I have a little
more content to do. But yeah, I'm getting down to
the final hours of the DLC. Here and I think
my favorite part about the DLC is that the regular
leveling up system it's still in there, but there's like
a different system specifically for the DLC, and that way
that they I could scale the difficulty of it based
on like someone who's just beat the main game, someone
who's done New Game plus twenty seven, you know, whatever
it is.
Speaker 2: They can scale the difficulty that way.
Speaker 1: And so because of that, I when I'm leveling up
like regularly, if your ruins or souls whatever they're called,
I can just put my stats wherever I want now
and it's not really going to make a huge effect
on like my ability to beat the game. Some more,
I'm like, I've put a bunch of stats into Faith
now so I can try different weapons out. I've been
putting some stats into things I normally wouldn't with my
characters build. But I think the DLC is really good
at letting you kind of do whatever you want on
the stat side of things. You know, just to change
your stats so you can use the kind of weapons
you're interested in using, and then you know the actual
difficulty and like percentages of how much damage're doing is
gonna come from the secondary thing that's more based on
exploration than it is leveling up anyway. So that's that's
a nice thing for you to look forward to, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah in two years when you get.
Speaker 3: To the I have the I have the I have
the DLC IT game with the pack that I got.
Speaker 2: Which, oh, which is a nice right on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was just like the sale price, it was
like pretty it was cheaper than the full price game
regular price for the game and the DLC, and the
DLC at launch was quite expensive, right, it.
Speaker 2: Was like like fifty bucks. I think.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I'm like this is a steal, you know.
Speaker 3: I I gotta get on this and then hopefully it'll
motivate me to power through that game. But how do
you know how many mandatory bosses there are? Just from
like talking to people or does it actually tell you
like in the game.
Speaker 1: I did google it earlier because I was curious. I
was fighting a couple of these guys. I'm like, oh
my god, how many more of these? Yeah, we're reading
when the DLC came out that there's only I won't
say the number, but a specific number, okay, And yeah,
I was like, okay, I've fought.
Speaker 2: A few of these.
Speaker 1: I feel like this guy seems mandatory. He's kind of
an annoying fight with an annoying mechanic. Do I have
to actually beat this guy? And so I looked it
up and I didn't, and that's when I saw that
I only had one more.
Speaker 2: To go, and I'm kind of surprised.
Speaker 1: One of them is like, it's this whole section of
the map all on its own, really difficult, really climactic,
really built up to this boss too, So I assumed
that was going to be one of the mandatory ones,
but it's it's not. I mean, even in the main game,
there's a bosses that are like, it's surprising that that's
not someone you have to beat to roll credits on
the game. But just how big the game is, there's
just total huge chunks of the game that are completely optional, which.
Speaker 4: Is why, Yeah, it's fine.
Speaker 3: I have one coworker that I think he's like similar
place to me, like like Soul's career as well as
like where we are in Elden Rings. So it's kind
of fun like comparing our experience stories because it's like
we're going through the game for the first time and
somehow we haven't been like spoiled on how many bosses
there are, like where you have to go? So we're
just kind of like to, uh, what do they call
the oh my gosh, for even the.
Speaker 2: Two traveling souls?
Speaker 3: Sure, let's say that.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, like players of Journey, how they
come across each other and each other.
Speaker 3: I like that.
Speaker 2: I like that.
Speaker 4: Spin.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, what what your the tarnished? That's
what we are on the gold just depraved, venerable, old,
tarnished exactly. We're just naked with our loin cloth and
our big Oh yeah, I've been wing on the low
clas because the new hammer I found is so fucking
heavy that if I want my fast role, I have
to be fuck naked except for some like little cloth bracers,
So I just on cloth couple cloth bracers, which I
you know, the amount of defense they're giving me.
Speaker 1: Is probably not useful whatsoever. But then I do insane,
huge damage. So I'm really happy that weapon required some
of that faith leveling oh final to use.
Speaker 2: That, which is nice to see. But I also I
just hit one hundred hours in elder.
Speaker 1: Ring clients, Oh wow, congratulations, Yeah, which some is like
you know, puny that's like very many hours. But for me,
I think it was like seventy hours on the main game,
maybe eighty, so it's been about twenty thirty with the
DLC at this point.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, that's pretty good to like beat the game.
I feel like that's that's pretty good. I've just heard
like it was some hundreds of hundreds of.
Speaker 1: Yeah everyone I talked to, I guess I did it.
I don't know a little bit quicker for some reason.
Speaker 2: I don't know why I will.
Speaker 3: I will say too, I am glad that I did
make this new character because I although, as I like
I was saying, like, I found like I was getting
to a point that I was kind of just plateing
plat two plateawing with my point distribution, and I was
also just really like leaning heavily on like the magic
and like the spirits and stuff like that. And now
it's like I'm just gonna go fucking Darseul's one style, baby,
just you and your weapon and just just do it
that way. So that's why I like, I am really
glad that I'm just committing to the two handed play style,
because it's also like I want to try different play styles,
but it's like I also just want to play the
game and like not not worry so much on like
is this a good weapon, and like looking at numbers
and stats, and I know it is the type of
game that, like, you know, people recommend just exploring and like.
Speaker 4: Just doing whatever for your first play through.
Speaker 3: But it's also like I just want to focus on
the game mechanics more so than what my character is actually,
like point distribution and knowing where to like because there
is hard or what are they soft caps, hard caps
whatever it is, where like the points get diminishing returns
if you like keep going in certain.
Speaker 2: I don't even know anything about that. Yeah that sounds right,
but I could not tell you what level or what.
Speaker 3: Right sounds like you beat the game without that, so
you know, kudos to use sir.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I'm not afraid to cheese. I'm a
Mimic tear user, which I don't know if you've heard
about that, But that's like just one of the summons
that is just very strong because they're pretty much like
a little mini copy of you.
Speaker 2: So for me, I have my huge ass.
Speaker 1: Hammer and then my mimic also has a huge ass hammer,
and if I just go seat in the corner. He'll
do like at least a thirty boss h you know,
depending on scenario. So I just have to stay alive.
But you know that doesn't work across the board. Certain
bosses are too.
Speaker 2: Too strong, and then if they take them out.
Speaker 1: Then I'm on my own because you can only sell
them once. So so I'm not you know, I'll choose
when I need to. But I've definitely fought a few
bosses nice fair game as well, that's awesome. They're not
fair sometimes their hip boxes are bullshit.
Speaker 2: So you know what I'm gonna do too, I don't care.
Speaker 4: That's amazing.
Speaker 3: Maybe I'll quickly mentioned this last thing before break if
you want to go that route, Age of Mythology retold? Now,
have you ever played Age of Mythology before I have?
Or Age of Empires?
Speaker 1: Like I've barely I think I've maybe touched Age of Empires. Okay,
probably yeah, I remember I was like a big one
my friend Cody, I remember playing that one. But yeah,
Age of Mythology, this these trailers, I'm like, god, damn,
I want to play this game, and I'm currently lapsed
on my game pass subscriptions, so I haven't picked it.
Speaker 2: Up yet or played it yet, but.
Speaker 1: We when I finally resubscribe to that, which might be
in the next couple of weeks for Starfield, I'm definitely
gonna download that on my PC and uh play for
a little bit at least.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would.
Speaker 3: I think I can confidently say Age of Mythology, like
the original is my favorite artist game of all time,
Like the original Age of Empires was probably one of
the earliest games I ever played. Like I remember my
dad like showing me on that family computer like Age
of Empires one and just like the little like audio
cues or like the music goes to the game, Like
it's very nostalgic for me. Done a lot of land parties,
Like in my house we just have multiple PCs, and
like my dad would have his buddy, I would have
like a buddy over and we just like do like
a big land battle. And that's like between Age Mythology
or Age of Empires one, like like we played all
of them. So yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Absolutely love Age of Mythology.
Speaker 3: When the when like the remass whatever this is, this
is like I won't want to say a remass. This
is like a remake almost, like like it does look
a lot more than just polished, like an enhanced edition,
like like that was my thoughts going into it. And
I remember getting excited about the Warcraft three remake and
that that I don't know, I don't know. I heard
that one wasn't as great, like uh as to what
they were promising, like there's no custom games and like
the stuff that really people loved about that original game.
They didn't quite make it even though it looked really good.
So I was kind of stand offish. And then of
course a couple of my my old buddies that I
like playing arts games with were like mess They're like, oh,
are you gonna get it?
Speaker 4: And I'm like, I don't know, maybe, And then.
Speaker 3: I looked at the trailer and I'm like, oh my god,
this looks so frickin good.
Speaker 2: I love the color colors, looks so good.
Speaker 3: And they just even having like my buddies now like
telling me of like they want to get it, and
then like I know, they have a lot better like
online support than they did back in the day for it,
So ah, fuck it, I got it. I got the
premium edition. I got the and so so you get
like another faction with the Premium edition and also apparently
they're coming out with DLCs, which is crazy because it
was like a really old game, so clearly just shows
their support for it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I have not been able to play this game yet.
I don't know what it is. It will not launch
on my Steam. I I have tried so many fixes
that of course, like the community is suggesting, it seems
like there's quite a lot of people that they have
the exact same issue. Some people like me that have
not even got the chance to play it, and some
people that were playing it and then they did an
update and now with the game just won't launch for them,
really really really bummed about it. I like Friday night,
I was literally gonna play this till like five of
the morning, probably like like like Shaye had an overnight shift.
I'm like, I'm not leaving my I'm just gonna play
age of Mythology retold. I am so hyped. My buddy,
you know, shouts out to Denzil. We're gonna be playing
all night for it. He got to get in the game,
his game worked. He played like five and a half
hours that night, and I just could not even launch
the game. I've tried so many things.
Speaker 1: I was like is you know, on its fading breadths?
Is that what's going on here?
Speaker 2: Or is it my witch?
Speaker 3: I like updated my drivers, like I like I checked
it like the minimum requirements and like I'm all there,
and I don't know.
Speaker 4: I felt like I don't know.
Speaker 3: I was gonna refund the game, like right away, just
because I was so mad, like Saturday morning, like I
didn't I didn't get to play Danzil played all night.
Speaker 2: This fucking bullshit is my favorite game.
Speaker 3: And then, uh, I don't know, a lot of people
were kind of reporting the same thing. So a lot
of people are just like I'm I'm waiting for the patches,
hopefully they fix it. So I am gonna wait a
little bit longer to see if they do patch it. There,
I haven't seen anything posted from like them specifically about it.
Speaker 4: And then I don't know.
Speaker 3: My weekend just got it caught busy with other things,
so I haven't really been able to look into it
too deeply. I might try a couple of other things,
but like I've uninstalled the game, reinstalled the game, like
verified like all the files and as I said, like
readed my old my drivers and stuff. But I was
so bummed about that and uh yeah, I still have
not played it, says one minute played because I clicked
on Steam and it just it likes it like shows
that it's launching, and then it just goes back to
like like nothing, and really really unfortunately, I was really
looking forward to that. So hopefully I can. I can
tell you about it, you know, and the picture when we.
Speaker 2: Do, let me know, because I would love to.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna definitely down like I don't have when I
get game Pass again. I would definitely love to play
that with you. And so when you when you've got
it figured out, let me know and I'll download it
and we can hopefully play it together.
Speaker 2: And I think on my laptop.
Speaker 1: But you know what, it's weird about that, because they've
been doing a ton of these like they did remaster
like modern versions, right for all the old Age Empires games,
they did Age of Empires four. I imagine it's the same
team that's working on this. Yeah, I would have thought
like they would have been just crushing these remakes, working
in this engine and all this stuff. So maybe I'm
making assumptions there, but I yeah, that's that seems like
a very very weird issue. That is popping up there
and obviously it's not just you. And if you're meeting
the requirements, then either they find up with the minimum
requirements or there's like a game breaking bug, which is
like I don't know how they led that through the door,
didn't do enough testings, but hopefully it gets resolved sooner.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'm I'm definitely gonna let you know because
I I'm like holding out faith that I'm just gonna
be able to randomly boot this game up because really
really excited for it. And yeah, I mean, if you
get it, we could do like a big, a big
online match. Definitely coordinate because I have at least you know,
Patreon Tyler. He's a big ag agent mythology guy. As
I mentioned Denzil. Yeah, yeah, my dad would get this
in a heartbeat too when I talk about it.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, what is the What is the players you
can have in one match?
Speaker 4: I think, well, on the old game, I think it
was twelve.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, okay, yeah, I assumed it's like a four
person thing that's sick.
Speaker 3: So that's like that was how we would play. Like
Land parties, you could do up to twelve. I I
imagine it's the same for online games. I don't know
if they have like a different online support system, but yeah,
lots of games, and that's where you just do like
one of the biggest maps and you just get that
fucking amazing soundtrack going when you're playing like the Vikings
or something. Oh, it's so great. You got god powers,
so you choose. I was just gonna I'm just gonna
go off a quick rantier. You got the you got
the Egyptian gods, you have the Norse gods, you have
the Greek gods, and then in the DLC, which now
is of course in all the games, they have the Titans.
So it's just, oh, it's such a great game. And
I was obsessed with it. I was. The story is fantastic,
but like really just the game itself is ye, so
so great. It's definitely definitely up there. I mean, I
say it's my favorite arts game. I had to make
like a little tier like Warcraft three, you would be
in there for sure as one of my favorite arts
games of all time. But yeah, I would say Agent
Mythology just just for like the nostalgia of it, and yeah,
those those big land parties we would have back in
the day, just just great times, just staying up till
seven in the morning, like like like literally like you
just do like one massive game and it's been like
five hours and yeah, it's just so fun.
Speaker 2: That's amazing.
Speaker 1: Well, let's uh, let's take a break here, a little
break here to tell you that Patreon. Have you ever
heard about Patreon? This is a this is a website
you can go to. You can subscribe to geek First podcast.
Speaker 2: It helps us.
Speaker 1: Out a lot, and it gives you a lot of benefits.
You get episodes early, you get episodes ad for you,
and you get a lot of exclusive episodes as well.
You also get to join us on After nine, which
is a show where we talk with you, the patrons,
about all sorts of random stuff.
Speaker 2: Sometimes we do watch alongs with movies.
Speaker 1: We just talked about the recent movies that have been
coming out, all sorts of random stuff. We're doing on
this weekend, in fact, on Saturday, so it's a great
time to jump into Patreon and join us for that discussion.
I think time is TBD, but it's all that information's
posted Sunday.
Speaker 2: We'll go over there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're right, Sunday morning.
Speaker 1: Sunday morning, actually at nine am so all that is
not TVD.
Speaker 2: It is D. It is just determined. It is D.
Speaker 3: You just did that right there.
Speaker 2: It just shows my memory skills these days.
Speaker 1: Is wither right away. But no, that's that's good to know.
So many things on the feed right now. We're you know,
wrapping up brings the power within a couple of weeks,
Penguins getting going, Agatha's on the move. So we got
all sorts of TV shows and then it's just been
in a barrage of regular news for movie news, TV news,
so we're doing newscasts as well.
Speaker 2: We got Joker coming out in a little.
Speaker 1: Bit, so another review dropping there, just all sorts of stuff.
It's gonna be a great time also to start in November,
we have our twenty fo hour stream coming up, so
get geared up for that. It's gonna be a good time.
And what else, you know, join the discord as I mentioned,
this a great place to hang out, chat about all
sorts of things. You can leave a review to help
the show grow in the algorithm, leave a comment on
YouTube let us know what's going on. Any any other
shout outs Kirkland or does that sound about all?
Speaker 3: That sounds about all it's crazy. Just we're like nearing
a month away from our twenty four hour stream. You know,
it's just it's it's it's fast approaching. It's gonna be
a fun time. Gotta mentally and physically prepare for that. Yes,
adventure in my old age, you know, more and more challenging.
Speaker 1: I actually feel like even just the last like a
couple months, my ability to stay up late has greatly
diminished for no foreseeable reason. So I'm I was honestly
thinking about this other day. I'm like, I don't know
if I'm able to do it this year. I feel
like the last two or three years I've been like
popping off hard. Like I will stay up. I don't
get a wink asleep. I'll take the shifts that no
one wants to do. I'm in it, but I do.
Speaker 2: For some reason, I'm feeling.
Speaker 1: This year that my my sustainability is gonna be weaker.
Speaker 2: So I will see how that goes. But it should
be a good time.
Speaker 1: But we're gonna throw it to a quick ad break here,
Kirkland's gonna try and boot up agent mythology once more.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back. All right, We are back Kirkland,
did it work Agian mythology?
Speaker 3: It's still not work.
Speaker 1: Okay, maybe maybe next week, maybe another week on the podcast.
Speaker 2: Before we get to Plucky Squire Kirkland, think you have
some more games? U two showed out? So yeah, right
and off, where are we going next?
Speaker 3: I'll keep squeezing this juice out of the orange. Where
do you want to go? I'm gonna actually, yeah, I'll
talk about a little updaten matching clink. While I almost
said wild while rift apart. You know, I think last
time I was on here, I told you I was
about like halfway through the game, and I felt like
I was halfway through the game, and I was I
was worried just because I was enjoying it so much.
And I've since beat it, I've rolled credits on it,
and not only that, I got the Platinum on this game.
I went, I feel like I beat this game in
like no more than three sessions. I could not put
the controller down, like I was actually so hooked. My
total playtime after getting the platinum was fifteen hours. So
I think if you didn't do like any of the
extra stuff, like probably eleven hours is like the total story, which.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty quick platinum, even for like Insomniac Games.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 3: I was like, I was kind of conscious of what
I needed to do though, Like en Route, I feel
like if I didn't do that, there'd be a lot
of backtracking I had to do, so I kinda I
kind of did myself a service there. There was there
was two trophies at the end that I actually had
to like grind for and I was so paid about
because they're just really stupid. They have to like I
had to look up guides for. I was just so mad.
I didn't want to do it, and especially when you're like, Okay,
I'm almost done the game. I was want to get
the platinum and you're like, what I have to do that?
Speaker 2: Are you kidding?
Speaker 3: So uh but no, absolutely ten out of ten game.
It it is so good. It's definitely one of my
favorite action ventures that I've that I've played through in
the in the in the last handful of years. And
it's just it's so it It just it just felt
so like like well polished, like like like it was
such a beautiful game, really fun to play through, really
loved all the characters. They had some really good Yeah,
just really good personalities amongst the characters. I like the
I like the boss at the end, Like I just
really loved it across the hole, yeah, the whole board.
So I'm definitely gonna be keep my eyes on this
franchise going forward, because yeah, they they knocked us out
the part I even saw in the PlayStation catalog. They
have like pretty much all of the ratcheting client games
on there, so I might be tempted to boot up
one of those old classics. And I think when I
was on there, like I was telling you, like I
played like I think it was the third game or
the second game, and like they have that one on there,
and it's like, oh man, just that nostalgia trip is
gonna be great. But yeah, really really fun game that
I highly recommend to anyone that has I think it's
only on PS five. It might be on PS four,
but you know, if you're a PS five owner, definitely
check that out. If you're getting the you know, seven
hundred dollar upgrade, definitely. I don't know if they're upgrading
that game, but I'm sure it'll it'll run nice and
smooth on there, because yeah, just just really fun adventures.
So shouts out Ratchet and Clank and uh, you know,
like it's nice beat another game you know the last
year that's nice another one that Shane and I have
been absolutely obsessed with that. I actually had to push
this podcast back fifteen minutes because I was just we
could not stop playing this. Cult to the Lamb Dylan
Musk we jump back in there. Hadn't played it in
a while because I, I don't know, I just for
a reason, like the first time I played it went
really hard, and then I put it down. I played
a little bit after that, but like not so much more,
and then Shaye played like a little bit here and there,
and then I really like remember that they had the
two player version of it.
Speaker 4: Now, I don't know if it's like a different title,
just I don't know.
Speaker 2: The free like separate d name.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so this is another PlayStation collection game that
they had on there. So fortunately I didn't have to
pay any extra for it on that system because I
originally had it on on the Switch and then playing
it on PlayStation now and yeah, it seems like it
has the whole DLC in there with Goat that's the
other character which I absolutely love. Shaye plays the Lamb
and I Geta plays the Goat character. He's just so fantastic,
and this game like it's it's I mean, you played it.
We did a whole episode on it. It's definitely like
you got to keep on your task and always doing stuff.
It feels like a perfect two player couch go op
game though, because I feel like there is so much
to be managing on like the cult aspect and Shaye's
doing farming, I'm I'm bringing dissenters into the prison and
like just sacrifice, like you're just always doing stuff, and
the crusades feel a lot more manageable, like with two
people on it. They do scale the difficulty, so like
depending on how many people are playing that, I don't
know if there's more enemies or if they hit harder,
there is a difficulty scaling on that regard. But yeah,
we've been absolutely hooked with this game. We are obsessed
with it. I'm enjoying it so much more than I
did the first time, just because we are playing it
together and the combat gets really intense and it's like
nitty and gritty. There was one where she was down,
I had like half a heart left and I ended
up clutching it out, so definitely channels that you know,
elden Ring vibe. It's a lot easier than that, but
still it scratches that itch. And yeah, I feel like
the first time I played called the Lamb as well,
because it was on switch, I mostly played handheld, so
it just feels a lot better with like a larger
controller and of course on the big screen, and.
Speaker 4: It's just yeah, it's so fantastic.
Speaker 3: So I am getting this second breath of enjoyment with it,
and it's it's fantastic.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it.
Speaker 3: We're thinking, like, I don't know how much more will
play after we beat all like the main bosses in it,
because there is like endgame content where you kind of
do like endless crusade runs, but like and like, I
guess you could keep just upgrading your your your cult,
your farm, whatever you want to call it. But unfortunately,
we do have experience with some bugs. There's one reoccurring
one which is so annoying every once in a while,
and by every once in a while, it seems like
recently almost every run at the end of a crusade,
it just like will endless load back to our cults,
so we can't go from like the like, as soon
as you finish the Crusade, you get all your stuff
that you collected and whatnot, it'll just like it'll just
endless load screen. Fortunately it does save everything that you
got on the Crusade, but it's just like, Okay, close
the game, load it back up, go back in. Then
I have to add her and then and then we
you know, like like just the whole process is super annoying,
and it seems like it's happening more often than not
on the Crusades as of late, which is really unfortunate
because you just do like a really long crusade, finally
got it out, and it's like, oh yeah, right, endless
loads screen, gotta close this. And there's been many times
where it's like, hey, we're done for the night.
Speaker 4: I don't wanna I don't want.
Speaker 3: To deal with this again. So like annoying in that sense.
There's some uh like like I guess you would call
it a bug, like sometimes when you like interact with something,
it'll just like freeze and me like wait a second,
then it comes back on.
Speaker 1: So I remember just feel like that happened when I
was even late in the game. I remember the yeah,
dropping quite a bit once, like my camp was pretty
big as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that that's definitely happened uh here and there,
which which is unfortunate, but uh like yeah, across the
board everything else, we've been really really enjoying. And I
don't know, like it felt like I was like drowning
the first time I was playing the game because I
was just always trying to keep up with what I
had to do in the camp.
Speaker 4: And now that there's two of us, we can kind
of deviate.
Speaker 2: Someone to shovel poop and someone.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly, but it like it is really satisfying once
you kind of get everything managed and then you start
getting like a self sufficient.
Speaker 4: Cult, know all that stuff.
Speaker 3: So yeah, we've been we've been grinding that NonStop really
like since like that's probably took up a lot of
my Plucky Squire time. Honestly, she was off all weekend
so that we were just going super hard on that
co op. Yeah, so it's been really really fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I kind of forgot that they did add the
co op and some point, and I do remember that
my least favorite part of the game was the crusades
in general, So that sounds like a nice way around
that where they just sound a little more engaging. Yeah,
in the two player modes, that's a good thing, but
it's a weird like a game like that, and then
see if stars as well getting like that co op
updates Like that's it's just a string. It seems like
a strange choice to put co op in again like that,
but like why not?
Speaker 2: Why not just.
Speaker 1: Give players who are going to be into that another
opportunity to play and for someone like you maybe yeah,
I got like halfway through a game, it's a good
way to like incentivize that second win. Is there any
other things that you can notice that are like specifically
things that were added from the DLC, because I don't
know if the updates are more things that would come
after you beat the main game or the stuff that
was kind of just infused into the rest of the
gameplay loop of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like I think there's new Like you remember like
the tarot cards, like those upgrade, Like I think they
added more of those. It's like when you're on a run,
you'd meet the guy and then you would pick between
two tarot cards and then it'll basically give you like
an upgrade for that run, right, I believe they added
more of those as well as like new NPC characters
that you run across that kind of like give you
different upgrades and.
Speaker 2: Just like some nice improvements to Crusades in generally.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, exactly, and then more followers.
Speaker 3: I can't because do you remember like Knucklebones, like those
little mini games that they had, like like instead of
going on Crusades, you'd go to like different areas and
then like one of them is you play Knucklebones or
just like a fishing area, Like there's just different things
you can go do.
Speaker 2: Fishing area. Oh yeah, I just googleed knuckle Bones.
Speaker 1: Apparently they made a physical version, which is oh that's
which is pretty cool. But yeah, I remember it's I
totally forgot about that kind of world stuff. Yeah right,
there was a few areas you can explore.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think they might have added like a
new area like that to go to. We've complete disregard
of those, like we like we just don't go do
any of those little other areas. We're just kind of
focused on doing the crusades and then just kind of
upgrading the camp. But yeah, so I can't really speak
too much of like the difference there. Plus like it
had been a while since I played the main game,
so I couldn't really remember everything that was vanilla to
what was added. But yeah, no, really having really fun,
having really fun, having a lot of fun with it,
and uh, definitely recommend you know, if you if you
got two control We went out and got a second controller.
Now I got a nice purple PS five remote now
because I, you know, would always borrow Patreon Tyler's and
then randomly's I want my controller back.
Speaker 4: Fair enough, I guess.
Speaker 3: But now we got around so we can jump in
the couch co op there, and we just kind of
wanted to play more couch co op games together on
the PlayStation. And now that like the catalogs on there,
like we were thinking about booting up ter Area. Never
played that game before, but uh that's yeah, that's another
co op one on there. So we're just kind of
looking through the category there, and man, you brought up
See You Stars. That was one that got taken off
the cat along with unpacking.
Speaker 4: So I'm so sad. I was.
Speaker 3: I was looking at it all my homepage and then
now it's just like locked. It's like, oh man, I
do still want to get in there. At some point
but yeah, I think it'll be a little bit longer now.
Speaker 1: But yeah, there's not one you'd want to start on,
like another platform. You'd definitely want to continue from your save,
I imagine, because I, yeah, the Switch version, but like
you'd probably want to continue that place save.
Speaker 2: I imagine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's I feel like it's a type of
game that it's like I've lost all my progress. It
would like, man, I need some time before I jump
back in there just to like retread the same path.
I don't know, I was invested in pretty linear game.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so redoing that stuff would not be uh super enjoyable.
So that that's too bad.
Speaker 1: And that one's also like it's fairly expensive as far
as indie games go, so like repurchasing that even you know,
knowing that you didn't beat it in the first place.
Speaker 2: Is kind of a tough pill to swallow. So that's
too bad.
Speaker 4: Yeah, hundred percent.
Speaker 3: And then my last game, I will mention here probably
knew if you listen to you know, other podcasts or
whennot I'm talking to Travis with I've been getting into
football lately, and I I haven't played like a Madden
game in like a very long time or anything like that.
Speaker 4: But this game.
Speaker 3: I picked up College Football twenty five. It's it's by
like the creators of like Madden, but it is so
fun to play because it's a lot more arcadie than
like a regular Madden game is. And I've been a
little addicted as.
Speaker 4: Of like this is.
Speaker 3: This has kind of been another addiction of mine. I
think I've logged since I've got it, which was I
don't know before the football season. I'm like at one
hundred hours now on this game. Like, I have been
going so hard in the dynasty mode and it's been
it's been great, especially just because like football season started,
this is my first season.
Speaker 4: I'm really fun.
Speaker 2: Later, Warhammer three got a new favorite.
Speaker 3: We got a new favorite. This is a PS five
picks and of course my system can actually run it
like Age of Mythology apparently, but no, yeah, I like
especially just because football started. We have like a fantasy
draft going on the on the you know, go join
the gv scored. We got a good little NFL channel
that we follow there, and I've just been like totally
taken in that head headspace. So pairing it with playing
some college football, it's just it's just been. It's been
lots of fun and very frustrating. So of course when
your team loses and went up, but I do I'll
probably bring it up on the twenty four hour stream
just to at least.
Speaker 1: I would love to watch you guys. I don't want
to play, but I want to watch you guys and
maybe throw some commentary in there with Taylor. Watch you
guys play.
Speaker 3: I've never beaten Travis in a Madden game before, and
I still don't really like my challenges. But like one
hundred hours on college football, Like it's different than Madden games,
right because Madden's like the pros where this is college.
So it's a little bit different. And as I said, like, is.
Speaker 1: There a third football game, because could we do where
you guys do college?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's Blitz NFL and then like.
Speaker 3: There's NFL Breaker without NFL Blitz would be the game.
Speaker 2: Like breaking each other's Yeah, you know that kind of thing, right.
Speaker 3: There's probably like NFL's Street. You know they've like FIFA Street.
Speaker 2: Pretty it's like one of the ones they haven't.
Speaker 3: Yeah they should add that, but yeah, like they've I
don't know what system it's on, whether it's like three
sixty that era, or maybe even earlier. But they definitely
have like a Madden Street game, which would be lots
of fun. So yeah, maybe I'll have do a little
gauntlet there and hopefully I don't just get aced, because
like I said, I've never beaten Travis, so we'll see what.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, dude, now you're you've been doing your stretches,
you're tying your shoes like your this is your your
chance to beat them.
Speaker 4: I'm going for it exactly. I'll give them a really bad.
Speaker 3: School that I have to play him against. But yeah, no,
it's been fun and great game. I highly recommend the
word on the street that apparently Madden has not been
a good game for a very long time, and this
was like a nice little breath.
Speaker 4: Of fresh air for the football arcade enjoyers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it probably lets them experiment a bit more, whereas
with Madden. Yeah, there's probably like a need to just
like do the basics of getting all the new players
and you, yeah, I don't know, just that basic stuff
focused on like really good graphical fidelity and whatnot, So
they probably take a lot's time to actually be creative
with when they probably also don't need to because even
if it hasn't been good in a while, I still
think it's selling super well every time.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, No, it's it's a it's like all those
sports games that people just get it no matter what,
every single year. Like there's I'm sure there's a lot
of people that only have bought FIFA on whatever the
system they have.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they just buy it every single year.
Speaker 3: And yeah, no, but I think there is something special
about this game that it's like it can reel in,
you know, not just those same fans that are buying
them every year, and especially because they had been of
like I don't know, like I feel like the Last
Man game I play was like on PS three maybe four,
but like, man, this just looks so good in comparison,
like of course on like the PS five with all
the nice like on my nice TV that I got.
So yeah, it's been it's been good, but my time
has mostly been cultal amb like the last little bit
here with some plucky Square, but definitely like the last
couple of weeks, I feel like every week, like there
hasn't been a week where I haven't just like booted
it up at least one game and gone in there
and I feel like some of those hours might be
skewed because maybe I'm in like the dining steam mode
and that go way make make lunch or something kind
of forget about it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, that's still awesome.
Speaker 1: Okay, cool, let's take our last break here, quick break,
and we'll be back to talk about The Plucky Squire. Okay,
we are back. The Plucky Squire, I think, is a
game that was one of the most anticipated indie games
for the last couple of years. Here it's a new team,
I believe, but one of the main guys on it
was like the art director on Pokemon for like years
and years and years, which really makes sense why this
game has like a very definitive art style, and that's
why something that stands out about it if you forget
what this is. This is kind of the starts as
like a top down Zelda like experience. You're playing a
character in a storybook, and then at some point you
pop out of the book into a three D realm
on this child's desk in his bedroom, and then you're
exploring in a three D world, going back into the book,
back into three D kind of back and forth. That's
kind of general idea with it. Kirklyn, you mentioned you've
been stretched in between these other games. Do you know
what chapter you're on or an hour count? Roughly how
much you've played so far?
Speaker 3: I'm a couple hours in. I don't like not much
more than that. I I don't remember what chapter, but uh,
I don't know minor spoiler, I guess I'm out of
the book. So I experienced like that area and like
got some of those new mechanics that are kind of
introduced through there. So yeah, unfortunately I missed the chapter count,
but I don't know, maybe like how far are you?
I just want to see in comparison, like the.
Speaker 1: Game, Oh there you go half an hour before we
started recording, So I just I went ham and tried
to get through the round.
Speaker 2: I didn't know if I would.
Speaker 1: I looked up like how many chapters there were, and
thankfully the last chapter is like pretty much like an epilogue,
Like it takes like five seconds. So it's like so
I was able to just barely clutch it out and
that took me eight hours to beat the Okay, yeah,
so I'm.
Speaker 3: Probably like a quarter the way I would imagine through
it with my because like I said, like I would
imagine I'm no more than yeah, like two or so
hours in, but yeah, no, it's been This was definitely
I think my most anticipated from whatever it was that
we were covering that we saw it on there. It's
just very very unique art style, but mostly the gameplay
element I thought was like the biggest surprising aspect to it.
And to actually get my hands on the controller and
like in this world it is like so much better
than I actually thought it was going to be, especially
just with how the world and your character get like
interacts with the world around them. Like I think just
the idea of what the mechanics were was enough to
rope me in, But once I actually got in there,
this game and the story really like especially the characters.
They totally remind me of Adventure Time. I don't know
if you've ever seen that show, but just like Finn
the Human, it just totally reminds me of Jot and
like some of his little like compatriots or like Evil
Wizard totally reminds me of the Ice King.
Speaker 4: So there's just so many parallels.
Speaker 3: Like Princess Bubblegum is very similar to like the Princess
in this that it's like it I think, so yeah,
I just love I love that show. So like, like
jumping into this is right up the gates. I'm like, man,
this is just gonna be such a great time. And
I feel like, yeah, especially like once you get knocked
out of like the book for the first time, where
it's just like, oh my god, this is like this
game is just something so special, and uh, I highly
recommend like every like I'm quarter the way through, I think,
but like, I highly recommend everybody jumps on this.
Speaker 4: I mean, you can probably speak more to it than me.
But uh, like the like the.
Speaker 3: First boss battle that you do, I don't I don't
want to like spoil too much for some people in here,
but just like such a such a unique way to
tackle it. And uh minor spoiler, there's a like a
turn based battle that you do that was just man,
that that was so fantastic. So yeah, I I really really,
really really is that the one top of a tower
in particular, it's uh in a card that you do. Yeah,
oh man, like that that that's just fantastic, Like that
that's good stuff.
Speaker 2: Really cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I I rolled on, as I said just before,
starting here, took me eight hours. I am super duper
mixed on this game, Kirkland, where I at first, you know,
of course, the aesthetic of this game fucking top notch,
the artwork in the book, and the way that the
book actually looks like a book, Like there's a crease
in the middle of the page the textbox that pop up,
and like maybe we'll be cut on that crease in
the page. Like that art is amazing, like that top
Day on zeld Art. When you get into three D world,
it does it's not like the highest fidelity thing whatever,
but it looks really cute, looks really good. It looks
a lot like links Awakening type art style. And then
I think what surprised me so much is like how
many other art styles are also mixed in there, where
you all have a certain two D section with like
this totally different art style from any other stuff. You
mentioned that one with a certain card battle the top
of a tower, which was amazing, And then there's other
things like in the trailer, there's a scene where you're
like shooting a gun on like a mug and you're
doing like a three D kind of going around this mug,
and like that moment in the game is really cool.
And like has a totally distinct art style to it,
and there's multiple moments like that where the art style
is like just they're just crafting something completely new for
this and they're obviously like hearkening tow stuff. Like I
think the Adventure time reference is like really on point,
and I feel like there's a lot of that where
it's like, Okay, I can see what they're kind of
referencing here, and like they totally pull it off while
it's still unique and like the character designs are unique
and all that. So esthetically, and even the music is
really great too, some sequences where there's like there's a
still sequisy're doing with like this amazing like kind of
jazz like almost like improvisational thing that's really really cool.
So the music esthetically, I'm coughing because.
Speaker 4: It's takes your breath way.
Speaker 2: It takes your breathway.
Speaker 1: Aesthetically ten out of ten, like one of the most
cohesive i'd say, like visual and like auditory like cohesive
games like they ever played, honestly super top notch.
Speaker 2: In that way.
Speaker 1: And then I think where the mixed part of it
comes is that like for the first few hours, like
I feel like the trailers kind of spoiled some of
the better moments of the game, and so I pop
out of the book for the first time. It was cool,
but I was also like, Okay, I knew that was common,
and so like, how are we gonna mix up that formula?
And I feel like that's maybe where the disconnect comes
from me where like the best parts in this game
are almost all two D sections where you're in that
Zelda sequence, and then there's like some interesting mix up
on the gameplay.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of cool mini games in here. There's
like a rhythm game one.
Speaker 1: There's one that's like not like Tetris, but it's kind
of like the I forget the name of the game
that it's like, but it's kind of like a weird
little Tetris block breaking thing.
Speaker 2: That's cool.
Speaker 1: That stealth section I mentioned is interesting. There's a lot
of fun little mini games there. But I think the
biggest disappointment for me is the three D sections are
really disappointing. Like the exploration of it, it's not very fun.
You never really have any ways that it mixes it up,
so it's like pretty much the same and like the
sequences you're doing, the more interesting stuff is all from
that two D section, and I never felt like.
Speaker 2: That got any better or more interesting.
Speaker 1: This might be a minus sport, I guess, but yes
and no, it's like you never leave like the desk
in the three D world, like I was hoping you'd
explore the kids room or house or more interesting areas
like a lot of other Like I love the esthetic
of being a little dude in a regular sized world,
like I love Grounded.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I loved tiny.
Speaker 1: Can is great pickman of course, these games, right, I
love that aesthetic. And I think all those ones that
I just mentioned in recent times have like such diverse
areas and it's really fun. I never really that happened
in the three D elements of this game. And then
I also like the game is very linear. There's these puzzles.
You get a lot of these puzzles in the game
that are like word puzzles, where there's a sentence written
in the book and a story book sort of way.
You chop out one of the words, and then you
find another sentence, you chop out another word, like the
strong wall is in your way, and then you go
find the word broken and you put it, and then
the broken wall is in your way, and you can
break the wall, you go through it, and that happens.
But then like that kind of exact same puzzle happens
so many times, and it's like, it's kind of cool
a couple of times when it feels a lot of
the same, and I just feel like, in general, with
how like something like that, I think there's a lot
of potential of like, ooh, what kind of weird combos
can I make if I mix these words and like
all these crazy ways. But I found there was even
certain sentences where I'm like, oh, this should work. This
is a logical sentence, but since it wasn't like the
one linear way to solve this puzzle, it didn't actually work.
Speaker 2: It didn't change the world in the way I.
Speaker 1: Was expecting it to, and that was disappointing when it happened.
And so I honestly just like through the first five
six hours of the game, that's how I was feeling.
I was just feeling like pretty luke warm in the game.
There's a couple cool moments, but for the most part,
I just wasn't that engaged by the combats. You know,
totally fine, but nothing that crazy. And so that's just
kind of how it was. I'd play for an hour
and I was like, I'm kind of bored. I'm gonna
go play Eldon Ring for a bit, I'll play UFO
fifty for a bit. And that was kind of what
was happening. But then Kirkland, the last like twenty percent
of the game is fucking amazing. It's the best part
of the game by far. There's some crazy stuff that
happens narratively, visually, the game takes a whole like another turn,
and then like it actually gets a lot harder. The
game is very easy for the most part, but the
ending section actually has some tricky stuff combat wise, puzzle wise,
really cool level design, really awesome, like just totally totally
nailed stuck the landing in that sense, Like the whole
ending sequence is just unreal. So that's where I'm really mixed, because,
like coming to this review a couple hours ago before
I'd finished the game, and I hadn't gone through that
section yet, I was like, man, I hate that. I'm
gonna have to say that, Like, I just don't like
this game. It's not for me. I don't even know
if I'm gonna finish it, but I'm so glad. I
spent that actually a couple hours with it and got
through that ending sequence because it really made it worth it. It
was so freaking good. So yeah, that's where that's where
the mix comes from. There's a lot of really high
highs in this, but also a lot of like mostly
just mid like not a ton of low lows, but
just some mid sequences. I also had quite a few
bugs in here. Also, the frame rate is dog shit
in the three D environments, like most of the time
it drops to like at least thirty or less. So
you had that experience too on PlayStation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, three D, Yeah, I agree with you.
Speaker 3: I feel like the novelty of the three D world,
like it definitely like even for me being like that
early in the game, if I feel like it's like
like it still looks nice for like the limited use
of it, but like because it is so limited, it's
it's just like it it feels like a path to
get through more so than like something that you're really
experiencing in because.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's like not much you can interact with, and
that's what's maybe a bit disappointing.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of like invisible walls and stuff.
Speaker 1: Too, so it just doesn't feel like you can explore
and like the book is so small and like specific
that you can kind of explore arange of it and
there's maybe things defined. I never really found that in
the three D sections.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree with you.
Speaker 3: I also agree with you in the sense of I
was expecting to be able to explore more of the
three D world, but it is it does feel very contained,
more so than kind of what I was expecting there.
And like my favorite part about the three D world
I like, other than like the first time it happens,
just because I love that, like the way that the
Wizard just sends you, It just casts you out into
the like away from the book, Like I just love
that element of it. But just kind of like the
little drawings that you that you find, then you kind
of just are able to like enter like just them
and then bounce kind of in and out like but
again mostly.
Speaker 1: A sticky note and then they'll like get you like
jump up a couple ledges that.
Speaker 2: Kind of thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So like stuff like that, and like to your point,
like the best parts about the three D world is
when you're interacting with the two D elements or like
jumping back into them. So yeah, it definitely, like, especially
thinking about how excited I was for that aspect of
the game, definitely disappointed. But I mean, I mean, just
knowing that the ending is that peak, I am, I'm
a lot more motivated to get through some of the
sections now because although like I was, I feel like,
because I am so early in the game, like it
still does feel really fresh. Difficulty, Yeah, like it feels
almost non existent. There's like two difficulty levels that you choose.
There's like Adventure Mode, which is easy, and then whatever
I chose, and then I still feel like it's gonna
be pretty hard to lose, Like it's pretty.
Speaker 2: Much easy or easier difficulty.
Speaker 3: And so I and like because like I do like
the puzzles, but it still feels like there's not really
anything in here that makes me like, oh man, like
I am excited to experience this game again. Like it
just feels like once I'm done with it, I probably
won't ever go back to it, even though as a
one time go through, like I am enjoying it. But yeah,
just just finding like that one word to swap out
in the sentence. It's cute and fun, like when it
first happens, but just keep going through that it gets
a little bit monotonous. So definitely see that even already
with how early I am.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think for me, like the strongest puzzle games,
or some of the strongest puzzle games are ones where
it's just really fun to try out different ideas to
try and.
Speaker 2: Solve the puzzle.
Speaker 1: And obviously like Portal is like the greatest example of that,
but that's a very different kind of game than this is, naturally,
but just in general, like puzzle games where it's like, oh,
what could the solution be. Maybe it's like this thing
or that thing, and like being able to test out
those things quickly and find out what it is and
try out weird different and culminations is part of the fun,
whereas in this, as I mentioned, since like it is
a linear thing and you can't really get creative with it.
It's just like you just have to find out what
the game wants from you. It like, yeah, they're not
really all that engaging, which is which is too bad,
And that's kind of that kind of happens like through
the whole game. I think at the very end, there's
a couple of sequences that work a bit better, but
I also feel like some of the controls sometimes are
just a little sluggish or just a little janky to
even do what you're trying to do. Like at one point,
you like get the be able to like tilt the
book and that will like you know, things will like
drop down in the book, and like it's it's it's
just a little finicky.
Speaker 2: And a little janky, like no matter what.
Speaker 1: I even had a couple bugs where it like froze
my game when I was doing that and I had
to like reload a save, which it auto saves like
almost all the time, so I never really lost any
progress in that way, but I also just felt like
getting in general, like there's a sluggishness to it. You know,
it's gonna sound like minor problems, but it adds up
over the course of the game where it's like even
just like how long it takes for the page to
flip to the next page, Like the it was twice
as quick, like whenever you unlocked, whenever you like defeat
the enemies in a room, and like the door on
locks that goes down, I wish that was twice as quickly.
Speaker 2: There's just a lot of ways that it's a little
bit sluggish.
Speaker 1: And then whenever you're jumping from the two D to
three D world, those are like set points on the
map right, Like somewhere in the book there's a little
squiggle and that's where you can jump in and out.
But a lot of the sections in the game, it's
like there's really no real like it's just feels like
it makes the game take longer that I have to
walk over to this specific spot to jump out, even
though like in the three D world, there's no obstacles
stopping you to get around the book.
Speaker 2: So I don't know.
Speaker 1: I wish maybe there's a section maybe second half of
the game where you could just kind of freely jump
out of the book. And I know that would maybe
be make it a little bit harder to solve some
of these puzzles, but I think that could have just
if that was a quicker thing and it was a
bit more free, I think it could have made the
game have a lot more of like fast paced movement
and would have been cooler. I understand that it's not
really what they were going for here, but I just
found like this game's eight hours.
Speaker 2: That's pretty short as far as games go. I think
it would have been just way better.
Speaker 1: They shaved two hours off of it, like taking out
making things a little bit quicker, and then cutting you know,
like the more boring sequences of the sequences where you're
just kind of doing the same thing over again. I
think would have just made it like a way more
well rounded experience for me personally. But yeah, it's pretty
short game, and a lot of people can play in
the games are too short if they are, so, I know,
that's like a hard thing for developers to want to
make their games super duper short, especially like what's the
price tag on this, like fifty bucks or something like that.
I think, so as far as an indie game goes,
it's like, you know, kind of up there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3: One thing that like I was hoping when the game
was when I first saw it, and especially now that
we're going through all these couch co op adventures, Shane,
I do wish this game was couch co op compatible,
and I don't see why it really can't be. Like
I get it, Jot is your protagonist, but you have
other compatriots with you, like even limit like what they
can do in the three year world, but allow them
to do something like I don't know, it just seems
with how much they're kind of with you, you know,
let someone else kind of control them. Yeah, like your
your ice troll guy, like he's got a weapon like like,
like it just seems like it could work in that sense. So,
like they are really cute and unique little characters to
just their own little personalities, his friend, the little the
little Witch in training. Like I I just do really
like the characters. And as I mentioned, like it already
reminded me of a lot of the characters that I
love from Adventure Times.
Speaker 4: So it's a cute game.
Speaker 3: So I wish I could, you know, enjoy it with
my my cute little lady, But unfortunately not if she's listening,
that's for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you think about the combat in this game?
You know, it's pretty basic, like yeah Zelda stuff. It's
actually similar to like Tunic. It's it's kind of all
that ilk to it. But what do you what do
you think of it.
Speaker 3: Called the Lamb. I will defend that combat system. I
feel like I like it a lot more now that
we've been going hard.
Speaker 2: Especially similar I'm saying it's similar to that. I guess
it's better. I don't know, it's definitely.
Speaker 4: Good comparison alleged Zelda.
Speaker 3: I remember playing I don't know, the first or second
Zelda game a handful of years ago.
Speaker 4: I had it on the three DS, and.
Speaker 3: Man, what a dog ship game that I apologize to any
Zelda hardcores out there, but like, man, the new Zelda's like,
I mean, it's so terrible.
Speaker 2: Let's not a lie. Okay, let's be honest.
Speaker 3: I am not a fan of that combat. And that's
kind of what this one is. Like, it's very very basic.
Speaker 4: At least you have a roll and uh like a
jump summersault thing that you get.
Speaker 2: The role feels good. That's very yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: For sure, Like you have a little I frame in there,
which is always appreciated and in a game like that.
But I do like how you can kind of get
upgrades to like you get like a sword throw ability
that you can kind of throat.
Speaker 1: That's that's my favorite part because it's it's just the
god of war thing where like your sword will stick
into walls and then you recall it like mule there
so and then when you upgrade it like will do
damage like each like as it's spinning to enemies.
Speaker 2: Ship so you can just.
Speaker 1: Like grind them up and feels really good. So that
was my definitely my favorite upgrade, the meat Grinder. I
like it, So yeah, I like I. I I definitely
wouldn't put it as my favorite part of the game
by any means, Like I still think the presentation is
my favorite and like the actual characters themselves, just again
Adventure Time comparison there. But yeah, combat it's it's nothing
nothing to really, It's like you know games that we
were just talking about, like combats as in depth as
like elden Ring for example, Like like you play that
and then you go to this, it's feels like you
throw it in like a you know, little cousin's.
Speaker 4: Hands or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they'd be fine even on the the action
difficulty whatever the hell it is.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, I I historically on side quest, like I don't
like these kind of combat systems.
Speaker 2: I don't like this.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's particularly engaging. I do like the
sword throw, but that's kind of where it ends. I
think for me though, like it's at least passable here
because none of the combat sequences are that hard.
Speaker 2: Like I don't think I ever.
Speaker 1: Died in actual combat in this game, I really only
died if I like fell off a ledge or like
ran into a laser beam that like insta kills you,
like those kind of things which are meant to be
kind of quick death that revive you right away. But like, yeah,
the combat and even like all the boss fights in
the game are like different mini games. None of them
are like using this actual combat system. And a couple exceptions,
there's a couple like maybe harder sequences, but even those
aren't too bad. But for the most part, like most
enemies in this game, even without the like sword upgrade,
we'll go down in like three hits, which is perfect.
Speaker 2: It's super quick.
Speaker 1: There's no like lock on, like it's pretty basic. It's
pretty simple, and so I think that's for me. It
works enough. Like I you know, if I replayed the game,
I I would probably just go on story difficulty just
to get through it even quicker. But that's something I
even like in Tunic, as much as I love Tunic.
At some point I just turned on the God mode
because I didn't want to mess around with the combat anymore.
I just wanted to like do the fun exploring stuff.
I didn't really care for the you know, combat that's
not really that interesting, so kind of the same case here.
But yeah, it was, it was fine, it was it
was good enough.
Speaker 2: Kirkland.
Speaker 1: There is a I won't spoil it, but there is
a Lord of the Rings reference featuring a paper towel.
Speaker 2: That's all I'll say.
Speaker 1: It is my like, you know, spoiler free that what
it could be that I really enjoyed. I thought it
was like a very fun, a fun tasteful reference that
was h yeah, it fit for the world as well.
Speaker 4: Nice, I'm excited.
Speaker 2: Good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I don't know what else there is to say.
Like the story, it's it's weird. It's kind of cut
in two halves where like the setup of the game
is that, like the Plucky Squire is a children's book,
and you're playing through the children's book, and then at
some point the villain realizes he's in a book and
wants to change it. So then you know, he goes
about going into the three D world changing things that
sort of stuff. And like the story book that they
start with, like that's intentionally very generic, right, it's supposed
to be like that's kind of what the story's telling
with it, and then it's supposed to get a little
bit more interesting when like the guy is changing things.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's great. It's not it's not great,
it's not terrible. It's just like a totally fine story.
Even like when we get to that section that I
really like at the end of the game, there's some cool,
like kind of meta narrative stuff going on, I guess,
I would say, but like even like the actual plot
line and.
Speaker 2: Stories like very basic.
Speaker 1: It's evil guy trying to take over for the world
and you have to stop him, and it never really
gets anything beyond that, with a couple like small sort
of exceptions to it. So yeah, I don't know, it
was it was totally fine. I think the dialogue sometimes
it was really funny. But I think maybe another big
complaint I have with this game is like it's way
too talky, and it's like not super quick to skip text.
You can't just like skip cut scene, like you have
to mash through it all. And it got to a
point in the second half of the game where I
was just mashing through and then sometimes I would mash
through so quickly that like I didn't see my hint
to the puzzle. So then I was like, no idea
what to do here. So obviously that's a bit of
a me problem. But I think in general what I
said there, like the page flipping takes too long, doors
unlocking takes too long. I also just like, I feel
like ninety percent of the rooms you enter before you
can even walk, your character slowly walks over to an area,
talks to someone in a cutscene format, and then it
takes a couple of seconds to get out of that
cut scene and then you're playing again. And so in general,
like it just, oh my god, it's a little slow.
So for a game that's telling like what is very
what is a very generic story, it's like, oh, okay,
I feel like I wish we could have slimmed out
some of that a little bit. That's where I think
maybe a little bit more interesting stuff in the three
D world and a little bit less of like the
two D storybook, like rip out twenty thirty pages out
of the story book. I would have been much happier
with that as a as a balance of it. But
I don't know, maybe that's just me, but I don't know,
what are you thinking of the story or I guess
just world in general from your quarter the way through
the game experience.
Speaker 3: I feel like I feel like the magic of everything
together like is like up, like it's bringing the story
higher up. But like I feel like just for what
I've gotten already, like I really wasn't expecting any big
plot twist, So I am kind of surprised about you
say talking about like the ending like that, So I
am really intrigued. It's kind of what happens to, you know,
tie a bow on this story. But yeah, like even
just like you have like a bad way, you know,
and then you got the hero of the story and
like that that is just kind of how you're progressing.
So Adventure Time by no means has any like in depth,
like like crazy plot twists on the villains or anything
like that. So I was kind of just expecting more
of the same in that regard. I was very surprised
about like the first wizard that's like your friend and
in the beginning of the story's beard big yeah boom
beard big DJ and then.
Speaker 2: Very goofy character.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I was not expecting that tone for
this game, but then it goes pretty quick.
Speaker 3: So yeah, and like mini beards just like that like
humor just really gets me. That's again, it reminds me
of Adventure Time a little bit.
Speaker 4: So like that.
Speaker 3: But yeah, for for overall story, I think I was like, again,
even just like having like your little like uh little
witch friend or the like the ice hold, like like
I was expecting maybe more of like a story element
around them, because it's just like two really you know,
well three of them, three really unique individuals if you
include so maybe I was expecting a little bit more
like world building on that side of it, of like
kind of more of their their their history or how
they they kind of fit in the world. But it
doesn't seem like we're really focused on that. But I
don't know, we'll see, I'm only court of the way through.
Speaker 4: Maybe something happens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you definitely spend I don't know, you
go to like their home areas at different points, so
you get to spend a little bit more with like
their family members.
Speaker 2: I guess.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, there's there's a little bit for for those
main characters, and then even a couple couple other ones
different points in the game.
Speaker 2: So nice. Yeah, you get to get a little bit
of that stuff for sure.
Speaker 1: Trying to think what else. I would love to see
jot as a Smash Bros. Fighter or maybe in like Rivals,
which is like a platform fighter that has like or
and shovel Night and its like some some indie characters.
I think it would be it'd be cool to see
what like the two D to three D mechanic would
look like, but also just with like the different sword
the sword throw, like you get a gun at some point,
a bone arrow, and like all these other big arms.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the big arms mode, which I love.
Speaker 1: That feels like a very adventure timey thing, Like I
think there's some room there for a really fun move set.
And then like obviously the character is just so cute,
has a great art style and color palette, so that
would be really fun as well. So I'd love to
uh love to see that sometime.
Speaker 4: Hell yeah, I'm down for that.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. Any other thoughts on the Plucky Squire? Are
you do you are? Do you think you're gonna see
it through? Oh?
Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3: I like I I apologize I was a little prerective
a couple of lamb this last weekend. I wish I
was a little bit further ahead, but uh, you know,
she's got a work schedule coming up, so I'll plug
in my plucky squire, you know, put my my college football.
Speaker 4: Team to the side.
Speaker 3: I feel like it's also like I've been going maybe
too hard on college football, Like I'm burnt out on it.
Like it's yeah, there's no like there's no like actually
copper right music in it.
Speaker 4: So it's all drum lines.
Speaker 3: Like as if it's like a college like band, right,
and I swear I like dream about like the drums,
like the snares and the drums.
Speaker 2: With the with the college football trump line.
Speaker 3: Just like like let's just constantly go on in my head.
Speaker 4: Now, I'm like I need a break from this.
Speaker 3: But yeah, no, I I definite I was already going,
like I felt like, especially coming into it doesn't seem
like a game is gonna be one hundred hours. I
didn't really get that vibe from it. So so knowing
you know it's around the eight hour mark, I'm already
a quarter the way through, and just your little spiel
about how nice the ending is definitely you know, puts
fire under me. I imagine you know, next time I
wants I quest.
Speaker 4: I'll be done it. And yeah, get my two takes.
Speaker 1: We'll do a little spoiler mini spoiler section on right
on the more interesting tidbits.
Speaker 3: Hopefully age mythology is fucking working.
Speaker 1: By the yes, I would love to make that a
two for one episode for sure to talk about both
those things. So uh yeah, Kirkland that that was a
fun discussion, really fun discussion to stay. A lot of
great games on the on the palette there, So thank
you for joining me. Thank you everyone for listening. Next week,
I mean it is, episode is dropping. Apparently there's a
state of play happening, so we'll definitely be talking about
that next week, assuming it has some good juice in there,
and who knows what else we'll talk about.
Speaker 2: You just have to stay tune of the feeds to
check it out.
Speaker 1: And uh, Kirklin, you're gonna have to end the feed
here because I'm not able to. But thank you everyone
for listening, and we will see you again next time.
Speaker 2: Bye bye bye.
Speaker 4: We're not going anywhere.