Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to side Quest. This is our weekly
video game show here at Geek Versus. I am your host,
the hero of Kavacha Del Musk, and I have with
me the Switch l du blay daylor Field. How are
you doing tonight, my friend.
Speaker 2: I'm doing good. I'm happy to be here. It's been
a hot a minute since my last cameo appearance on
side Quest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, cameo appearance. Is it ever a cameo? Where are you?
Speaker 1: Just like cameo would be like you appear in the
background or you're in there for like two minutes?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, wrong word, wrong word.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it has been while because since the Switch
Too has been shown off, you have not been here.
So we're gonna talk about that today. We're also gonna
talk about the Shadow Drop, which was the Eldest Hills
four Oblivion, so all very exciting stuff. You can also
check out our weekly Geek Mean you just did that
was our warm up before getting into this. You can
go to our patren Get episodes early and add free
all that good stuff. I think we're just gonna hop
right into it. You know, what is a good week
for your boy because two of my all time top
ten all time favorite games got re released this week.
The you know, of course Oblivion is the big juicy one,
but I also want to quickly shut out that on
Nintendo Switch Online the game Boy Advance app, they released
fire Emblem the Sacred Stones on there this week, which
is my favorite Firemblum game. You know, it's one of
my top ten all time favorite games. The game I've
revisited a million times. So if anyone who has not
played fire Emblem or that game in particular, go check
it out. It's great, it holds up, it's super unique.
It was also like, I think the first tactics game
I ever played back in the day too, So if
you're like not big on the genre, like maybe it's
a good one to jump into there as well. So,
you know, the fact that they released that Antenna Switch
Online and then also Oblivion onto game Pass, like just
two things.
Speaker 3: Getting two of my favorite games getting.
Speaker 1: Re released and then like just onto subscription services I'm
already part of. Like hell yeah, I'm doing very good
this week. I don't know if I'm gonna play Sacred
Stones right now because it's busy with a million other game,
but next time I'm like on the move with my switch.
I'll definitely be booting up a I don't know, probably
my eighteenth playthrough of Sacred Stones, so go check that out.
But of course, the big, juicy, spicy one is the
Elder Scrolls for Oblivion Remastered, which has been heavily rumored
for months and months and months. I feel like the
rumors really really picked up around the time of the
Xbox Developer Direct, which happens every January, because there was
talks like, oh, there's a mystery game, an unannounced game
that's gonna appear in This ended up being n JA
guid In. But yeah, people were saying maybe it was
the Oblivion remaster, Whi's been talked about to that point
it didn't happen, and then I feel like every month
since it's been like this month, it's gonna be the
Oblivion remaster, it's gonna shadow drop, We're gonna get information
on this.
Speaker 3: It's coming, It's coming, and it.
Speaker 1: Just like, wasn't it to the point where it's like,
I believe that this exists, but I'm also trying to
let my heart get in on this and believe this
and then it not be true and then me be disappointed.
Because I love this game so very much. But finally
this week it got announced and Shadow dropped in the
same kind of announcement they did, like a twenty minute
trailer essentially breaking down what the game is, talking about,
what's what's different, what's new about it, and then they
dropped it same day, one hundred and twenty gigabytes of
juice in there. So it took me like a full
twenty four hours to download it because my internet is garbage.
Then finally I've jumped in and played it, so we're
gonna talk about some of that and you've been you've
did you get a few hours at.
Speaker 3: Least with this? With this remo?
Speaker 2: Yes? Oh yes, good stuff.
Speaker 1: So remind me here because obviously you me Kirkland all
big like Skyrim fans as well, and I feel like
you and Kirkland talk a lot about Skyrim. I know
you're an Oblivion fan as well, but like, where do
you compare that? Like are you a bigger Skyrim fan
than Oblivion? How you have you put like tens of
hours in Oblivion a hundred hundreds of hours? Like where's
your Oblivion? Did you play it back in the day?
Did you play it more? Recently, I feel like you
need to remind me on your Oblivion fandom here.
Speaker 2: I would say, like my Oblivion fandom that stems when
I was I was very young, young teenager. I remember
going to one of my friend my friend's house and
he always had like the latest and greatest stuff. I
remember going to his house and he's playing Xbox like, oh,
look at this game. This is Assassin's Creed and I
was like, oh my god, this is great. Played with
them all throughout Christmas Eve. That was wonderful. Another day
I went over to his house, He's like, check this out.
This is Oblivion. Other scrolls like, oh my god, this
game is awesome. And so it was not long before
after that I ended up buying it for PC. It
was a Gaming Year edition. I still have it actually
in one of my shelves my totes, but got that
for PC that came with Nights the Nine Shivering Aisles
expansion and just yeah, I played the living daylights out
of that game. I remember completing the main storyline. What
an ending that game has, and in terms of just
like game intros is probably like top three for me
for just epic because that score kicks in you're spinning
around the Imperial City and you just get it ends
off that narration from like the Emperor, and it's like
holy shit, like I'm in it, i am in tam Reel,
We're going to Syraell, let's let's fucking go. It's it's
so good. And yeah, just that Oblivion just has a
very special place in my heart. Was between the music
and just the storylines and just the Dark Brotherhood, I've
always favored the Dark Brotherhood storyline more and Oblivion than
over Skyrim's version of it. That being said, I've sunk
a lot of time in the Skyrim too as I
got older and I played Skyrim. I really really enjoyed
that and put a lot more time into it, but
it just did not feel the same as Oblivion. Oblivion
has just got that.
Speaker 1: Still holds that special place in your house.
Speaker 2: It still does still does, yeah.
Speaker 3: Right on.
Speaker 1: Yeah for me, you know, I've talked about older scrolls
a lot, and I've probably not talked about Oblivion maybe
as much as I should have, because like this is
still one of my top ten all time favorite games,
but I think it gets overshadowed for me just because like,
well a Marwind is like you know, my favorite single
player game of all time, so it's just like higher
on that ranking. So I end up when I have
the opportunity to geek out by elder scrolls, I go
to Marrowin because that was a game I played as
a kid when I was like too young. I didn't
understand like anything. I didn't, you know, I was missing
so many of the mechanics at the time, and over
the years I've kind of learned more and more about it,
and I still do Marrowin play through every like two
or three years at the very latest kind of thing.
And then I remember, you know, I have very similar
situation to you. Was like, yeah, my cousin always had
all the new consoles. I was always a few years behind.
And I remember going to his place one time and
either if he had rented or he had a copy
of Oblivion. And so coming from me playing Marrowin for
years and years and years, I don't even think I
knew Oblivion existed. I just didn't even have that tech
in my you know, little Rutland house. So go over
to his place just seeing Oblivion and being just blown
away by the visuals of it, by just like the
way it evolved of course, the music just gets in there,
like the Dark Brotherhood, which you know, there is a
Dark Brotherhood e Quest in Marwin, but it's not really
the same. You know, there's Fighters, Guild and may just
a lot of the same things. But like the Dark Brotherhood,
which is such an iconic one, is not quite the
same as it was in Oblivion.
Speaker 3: And then, like.
Speaker 1: Skyrim, tried to recapture that, as you mentioned, maybe not
super successfully. And then eventually when I got a three
sixty got Oblivion. I think it was probably the Game
of the Year edition as well, because I had all
the DLCs played that game just you know, hundreds of
hours there, and then later on got it on PC
and then played it for like hundreds of hours there
as well. I did download some mods, but I'm mostly
a vanilla guy when it comes to these kind of games,
even if they are super janky, I kind of love
them for the jank at the same time, and I'm
kind of just used to that at this point in time.
So yeah, Oblivion a game I love very very much,
and you know, I went on to love Skyrim as well,
but it doesn't quite have the same uh space in
my heart as Oblivion and Marwin dude, just that duo
of like all time favorite RPGs and games for me.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I love this game.
Speaker 1: And I've always said, like for years on on geek first,
whether probably even before side Quest times, like what are
they gonna do? So like they have Elder Scrolls iron release,
and then like okay, they go make Fallout four. Eventually
they made follo Out seventy six, and then we know
they're doing Starfield and like we got the announcement for
Elder Scroll six, but it seems like years and years away.
It's like, what are they gonna do in the meantime?
Speaker 2: What is Elders?
Speaker 1: Like what are Elder Scrolls fans gonna chew on? Because like,
of course there's the MMO and some people are into
that there hasn't been a spinoff in a.
Speaker 3: While, like Blades or like the card.
Speaker 1: Game, Like we haven't had a new one of those,
Like what are they gonna do? And I feel like
a remaster remake is a great path to go, but
it's also something they've never done. But this has never
like done that for their games other than like you know,
Skyrim getting like updated versions for the consoles.
Speaker 3: As it came out.
Speaker 1: But we haven't got one like something like that for
an older game, And I've always said that, like I
think Oblivion would be the best one to go for
because it's just a bit more modern, probably easier to
transfer it over. And I feel like in a lot
of ways it's kind of aged worse than Marwind in
some ways, just because like Marwin's combat is aged horrendously,
it's awful, but like Oblivion's lighting is maybe some of
the worst lighting ever, Like it's horrendous. But I do
love the look of that game, but it is very
glowy and weird and things are way too bright and
it looks strange, and you know, you're in a fantasy world,
so it makes sense. But I think that was like
the first thing that struck me about playing this remake
is like, oh, this game, this remaster might have the
best lighting I've ever seen any video game, and Oblivion
has like some of the worst, like three D light
in any game ever.
Speaker 3: Is to have that, like just.
Speaker 1: That bridge gap now is really really entertaining. But yeah,
tell me, like what did you do because this is
the game you've played many times before, Like when you
boot this game up this remaster first time, like what
kind of character did you make?
Speaker 2: And like what did you do?
Speaker 1: Like did you go do some main quest stuff? Did
you go straight for I want to do Dark Brotherhood again?
Did you go and explore things you've never done before?
Like what was the where did your heart take you
on this journey?
Speaker 2: So my go to always is dark Elf. I'm always
drucking me too nice that fire resistance and yeah, it's
just it goes a long way. I've always wanted to
be an Argonian and this a few other classes I
always wanted to try, but you know what, I'm just
true and true dark House. So that's that's my go to.
And then once I get in to oblivion, usually my
first first thing I ever do is I go for
the fin gleam. That's that's just uh, it just it
really helps out in the long run, and I feel
like it's it's justified at this point with the night vision,
the water breathing, all that stuff, Like how how can
you not? It goes a long way and it just
looks super super badass. So I usually get that until
I get more stronger magic than can kind of help
me go along. So it won't be long before I
go to like some I think Coral has like a
mage guild or mage store that I can start getting
some spells and whatnot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I forget what the mastery is for that one,
because I haven't been there yet in this playthrough, so
I forget what their school is that they teach.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but until then, I went through into some of
the main stories. So I closed the first oblivion gate
at Kavac, help them help liberate that a little bit.
And so once that's kind of like squared away, then
now I feel like, Okay, now I'm more open. I
read I found the descendant of your septum, got him
set up in like the Blade Stronghold, so he's out there.
So now I Martin. Yeah, I did not sleep, and
so I had like all my levels were like going
up and up and up, and I thought, okay, I
need to go and find like a bed to rest
and like actually stack up my new attributes and whatnot.
So I went into that, and now now I'm feeling good.
I'm feeling great. My character is at a pretty good spot.
I got some coin, got some armor, got some levels up,
and so now my goal is going to be working
towards the Dark Brotherhood quest line getting bad and then
working on my magic one of my favorite things back
in the day. And I wish that Skyrim allowed this.
Skyrim only had scrolls that were really hard to find
that allowed you to have invisibility for a set amount
of time, and in Oblivion you could actually learn a
spell that you could conjure every like sixty seconds or
something like that. Don't quote me on that, but you
could basically reuse it, not once a day, but every
so often in a span of time where you could
just go invisible. It was like a chameleon or something
like that.
Speaker 1: And so, yeah, chameleon is like invisibility that doesn't end
once you attack. Yeah, it's just like but it's like
a more percentage base usually, so it's like you get
like ten percent chameleon. But of course, like you know, Skyrim,
I think is sanded off a lot of the edges
of like crazy broken stuff you could do, and like
Marrow when even going back to like Daggerfile, I feel
like those games were super broken and they've gotten less
broken over time, but Oblivion still had enough brokenness where
I remember, yeah, one of my friends, which just not
something you could do with you'll, had a lot of
money or a higher level, but he had like, yeah,
like four or five different armor pieces of whatever the
maximum could wear, all with a percentage of chameleons that
he was at one hundred percent chameleon all the times,
are just always invisible, even when you attack and stuff.
It's like, that's the kind of crazy stuff. I love
that you can still do in this And you can
still craft spells in this game, which is something they
removed in Skyrimen, so you can just do wacky crazy
stuff still, which I I just I you know, I
love that jank, and I love the ability like break
the game to some extent.
Speaker 3: So yeah, shouts to chameleon and invisibility.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean that whole concept of going to
visible just helps so much when you're becoming an assassin.
And the Dark Brotherhood really really liked that. And I just
remember the whole hideout that they had. We can go
in there and all the other assassins that were around.
That was cool. And I'll never forget too, just being
randomly bit by a vampire one day and it's like,
what the fuck is this? I can't go outside anymore?
This is absolute bullshit, And now I'm.
Speaker 1: Understats just cracked and you can just fly around like
destroy everything, but then you absolutely not die in the sunlight.
Speaker 3: It's so yeah, fun, high risk, high reward, for sure.
Speaker 2: It is. It is. Eventually, I'd like to get strong
enough so I could go to the Shivering Aisles because
I remember, yeah, weeks later, after going over with my
friend's house, he's like, look at this. I got the
expansion and it was cool because he had it on
Xbox and so he actually bought the expansion when expansions
were actually like discs, So he had the Shiving Aisles
that was like a separate disc for the Xbox. We
said ned to put in. And so I remember when
he had that and he was all like raving about
it and he was showing me like share go Rath
the show. Grath was just like a fucking lunatic, like
Intestines as a total lunatic. So I can't wait to
get there. And like the this game shadow dropping, I
was not expecting that. I remember seeing the trailer tease
on on Monday, and then I went to work on
Tuesday and then my one will work buddy, he's like, oh,
look here's the trailer. They dropped it like what it's out,
so like I want to play more Assassin's Cree Shadows
and I want to play Like the other day I
was like, oh, it would be nice to play Little
Call of Duty, but like no, just Oblivion. It's sitting
there and so putting the hours, and I want to
play more this weekend. It's just it's so good.
Speaker 3: M hmm.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean I think what you've just like highlighted saying
it directly is just like this is so authentic to
what that original game is, Like it is a remaster.
It looks and feels and sounds and like smells like
it's a remake, but it's like, no, this is a remaster.
I don't know how they did it of like taking
that original janky Bethesda engine and but then like overhauling
it through Unreal Engine five. I have no idea how
the tech works on something like that, but like this
game plays and feels, uh, you know, it smells and
tastes and all that good stuff like Oblivion. But then
it's just like obviously looks a whole lot better, and
then they've fixed some things here there. The UI, I
think is something that definitely needs some improvement. That was
like special specific specifically with the console version, but like, well,
I think that was that was issue here, Like for Marwin,
that was because Marwin was on Xbox, the original Xbox,
and they had a different UI for that. Marwin's UI
on PC. I think it's still maybe one of my
favorite UIs in all video games, and I wish they
would do more of that, But it's like since then
they've kind of simplified it, and now like the console
NPC version just has the same UI. It makes sense
then you only have to build it once instead of
like two different versions for two different systems. But that
was like an issue with Oblivion is they tried to
find some in between something that was good for PC
players but also worked for console players and controllers, and
instead they just like kind of had a bad menu
that's like really difficult and you're flipping through tabs all
the time and it takes forever to do things, and
I feel like that, you know, they've simplified a lot
of that, so they've kind of just improved it, but
like it also is still a very janky game, which
is like one of the reasons why I love Oblivion
so much. And like even in the video the twenty
minute long video, Todd Howard like he kind of does
a little wink and nodge and he's like oblivion has
a certain charm to it.
Speaker 3: That's the word he uses.
Speaker 1: And then that is a good word, a fitting word,
but like charm, slash also jank. You know, it's kind
of like why we love this game so much, and like,
you know, the physics of it is something I wondered
if like that would still be in here, considering it's
in a new engine, and like that's something I kind
of expect only through Bethesda's engines.
Speaker 3: Is the ability to like go into any.
Speaker 1: Building, pick up a bowl of apples and throw the
apples on the ground, and like that's just a funny,
goofy thing you can do, which I always used to
do when I would do like a thieves Guild quest.
Now I have to go steal something from someone's house,
I would always like trash the place.
Speaker 3: I would throw all their food on the.
Speaker 1: Ground, knock everything over, and like, you know, it didn't
actually it was not like the game was reading my
action there and like rewarding me with a dialogue option
or something. But it was just something I would do
for fun and it's like this game still has that,
and like it's kind of broken in a different way
that I don't even remember the original believe in having
where like I went in a couple of Majors Guild
charter buildings and man, I was just walking around and
like every time I turn around, I feel like more
books are just flying off shelves and just falling on
the ground, and like clothes are jank, you know, and
like falling on the ground, and you know what, I
would not have it any other way, you know, It's
just it's part of the magic of this game.
Speaker 3: Is that jank. It's the last charm.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I feel like it's just it's crazy how
much it fits and like it just looks better. But
they have the same sound effects even something like they
talked about.
Speaker 3: How they they added new dialogue. You know.
Speaker 1: Part of the issue with Oblivion and some of the
immersion of it is like they didn't they just only
had a certain amount of I guess voice actors of
voice lines they could have, and so a lot of
the different races end up having the same voice, but
it doesn't really fit with what they look like, and
so they added new It might be the same dialogue,
but just with new voice actors, and like it just
seamlessly fits. Like, I don't know, have you found anything
so far that you've been like, Oh, I don't I
don't like this change, or this doesn't feel like Oblivion,
or it doesn't it doesn't fit in.
Speaker 3: It's it's too uncanny. Is there anything but anything like.
Speaker 1: That for you so far yet that doesn't doesn't fit
in with that vision of what Oblivion is?
Speaker 2: Too, No, because I feel like it's evolved into a
very modern esque, uh well style game, Like there's nothing
that's really changed that has caught me off guard. I
mean the layout, not your inventory and tabs and whatnot,
but just the way I think when you load up
into your game, and the way you have your HP,
your man and everything that is more like Skyrim looking
like yeah, the stamina bar it looks yeah, yeah, So
I can appreciate that. And I feel like there may
be like subtle little things from Skyrim that they've kind
of incorporated and sprinkled into hear, but nothing major, no
huge overhaul to to change it. It's just they've rebuilt
it up to make it look or sorry, feel like
what it was before. But it looks the same. Yeah,
there's extra voice lines there, there's some extra stuff in there,
but it's just great. When I'll teleport or sorry, I'll
fast travel to a city and because I'm doing one
quest and I pure in the city, this random like
wood Elf just runs up.
Speaker 3: Help me, help me, Okay.
Speaker 2: We're gonna do this now. It's just there's so many fun,
little zany things. And that's just one of the reasons
I love Oblivion so much.
Speaker 3: Man, it was so great.
Speaker 1: I went so my playthrough, I was like, yeah, should
I do something different, like a bill that haven't done before,
because that's just how expansive these games are. Like maybe
I haven't played every I don't know if I've ever
played a Breton in this game, you know, But I
was like, you know what, I'm just gonna go with
my tried and true here, same as you dark Elf.
I'm kind of playing like a rogue sorcerer combination. I
wanted to use some magic. I was wondering if that
was something they were gonna change, And I think one
of the best, probably the single best change in my opinion,
that Skyrim did from Oblivion Marrow.
Speaker 3: And all that.
Speaker 1: It was just like adding like the two handed system
to it, where you can choose like what's equipped in
what hand, and like magic now takes one of your
hands and you can like shoot out magic in a
way that feels a lot better than in this game
where you just like click a button to activate a spell, right,
and that's just not quite as fun as like the
Skyrim version of it. But like, no, they like they
kept it the same as it was, which I'm totally
fine with too. So yeah, I want to use a
little bit of magic of course, Like you can't not
be a stealth archer if you're gonna play, obliving, it's
just too fun. Also using weapons, like I'm kind of
just using a little bit of everything, a jack of
all trades, which I kind of feel like is what
the Dark Elf is sort of like it's not like
they have a super duper big weakness. And the first
thing I did was I looked at the world map again.
I was like, Okay, what's the closest city, and like, oh, yeah,
well of course Imperial cities right behind you, but like
Chad and Hall is just up the hill, and that's
always been my favorite city just visually, and so like, yeah,
I'm just gonna I'm not even gonna fast travel there.
I'm just gonna walk up to chad And Hall. Maybe
I'll get sidetracked going a couple caves or something, go
up to Chading Hall, which I don't even know if
that's how C's pronounced. This is how I pronounce it
as a kid, and so I'm still gonna pronounce it
that way. But anyway, walking around that and it's gorgeous.
It's beautiful, Like like there's a river that goes to
that town, and now that river just looks a whole
lot better and there's like more foliage and stuff, and
like the buildings have always kind of been like the
Victorian style with the big wooden beams, and it's always
been like a little bit purple. But I feel like
they really highlighted that purple extra but like the games,
you know, not quite as bright and overexposed whatever saturated
I guess is the word I'm looking for as the
original one. But man, it looks gorgeous. So just walking
around that town, eventually ended up joining the Major's Guild
there and the Fighter's Guild, and so I've just been
doing like kind of entry level quests for Majors and
Fighters Guild, and then I just kind of went down
the map. I just walked all the way south, went
through some found some things I've never seen before. That's
just how expansive these games are. And like I've spent
hundreds of hours with these games, but not thousands, so
there's still things I haven't seen yet. And then went
all the way down to Braville. Did you know a
couple of quests there, And then I went all the
way south down to Lao Win And that's kind of
where I got to in my first like five or
six hours with the game, So just kind of checking
out the different towns, talking to these different characters, picking
up some basic quests, just kind of messing around so
far and having having a great time with that. It's
it's it's great, Like it's it's not different, you know,
like it it is, but it isn't at the same time.
I think that's what I'm so happy about this is
like they just made it so faithful, and I think
that's something that really was highlighted in the video. Because
of course this is not made by Bethesda. Bethes does involved,
and I'm sure they asked them for advice and stuff,
but it's made by Virtuous Virtuous Studios, I think Virtuos
something like that is the name of the studio here
that made this. And in the video you get people
from that studio who are talking about, like should we
add sprinting?
Speaker 3: That was like an internal.
Speaker 1: Debate they had and eventually they did, and like that's
not something the original Oblivion had and I like it.
Speaker 3: I think it's a good change.
Speaker 1: You know, I was something inspiriment fits in here just
as well, and it fits well with like the the
mana or the not the man of the stamina system
and the fatigue system, like it doesn't. It doesn't clash
with those systems at all. So I think that's like
a good little change to make the game have a
little bit more localmotion for someone who hasn't like just
cracked out their speedstat at the character creation side of things.
So like there's little tasteful changes route, but nothing that's
like mind blowingly making it a different experience, which is
not what you would want for something like this. Yeah, yeah,
I I where do I want to go?
Speaker 3: I think? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So the biggest thing that I think they change and
I'm still you know, I need to spend a lot
more hours with the game to see how this works out.
Is like before, if I was telling someone to play obliviing,
or someone was a Skyrim fan, They're asking me, Hey,
what do I need to know about Obliving for jumping in?
I feel like, you don't need to know much. But
the main thing I would tell them tell them about
is like, yeah, the the leveling system is completely busted
in this game, and I would recommend like just don't
ever sleep and don't level up because literally, you know,
I would do that when I first played the game,
but eventually got to a point where I would just
That's how I would play Abliving. I would never level
up my character. I'd play, I'd have fifty hours on
a character and they'd still be level one because the
whole game is based around level scaling, where the higher
level you are, the higher level the enemies you're gonna
fight are, and the you know what would be a
basic and didn't now have like crazy glass armor and
stuff like this, and they do way more damage, and
you know it's good to engage with that stuff too,
because I feel like, also what comes to the level
scaling is you're encountering like different enemy types, and so
it's funny when the trailer was popping off, I'm like,
I have never seen a couple of these enemies just
because of how I never leveled up, and so I
would just never see these enemies that would only appear
when you're a higher level in the game.
Speaker 3: And so there's like just.
Speaker 1: New content unlocked. So it seems like they talked about
they've rebalanced that. So far, it seems a lot better.
You don't have to worry as much about like grinding
out your minor skills and doing annoying stuff of like
having a notepad next to you to keep track of, Oh,
my athletics went up, I gotta put like two sets
into alchemy. I gotta do this so I get my
perfect leveling. You don't have to worry about any of
that now, it's just a lot simpler, and so yeah,
it remains to me seeing how the balance is. I
will say I picked like just the regular difficulty, and
that's been like too easy, and then I went up
to expert and it was like insanely difficult. So that
balance seems kind of off there, and that was something
I would always do in the original Vivian too, is
like constantly tweaking the difficulty level throughout to like make
it a fun experience, and so maybe it seems like
it still has a bit of that. So I don't
know how perfect that is. But then I read on
Reddit apparently when you get like to level ten, it
balances out and like adept becomes like a really solid difficulty.
So that's one of the things I've I've read about.
So we'll see what happens there. But I think that
was to me, that's always been the biggest caveat for oblivion,
is like the Levely system kind of sucks. Here's how
you should engage with it. And now I don't have
to have that caveat. It seems like you can kind
of just play the game. And if yeah, if you're
listening to this now and you're only played Skyrim, I
don't think you need to know anything, just like, don't
worry about doing the main quest, don't worry about doing this,
and about just you know, get lost, go in the
random direction, find something cool, or if you want a
little more guidance, just go to a town, do a
certain guild quest. Every guild quest line in this game
is fun. Dark Brotherhood is the highlight. I'd say Thieves
Gild is probably number two. But like Major's guild Fighters,
guild are really fun. Main Quest is solid, like you
can't go wrong. I can't think of a point that's
like a dull moment in this game. Then obviously when
you deal with the DLC stuff as well, you're getting
like some great content there too, but you probably want
to be a bit higher level before you go to
the Shivering Aisles. I would say, mm hmm, yeah, it's
it's a bit of a rude awakening, I will say
when you get over encumbered.
Speaker 2: Skyrim I think was a little bit more generous. But man,
I have my armor on. I was like, oh, this
is a new plate body I found, pick it up.
I put picked it up. So I have two plate
bodies of my my inventory and I can no longer
run and it's very very unfortunate. And I know you
can get spells that obviously.
Speaker 3: Boost sweet feathers carry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's kind of nice, but it sucks at
the start, it really really does.
Speaker 3: It was funny, how like I was Bret suck.
Speaker 1: I've played this tutorial and after I played it for
a couple of minutes, I'm like, oh, yeah, this is
the same game, so I don't need to take in
every detail.
Speaker 3: I can blast this tutorial because I've played this one
hundred times before.
Speaker 1: I think that would be my one point of advice
for anyone playing this game. When you're right before you're
about to leave the Sewers for the first time, you
get a prompt to like you can change your characters. Look,
you can change your class. Like it gives you one
last prompt like, hey, do you want to make any
changes before you go out into the open world and
you can't change anything, make a save rate there so
that when you replay the game and you boo up
a new character, you can kind of just skip that
tutorial stuff. So yeah, pick the save rate before you
exit the Sewers and then you just modify all your
character and then you just go out into the open world.
So that's always something I do. So I've now set
that up so my subsequent pletely through as I can
blast through that. But yeah, I think that's like, uh,
I don't know, that's like maybe the one point of
advice i'd give.
Speaker 3: Sorry, what were you just saying?
Speaker 1: Because I had a train of thought and then I
just totally drifted off into my other thought.
Speaker 2: I was talking about the encumbrance and yeah that when
I was blasting through the tutorial, and then I like
got over and covered.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, yeah, that's a thing that you have
to deal with here. I think the silver lining here
is like now that the leveling system is less janky
than it was before, and I'm leveling up my character
and you always it seems like you always get twelve
points that you can allot into three of the different
stat stats, right Like, I'm almost always like, at least
on the first few levels. I think I'm level five
or six now, so like the first three levels, I
think I just dumped at least five points into strength,
and so I've got like my carry capacity up a
whole lot more. And it seems like just because you
don't have to like worry about micromanaging that now you're
just gonna get those twelve points. It's pretty easy to
just dump five points into strength right away. Which is
another thing too that like you kind of always were
best off to level endurance early on, because like it
would scale how much health you'd get at every time
you leveled up. So it's like something you want to
do early on. But I read now that you don't
need to worry about that, like it'll retroactively give you
all the health you should have got if you put
like put points in an endurance later on. So that's
a cool little change that they made as well. Yeah,
so have you been doing that? Have you been dumping
some extra strength points and to get your carry capacity
up when you're leveling?
Speaker 2: I did, but I probably have to put a little
bit more in there to really start bumping up some more.
Speaker 3: It's pretty notable.
Speaker 1: It's not like, oh, you get like two extra pounds,
like you you'll notice the extra weight you can carry,
oh pretty quickly.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, then I gotta just put some more points.
And I was putting some whatever points I could towards
your health and magic or usually my my primaries as
are what I focus on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think this game like has a bit
of a simpler.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's like a I guess it doesn't have like the
perk system right of Skyrim, so you don't think as
much like just when you do your level up, you
pick your your points and you go on your marry way.
But there's not like huge skill trees. It's pretty it's
a lot more basic. And then when you hit the
threshold of like level twenty five, fifty, seventy five and
one hundred of a different skill, that's when you get
some ability. So like I think it's like shield bash
or something you get when you're like level fifty of
like the shield stats.
Speaker 2: So you do get.
Speaker 1: Perks and things like that, they're just kind of more
gated behind what level you are, rather than like having
a perk point and selecting where you want to put
that thing. But yeah, I feel like you don't really
need to worry about like as much like playing a
specific character class, which is something I have critiqued about Skyrim.
How it's like less about like making a very specific
class that has strengths and weaknesses, And now this seems
like it's a bit more in that kind of realm
of things. But I don't know, It's fine. I'm not
too uh too heard about that kind of thing as
as we've mentioned here, Like, yeah, the DLC is included.
There is a Deluxe version though that has additional things,
like including some weapons. Apparently there's some quests. I don't
know if those are new quests or whatnot. I got
to look into that, and then like the funniest thing too,
is that one of the bonus things is that there's
horse Armor as one of the deluxe things, which was like,
this game got so much shit back in the day
for like selling horse armor for like five dollars or
something as like a micro transaction on the Xbox and
PlayStation store, and that's like a lot of people like credit,
like a lot of micro transaction hell that we're in
today back to like beaes the charging for fucking horse.
Speaker 3: Armor back in the day.
Speaker 1: So I feel like it's a very on the nose
thing for them to charge for horse armor again. But
I think they're kind of going with the meme. At
the same time, they're being like kind of greedy with
that too, but I feel like they're kind of playing
at like they're they're being in on the joke. I
think when they did that there this time around, I
didn't I didn't actually see how much the delexe version is.
Did you get that or are you just playing with
the game pass version here, because of course this is
Xbox Game Studio, so it's a game pass titles on
PS five as well.
Speaker 2: Though I'm just doing games Pass. I didn't, I didn't
buy it, but.
Speaker 3: I mean how much it is If it's like ten bucks,
I might.
Speaker 2: I think that the main game and stuff, I think
it's around forty five to fifty dollars, yeah, which I mean,
I wouldn't be surprised. I'm pretty sure games Pass if
you buy games that are on games Pass and you
have games Pass, I think they give you a bit
of a discount when you buy it.
Speaker 1: Or maybe I'm mistaken on Okay, No, they do that
pretty often, so I wouldn't be surprised about Well, usually
it's for the base game, though, I feel like necessarily
the DLC, DLC add on stuff because that's like, that's
why they do that for all their games now, right
because they know just been playing through the game Pass,
they want to nickel and dime those people.
Speaker 3: To pay a little bit more.
Speaker 1: So I'll look into that and see how much that is.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 1: You know, the biggest thing about this for me is
like what I mentioned, like the lighting is fucking gorgeous
in this game. You know, you get a lot of
different variety of like what you know, maybe it's like
a little overcasty sort of day or a little foggy
or something like that, and then sometimes the sun will
just shine through in beautiful ways. But I think for me,
like the greatest part about it is like if you're
inside a building and it's like morning, and like those
morning rays are coming through, you can like see them
coming through the window, and like in a way that's
so realistic that I just feel like I haven't really
seen in a game before. But I love that when
you're inside a building, you're still feeling like what time
of day it is in a more like realistic way.
I think, like the lighting is just stood out to
me in like a really huge way. That's maybe my
one complaint about this so far, as I think maybe
one of the things I was hoping for is that
like they would be able to remove some of the
loading zone stuff, not that they would make the whole
game just one loading zone, but like for me, when
I went into any of the major's guilds or Fighter's gilds,
there's like two or three stories in most of them,
and like each one of those is a different loading zone.
But I feel like with the tech we're at now,
like you probably could have made that one loading zone.
But I think once again, since this isn't a remake
and then then build all this stuff from scratch, it
probably just isn't that easy. You know, they'd have to
do a lot of work to like make these all
one loading zone even just fitting them in the world
in a realistic way.
Speaker 3: So that's fine, but.
Speaker 1: Also the load times a little bit, like they're definitely
not as bad as like playing on a three sixty,
of course, but like a little bit longer than I'd expect.
Like maybe they're better on PS five. I think it's
got a better SSD than the series X, but I'm
sure on PC it's it's you know, just depending on
how good your PC is and all that. But maybe
that's like my only kind of minor complaint but not
a big deal. But man, that fucking lighting is insane. Uh,
combat does not really it seemed like minor more like
visual stuff, like there's more sound effects and like sparks
if you like smash them on shield. There's a seems
like there's a couple of new both things that I
don't really recognize, So a couple of minor changes there.
Speaker 3: That's good.
Speaker 1: One find funny thing that I wondered if they would
leave in here or if they would fix it, is that.
One of my favorite bugs glitches in the original Oblivion
is like the paintbrush glitch. Did you ever use the
paintbrush glitch?
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
Speaker 1: So the paintbrush is just a random object in the
world that you see like forks and knives and plates
and you know, baskets stuff all over the random world.
You can pick up this stuff. But paintbrushes, for whatever reason,
did not have physics attached to them. It's just like
a bug. So when you drop a paintbrush, it just
like is floating there in mid air a little paintbrush,
but it's big enough that you can jump on top
of the paintbrush. And so if you had collected like
ten paintbrushes, Taylor, you could make a floating staircase of
paint brushes. That's like, you know, it's you gotta parkre
this stuff. It's like a small hip box of what
like you could stand on. But one of my favorite
things to do was if you could go in Imperial
City and minor spoilers for the end of Oblivion here,
which I know this game just came out, but it's
a twenty year old game. You know, like the the
in Imperial City when you get into like the huge
like Kaiju fight, like when you get to that point
in the game, Like if you you could do this
paintbrush glutch and I did this a couple of times.
You stack up a bunch of paintbrushes, you climb up
top to one of the building that like activates that
cut scene in the main game. If you go to
like the top of that building, you could like activate
the loading you could activate a loading zone from the
top of that that would trigger.
Speaker 3: The ending cut scene of the game.
Speaker 1: And so you could just like essentially beat the game
or like roll the main quest ending by like using
this paintbrush glitch to like glitch yourself up to the
top of this building and like activate it from behind,
which is something yeah, definitely did a couple of times.
So you can't do that anymore, the paint paint Maybe
you can't do it. Maybe you do it another way,
but you cannot do it through paintbrushes because now those
are a physics object and they fall on the ground
when you drop them, uh, which is which is fine,
But a funny thing that I noticed that they changed
no official mod support on this, although you know, they're
already mods for it if you're on PC. But I
guess just like for the last couple of Bethesda games
they've had mods you can download on consoles, that's not
the case here and it probably won't be the case.
Speaker 3: So it's like, technically they.
Speaker 1: Say no mod support, but of course you can still
download mods for it. It's just not like as supported
in a way that they normally would for some of
their games. So that's fine. What else I think, you know,
one funny thing, like almost I don't know if this
was like a hint that this was coming, but in Starfield,
the Adoring Fan is a character in that game that
you can pick as a perk and you'll like have
the adorin fan follow you around us. Of course, not
the same guy from Syria Dill. It's just like he
looks similar. It's the same voice actor, though, and so
I feel like I wonder if that was a little
bit of a hint that, like, we haven't forgot about Oblivion.
Oblivion is still around. The adoring Fan, one of the
most iconic characters in the game, still a thing. So
there you go. That's a thing, And let's see. I
think you know, this is just I think it's it's
just great. There's so many people that have not played
this game. You know, Skyrim is one of the best
selling games of all time, and that means that there's
a lot of people that just played Skyrim. I've never
played the other Elder Scrolls games, and now people can
play like the best looking Other Scrolls game ever and
a game that's still super fun. And yes it's yanky,
but it like, I don't know, I think it still
holds up. And it's not as good of an RPG
as like a Balder's Gate three, but it's just in
terms of exploration, open world design, variety, quest design, it's
just a fucking stellar game. So yeah, maybe you know,
before all this Scroll six comes out, I definitely want
to do like a bit more of a retro of
these games and like dive deep into some of the
details and do a full playthrough. And of course you
and I've only had a couple of days to play
this this remaster here, but I'm just so happy to
have Oblivion back in my life in a easily accessible
way that looks fantastic and play is just like I
remember it and still has the yank voice lines. And
I think one of the funniest things that happened for
me when I was walking around Shaden Hall. There's this
one guy who I got somewhat near I'm not even
that close, and he's like, don't waste my time. I
don't want to talk to you. And then I walked
for five steps, don't waste my time, and he was
going around every NPC just yell you know, the same
line five or six times, same delivery every time.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, I'm home. There's a perfect moment. So
I love this game. I'm so glad to have it.
Speaker 1: I will be playing a lot of it, and I'll
probably share some more fun adventures with it. But I'm
so excited to hear people's first time playing this game,
whether you're a Skyrim fan or not, I'm just excited
to hear how those people feel about this game and
a modern twenty twenty five lens, but such a delight.
I don't know if we'll get this for other Pothesta games.
Well I could say it was getting it for Fallout three,
but I don't know if we'll get it for Likemorrow
Wind or other Elder Scrolls games.
Speaker 3: So I'm just gonna take it in. I'm happy with this.
Speaker 1: This will hold me over until this trolls six hopefully
unless that game is like ten years away.
Speaker 3: But very happy to have it. Do you have any
other any thoughts on oblivion here?
Speaker 2: Oh? I don't think so. I think I hit everything
I needed to.
Speaker 3: Sounds good. Do you have a horse? Did you get
the horse from winning priory?
Speaker 2: I haven't. No, I haven't gotten a horse yet. I
think the Brotherhood quest line in here gives you a horse, right,
maybe I'm thinking of school.
Speaker 1: It's not shadow facts, So that's the name Gandalf's horse, right, it's.
Speaker 2: Something shadow though, I believe it's Yeah, it is shadows
conjuring dark Horse or something like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, something like that.
Speaker 2: I gotta look.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I should know that.
Speaker 1: That's That's just goes to show how it's been a
few years since I've.
Speaker 2: Played Shadow Mirror. That's right, Shadow Mirror.
Speaker 3: That's the one. Yeah, it had a shadow in there.
Do you have a favorite house?
Speaker 1: When you get enough money to buy a house, where
are you going to buy your first property? I know
the Imperial City is like the cheapest one, but where
are you going first?
Speaker 2: I usually go Imperial City right, it's easy to chattoo
right on the outside for the shack. Yeah, you got
that chest right when you walk in. So yeah, that'll
probably be be what I go to.
Speaker 1: And well, I guess now since it has all the DLC,
you also have the the castle battle Horn Castle I
think is the name of that. Did you ever use
that DLC back in the day. I don't recall that, Okay, cool, No, No,
it was just one of the random like you know
how they had like the spire and they had like
the Dunbarrow Cave or whatever, like they just had random
little one off DLCs that was like one.
Speaker 2: Location exactly what we're talking about. My cousin.
Speaker 1: Battle Horn Castle a huge castle. You gotta like clear
o some enemies when there's like secret passages. It's a
huge castle that it's like all yours. So I might
wait on a bit higher level canonically, so it feels
like I can fit in with that place. But yeah,
I'm excited to get that again and go see that
in true HD fashion and all that.
Speaker 3: All right, cool, let's let's take our first break. We
will be right back.
Speaker 1: Okay, we are back taylor Field Big day here. The
day we're recording is April twenty fourth, which means that
is the day that the switch to pre orders the
first wave of the Bad Boys went live. Tell me
how your morning went trying to, you know, get your
hands on one of these bad Boys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was. It was chaotic, to say the least.
I got up this morning and I thought, okay, well
I'm gonna I'm gonna try. I'm gonna try and get
a switch to. And Travis had messaged me, he said,
are you gonna go and get one? I was like, yeah,
I'm gonna get one. So I set up a contingency plan. Now,
where the local game stop is, it's it's really close
to where my wife works, and so I thought, okay, well,
my wife is gonna go to work and then she'll
be in her by she can scope it out. I
didn't think that there was gonna be a lineup, but
when she got there, there was a lineup. Now, Pruiter's
online start at nine am, and that specific center time
and the place the game stoblems up at ten, so
people were lined up well in advance waiting to get in.
My wife had to go to work, so she couldn't
wait in line. Obviously, so I thought, okay, that's okay.
But the reason and I set her up to go
in person was because when I got my Xbox Series X,
I couldn't get an online order, and for the life
of me, it just wasn't happening. So I took a
lunch at my job and I went to the game
stop and they had separate a separate amount of pre
orders available in store as opposed to what was online.
So it was thought, oh my gosh, this is this
is the way to do it. There wasn't a lineup
at the time because it was the Xbox Series X,
but I digress. This being Nintendo, it had a lineup.
So I thought, okay, when my wife, I'm not going
to make her wait in line. She's got to go
to work. So she went to work, and then I thought, okay,
I'm going to fight on the front lines here. I'm
gonna open up a tab on my phone, open up
a tab on my computer, and see if I can
get into the queue. And the queue the whole time
was like, oh four hours, five hours. It was taken forever.
I thought, great, this is not what I want. And
then Travis just messages me says like, oh, yeah, I
got one. I'm best Buy. I'm like, oh my god.
So I switched over to best Buy and by the
time that Q loaded it was too late. It did
say while I was in the queue, like we've sold
out of the regular switch to packs, but the switch
to Mario car bundles are still available. So that's the
one I wanted. That's the one what I ultimately got.
So Madison she after all my everything was saying sold out,
sold out, sold out, so I was running out of
lock and then Madison's she texted me and she's like, oh,
it's still available. I'm like, oh, what does this mean?
Like are you gonna go get it? And she doesn't
respond something, oh my god. So I'm thinking, like I
call the game stop something and I need to just
get confirmation like is it available, Like I'm gonna go
on my lunch, I'm gonna drive there. I'm gonna put
a proder down and get it. She I sent her
a bunch of texts saying like okay, well like call
me when you get in the line, like if you're
gonna go and get it, like I want to make
sure you get the right one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We
got to talk about this, and so she text me
back a receipt with my ex I gave her my
edge card. So she texted me back the receipt a
photo of it with the edge card, and I'm like,
oh my god. Like she's like, I got it, and
I'm like, oh my god, this is great. I was
so stoked and I'm looking at Hi'm like which one
did you get? Which which version? And she doesn't respond.
I'm thinking, oh my god, this is stressful because the
main receipt, which labels what you got was was down
but ebe game or GameStop staples like your debit transaction receipt,
so that that was right on top and the photo
it completely blocked out what she which bundle. She got something,
and fuck, this is stressing me out. So I had
to wait like half an hour before she responded and
she's like, I got the Mario Kart one. I was like,
oh nice, thank god. So that's that was. That was
around like twelve thirty when that finally unfolded. So it
was a very long warning, just trying to fight this
uphill battle. But yes, she she got the pre order,
in got the receipt, so I'm good for June.
Speaker 1: Hell, yeah, Yeah, I had a no journey whatsoever. I
just I was in the office this morning, couldn't couldn't
spend the time to go around to places or do
it online, so I did not get a pre order.
Still don't have one. I'm on the Nintendo waitless thing,
which they set up and intentionally to like prevent scalpers,
so we'll see if they were successful at that. I'll
let you know on May eighth, I think is the
day that that goes live, so we'll see if I'm
able to get one that way. I don't know, heartbroken
if I can't get one day one.
Speaker 3: I'm glad that you got one.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that Travis has got one too, so we'll
definitely have some coverage of the system here on side Quest,
even if it takes me a little bit to get one.
I'm just hoping to get one before Bonanza. That's my
goal at this point. But yeah, I'm I'm excited that
we're talking about this now because you know, I didn't
even know because I was waiting to talk to you
on side Quests, Like I didn't even know where your
hype level was on this console. In general, if you're
going to get one. There's obviously been in a lot
of conversation about how it's very pricey. I know you've
been very much looking forward to Mario Kart and I,
which is now Mario Kart World of course, So yeah,
what was it about would the concert for you that
I was like, Oh, there's one hundred percent of day one.
I got to pick this up, like like, why were
you so giddy to grab this bad boy?
Speaker 2: For me, it comes down to the backwards compatibility and
what's going to be available, and with Nintendo games, I
like to be more so in the now because Nintendo
is just to me, is very different from Xbox and PlayStation,
which is weird. It's just a personal thing, but it's
just it's it's a weird philosophy I have because just Nintendo,
I feel like, is they're very finicky with how they
do things, and I feel like it's something you want
to stay up to date with and current. With that
being said, I mean, you're not you're not in hot water.
If you still have like the original switch and the
switch to comes out like you're still you're still covered
for for a few years. You're still okay. But for
me personally, I just thought, you know, with with how
things are going on with with tariffs, whatnot, whatever you
want to call it, and just that this is probably
not going to go on sale for a while. I
just figured I might as well just jump on board
while I can, because I remember when I got my switch.
It was a couple of years after its release, but
up until that point, I remember just seeing that, Okay,
the switch is still like it's hard to get it.
It's proven to be difficult to acquire. So I thought, oh,
I don't want to run into that issue with this.
I want to be able to get it and know that, okay,
I can still play my games. The fact that it
comes with the GameCube Online thing, that's huge. I really
like that component. So there's a few things that I
really do like. And again, Mayo Kart was a big
kicker for me, really really like that. I don't have
a huge attachment to Docy Kong like you, Travis do,
but I'm not opposed to it. But at the end
of the day, I'm just thinking that we're going to
get some probably gonna get some really really cool new
new games on here, and I want to be able
to enjoy it as much as I love my Switch.
I just I like how they've made little quality of
life improvements on the switch too, like the way the
joy cons now clip it and magnets you know, to
the to the console. That's really nice, and a few
other little work little improvements. Yeah, so I'm I'm all
excited for it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, other than Mario Kart, which, of course you got
the bundles, you've already purchased that in theory, Like what
anything else from that initial direct that you're like immediate
day one purchase on, Like, are you picking up Metroid?
It sounds like Bonanza. You're more on the fence and
giving the price of some of these games, you're probably
not just gonna be buying stuff left right and center.
But yeah, like Prime anything else, even like the non
Nintendo stuff, just like a third party things that that
we're drawing you in.
Speaker 2: I'm not really like, I've never been super huge on
the Metroid just and not that I'm not a fan.
I'm just I've never really gotten in and played them.
Uh yeah, Kirby, that seems kind of fun. So maybe
maybe I'll buy that Nintendo Welcome Tour just kidding, I'm
not gonna pay money for.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Herby.
Speaker 1: Sorry, do you mean Kirby the expansion for fragot Land
or do you mean air.
Speaker 2: Rider the era the air Riders?
Speaker 3: Did you play the game back in the day on
game people?
Speaker 2: No? I did not, so I have no idea what
I'm really in store. It's just like a racing game,
is that right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Racing combat collectible game. I mean it's made by the
Smash Bros. Team, which is interesting. Yeah, I think it'd
be too.
Speaker 2: It's multiplayer, right, I'm assuming Yeah, okay, yeah, I think
it'd be a fun one to play with with Mattison.
Speaker 1: I think they dropped twenty twenty five on that bad Boy,
so that's coming out later this year.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, they're just exciting.
Speaker 1: I think I just gonna see what the price is
on that game, Like, I want to check it out
because it's sack Rai'm a big fan of Smash Bros.
Speaker 3: I want to see what's going on there.
Speaker 1: I've never played the original though, but like, am I gonna,
you know, drop one hundred and fifteen books on like
a gamble? Probably not, so we'll see what happens. I
hope they put the original one on the GameCube online.
They didn't have it in their little scissor real thing,
and they might not if they're trying to sell a
new one, but I definitely want to go back and
play that game because it looks weird and cool.
Speaker 3: M m yeah cool. H yeah.
Speaker 1: Let's so let's kind of segue that into a little
bit of Mario Kart World, which, yeah, you've been very
much looking forward to Mario Kart nine. Uh now World.
Of course you were wondering if, like, okay, is it
like double Dash is coming back that sort of mechanic.
What are they gonna do for like new stuff?
Speaker 3: How do you feel.
Speaker 1: About this kind of being like the fores the horizon
of Mario Kart, like open world exploration element of it,
finding secrets, collectibles like little mini mini quests, many side quests,
i'll call them, like just that generally being the direction.
Are you happy with that given that's that's the direction
they're going here for Mario Kart.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's a component, right, so it's not
like the only thing. It's not solely free rom am
I correct in that like you can.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean regular regular grand prixs and you know,
new items, new characters, all that regular stuff. But in
terms of like what makes this game unique. It's the
it's the world element.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I think that's fantastic. I think it's really
really a lot of fun that you can just rip
around out there in the open world. I think that's
really cool, and that's something very new for a Mario game,
at least in a Mario Kart. So I think it's
gonna be a lot of fun. I like it's between
that and Mario Party. I think we me and Madison
play play a lot of Mario Kart and two. Just
obviously my kid is still i'd say two years away
from from getting into this. Like she's aware of video games.
And I put the controller. I was playing Lego Star
Wars and I put the controller in her hand, one
without batteries and I had the other one, and she
was like engaging with it. So starting to ease her
into that. And I think by the time you know,
she gets of age, like maybe we'll see what Mario
Kart World has in terms of like DLC. But this
is gonna be a game for sure that I know
she's gonna want to play. And it's just with the
amount of characters in here and the amount of things
that you can do. I think a game like this
to have a free roam is great for kids. Kids
are gonna be able to zoom around. They're not gonna
have to feel like, oh, I'm coming twentieth place in
this Grand Prix, I'm sucking or whatever like that. They
could just rip around, have fun in a fun environment
that they're familiar with being Mario. So this is a
win win yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean I the more I've thought about that, because
I was like, I don't know, am I really gonna
use that feature much? Is it just gonna be something
that like when the game comes out, I'm gonna play
it for like two hours and then like never touch
it again.
Speaker 3: But I do think that it being the context.
Speaker 1: Of it being a Day one title and it being
a bundle pack in that like, probably most people are
gonna try and go for the pack in over not
having the pack in, So a lot of people are
gonna have this game. I feel like it's a great
thing to have Day one where yeah, you're gonna have
the situation where you get it, bring home your family,
or you know you're the one person your friend group
has a switch, everyone comes over to play play Mario
Kart and you play that together, but then you're gonna
have the moments where like I want to explore this
cons I want to play more of it, but you know,
I'm solo.
Speaker 3: What am I gonna do? What am I gonna play?
Single player wise?
Speaker 1: And it's like, oh yeah, here's just like a very
in depth single player mode for Mario like Mario Kart.
I can't think of the last time I played Mario Kart.
My own was maybe back in like probably when I
played on the DS, because like you know, it was
a DS, so I was only playing that on my own.
But otherwise, like I'm only ever playing this game with friends,
But this is a good incentive to want to go
in and it yeah, seeing more of it here. There's
like a little quest you're doing little like challenges, talking
to characters, You're unlocking costumes, you know, even like finding
shortcuts and other things for the maps.
Speaker 3: I don't know how much it'll be like that's how you.
Speaker 1: Unlock characters or like carts and things, or if it's
really just more for like unlocking costumes. It seems like
you go these Yoshi restaurants fast food restaurants, and that's
how you get new costumes.
Speaker 3: And whatnot.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think it seems like a decent mode,
And yeah, I don't know if it's one. I'm gonna
spend a ton of time with like maybe three or
four hours or something in that single player mode and
then it's just back to multiplayer. But it's a cool
thing to have have in the mix. Yeah, I guess
what are some other things that we have. Like one
thing that kind of stood out to me is like
we sort of saw this in the an initial trailer
but kind of got it fully con here that like
around this huge world, the one huge continuous open world
is like, yeah, you can just like go into the
water and you just like have a boat like Diddy
Kong style, and like some of the flying you can
do is like a lot more. It's not true like plane,
it's it is still the glide, but you can go
a lot further. It seems like, so I think that
the boat is like a really cool hybrid element. I'm
curious to see how many of the maps feature that. Like,
even what we saw here, it seems like quite a
few of them do have a lot of boat action
in them, and it's kind of not not so much
like the boat that we had in Mario Karta where
it's like your tires flip and you're just kind of hovering,
But it seems like you're a full on boat transition now,
So I'm pretty excited for that. I think that looks
pretty cool. But other than the world part, what really
stood out to you as like interesting mechanics that you're
excited to play with.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, because it's been a while since I
watched what they had unveiled with It's interesting mechanics.
Speaker 3: Though, m you need to throw some things at you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, throw some things at me, because I'm sure I
don't remember a lot of the specifics from when they
did the director.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think maybe the biggest one, like gameplay wise,
that I'm most excited for personally is just like almost
like more like parkour stuff, Like there's wall riding, there's
like grinding, and then they talk about how there's like
one of the new items is like the feather, which
just gives you like a little vertical boost, which it
seems like some shortcuts will only be accessible from that,
where it's like, Okay, you feather up to like grind
on this one thing, and then you jump over here
do a wall ride to transition to another grind, and
that's how you do this like whole shortcut situation. Like
that level of mastery I think will be really fun,
especially when you're playing the game. Let's say, like oftentimes
I'm maybe playing with my girlfriend or something like that.
You know, there's don't play a lout with Mario Kart,
so I'm like kind of wiping the floor with it.
It's like one of my maybe it's a little too boring.
I need a little challenge here, and I feel like
that that'll be the fun element where it's like, Okay, I
can like work on something like mastering some of these
courses where someone else can just like go through the
like linear kind of expected way.
Speaker 3: But it just feels these.
Speaker 1: Maps are gonna have a lot of lot more to them,
and that's where you and also through the single player
feature like explore some of these crazy out of bounds
shortcuts and things like that too.
Speaker 2: Mm hmmm. That probably is a rewindability too, Is that correct?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is true, So it doesn't it just rewinds
you and only you, not everyone else. And I think
I'm pretty sure I read in the fine print there
that you can only use that in free rome and
single player, so don't think that's the thing in multiplayer.
Like if you could do a Grand Prix race with
bots and do it, but I don't think you can
do it with other people. I could be wrong, but
I think I saw that little asterix line at the
bottom of the screen when they showed that feature off, okay,
which I think is great for the single player more so,
where it's like maybe you're doing some crazy series of
intense jumps and you mess up at some point and
like just resetting your position to like something that would
otherwise you have to do a full lap to get
back to. I think that's like a nice smart smart
solution there. Yeah, yeah, I'm excited for costumes. That was
something we've seen a little bit of before, but it
seems like a lot of the characters have multiple costumes.
Like we got like a mad Max looking wall Ouigi, Like,
hell yeah, that looks fantastic. It seems like the character's
leg screen is going to be a bit of a mess,
especially when like the like you have to flip through
multiple pages now, but then like all the costumes are
like separate character icons, so that's gonna be a total mess.
But like whatever, I'm down just to have access to
more characters and more costumes and all that. Can I
give you my theory here, Taylor, because I think one
of the biggest things with like Mario Kart eight was
the first time we've had crossover characters, with the exception
of I have a distinct memory of it, Mario Kart DS.
You could play as Rob, like Rob from Smash, like
the Robot. Oh yeah, no idea why he was in
there as a playable character. Super weird, but he was.
And other than that, it's like, okay, you know if
you count Diddy Kong and like Funky Kong as crossover characters,
but like you know, Donkey Kong stuff always integrated into Mario.
Speaker 3: But like Mario Kart.
Speaker 1: Eight, that was a big deal with that game is that,
Oh you got like your inklanes, you got your villagers,
you got Link. You don't have Captain Falcolm, but you
have his ship and you have like some F zero maps.
We haven't seen any of that so far. It's only
Mario stuff. And like they're bringing out the free show characters.
You know, you can play as Spiny and Shy Guy
and Penguin and Cow and all these things like they're
going deep cut on Mario characters, but we haven't seen
a single map or character that is not a Mario
distinct thing. So that's what my theory for DLC for
this game is gonna be. I think we're gonna get
separate worlds. You're gonna get like High Rule World, or
you'll get Animal Crossing World, and those will be like
little continents or islands or something that either stick onto
the outside of the map or they yeah, are just
like an island distinct on their own, and they have
like a Grand Prix worth of like there's four Zelda courses,
you know. You get one at like the top of
Gruda Mountain, you get one in like Longland Ranch or
whatever it is. So you kind of get four maps,
you get like maybe two or three or four characters
from Zelda stuff, and then you get your Animal Crossing one,
you get your whatever, you get your whatever. Because like
the way it's set up right now, Yeah, of course
they could have DLC maps, but like, I don't know
which Mario character is not in this seems like every
Mario character under the sun is already playable, So what
would you do for DLC and so that's what I
think we'll get, and I would.
Speaker 3: Love to get like an F zero world.
Speaker 1: I'm just picking on Zelda and Animal Crossing because we
got those worlds in Mario Kart eight. But I think
that would be a really really fun way, and I
think people would buy that that big time. People would
spend for that, or they could put it on the
Nintendo Switch Online as a bonus there as well. I
would love to see that. What do you think about
that theory?
Speaker 2: I would love to see that too. I think that
would be awesome yet, because you got, yeah, your whole
your world here with Mario, and then oh a new
continent disappeared and you go off to that way and
it's like, oh, here's High Rule, Like, oh this is cool.
It's got a whole bunch of like Legend of Zelda
centric races and grand prize that you can do, and
then yeah, you get those characters like Gan in Door.
Speaker 1: Would be your top series, top series that you'd love
to see.
Speaker 3: Get a.
Speaker 2: Hot to Molly Fire emblem one would be pretty cool.
Speaker 3: Travis would be pissed. I feel like that happened. That
would be.
Speaker 1: Okay, interesting pick, That's not what I thought you were
gonna say, what do you think that's that's your top
pick or are you just trying.
Speaker 2: To it's top two top two. My number one would
probably be Legend of Zelda, but I feel like that's
just would be great. I'd want to spice it up,
and I feel like a fire emblem or a Kirby.
I think you could have some fun with those.
Speaker 1: Kirby, especially with air Riders coming out. That would be
a good little unison, Like you could get like a
Little Star as one of the carts, get some Kirby
characters in there.
Speaker 3: That could be really cool. I think. I think that's
a great pick.
Speaker 1: I think forgotten Line or not Forgotten line, but Kirby
could have a Forgotten Line course in there. I think,
I mean more have zero stuff. I love those courses
in Mayo eight. I think they're super fun. And it's
to me absolutely criminal that cap'n Falcon was not officially
added as a character in that game, even though he
had courses, Like what is going on? I know he's
a smaller deal and like villagers and link and stuff,
but come on, put put my boy in there. So
I'd love to see that. I think a Metroid world
would be super cool, just like a weird alien world
where you're going.
Speaker 3: Through like the belly.
Speaker 1: Of the Beast and there's crazy stuff going on and
metroids are trying to attack you. You get Samus playable,
get Ridley in a car to like hell, yeah, I
think that would be super fun.
Speaker 3: So maybe, and I think.
Speaker 1: Oh my pick beyond that though, I think Pickman would
be cool. Just get like get like a mini you know,
your mini characters in like a huge world where you're
because we kind of got that Mark Cat I remember
we got that bathroom level.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can get like a bunch of things like.
Speaker 3: That, which I think would be really really cool.
Speaker 2: Could you see a Sonic like Green Hill Zone world
or something like that.
Speaker 3: I think that would be a great idea.
Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, I think that would be like for the
first time for it to go outside Nintendo properties, the
first time it goes third party. I think that'd be
honestly a great pick. And that's fitting because Smash was
the first time that had third party characters was with
Brawl where they had Sonic and Snake, so obviously two
separate ips in there. But yeah, like Sonic was of
course one of the first two third parties to make
it into smash, So I think that I think that'd
be fitting. I think that'd be really cool. And isn't
that a really a thing though? Isn't like Sonic cart
Racing a game?
Speaker 2: Mm? It is? I remember playing it at a party.
Speaker 3: Is it a new game or an old game? Where
is there?
Speaker 2: I want to say it's older. I remember there might
be multiple.
Speaker 1: I feel like a new one came out somewhat recently,
not to say that that would be disqualified from being here.
I was just thinking it'd be weird for Sonic to
be a fast character, but like, why would he be
in a car?
Speaker 3: Can't he just like run faster than a car.
Speaker 2: But then it's like, you know, Sonic team racing. So
this came out on the.
Speaker 1: Switch to actually it looks yeah, And I mean there
was also like Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games.
They've crossed over many times before, So I think that
would be I think that'd be a really good pick. Yeah,
and you'd get like the whole crew, get like Sonic Shadow,
tails and Knuckles or something like that, get like full
characters in there.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that'd be cool, and I think people would
pony up even more dollars on this expensive game to
get access to something like that. From the maps that
we did see in game, were there any highlights to you,
any maps that sound know that you're excited to race?
Speaker 2: Just give me something that's like Movemu Meadows all over again,
because that's what Metal is back. It looks like, yeah,
that's back for sure. I knew the cow is back
as a character.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they talked about how the maps, like some of
those OGI ones are back, but of course they have
to contextualize them within like the realm of the greater world,
so they're in there, and yeah, they're like, you definitely
see Moon move Metas in there. Maybe not in this direct,
but in like the previous trailer we saw that, so
I think that's definitely in there, which is yeah, a
classic from sixty four Boo Cinema I think looks really fun.
It's like a creepy Boo haunted level mixed with a cinema.
So you're like going through, you're like driving into a
huge movie screen.
Speaker 3: But then it just like fades away. That looked really fun.
Speaker 1: Warrio's Shipyard, like it feels like there may just be
like a creepy area of the map where there's a.
Speaker 3: Bunch of creepy ass horror levels.
Speaker 1: And like, I feel like that's gonna be my jam
because I always love the we Just mansion level, the
Bowser levels, So very excited for those. Yeah, I mentioned
the old maps kind of can getting contextualized. I mean
because of this world element, Like there's a whole day
night cycle in this game, so every map will have
a little bit more variety in that way because of that,
Like you'll just have I don't know how that's gonna
work for Grand Prix if it's always the same, it's
probably just random, But I think that'll be cool to
get a little day night mixture.
Speaker 3: For each of these.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, it seems like you no longer picked the wheels
for your car. You just pick your and you don't
I don't think you picked the parasol or the umbrella thing.
I think you just pick your car now. So I
think they've simplified that a bit.
Speaker 2: Okay, so it's not as heavily like customizable then with
different stats.
Speaker 1: I think maybe it's just more customizable because you have
more characters and like I don't know if like Mario
has stat but then like Cowboy Mario has different stats
and then Sushi Chef Mario has different stats. I don't
know if that's how they would do it, Like maybe
you get a little customization there of like certain ones
are quicker or slower or something. So yeah, I'm not
too sure how that works. New items. There's actually a
lot of them. There's a coin shell which.
Speaker 3: You throw out.
Speaker 1: It looks like a bit of a red shell follows
the path, but it drops coins behind it. I'm guessing
coins increase your Mac speed and maybe I used to
buy unlocks or something. Not too sure. Ice flour that's
a great addition. Hammer like the hammer Bro Hammers. I
think that's gonna be really fun. That's the one I'm
really excited for as well. The Mega Mushroom, which you
turn into a giant for a bit. I'm pretty sure
that was in the Mario Kart Wii, so I think
that's a callback one, but I could be wrong about that.
Speaker 3: It looks cool.
Speaker 1: The feather, as I mentioned earlier, which is like just
gives you a vertical boost, which seems like it's mostly
used to either dodge things on the ground like a
shell coming for you, or used to access shortcuts, and
then the other one is cam in. Camic will like
come in here and use magic Spell, which seems like
it has like a bit of a random effect. So
I'm guessing that means that Camic's not a racer anymore,
which he wasn't Deluxe.
Speaker 3: Right, So that's sad.
Speaker 1: If you're a comic diehard fan, Yeah, you have every
other character under the sun, so I'm sure that's fine.
So that's like a lot of new items. I feel
like every Mariocard has like one or two new items,
but this one has like six or seven, so I
feel like they went above and beyond with the with
the new items.
Speaker 2: Yeah, love it.
Speaker 1: What else we talked about the free room a bit.
There's the Knockout Tour mode, which nothing really new in
the direct about that, but that looks like a cool.
Speaker 3: Mode, a little Battle Royale element.
Speaker 1: You know, up to twenty four racers, that's huge, and
because that you can have it like four teams if
you're doing like team races, which is cool. Not that
I know twenty three people who are going to have
this game and I can never take advantage of that, really,
but it's cool. Nonetheless, I think that's pretty much it.
You know, a lot of people were pretty disappointed with
the direct, which I'm kind of confused by it, Like,
I feel like it showed off a lot of cool things,
a lot of great footage, me even more hype for
the game. Confirm that I, you know, definitely getting the
Mario Kart Bundle for the Switch. I definitely want this game,
and so yeah, easy day one purchase for a lot
of people. And I think I think a lot of
people will go for that bundle. Why wouldn't you, Oh yeah,
very much looking forward to this game.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I think the bundle. I think there's
a lot of parents to think, Okay, we just want
the console, that's it, and they're not going to be
quickly doing the math and like, oh, I should have
got the bundle because you're saving money technically instead of
paying like ninety or one hundred dollars or whatever it
is for.
Speaker 1: So you saved like thirty forty bucks by getting the
bundle essentially.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I mean this is just this is Mario
Kart is such a staple and any Nintendo console, I
have got to have Mario Kart and gotta have a
Mario party. So I'm very much looking forward to this thing.
It's gonna be a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: Are you gonna get the Jamboree Update Jamboree TV?
Speaker 2: Oh that was like a whole bunch of new mini
games in the Mario Party games.
Speaker 1: It's like a lot of it or yeah, I don't Yeah,
I guess I think that, Yeah, a lot of them
with like the mouse control adding that, but it's also
like incorporating like the camera, which I'm guessing you're not
getting the webcam camera thing.
Speaker 2: I don't have any need for it now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So yeah, it seems like you're kind of paying
for mostly that camera stuff and then like a couple of.
Speaker 3: New mini games.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I don't know if you need to shell
out twenty bucks for that.
Speaker 2: No, No, I can't justify that, you know, if it
was like four ninety nine, sure, but it's around twenty
bucks or more.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, which that finally came out, and I think
they were they because you know, I think when you
look at like PlayStation and stuff, like for most of
their games that they've had the upgrade, like PS five
upgrade for it's pretty much always like ten bucks across
the board, I think. But it seems like Nintendo's taking
more of a variable approach where they're basing it on
how much work I guess they put into it, where
it seems like some of them, like I read that
Kirby is like twenty bucks. I think that's us too,
so it maybe twenty five Canadian like I wanted to
play that and I love that game, but I'm not
shouting out twenty five bucks for like one new level
or something, So I don't know. We'll see what they
do there, but yeah, it seems like they're going to
be keeping the prices variable and all that. Any other
thoughts about Mario Kart or any switch to stuff that
was hot on your mind here.
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I think that's it.
Speaker 3: Okay, sounds good. Thank you for joining me.
Speaker 1: This is a fun little dual Mario Kart Oblivion episode,
which is always a good set of topics to have.
Thank you for joining me, Thank you everon for listening.
We'll see you again next week.
Speaker 3: Bye.