Speaker 1: Welcome back, everyone to the Game Informer Show, a weekly
Speaker 1: podcast covering the video game industry. Join us every Friday
Speaker 1: for a discussion about the latest gaming news, reviews, and
Speaker 1: exclusive reveals, alongside Game and Former staff and special guests
Speaker 1: from around the industry. I'm one of your hosts today,
Speaker 1: Alex van Aiken. Today I'm joined by Kyle Hilliard. How
Speaker 1: are you hello?
Speaker 2: Doing?
Speaker 3: OK? Normal? Good week? Yeah? Sleepy? You know?
Speaker 4: Oh? Yeah, that's fair, that's fair.
Speaker 1: We're we have chronicled the first winter, the first false
Speaker 1: spring in Minneapolis. I believe we're now experiencing the second
Speaker 1: false spring, so that means only one more false spring
Speaker 1: till we're done hibernating.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: Brian Shay, how you doing?
Speaker 2: I'm great. I just played what is my favorite game
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty six so far, and we're gonna talking
Speaker 2: about on this episode.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I am hopping on a plane tomorrow to go to
Speaker 2: Sunny Florida to visit my family, so I will be
Speaker 2: experiencing actual spring.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's awesome. I'm happy for you.
Speaker 1: Of course, if you want to support the show, the
Speaker 1: best way to do that is to pick up a
Speaker 1: copy of Game and Former magazine, which you can do
Speaker 1: by going to gaminformer dot com slash subscribe. You can
Speaker 1: get an issue delivered to your ten issues to be specific,
Speaker 1: delivered to your door every year it is available. Print
Speaker 1: is our most popular format, but you can also get
Speaker 1: a digital if you are overseas or if you just don't,
Speaker 1: if you want a cheaper option, to be honest, and
Speaker 1: if you are not wanting to subscribe, maybe you want
Speaker 1: to gift a version to a friend, you can go well,
Speaker 1: you can give subscriptions, but that's not my point. My
Speaker 1: point is you can go to newsstands like Barnes and Noble,
Speaker 1: game Stop and Books a million in the States and
Speaker 1: pick up a copy. I believe they run eleven ninety
Speaker 1: nine for the the news stand version, and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's full of great stuff. Our Our latest issue that
Speaker 1: we revealed earlier this week is on Invincible versus We.
Speaker 1: We flew out Marcus Eric and interviewed Robert Kirkman, I
Speaker 1: believe is a Corey Walker, the artist I believe.
Speaker 3: And played got to play Duplicate, which I don't think
Speaker 3: anyone has played yet.
Speaker 1: Yeah no, no, yeah, So we got a a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff happening. So it's it's a great issue, great
Speaker 1: time to get in on board if you haven't yet,
Speaker 1: and it's the best way to support the show, help
Speaker 1: keep the lights on. We appreciate it, all right, guys,
Speaker 1: Let's let's get into it.
Speaker 4: Brian, you you teased it.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be talking about Pokemon Pocopia here in just
Speaker 1: a second, and then later on Scott Pilgrim ex Kyle
Speaker 1: reviewed it for us and be a shorter, more succinct show.
Speaker 1: But two really, I think really big, mostly pretty anticipated games.
Speaker 1: I mean Pokemon Scott Pilgrim. Those are two big, two
Speaker 1: big franchises.
Speaker 4: So let's get into it.
Speaker 2: And also quick though, speaking of big games that are
Speaker 2: coming out this week, I did want to shout out
Speaker 2: that Nintendo Indie World presentation because we got Mini Shoot Adventures,
Speaker 2: which I have been banging the drum since twenty twenty
Speaker 2: four that this game absolutely slaps. It's like Zelda, like
Speaker 2: Zelda Overworld, like top down Zelda Overworld, only instead of
Speaker 2: a little guy with a sword, you're a spaceship that
Speaker 2: just cruises around and it's.
Speaker 4: I never played it. I need to play.
Speaker 2: It's so good and it just hit switch to. That
Speaker 2: was part of one of the announcements during the indie world,
Speaker 2: and I just wanted to give a quick shout to that.
Speaker 2: I give it a nine point twenty five back on
Speaker 2: when it was just on Steam. Now that it's on
Speaker 2: switch To, which is the perfect home for it. There's
Speaker 2: a switch and a switch To version, and it's a
Speaker 2: free upgrade, so if you don't have a switch To
Speaker 2: yet and you get the switch one version and then
Speaker 2: upgrade for free later. It is bullet Hell twin stick
Speaker 2: shooter in a Zelda style like top down environment, and
Speaker 2: it is one of my favorite games of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: And then there's all so Blueprints, which just hit switch
Speaker 2: Too this week, and I mean, I think everybody on this.
Speaker 4: Game is well one of my games of the year.
Speaker 1: I think I think in ten years time when I
Speaker 1: look back at twenty it's always hard when you're doing
Speaker 1: end of year stuff, You're like, ah, is it this
Speaker 1: one or this one? I think in ten years time
Speaker 1: the game from last year I'm gonna be thinking about
Speaker 1: the most is probably Blueprints.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean Charles at nine point five.
Speaker 2: It was in our top ten Games of twenty twenty
Speaker 2: five as an outlet, and it's just one of the
Speaker 2: most incredible games of last year, and that's available now
Speaker 2: on switch To, and that is a perfect switch To
Speaker 2: game because it like it is just such like a
Speaker 2: one more run type of roguelike experience. Yeah, And like
Speaker 2: I was thinking, like I don't want to carry around
Speaker 2: a notebook if I'm playing it, like on a trip
Speaker 2: or something. But then I was like, oh wait, I
Speaker 2: carry my phone with me everywhere. There's a notesap in there.
Speaker 2: There's also a screenshot functionality on the switch So it's like,
Speaker 2: that's I think that's you can make. That's a perfect
Speaker 2: game for it. And both of those games are incredible
Speaker 2: and are on switch To right now.
Speaker 3: So un shot Out Mini Shootings Out Okay, cool cool? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I think on my top ten I think for that
Speaker 3: year as well. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean we're talking to two diehard Zelda fans here,
Speaker 2: and we fully vouched for that game. So if you're
Speaker 2: a fan of any of those, any of those genres, really,
Speaker 2: whether it's twin stick shooters, bullet hells, even though it
Speaker 2: doesn't have the degree of difficulty that there is like
Speaker 2: typically no associated with that, yeah yeah it does. It's
Speaker 2: bullet hell elements, twin stick shooting, core gameplay and Zelda
Speaker 2: style exploration, which is just like a hodgepodge of brilliance
Speaker 2: from them from my perspective because it's it's so good.
Speaker 2: But yeah, Blueprints is also like one of the best
Speaker 2: games you can play on the switch to right now.
Speaker 4: I think I was bummed that we didn't get Mean
Speaker 4: to the Hollow or dropped.
Speaker 2: Right that I can't wait for that game.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was hoping that was going to be like the
Speaker 1: one last thing, but Blueprints took that spot instead, I think.
Speaker 2: But yeah, before we got into the Meteor topics, I
Speaker 2: wanted to shout out in case anybody listening to this
Speaker 2: did not see that presentation, which I think was one
Speaker 2: of the better Nintendo Indie World presentations we've.
Speaker 4: Ever got in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's also a new game from Clay Entertainment which
Speaker 2: didn't Starve, and Mark of the Ninja and Invisible Ink
Speaker 2: and games like that like two point five D Brawler,
Speaker 2: which it looks like Castle Crashers but with their art style,
Speaker 2: Like holy crap. I'm just recapping that on my podcast Rockwood. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: so yeah, I was just like I was looking at
Speaker 2: like the recap and I was like, man, this was
Speaker 2: just a solid Indie World presentation from start to finish,
Speaker 2: a lot of great stuff, including a game that you played.
Speaker 2: Kyle Denshattack is coming to switch to now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I got a big Dentsha Tech feature in the
Speaker 3: Invincible issue of the magazine where I talked to the
Speaker 3: developers and talk to them a lot about their sort
Speaker 3: of love of the Dreamcast and how Dnshittack kind of
Speaker 3: feels like a sort of a contemporary Dreamcast game. And
Speaker 3: then that Traguler that they showed during the Nintendo event
Speaker 3: was like really showed a lot of the more like
Speaker 3: what I would assume is like later game and saying
Speaker 3: of that game Denshittek by the way, just for contextualize,
Speaker 3: it's like you are, You're on You're controlling a train,
Speaker 3: and you're like doing like Tony Hawk style stunts, like
Speaker 3: on rails on a train. But it's just it's just
Speaker 3: like this Bonker's anime inspired very cool. I liked. I
Speaker 3: liked what I played of it for sure. Literally on rails, yeah,
Speaker 3: literally leap off of them and do tricks. That's crazy.
Speaker 2: But sorry, sorry to hijack that what you're doing.
Speaker 1: Glad that you brought it up. Because I think that,
Speaker 1: you know, like you said, there's a lot of games
Speaker 1: that and there's a lot of people out there that
Speaker 1: you know, switches their primary console or like maybe they
Speaker 1: have a switch and they don't they haven't upgraded to
Speaker 1: next gen on PS five in place that you know,
Speaker 1: I think it's I think it's great. But speaking of
Speaker 1: switch to the new exclusive Pokemon Pocopia, please, I I
Speaker 1: want to hear all about it.
Speaker 4: This is.
Speaker 1: Up there with my most anticipated games. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: say my most anticipated. It might be depending on the day,
Speaker 1: but regardless, very excited to hear about this thing and
Speaker 1: how it how it lands.
Speaker 4: The execution.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I think that a lot of people when they
Speaker 2: saw this game, they were just like, oh, it's Animal
Speaker 2: Crossing but Pokemon. And I think there is a degree
Speaker 2: of that that that ended up being true. But I
Speaker 2: think that Dragon Quest Builders is the much more like,
Speaker 2: the much more apt comparison. And that makes sense because
Speaker 2: this is from Omega Force, which did Dragon Quest Builders,
Speaker 2: So totally I would say it's the comparison or the
Speaker 2: recipe that I kind of gave on my podcast was
Speaker 2: it's like sixty percent dragon Quest Builders twenty percent Minecraft
Speaker 2: and then like maybe ten percent animal crossing and then
Speaker 2: ten percent Viva pinata. Okay, So it's like, you know,
Speaker 2: basically it's a lot more linear than animal crossing is,
Speaker 2: at least in its narrative. There is an overarching narrative
Speaker 2: that they are consistently pushing you towards doing. But within
Speaker 2: those that narrative, there's also a like you know, you're
Speaker 2: going from giant sandbox to giant sandbox, and you're befriending
Speaker 2: and attracting Pokemon to your environment. Basically like you wake
Speaker 2: up as a diddo who if you're unfamiliar with, can
Speaker 2: kind of transform into anything, right, like mostly Pokemon, but
Speaker 2: in this case, it transforms into its human trainer that
Speaker 2: it can't find, and it leaves this cave that he
Speaker 2: wakes up in. He has a poked x, which is
Speaker 2: presumably left by their trainer, and you find a tank
Speaker 2: growth and the tank growth is like, oh yeah, like
Speaker 2: humans fled, like humans are no longer here, and you
Speaker 2: have to like and like you look around and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: something terrible happened in this world. Like the first environment
Speaker 2: is just completely it's literally called withered wasteland. So you
Speaker 2: look out there and like the entire area is just
Speaker 2: brown grass and dead trees and like wilting bushes and stuff.
Speaker 2: And the first Pokemon you find and is Squirtle. So
Speaker 2: you go up to Squirtle and you talk and he's like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: I need a place to live.
Speaker 4: It's like Mystery Dungeon where they're actually talking to you.
Speaker 2: Yes, it is. It is one of those rare games
Speaker 2: where you actually have like conversations in our language with
Speaker 2: Pokemon because poon you're playing as a Pokemon, and it's
Speaker 2: fun to see how they attribute personalities to them. So, like,
Speaker 2: you know, one of the earlier Pokemon that you attract
Speaker 2: is Cyther, and you look at Cither you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: I bet he's going to be a jerk because he
Speaker 2: just looks like a scary bug with blades on his arms.
Speaker 2: And he's like, what's up, bro, how's it going?
Speaker 4: And it's like that's.
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't be a Mortal Kombat scene real quick. So
Speaker 2: you know, Squirtle's like, oh, I need a place to live.
Speaker 2: And but here's how you do water gun. So he
Speaker 2: teaches you and because your ditto, you transform into Squirtle
Speaker 2: very briefly, or parts of Squirtle, and you can use
Speaker 2: water gun and you can go around and like you said, oh,
Speaker 2: I want like like living grass to live in, not
Speaker 2: this dead dry stuff, and like he's like, so you
Speaker 2: have to go in like water a patch of grass
Speaker 2: and then that that is his habitat. Then, so like
Speaker 2: every pokemon has habitats that they want to live in,
Speaker 2: and you know, some of that's like yeah, so you
Speaker 2: go around, you're like, all right, well, Squirtle needs four
Speaker 2: patches of green grass, so you water that and he's like, oh,
Speaker 2: thank you so much, and then you water another area
Speaker 2: of green grass and then you know, Bulbosar shows up
Speaker 2: and it's like, hey, thanks so much, and here's how
Speaker 2: you do leafage, which will make it so you can
Speaker 2: actually grow grass around wherever you want it to be,
Speaker 2: and then that attracts charmander, and then charmander can help
Speaker 2: you like light stuff on fire, so like if you
Speaker 2: need to make a campfire, which will attract another certain
Speaker 2: type of pokemon. Every pokemon there's so there's a pokeadex
Speaker 2: that you have that is like a pokedex in a
Speaker 2: mainline game where you are filling that out with Pokemon
Speaker 2: that you collect in this game and by collect you're
Speaker 2: befriending them. You're not catching them or anything like that.
Speaker 2: There's no battling in this game. It's for violence, no conflict. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's it's legitimately. This is the most animal crossing part
Speaker 2: of this game. Where you are you're building habitats. They're
Speaker 2: coming over and they're like, oh, cool, you mind if
Speaker 2: I live here, and you're like, yep, go for it,
Speaker 2: and they're like, cool, I can help you if you
Speaker 2: need anything. So like a lot of Pokemon that you
Speaker 2: meet won't teach you anything like it will just be
Speaker 2: like they are there to live there. Your job is
Speaker 2: to make their lives comfortable. And the more comfortable your
Speaker 2: pokemon are, the higher your environment level, and the more
Speaker 2: the higher your environment level. One, you need to raise
Speaker 2: your environment level as high as possible for the sake
Speaker 2: of the story. But two, as you raise that level,
Speaker 2: it opens up new stuff in the shop, which is
Speaker 2: also extremely important. So like, you know, you make Charmander
Speaker 2: his patch of grass and he lives there, and then
Speaker 2: like one day he's like, hey, you know, like I
Speaker 2: could use more comfort in my house, so I get
Speaker 2: I like crafted him a bed and put it next
Speaker 2: to his patch of grass and he's like, oh, thank
Speaker 2: you so much, and then suddenly his his comfort rating
Speaker 2: raises from like average to nice, and then there's like
Speaker 2: another level above that, but like the more comfortable your
Speaker 2: pokemon are and the more pokemon you have that are
Speaker 2: in like good standing, the higher your environment level goes.
Speaker 2: And then that opens up a whole bunch of new avenues.
Speaker 2: But like you know, as you go you find more pokemon,
Speaker 2: you new systems are introduced, Like you know, you get
Speaker 2: like a smelting furnace where you can have pokemon that
Speaker 2: have control over fire, like Charmander or Magma or whoever.
Speaker 2: They can actually burn stuff so like they'll they'll turn
Speaker 2: like iron ore that you mine out of the ground
Speaker 2: into iron ignets and that is used in crafting or
Speaker 2: like you know, oh I dug up all this sand
Speaker 2: I can put it in this furnace and have a
Speaker 2: Pokemon that uses fire turn it into sheets of glass.
Speaker 4: And is that with the express purpose of for building?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: So building there's also so in addition to like crafting
Speaker 2: and everything like that, where it's like, oh, I specifically
Speaker 2: need this one thing, like Charmander wants a bed, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna build him a bed at this crafting table. You
Speaker 2: can also there's there's buildings that you want to actually construct,
Speaker 2: and the main thing is these Pokemon centers. Every environment
Speaker 2: has a Pokemon center that has been destroyed, and you
Speaker 2: learn like what's going on through throughout this narrative, and
Speaker 2: it's actually one of my favorite.
Speaker 3: Parts real quick, like is the story. There is a
Speaker 3: story and it's interesting question.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you are pulling back the threads of like why
Speaker 2: is humanity no longer in this Pokemon world? Like that
Speaker 2: there is a story behind that, and a lot of it,
Speaker 2: you know, some of it is like through like dialogue,
Speaker 2: but a lot of it is through like finding, like
Speaker 2: exploration and finding like journal entries or like newspaper clippings
Speaker 2: of what's going on or like here's and you can
Speaker 2: also find other stuff like I found a magazine article
Speaker 2: about a gym leader. I'm not gonna spoil as I'm
Speaker 2: gonna keep this as spoiler free as possible, but it's
Speaker 2: it quickly becomes apparent that this is taking place in
Speaker 2: a specific region in the Pokemon world. So like I
Speaker 2: found like a gym leader's like a magazine profile about
Speaker 2: one of the gym leaders from a past game, and
Speaker 2: that unlocked that gym leader's like appearance that you can
Speaker 2: apply to Ditto, so you can you can you can
Speaker 2: unlock like hair styles of something.
Speaker 4: Random exploration.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a random exploration. Like I found like a oh,
Speaker 2: here is this gym leaders like he he is this,
Speaker 2: and I don't want to say too much to give
Speaker 2: away who it is, but like and then it's like
Speaker 2: Ditto thinks for a second, and then Ditto can transform
Speaker 2: into like a kind of facsimile of that gym leader. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and it's like, this is your new outfit. Do you
Speaker 2: want to keep it that way? If not, you can
Speaker 2: always transform later into this. And it's like just like
Speaker 2: a way to customize your DODO because like when you
Speaker 2: first get.
Speaker 4: How many of those have you found? Started interrupt?
Speaker 2: I mean there's it's not just gym leaders either. Like
Speaker 2: I found assumption. I found something for like, uh, a
Speaker 2: very iconic specific thing. Again trying to step around spoilers there,
Speaker 2: but I wore that. I wore, I wore that for
Speaker 2: most of the game. But I probably found like six
Speaker 2: or seven in costumes and like maybe four hairstyles. But
Speaker 2: I have not found everything very clearly because there are
Speaker 2: some characters that would be in that same area of like,
Speaker 2: they obviously have stuff for all of those all the
Speaker 2: gym leaders, I would imagine are a lot of the
Speaker 2: iconic characters from that game in that region.
Speaker 3: It's crazy that they made a Pokemon game where every
Speaker 3: character you know in love is dead. It's kind of
Speaker 3: a you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's there's stuff. I mean, I don't know
Speaker 2: how far in the future this is supposed to take
Speaker 2: place in this region, so maybe they maybe they were
Speaker 2: just like it's.
Speaker 3: Like a Tears of the Kingdom situation where it's like
Speaker 3: it's at the end, you know, like don't worry about
Speaker 3: like we're not talking numbers here, but it's at the end.
Speaker 2: But I'm wondering, is this like thousands of years in
Speaker 2: the future, or is this like twenty years from now?
Speaker 2: Could characters still be alive?
Speaker 3: Like there's gonna be a nuclear Pokemon in Wind and Waves.
Speaker 2: That explains a lot about what this what's going on
Speaker 2: in this world. But no, it I mean, it's it's
Speaker 2: fun to find the narrative and it takes a while
Speaker 2: to get through the story. You know, I I before
Speaker 2: I even really touched the other part of this game,
Speaker 2: which we can talk about in a second. The narrative
Speaker 2: took me over forty hours to get through, and that
Speaker 2: is I would say pretty linear. You go through several
Speaker 2: different environments, you know. The first one is withered Wasteland,
Speaker 2: which is, you know, just a grasslands area that is
Speaker 2: completely dead when you get there, and your objectives are
Speaker 2: primarily to attract new Pokemon work with them to figure
Speaker 2: out how can we end this drought that has hit
Speaker 2: this area and cause it to rain, and also rebuilding
Speaker 2: the Pokemon center in every environment is also pretty important
Speaker 2: as well. So that is the first biome, and that
Speaker 2: takes a lot of exploration. It takes a lot of like,
Speaker 2: all right, I gotta figure out how to get this Pokemon.
Speaker 2: And that's where the habitat des comes in handy. As
Speaker 2: you explore around the area, there's these little like sparkling
Speaker 2: parts sitting on like different parts of the ground or
Speaker 2: in the environment, and you go up to there and
Speaker 2: it's a hint about like, oh, here is a hint
Speaker 2: for a habitat that you could build nearby that would
Speaker 2: attract a new Pokemon, and so like the like. There
Speaker 2: was one that I found early on that was like, oh, well, here.
Speaker 2: If you do four patches of grass in the shade
Speaker 2: of a tree that is all living, so you have
Speaker 2: to water them to bring them back to life and
Speaker 2: then build the like grow the grass using the bulbosars
Speaker 2: leafage that he taught you, you can attract a cyther
Speaker 2: and so that's what I did. And then you get
Speaker 2: you meet the cyther, and the cyther teaches you cut,
Speaker 2: which allows you to like you know, cut through certain
Speaker 2: objects and and and like there's like debris and some
Speaker 2: some environments and you can use cut to like chop
Speaker 2: those into wood. And then you can bring that wood
Speaker 2: to cyther and he can turn it into lumber, which
Speaker 2: is used for building. So it's like a process.
Speaker 3: And then like.
Speaker 2: You know, same thing like if charmander is there, you
Speaker 2: and be like, hey, I found this clay and you
Speaker 2: can give it to him and he will he'll use
Speaker 2: his fire to convert that clay into bricks that you
Speaker 2: can use for building. So it's like these pokemon, even
Speaker 2: if they don't teach you something, they have utility that
Speaker 2: you can they can you can use, and same thing,
Speaker 2: like you know, there's a the second environment is a
Speaker 2: beach area. No wait, no, that's the that's the third environment.
Speaker 2: The second environment is like a mountainous area and it's
Speaker 2: it's very mining heavy, so like you can build railways
Speaker 2: that like connects the entire thing and almost almost death
Speaker 2: stranding esk in that regard where it's like there's like
Speaker 2: remnants of a railway. It's a strand game. And so like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you're like every environment like presents different opportunities, even though
Speaker 2: some of the gameplay mechanics are very very similar from
Speaker 2: environment to environment, and it's it's more like I really
Speaker 2: enjoyed the mystery of like figuring out what happened to
Speaker 2: this world. I enjoyed the Easter eggs, like this is
Speaker 2: a a love letter to the Pokemon franchise through and through,
Speaker 2: and like the gameplay loop is so much like all right,
Speaker 2: I have like these three or four things in the
Speaker 2: back of my head that I want to accomplish. I'm
Speaker 2: just going to start checking him off one by one.
Speaker 2: But then along the way you get distracted. You're like, oh,
Speaker 2: I was going out there to like mine the specific resource,
Speaker 2: but what's this over here? And like there are times
Speaker 2: where I went way off the beaten path and like
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, well, there's nothing over here. But
Speaker 2: a lot of times you find like either those like
Speaker 2: loar drops or those costumes that I was mentioning, and
Speaker 2: that is the stuff that I really really looked forward to.
Speaker 2: And then other times it's like, oh, I found another
Speaker 2: Pokemon I didn't even mean to find, and now he's
Speaker 2: on my team and I can I can do things
Speaker 2: with them, and it just like I found like something
Speaker 2: that looked like in one of the environments was like
Speaker 2: an abandoned birthday party, Like everybody just like had to
Speaker 2: like get out of dodge and like just left all
Speaker 2: the party like stuff set up, and it's like something
Speaker 2: happened here very clearly. It definitely feels I mean, it
Speaker 2: is a post apocalyptic game for sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah, in terms of like a Fallout game, you know,
Speaker 4: it does, I know.
Speaker 3: Not a whole lot in a weird choice that I love,
Speaker 3: to be clear, but like because it could have just
Speaker 3: as easily made this well I don't know, I haven't
Speaker 3: played the game, but like to just take place on
Speaker 3: some remote island and it probably would have been fine.
Speaker 3: But to be like no, no, no, like apocalyptic, it's like cool,
Speaker 3: go for it, man.
Speaker 2: So yeah, you're basically just like rebuilding society. So like
Speaker 2: the like the mountainous region is like engulfed in volcanic ash,
Speaker 2: so clearly there was like some sort of volcanic eruption
Speaker 2: that happened there. And then there's you go to a
Speaker 2: beach biome and it's like it is flooded with uh
Speaker 2: with just water, Like you have to go and like stop,
Speaker 2: like like all the infrastructure of this area has broken
Speaker 2: down and all like the little like ravines that were
Speaker 2: built by humanity have broken down over time, so like
Speaker 2: houses and everything are completely flooded, so you have to
Speaker 2: build new like path ways for this water to go
Speaker 2: to the ocean so it's no longer flooding your environment.
Speaker 2: And then from there, you know, you start meeting more
Speaker 2: Pokemon because they were like, oh, thanks for like you know,
Speaker 2: draining my house that flooded. Now I can live there,
Speaker 2: and like I can help you out.
Speaker 1: And picture in a like an environment like an alternate
Speaker 1: history where what if Team Magma and Team Aqua.
Speaker 2: Were more successful. Yeah, I mean I don't know what
Speaker 2: the cause of this all was, and I that even
Speaker 2: if I did, I can't spoil anything, so nor would
Speaker 2: I want to, because I think it's super fun to
Speaker 2: like peel back the layers of what could have happened here.
Speaker 2: But like I will say that like I was still
Speaker 2: learning like new moves that Ditto could pull off like
Speaker 2: thirty hours into my adventures, like within the story, and
Speaker 2: it was you know, and that they really were useful
Speaker 2: as well, like they were traversal things like like the
Speaker 2: one that I can talk about is I found a
Speaker 2: dragonite in one of the environments and he taught me
Speaker 2: how to fly basically like not not necessarily like fly,
Speaker 2: but like glide. You know, it's a very slow descent glide.
Speaker 2: So like if you had to get from like one
Speaker 2: side of the map to the other, this would basically
Speaker 2: do that, but you have to find like a high
Speaker 2: vantage point. But yeah, there's there's a lot of really
Speaker 2: cool lore based stuff and like just hearing like conversations
Speaker 2: in passing, like it's none of its voice. You just
Speaker 2: hear the digitized cries that that Pokemon use in every game,
Speaker 2: but like seeing dialogue of like, uh, this is an
Speaker 2: example Wes used when I was talking to him earlier
Speaker 2: of like Charmander and Pidgy, like just we're chatting in
Speaker 2: an early sequence and you know, Charmander's just like, oh,
Speaker 2: I love how you fly, Like I hope I can
Speaker 2: fly one day, And Pidgey's like I have a feeling
Speaker 2: flying is in your future. And it's like, oh that
Speaker 2: that's kind of cool. That like there's little like conversations
Speaker 2: that these Pokemon have and it seems like they're all
Speaker 2: like written context specific for those two pokemon to be talking,
Speaker 2: and I'm sure there's like other things. Like it's funny
Speaker 2: because in an early early environment I built, I had
Speaker 2: hitm on chanon hitm on Lee, and it just turns
Speaker 2: out they love hanging out together, so theyre and like there.
Speaker 2: And there are also like moments where like there's like
Speaker 2: cool interactions happening, and while you walk by, it'll be
Speaker 2: a thing that says there's a photo op happening nearby,
Speaker 2: and you can open up your camera I think it's
Speaker 2: the minus button on your switch and take a picture
Speaker 2: of them and because like it's a special interaction and
Speaker 2: you can collect those photo ops as well.
Speaker 3: So it's like Pokemon snap light kind of stuff a
Speaker 3: little bit.
Speaker 2: Like like one of them was like, oh, hitman chan
Speaker 2: Is is punching the punching bag that you put near
Speaker 2: his environment, Like so it's it's stuff like that, like
Speaker 2: some like action shots or like oh, this Pokemon is
Speaker 2: dancing to the music that's playing by DJ Rhadam, which
Speaker 2: was one of the the Pokemon that was revealed in
Speaker 2: the Pokemon Day stream that they they showed the Poco
Speaker 2: Pia trailer. But so the narrative itself is very very linear,
Speaker 2: very handholdy. I would say, almost hold on in a
Speaker 2: Pokemon game, come on.
Speaker 3: Early and never put you back on.
Speaker 2: It tries to funnel you towards the narrative will say,
Speaker 2: and it's like very dialogue heavy, to the point that
Speaker 2: I was like, wow, like this isn't letting up like
Speaker 2: I thought it was just that way in like the
Speaker 2: first couple of hours, but like all the way through
Speaker 2: to the end, there were like it was like Okay,
Speaker 2: you've got to go do this now, like go do this,
Speaker 2: and like you can ignore them and like instead go
Speaker 2: like explore the environment. I often did that, like to
Speaker 2: the point that there were times where they were like
Speaker 2: there was a story cut scene or not cut scene,
Speaker 2: but a story like conversation where they're like, Okay, we
Speaker 2: need you to go do this, and I'm like, dude,
Speaker 2: I did that like seven hours ago, and then like
Speaker 2: I talked to them again, They're like, wow, you already
Speaker 2: did that. Thanks, awesome, that was fast.
Speaker 3: I'm into that. I like when that when they acknowledge
Speaker 3: that in the game, you know, where it's like you
Speaker 3: do like yeah, if you're just like doing way more
Speaker 3: than it expects you to in a moment. Then when
Speaker 3: it's like finally time to do that thing and they're like,
Speaker 3: oh wait, you're like wait ahead of that. I don't
Speaker 3: mind that, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I usually spent a good like seven or eight hours
Speaker 2: in each biome just exploring, like I would do like
Speaker 2: some of the baseline stuff, just to get like a
Speaker 2: like a small number of Pokemon that I needed, because
Speaker 2: like in order to do stuff, you need to gather resources,
Speaker 2: and you also need to like if I want to
Speaker 2: rebuild the Pokemon Center, you need to have the specific
Speaker 2: resources that it has, like like I don't know, it's
Speaker 2: sometimes it's concrete, sometimes it's bricks, sometimes it's just wood,
Speaker 2: just to whatever specific to that environment. Then you also
Speaker 2: need to have like a bunch of Pokemon, some of
Speaker 2: which have specialties.
Speaker 3: So like some.
Speaker 2: Pokemon have like the ability to build some Pokemon have
Speaker 2: the ability to bulldoze, some are able to gather resources
Speaker 2: or search for stuff, some can fly, and like, based
Speaker 2: on what you're building, they need different specialties. And based
Speaker 2: on what you're building, you need a set number of Pokemon.
Speaker 2: So if you're building a tiny hut for a Pokemon,
Speaker 2: you only need like two Pokemon to help build that,
Speaker 2: but a Pokemon center you might need up to like
Speaker 2: eight Pokemon, some of which have like certain specialties. So yeah,
Speaker 2: like I would like basically try to do as much
Speaker 2: of the exploration as possible while still like steadily like
Speaker 2: finding those clues of what habitats to build, and also
Speaker 2: figuring out, like how do I attract more Pokemon, So
Speaker 2: that way I still have like when the time comes
Speaker 2: for me to tackle these narrative missions, I'll have all
Speaker 2: the pieces in place that I can have those dominoes fall.
Speaker 2: And that ended up being I think the approach that
Speaker 2: worked best for me because I would hit a point
Speaker 2: where I'm like, all right, I've explored this biome enough.
Speaker 2: Now it's time to do the story stuff, and I
Speaker 2: would have all the pieces in place, whereas if I
Speaker 2: was like, Okay, now it's time for me to the
Speaker 2: story stuff. Oh god, I need like five more Pokemon
Speaker 2: in order to do that. Now I have to go
Speaker 2: do all that stuff, and I feel like that would
Speaker 2: be annoying to me. So like I appreciate the way
Speaker 2: that I approached this game. So you know, once you
Speaker 2: finish the story, and I mean, you can do this whenever,
Speaker 2: by the way, So this is not like a once
Speaker 2: you finished the story. This is how I did it.
Speaker 2: Once I finished the story, there was an entirely separate
Speaker 2: biome that you can access from the first environment, by
Speaker 2: the way, so you can do this as early as
Speaker 2: you want. Once you get through, I would assume, like
Speaker 2: the tutorial stuff, you can go to this separate area
Speaker 2: and it is basically as soon as you go in there,
Speaker 2: they're like, oh, this is such and such town. This
Speaker 2: is basically your sandbox, and it is bigger than any
Speaker 2: of the other biomes in the game and has multiple
Speaker 2: islands that you can go and explore and like develop
Speaker 2: and attract Pokemon on. And what it is is it
Speaker 2: is just basically like their version, Like if the main
Speaker 2: narrative is Dragon Quest Builders and Viva Pinata, this is
Speaker 2: their Minecraft and Animal Crossing where there's no narrative. It
Speaker 2: is just you going and building this this island up
Speaker 2: how you want to build it. Like I'm currently building
Speaker 2: like this giant mansion for me. I have all my
Speaker 2: Pokemon working on that right now. So next time I
Speaker 2: fire up the game, I'll have this mansion and then
Speaker 2: I can start decorating my pokemon. Hey, I gave them
Speaker 2: a home, Okay, So that is basically the.
Speaker 4: Entire YouTube comment.
Speaker 1: That is kind of quite on our review, and I
Speaker 1: was going to wait to ask you on the show.
Speaker 1: They said, thanks for the amazing review. I would love
Speaker 1: to know more about the free build mode. When do
Speaker 1: you unlock it and do you have a full catalog
Speaker 1: of items available to decorate like Harve's Island or the
Speaker 1: hotel and animal crossing.
Speaker 2: So I did not go to it until I finished
Speaker 2: the second biome and I talked to tank Growth at
Speaker 2: Professor tank Growth. Actually I talked to him after I
Speaker 2: finished it, and he was like, oh, yeah, there was
Speaker 2: that like other area in Withered Wastelands, like you should
Speaker 2: go check that out, and then I did, and then
Speaker 2: I was like, oh my god, this is like a
Speaker 2: whole like separate game basically tacked onto here. So I
Speaker 2: think you can go to it pretty early on, and
Speaker 2: it is just you know, you have to rebuild a bridge,
Speaker 2: which all you could all you have to do for
Speaker 2: that is like punch the ground using the rock smash
Speaker 2: ability that on Chand gives you and harvest that and
Speaker 2: then place the ground tiles to forge that bridge. So
Speaker 2: like you can go there pretty much immediately. I think
Speaker 2: maybe you have to do like the early missions in
Speaker 2: Withered Wasteland. Then once you get there, your inventory is
Speaker 2: shared with the main narrative, so it's not a separate mode.
Speaker 2: It's just a separate area and it plays exactly the same,
Speaker 2: but like you it is there. There's like very loose
Speaker 2: like missions and requests, but there's no like important requests
Speaker 2: like there are in the other biomes. It's just like, yeah,
Speaker 2: go there, build a house. You can use whatever stuff
Speaker 2: that you have earned in the main game. So like
Speaker 2: if you want to build that mansion like I talked
Speaker 2: about it, I think it's just called like a a
Speaker 2: house or a cottage or something. I have forget what
Speaker 2: like the hierarchy is. It goes from like hut to this.
Speaker 2: It's like four layer four levels of houses that you
Speaker 2: can build in order to do that, though, you need
Speaker 2: to raise the environment level of whatever biome you want
Speaker 2: to have that high level house. So like I didn't
Speaker 2: unlock a kit to build that highest level of house
Speaker 2: until I raised like Withered Wastelands to the five level
Speaker 2: five environment. And then once you do that that, like
Speaker 2: each level environment that you raise, it gives you new
Speaker 2: kits to build, and they're all themed after that that
Speaker 2: that biomes theme, right, So like Withered Wasteland, it's all
Speaker 2: like leaf huts and then like it's like a leaf
Speaker 2: cottage and then a leaf house and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: So it's not like you have a separate inventory. It's
Speaker 2: all stuff that you find in the game, So it's
Speaker 2: I wouldn't look at it as a separate mode. I
Speaker 2: would look at it as a separate area within that game.
Speaker 2: But it does feel distinct from the other stuff because
Speaker 2: it's not nearly as handholdy. Like, yes, there are like
Speaker 2: environmental hints of like, oh, if you build this habitat,
Speaker 2: it'll attract this Pokemon and then you can have new
Speaker 2: Pokemon join you, but you can also build houses for
Speaker 2: existing Pokemon and have them move in. So if like
Speaker 2: you want to relocate pokemon, you can and you can
Speaker 2: bring Pokemon from one biome to another, which is cool.
Speaker 2: Even though you have to reach certain levels and like
Speaker 2: accomplishments to reach those extra biomes like in the narrative, eventually,
Speaker 2: you know, it all becomes just one synergized experience, if
Speaker 2: that makes sense. And like so I am I'm basically
Speaker 2: like now that I have completed the story and I'm
Speaker 2: focusing one hundred percent on this this free build area,
Speaker 2: I am basically pilfering every other biome to make this
Speaker 2: other biome so much better. Like I want that because
Speaker 2: it's enormous. Like when I tell you this is like massive,
Speaker 2: I don't want to say it's like the size of
Speaker 2: all other biomes combined. It's probably the size of two
Speaker 2: of them, though, Like it's substantial, Like there's like multiple
Speaker 2: islands that you can jump between, and like all of
Speaker 2: them have different things that you can explore. It's it's
Speaker 2: pretty massive, so there's a lot of stuff you can
Speaker 2: do with that. I'm slowly building outward and I'll probably
Speaker 2: at some point work to connect all the islands, but like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's I could see myself now that I've done I'm
Speaker 2: done with the story and I've spent a decent amount
Speaker 2: of time in this separate town. I am, like, I
Speaker 2: plan on probably putting like at least another dozen hours
Speaker 2: into this game, just developing this island because it's it's
Speaker 2: such a satisfying loop and now it's finally the game
Speaker 2: that I truly wanted, which is like, yeah, go do
Speaker 2: what you want, man like. And that's what I like
Speaker 2: about this area is like since you can access it whenever,
Speaker 2: but like it, like the other stuff you have access to,
Speaker 2: is dependent upon your progress in the story and also
Speaker 2: your abilities. Like you know, you don't get that Dragon
Speaker 2: Knight glide ability until the final biome, so like, if
Speaker 2: you want to be able to glide between islands, you're
Speaker 2: gonna need that. Otherwise you're gonna have to build long,
Speaker 2: long bridges using like the ground tiles that you harvest,
Speaker 2: kind of Minecraft style.
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to play this. I'm curious where it
Speaker 1: ranks in you know, your personal rankings of the Pokemon games.
Speaker 3: Risk, I guess right, like yes, broadly, yeah, broadly yea.
Speaker 3: I mean, have you ever given a Pokemon game a
Speaker 3: higher review score? Brian and your time a game you haven't? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I think I yeah, I think all the Pokemon games
Speaker 2: have topped out it in the eights for me so far.
Speaker 2: And then I gave this a nine. Yeah, and man,
Speaker 2: I wasn't prepared for where it ranks in terms of
Speaker 2: like the overall Pokemon games. It's such an apples and
Speaker 2: urges comparison between like because there's no combat here. It's
Speaker 2: not like an RPG in really any way, aside from
Speaker 2: the fact that you're accumulating new abilities as you play
Speaker 2: through it. Can I rank it among the Pokemon spin
Speaker 2: offs instead?
Speaker 3: Like I'm checking with the judges. No, they said no, okay, okay,
Speaker 3: then I'm jot.
Speaker 2: I would put it like if we were to rank
Speaker 2: it wrong all Pokemon games, I'd say, it's like, like,
Speaker 2: let's go back to like Pokemon Heart gold and Soul silver.
Speaker 2: It's not as good as that. Like that is my
Speaker 2: that's the gold standard to excuse the pun of Pokemon
Speaker 2: games in my opinion. Since then, I would say the
Speaker 2: best game that Pokemon has put out has been Legends Archias.
Speaker 2: I don't think this clears those. Actually, I may have
Speaker 2: given Legends Archias a higher score. I think I may
Speaker 2: have given that a nine point twenty five, but I
Speaker 2: I somebody else might need to check that while I'm
Speaker 2: talking checking, But yeah, Legends Archias is very good. It's
Speaker 2: such a difficult compared, but yeah, it's in the conversation
Speaker 2: as the best Pokemon game of I would say at
Speaker 2: least the last fifteen years. I don't know if I'm
Speaker 2: ready to award it that title, but it's but yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: so yeah, Poco Pia I gave a higher score. And
Speaker 2: then uh, you know, as far as the spin offs themselves,
Speaker 2: I would put this up there, like with like Pokemon
Speaker 2: Trading Card game on game Boy Color.
Speaker 4: That's my number one, baby, Yeah it's not, but spin offs.
Speaker 4: I love that game.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's probably number one for me as well. I
Speaker 2: wish they would do a new one of those, because, like,
Speaker 2: I think that unfortunately, the popularity of TCG has made
Speaker 2: it so that we're and like the the proliferation of
Speaker 2: like gotcha mechanics has made it so that that's too
Speaker 2: tempting for them to actually do like another like Pokemon TC.
Speaker 3: I mean that's what the mobile game is right at
Speaker 3: this point, where you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, unfortunately, but there's no like story, like at least
Speaker 2: worthwhile story.
Speaker 1: Imagine you could actually go and explore and beat people
Speaker 1: to get their cards.
Speaker 3: Great, that should do.
Speaker 2: That's what I wish we would get. But that that
Speaker 2: is on Nintendo Switch online if you have access to
Speaker 2: the Game Boy catalog, that is there, So I would
Speaker 2: recommend people play that as well. But Pocopia, I mean
Speaker 2: it's up there with that in terms of like my
Speaker 2: favorite spinoffs of all time. It's in the top three,
Speaker 2: if not number one or two probably I'm trying to
Speaker 2: think of anything else that like tops it. I mean
Speaker 2: maybe the original Pokemon Snap just for like the novelty
Speaker 2: of that era of seeing those Pokemon in three D
Speaker 2: in that way and like being in their environment. But
Speaker 2: like by today, you're a.
Speaker 3: Big Pikachu guy, like you'll you never shot up about how.
Speaker 2: You I played Hey You Pikachu while eating a ghost
Speaker 2: pepper because of the game and former extra life streams
Speaker 2: back in the day, So I have like a little
Speaker 2: bit of trauma associated with Hey You Pikachu, which is
Speaker 2: hilarious and laughing in my face. But yes, if you
Speaker 2: look on YouTube, there is a clip of me screaming
Speaker 2: in agony Pikachu. So I would say, like, yeah, it's
Speaker 2: probably easily top three. Like if you ask like, if
Speaker 2: you asked me today, what game would I rather play,
Speaker 2: it's probably in terms of all the spin offs, it's
Speaker 2: probably between Pokemon TCG on game Boy Color and Pocopia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, I'm excited, man, this this uh, this
Speaker 1: has been on my list for a while. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people and hearing the way that they are,
Speaker 1: like really smart decisions they're making with using the Pokemon
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 4: It's funny. I back in like.
Speaker 1: Twenty nineteen, maybe I was that Game Informer, so maybe
Speaker 1: it was like twenty twenty.
Speaker 4: I don't remember. It might even before Game Informer.
Speaker 1: I like it was back when I was on Twitter
Speaker 1: and I like pitched a Pokemon city builder idea where
Speaker 1: you were like, you know, building towns and attracting trainers
Speaker 1: and stuff. So not quite this, but you're so close,
Speaker 1: I know, I know. But this is like I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: they kind of kind of made like a kind of
Speaker 1: version of the game that I really wanted to play,
Speaker 1: you know, Viva Pinata. And that's like really when you
Speaker 1: said that as an inspiration, I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: not that I wasn't gonna play it before, but now
Speaker 1: I'm like, come on, all right, let's get here Friday
Speaker 1: or I guess Thursday night.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I think it's tonight. Actually, I think it
Speaker 2: actually comes back, really, I think so, Oh we're recording
Speaker 2: this on Wednesday. I think it comes out on Thursday.
Speaker 2: Actually March fifth is the release date.
Speaker 4: Oh, you're right, you're right.
Speaker 3: Okay, since the nights are weird, though they don't always
Speaker 3: release east, I don't know, but yeah, you should check
Speaker 3: for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but yeah, I mean it's really good. Like I
Speaker 2: I had a blast playing this game, and I thought
Speaker 2: I would, but like it surprised me at how like
Speaker 2: how in into me it sunk its hooks. Yeah, to
Speaker 2: the point that it would be like one in the morning,
Speaker 2: I'd be like, I really have to go to bed,
Speaker 2: I have to be up early tomorrow, but like I
Speaker 2: really want to fulfill this one request real quick. And
Speaker 2: then you get like sidetracked on the way to doing that,
Speaker 2: and it's just like it is the ultimate like you know,
Speaker 2: I'm going to distract you with this while you're trying
Speaker 2: to do that, and you're going to find something completely
Speaker 2: new to want to focus your attention on. And it's
Speaker 2: and this.
Speaker 1: Is switched to exclusive, right, it is not ONCT one. Okay,
Speaker 1: well cool, Well thanks for thanks for chatting about that.
Speaker 1: Brian really appreciate it. I think, you know, people have
Speaker 1: got a lot to got a lot.
Speaker 4: To pick through with this episode.
Speaker 1: Before we get to Scott Pilgrim, I do just want
Speaker 1: to take a quick ad break and then we'll be
Speaker 1: back right after this and welcome back to the game.
Speaker 4: And former show. Kyle. You played beat.
Speaker 1: And reviewed Scott Pilgrim ex which is the follow up
Speaker 1: to What Scott Pilgrim Versus the World, the game which
Speaker 1: came out a while ago.
Speaker 4: I know they kind of.
Speaker 1: Re released it a few years back, but this is
Speaker 1: like the first proper Scott Pilgrim game we've had in years.
Speaker 1: And Brian leo'malley's back at the Helm, right.
Speaker 4: Help or helping tribute games.
Speaker 1: I know, tribute games people behind Team and T Shredder's
Speaker 1: Revenge and Marvel Cosmic Invasion. They're kind of I guess
Speaker 1: they are at the Helm, but Brian leo O'Malley is
Speaker 1: involved the creator of Scott Pilgrim. What do you think
Speaker 1: about the game and can you kind of give us
Speaker 1: a primer of people? I mean, I feel like a
Speaker 1: lot of people listening to this have probably heard of
Speaker 1: Scott Pilgrim, and I feel like the game and the
Speaker 1: movies and the comic they're so synonymous. But just in case,
Speaker 1: can you give us a quick primer?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean Scott Pilgrim is a franchise based
Speaker 3: on a comic by Brian Le O'Malley. It's like a
Speaker 3: coming of age story about like, you know, people in
Speaker 3: their early twenties who are in like the music scene,
Speaker 3: and it meshes well with like video games, and it's
Speaker 3: like it is very much I don't know how you
Speaker 3: guys felt, but like I remember going to see that
Speaker 3: movie in theaters and it starts with Zelda music, like
Speaker 3: that's how that movie starts, you know, And it's just
Speaker 3: like this is this was like this for me, Like
Speaker 3: this movie is for me. I played in a band
Speaker 3: growing up in high school and college and stuff, so
Speaker 3: like that that movie is special to me and now
Speaker 3: growing up now I have a daughter who's also obsessed
Speaker 3: with it, Like she loves it. It's like one of
Speaker 3: the favorite movies and we watched it a lot, and
Speaker 3: it is a movie I watch every couple of years
Speaker 3: where I'm just like, why aren't more movies like this, like,
Speaker 3: how come movies don't have this energy? Really? But it's
Speaker 3: just like a crazy Yeah, it's a fun franchise about
Speaker 3: it's just like really, what's the word where it's it's
Speaker 3: not realistic, you know, it's like you're it's about like
Speaker 3: it's what do you mean? It's like a metaphor for
Speaker 3: what it's like to fall in love for the first time,
Speaker 3: set against someone who grew up playing video games and
Speaker 3: you know, like fighting and stuff like that. It's fun
Speaker 3: and like I I like the first game, which was
Speaker 3: like an Xbox Live arcade game. It was like it
Speaker 3: was pre Game Informer for me, but I was doing
Speaker 3: a lot of like you know, freelance reviews and stuff
Speaker 3: like that, and I played it and I enjoyed it,
Speaker 3: mostly because I like the franchise. I'm not the biggest
Speaker 3: beat him up guy. But this either, as the story
Speaker 3: goes like that was a game by Ubisoft, and the
Speaker 3: team that made it broke off and a lot of
Speaker 3: those members, you know, became Tribute, so like it is
Speaker 3: kind of a return to the thing that kind of
Speaker 3: brought Tribute together, right, Like like Ubisoft people made Scott Pilgrim,
Speaker 3: branched off, broke off and started Tribute and then you know,
Speaker 3: released games, so it's like circling back. And Brian le
Speaker 3: O'Malley wasn't super involved in that original game because it
Speaker 3: was meant to coincide with the film, so he's primarily
Speaker 3: working on the and like he submitted some art and stuff.
Speaker 3: I got a chance to talk to him because I
Speaker 3: did a feature on it where I went up to
Speaker 3: Tribute Games in Canada and like got to play the game,
Speaker 3: and I did like a video call with Brian le omalley,
Speaker 3: which was really cool. It was super fun to talk
Speaker 3: to him. But he was even saying, he's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: I wasn't super involved in the original game, like I was.
Speaker 3: I liked it and I like how it came out,
Speaker 3: and I liked my interaction with those people, but like
Speaker 3: there are things I would have changed or suggested be changed.
Speaker 3: I would have like taken more time with the art
Speaker 3: that I submitted. But here he's I think his I
Speaker 3: think his credit is just consultant. But even when I
Speaker 3: was up at Tribute, they were kind of like it.
Speaker 3: It's kind of like consultant was just like the best
Speaker 3: thing we could come up with. But like he was,
Speaker 3: he was very involved, like he helped write it, and
Speaker 3: like he was saying a lot of the one thing
Speaker 3: that he was obsessed with, which makes sense for a
Speaker 3: comic book guy, was that he was like he spent
Speaker 3: a lot of time editing down the dialogue to make
Speaker 3: sure that it would like fit on two lines on screen,
Speaker 3: so clicking for a lot of dialogue and stuff, which
Speaker 3: I was just like, Oh, that's such a comic book
Speaker 3: guy thing of like I got to get these this
Speaker 3: exact amount of words in this word bubble and stuff
Speaker 3: like that. Yeah, And then and then the game itself
Speaker 3: is uh is it's weird because it's like not it's
Speaker 3: kind of cannon but not really canon, but like what
Speaker 3: is canon? And Scott Pilgrim, who knows, like it doesn't
Speaker 3: there's not really a canon. It's like there's the comic
Speaker 3: that has a beginning, middle, and end. The film has
Speaker 3: a beginning, middle, and end. The anime is sort of
Speaker 3: a follow up to both in a way, the film
Speaker 3: and the comic. And then like then the original this
Speaker 3: is kind of a sequel to the original video game
Speaker 3: and the and that this game kind of takes place
Speaker 3: after the anime, and the anime was like a time
Speaker 3: travel story anyway. So it's like I think I even
Speaker 3: asked O'Malley and he was kind of like, I don't know, man,
Speaker 3: Like it's like it's not really what the scot Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's like it's just meant to be an excuse to
Speaker 3: like get a bunch.
Speaker 4: Of characters an anthology series. Yeah, and they're the same characters.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I I ended up. I gave it a seven
Speaker 3: seven to five mainly because it's like it's it's familiar,
Speaker 3: if that makes sense. There's nothing particularly like super exciting
Speaker 3: or new or unexpected in the game. Tribute has gotten
Speaker 3: really good at making these kinds of games which are
Speaker 3: like a nostalgic, sort of retropixelated beat them ups, Like
Speaker 3: the Ninja Turtle game is great, the Marvel game is great,
Speaker 3: and this one's great too. But it's just like it's
Speaker 3: it was just hard to get like really excited about it,
Speaker 3: you know, it's just nothing really like put me more. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but it's like, but it looks great and it's a
Speaker 3: new soundtrack from Atamanagucci. I love. The soundtrack for the
Speaker 3: original game is like an all time favorite video game soundtrack,
Speaker 3: like truly, like if I were to rank some of
Speaker 3: my favorite video game soundtracks, Like I would you know,
Speaker 3: Donkey Kong Country would be up there, you know, pick
Speaker 3: your poison with Zelda, you know, I could probably pick
Speaker 3: one or two Zelda games and like Halenic obviously, yeah,
Speaker 3: for a certain type of person for sure, And and
Speaker 3: I would truly I would put like the original Super
Speaker 3: met Boys soundtrack and the Scott Pilgrim video game soundtrack
Speaker 3: up there, Like I listened to that often. I really
Speaker 3: love that soundtrack.
Speaker 4: I'm on a Gucci do the movie soundtrack?
Speaker 3: No, they didn't just anime, but they did not. They
Speaker 3: weren't involved with the movie. The movie was primarily actually
Speaker 3: I don't know, but I know Beck was heavily involved
Speaker 3: in the movie soundtrack. All the original yeah, like all
Speaker 3: the original rock songs you know that like Scott's band
Speaker 3: plays those are like Beck wrote those songs, you know.
Speaker 2: Interesting, Wait, Michael Sarah didn't write that song.
Speaker 3: Although quite talented musician that Michael Sarah. I think he
Speaker 3: released an album recently.
Speaker 2: I recently rewatched that movie on the way back from Japan.
Speaker 2: It was one of them on like the seatback things,
Speaker 2: and I tried to get my fiance to watch it
Speaker 2: and about halfway through she was she tried to be
Speaker 2: very nice. She was like, that was different from anything
Speaker 2: I've ever watched, but you can keep watching. So I'm
Speaker 2: gonna go to sleep.
Speaker 3: So she was Anna Kendrick basically a game, So I
Speaker 3: get it.
Speaker 2: I get it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she hates fun but anyway, but yeah, so and
Speaker 3: there's like the comments like you kind of know what
Speaker 3: to expect coming into this if you've played like the
Speaker 3: beat him up like Team in or anything like that,
Speaker 3: Like this is a co op beat them up. It's
Speaker 3: it's more inspired by River City Ransom, which was not
Speaker 3: a game like I played that was not like a
Speaker 3: touch point for me growing up or anything. But the
Speaker 3: result is that it's it's actually kind of like open
Speaker 3: world and quotes like, you know, don't come into this
Speaker 3: expecting grand theft auto but like it's not a series
Speaker 3: of levels that you travel between on an overworld map.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interconnected screens that you're kind of passing through.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like and it's Toronto and there's like there's like
Speaker 3: portals to like altern dimensions and stuff, and it's like
Speaker 3: that that part of the game I really liked because
Speaker 3: it was like adventure game light where it was like
Speaker 3: an NPC would be like, oh, you know, I like
Speaker 3: I I think I saw the character you're looking for
Speaker 3: in a school, and then you're like, oh, where did
Speaker 3: I Where was that school? And then you would have
Speaker 3: to kind of you actually like walk over there, and
Speaker 3: the city's like small enough where it's like it never
Speaker 3: takes too long. But I just like, I just always
Speaker 3: will appreciate that approach to like a world, because then
Speaker 3: it just kind of feels consistent, you know, it doesn't
Speaker 3: feel like a little blocked off chunks that you're entering
Speaker 3: and exiting. So I liked that part of it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's good. It's a super solid cooperative beat him up
Speaker 3: with like fun characters and fun dialogue, and like I
Speaker 3: was never like emotionally moved by the plot or the
Speaker 3: story or anything like that, but as a means to
Speaker 3: kind of like jump around and see familiar characters and
Speaker 3: like see new characters that Brian Leomalley created, Like it's
Speaker 3: all it's all fun and and effective, you know, but
Speaker 3: just not like not it like I think I might.
Speaker 3: In my review, I wrote like it made me happy,
Speaker 3: but not ecstatic. You know, it's just like yeah, solid
Speaker 3: love love hanging out with Scott again. Thank you. You know.
Speaker 2: How does this compare to tribute to other games like Marvel,
Speaker 2: Cosmic Invasion and Shredder's Revenge.
Speaker 3: I think that this would probably be my favorite of
Speaker 3: those three. Wow, maybe Ninja Turtles like a close second.
Speaker 3: I played a little bit of Marvel, and I like.
Speaker 3: I like Marvel fine, it's I didn't really get nostalgic
Speaker 3: over like seeing sprite version of those like Marvel characters
Speaker 3: and stuff like that, but I like the The layout
Speaker 3: of the world is the thing that I found most
Speaker 3: like interesting and like like engaging. You know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, those other games are more so level to level.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is which is?
Speaker 3: Yeah? And I just I liked I like this. I
Speaker 3: like being able to be in Toronto because, like the
Speaker 3: setting of Scott Pilgrim is is crucial, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean not to say that go to Toronto.
Speaker 3: I no, surely I can.
Speaker 2: For how much longer? Who knows?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Right? But yeah, super solid, super solid game with
Speaker 3: a great soundtrack that I look forward to sort of
Speaker 3: sort of seeing if it kind of sticks in my
Speaker 3: brain as much as the soundtrack for the original game,
Speaker 3: did you know, I don't know if it's up on
Speaker 3: like streaming platforms yet, but I love on them on
Speaker 3: a Gucci so like to get a new soundtrack from them.
Speaker 3: It's always exciting.
Speaker 4: And when when is this out? Is this out now?
Speaker 3: Is out now? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Out now? Okay?
Speaker 3: Yeah? And I played on switch to and it ran great,
Speaker 3: like new issues on switch to whatsoever looks great? Ran great,
Speaker 3: you know, quick loading, all that fun stuff. I don't
Speaker 3: think I ever really saw any like frame ring drops
Speaker 3: or anything, which is like impressive because there's actually a
Speaker 3: lot happening on screen. You know, there's a lot of
Speaker 3: like stuff bouncing around. Sometimes it got even a little
Speaker 3: too chaotic.
Speaker 4: For me to the point remember that in your review.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't even really know what's happening, but I
Speaker 3: seem to be winning, so I'm just gonna roll with it.
Speaker 4: Couch co op to right.
Speaker 3: Yep, yeah, up to four players, yeah okay, and it's
Speaker 3: drop in drop out very easily played. Played a bit
Speaker 3: with my daughter the other you know, the Scott Pilgrim
Speaker 3: fan in my household, and uh it worked well when
Speaker 3: she got tired of hanging out with her dad. She
Speaker 3: was very easy for her to leave in that ktinue playing.
Speaker 1: I saw that lost her cool well, I think that's
Speaker 1: going to bring us to the end of the show.
Speaker 3: Alex, this is this is circular. I want to plug. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I want to plug. An interview I did on the
Speaker 3: website recently with director Matt Johnson, who directed the recent
Speaker 3: Nirvana the Band The Show the movie, which I highly
Speaker 3: recommend if you can see it in theaters, you should.
Speaker 3: It's a fantastic, hilarious movie that I really loved, speaking
Speaker 3: of movies that just take place in Canada that have
Speaker 3: a lot of energy, that you watch and are like,
Speaker 3: how come more movies aren't like this?
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I've heard great things about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Oh it's so good. I've seen it twice. Like
Speaker 3: I I loved it so much, but I got I
Speaker 3: talked with him because like he's clearly like you watch
Speaker 3: that movie. His previous movie, BlackBerry even, which is another
Speaker 3: fantastic movie. It's like very video game coded. He loves
Speaker 3: video games. So there's this interview on the website with
Speaker 3: this director Matt Johnson, who also is the we Shop
Speaker 3: Update Day sketch.
Speaker 4: We shot Wednesday.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we shop Wednesday. That's that's not bad. Yeah, that's
Speaker 3: that's him. You know you might so really Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: which I talked to him about that in an interview too.
Speaker 3: That song will get stuck in your heads so much. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't know. I had this experience when I saw
Speaker 3: trailers for BlackBerry, where I was like, this movie looks great.
Speaker 3: Why does that guy look so familiar? And it took
Speaker 3: me a while to be like, Oh, it's that's him.
Speaker 3: And then and then I looked it up and I
Speaker 3: was like, he directed this movie. Yeah, and he's and
Speaker 3: he has a couple of projects come up, but he's
Speaker 3: also directing a Magic the Gathering movie, which I am
Speaker 3: very curious to see what interesting looks like. Yeah. He
Speaker 3: all he could tell me about it was that he's
Speaker 3: doing it and he's excited about it. That was all
Speaker 3: he was able to say. But the reason I bring
Speaker 3: it up is because A. I want to plug it. B.
Speaker 3: We talked about Scott Pilgrim in that interview because he's
Speaker 3: very He's a very Canada guy, very like like he's
Speaker 3: you watch any of his BlackBerry Nirvana the band of
Speaker 3: the movie. The show is like a very Canada movie,
Speaker 3: Like it's just like it is is like, this is
Speaker 3: a movie that takes place in Canada. And then the
Speaker 3: create the funny thing about it was I talked to him,
Speaker 3: it was a great chat, and then I got off
Speaker 3: the call with him and picked Scott Pilgrim ex back
Speaker 3: up to continue my review. And there was an easter
Speaker 3: egg that was a direct reference to Nirvana the Band
Speaker 3: the show, which if you're not familiar, it's the premise
Speaker 3: is it's these two guys who are constantly trying to
Speaker 3: get their band a gig at the at this bar
Speaker 3: called the Rivali. And there's a character and there's npcasons
Speaker 3: the Scott Pilgrim video game who are like, Hey, what
Speaker 3: are you doing tonight? And they're like, oh, I heard
Speaker 3: my friends Jay and Matt are playing a show at
Speaker 3: the Rivali. So it's so funny that I literally hung
Speaker 3: up the phone with Matt Johnson and then like started
Speaker 3: playing Scott Pilgrim and found that like five minutes later.
Speaker 3: So that's the circular plug I'm making here. Scott Pilgrim,
Speaker 3: Nirvana the Band, the Show of the movie interview on
Speaker 3: the website. Please I insist you check it out.
Speaker 4: Awesome.
Speaker 1: Well, while you're checking that out, be sure to go
Speaker 1: and check out the YouTube channel YouTube dot com. Slash
Speaker 1: Game Informer got a lot of great stuff on there,
Speaker 1: including by the time you're listening to this, probably some
Speaker 1: our first Invincible cover story video, as well as a
Speaker 1: bunch of video. We got a Scott Pilgrim The X review.
Speaker 1: We got a Pokemon po Copia review up there. If
Speaker 1: you want to see those games in action, and you know,
Speaker 1: follow these guys on social media. You can follow Kyle
Speaker 1: at Kyle Hilliard go file, follow Brian at Brian P.
Speaker 1: Shay uh, and you can follow me at It's Van Aiken.
Speaker 1: Thank you all for for listening. Be sure please pick
Speaker 1: up a copy of Game Informer, gamiformer dot com, slash subscribe,
Speaker 1: or find us on your news stands uh and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's gonna be it. Guys, Hope you have a great
Speaker 1: week and we'll see you next time.
Speaker 4: Bye.