Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to side Quest. This is our weekly
video game show here at gig Verse. I am Dylan
Muss And who is that lurking in the shadows? Is
that Lord Norinaga? Taylor Field?
Speaker 2: How are you doing tonight? My friend? Well, I'm doing good.
Speaker 3: I'm happy to be here, excited to talk. What we're
gonna talk about?
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, yeah, We're gonna jump into a baiale of
hay tonight to talk about some Assassin's Creed shadows and
then before that little bit of Xbox News, So it
should be a fun, spacey episode.
Speaker 2: Taylor, a new Assassin' Scree games? Are you just like
super ecstatic right now? This is like your favorite series?
Right it's my yeah, favorite series. It's just it's it's
kind of it's kind of surreal, and it doesn't feel
like we actually have it because the game has been delayed.
Speaker 3: And the other thing too.
Speaker 2: I'm so used to playing Assassin's Creed in October and
November and it's just very different to be playing in
the springtime. I don't know if that's a reasonable claim,
but it's just for me.
Speaker 3: Is it just feels different, feels weird.
Speaker 1: I think that's very reasonable claim. But yeah, we'll get
into all of that and just a little bit a
couple quick notes. You know, Patreon if you want to
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Speaker 2: Stuff with us feeds.
Speaker 1: These days, you know, we kind of rock in a
nice clean schedule of Weekly Geek, which is like you know,
weekly news show, a little more low key than a
big newscast, a little more intimate, and just usually two
hosts on there and then Daredevil on a weekly basis,
and then I don't know, I'm sure there's other things
as well, but yeah, it's been it's been going pretty
steady there. What is it what's going on in the
cryptoclues world. You got a new episode out there that
you're excited about.
Speaker 3: Uh, yeah, we did some we do some encounter stories
for sasquatch.
Speaker 2: And then this week actually today, uh Tessie of Lake Tahow.
It just blows my mind because you got an NeSSI,
you got Bessie. Now there's a TESSI. I just found out.
This is testis new Testi's I mean, been around since
the fifties, but okay, okay, new to me. Yeah, gotcha? Gotcha?
Speaker 1: Have you ever done any like Japanese folklore cryptid stuff?
There's probably some good stuff over there.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think me and Rubin highlighted Kappa, which is
Japanese demon and similar things kind of affiliate with that,
like because I mean, if you yeah, I'm pretty sure
we've done a couple little things. And of course there's
there's sasquatch all over the place, different types like Chinese sasquatch,
Japanese sasquatch.
Speaker 3: So I we might have touched our toes.
Speaker 2: We definitely have focused on Chinese sasquatch off to looking
if we did something on Japanese. Okay, fair enough.
Speaker 1: Well, how about we get right into it today. Yeah,
like I said, two topics today, we're gonna talk abou
this Xbox news. So this is kind of news that
this is also kind of coming out of the rumor mill.
But you sent me this, Taylor, and I found it
quite interesting that there was a Xbox promotional image posted
online and then quickly pulling offline because there was there's
a cat going hand behind me on some tissue paper.
They're they're in the In some of this promotional imagery,
there is you know, an Xbox UI the interface, but
there's a Steam logo on it. And I guess, uh,
you know, they were not ready to announce this kind
of thing, some intern at the button too soon, whatever
it may be. We don't know exactly what it is.
But reading a little bit from this IGN article, uh,
they just they say that the sources can say that
the company is indeed working on an update that would
connect users not only to their Steam library, but to
other PC storefronts too.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: So you know that's There's a lot more to this,
but I think that's kind of the basic thing is like, Okay,
it seems like potentially Xbox is gearing up to have
somehow Steam connected with their consoles, and obviously, especially with
the series X and S this generation, they've been more
PC like than they've ever been before. And maybe this
hardware is there that it could just support the software
to you know, run Steam natively off the console, even
though Steam Dex a little weird because that actually runs
Linux natively, But then you can like switch it over
to Windows I believe, and then it works like just
as well. But obviously Steam would work there as well.
So in theory you could just play your library of
PC games on any of your Xboxes or I guess
maybe the next generation of xboxes.
Speaker 2: We're not exactly sure, but.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: What do you take?
Speaker 1: What do you make of this news? First of all,
do you think this is legit?
Speaker 2: And two? Yeah, I guess just like, what are your
thoughts on it? If it is true? I feel like
it's legit. I think Xbox I should say. Microsoft has
been really pushing to branch out off of their console
a little bit more, and especially a lot of games
that were available only on the console now available on PC.
With game Pass Ultimate, you can stream between the two seamlessly.
They've been making huge steps with just implementing discord into
like your Xbox Now with being in a Discord Chat,
I don't have to go into an Xbox party. I
can just I just connect the Discord on my phone
app and then I can just sit start talking on
Xbox and it just connects the Discord Chat to the Xbox,
which is nice. You can stream your games through Discord
now connecting it to your Xbox. So there's lots of
stuff going on, and I think that this has a
lot of merit behind it. To get your Steam library
on Xbox, you just it's only a.
Speaker 3: Matter of probably just.
Speaker 2: Like binding the right keys to your control or just
mapping it out accordingly.
Speaker 3: And I don't think that's very difficult to do.
Speaker 2: And I mean, heck, I'll be able to play Potion
Problem on Xbox soon. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: I didn't even think about that possibility. I'll have to
get some controller support going in on there, because currently
there is absolutely none of that. But that's a that's
an interesting prospect for sure. Yeah, there's so many angles
to this, And I wonder if this is something that
like do you think PlayStation is also working on this too,
Like would it be Steam that would be going out
to these different places and Switch would probably a lot
harder because of the tech.
Speaker 2: Side of things, I imagine.
Speaker 1: But do you think it would be like more Steam
going to these places and saying, hey, we want to increase,
you know, our our user base essentially by accessing these
different places where people can access this sortfront or do
you think this is more Xbox play of like, okay,
maybe this is our feather in the cap to like
really boost us up in the next generation, because that
is huge. If you can do that now, you're is
already for me, like my Xbox three sixty Slash now
series X, Like that's kind of been my biggest digital
library until probably Steam over the last few years. And
so if I could combine those because I don't have
a huge digital library on like Nintendo switches at every generation, right,
so that kind of withers with time, and then PlayStation
I'm only you know, buying the odd digital thing on there.
So if I could combine forces and get my two
biggest libraries just combined in one place, that would be huge.
But yeah, do you do you think this is something
that Steam would be going out and also PlayStation would
have this too, or could this be an Xbox exclusive feature?
Speaker 2: I feel I don't think it'll be an exclusive feature.
I think this is something that PlayStation will probably adapt.
Speaker 3: At some point as well.
Speaker 2: The interesting thing here though, is well, so two things.
This is a huge step towards kind of breaking away
from the physical media side of things, where you don't
need to buy hard copies for your games anymore, which
I feel like is something that Xbox and PlayStation respectively
both are trying to step towards.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I think even avowed recent example, I don't think has
a physical version at all, only digital experience really yeah,
the first party game.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the other thing to this as well, if
Xbox is the one that's responsible for this is pushing
forward to it, or if it's seem it's crazy to
think I will be able to play PlayStation exclusive games
that have been ported to PC months later after its
initial release on PS five, I can play it on Xbox.
I can play The Spider Man one and two on Xbox.
I can play What Goes to Shima on Xbox. I'll
be able to play Desk Stranding on Xbox. Steem Like,
that's just really really wild. And that's it again. If
that's Xbox pushing for this, that's.
Speaker 3: A huge kick to the gut for.
Speaker 2: For PlayStation, right, and then you'll have to sign in
with your play You'll have to sign into your Xbox
account by the game through your Steam account, and then
you'll have to sign in with your PlayStation account in
order to play the game. It'll be such a fucking mess,
but then you go, you can play.
Speaker 1: You know, at the end of the day, it's worth
it to play Ghost of Sushima on your on your Xbox,
you know what. It's funny when I was when I
was reading through this, my my one of my first
thoughts was, you know, it says in that article mentions
and other storefronts, so you know, I think Epic Games
or something. But the first one that came to my
mind was was battle battle dot net or is it
Blizzard dot Net.
Speaker 2: I forget if they changed it at some point, but
like that's the active Battle games battle net. Yeah, yeah,
battle neet because obviously that's like within the Xbox umbrella now,
so I wonder, like that, to me, that would almost
make more sense to do that first you get that
implemented on your consoplet. But obviously Steam would be like
if you can get Steam, you get Steam all your
console because that's going to bring in a lot of players.
And I feel like if this was an exclusive thing
for Xbox and PlayStation six for example, didn't have it,
I think that would be a huge boost for Xbox.
Speaker 1: And now that's like another way for people because I
think a Steam deck is probably about the same price
as a Series X, and maybe a Series S would
be even cheaper than a Steam deck. So if someone
just wants to play games and they like Steam, like
you know, maybe just buying a Series S is the
best way to go because that's a hell of a
lot cheaper than a PC, right unless you get like
the worst PC of all time, So that would be
huge for Xbox.
Speaker 2: I think Steam, you know, they would have no why
why wouldn't they want this? It's just they can make
more money and more places. And I'm I wonder if
the ratio would change it, like how much Steam gets
off every purchase of a Steam game, like if it's
on Xbox, if they'd split that, or like how would
that work if.
Speaker 3: I bring your library?
Speaker 2: Right, so you're still buying, you're paying the full amount
of Steam, but.
Speaker 1: I does Xbox now, like if there's a purchase that's
made through the Steam Store on your Xbox. Does Xbox
want a cut of that right? Or and then is
it weird if you just go on your computer and
buy the game there instead? Does now all the proceeds
go to Steam, but you can still play it in
your Xbox, Like, I would really wonder how that stuff
shakes out, And I just what I hope for is
that people like me who have a game on Steam
that I'm not getting like undercut even more because Steam
already takes like, you know, a lot higher percentage than
like Epic Games does, for example, from like every purchase there.
Speaker 2: So I wonder how something like that would work.
Speaker 1: But I think Xbox would be, like you can have
all the proceeds, we just you know, that would be
such a big feature to have. I think they would
probably be fine or even just take like a very
small percentage, But I think they would rather just have
that on there, like as you mentioned with Discord too,
like yeah, just get all those features to make these
things more blend in with a PC on the shelf,
which they already want you to do.
Speaker 2: I think it makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: But the other thing I thought with this is like
it almost feels, you know, there was that campaign that
they had going on a few months ago that was
like everything's an Xbox or this is an Xbox. They'd
post a picture of like I don't know, whatever device
and say, oh, this is an Xbox. This kind of
seems like, I don't know. This almost seems like against
that idea in a way, like now they're kind of
incentivizing you once again come back to the console space,
even though it seemed like maybe they were drifting away
from that and they don't really care where you play
their games. They just want you playing them. But now
this is like, oh, no, we want you playing games on.
Speaker 2: Our Xbox specifically.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if it's just two different pillars,
but I think it's also just I don't know. Every
time you hear Phil Spencer or Sarah Bona and these
people talking on a podcast in the last few months,
the fucking planet Xbox changes every seven days, it seems,
so I feel like they.
Speaker 2: Don't really know what they're doing.
Speaker 1: They're just trying to do anything to increase their sales,
I guess, and you know, it doesn't hurt to try
and go for two different markets at the same time
that people who just want to play digitally anywhere, and
the people who do want a traditional console experience, but
if maybe drifted to PC and now you can maybe
bring them back at least at the very least grab
a series s, throw it on your TV, stand still,
have your PC and you're good to go. And that
might be a nice hybrid way for people like me
specifically who don't really want to play games on my
PC these days because I work all day on the
PC and I podcast here with you in the evenings.
Speaker 2: I don't want to say.
Speaker 1: From my computer anymore that I already do you know,
even though it's still screen. But some rambling thoughts there,
but I think there's a lot to it. My other
thought though was what developers want this?
Speaker 2: And I think it's a double edged sword where one, okay,
now there's you know, a bigger storefront in a way
for a larger audience for people to buy your game
because now you have all these Xbox users who can
now buy any of your Steam games.
Speaker 1: But I also think it maybe takes away from like
the double dip factor and you think about games like Minecraft, GTA, Skyrim. Personally,
I have purchased those games on multiple platforms over the years,
and those are some of the best selling games of
all time. And that's why those games becomes from the
best selling of all time because a lot of people
buy Minecraft three or four times, and so it's not
that all that many people has actually bought the game.
It's just that you have individual people buying the game
multiple times to play in different places. And this could
kind of take away from that a bit. Now, if
you just have to buy it in one spot, obviously
much better for consumers. But I wonder if developers would
be worried or upset about this if they're in a
way losing money because people are not buying their game
in multiple places.
Speaker 2: If as a developer, your pitch is to have one
person buy your game two to three times, that's not
a solid foundation that is that is that the case?
Speaker 1: So, I mean think about games like like Marvel Snap
or I'm sure Pokemon Pokemon Trading Card, Like I'm sure
like most of those games, so much other revenue comes
from like just individual users who are spending sometimes like
millions of dollars on their game, right, Like they're just
they're the whales as they call them, right, Like the
users who are just buying so much cosmetic shit in
your game that it keeps it afloat for the people
like me who are a snap maybe spend ten dollars
every few months or something like that, right, But where
it actually becomes sustainable is sometimes just those huge freaking
whale type people. And I feel like it's not quite
the same if you can only buy a game up
to three or four times on these different platforms. But
I feel like that same idea does kind of stand.
And yes, Splunky has I've purchased it on every platform,
you know, because I just want to have access to
it everywhere.
Speaker 2: And you know that's that's quadrupled.
Speaker 1: Their sales from one person alone here, But now that
would they would get, you know, less sales for me
in that way. But I don't know, maybe they just
like where where does that divide of, Like, hey, well
now they have access to more users, where does that
balance out?
Speaker 2: I think that's that's tricky.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, developers are not
really gonna have to say in this right, this is
just like Xbox and Steam and these people the suits
that are making those decisions, not the developers.
Speaker 3: Really.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it'll be just in the C two when
you have Steam sales, because sometimes the Steam sales are
like the best, like way better than Xbox, so competitively,
is Steam gonna undercut Microsoft on the pricings of their games,
like and then like it's gonna force their hand, like, oh,
we'll just buy a game on Steam for five bucks
during their summer sale when it's still like twenty nine
bucks on Xbox Store.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up, because I do
feel like, because I've been trying to wish lists more
things on an Xbox and PlayStation, I tune in on
those sales and I feel like they're getting up there
in terms of the Steam numbers, in terms of the valet,
like the savings you could get on these things. But
still at the end of the day, like compared to
like Steam, compared to any of these of things, the
e Shop of course, but even Xbox, even PlayStation, Oh
my god, all those storefronts absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 2: Suck compared to steams.
Speaker 1: Steam is so clean, They've always been doing it for
a long time, and like had the same one they've
been iterating on. But it is by far the best
storefront for finding new interesting things, for just quickly finding
the things that you actually want for managing your wish list,
the UI just looks really nice that everything's really snappy,
and it's consistent because you don't have to like, oh,
every generation now I gotta like wish list these new
games that I want or get they get, you know,
carries everything over obviously throughout all time, so it's just
always been the best, and so I think to me,
that would even just be a huge thing of oh yeah,
I can just like buy things on Steam on my
Xbox now that is a huge convenient or I could
just buy them on you know, Steam on PC and
then just download them from my Xbox like that would
be a major convenience factor. So I do hope this
ends up being true, and I hope it happens for
PlayStation too. I would I just think it would be great.
That would really, I don't know, help me maybe make
a decision on what console I want to buy next generation.
Speaker 2: At first, I think it would be just a really
nice bonus.
Speaker 1: And you know, I don't Nintendo will ever jump in
on this fun, but I hope they do because that
would be I mean, Steam probably wouldn't want that because
I feel like, then who would buy a Steam deck
if now you can just play all your Steam stuff
on your your switch.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: So I think that that would probably be not their
best interest. But I think to grab Xbox and PlayStation
and get them in the house, that would be a big,
good partnership, I think, hm for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Any any other thoughts on this that we haven't
covered yet?
Speaker 3: No, I think that's everything.
Speaker 1: Okay, how about then we take a quick break and
we'll be right back to get into Assassin's Creed Shadows.
Speaker 2: We are back the latest Assassin's Creed game. What is this?
The twelfth game? Tenth game, eleventh, fourteen main line mainline
mainline game? Okay, quick sound out, satnd Creed two, Brotherhood
Revelations three, four, Black Flag, Assassin's Creed Rogue, Assassins for Unity,
Assassin's Creed Syndicate, Assassin's Creed Origins Origins at that point, and.
Speaker 3: The Assassin's Creed Odyssey, Assassin's Creed Valja, Assassin's Creed Mirage,
and the Assassin's Creed Shadows.
Speaker 2: So what do I lost count? Were you still counting? No?
I stopped at ten. Ten was syndicate? So origin? Maybe?
I think it was fourteen or fifteen, Yeah, thirteen fourteen, fifteen,
somewhere in that ballpark. There's been a lot of these
games consistently coming out, but I think they have slowed
down a little bit. Obviously the delay is a part
of the factor here.
Speaker 1: And now I guess, just like, obviously I want your
top level thoughts, but also I feel like you've you've
gone on such a journey with this series. You've played
all these games, you love, you love, Maybe you don't
love all of them, but you really enjoy most of them.
And then there's a couple duds, I guess in the mix.
But I feel like you kind of went up the
hill with Origins and Odyssey, really liking the kind of
changes in the series, and then Valjaala kind of tanked
it you didn't really like. Maybe I don't know if
it was necessarily the open world, so if you didn't like,
it just wasn't as much for you. And then they
go back to Mirage for a more classic Assassin's Creed style.
But now here we are back with like the kind
of open world again and obviously a new setting. So
I don't know, how is that fairing with you? Are
you liking this kind of back and forth, or do
you wish they would kind of stick with the Mirage
style or are you kind of enjoying the open world
element of it again?
Speaker 2: I you know, the open world aspect it can be
it could be overwhelming because when I was playing, I
had Madison's Next Gym, my Madison look, and I was
just going over the whole map. I'm like, how the
hell am I a thirty year old man, a father
supposed to find the time to go through a one
hundred percent this like I used to? But you know,
you make time. The fact that it's open world, I
like it, and there's definitely a place for it. With
Assassin's Creed, Valhalla was just I have some friends that
really really love it. They still play it, they enjoy it,
and they're trying to egg me on to get back
into it.
Speaker 3: I think I just can't.
Speaker 2: That's it doesn't feel like Assassin's Creed to me. It
feels very far from it. And when you'll get Mirage, like, okay, Mirage.
Speaker 3: Is them kind of hitting that reset button. It's going
back to basics.
Speaker 2: It's it feels like Assassin's Creed one, but is refined
and just honed in and it's just like this.
Speaker 3: Is a great Assassin's Creed adventure and a story. I
really enjoy it. So yeah, there's definitely been highs and
lows the Assassin's Creed shadows to me, it has.
Speaker 2: Elements that are familiar from previous iterations, like Assassin's Creed syndicate,
the character like between back and forth kind of dynamic.
I feel like that's part of that is represented here.
And then while I'm exploring the map, for some reason,
Black Flag popped into my mind. It's just the landscape
seemed very familiar, and just it's the setting and running
around seem to kind of feel like Black Flag in
a certain way.
Speaker 3: Of course, the.
Speaker 2: Combat very very much different. I mean that starts with origins,
but yeah, there seems to be like little things that
just kind of reminisce from each different and title of Assassin's.
Speaker 3: Creed that I that I really like.
Speaker 1: I think that's pretty fitting for like the theme of
these games too, right, and just like having the animus
and kind of just this stuff unlocked through your DNA
and the memories and whatnot. So I think it's cool
that there's you're kind of getting that vibe from it
that it's a bit of a mix of these different
specifically the eras of the series.
Speaker 2: I guess that's pretty neat. Yeah, and the I mean
when it comes to the animus and that whole storyline,
it's I've had difficulty keeping up with where we're at
right now. I mean a few games after Desmond, I
was keeping up, keeping track and it made sense with
what was happening, But now without Desmond, and I can't
even remember the name of the main protagonist in the
present day. I think it was Leila. It's still a
little convoluted trying to keep tabs with her storyline. But yeah,
I just think that we're where they're at now. I
think this has just been a long time coming. People
have been asking for this for a very very long time,
and it's nice that we finally got it. And I'm
glad that it's when you look at the map, I'm
looking at a picture of the map right now, and
I'm glad that it's just it's broken up into what
is it, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten,
different regions which feel their provinces, which is a little
bit nicer, and they make it.
Speaker 1: Kind of clear like this is like the level you
want to be roughly to enter those places. Yeah, that
little was overwhelming than just like a big cloudy map
that we see so often in open world games.
Speaker 3: That's right, and that's something that was brought in.
Speaker 2: I want to say it was Origins that did that,
where hey, you can really go anywhere here, but you
know you're going to need to be a higher level
if you really want to deal some damage, and that's
again represented here. But this just feels more refined, and
I'm very thankful that they took a lot of the
things that they changed and introduced in Odyssey and Origins
and really refined it. Even Valhalla, I feel like it
was kind of missing the mark on with the combat
and whatnot. Mirage was nice, and I mean, I'll speak
more to it later with this game, but this is
definitely it's it's landing.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: What what's the diference then, between like this and Valhalla
for you? Like, why is this one seemingly working for
you more than the Hella did, Because to me, it
seems like a kind of linear trajectory to get to
this point.
Speaker 2: I would definitely say it's uh, the way the map
was designed in Valhalla a way like when I say,
open world. I just way too much forced, way too
much openness like that. And I mean that's kind of
my being hypocritical, yes, because Honesty was kind of like
that and Origins was kind of like that. But for me,
another thing with Valhalla is it just didn't really feel
assassin's creed Like it just felt like you're just a
Viking doing the raids and leading a bunch of troops
and all that kind of stuff. There were just certain
elements in there that were they were trying to be
honorable to the time and the setting and the events
that were unfolding, but it just, I don't know, it
didn't connect, didn't work for you.
Speaker 1: Just have one character in that game, right, you can
just choose male female, but let's get the same guy. Yeah,
and there and it's more, I don't know, is it
really trying to emphasize combat over self?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say so. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And that's again one of my other biggest cons, Like
I enjoy the stealth aspect. Sometimes just want to go
in and you want to fight like crazy. But I like,
for example, one of the first things I got and
sas Sweet Chatows was and she's been forgetting five kills undetected.
I was like, Okay, I feel like there's some merit,
a little bit of a reward here for just doing it.
And that was me going into a base as I
think it's Noah, Noah, so you.
Speaker 3: Say your name, yeah something like that, Yeah, something like that.
So that was me just going into a temple and just.
Speaker 2: Using my throwing daggers and just really taking my time
and going in slowly.
Speaker 3: And I was like, man, this feels good.
Speaker 2: I feel like an assassin, I feel like a ninja,
or like this is just super super cool. Mm hmm. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm quite enjoying the game so far as well, and
I'm definitely much more green when it comes to Assassin's Creed.
I've only just dabbled in a couple of the games,
but I've never even rolled credits on any of these.
We're considering do in Assassin's Creed two retro before this episode,
but just very busy this last.
Speaker 3: Couple of months.
Speaker 1: By Origins, No, I played a few hours of Origins,
but I got to the Pyramids and then I I
don't know, I don't know what happened there.
Speaker 2: I floated off into the wind. It was fun to
roam around there.
Speaker 1: A little bit though, But yeah, I truly have not
played a lot of this series, so pretty fresh experience
for me. And obviously this feels very similar to Ghosts
as Shima and other open world games, but I think
it is taking some different directions too.
Speaker 2: I want to ask the objectives. I guess I'll call it.
Speaker 1: The objective map, the objective chart, whatever you want to
call it in this where rather than it being like
a linear quest log of like, here's the name of
these quests, here's the cycleestis your main quest, Like it's
kind of just this big map and you can kind
of scroll around it and I'll show like, here's your
character and if you want to go on their personal journey,
follow this.
Speaker 2: Here's like the base building thing. You can follow these quests.
Speaker 1: There's these different rings of like different bandits, and here's
how they're connected to each other, and then you kind
of follow through these things. Is that kind of new
here or have they been doing these these sorts of
I don't know. I guess layout of the quest in
these recent games, I want.
Speaker 2: To say Valhalla is kind of what started that quest
kind of scenario origins was definitely still very linear and
Odyssey I guess that was more like Valhalla, different kind
of quests popping up and whatnot, but still fairly linear. Uh.
The the idea though of just that, the the UI
where you see like all the different icons for the
people you gotta like target and whatnot. I believe I
don't remember it in origins, not that it wasn't there,
it's just my lack of memory. I remember it in
Odyssey because there were you could you could I have
in my head you can see the different icons that
you can hit, these people that lead to these people.
Speaker 3: And so forth on who to execute.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I really like it. I think it right from
the get go.
Speaker 1: It like, once you get through the first like two hours,
which is very introy prologue tutorially sort of stuff, it
really feels like it's quite open and obviously doesn't no
Overmork game. As you said, you can go in a
direction you want, but I feel like it gave you.
It gives you a few different strings to pull on.
And then as you start playing a little bit more,
very quickly, like new tabs are opening on this and
your you know, new villain rings are popping up. It's like, okay, yeah,
this is overwhelming. Officially, like it gets to that point
pretty quickly. But I like that openness right off the bat,
and I feel like one thing I didn't really expect
from this game, because I feel like you'd be soft
games in general. They get the stink of like, oh yeah,
mind this open world game. Follow the you know icon
of the map. You don't have to follow the yellow line.
You know, you don't have to think at all. But
I feel like, I don't know if this is new
or if they've done this before, but the uh what
do they call? I guess there's like the hints for
each mission, so you'll get like, Okay, here's this guy
and he's you know, known as the Viper whatever his
name is. And you get like, okay, he is somewhere,
you know, west of this town. He's in this district roughly,
and he's kind of by the coast, and so you
can like just follow those clues and go look around
and try and find him, or you can like expense
these scouts, which are like this resource to help you
find where the actual peg is on the map. And
I feel like that was a pretty smart thing to
do because it just makes the game you have to
use your brain to like do these quests. You can't
just mindlessly turn your brain off and follow the things
and not listen at all.
Speaker 2: You kind of need to pay a little bit more attention.
Speaker 1: It reminds me a little bit of mar Win in
that way, right, mar Win a game that didn't give
you quest markers, that just give you a journal, like
go down the road for six miles and then take
a right at this fork in the road and then
you know, when you see the lake, do a three
sixty flip.
Speaker 2: And you'll get to the destination.
Speaker 1: You know, It's very confusing in that game. This is
much more simplified pair down, But I think it. I
think it works one for the setting of it, and
I quite like it. I think it's something that could
maybe get on my nerves a little bit the deeper
I get into the game, when I'm like, I just
want to get through these quests and I have to
do these freaking scavenger hunts every time.
Speaker 2: So I don't know, is that a new thing? And
then how are you feeling about that mechanic? There's definitely
been iterations in the past where they don't necessarily give
you like, hey, it's.
Speaker 3: In this general area, but it's a lot more turn
your brain off.
Speaker 2: This is very, very different, i'd say, and I found
it aggravating immediately because I was like, man, I got
I just gotta do this shit, come on and it.
Speaker 3: But I enjoy the scout factor. You can kind of
pop those pings.
Speaker 2: That's kind of fun and it's definitely grown on me,
just kind of doing my own thing, and it's like, okay,
so I know that I'm a viewpoint.
Speaker 3: What's the word viewpoint, bitch, I guess.
Speaker 2: Or okay, your word's not mine viewpoint. Bit. When I
see a viewpoint, I'm going to it. That's always like
my first thing. If my quest is nearby, my mission objective, No,
I'm hitting the viewpoint. I'm a sucker for those. I
love to get as many of them as I can.
I've always done that in every single Assassin's Creed, and
I just think it's nice to kind of like, Okay,
I can get to that viewpoint, set up that fast
travel location, then I can kind of see, okay, my
target's over here.
Speaker 3: Which on the note of the.
Speaker 2: Viewpoints, I don't believe this was in Mirage. I can't
remember if there was a feature in there, but the
fact that you get to the top and automatically sinks
it and does the panel shot. That's fantastic because there
has happened when you get to the top. Sometimes you
forget to sink. Sometimes you jump off accidentally and you
got to climb back to the top of this god
forsake and landmark and do it all over again.
Speaker 3: So automatically doing it is a very very nice bonus.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that the scout mechanic, I think one,
it's cool that ties back into the game that and
maybe there I'm sure at some point with the base
building you can get like scout recruiter building and it
will just like give you scouts over time. But right now,
it's like, Okay, I have to go through the world.
I find you know, there's two people who are being
held prisoner by these evil guys. I go take out
the evil guys. And then when I freed those people,
I'll have the option do I want to recruit them
as a scout and that will be like a one
time expendable resource. I can send them off as a scout,
or I can, you know, get a rumor for them.
I guess I get a quest a hint to a quest,
I guess is the way it's kind of set up,
and I don't know if there's other options that pop
up later, but I think it's cool that it's one
contextualizes like so many of the open world games, you
like free prisoners and like maybe they go somewhere, maybe
they give you a little reward or something. But I
think it's cool that they kind of turn back into
a resource that you can then expend and like add
der army almost in a way. And then I guess
there's more mechanics on this too, where you can expend
multiple scouts at one time to do like a more
thorough search of a region or search a bigger area
or something like that too. So it seems like there's
you know, quite a lot of mechanics built around it
rather than just like that simple premise that we mentioned earlier.
So I really like that quick beef about the objective's
map though, and this is something I always love to
bring up. Once again, I could be an idiot, but
I did have to google this and there was other
people who had the same issue. The first time you
get popped up with the objective map, it's like, Okay,
pick a quest you want to do. I hovered around
for so long. I'm going on these icons, I'm hitting
a nothing's happening.
Speaker 2: I'm like, what the hell is going on? I clicked
on every one of them, probably five or six times.
I'm like, what in the world is the game bugged out?
What is happening here?
Speaker 1: Go on trusty Reddit search it up. And it turns
out that there's like a little minier peg underneath the
people's faces, and you have to click on that peg
to like actually select the quest. Once again, I could
be dumb, but you know, according to my backlog dot com,
I've played like over eight hundred games in my life,
and the fact that I, who have played all these games,
could not figure out how to select the quest, which
is one of the first thing gets to do in
the game, Like, how did that get through testing? They
delayed this game? Did that not come up in these
last few months? So a little bit pick there. Of course,
once you figured out, you never forget it. It's a
basic thing.
Speaker 2: But didn't like that.
Speaker 1: I felt really dumb early on. I don't like when
games make me feel dumb, unless it's like Eldon Ring.
I guess that's kind of the purpose of those games,
but anyway, minor beef there, but otherwise, I think the
objective map is really cool. I like how it kind
of separates your quest in a more visual way. I'm
a very visual person, so it's much nicer for me
to do that rather than having like one long ass
vertical list, which I'm sure for a game like this,
you're gonna eventually get so many quests that that would
be so overwhelming to sort through.
Speaker 2: So I think it's nice to have it that way.
Speaker 1: And then one thing I'm curious about I haven't really
seen yet is Outer Wilds of my favorite games has
a map similar like this that is more of a
mystery game though, And like when you get when you're
getting certain pegs on the map, it's making connections, is
like drawing lines between them, so you know, like, oh,
there's some way that you know this moon in this
you know tech base on this other planet is connected,
and you can kind of go figure that out. I
don't know if that's gonna happen here where it'll eventually
like draw lines between like oh, this gang is connected
to this other quest thing over here, and it'll make connections.
Not sure, but even if it's just what it is
right now where it's like, here's your ring of enemies
and they're all tied together, and then it like you know,
funnels the quest out in like a skill tree sort
of way so you can like look at it all nicely.
I think it's it's really cool and it makes me
much more engaged with the quests, and I don't know,
I quite like it, so I'm I'm joining that part
of the game. I think it's just adds a little
bit more flavor to like the open worldy, mindless open
worldy thing that I feel like. These Ubisoft games are
often criticized of.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. I could not agree more.
Speaker 3: The little icons underneath the icons.
Speaker 2: It's just so annoying, and it's like, Okay, you got
one guy that you're trying to get to to kill,
and you got to do the different quests to unlock
the ability to kill him or assassinate him, and it's
like you select one of the little icons because there's
three underneath, and that doesn't select all of them in
a chain. You gotta select that one and then you're
done that. Then you select the next game next, which
is very annoying. It would be nice if it just
you could click on the big character and then it
would be like, Okay, we're gonna just querry up you
know these this, then this as you progressively get through it. Yeah,
what are you doing with it right now?
Speaker 1: Are you like, Okay, each time, I want to try
and find this person on my own, and then when
I get frustrated and I can't find them, then I
expend a scout. Are you like immediately I want to
drop a scout or you really? I feel like the
scouts are so hard to find right now, Like they're
pretty far view and far between, so I'm trying to
like save them first. I'm trying to see if I
can go find this thing on my own. But sometimes
it's like, Okay, you ought to find one guy in
a huge city and he's like might be inside, So.
Speaker 2: It's like it can be hard to do sometimes. Yeah,
I mean I've I've I've dropped a couple scouts, but
for the most part, I'm the Yeah, I'm just kind
of going in on my own and just trying to
do it do it on my own. They completely changed
how egle vision works in this, which is massive because
before you were flying an eagle right just what was
introduced in origins all the way up to mirage where
you're looking down you're literally highlighting all the en means
in a base and then you just switch back to
your character and they're all highlighted red.
Speaker 3: You go in and you have, you know, a killing spree.
So this time around it's very different.
Speaker 2: You can't run while you've activated it, which is you know,
just like the original Assassin's Creed where if you run,
it deactivates your ego vision. So I think using that
is definitely it's it's nice. And then to target certain
people though, it's different because you use the left trigger
and then you can zoom in. And this took me
a minute to get used to be cause it was
in the prologue when you're trying to find like the
people that hunted the deer, and it was like I'm
running around like what the fuck am I looking for?
And then I finally I realized, oh, I got to
hold the left trigger and the bush I on the distance,
I could see two blue pings, Like is that what
I need to go look for?
Speaker 3: Holy shit?
Speaker 2: So again it's like the other thing that you're talking about,
just once it happens like you're never gonna forget it
because it's such a pain in the ass. So that's
that's what's sorry, go ahead, No.
Speaker 1: I'm just adding that it's like, it's surprising me that
that is happening for you, like me as a just
a general gamer, but for you specifically, someone who's played
like all these games, Like it surprised me that there's
like still all these seemingly like small ui issues. And
maybe it's like just part of the style that they
want this game to be very stylized in that Japanese
sort of way, and they're trying to unify everything, like
even as you're talking about like the blue the blue dots,
and there's like yellow dots for like loot right blue
are people yellow or lute generally speaking, I guess. And
that's similar to like the color coding of like combat right,
where you have like blue strikes which can be paired
but they'll still come in a flurry, and then there's
like white attacks that can just be paired by default,
and then red just can't be paired at all. So
it seems like they're trying to keep these I don't know,
color coding and things consistent, but it ends up just
being a little bit muddied because it's like kind of
unclear what these things mean that sometimes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean on that note of the of
the combat, it's it feels very very refined, very smooth,
and I feel like when you look at Origins, it's
very like you got a big, powerful guy in front
of you and you're like you're sneak like moving to
the left, over to the right, dodging around, and it
feels bricky. Of course, that's the first time they were
really doing their massive combat overhaul. Odysty improves on a
little bit, but it's still very much the same Valhalla.
It was just too chaotic, I felt, and that's me
kind of just shitting on that game.
Speaker 3: A little bit more.
Speaker 2: Mirage was nice. Mirage felt a little bit more refined,
a lot more smoother. Now in this you have to
take into account that they've added this whole parkour system,
and so the parkour system feels very very bricky to me.
It does not feel very smooth as I would have
liked it to be. I feel like it's good and
I like it, but there are certain things where I'm
trying to like and maybe it's even just the way
that design certain things in the map because I'm having
trouble moving my characters through certain things in towns and
doing certain things. But like the sliding around is fun
and moving through buildings is cool. I do feel like
sometimes it is like an extra delay second when my
character is running on a roof and does like a
triple backflip off, and it's like, man, I don't need
to do that, as cool as it looks, I just
need to get out of here.
Speaker 1: But so is the is the new feature that you
can just climb anything at any point? Is that what
kind of what you're talking about?
Speaker 2: Well, it's it's it's climbing anything, but just it feels
a little bit choppy, like bricky. It doesn't feel smooth
as I'm climbing these things and as I'm jumping off
these things and moving around. Especially I've had times where
I'm trying to climb up a pole but my character
leans up against it like they're looking around a corner.
It's like, that's really kind of annoying. I need to
climb up, not huddle around the Yeah, yeah, I don't.
I didn't know what you mean. I feel like, yeah,
a lot of the times it's like, oh, this is
automatically moving me in the exact perfect way I want
my character too.
Speaker 1: But then other times it's like, oh, but I also
still have to hit a to like do this jump.
But other times she will do like the jump on
her own. It's like, yeah, it's a little bit unclear
at certain points, but I think there is a lot
of really nice I mean a lot of time it
does flow really well.
Speaker 2: But man, I don't know if you did.
Speaker 1: Did you do the early quest where you have to
like you have to get a you have to get
a robe, And I think there's a couple of ways
can do it, but like the main ways like go
out to this pirate ship get some silk, and then
like bring it back to lady and like on one
of the ships where the silk is. It's like in
between like a ring of boxes and I it took
me probably three minutes, which may not sound like a lot,
but it is when you're just trying to pick something
up of like trying to maneuver my character on top
of this box in a way so I would close
enough to like the prompt to pop up to like
open the box, and I just kept jumping up and
down this box doing yeah, as you're saying, like backflips
and stuff, but I want to't want to, So yeah,
I think it's it's sometimes having like the full the
automatic kind of parkour stuff is a bit a bit much.
I'd like a little more control sometimes, So I'm hoping
that something that as you know, we get deeper in
the game, where he just kind of becomes second nature.
And there are some like I think the animation work
in this game is fantastic, like combat wise, stealth wise,
but even just movement things like you know, so many
games have you walked on like a tight rope, you know,
whether it's like a telephone pole, like you know, the
wire or something like that, And in this game, I
feel like most games don't. They don't have anything above
those you can keep walking across them. But in this
like the keep going up and then your character does
like the shimmy where like she'll hold onto the pole
and like do a little swing around like keep going.
It's a little thing, but I feel like I've never
seen a game do that animation before, and so I
just like we found myself extra impressed by it, and
so much of her movements are fantastic, even her crawl
is like freaking gallam like crawling through the mountains. It
is so satisfying. It's so like Spider like and satisfying.
And like I love when you're prone and you like
click back on the stick and she does I don't
know what she does, but like a contortion. It just
like flips her body around, like do a one to
eighty flip. And then the assassinations out of the prone
are so cool, where you like spin around, get their
legs out, stab them in the face. Just in general,
like the animation, like the finishing moves, all that stuff.
Animal animation work is like top notch in this game
looks so great, especially like anything when you're jumping off
a roof to take someone out, general combat stuff, the movement.
I think they really did a good job with the floorish.
And that adds on the fact that this game looks
beautiful and like the outfits look super cool. So you
just feel super sick when you're playing this game. That's
how I I feel.
Speaker 2: At least, Yeah, you really really do. And I just
I think it's it's a lot of fun how they've
managed to really make her. I mean, she's yeah Ninja
assassin and just like you said, the movement's crawling around
through the grass is fun. And even going underwater and
getting that ability where you have the little like bamboo
shoot tube thing and.
Speaker 3: It just lets you breathe under I haven't unlocked that
one yet, but I saw that on there. It's it's
it's fun. It's very very enjoyable.
Speaker 2: And yeah, just being able to you know, you get
it right away, and it kind of bothers me at
times how to use it because I wish and I'm
pretty sure it's an upgrade though, when you can use
like your grappling hook and different scenarios a little bit more.
I'm sure that there's an upgrade for it that I
just haven't come across. But it is nice to use
it in certain situations where you just throw it up.
You can go up to a roof and like keep
going up and climbing and whatnot. Then you can like
use it to like swing across caverns and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: That's kind of fun. There's another point I wanted to
mention with her. Oh yeah, some of the executions. I
love it, and it caught me off guard.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's just because I forgot how violent the other
ones are, but I don't remember any of the Assassin's
Creed games being particularly this crazy. Just when I was
doing my first major killing animation and you kick the
guy down and then you just do like a spin
and you bring your catana and like cut the guy's
head clean off and the head just falls and rolls away.
Speaker 3: I was like, holy shit, this is crazy, man.
Speaker 1: I went, I went up to this one base and
you've maybe done this mission too, where you just have
to take out some guy. He's at a base and
like him and his troops have been like straight just
decapitating people. It's like all around their base there's just
heads on like tables.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: And I was crawling through there and I got to
this one point where I'm like, okay, I'm a little down,
like this little rock cliff's So there's a little tiny
rock cliff and like a table and then like a
guard standing there. And I stood there for probably like
two minutes just waiting for this guard to like walk away.
I'm like this guy's face, he's just looking straight at me.
When's this fucking guy gonna turn around? I can't do
anything to get around the guy anyway.
Speaker 2: From turning around, and then I eventually realized that it
was just a decapitated head on a table and it
was never gonna move. But his eyes were open. He
was looking right at me, So eventually I realized that
that I could sneak up and get by him, which
was which was hilarious, but okay, another funny thing with
the with the park ord in the automatic movement, I
think the funniest thing for me. It's funny, but also
knowing is like, man, if you get within like I
don't know a poll's length of any hay baiale, your
character is leaping in there. If you go anywhere to
a haybil just automatically goes full cat just die right
into it, which a little frustrated at times, but it
also makes me laugh, so you know, it's it's a
trade off that's worthy. I guess.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: That spit me in the butt a few times where
I'm I'm dealing with about four guys. One of them
is one of my.
Speaker 3: Targets, and I'll be in a corner and.
Speaker 2: There's there's a freaking haybale there and I'm trying to
move but he keeps jumping in.
Speaker 3: I get out, yeah, and then it's such a pain.
Speaker 2: Yeah, hay bales are not like tall grass. You can't
just like walk into them casually.
Speaker 1: You have to do a badass jump in which I'm
sure makes a lot more noise than if you just
silently walked into them.
Speaker 2: But yeah, you know, we don't worry about that.
Speaker 1: I do think the addition of prone is fun for
the stealth because you still move pretty quick, but not
you know, not a lot of games actually allow you
to go prone, and if you do, you're so sluggish,
so it's not really worth it. But I think that
it's cool that there's like different levels of tall grass
in this game. That adds a little bit more variety
to the stealth. And on top of that, it's like, Okay,
I can extinguish these lights or I can like take
them out from a distance, and just thinking about that stuff.
So obviously, you know, they've been doing stealth since the
very beginning of the series, and so that's something that
is very refined. And as a big stealth game fan,
I'm really enjoying the mechanics here. I think there's a
lot of really good stuff in there. So that's, like
I said, that's been my go to style, and even
I remember back in the marketing we were kind of
showing like, okay, you can even play as stealthy, cool
ninja girl, or you can play as big strong samurai
combat guy.
Speaker 2: And I guess you unlock him later. Have you unlocked
him yet to where you are in the story?
Speaker 3: I haven' unlocked him yet.
Speaker 2: No. Yeah, I've heard that it's pretty late in the game.
I don't know. I don't know how long the game is,
so I don't know what that really means. But I
thought it would be a lot sooner because you start
off the game with him right.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, you start in like the opening kind of sequence,
and then you switch to her and get more of
her story. But I mean, I'm fine with it because
like I was gonna play as her the whole time. Anyway,
I don't really an interested in that play style, especially
after playing more of the combat, which you can talk
about it a bit. It's not really my thing. I
just want to I just want to be cool stealth
ninja person. So I would probably just continue to play
this character. But I don't know if it's going to
forcibly switch because I thought that was like you could
choose and that was like part of the marketing is
like do you want to go in loud or do
you want to.
Speaker 2: Go in quiet? So it'd make me think that once
you unlock him, you would be stealthy.
Speaker 1: But then like naturally there'd be like story sequences that
only he would do, right, Like he probably gets a
different peg on the objective board.
Speaker 2: So well, that's like syndicate back with Evie and Jacob Fry.
There were some missions where you had to play as
the other, right, and totally okay with that. Totally okay,
And it's very similar because Eve was absolutely stealth and
Jacob was more hands on like re warse. Yeah, it's
a Sasha and that's right. So I think that's what's
going to be happening here, and I'm totally okay with that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, gotcha. Uh, maybe we could talk a little bit
more about the combat. So yeah, this is you know,
has the very classic combat of enemies are gonna hit
you with these as I mentioned, the white, red or
like blue strikes or maybe there's yellow in there too,
I can't remember, but like these different strikes and I
really don't like these combat systems. To me, it just
feels like I'm playing Guitar Hero, and I love Guitar Hero,
but it just feels like I'm oh, there's a blue button, Okay,
I'll hit the blue button now, okay, hit the blue button. Now,
hit the blue button now, okay, And I hit the
white button.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: Now I can like get three or four strikes in
before they reset their stance and do it again.
Speaker 2: And I'm sure you're on a log a bunch of stuff.
Speaker 1: And I'm not really using the tools a lot, because
oh my god, it's the different like bumpers and the
different menus, which is funny that Ghost of the Stream
I had the same issue where there's so much stances
and tools and things, and whenever I would like come
back to the game after a few months of not
playing it, it would always take me like fifteen twenty
minutes of like, how the hell do you control this? U?
Speaker 2: I like, move these buttons around. You get used to
it over time.
Speaker 1: But maybe I'm not using the full tool set yet,
but I just I'm finding it pretty bland so far.
This is not really my type of combat system, and
so I'm trying my best to be a stealthy ninja
because I don't want to have to go into a
big fight and you know, it works fine against a
boss and it's like it's good enough, but like it
just doesn't really move the needle for me, unfortunately. But
how are you feeling about it? It sounded like you
were liking it more than Valhalla. At least I am
liking it more than Valhalla.
Speaker 2: I think it's fun when you can you just got
to try to either force your opponent to break or
just wait for an opening you can do. You can
unlock more abilities to quickly counter do different types of damage,
different attacks.
Speaker 3: I guess that sort of stuff, but I like that
as well.
Speaker 2: You can unlock actual abilities where you're basically holding down
your attack and then you're summoning.
Speaker 3: It kind of pops up like.
Speaker 2: Like a four icons that you can do like these
actual abilities. So when you are holding down one of
your attack buttons either I'm pretty sure there's just light
attack maybe you're heavy or your light attack, whatever you're
going to for your strike, and you're holding that at
tack button down, then you see the four icons pop
up and then you can hit like your why to
actually do like another execution like superability, that kind of stuff,
and I like that. I think that's a lot of fun.
That's a little bit more versatility to the way you're
taking out your opponents. But yeah, I just think where
Origins and co were very blocky, when you're dodging to
the side, moving out of the way, and it just
be like, Okay, one solid sweep attack from your enemy
will just decimate you. You can still take a lot
of damage in this case, but you have a bit
more control over it because you're customizing with different armor
and putting on different things, equipping different things, different weapons
and whatnot. And so I really do enjoy how it
just feels a little bit more contained and smooth because
I can roll backwards and then I can kind of
just make my opponent kind of come to me a
little bit, and then I can do like a heavy attack,
break part of their armor off, and then I can
just start dealing a few quick blows, or I can
roll back and start throwing some of my throwing knives
at them.
Speaker 3: So yeah, just different diferent ways to combo it up.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm glad you're enjoying it more than I am.
How About we take our last break of the show
and we'll be right back for some more Assassin's Creed chatter.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back. Okay, we are back.
Speaker 1: So yeah, as you kind of mentioned, they're talking about
just some of the things you can unlock and add
to your skill tree. You know this, this skill tree
is not doing it for me. Something I frequently critique
about games like this. I just feel like the skill
trees are not very well made. They're not giving me
interesting things. And there are some exceptions. There are some
cool things in here, like as you mentioned, the swimming
underwater thing, Like that's a cool ability to have in
a skill tree.
Speaker 3: I like that.
Speaker 1: But Taylor, when I saw the ability put a skill
point into do two percent more damage at night, I
almost fucking turned the game off.
Speaker 2: Who the fuck cares about doing that?
Speaker 1: That is the most like most games, you know, ten
to fifteen percent is like, okay, that's uninteresting and boring.
Speaker 2: That's such a small amount. I'm not gonna notice that
two percent at night. This is so dumb and like
all some more like that, do two percent more damage
when you're low held, do two percent more damage against
like certain types of enemies, and you know, I guess
that stuff would stack over time, But my god, that
is like pretty pretty sparse if that's the kind of
skill trees we have in here, and so there are
of course exceptions. There's different tools and interesting things you
can get in there, like double assassinations from the air.
Cool things in there too, but a lot of it.
Speaker 1: Like it's a bad time when I boot up a game,
I get the first few levels, I look at the
skill train, I don't even bother leveling anything.
Speaker 2: And I just don't think about it for a few hours.
Speaker 1: That is not a good sign, Like I should be
excited every time I level level, but oh, I can't
wait to spend that point. I like, there's certain things
up the tree I'm really excited for. I can't wait
to get to them. And then I think the other
thing about that too, is and maybe you can explain
this to me, there's like a knowledge a knowledge system.
So there was like in the Shnobi or like the stealth,
you know, part of the skill tree. There's like other
things that are are interesting and I want to get,
but it's like, oh, you need more knowledge level, and
like I don't know how I'm how I get this
knowledge level thing, and they're just locked out until I
get that.
Speaker 2: I've got one or two.
Speaker 1: I couldn't tell they were just for certain skill trees
or if I have to expend those somehow.
Speaker 2: I was lost. I didn't know what the heck was
going on there, I believe, because yeah, it's like knowledge points,
right that you get. I'm yeah, pretty sure because I've
gotten a few, and you get them by doing certain
things like for example, I went to one city and
there were three different shrines to pray at.
Speaker 1: I prayed at all three of them, and I got
a knowledge point. Okay, Now is that a universal knowledge
point or was that like for a specific skill tree.
Speaker 2: I don't know that. I don't know.
Speaker 1: And did you have to expend it or did it
automatically just like give you more knowledge level in certain skill.
Speaker 3: Trees that I don't know get still learning?
Speaker 2: Still learning?
Speaker 1: Yeah, let me know if you figure that out, because
I don't get it. I'm sure I could just google
it real quick. But anyway, that was something confusing to me.
Speaker 2: But I don't know. Are are you having a similar
experience of the skill tree as me? Are you? I
don't know? Finding at a little bit more engaging. There
are times where I do forget that, hey, I actually
have like four points I can use, and so I'll
make a point to go into the page like, Okay,
let's slap these on to whatever.
Speaker 3: I want and I need here.
Speaker 2: But yeah, there's not really anything that's really super exciting.
It's the things like, oh, you can breathe under a
small bit of water for an extended amount of time
if you get this little bamboo shoot thing.
Speaker 3: So those are abilities.
Speaker 2: Yes, I want that, other fighting abilities to for combat,
I want those.
Speaker 3: Those are some things that I'm looking forward to unlocking
more of.
Speaker 2: But yeah, there's not necessarily any poll to get two
percent extra damage at night, Like that's that's bullshit. But
I do like the concept behind it. I think that's
fun because we have a day at night cycle. We
have a four season cycle in this game. It's beautiful,
it's wonderful. So I think that's awesome to think, Okay,
you have different benefits to doing certain missions at night
versus daytime.
Speaker 3: So that's really really a cool case.
Speaker 2: Miss on that two percent damage, Taylor.
Speaker 3: No, that's huge. I could make or break you your
your mission there.
Speaker 2: Maybe you need one less strike to kill a boss
than you did before.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 2: There's a cool uh another ability that they've added in
here that I was not expecting. So it's the I
think it's called the show Shoji's it's the it's the
type of Japanese sixteenth century Japanese door that has like
the paper on it with the one on the wooden frame,
and they close and open. You can open and close them.
Speaker 3: In this game. You can go into the homes. It's
super super cool. I like that. And yet when you
go in and you can like, uh, terminate the lights,
I can't remember what extinguished that. Yeah, you.
Speaker 2: Can extinguish the light source in there, which just cool.
And then you can when you do that, you can
see the light from outside and the shadows of like
enemy guards standing outside of these doors, and you can
unlock the ability to assassinate where you stab your Katanna
through like the paper door and like assassinate them and
then pull it out. It's just it's super cool.
Speaker 1: I haven't I have unlocked that ability, and I don't
think I've encountered an enemy in a position to kill
them yet that way. But I guess, yeah, a good
point that I need to be thinking more about, Like, Okay,
where are the doors? Can I kind of close this
door and then then do that or something like that.
So yeah, I'll definitely keep an eye out for that.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Let's see where do we want to go next. Maybe
talk a little bit more about like some of the quests.
I don't know if there's any highlight quests and things.
One that I that I did enjoy was a simple
US I forget they had a word for it, but
anyway's pretty much like a parkour challenge, like you just
had to climb this mountain, jumping through these different things,
and you know, I was fallowing the yellow paint and
it was kind of basic, but it was fun because
I think the movement, like when it is working, is
pretty engaging. I think it works especially well in a
situation like that that is designed for you to move
on a linear path instead of like going through a
city that is so intricate and there's boxes and rooftops everywhere.
Speaker 2: So I enjoyed that when I thought that was cool.
Speaker 1: And then one I thought was really interesting was there's
as I mentioned that section where you got to you're
essentially gonna go to a tea party, and so you
want to try and fit in because you're just like
a lowly commoner, so you've never been to a fancy
tea party, don't know what's going on here. So there's
like a couple of lead up quests that you have
to do into that, where you have to like get
clothing and then you'll like learn some of the etiquette,
and then you'll have to acquire a gift and then
you'll go to this party. And what I liked about
that as well is like, because I'm gonna be honest,
I'm skipping a lot of cutscenes, I'm hitting be a lot,
or I'm where it's I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 2: I will be totally honest about that.
Speaker 1: But I felt like for that one, I was like,
I gotta pay attention here because I actually want to
learn these things. And I was like, there's no way
the game is actually gonna make me have to know
this stuff, right, Like I'm just gonna get to the
cut scene.
Speaker 2: The character's gonna do it.
Speaker 1: But then hole, we got to the cut scene and
it's like, how do you want to bow? You gotta
bow the right way or these people are gonna like
sniff you out, or I don't know what the consequences
are if you mess these things up. And then there's
even mohere you gotta like turn your tea cup in
a specific way. And I did pay attention for that
cut scene, but in the moment, I did not know
which way I was supposed to turn it. I mess
it up, and the guy I.
Speaker 2: Was like, Oh, it's fucking amateur. Thislander was going on
here and I felt that. I felt that, and I
was like, that's cool. I like that one of the
quests of this game forced me to learn like proper
tea et to quit and I fucked that up, and
then I, you know, what was the Consequest's not like
I got killed or anything. I had to restart.
Speaker 3: He'll be the main villain at the end of the game.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll come back and that'll be like his taunt
to me is he'll like turn the tea cup twice and.
Speaker 2: Then they'll come at me.
Speaker 3: But I really like that.
Speaker 2: I thought that was a really cool quest.
Speaker 1: And then the so that one the I guess, you know,
I guess the light spoiler for this early game quest.
But the way that that one ends is you're kind
of going around this party. You're trying to get the
proper etiquette, but then you're also trying to suss out
three different perps to determine which one is the target
that you're actually going after. And once again, this takes
some brain power, doesn't just give you the answer, it
doesn't eliminate one of them. So it essentially becomes like
a fifty to fifty which one of these is the people?
And honestly, after talking to them and after this tea party,
I had no freaking clue I had.
Speaker 2: I was like, what clues am I missing here? I
didn't realize I was, you know, playing Return of the Open.
Did I totally missed some of these details here. I
wasn't doing enough snooping around And so it comes to
the end in quest, I'm like, I don't know. That
girl was kind of sus I guess I guess I'll
pick her, And then it like skips out of the
cut scene and she's like running down the street away
from me because I guess I've like declared warning her
once again, I probably skipped a cut scene here, and
so I'm just running in the streets. And also the
running assassination the animation is.
Speaker 1: So cool because you literally just dive with them once again,
like gallam stab them in the back, and then like
you're in the middle of the town. So now everyone
sees you her run away, wrong target, So I've just
killed like an innocent person.
Speaker 2: And then it's funny. The funniest thing is like pops
up this little dialogue and it's like, well, you know what,
she wasn't the target, but she was pretty corrupt, so
I guess it's okay that I kill her. Anyways, I
was like trying to take away some of the guilt
that I should be feeling.
Speaker 1: For killing this innocent person, which was hilarious. And then
because I messed it up, and maybe it forces you
to mess it up. I don't know, maybe you're forced
to do it so you have to go on this quest.
It always tells you wrong.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I probably just messed it up in
an honest way.
Speaker 1: But then I had to go to this whole base
and I and I'm glad I messed it up because
I got this cool stealth sequence out of it where
I had to infiltrate this this castle and she was
like on top of the scaffold building that I had
to do this epic duo on the rooftop and it
was a really cool quest. So I thought that was
really cool, like the whole structure of that of like
the lead up to this quest in like a very
non combat focused mission where you're just doing some basic things,
gathering some stuff, and of course there's a little combat
sequences throughout it. But then you kind of culminating this
like maybe if you paid attention and did this correctly
in like a high intellect way, not just like raw power,
you could like skip this part of this quest, or
if you mess it up, you got to do an
extra like difficulty sequence.
Speaker 2: And I really enjoyed that.
Speaker 1: So I thought that was like a really well designed quest,
and I hope to see more of that stuff in here.
I don't think I've done enough to really comment on
that yet, but I don't know what is your perception
of the quest's been have they? Have there been other
ones interesting like this or do you have like a highlight.
Speaker 2: Quest that you've experienced so far? Yeah, there's been there's
been a few very interesting ones so far, and I'm
sure I'm pretty sure you've you would have done the
one where you're hunting, like the gunsmith's trying to get
information for like any of these gunsmiths, like do you
sell guns with gold on them?
Speaker 3: Or on.
Speaker 1: I've got like the first couple. I don't think i've
finished yet, but I think I've started that question.
Speaker 2: Okay, I guess there's there's two people that you kind
of you interrogate after the fact and like you're you're
eavesdropping this thing, and then you have to go and
actually talk to them.
Speaker 1: And I'm talking about Okay, yes I do know those guys,
but I remember there is another gun quest thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So that when they were talking and they're like, oh, like,
you can pick what your responses are and sometimes it matters,
sometimes it doesn't. And so they were like, oh, I'm
hairphrasing here, but they go, do you serve like so
and so? And then I was like, yeah, I serve
so and so Like oh, do you serve the son
or the daughter? And I was like, oh, I serve
I serve.
Speaker 3: The daughter, like there is no daughter. It's like fuck, Okay,
Well that backfired.
Speaker 2: But then there's other instances and other quests where it'll
actually say this does have an impact on this person
in the future, and I like that.
Speaker 3: That's that's good to know because it'll be curious to see.
Speaker 2: Okay, how does this how does this play in the
future when this person was my ally and I said
something that they didn't like, but the other person did like.
And that's to me, I'm pretty sure that's new for
Assassin's Creed that we haven't had something where conversation actually
can dictate.
Speaker 3: How the story could go in the future.
Speaker 2: M M and I.
Speaker 1: One thing I noticed too, at the very start of
the game, when you're booting up, like, oh, which difficulty
you want to play on, is they have a cannon
mode where it'll just like auto select the dialogue options
for you. And I don't know if that's just in
story sequences to like give your character a specific tone,
or if it isn't those things too, because I think
it would be disappointing if you didn't get to have
those moments where you had to pay attention or know
these details to like have consequences of saying something wrong.
Speaker 2: I don't know if canon mode removes that kind of.
Speaker 1: Thing, And maybe that's like stressful certain players, or maybe
they just put that there for people who just want
to enjoy these games mindlessly and don't want to pay
attention to that stuff and they just want to play
the game how it was, you know, quote unquote intended
to be. I guess that's cool that there's an option
in there. Like I said, I didn't pick that mode,
and I think I'm glad I didn't. Even if I
am skipping a lot of the cut scenes, I still
want to have some choice at certain points. But yeah,
it's cool that it seems like these choices actually seemingly
matter in the moment. I don't know if Yeah, I
don't know if they matter in a medicense like, oh,
it's gonna change with the final bosses, that kind of stuff.
I don't think that's what's going on. It's just more
like individual missions, and I'm sure most of them do
lead to combat in the end no matter what you
do anyway. But hey, sometimes the illusion of choices is
all you need to make it feel like you have
more impact as a player.
Speaker 2: So that's that's kind of all right.
Speaker 1: I also feel like the through some of the dialogue
choices and yeah, just general options that you have, I
feel like you can kind of be evil in this game.
I feel that you can do some truly evil acts
or do things in like really mean spirits and really
just go to colmat a lot quicker when you could
talk through a problem, So I don't know how much
that's really going to tie into things like that's kind
of an element of Ghost's Shima as well as like,
I don't know, how do you want to be an
honorable type? You want to obey these rules, these kind
of traditions and all these kind of things.
Speaker 2: Do you want to go against them? And so I
don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of liking that. I feel like I'm kind
of playing a bit of an evil character. I'm going
I'm a pretty savage, savage person. Obviously I killed that
innocent person, so that's kind of personifying that.
Speaker 2: But I'm liking that. I don't know.
Speaker 1: It seems like there's a little bit of edge you
can have with your character. But I don't know, what
do you I guess otherwise think of the story, like
I don't know if you're skipping as many cut scenes
as I am, but it seems like it starts out
as a pretty classic revenge story. You know, your father
was killed and you're trying to get the people who
killed him kind of thing. But I don't know, do
you have any more take on any interesting characters or
story stuff that's going on?
Speaker 2: It's as far as the stories go, I'm not not
very engaged with it. I'm not skipping cut scenes. I'm
trying to get connected to these characters. But her story,
her introduction, didn't really he hasn't really pulled me in yet.
The other character, y suit Ke, I really was engaged
with his character at the start because I thought, okay,
like he's hired as like a bodyguard, like a slave
to these Portuguese religious folks that are trying to like
get permission to go through this this Daimyo's land, and
I thought, okay, this is really cool.
Speaker 3: I'm enjoying this.
Speaker 2: And the Dimo is like, oh, I want to keep
you around and like train you, and I think you're
interesting because he had never I mean, you're dealing and
I'm not trying to like be politically incorrected with racist
or anything like that. But they obviously dealt with a
lot of white people and then here comes a black person, like, hey,
he hasn't seen a black person before, is how I
took it. And he thought he was really interesting want
to learn more about him, and saw that he was
a great warrior and wanted to bring him in. I thought,
let's this is a very cool, engaging story where this
can go but with her. Yeah, it's classic revenge for
Assassin's creed. Father gets killed, but I felt like it
was not gaslighting. But like, okay, I thought he died.
No he's alive, he's back again. Oh no, he's dead.
And then we're getting flashback sequences later on where he's
alive again, and it's just like, Okay, I'm not really
getting attached to this character. Now, I'm gonna go back
to the be all end all the best of the best.
Assassin's Crew two, you get an amazing intro where you're
with your family as at you know, it's great, and
then that leads to literally like your brothers and your
dad being hung and it's like, okay, that's it, no
more flashbacks or anything like that.
Speaker 3: They're gone. They're dead.
Speaker 2: And it's like, holy shit, that was that was crazy.
And this I didn't really I don't have that connection.
I don't really feel her suffering, you know, like she
was just she was shot, she was on the ground,
and she's outside this base and like her father just
comes out of nowhere, gets killed and he's just there
and she crawls towards him, and that's it.
Speaker 3: It's very sad.
Speaker 2: It's gut wrenching, yes, but Assassin's Creed two when you know,
a brief spoiler, he thinks his family is gonna be okay,
and he's in the crowd and he sees someone's supposed
to be his Ally sends this his brothers and his
dad to hang till dead, and he can't get through
the crowd fast enough. He's trying to get there and
he just sees his family get hung. It's like, oh
my god, this is real. Maybe I'm biased, Probably I'm
a little bit. No, that sounds that sounds emotional, right,
the very emotional, very emotional. So I'm hoping that we
get a little bit more emotion from this character. And
I'd like to see her. I'm I'm excited to see
how she kind of more or less embraces being more
of an assassin, because so far just getting these revenge killings,
she's just like for my father and just like just
stabs like man like this is different from like going
and the assassin takes the feather and wipes the feather
on their blood and stuff.
Speaker 3: This is Yeah, she's dark, she's got a dark side.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think she's cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like I don't have that deep emotional bomb, but
I think she's a cool protagonist so far. Cool look
and as I mentioned, like the outfits and all that
look look really sick. So you can really customizer in
a fun way. So yeah, I think you know she's
getting the job done in that way. But once again,
I'm not investing them as much effort in the story.
Another thing that I believe is new for Assassins Skreek
is you were pretty excited about this when it was
shown off recently as the base building factor. So I
don't know if you are building out multiple bases or
just one in this game. I'm guessing there's multiple in
like the different regions and all that. But yeah, essentially,
you are going around, You're collecting resources along with other
stuff that you normally would in these kind of games.
You can go back to your base, you are recruiting
people there. You're recruiting like shop owners or like stable
and things like this. You're building out different buildings, put
them where you want, put decorations. There's a lot, seems
like seemingly a lot of things you can unlock to
put here. I feel like every vendor has like a
section for cosmetic stuff for the for the bases that
you can do.
Speaker 2: I'm curious how much you've done with this feature so
far and how it's working for you. I've built only
a couple little things. I've not fully immersed it, but
I have been hunting and gathering lots of resources, and
I I think it's cool too because you can hit
certain bases and you can like your scouts will hit
the like certain things later, right, like you got to
send them to like go pick up stuff, right.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, So that's basically all I've I've done. I
haven't fully built like a be all end all base yet.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean it does seem fairly basic, right, Like everything's
on a grid and so, I don't know, it feels
like a classic roller coaster tycoon sort of moment there
you can like do the little paths in between that stuff.
I'd be curious to see once you get into town
or I guess you're a settlement whatever, it is a
little bit more established, like how much you see like
people walking around and traveling throughout your place, or if
it's just like, oh, the forge guy sits in the
forge all day and never really leaves it and it
would kind of just feel like disconnected and it's like,
you know what, just give me a menu. I mean,
there's like actual base going on here, so we'll see
what happens there. But I don't know, it seems like
another there's just a lot of different like progression things
in this game, right, whether it's like collecting, buying, acquiring gear,
upgrading it, you know, whether that's going in the skill
tree and upgrading stuff there, or like upgrading things through
the base now. So it seems like there's just a
lot of different ways that you're improving your character, which
I'm sure over I don't know. I'm assuming this game
is pretty long, so yeah, I think hopefully that keeps
things fresh. They're always having new ways to kind of
improve your character. I think that was everything in my notes.
Is there anything that we haven't talked about yet.
Speaker 3: I think I hit everything that was that I wanted
to touch upon.
Speaker 2: It's pretty good for one weekends worth of play for
what is a long game. I'm sure you'll report back
on this one.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, I absolutely will.
Speaker 2: If I had one more thing that would have been
nice to have and there was maybe a little bit
more islands available because you can go swim out into
the ocean and see the ships and stuff like that.
That's cool, you can get on the ships.
Speaker 3: But I would have liked it if there was maybe
a little bit more island hopping, not to.
Speaker 2: The level that Odysty had because that was that felt overwhelming,
but just a little bit more like exploration on that front.
Speaker 3: But that's me wanting to be more.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: When you look at like the overall map, does it
seemed like there's not really a section that'll have more
of it.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's totally possible, but we'll I guess we'll
see what they do for for DLC. Sometimes Assassin's Creed
deals you can get a little zany, they can go
a little bit off the rails with it being true, Yeah,
Valhalla stuff got pretty wild, right with some more like
yeah things, oh which oh your mind to me? So
when you boot up Shadows, I actually really like it,
how and I guess this is kind of them creating
it's like an equivalent to Call of Duty when you
boot up that and you have like the different called
duties you can go into, and then war Zone all
the different tabs. So here you have your main Assassin's
Creed like home page, and then you can go for
like five hundred CE like sixteen hundred BC memories, right
they call them, Yeah, yeah, so.
Speaker 3: You can cycle and there. They're just they're the main games,
right that you can choose which one you want to
get in.
Speaker 1: Because like I thought they had like that Assassin's Creed
is it called Infinity?
Speaker 2: Was it going to do that? Where like the hub?
Speaker 3: Is that what this is?
Speaker 2: Because I didn't download that, but it seems like I
have access to I think that's I don't have access
all those things, but I can see them all there.
I think that's what this is or what they're trying
to do, because yeah, like you're just you have access
to all of them, so you're going through You're going
through all of them.
Speaker 3: So it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Is that part of the reason why this game with
so many goddamn gigabytes is because there's like other games
stuffed in the cartridge essentially?
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe I'm surprised because I thought it would be more.
Mine was only about one hundred, and I thought we're
going to be like two hundred or something like that.
But maybe that's just call of duty that I'm used to.
Speaker 1: Now, Yeah, we shall see, this was a really fun discussion.
It's always fun to talk Assassin's Screed with you because
you are the master of this series. But yeah, I'm
sure we'll have to report back on this one. I
think I'll definitely put a few more hours in and
see how that goes for me, because there's some stuff
I'm liking I still got to finish about though, you
know what I mean. I I got so many games
on the plate on the go right now. Yeah, I'm
curious to see how this one does and what the
reception of it is overall, because it has been a
long time coming for thousand Screed to go to Japan.
So yeah, we will report back. Thank you everyone for listening.
Let us know your thoughts on the game in the
YouTube comments and our discord in a Apple review.
Speaker 2: Wherever you want to leave it, we'll be happy to
see it. Thank you for listening, Thank you Taylor for
joining me, and we'll see you again next time. Bye bye.