Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to Game Mess Mornings with your host me,
Speaker 1: Jeff Grob. I messed up this intro because I got
Speaker 1: rid of all the ad stuff in here. I'm your
Speaker 1: host from Giantbob dot com, though that's still true. Thank
Speaker 1: you for tuning in. In this episode, we're going to
Speaker 1: be talking about reviewing RPGs and how that should come
Speaker 1: with Hazard pay, and I think Squreenix might be doing
Speaker 1: something with that chrono trigger. It's gonna be a good
Speaker 1: one because we have Jesse Vittelli on the show. Jesse,
Speaker 1: how are you doing.
Speaker 2: I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. Yeah, good Wednesday.
Speaker 1: Good Wednesday. You did have that review go up. We'll
Speaker 1: talk about that here in a little bit. But we
Speaker 1: also talked a little bit before we get started about
Speaker 1: a Game of the Year catch up, Like where are
Speaker 1: you at with that? Really? Because I'm at a point
Speaker 1: where it's like, oh God, I'm I'm giving up on
Speaker 1: some ideas of finishing some of these games.
Speaker 2: I feel okay because I feel like I played a
Speaker 2: good cadence of games this year of previous years where
Speaker 2: it feels like I'm my entire year is catch up.
Speaker 2: But there are definitely games that are going to slip
Speaker 2: out of my ability to play the games in the
Speaker 2: next like two weeks, promise. Mascot Agency is still like
Speaker 2: top of my list, Like that is probably the next
Speaker 2: thing I'm gunning for, but I'm like halfway through Dispatch.
Speaker 2: I haven't finished that yet. There's just like so many
Speaker 2: smaller projects that I would have loved to have time for,
Speaker 2: but just not how that works sometimes.
Speaker 1: Yep, yeah, same, the one that is like kind of
Speaker 1: like sticking in my craw a little bit that I
Speaker 1: don't know will do me, Like it won't pay any
Speaker 1: dividends if I actually do go back to it with
Speaker 1: Like this crowd that I'm gonna be doing doing Game
Speaker 1: of the Year with is the new Mafia game. I
Speaker 1: kind of want to finish that. I was having a
Speaker 1: good time with it, and it doesn't seem like it's
Speaker 1: too long. Yeah, I bet I would end up quite
Speaker 1: liking that game. I don't know, maybe not enough to
Speaker 1: get my top ten, but there's a chance. I don't know.
Speaker 1: But there's so many other games I need to finish.
Speaker 1: Expedition thirty three, that's number one. I got to finish
Speaker 1: that and then I could start maybe doing some of
Speaker 1: this other stuff.
Speaker 2: We'll see Mafia short enough, you could get through it.
Speaker 2: I think I'd beat that game in like eight hours.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'm like, I'm a good two hours into
Speaker 1: that game already, so I could probably make a dent
Speaker 1: in there. All right, you know there's a lot to
Speaker 1: talk about. Let's go ahead and get started and explain ourselves.
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Speaker 1: couple of days. As far as this show goes most weekdays,
Speaker 1: I Jeff Greb will help piece your gaming life back together.
Speaker 1: That includes breaking news and maybe even some of our
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Speaker 1: All right, we have a lot to get into, so
Speaker 1: let's start the morning mess with Octopath Travelers zero reviews.
Speaker 1: It has an eighty three on Open Critic, and we
Speaker 1: have some reviews here. I'll read a couple of these
Speaker 1: real quick. Afore our star review from Alan Win at
Speaker 1: games Radar Plus, who says it's commendable that something like
Speaker 1: Octopath Traveler zero exists. Steve Watts at GameSpot gave it
Speaker 1: an eight out of ten. Has said a stellar combat
Speaker 1: system and multitude of strategic wrinkles are the glue that
Speaker 1: holds this well told, if disjointed, episodic story together, and
Speaker 1: then the six axises. Dominic Layton gave it an eight
Speaker 1: out of ten, said Octopath Zero maintains the series's gorgeous
Speaker 1: pixel art esthetic, while it's adapted and evolved take on
Speaker 1: Champions of the Continent's gameplay ensures that it feels like
Speaker 1: a worthy console release. Just so you played this, right,
Speaker 1: I did? So? What was what was that like reviewing
Speaker 1: a big ol' RPG? It's what, what like twenty thirty hours? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah? It just like multiply that by five and you're good.
Speaker 2: I think. So I have seen like the true ending,
Speaker 2: I have done all the side quests, I have recruited everybody,
Speaker 2: and I think my hour account's like roughly one hundred
Speaker 2: and thirteen hours, give or take. Some of that's idle time.
Speaker 2: I definitely like fell asleep while playing once or twice,
Speaker 2: so you know, sure, of course within like a ten
Speaker 2: hour thing. But that game is really good. It's definitely
Speaker 2: uneven pacing wise. It's if you've played previous Octopath games,
Speaker 2: you kind of know like you're jumping around different stories
Speaker 2: a lot between the eight characters. This game's a little
Speaker 2: more focused because you have a like a created main
Speaker 2: character that you then recruit people sort of Sweeken in style.
Speaker 2: You've got a lot of party members you can deal with,
Speaker 2: and the story is not necessarily focused on the characters
Speaker 2: as much as it is like just the story that
Speaker 2: they have like like put in front of you, and
Speaker 2: it has branching pads, like you know, you'll go and
Speaker 2: there's three chapters that you'll do, and then they'll converge
Speaker 2: into one linear section and then they'll dive divulge again
Speaker 2: into multiple chapters. And I think the sections of the
Speaker 2: three chapters are a little weaker just because they're shorter.
Speaker 2: They don't really give enough run time to really do
Speaker 2: justice to the villains that they're trying to set up.
Speaker 2: But when that game gives you a long stretch like
Speaker 2: an eight nine chapter section, I think it's some of
Speaker 2: the best stuff that game does, but it's long, like
Speaker 2: you're in it for the long haul. And I do
Speaker 2: think the best parts of the game are at the end.
Speaker 2: The last twenty hours or so is I think when
Speaker 2: that story really thrives. But how do you go to
Speaker 2: somebody in the beginning of December and go you got
Speaker 2: to play like fifty hours before you really get into
Speaker 2: the meat of what this thing is trying to do.
Speaker 2: I don't think that's like a fair thing to say
Speaker 2: to somebody.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's gonna be the sickos out there that
Speaker 1: want to hear exactly that, but they know who they
Speaker 1: are and they already know they're getting this game right.
Speaker 1: Like when you're going to recommend this to someone who's unsure, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a difficult thing to even explain, let alone get
Speaker 1: them excited about the prospect. Let's like hit some of
Speaker 1: the other aspects of it, like maybe there are some
Speaker 1: winning factors here. Does the combat like hold up over
Speaker 1: this entire run time or where you still as engaged
Speaker 1: with the mechanics ninety one hundred hours in.
Speaker 2: It has some of my favorite things that RPG combat
Speaker 2: can do, which is like it's gonna be easy at first,
Speaker 2: there's gonna be some sort of difficulty spike later, and
Speaker 2: then you're gonna kind of break the system wide open
Speaker 2: once you've spent enough time with it, you've accrued enough
Speaker 2: job points and you're able to sort of the way
Speaker 2: the system works is you sort of level up each character,
Speaker 2: you gain abilities, and then you can spend points on
Speaker 2: those abilities to give them to other characters, so you
Speaker 2: can sort of mix and match a bunch of different
Speaker 2: abilities and passives and all these things, so you can
Speaker 2: really sort of create your own build, if you will,
Speaker 2: for all your different characters, and you can give them
Speaker 2: more options in combat, like, oh, this character is not
Speaker 2: a spell caster, but I'll give them some spells so
Speaker 2: they have more variety. And then there's some passives that
Speaker 2: are like twenty five percent chance to take an extra turn.
Speaker 2: And when you get into that stuff, then you start
Speaker 2: really starting to build into these like game breaking situations.
Speaker 2: Because the big thing about Octopath zero is it's not
Speaker 2: just four people on the field, it's eight, So you
Speaker 2: have like a front row and back row that you're
Speaker 2: switching between to be able to take. Oh, this character
Speaker 2: is not good at this fight, so let me like
Speaker 2: swap them to the back. He'll regenerate HP and MANNA
Speaker 2: or sp whatever, and then this other character can do something,
Speaker 2: And so there's a lot of flexibility. I did find
Speaker 2: it kind of easy early on, sure, and then it
Speaker 2: has like a difficulty spike in the middle, and then
Speaker 2: once I figured the system out, it kind of got
Speaker 2: easy again. I think it's easier than the previous games,
Speaker 2: but I also think that's just because you have more
Speaker 2: tools to work with, and so it was I was
Speaker 2: engaged the whole time, Like there are definitely fights that
Speaker 2: ask you to lock in, but I never felt it
Speaker 2: was unfair, except for maybe the last fight of the
Speaker 2: game that's like a different scenario altogether. But I definitely
Speaker 2: felt that the combat was probably like the shining point
Speaker 2: of this game. It was the thing that I was
Speaker 2: you can tell a games combat as good as when
Speaker 2: you hit as many random encounters as you do and
Speaker 2: you still do them. You don't just run away from them.
Speaker 2: You don't get like bored, You're like, I don't I
Speaker 2: don't want to do this anymore like I was. I
Speaker 2: was fighting every encounter I hit because I was just
Speaker 2: having a good time messing around with different ideas and
Speaker 2: you know, tinkering. It's a game for the spreadsheets that goos.
Speaker 2: If you're somebody who loves to put everything into a
Speaker 2: spreadsheet and tinker, a great game for you.
Speaker 1: How do you feel about like Square Enix's sort of
Speaker 1: the state of their RPGs, the state of HD two D.
Speaker 1: Do you think this game is an indication that they
Speaker 1: are kind of in a good place with the HD
Speaker 1: two D games and you expect more and better going
Speaker 1: forward from them, or or what.
Speaker 2: I I'm somebody who likes HD two D a lot.
Speaker 2: I know it's starting to like wear on some people.
Speaker 2: They're like, oh another a lot too.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think between this and Dragon Quest, I think
Speaker 2: they've like really hit their stride. I do think with
Speaker 2: this game, because I don't want to like make assumptions here,
Speaker 2: but it does feel like some of the assets were
Speaker 2: never meant to be blown up to you know, four
Speaker 2: K resolution to fourteen forty P because some of them
Speaker 2: do look a little blurry, because this is like a
Speaker 2: reimagining of the mobile game. So I think this game
Speaker 2: like looks visually looks a little worse than like an
Speaker 2: Octopath two or a Dragon Quest one and two HD
Speaker 2: two D like it fit somewhere in the middle there.
Speaker 2: But I think more importantly, it's a really interesting sign
Speaker 2: that Square decided to take one of their mobile properties
Speaker 2: and make it into a full fledged console release, which
Speaker 2: means like, are we gonna look at are they gonna
Speaker 2: start looking at their other catalog of other mobile games
Speaker 2: like a near reincarnation, a Final Fantasy, Brave X Vaist,
Speaker 2: I don't know, and turn those into full console releases
Speaker 2: with like added dialogue and the town building stuff of
Speaker 2: Octopad zero, which is really interesting. That's what I'm interested
Speaker 2: in knowing is is what does this mean for their
Speaker 2: mobile catalog going forward, games that were never really made
Speaker 2: available to people that refuse to play a mobile game.
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, I think at the very least, you're right,
Speaker 1: it's a sign that Square Enix sees that they leave
Speaker 1: money on the table when they take a franchise and
Speaker 1: just put it out as a new mobile game. Maybe
Speaker 1: the strategy going forward will be like, Okay, let's build
Speaker 1: these games in such a way that's like, hey, if
Speaker 1: it pops off on mobile. It makes all the money
Speaker 1: in the world great if it does. Okay, though, let's
Speaker 1: make sure we're ready to take those assets in that
Speaker 1: world can quickly apply it to the where that where
Speaker 1: that audience is on the consoles and on PC. Let's
Speaker 1: go bring it to where that those people are. So
Speaker 1: I'd say, Okay, they're being mindful of that. I think
Speaker 1: that's pretty smart. I don't know. I'm interested to see.
Speaker 1: I hope HD two D just continues and they keep
Speaker 1: refining it and coming up with new ways of expressing
Speaker 1: that idea, because I think they've it's improved in terms
Speaker 1: of visuals over time, and I think that all the
Speaker 1: different kinds of RPG systems they've applied to that have
Speaker 1: also been mostly very interesting or at least fun to
Speaker 1: play around with. Well, I guess the next question would
Speaker 1: before we move on then, is do you think we
Speaker 1: get like a final Fantasy, like a new Final Fantasy
Speaker 1: in HD two D style of any sort. Obviously wouldn't
Speaker 1: be Final Fantasy seventeen or whatever it would be. Could
Speaker 1: you see them being like, you know what, this is
Speaker 1: a good way for us to keep Vinyl Fantasy in
Speaker 1: people's minds and keep them happy and kind of play
Speaker 1: to the Sikos in some ways, or does that always
Speaker 1: have to be like the biggest, most expensive looking franchise.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I feel like especially with something like
Speaker 2: Final Fantasy seven right where they've kind of spun it
Speaker 2: off into like here's like a Battle Royale game, Here's
Speaker 2: like the Ever Crisis, like the mobile game. I could
Speaker 2: definitely see a spin off somewhere down the line than
Speaker 2: wanting to use the HG two D style like they
Speaker 2: obviously did the the Pixel Remasters whatever a couple of
Speaker 2: years ago. But I don't see why they wouldn't at
Speaker 2: least want to experiment with HG two D for Final Fantasy,
Speaker 2: especially because there's such a large older audience that is
Speaker 2: like we we missed the pixel, we mix missed the
Speaker 2: pixel art, we miss all of this, Like, let's we'd
Speaker 2: love to have a game like that. I miss I
Speaker 2: missed the pixel. I miss uh that movie Pixels with I.
Speaker 1: Don't in that movie was Adam Sandler's work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wanted to say Adam Sandler, but I was like,
Speaker 2: it feels like an Adam Sandler movie. But yeah, I
Speaker 2: don't know. Final Fantasy is an interesting one. I don't think,
Speaker 2: like you said, seventeen wouldn't be pixel remastered in a
Speaker 2: way or HDTWD, but I could see a smaller side
Speaker 2: project or like a spin off them just trying something out. Absolutely,
Speaker 2: why not. You got it, You got all the assets
Speaker 2: for it.
Speaker 1: Like you know, the games seem to be like when
Speaker 1: they do make HD two D games, they get attention
Speaker 1: and they seem to sell. So yeah, it's got to
Speaker 1: be a little bit more affordable to produce a game
Speaker 1: like that, I would hope. So we'll see. Okay, the
Speaker 1: other reviews are in for Metroy Prime four Beyond. This
Speaker 1: popped off yesterday, but you know, we talked a little
Speaker 1: bit about it on the BombCast, settling in on open
Speaker 1: critic at least at an eighty two so far. Logan
Speaker 1: Plant at IGN said Battery Prime four Beyond is an excellent,
Speaker 1: if relatively uneven revival that reaches heights worthy of a
Speaker 1: Metro name in its best moments. Three out of five
Speaker 1: from Alex Donaldson at Eurogamer, Metroy Prime four Beyond is
Speaker 1: enjoyable enough and has glimpses of vintage Metroid shining through.
Speaker 1: This game could and should have been so much more.
Speaker 1: Eight out of ten from Steve Watts at GameSpot High
Speaker 1: highs and middling low make Metro Prime Force Return uneven.
Speaker 1: It's like a lot of a lot of people hitting
Speaker 1: this idea of like, hey, when it's when it's the
Speaker 1: metro game I was hoping for, it's awesome and kind
Speaker 1: of better than any Metro game before it. When it's
Speaker 1: doing anything else, it is maybe often mid I'm like,
Speaker 1: I need to see this game for myself, Jesse. That's
Speaker 1: where I continue to be. We've been talking about it
Speaker 1: for forever, and in the last couple of days, especially
Speaker 1: now as the reviews have come out, been kind of
Speaker 1: talking to them blue in the face with people who
Speaker 1: either have been playing it or with people who've been
Speaker 1: reading these reviews, and it's like, well, what don't what
Speaker 1: people what don't people like about this game? And it's
Speaker 1: I don't even think people there's not much they don't
Speaker 1: like about it. There's just some things about it that
Speaker 1: are missing, Like there's no negative reviews on Metacritic or
Speaker 1: Open Critic. It's all like, at worst mixed. But you know,
Speaker 1: this is a series that traditionally has had over nineties
Speaker 1: on these aggregation websites, so I don't know. How are
Speaker 1: you feeling about it all? Have you been talking to
Speaker 1: anyone who's been playing it, or you still planning to
Speaker 1: play it the first moment it drops, I don't know,
Speaker 1: how do you feel about it? Yeah?
Speaker 2: So I got to play a lit little bit of
Speaker 2: it back at that preview a couple of weeks ago
Speaker 2: where we played the forest level Fairy Green, and I
Speaker 2: walked away like pretty stoked on it, Like sure, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of talk about the companion Miles McKenzie, like,
Speaker 2: it always felt to me like they were gonna just
Speaker 2: kind of chip him off and put him somewhere and
Speaker 2: be like, Okay, that was for this section. You'll get
Speaker 2: a new guy for the next section. And that's what
Speaker 2: it sounds like. I don't know. I think the biggest
Speaker 2: thing for me of the things that I've heard about
Speaker 2: this game is that it's very like linear. I guess
Speaker 2: I'm afraid to use that word here, but it is like,
Speaker 2: you're gonna go to Buyom, You're gonna do the narrative stuff,
Speaker 2: You're gonna go back to the desert, you're gonna go
Speaker 2: to the next People are describing it as like a
Speaker 2: three D Zelda, right, Yes, to me, that's not something
Speaker 2: that interests me. I don't I'm gonna say something controversial here.
Speaker 2: I don't love older three D Zelda games. Not really
Speaker 2: my jam. So to me, it's like, oh, the things
Speaker 2: I like about Metroid are not here, and that's fine.
Speaker 2: This is a different game. It's trying to do something different,
Speaker 2: not for me, moving on, but I'm a little bummed.
Speaker 2: I think it has the unfortunate pressure of being in development,
Speaker 2: even though it's been rebooted multiple times, you know, changed hands.
Speaker 2: But we've known about this game for like eight years
Speaker 2: at this point, and everyone is kind of in their
Speaker 2: head made up their minds about what this game was
Speaker 2: going to be or what this game should be. And
Speaker 2: now we have a finished product and people can actually
Speaker 2: like wrestle with their thoughts on what this thing is.
Speaker 2: And some people are walking away like it's not really
Speaker 2: what I wanted it to be. It's not what I
Speaker 2: maybe built it up to be. It's not a lot
Speaker 2: of these things. But what's here is fine. There are
Speaker 2: parts of it I like, but there are parts that
Speaker 2: I don't. And it's like, I don't think this game
Speaker 2: was ever going to go any other way. If we're
Speaker 2: being honest, I feel like it had the unfortunate problem
Speaker 2: of having to deal with years and years and years
Speaker 2: of expectations.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the years of like a baggage of like
Speaker 1: previous developers work and stuff, and they probably were taken
Speaker 1: as much of that as they possibly could. It seemed
Speaker 1: like that was a little bit of an albatross here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that does seem to be the main One of the
Speaker 1: main contentions is it is not this necessarily super interconnected
Speaker 1: world where it's like, here is the the you know,
Speaker 1: the lava biome overlapping with the ice biome in some way.
Speaker 1: It is like you go to this lava biome and
Speaker 1: it's almost like a Zelda dungeon, and then once you're
Speaker 1: in there, that's very There's a metroid world to explore,
Speaker 1: and it has the elements of a Metroid vein of
Speaker 1: the metro venue that you would expect, but it is
Speaker 1: it still feels maybe closer to an operative time than
Speaker 1: to a Metroid prime and it's like, oh yeah, if
Speaker 1: you were expecting one, I could see that that disappointment
Speaker 1: coming through. It's like, is it good at what it's doing.
Speaker 1: I will be curious to see that because I think
Speaker 1: We're still in a point where a lot of these
Speaker 1: criticisms that are coming through are coming from that place
Speaker 1: that you're talking about eight years of thinking about what
Speaker 1: this game could be and trying to match that up
Speaker 1: with what it actually is, and if it doesn't fit exactly,
Speaker 1: that it doesn't just like disappoint it kind of hurts like,
Speaker 1: oh my, you know, the game in my imagination isn't real,
Speaker 1: and now I have to like sort of mourn that
Speaker 1: a little bit. And it's like, Okay, well, I think
Speaker 1: we might be able to get on the other side
Speaker 1: of this and be like, well, what did they make
Speaker 1: and is that good? And it sounds like, for the
Speaker 1: most part, the answer to that is actually yes, because
Speaker 1: again these reviews mostly positive. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And that's the thing, right is you always have that
Speaker 2: first wave. You always have the reviewers, and then the
Speaker 2: people who have like kind of played a little bit
Speaker 2: of it and have be able to talk about it,
Speaker 2: and then you know, give it a couple of weeks
Speaker 2: you see sort of what the wider audience thinks, and yeah,
Speaker 2: usually land somewhere in the middle.
Speaker 1: Yep, exactly. All right, let's get to this next story.
Speaker 1: Yacht Club Games describes Mina the Hollower as a make
Speaker 1: or break game. This is from Ben Lyons, a game reactor.
Speaker 1: Considering the heights that Yacht Club Games reached when Shovel
Speaker 1: Night arrived, you might think that the indie developer would
Speaker 1: be in a rather good place still, but evidently not.
Speaker 1: In a new Bloomberg article, it's claimed that the upcoming
Speaker 1: title from the studio, Mina the Hollower, which recently got
Speaker 1: delayed indefinitely, is a make or break game, one where
Speaker 1: poor sales could be the last straw for the studio.
Speaker 1: As per co founder and studio director Sean Alasco, It's
Speaker 1: said that it said that Mina the Hollower is make
Speaker 1: or break for sure. If we sold five hundred thousand copies,
Speaker 1: then we would be golden. If we sold even two
Speaker 1: hundred thousand copies, that would be really really great. If
Speaker 1: we sold like one hundred thousand, that's not so good.
Speaker 1: This is something that marketing director Celia Shilling shouts out to. Celia,
Speaker 1: seems to be confirmed by noting that your company is
Speaker 1: only as strong as your last game. Bloomberg then went
Speaker 1: a step further to explain that the studio had already
Speaker 1: undergone downsizing and even put out a second project, or
Speaker 1: put a second project on the back burner, which is
Speaker 1: supposedly the three D Shovel Nights sequel, all because it
Speaker 1: has churned through most of its capital, quite a dire
Speaker 1: set of circumstances, says the story here. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: in my head, Jesse, when I think about like indie studios,
Speaker 1: I don't know the inner workings. I've never run an
Speaker 1: indie studio, but it's like at a servia bot. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know, if you have one of those games like
Speaker 1: let's say, Hollow Night, I think just sells forever, and
Speaker 1: it's sort of like you can use that to fund
Speaker 1: your development and that's fine, and it's like, oh, but's
Speaker 1: it's probably like the number of games from indie studios
Speaker 1: that are like that. It's probably single digits, right, there's
Speaker 1: probably only a like stardew Valley probably pays for that
Speaker 1: that really that one person and a couple of contractors
Speaker 1: to do that work over there, probably forever Show Night
Speaker 1: a little bit of a bigger to a slightly bigger
Speaker 1: team and maybe a slightly smaller game in terms of
Speaker 1: scale of success, although it was still very popular popular. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so they are in a situation where it's like
Speaker 1: they were able to take on some bets and continue
Speaker 1: to make stuff, but now they are on the hook
Speaker 1: for the next game has to deliver, and it's god
Speaker 1: that is I mean, I suppose that's where we're all at, right.
Speaker 1: You have to go to work the next day, You
Speaker 1: have to make money the next day because the money
Speaker 1: you made the day before you spent on just trying
Speaker 1: to live and survive. But I don't know. Something about
Speaker 1: this still feels like, Man, I thought this studio would
Speaker 1: be in a slightly stronger position. What's your take, Well.
Speaker 2: I think that's like a good indication of like where
Speaker 2: we're at. We talk a lot about the problems that
Speaker 2: indie developers are facing. Right The publishers simply aren't aren't
Speaker 2: there to you know, jump buckets of cash anymore unless
Speaker 2: you're making very specific types of game that they're searching for,
Speaker 2: and even that is very small. But you have these studios,
Speaker 2: these legacy studios that have built an ip as big
Speaker 2: as Shovel Night Struggling and these games. Meana, The Hollower
Speaker 2: has been in development for a while. We've seen it,
Speaker 2: it's had release dates, it's gotten moved. That's expensive. That's
Speaker 2: more money that they have to put in and less
Speaker 2: of a return that they're going to get. Shovell Knight
Speaker 2: was game Mina the hollower too. I believe they were kickstarted.
Speaker 2: They got some funding through Kickstarter, I know for Shovel
Speaker 2: Night definitely, I think for Mina's. And it's one of
Speaker 2: those things where it's like that money will eventually run out,
Speaker 2: and no matter how much money you're bringing in from
Speaker 2: something like Shovell Knight, like, eventually, eventually the books are
Speaker 2: going to balance, right, And if you're not putting out something,
Speaker 2: it's dangerous. It's scary. Like Cecilia said, you're only as
Speaker 2: good as your last game, And that's the unfortunate situation
Speaker 2: we're in because if your game doesn't sell, how are
Speaker 2: you funding the rest of the operations.
Speaker 1: It sucks.
Speaker 2: But more than ever, you just have to support the
Speaker 2: things that you love. And if you're someone who loves
Speaker 2: Shovel Night and you want more Shovel Night, even if
Speaker 2: you're not necessarily interested in Mina, like, that's your way
Speaker 2: you can support that studio, right Yeah, And so it's
Speaker 2: just about supporting the things that you love and trying
Speaker 2: the best. Because companies are not going to take care
Speaker 2: of us in this world. We got to help each other.
Speaker 2: We got to know, hold onto each other, lift each
Speaker 2: other up. And this is a case of like they're saying, like,
Speaker 2: we can sell two hundred thousand copies and we'd be good.
Speaker 2: We sell five hundred thousand, that would be great, that's
Speaker 2: your answer. It's just you know, unfortunately falls on us,
Speaker 2: the consumer to help because nowhere else is the games
Speaker 2: we want.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's that is where it breaks down. Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: people in Chedia, they went for a long time, that
Speaker 1: was a WEU game I played. I played Shovel Night
Speaker 1: on three DS and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: But the terrifying prospect of working on a game like
Speaker 1: Mina for so long and being like it is make
Speaker 1: or break still, regardless of all the other things, how
Speaker 1: long we were able to go, this game has to
Speaker 1: sell or else it is done. And it's not like
Speaker 1: it's implausible that a game like Mita comes out and
Speaker 1: completely misses and people don't like it's a seven out
Speaker 1: of ten indie game. In a world where many of
Speaker 1: the games nominated the Game Awards across all the categories,
Speaker 1: including the Game Awards and some of the top rated
Speaker 1: games of the year are from indie studios of one
Speaker 1: stripe or another and say, okay, so you're not going
Speaker 1: to stand out. You kind of have to rely on
Speaker 1: people being like, I like this studio, so I guess
Speaker 1: I'll try this out, even though I'm not as excited
Speaker 1: as I once was, Like, people are not that magnanimous
Speaker 1: usually they are. We're being tight with our money right now,
Speaker 1: maybe tighter most than we have been recently, and so
Speaker 1: it's like it's got to hit. That's almost certainly why
Speaker 1: they delayed it is to make sure that it's going
Speaker 1: to be as good as possible so that they can
Speaker 1: eke out that extra ten thousand and sales here or there.
Speaker 1: I think that is just an illustration of the play
Speaker 1: of making games in general. Of course, Like this is
Speaker 1: just what it looks like. And there was a time
Speaker 1: where if you put out a game that had any
Speaker 1: sort of cachet, any of high profile, it would reach
Speaker 1: a certain sales threshold on the strength of being a
Speaker 1: new video game. We are far away from that world
Speaker 1: now with with Best, with hundreds of games launching on
Speaker 1: Steam every week, right, it's completely different.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's a tough market to be in, and
Speaker 2: like I said, everyone's been talking about how tough it's
Speaker 2: been for developers. It's it's it's been a toughier for everyone,
Speaker 2: but for developers it's been especially tough with everyone's vying
Speaker 2: for limited time and so so much of the younger
Speaker 2: generation is wrapped up in live service games, games that
Speaker 2: are that that is the game that they play. They
Speaker 2: play their Roadblocks, they play their Fortnite, they play whatever,
Speaker 2: and it's it's it's hard to get these games in
Speaker 2: front of people and pull them away from the thing
Speaker 2: that they're already spending their time on. Is it is
Speaker 2: a money issue, especially you know in some parts where
Speaker 2: it's like money is really tight for a lot of
Speaker 2: people right now. But it's also a time thing. We
Speaker 2: only have so much time in the day. And if
Speaker 2: you're somebody who's got to log on and do their
Speaker 2: dailies and you know, do grow a garden or whatever, like,
Speaker 2: that's your that's your gaming time. You're not going to
Speaker 2: really branch out for something unless it's like you said,
Speaker 2: like a ten out of ten and nine out of ten.
Speaker 2: If you're if you see a seven out of ten
Speaker 2: indie game and you're not somebody who normally veers away
Speaker 2: from the thing you're comfortable with. That that's not going
Speaker 2: to be the thing you you veer away for. And
Speaker 2: so they have. It's an uphill battle and every day
Speaker 2: is you know, tough, and even for legacy developers like
Speaker 2: it's it's a scary world out there when you're trying
Speaker 2: to put out a game. It's a it's magic that
Speaker 2: games get made at all. Yes, when you look at
Speaker 2: the the battles that they fight every day to get
Speaker 2: just something done and then for it to ship and
Speaker 2: you know, not hit what they needed to hit, it's
Speaker 2: it's tough.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And that's a good point from a chat that
Speaker 1: you know, because it's because it is the kickstarter game
Speaker 1: that you mentioned. Uh, there's a significant portion of the
Speaker 1: audience that is obsessed with the studio that already paid
Speaker 1: for this game is already paid right that that gap
Speaker 1: as said, that capital has been spent. So we'll see.
Speaker 1: I think there is other stories here that are are
Speaker 1: sort of similar to this for other older developers. We'll
Speaker 1: get to here in a second. First, though, we're going
Speaker 1: to take a break if you want to skip out
Speaker 1: on these. What we do is we make an ad
Speaker 1: reversion of this show. If there's an audio feed and
Speaker 1: a video feed, you get that by going to giant
Speaker 1: bomb dot com slash Join. If you get that, you
Speaker 1: could skip out on this right here these messages from
Speaker 1: our sponsors. All right, we are back. It's Game mess Mornings.
Speaker 1: Jesse Ptelli, Jeff Grubb. Let's get to this next story here.
Speaker 1: Ugi Horri appears flustered and says he can't talk about
Speaker 1: a Chrono Trigger remake. What does he mean? This is
Speaker 1: from my Nintendo News. The legendary Ugi Horri may have
Speaker 1: let the cat out of the bag by revealing that
Speaker 1: he is seemingly involved in the rumored Chrono Trigger remake
Speaker 1: for current generation consoles. Asked about the celebrations happening around
Speaker 1: the anniversary of the series, he was asked if there
Speaker 1: were any game developments happening. In his reply, he appeared
Speaker 1: visibly flustered and said that is not something he can
Speaker 1: actually talk about yet, leading many online to speculate that
Speaker 1: a new Chrono Trigger project is in the works. Whether
Speaker 1: it's HD two D or a Final Fantasy seven remix
Speaker 1: style project, that would be nuts. There's no way remains
Speaker 1: to be seen and Basically the quote here is I
Speaker 1: can't talk about that suggesting that there is a that,
Speaker 1: But of course there's people talking all kinds of ways.
Speaker 1: I'm choosing to be on the side of I think
Speaker 1: something's happening with Chrono Trigger. Where do you fall on
Speaker 1: all this?
Speaker 2: It's it's tough because I feel like, at least once
Speaker 2: or twice a year we get a story that's supposedly
Speaker 2: about a Chrono Trigger remake or remaster or new whatever,
Speaker 2: And at this point it's like, I just I don't know.
Speaker 2: I I'm gonna say something. People are going to be
Speaker 2: very upset with me. I have never finished Chrono Trigger.
Speaker 2: It is not a game that I've seen all the
Speaker 2: way through, So I apologize. I know I was just
Speaker 2: talking about being an RPG sicco and I haven't played
Speaker 2: a seminal work. I understand that it's only so much
Speaker 2: time in the day. However, I would be thrilled if
Speaker 2: this existed, but I have yet to see anything that
Speaker 2: really makes me believe that it is happening. Because we're
Speaker 2: still talking about the Final Fantasy nine. Suppose was it
Speaker 2: a remake that's floating around them?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was seemed like it was shelved. That was
Speaker 1: the latest roomber on that one is that they were
Speaker 1: doing it and then they shelved it.
Speaker 2: I don't know, but yes, and so that could be
Speaker 2: the thing with this, right, it could get shelved it,
Speaker 2: something could happen like until we have something to work with.
Speaker 1: It's maybe maybe that's why you can't talk about it. Yeah, maybe, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: it could be any number of things happening here where
Speaker 1: it's like there was something in the works and maybe
Speaker 1: it's still like in limbo and he's just like, I
Speaker 1: can't talk about that, like I'm trying to figure it
Speaker 1: out myself. So sure it would make sense though it
Speaker 1: does feel like Crono Trigger is one of those franchises.
Speaker 1: Like so the recent history of Squaring Innis has been
Speaker 1: then putting out a lot of different kinds of games.
Speaker 1: There was a couple of years there where they had
Speaker 1: where they had like five or six, six seven titles
Speaker 1: out there that were like I'm trying to I'm struggle
Speaker 1: to remember any of their names, but like weird Little
Speaker 1: Strategy ORPG games and all this other stuff, and.
Speaker 2: They are to sell various day life, various day life, Yes,
Speaker 2: Triangle Strategy, Yes, you Field Chronicle.
Speaker 1: Do you feel Chronicles is the one I was thinking of. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: So they had a lot of that stuff and I
Speaker 1: I overall was a relatively big fan of that that
Speaker 1: that that those works, but they didn't sell and they
Speaker 1: were having some issues overall with cash flow. So they
Speaker 1: were like, hey, after that initiative, we are going to
Speaker 1: shift to this other way of doing things, and that
Speaker 1: is focusing on our biggest ip and and kind of
Speaker 1: doing fewer games but bigger or ones they might have
Speaker 1: a bigger splash. To me, Chrono Trigger does definitely still
Speaker 1: fall into that category. And so if Final Fantasy nine
Speaker 1: got put off to the side because they're like, let's
Speaker 1: just hold on here, I still think Krono Trigger might
Speaker 1: have been able to survive that. And then if they
Speaker 1: do that also, they could set up a future where
Speaker 1: it's like, okay, we have re established Chrono Cross already
Speaker 1: and now here's Chrono Trigger. Let's make a new Krono
Speaker 1: game and that would that feels like that could be
Speaker 1: a massive splash if they were to do that. Does
Speaker 1: that sound right to you?
Speaker 2: I mean it makes sense to me, like right, like
Speaker 2: it is this game that people are constantly asking about
Speaker 2: constantly asking for they want more. Like I said, it's
Speaker 2: a seminal work for orpgs. It's something that so many
Speaker 2: people just desire. So yeah, of course if I was
Speaker 2: working there, I would be like, yeah, why are we
Speaker 2: not doing this? This should be a thing that is
Speaker 2: in the pipeline. And maybe it is. I just have
Speaker 2: a hard time believing it because we've been talking about
Speaker 2: it for so long and it hasn't happened. It's reaching
Speaker 2: that like Half Life three for me, where it's like, Okay,
Speaker 2: you know what, and now we're in a world where
Speaker 2: like maybe that's happening.
Speaker 1: So huh.
Speaker 2: I don't want to like completely discount like a Corona
Speaker 2: Trigger remake of some sorts, but I need something a
Speaker 2: little more concrete personally before I can get behind this,
Speaker 2: because I'm not going to let myself get excited about
Speaker 2: something that might never see the light of day.
Speaker 1: Yep, and game development just does seem so harrowing and
Speaker 1: so many pitfalls that even if something was happening, it
Speaker 1: could have fallen apart. You're right, still no concrete announcement
Speaker 1: or confirmation or anything here. One guy being flustered and saying,
Speaker 1: I can't talk about that is all we have, so
Speaker 1: we'll see, all right.
Speaker 2: But not really, don't do that? Leave them at one.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, just leave to leave the guy alone for
Speaker 1: crying out loud. Hell Divers too cuts its install size
Speaker 1: from around one hundred and fifty four gigabytes to twenty
Speaker 1: three gigabytes in a beta you can opt into now.
Speaker 1: This is from Joshua Woolens at PC gamer. Our hard
Speaker 1: drives get bigger, but so do the games. In twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five, we are beset by file sizes. Run a
Speaker 1: muck time was I'd consider a thirty gigabyte game to
Speaker 1: be unfathomable and unfathomable in position, in an unfathomable imposition
Speaker 1: on my sea drive. All right, man, guys cooking over here,
Speaker 1: How young a naive I was? As we speak. Multiple
Speaker 1: games north of one hundred or even two hundred gigabytes
Speaker 1: are spreading across discs, but that number just in a
Speaker 1: decrease by one. In an update on Steam, Arrowhead announced
Speaker 1: that it has performed some manner of warlockery and reduce
Speaker 1: the footprint of Hell Divers two by eighty five percent.
Speaker 1: That is nuts, basically, they said here by completely deduplicating
Speaker 1: our data we were able to reduce the PC installation
Speaker 1: size from one hundred and fifty four gigabytes to twenty
Speaker 1: three gigabytes, saving one hundred and thirty one gigabytes. It's crazy.
Speaker 1: This is I think mostly about that technique of duplicating
Speaker 1: assets across the install so that hard drives can retrieve
Speaker 1: a certain thing faster instead of having to go search
Speaker 1: through the entire database. It's in multiple points on the database,
Speaker 1: so the disc only has to spin, you know, a
Speaker 1: fraction of an inch instead of a full inch or
Speaker 1: something like that. I don't know how hard drives work
Speaker 1: that they'll still seem like magic to me. I guess
Speaker 1: the thing here might be fuck hard drive owners, but yeah,
Speaker 1: the fuck hard drive owners. Like if you're still playing
Speaker 1: games like a Hell Divers two is a game you
Speaker 1: probably play on a pretty decent PC. If that's what
Speaker 1: we're talking about here, with a like, and you're gonna
Speaker 1: get your RTX A fifty series card and you're gonna
Speaker 1: install the game on a hard drive in twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: No way, right, that's gotta be less than I want
Speaker 1: to say, less than two percent of people. Let's be
Speaker 1: generous and say five percent of people just do that
Speaker 1: it's time to upgrade to the SSD. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know how you've made it this far. And
Speaker 2: like you said, you have all these other high end components,
Speaker 2: but like you're still running a hard drive, Like I,
Speaker 2: how did we? Like? They're not money is money?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: Like you know, cause people have very different financial circumstances. Right,
Speaker 2: But of all the parts of your computer that you
Speaker 2: could upgrade, your hard drive is not the most expensive part.
Speaker 1: No, just expensive. SSD compared to hard drive is the
Speaker 1: biggest bang for your buck upgrade you can make, even
Speaker 1: more so than your GPU or CPU. Seriously, Like I
Speaker 1: go install your games on an SSD, everybody.
Speaker 2: It'll change your life really much better.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Man, can you remember the first time you used
Speaker 1: an operating system that was on an SSD instead of
Speaker 1: a hard drive. Do you remember how you felt like
Speaker 1: all the computers are kind of good? Now? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Do THATGIC?
Speaker 1: Yes and yes, And if you have it streussed as
Speaker 1: an v ME SSD, but even SATA, Like I'm fine
Speaker 1: with SATA SSD if that's what you got, if that's
Speaker 1: all you have in your in your system. But so
Speaker 1: this is maybe a moment here where it's like, I
Speaker 1: think developers are gonna be like Hell Diverge two dead
Speaker 1: it maybe we can do it, and I don't. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna expect here in the next six months that
Speaker 1: we wake up Jesse and Call of Duty is suddenly
Speaker 1: a reasonable size. But I think there's a chance that
Speaker 1: we'll see fewer games that are approaching that two hundred
Speaker 1: gigabyte size going forward if this becomes the standard, and
Speaker 1: I hope it does. I wonder if it's like if
Speaker 1: does the Steam Hardware survey, like say, how many people
Speaker 1: just have hard drives in their or how many people
Speaker 1: use hard drives to play games. I bet it's just
Speaker 1: have hard drives in their systems, which is fine.
Speaker 2: I feel like they're getting the data from somewhere, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: they have to have the number to prove that like
Speaker 2: this was this was part of the reason we did
Speaker 2: this entire endeavor. So I don't know what the exact
Speaker 2: question is, but they got the data somewhere that there's
Speaker 2: a lot of people with hard drives playing, or enough
Speaker 2: people with hard drives playing Hell Divers.
Speaker 1: Do Yeah, So Avid Demon says, I'm gonna tell Medea
Speaker 1: who doesn't know anything that it's being discussed. I'll put
Speaker 1: it the most simple terms. Hard drive has a spinning disk.
Speaker 1: Solid state drive is there's no moving components just inherently
Speaker 1: that makes it faster. It's able to like instead of
Speaker 1: having to like spin the disc to find the asset
Speaker 1: in the game, there is just an SSD there that
Speaker 1: has its stored in a static way that the computer
Speaker 1: always knows exactly where it is and can retrieve it
Speaker 1: almost instantly. Yeah, SSDs probably are going to get more expensive.
Speaker 1: Everything's getting more expensive. But yeah, you should still just
Speaker 1: get like a gaming drive. One terrible bite and you'll
Speaker 1: be good and just keep like clear out the fridge
Speaker 1: when it's time. The one hundred and thirty one gigabytes
Speaker 1: save that is a huge number. I would not expect.
Speaker 2: Other games you can put on your hard drives that
Speaker 2: are not call of duty.
Speaker 1: Right. I remember like hearing about this early on, this
Speaker 1: idea that like, oh, hard drive games have to duplicate
Speaker 1: the data. It's something they started doing when games were
Speaker 1: played directly off of a DVD or a Blu ray disc.
Speaker 1: And it's okay, yeah, that makes sense that that is necessary.
Speaker 1: But when they get rid of that how much is
Speaker 1: that really gonna save. It's gonna save twenty percent, maybe optimistically,
Speaker 1: and here it is way way more than that. It's
Speaker 1: kind of incredible. Ron Gilbert cancels RPG project due to
Speaker 1: lack of support and funding. This is from Sophie McAvoy
Speaker 1: at Games Industry dot biz. Games veteran Ron Gilbert has
Speaker 1: has stopped developing his untitled RPG project, once described as
Speaker 1: classic Zelda meets Diablo meets Thimbleweed Park. During a recent
Speaker 1: interview with Ours Technica, Gilbert exp on various issues during production,
Speaker 1: including a small three person team and a lack of
Speaker 1: funding support. I just didn't have the money or the
Speaker 1: time to build a big, open world game like that,
Speaker 1: He noted. It's either a passion project you spend ten
Speaker 1: years on, or you just need a bunch of money
Speaker 1: to be able to hire people and resources. Gilbert explained
Speaker 1: that he had pitched the concept, but the deals that
Speaker 1: publishers were offering were just horrible. Doing a pixelated old
Speaker 1: school Zelda thing isn't that isn't the big hot item.
Speaker 1: So publishers look at us, and they didn't look at
Speaker 1: it as if we're going to make one hundred million,
Speaker 1: and it's worth investing in, he said. The amount of
Speaker 1: money they're willing to put up and the deals they
Speaker 1: were offering just made absolutely no sense to me to
Speaker 1: go do this. He went on to note how publishers
Speaker 1: are very analytics driven, which makes it difficult to pitch
Speaker 1: concepts compared to when he started his career. They have
Speaker 1: formulas that they apply to games to try to figure
Speaker 1: out how much money they could make, and in the end,
Speaker 1: you end up giving a whole lot of games that
Speaker 1: or you end up getting a whole lot of games
Speaker 1: that look exactly the same as last year's games, because
Speaker 1: that's what made money. When we were starting out, we
Speaker 1: couldn't do that because we didn't know what made what
Speaker 1: made this money. So it was a lot more experimenting, experimental,
Speaker 1: I think he's trying to say. He continued, that's why
Speaker 1: I really enjoy the indie game market because it's kind
Speaker 1: of free of a lot of the stuff that big
Speaker 1: publishers bring to it, and there's a lot more creativity,
Speaker 1: strangeness and bizarreness. Yeah, so like said stuff, like, you know,
Speaker 1: if you want to get this attention from publishers, you
Speaker 1: kind of have to make something that can pop off
Speaker 1: on like for YouTube and things like that, and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I could see that being one of the hang ups here.
Speaker 1: It's Ron Gilberts from a time before that. He's like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make my game and people will maybe show
Speaker 1: up for it. But this is I don't think I
Speaker 1: don't know Ron Gilbert's alone here. This has been the
Speaker 1: story we've heard over and over again. And one of
Speaker 1: the reasons, like you hear stuff like capitals drying up
Speaker 1: at yacht club games, it's like, well, in the past,
Speaker 1: what you do is when that happens, either put the
Speaker 1: game out too early and hope for the best and
Speaker 1: update it later, or you go to a you're publishing
Speaker 1: partners and say, hey, can we get some more money,
Speaker 1: And that's something that happened in the past. Doesn't sound
Speaker 1: like that's happening kind of at all right now right,
Speaker 1: and it's even happening to people who have established track records.
Speaker 1: Thimbleweed Park was a really well received game of like
Speaker 1: I was still a kind of a standout hit on
Speaker 1: the Switch one. I think it was one of the
Speaker 1: better selling like point and click at venture games on
Speaker 1: the Switch one. And he can't parlay that into current
Speaker 1: funding for his next game. That sounds pretty cool to me.
Speaker 1: What do you think this says about where we're at.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of publishers are always looking like backward, right.
Speaker 2: They're always like, okay, well, like what just so, what's
Speaker 2: the next ballatro, what's the next Peak? What's the next.
Speaker 1: Everyone's on their heels. Everyone's terrified of making a mistake,
Speaker 1: so everyone has to be like.
Speaker 2: The most risk averse we've ever been. Yeah, but they
Speaker 2: should be looking forward, right, because you can't really predict
Speaker 2: what the next game that's going to pop off is,
Speaker 2: but you can look at cool games and be like,
Speaker 2: this has a really good chance at finding an audience
Speaker 2: and making a decent buck. Everything you just described to
Speaker 2: me sounds exactly like that. That That entire game sounds
Speaker 2: like something that would find its audience if it's given
Speaker 2: the right level of budget, it's given the right marketing push,
Speaker 2: it's put in front of the right people, that game
Speaker 2: would do great. But they're not looking for that. They're
Speaker 2: looking for the low maintenance, high risk, high reward play,
Speaker 2: even though it's not really high risk if you're just
Speaker 2: putting out like another Peak or something. Right, But that's
Speaker 2: what they're looking for. They're looking for that game that's
Speaker 2: gonna sell ten million copies, that indie game that's gonna
Speaker 2: be made by quote unquote one person. And you know,
Speaker 2: pop off. That's a that's fest finding a needle in
Speaker 2: a haystack Like that's it's an impossible task. You gotta
Speaker 2: support the things. You gotta give money to the things
Speaker 2: that are going to make you a good return. It's
Speaker 2: it's a good relationship, right, it's somebody. You're gonna be
Speaker 2: able to fund this cool project, this cool piece of art,
Speaker 2: and everyone's gonna walk away happy. That's what you gotta do.
Speaker 2: But they don't give me the money. They don't let
Speaker 2: me make the.
Speaker 1: Decisions to their detriment. I think, in my in my
Speaker 1: personal opinion.
Speaker 2: This game, this game sounds sick.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it sounds really good. Yeah. I guess his team
Speaker 1: did that was returning to Monkey Island that also seemed
Speaker 1: to do pretty well. Yeah, I don't know. I just
Speaker 1: take chances on these, these these kinds of games. I
Speaker 1: feel like they will eventually start paying off again. But again,
Speaker 1: I'm not in that business. Don't really want to be
Speaker 1: in a business like that where you have to pick
Speaker 1: winners and losers. That seems very tough. But there are
Speaker 1: multiple publishers of like indie publishers that seem pretty good
Speaker 1: at it, like, oh, we have a good track record
Speaker 1: of finding stuff that's interesting, and it doesn't seem like
Speaker 1: a Devolver Digital. I'm sure they have their algorithms. I'm
Speaker 1: sure they have their their spreadsheets that they put things into.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's how they are like initially
Speaker 1: finding their partners. Though to me, it seems like this
Speaker 1: shit looks cool, It speaks to us. It has a
Speaker 1: voice and a voice that we recognize that kind of
Speaker 1: fits without the voice of our other games. Let's see
Speaker 1: if we can work together. And then at that point
Speaker 1: it's like, let's do the numbers. Then I think what
Speaker 1: he's saying is a lot of the partners he was
Speaker 1: talking to just want to make the math make sense
Speaker 1: right away before there's even a game. And so that's
Speaker 1: that's gonna be tough.
Speaker 2: That's an uphill battle always.
Speaker 1: All right. Io Interactive confirms hit Man four will eventually arrive.
Speaker 1: This is from Ben Lyons, a game reactor. The next
Speaker 1: game to come from Danish development powerhouse Io Interactive will
Speaker 1: be Double seven First Light, but we are all expecting
Speaker 1: the studio known best for making hit Man games to
Speaker 1: eventually return to the franchise. Nothing official was confirmed that
Speaker 1: this would be the case, but it was assumed. Now
Speaker 1: we know officially that it will happen. Speaking with Variety recently,
Speaker 1: CEO Hakan A. Brock took some time to talk about
Speaker 1: hit Man, where he basically confirmed that hit Man four
Speaker 1: will eventually become a reality in full of brac expresses.
Speaker 1: So of course there will be more hit Man, but
Speaker 1: right now, I think we need to get to the
Speaker 1: other side of this year and next year you'll get
Speaker 1: more news about hit Man co Op because I think
Speaker 1: co op is a really really good extension to the
Speaker 1: universe and will introduce very interesting mechanics and combinations in
Speaker 1: World of Assassination. I forgot that that's happened. I'm so excited. Yes,
Speaker 1: but we will after that be talking about the next
Speaker 1: hit Man, because of course there's going to be a
Speaker 1: next hit Man. They are still on like this side
Speaker 1: of Double O seven First Light. That game does have
Speaker 1: to happen. I'll say every time I see that game
Speaker 1: more and more excited. I think it looks like they
Speaker 1: really have found something that will work for that. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's not talking about a Game of the
Speaker 1: Year contender, but a solid license game that looks like
Speaker 1: a pretty fun romp with some io sauce part on top.
Speaker 1: So it's like there will be moments where it feels
Speaker 1: a little bit more like Hitman and sometimes where it
Speaker 1: feels a little bit more like an action game. And
Speaker 1: when I was in a like a hands off preview
Speaker 1: with them, my question is like, how do you deal
Speaker 1: with the pacing between these two ideas of like the
Speaker 1: Hitman style levels versus the just running gun scripted levels.
Speaker 1: And you could tell like they almost all looked at
Speaker 1: each other like this is the thing we talk about
Speaker 1: the most. We want to make sure that that pacing
Speaker 1: is really good. And so I have some faith that
Speaker 1: they're going to make this game really sing after that, though,
Speaker 1: I'm sure if James Bond does really well, they'll keep
Speaker 1: making those games. Hit Man has been their bread and
Speaker 1: butter and really has found its footing in terms of
Speaker 1: being like this ongoing sort of live service, single player
Speaker 1: style game, and they're gonna want to return to that,
Speaker 1: but that I don't think they need to rush to it.
Speaker 1: Hitman three or Hitman World of Assassination, especially once against
Speaker 1: this co op update and they can keep adding DLC.
Speaker 1: They got this M and M stuff happening, they can
Speaker 1: run on that for a while and take their time
Speaker 1: and really reload. So I'm not expecting a hit Man
Speaker 1: for anytime soon, how about you.
Speaker 2: No, It's this is one of those stories where like
Speaker 2: I read it and I go, yeah, of course, the
Speaker 2: people that made hit Man got offered the Bond license.
Speaker 2: They're obviously going to take that, and they're super stoked
Speaker 2: about it. Every Like you said, everything we've seen is
Speaker 2: looked really good. I'm actually like more impressed than I
Speaker 2: thought i'd be with that game, because I really did
Speaker 2: think it would kind of be just a reskin of
Speaker 2: hit Man, and I'm happy that it has found its
Speaker 2: own specific, you know, parts that it's looking for. Like
Speaker 2: the high octane sort of James Bond stuff is very
Speaker 2: much there. It's not just feels like age and forty
Speaker 2: seven wearing a James Bond suit. But of course they
Speaker 2: were going to go back to him, and Hitman has
Speaker 2: been doing so well for them. They have put so
Speaker 2: much love and care and attention into those three games.
Speaker 2: The most recent trilogy. Like you said the eminem stuff,
Speaker 2: they were always going to go back to hit Man's
Speaker 2: their baby, right, Yeah, And it's not like it ended
Speaker 2: like three ended on this whimper and they were like, Ah,
Speaker 2: we don't know about the future of hit Man. We're
Speaker 2: not really sure. People really didn't like the stuff we
Speaker 2: put out for it, so we're gonna come back to it.
Speaker 2: It's like, no, they got an incredibly cool license to
Speaker 2: work with that they earned through doing hit Man, and
Speaker 2: then we'll come back to him Man and everyone will
Speaker 2: be super super jazzed when Hitman comes back, because I
Speaker 2: would love a hit Man for I'm excited for James
Speaker 2: Bond more excited for a new hit Man.
Speaker 1: Yep. I'm really looking forward to everything I was doing.
Speaker 1: They still have that other project. I don't know if
Speaker 1: they've ever like like publicly revealed anyway. I think they've
Speaker 1: publicly confirmed it. It's like Project Dragon, which is like
Speaker 1: their fantasy game. I wonder what the status of that is,
Speaker 1: so maybe it's something on the shelf. And because they
Speaker 1: did get so busy with Double O seven, then they
Speaker 1: don't want Hitman to go in there, like I don't.
Speaker 1: They definitely don't want Hitman to become like their Fallout
Speaker 1: where it's like, oh man, how do we get back
Speaker 1: the Fallout where Bethesda and we'd be grateful made a
Speaker 1: new one of those, but that's so far away because
Speaker 1: we have to do Elder Scrolls first. I think they
Speaker 1: want to keep it in an active rotation just I
Speaker 1: just don't think that means they start working on one
Speaker 1: in the next.
Speaker 2: Year or so now. James Bond, to me feels very
Speaker 2: much like the exact kind of license that you want
Speaker 2: to do incredibly well because it means you can staff
Speaker 2: up your studio. You have this ongoing sort of like
Speaker 2: Insomniac and Spider Marvel, right like they've got their Spider Man,
Speaker 2: they've got their Wolverine, and then the rest other parts
Speaker 2: of the studio can work on like other projects, and
Speaker 2: you become a studio that can now balance with a
Speaker 2: reliable source of income multiple projects at the same time.
Speaker 2: That's right, It seems like the ideal situation.
Speaker 1: Yep. I think there's a strong chance that it really
Speaker 1: works out for them, especially if that if that comes
Speaker 1: in is like you know, mostly positive reviews. I think
Speaker 1: people will be all aboard on it. Mario Kart World
Speaker 1: version one point four point zero is now available, includes music, sliders,
Speaker 1: and more. Basically, you can like customize the items available
Speaker 1: in a race. A new feature added to item rules,
Speaker 1: allowing players to set which items appear in versus race,
Speaker 1: balloon battle, coin runners, and room in online play or
Speaker 1: wireless play. The audio enhancements including the music track name
Speaker 1: and source title are now displayed on the pause menu,
Speaker 1: and a music volume setting has been added. They also
Speaker 1: like change some of the course layouts. Several specific routes
Speaker 1: involving Koopa, Troopa Beach, Whistle Stop, Summit, Desert Hills, DK, Spaceport,
Speaker 1: Crown City, and Peach Stadium had their course layouts changed
Speaker 1: for versus race or race in online play or wireless play.
Speaker 1: It's yeah. Also yes for the volume options for the audio,
Speaker 1: there's two settings. It's not like a slider, really, it
Speaker 1: is normal or loud out the most love.
Speaker 2: It Nintendo, just absolute nonsense.
Speaker 1: If we just made it a slider with numbers, who
Speaker 1: understands any of these numbers. We don't want to confuse
Speaker 1: these people out, these little simpletons in this economy. Related
Speaker 1: to sound and how loud it could be. No one's
Speaker 1: ever seen such a thing. People only to understand normal
Speaker 1: and loud two options. That's it. Kick him in the ass.
Speaker 1: Here's a sign signature from Shagia Mimoto.
Speaker 2: I saw videos, and I don't want to spread misinformation,
Speaker 2: so take this with the grains. I saw some videos
Speaker 2: that they changed, like the intermission parts of a of
Speaker 2: a course. Yeah, like I saw someone like riding on
Speaker 2: the water and then like vines were there and they
Speaker 2: were grinding on the vines to go to the next course,
Speaker 2: like they somebody got I saw somebody get into like
Speaker 2: a helicopter in between like the water level. It looks
Speaker 2: like that they've changed some some of the maybe like
Speaker 2: interstitial parts of the track. I cannot con from miss
Speaker 2: a video I saw online. It could be fake, but
Speaker 2: that's what I saw, and I was very.
Speaker 1: Confused because of change the way that some tracks connect
Speaker 1: the Koopa Trooper Beach. That's one of the things I
Speaker 1: don't just spechnically troop of Beach. I think, I think,
Speaker 1: so I don't know exactly what it means. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of like changes here. I kind of tried to
Speaker 1: pare it down to make it easier to parse for
Speaker 1: the show. But like Kuper Tripbuch was also used to
Speaker 1: be like one lap and now it's two. They things
Speaker 1: like that. It's they're making changes to this game. They
Speaker 1: it seems like they are responding to some of like
Speaker 1: the criticisms. I don't know, we'll see. Maybe we'll keep
Speaker 1: up no fanfare.
Speaker 2: It just came out. Yeah, it feels pretty substantial for
Speaker 2: something that just showed up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's quite a few other improvements and adjustments here,
Speaker 1: and they fix some bugs and stuff like that. So yeah,
Speaker 1: but they didn't like put it in a blog post
Speaker 1: or anything like that, and definitely did not have like
Speaker 1: a direct announcement for it. So I do wonder how
Speaker 1: they feel about Mario Kart World, because the game is
Speaker 1: selling like crazy, but it's because mostly it's attached to
Speaker 1: the switch too, although I don't think that's the main
Speaker 1: reason it's selling. It's Mario Kart that's the main reason
Speaker 1: it's selling. But I wonder what they think that the
Speaker 1: long term sort of prospect is for that game, if
Speaker 1: it's similar to Mario Kart eight, and if they feel
Speaker 1: they need to do anything to kind of ensure that
Speaker 1: it can perform. Similarly, we'll love to see last story here.
Speaker 1: Naughty Dogs Intergalactic the heretic profit is reportedly still years
Speaker 1: from release and don't except to see it all at
Speaker 1: the Game Awards. Over the break, I was posting about
Speaker 1: this Colin Moriarty who he had a pot. He was
Speaker 1: on some podcast and I guess was speculating about the
Speaker 1: game maybe coming out next year and being at the
Speaker 1: Game Awards and I didn't listen to that, but some
Speaker 1: it caused some people to like post about, oh oh,
Speaker 1: he thinks it's coming out next year, and then that
Speaker 1: caused people to reach out to me who do know,
Speaker 1: and they said it won't be at the Game Awards
Speaker 1: and it's not coming out next year, And so I
Speaker 1: just went online real quick and say, hey, it's it's
Speaker 1: won't be at the Game Awards and yes, it won't
Speaker 1: be out next year, something that at that point Jason
Speaker 1: Tryer had confirmed. So it's I just feel like, let's
Speaker 1: just yeah, say that. Yeah, intergallectic the heretic Profit, Is that, right? Guy? Man,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to like such myself. Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1: And every time I say Intergalactica, I just want to
Speaker 1: sing the BC Boys song instead. So that's gonna that's
Speaker 1: gonna be a huge issue for me. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it's clearly it's not out next year. We know that.
Speaker 1: Do you think it's out in twenty twenty seven then no, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think there's a chance.
Speaker 2: I think it just like a twenty I think this
Speaker 2: is like I think this takes the slot of like
Speaker 2: the Last of Us Part two did for PS four
Speaker 2: and Ghost of Sushima, where it's like it's out at
Speaker 2: the very tail end of whatever this console's life cycle is,
Speaker 2: and then like a couple months later we get whatever
Speaker 2: the next generation of consoles are, Like.
Speaker 1: That's what that is, and they have like an updated
Speaker 1: version for that, like ready to go, because it's like
Speaker 1: it took that long. If that is the way it goes.
Speaker 1: Jesse that that does mean that basically essentially, because that
Speaker 1: would make it a cross gen game. This entire generation
Speaker 1: went by without a game from Naughty Doug right, a
Speaker 1: new game, A new game, yes, a new like a
Speaker 1: new release something that they are not a remake and
Speaker 1: not a remaster.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. They put out the Last of
Speaker 2: Us one and two like eight times, yep, so they
Speaker 2: were they were busy with that.
Speaker 1: I guess.
Speaker 2: I don't. It just feels to me like a like
Speaker 2: an end of like, I don't know, it got announced
Speaker 2: and we were I agree with you, yeah, and then
Speaker 2: everyone was like, yeah, this game, don't expect it suit like,
Speaker 2: this is going to be a while, and you know
Speaker 2: how long game development is at this point, like takes
Speaker 2: a long time.
Speaker 1: I think that every time I go back to look
Speaker 1: at that that game, I'm like, you know what, this
Speaker 1: one looks like it might have some real juice to it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm hopeful, and I bet they want to take their
Speaker 1: time because they're going to make a massive game and
Speaker 1: set up a whole new franchise. So yeah, they won't
Speaker 1: be rushing this, and so certainly not next year. I
Speaker 1: guess late twenty twenty seven is possible, but even that,
Speaker 1: I'm with you, twenty twenty eight feels like the most
Speaker 1: likely year it comes out.
Speaker 2: We're going to release the Last of Us one more time.
Speaker 1: Before one four time, four time. Yeah, probably more than
Speaker 1: two or three more times. Let's go all right, that
Speaker 1: does it for the headlines. Let's go ahead and get
Speaker 1: to the poll question for Monday. I have that over here.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna bring it up there. We go over here
Speaker 1: on posts, I'm going to refresh to make sure I
Speaker 1: have the most recent poll results. What do you want
Speaker 1: from the Hollow Night devs after the Silk Song DLC?
Speaker 1: Do you want Hollow Night three or something new? I
Speaker 1: went with something new, as did eighty seven percent of
Speaker 1: respondents and Soda Jan right there, Hollow Night three is
Speaker 1: thirteen percent. I mean that just sounds right were because
Speaker 1: we're getting DLC still for Silk Song, So in this moment,
Speaker 1: it's like we already are getting more Hollownight and that
Speaker 1: game does feel like Silksong already feels like they did
Speaker 1: it all. They did all the things you can do
Speaker 1: with this, Like what more could you possibly ask for?
Speaker 1: That feels like a franchise that can cool off for
Speaker 1: quite some time, and if they want to come back
Speaker 1: to it fifteen years from now, that would be fine.
Speaker 1: They don't need to do it anytime soon, though, How
Speaker 1: do you feel about it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's get away from holiday, Let's yeah, move on,
Speaker 2: it's fine. We could do something new.
Speaker 1: Spread our wings, spread our wings and fly all right.
Speaker 1: We will have a new pool question here in a
Speaker 1: second before we do that, though, Jessefa Telly, why don't
Speaker 1: you tell people where they can find you on the
Speaker 1: internet what you have going on and all that good stuff.
Speaker 2: Sure, thank you very much. I'm Jesse, if I tell
Speaker 2: you can find me on the internet at Mama Vitelli
Speaker 2: pretty much anywhere, or just my name Jesse Vittelly. You
Speaker 2: find all my work at restart dot run. I help
Speaker 2: run all the social channels there. So if you are
Speaker 2: on Instagram, TikTok, blue Sky, Twitter, Facebook, whatever, Pinterest. We
Speaker 2: have a Pinterest. It's pretty sick.
Speaker 1: We put out.
Speaker 2: I think we put out some really really great stuff
Speaker 2: and I'm very happy with all the stuff that the
Speaker 2: team's been working on. So restart dot run is the
Speaker 2: website where you can find all of my work and
Speaker 2: all of my wonderful coworkers. We put a lot of
Speaker 2: we put a lot of heart into it, and you know,
Speaker 2: we just want to connect with y'all. As for me,
Speaker 2: like I said, youn find me Jesse Vitelly anywhere on
Speaker 2: the internet. I want to thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: I always love to chop it up with y'all. It's
Speaker 2: a good time and I I hope everyone enjoyed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, always of having you on. I loved seeing
Speaker 1: you in New York. I've been thinking about Margaritaville ever
Speaker 1: since you explained it to me, we.
Speaker 2: Have to go.
Speaker 1: I think we have to go, and it's like, uh,
Speaker 1: there was a reason. We'll probably be back that way
Speaker 1: sometime soon. And it's just like, I don't We're not
Speaker 1: gonna be able to make it happen, and it's gonna
Speaker 1: physically pain me if we're going to be that close
Speaker 1: and can't make it happen. So yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe I should try to show up a little bit
Speaker 1: early and I could just go there by myself and
Speaker 1: really show everyone how it's done. Yeah, one of these days, though,
Speaker 1: we will certainly do the Margaritaville New York City pub
Speaker 1: crawl from bar to bar on each floor. And thank
Speaker 1: you to Jesse Vitelli for teaching us the way. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's see here, new poll question I have that over here.
Speaker 1: Uh do you play PC games off of a hard
Speaker 1: drive instead of an SSD? Yes? No? Or I do
Speaker 1: not play PC games? Those are your options. We'll get
Speaker 1: the results talk about it on Game Mess Mornings here
Speaker 1: on Giant Bomb tomorrow. Speaking of Giant Bomb, today's a
Speaker 1: little funky. We were because the site is frozen and
Speaker 1: we have the new site happening we're like all getting
Speaker 1: up to speed on the way new stuff works. So
Speaker 1: we're gonna be spending some time today doing that. We
Speaker 1: were me and Dan We're maybe talking about doing a
Speaker 1: Delight club, but I'm not sure if we're actually gonna
Speaker 1: be able to pull that off now. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go and and we're gonna have a little power and
Speaker 1: figure out, Hey, can we make that happen, And then
Speaker 1: we'll let you all know what's happening for the rest
Speaker 1: of the day. But expect a voicemail dump truck tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Upf will happen on Friday, Jim. But we're doing city trials, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're doing a Kerby Yes, Kirby air Riders city trials,
Speaker 1: So we'll open up a room and maybe try to
Speaker 1: get a bunch of people in there hanging out with us.
Speaker 1: Just so you play any Kirby air Riders.
Speaker 2: I have not had a chance to play the full release.
Speaker 2: I got to preview it a couple of times and
Speaker 2: I had a good time, but haven't haven't had the opportunity.
Speaker 2: Now that Octopad's out of the way, though, free I
Speaker 2: can play whatever I want.
Speaker 1: Someone else you dropping a new one hundred RPG on you,
Speaker 1: just like right there. Release. Yeah. So, Kurber Writers is
Speaker 1: one of those games. The more I play it, the
Speaker 1: more I'm like, I just can't help but appreciate this
Speaker 1: game and Sakarai and everything he's doing here. It's one
Speaker 1: of those ones that really grows on you. Okay, So
Speaker 1: that's the rest of the week. I think with all
Speaker 1: that out of the way, what I'm gonna do now
Speaker 1: is say, Jesse, thank you for hanging out with me
Speaker 1: today and talking about video games. Man. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me. Like I said, I always
Speaker 2: love when I get to hang out with you and
Speaker 2: chat just about anything. Margaritaville, video games, whatever, anything.
Speaker 1: The Disney Store even turns out. Yeah, thank you once again.
Speaker 1: Thank you everybody for watching and listening. You are the
Speaker 1: best audience in gaming. Until next time, have a good one,
Speaker 1: take care of yourself, and goodbye.