Speaker 1: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Game in Former Show, a
weekly podcast covering the video game industry. Join us every
Thursday for discussion with the latest gaming news, reviews, and
exclusive reveals, alongside Game at Homer staff and special guests
from around the industry. I'm one of your hosts today,
Alex Van Aiken aka a Yonkie Vong, and today I'm
joined by Chonky Hong. How you doing, chonk Yhong?
Speaker 2: Oh, you know Chonkin hanging around?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, of course. Your human name is Charles Hart.
Thank you for joining us today, Charles, and rounding out
the show today, we've got Wonky Long. Oh my god,
be very long.
Speaker 3: Feeling very wonky Leslie Long.
Speaker 1: How you doing.
Speaker 3: I'm doing pretty good. Excited to be here, excited to
uh fully embrace my Kong.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'll say, of the Kong names we have, Wonky
Kong for sure could be one.
Speaker 3: It might be.
Speaker 2: I'm saying, if it was just one, if it was
just told me that existed and he was just like
K sixty four, I'd be like, probably, I mean Chunky Kong.
Speaker 3: Chunky Kong too. I don't know about a Yankee Kong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh, my first name wait, my first name is
actually David, so I could just be Donkey.
Speaker 2: You are.
Speaker 3: God, we're sitting with Loyalty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's up. I hope you're enjoying my game. Yeah,
all right, enough with the bits. Welcome to the Game
Informer Show. We got a big, packed episode this week.
We're gonna talk talking about Donkey Kong Bonanza Eric Sholm,
which is a top down, almost plaguetail like Stealth game.
We've got Shadow Labyrinth later in the show that Charles
been playing, which is the new pac Man Metroidvania, and
we'll talk a bit about Bravely Default on Switch to
later as well. But before we get into the episode,
please consider getting a Game Informer magazine subscription, either print
or digital. The print version is very high quality, glossy,
better paper quality, more pages than it used to be,
and that is a fantastic way for folks in the
US to support us. And if you're listening from international waters,
you can read all of the content that's inside of
the physical magazine with the digital membership, which is actually
cheaper than the print subscription. So if you are overseas
and want to support us, that's the best way to
do it. Second best way is to share the show
with a friend and write us on your favorite podcast platform.
Speaker 3: Do you guys ever, when we talk about the magazine
and we say, like better pages, more stories, I always
want to throw like Papa John's.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, every time someone better pizza. Papa John's.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And our new CEO is Shaquillo new.
Speaker 1: I you know Papa John's. It's all right, you know
it's it's.
Speaker 3: Probably like my least favorite. And I didn't even like
Papa John's before we learned their ceo was racist.
Speaker 2: So like his secrets, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think I think I think I forgot I think
I've forgot about that. Was that a long time ago?
Speaker 3: It was in the it was like twenty twenties, it
was in COVID. I think he got caught on so
maybe a little word pre COVID and like a card
ar as well too.
Speaker 1: It was like, oh, I don't remember that. I just
remember I remember there being memes about him being like
really read in the face or something that too.
Speaker 3: He tried to do like a comeback like he was.
He would post videos in his kitchen making pizza because
he was like, they've destroyed my company. Papa John's pizza
is no good anymore, and so he was like trying
to work up a new way like his recipe again,
and people were.
Speaker 1: Like a new local shop. Yeahs huh did he did
he like make the recipe? I feel like it was
probably just corporate pizza people who made the rest of.
Speaker 3: My knowledge of Papa John's begins changed over racist cancelation.
Speaker 1: Okay, well I'm not. I like Domino's a fair amount
that the new crust I learned though. Kyle Hilliard uh
hates the new Domino's crust.
Speaker 3: He likes the old cardboard Yeah they used to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that guard was season. I was like, I didn't
start eating dolls until they made the crust good like
ten years ago. But anyways, this isn't a pizza podcast.
This is a video game podcast.
Speaker 2: Can we go back to the magazine for a second? Also, yeah, yeah,
of course. We just announced The next cover is Vampire
the mass Grave Bloodlines two. Yes, else and I went
to England to see it. It's my first cover story,
which I'm very excited about. Wes is a vampire. Now
you've been infected West you're watching on our video?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to plan to us brewha oh Okay, yeah,
I like that.
Speaker 2: I like b I feel like I feel like all
drummers are brewha for And then the other thing about
this is we have a new cool feature on these
upcoming D and D books set in the Forgotten Realms,
which is like class A D and D setting. It's
where you're playing if you're playing balder Skate three. And
not only do we have a piece about that, are
magazine coming with a poster and it's two sided and
it's got D and D art And if you're getting
a magazine physically, you're getting a poster physically, and that's
really cool. That's excited.
Speaker 1: Yeah, those new poly bags are letting us include bonus goodies.
So hopefully that trend continues. I know, on our side
of things, we want to keep doing it. So a
D and D poster is just the first of hopefully
many little fun pack ends. It's freet it's like a
nostalgic feeling for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, with your subscription, Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll say, if you, if you, if that, maybe
that name that game rings a bell. Vampire the Mass Grade,
it's a cult classic from the mid two thousands. Nearly
two decades later, we're finally getting the sequel after it
spent years in development. Hell and yeah, it's going to
be a fascinating cover story. Charles did a great job.
You still have time if you're listening to this, to
lock in a subscription and get that that issue if
you're interested in it. But yeah, without further ado, let's
get into the bulk of the show. I've been playing
Donkey Kong Bonanza. Have either of you had a chance
to play it yet? I know you're both you've been busy.
Speaker 2: I've played like ten minutes at a best Buy, Yes,
because I walked up and I wanted I was like, oh,
a switch to pro controller. I haven't held one of
these yet because I didn't buy one. And then saw
that Donkey Kong was one of the demo games listed,
and I was like, what this was like last weekend?
So I played a little bit of it and it
was like the very opening mines area and then it
jumps to a I don't know what the first area
is or a lagoon, the lagoon layer maybe I remember
there was there was those exploding rocks, yes, xploding rocks
and stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the lagoon layer, which is I'm realizing as
the game goes on. So the way that Donkey Kong
Bonanza works is essentially there's these bad guys called the
Void Crew, I think, and they're a mining company that
are trying to get to the planet's core to you know,
do bad things or whatever. And Donkey Kong and Pauline
kind of gets sucked into all of this at the
start of the game, and they are also trying to
get to the planet's core because apparently there's a rumor,
there's a myth that if you can make it to
the planet's core, you get one wish to come true.
And Pauline's wish is going to be to get back
up to the surface and go home.
Speaker 3: And I don't know, it sucks that you're stuck underground
and you have to waste your wish on just escaping.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like that's right, that sucks. So that's kind of
like you're going deeper and deeper throughout the game. And
I've noticed there's a lot of the levels they're kind
of like just called layers and sub layers, and I
didn't realize, like at first, it felt like arbitrary numbers,
Like it's like sub layer one hundred, sub layer two, hundred,
and I just got to sub layer like three hundred.
I'm like, oh, okay, this is just the World's the
World Counters And I don't know why that didn't clock.
I wasn't clocking it at first. It wasn't clocking to me,
justin Bieber Go listen to Swag a great album by
the way. But I've made it to sub layer three hundred,
so like the Third World, and I'm having a blast
with it. It's a ton of fun. The you know,
for a peak behind the scenes listeners, we already recorded
this episode and I messed it all up and we
have to re record now. But the benefit is that
that I've gotten to play more Donkey Kong, and I think,
you know, I was talking to Wes and Charles and
the Lost recording about this. But you know, one of
the one of the you know, primary factors that really
excites me going into this game is the fact that
it's the Mario Odyssey team.
Speaker 4: And I love Mario Ossy. It's it's my favorite Mario game,
and so I've really kind of been wanting to see
what this team cooks up with Donkey Kong right in
this this new three D platform, and now that I'm
three levels in, it's really clicking for me.
Speaker 1: It wasn't not clicking for me before, but it was
like I was still kind of I think, like the
first two levels, it's like, Okay, I'm kind of seeing
the vision for this. And by the time you get
to the end of the second level, you unlock your
first Bonanza transformation. And this game, yes, Wes is on
the video version doing the animation himself, beating his chest
transform and the first Banana's a transformation that you unlock
is the big strong Donkey Kong. He's got the banana
dreads and he's like really big and strong and can
punch through metal. And I should say the primary mechanics
in that you were kind of operating with is the
ability to punch forward, the ability to punch upward and downward,
and the game is all about tunneling through various surfaces.
Also climbing on on said surfaces. You know you can,
there's no stamina bar. You can just climb on most surfaces.
There's a few exceptions that you can't climb on, and
those kind of act as like the bounds of how
deep you can go in the level, or if they
don't want you to like burrow through the entire thing.
They'll put up like these big kind of indestructible rock
pillars and it's very clear when you hit one of those.
But other than that, yeah, you can. You can burrow
and dig and just uncover tons of secrets and I'm
really liking it. It's it's really good.
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask about because last time we talked,
you were saying, like you like it, and I think
Wes even was saying when people were doing like the
first first demos, they were like this Burdom Kinnick's like cool,
but I'm curious to see if it's gonna like entertain
us throughout a whole game. Yeah, as you're getting to
like world three, I just wanted to ask about the
ways that it is like staying interesting for you, or
like how the worlds are different mechanically.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the you know you kind of mentioned in your
demo you found the exploding rocks right in that second area,
and that's there continues to be like new. Those explosive
rocks continue to be a theme in the game, but
they become more I think there's more interesting ways that,
like you have to get past obstacles so they introduce
like mud for instance, and mud is a surface that
you can't climb, but they teach you a mechanic where
if you break off a piece of rock, which is
one of the things you can do is donkey kong.
Whatever surface you're on, whether I'm one of those exploding
rocks that Charles mentioned, you can pull that off and
throw it and you'll explode whatever it hits, or if
you're on like normal dirt, you just kind of pick
up a thing of dirt. One thing I learned is
you can surf on whatever you pick up, so you
rip it out of the ground turf. Yes, yeah, yeah,
And I went into this game fairly like ignorant, like
I and intentionally so I kind of wanted to be
surprised by everything. And so you can like pick up
these rocks and surf on them surf turf. There's a
section in between the second and third layer where you
have to you pick up a rock, you jump in
the air, and you press the jump button again and
dk it kind of throws the rock below his feet
and kind of like it's almost like a super jump,
and you use that to jump what is it chunk jump?
I think it's called wow, you know all the terms.
I don't know what I remember.
Speaker 2: Trailer, Yeah, dude, that's me. That's me.
Speaker 1: I'm chunky km Yeah, chunk on chonk knk.
Speaker 2: I I remember really liking the names I got. Oh no,
oh gosh, you guys ever played with these squishy things before,
and they're fun to squish around.
Speaker 3: They got the little like hairs on them, like the
long it does.
Speaker 1: Know, he just popped his his thingishballs clear.
Speaker 2: I don't know what it's called, but it's a little
squishy stressed to like, don't say I popped my thing.
Speaker 1: Be right back.
Speaker 2: I gotta clean this off my hands.
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Yeah, I'm well, we'll keep talking while
you go clean your thing off. That's gross. Classic chonky right, Yeah,
that that chonky man. You know he's got more strength,
he got more strength in the nose. But I'm been
enjoying those kind of obstacles wes in the environment, Like yeah, oh,
there's like a mud a mud, you know, a mud
stair well and I have to get and there's like
these spiky dudes that are rolling down it and damaging
me if I get hit by them. So it's like
it feels very like Mario and those areas where it's like, Okay,
I'm doing a little more platforming here, some problem solving,
like making sure that I'm not getting hit by these
these little spike dudes. And I'm using the chonk conk
or whatever he called it to to like double jump
essentially and like jump higher and get out of the way.
And then those same enemies are weak to the surf turf,
and so if I throw rock down, I can kind
of ram through them, because it's as if you're on
a skateboard on these rocks that you're surfing on, and
you can kind of like boost yourself like push yourself
forward with your arms, like as if you were like
gaining speed on a skateboard. And some of those enemies
are susceptible to damage that way, and so that's a
lot of fun. But I'm just really loving the rewarding
exploration in this game. You know, there are so many collectibles,
and those collectibles can can unlock you know, cosmetics and
items like apple juice, which if you die, it gives
you essentially like an extra life and it restores your health.
You can buy balloons with those collectibles and balloons. Essentially,
if you fall off the map, they'll they'll balloon you
back up to where you fell from. There are a
number of other consumables that you can unlock to make
the game easier for you, but they do require like gold,
they require and in the case of cosmetics, there are
fossils buried about the about all of the area, and
so it's just a lot of fun finding like little
little secrets hidden within just the middle of a mountain
that you're you're breaking through. It feels really natural and
organic to just stumble upon these these bandandium gyms, which
are essentially like the big stars you're chasing after, right,
they're the They're like the main collectible in the game.
It's it's what is you know, It's that carrot on
the stick for you, because as you collect more of
those banana gems, you are unlocking skill points for DK,
and the skill tree continues to expand, by the way,
I know in our lost recording, I was telling you
how it's a pretty simple and straightforward skill tree. While
it remains simple, it has continued to kind of get wider.
Build crafting I'm build crafting, yeah, I'm in maxim DK.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do remember the one ability to thing just
in my recollection of the names of all the moves
is there's turf surf, but then you can get surf Surf,
which is yes on water and I really like that,
that's what they called it.
Speaker 1: And those like more mechanical, like new combos and unlocks.
They they cost more points, and so you really need
to save your skill points if you want to get
some of those more fun things, Like what's.
Speaker 2: Something that wouldn't cost a lot of points.
Speaker 1: Something that wouldn't cost a lot of points is like
the first time you want an extra heart on your
health bar, okay, or increasing the damage that your punch.
Speaker 3: Does, like to unlock, like you're buying combos or moves.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, So surf turf is though, the surf turf
thing I've been talking about that's hidden behind a skill
a couple of skill points, the surf surf thing. There's
one ability where if you spin the left joy con
stick and you press the jump button, DK does like
this like wind up cyclone ability that like punches a
bunch of stuff and it's great in combat, but you
can also use it to like kind of burrow and
like break stuff much quicker. Yeah, there's a fair amount
of of I wouldn't say it's as complex as like
a Mario Odyssey, where you can like you're chaining together
all of these various jumps and like that's like really
like if you wanted to master Mario Odyssey and like
speed run it, there was a lot of tech to
do that. I'm sure that will reveal itself as the
DK community continues to explore this game. But I am
really enjoying the pace at which I'm getting new abilities,
and I would say that the tool belt largely remains
the same from like you know, you're you're always going
to have the from the start of the game. You
have a lot of these abilities, despite some of the
ones that are hidden behind skill points, and you'll just
kind of slowly realize, like, oh, I can you know
two levels in and will tell you, Hey, by the
way you hit left trigger, you kind of do a
barrel roll and it can help you get speed. And
while you could have done that the entire time, it's
kind of just like, hey, just in case you missed it,
this is something you can do. I played last night
a I went into one of the challenge rooms and
these are kind of hidden across the environments and you
have to have Pauline sing to kind of open the
gateway up and when you go inside it's there are
a number of different challenges. It could be like a
monkey Bars challenge where you have to like kind of
climb underneath of a big kind of structure and get
around it while dodging you know, flying enemies and that
kind of thing to get to the banana gyms at
the end. And then there are others where it's it's
like more of a combat challenge. I went into one
last night, and it was a Donkey Kong Country level,
but in the style of Donkey Kong Vanansy. It was
two D yeah shifts, I guess two point five D
technique like three D assets. They're still all the same assets,
but yeah, cameras fixed to a two D perspective and
and yeah, that was very cool. It's like the I
played essentially like the intro to Donkey Kong Country, and it's.
Speaker 3: Not surprising because they did the Odyssey team did that
with the yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, two D little yeah, and like the the
like hearing like Stickerbrush Symphony and those kind of tracks.
Redone is is really really exciting. And on that note,
I think this soundtrack is just continues to be amazing.
I I love it. It's the Donkey Kong soundtracks have
a sort of like a I guess you would call
it like a world flavor in terms of like a
lot of different instruments from a lot of different cultures
and music backgrounds kind of infused into this really fun,
eclectic mix of instrumentation, and you get a lot of
like vocables, you get a lot of you know, various
woodwind instruments and and and and like read instruments and
that kind of thing. And it this this, this, this
game continues that trend. Since Pauline's involved, there are some
more like Pauline focused kind of tracks where she kind
of she sometimes sings, but she sometimes kind of like
weirdly raps. I don't know, she's she's a little all
over the place, But I enjoy it whenever whenever I
get to hear one of those tracks.
Speaker 2: But she do a review of just Pauline's rapping. Yeah,
Kyle review the game, I'll do a rap review.
Speaker 1: She says, d K A lot. I take that, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
what were you saying?
Speaker 3: Wes is Pauline annoying. I'm thinking back to Death Straight No,
where some people hated Dolman and some people love doll Man,
and I'm curious how where Pauline falls on the constant
companion scale.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: She she she's very charming. Actually, Like I think the
voice actress for Pauline does an incredible job of like
capturing because she's a kid in this one. She's like
thirteen in the game, and she's got like this very
like almost like pix our quality to her voice acting.
I feel like like it's like really charming. And when
sometimes DK will like break open one of the break
open like a secret room or something, and she'll kind
of like have thisighted, Like ah, like, well, I'm not
the voice actress, so it's much better than that. A
like just this like childlike surprise but mixed with excitement
and and she's kind of got stage fright, and but
she's comfortable singing in front of Donkey Kong, and there's
like these really human intimate moments where she's like, I'll
be here to sing whenever you'd need me, Donkey Kong,
but don't make me sing in front of other people
like that. And she it's just like really charming and warm,
and she is not she's not an overtalker. Like it's
it's tasteful, I will say. And usually when she's talking
to you, it's like in between the action, you know,
Otherwise she might have like some quips here and there,
but it's it's so far all very very cute and
and wholesome, and it's yeah, I'm I really like Pauline
as a kid. I'm not like a big Pauline fan
from like Donkey Kong or not Mario Odyssey. Like she's cool.
Speaker 2: You know. I was gonna say, I don't know if
there's enough Pauline content in any yeah, for people to
be a Pauline fan.
Speaker 3: People. I get what he means that people act like
they're like Pauline stands and I'm like there was a
thirty year gap in her history and then she had
a really level and odyssey.
Speaker 2: Yeah what do you mean you're yeah, yeah, not that
I hate Pauline just like there's no, no, there's not, I.
Speaker 3: Just have enough time kidding. I don't know.
Speaker 1: She's just like a lady who sings, But this is
like really kind of bringing her character forward and kind
of like you know, despite being thirteen in the game,
I feel like she's much a much more well rounded
character so far. And she's full voice lines, right oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
that's full voice acting for her. Yeah, and and really
for the whole game is fully voiced for the most part.
Speaker 2: Oh so, so Donkey Kong doesn't talk, Yeah, but he
does like.
Speaker 1: Like let's chibaka, but he does his chest west did
the chest meat? Thank you? He does? Yeah?
Speaker 2: What is another character that talks and can you do
their voice? Also?
Speaker 1: Well, I was gonna say, donkey Kong Kana sounds like like.
Speaker 2: Like like, what are you doing here, Donkey Kong?
Speaker 3: That's a really good shaggy, that's a really good yeah.
Speaker 1: Thank you. There there's there's a big, a big, big
orangutan dude who gives you the first bonanza ability and
but he just like talks and and like primate like
you just like whoa, whoa. And then they're like and
Pauline's like I can understand you, and I'm like I can't,
but you know.
Speaker 2: But but other than that, I just wanted to say,
because you said it's fully voiced, I was wondering Pauline's
having like conversations where other people are speaking English, like
the evil guys do they have Do they speak English
or is it the same thing?
Speaker 1: No, they speak English. They they're like there's one lady
who's like the President will want to hear about this.
Speaker 2: Okay, she's like looking.
Speaker 1: Over, Yeah, she is a sultry and then the bad
of the main bad guy's kind of like more maniac
like I think I think he's like I'm gonna kill
you all. Not really, but like.
Speaker 2: It was kind of a young Aaron Yeager to me sounding.
That's what it gave me.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's it's a good game. I'm really liking
it a lot. And oh the boss fight, I thought
a sort of like mini boss it might be a
real boss fight, but the way it incorporated, like as
you're you know, you're you're expecting like a very much
like oh this, you know I have to turn into
my It starts off and it's like this big octopus thing,
like big like SpongeBob octopus like square thing and it
will cover itself and steel, and so if you're normal
Donkey Kong, you can't damage it, but you have to
use your bonanza ability and transform into big Donkey Kong.
And then you can punch through it, and you're like
punching away like body not body parts, but I mean
essentially like you're punching holes in this dude, and it's
like showing. It's showing the damage, and once you punch
away the metal, it kind of reveals inside he's actually
like this little octopus dude, this collection of octopi that
there's a lot of octopy in the game that kind
of like shape shift. I'm not sure what their whole
deal is, but like that's what this boss is. And
once you kind of break away his hard outer shell,
he kind of jumps back in the arena and like
terraforms and like builds this little mountain that you have
to then climb them out and like punch him up
on top of that while he's like sending people at
you and like doing a like ranged stuff. But the way, yeah,
the way that they are, Like that first little boss fight,
I was like, oh, okay, Like it's more than just
get close and punch the thing. It's like, oh you
did you have to like get close and punch the thing,
but you have to transform if your punches aren't working,
and then once you do enough damage, there's like a
little like climbing environmental puzzle kind of thing, and and
I'm I'm enjoying that flow, and I'm excited to see
how that ramps up as the game goes, because it
was very much like not quite introductory boss fight, but
close enough. Right, It's like, Okay, this is the easy,
least complicated one. They're showing me how I use my
Bonanza abilities and testing that, and yeah, I'm enjoying that
quite a lot. There's also like these other like smaller
enemies you fight in the game that are like these
I think I was telling you guys about this. It's
like this skeleton, this golden scale eleton that that absorbs
turns himself into. Actually I realized it's a crocodile skeleton,
So picture of crocodile but all bones, and then he
covers himself in rock and swings this big hammer thing
at you. But it's really satisfying to fight those things
because as you punch them, the rock is solely breaking
away and then you reveal the skeleton underneath that you've
punched through all the rock, and then one hit on
those guys will kill them. And sometimes they'll like shootout
keys for you to use some very particular areas. It's
not like a like a it's not like a treasure
key where oh I've got this key now and I
can go and find a treasure chest somewhere. It's like
very specifically, you are fighting this guy in front of
this device, and once you beat it, he drops the key.
But then later on, now that I've played more, those
are just like common enemies now, but they're still less fun.
Speaker 3: Maybe King type crocodiles or are they no.
Speaker 1: No, more like definitely not King k Roll types. More
rats more not more rat like exactly rats. No, they're
more just like random creatures. They don't resemble King k Roll,
although I hope he makes an appearance. I think that'd
be yeah, yeah, it would.
Speaker 2: Be one of the that could be one of the
Bonanza transformations.
Speaker 1: Oh that'd be cool and stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, Or like I do
like the it's the game's cartoony enough that the way
you defeat this enemy is you punch his skin off
and then breathe his bones. But it's like, oh but
it's charming.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, yeah, it's every Yeah, you're right, everything
has like a I mean, that's a family friendly game, right,
but like, yeah, there are still those. I think it's
just like punching and DK bonanza feels really good, just
like whether you're touching the earth, punching through skeletons of people.
Speaker 3: Pauline, she's just growing up in front of like she's
just watching. Yeah, just violence.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just know that.
Speaker 2: Uh. Harambe was my hometown zoo. No way, what that
Cincinnati Zoo. There's a there's a statue of Harambe still Anyways,
all the stalk of young kid hanging out with Gorilla,
it's just maybe have Harambe on the brain.
Speaker 3: I have a Harambe hat that has a picture of
him and it says Legends Never die.
Speaker 1: Wow, did you ever meet him?
Speaker 2: Maybe he saw him at the exhibit. Consider that meeting.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know sometimes the animals will come up
to the glass and like, no, I know, it's.
Speaker 2: Like something about there's like a meet and greet for Harambe. Yeah,
I don't think. I don't think he was a big
deal before he was killed.
Speaker 1: He was just but it's possible you did meet him
at one point.
Speaker 2: The is zoo. Now there's a whole thing post It's
the title of this podcast. The Haramic died and then
we had a baby hippo that was born premature and
then ended up being okay and was like a whole
big deal. And I'm so confident that the Zoo PR
team was like, oh, thank god, we have something else
that people are talking about Cincinnati Zoo.
Speaker 1: Since wait, is it the little the little baby hippo
hippo not MoU Dangona was like, back, yeah, this is
just like this, this is it was pumping out stars,
you know, great zoo.
Speaker 2: But it's not a is big now plants. If you
go to a like Cincinnati gift shop or something or
somewhere that would have like regional town stuff, there's like
Fiona t shirts, Fiona mugs, Fiona coasters, you can probably
find a puzzle and the subject of the puzzle is
baby Fiona in like aond or something. They like pushed
it so hard. Anyways, I don't think there's any baby
hippos in this game. I was just you know, sometimes
never say never.
Speaker 1: There's only rhinos and Cranky Kong. There could be there
could be hippos somewhere. I've got a lot to go,
but yeah, I'm really enjoying just like seeing I just
got to the third area is called the Canyon Layer.
It's a big red canyon, and I'm excited. I'm at
the very start of it, and I think there's gonna
be some mind cart action going on, if I if
I remember from the trailers. So I'm really enjoying Donkey
Kong Bonanza. It's it's becoming one of my favorite games
of the year for sure. So it's just it's a delight, honestly,
and I wish this thing came out when the Switch launched,
but you know close enough, you know, it's it's been
what a few weeks a month, and if having this
in Mario Kart, which I'm still enjoying, definitely feels like, Okay,
here's like the launch this game. This thing has some
games now that are worth picking it up for. Yeah,
it feels really good worth mentioning.
Speaker 3: Game of Forward does not. We might have a review
up by the time you're listening to this, but at
this time we don't because we did not receive code
early in case you're where you can read.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we we unfortunately were removed from that list and
we got shut down and have yet to be put
back on. But they do send us launch day codes.
But yeah, if you're wondering where our review is, Kyle
Hilliard is currently playing through Donkey Kong. That's why he's
not on the episode. He didn't want to, like, right.
Speaker 2: What would he be?
Speaker 3: Conky Honky Hoya.
Speaker 1: Conky Hong is currently playing Donkey Kong Bananza and he
doesn't want to color his criticism by hearing our thoughts
on it. And uh so he's he's he's in his
little Donkey Kong hole. He's burrowed deep in the mountain
just playing the DK hole.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just realized that when Marcus comes on, he's
a monkey song. That's Pauline.
Speaker 1: Oh, we'll call him Pauline.
Speaker 3: The rest of the staff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's some good stuff here, some good gym.
Speaker 2: Bonky song is mony many, Yeah, all good.
Speaker 1: I was gonna, I was gonna let you get out
of your system, you know. Yeah, I was like, it
seems like he's cooking here. He's in the kitchen. We're
not in the kitchen with him, but he's he's somewhere
in the kitchen. Well, let's throw it over to us.
You've been playing Eric Schulm, which is a top down
stealth game that really caught my eye when I first
I think I saw it because you were talking about
it in Slack West during a Steam Next fest or something,
and and the screenshots caught my eye. I heard from
you that it's like this really cool stealth game, so
I wish listed it. So I'm I'm dying to hear
once again your thoughts on airth Yeah.
Speaker 3: Eric Schulm. The Stolen Dream is a stealth game from
newcomer studio called Riverend Games. They kind of revealed this
game in twenty twenty three during Summer Games Fest, and
it was one of those ride ups that, like, you know,
during Summer Game Fest, you have a bunch of big
announcements and it's like, obviously you're going to write about
the new Resident Evil, the new this or that, and
sometimes games slip through crack just because it's really hard
to keep up with a bunch of announcements. But Eric
Shulan was when I went back to cover because I
was like, this game looks really cool. It immediately grabbed
my attention with its top down art style and it's
a visually beautiful game, like one of the prettiest of
the year, and it's just a type of stealth like
a stealth focused game, is not. We just don't get
as many these days. I mean, I guess we do
a lot more on the indie scale, which this is
an indie game, but there's some big names behind the studio. Anyway,
A year past, and then I saw it again last
year with the Summer Game Fest coverage and stuff. And
then finally another year passed and it kind of surprise
launched out of nowhere this year. It didn't actually like
Shadow Drop, but I received code and then boom, it's
out like a week later, which is unfortunate in terms
of fanfare, because I think this game is really really good.
I gave it an eight point two five for Game
and Former, which is a great review or a great
score for like a newcomer studio first attempted a game.
Speaker 1: Is this PC only?
Speaker 3: Wes No, I think it's on PS five and XO
series excess as well. Yeah. Cool, cool, And I wouldn't
be surprised if it comes to switch to as well.
I think it'd be a really good switch game.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But so it's a stealth game on its surface, and
after playing through like fifteen hours in at what I
really discovered is it's actually a puzzle game using stealth
terms and stealth mechanics and stealth gameplay as it's puzzle pieces,
which I really enjoyed. So you start the game as Hannah.
She's the main protagonist. She her brother's kidnapped by like
the police force. She and her brother kind of like
street urchins in this city. That's you know, there's not
class warfare, but it's clear that like the upper class
is kind of ruling the city and everyone that's not
in the one percent is kind of struggling and working
a bunch to make ends meet. And the city is
inspired by twentieth century like Scandinavia, which I'm not super
familiar with Nordic cities, but to me it kind of
just gives like a whale punk vibe, very dishonored, lots
of verticality, coastal city. There's like trolley cars hanging in
the air, floating by, and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: How's the sound design with that stuff? Does it really
kind of does it feel like you're in that place?
Speaker 3: Yeah? It does. It's not like the biggest highlight. It's
one of those things that kind of just is part
of the environment. It doesn't really stand out, which I
guess is kind of what you want with sound design,
but yeah, it gives me like big dishonored vibes with
the way like there's advertisements from like local companies all
over the place, and it's very like, yeah, it's just
very whale punk without the actual emphasis on killing oils.
Yeah exactly, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I do dig that.
Speaker 2: Can you yeah, can you just like in theory if
someone didn't know what whale punk was, could you like
define some characteristics of whale punk?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It is riffing off of steam punk, which is like
in a city, a society a architecture defined by steam engines,
so instead of moving to like combustion engines and that
kind of thing, I believe they stuck with steam. Whale
punk is that similar aesthetic, but instead of steam engine
society is kind of running on whale oil and whale
blubber and stuff to make products to make machinery. So
like Dishonored is probably the biggest example of whale punk
in at least in our industry, where they just kill
a bunch of whales and use that oil to power
the city. And so it looks very similar to steampunk,
it just kind of has a different vibe usually like
a darker, grittier vibe since society is focused on killing whales,
which kind of sucks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've always head like steampunk is a little more
like whimsical.
Speaker 3: Yeah, look up a trailer for Dishonored that's whale punk.
Look up a trailer for In Exiles Clockwork Revolution that
is steampunk. And like Alex said, Clockwork Revolution is way
like brighter and cheerier and yeah, but anyway, so he
plays Hannah trying to find your brother, and she's just
a little girl, so you're not really capable of killing
or even combat, which is mechanically defined by having to
stealth around everywhere, and if you're spotted, it's an instant
game over because she has no chance of escaping a
bunch of police patrolling the city looking for her. She
has no chance of fighting back. And so it starts
with you're just kind of moving through the city and
you can crouch automatically whatever. There's guards nearby, and you
just kind of sneak by in a simple stealth way
that you've seen before. Guards turn around and then their
sightline goes up if they see you, and if that
sideline fills up, you're busted and then after a little
bit they'll turn around and look over here, and that's
your cue to go. Something I really I do like
about the guard animations is it's very all the animations
are very natural. It's not like it doesn't feel like
very gamified or they're turning around randomly. They wait five seconds,
they turn around this way like they'll like mosy around
in a circle and kind of smoke a cigarette and
just kind of like whistle and stuff, and it feels
very like it feels like they're on an actual patrol,
like they're actually just kind of chilling in this world,
which I really appreciated. I think that's a small but
very cool detail. As you progress, you unlock a blow
dart and she can shoot sleep darts at guards, which
is a really cool mechanic because you can put guards
to sleep. But there's challenge associated which with it, which
I like, do you have to when you shoot a
sleep dart at a guard, They'll turn around and be
like whll whoa, whoa? Who shot me? What's going on?
Why do I have this in my neck? For like
five seconds? So you need to shoot them from cover,
which is cool because I think most stealth games would
just let you shoot them and instant sleep them, and
then furthermore, you have to move their body because if
a guard sees their body, they're going to call all
the other guards to the area. So it's a nice
level of challenge. You play her for about six seven
eight hours and then you unlock the second protagonist, which
is Alva, and she is a little bit older. She's
kind of like a local resistance leader trying to help
the poor, especially kids. She really wants to help, like
children and orphans. She can climb pipes on buildings to
reach rooftops, and she can throw pebbles, which throwing pebbles
is like that's one oh one for stealth games. It
just distracts people. But it's cool because Hannah is kind
of more centered on like ground level, and she can
move through ventilation shafts to enter buildings, but she's not
really going up or down, whereas Alva can go up.
And so you get a new You get the rooftops,
which is a new piece of the puzzle, and really only.
Speaker 1: Do rooftops or can she go below as well?
Speaker 3: She can't. Really, they don't really go below too much
like when you're on a rooftop, you can go back
down to the ground floor. Rarely was I like going
from ground floor to somewhere beneath with Pata, But there's
a few instances of that. And what's really cool is
like after you're introduced to Alva, she's got like her
own solo level. Her and Hannah meet up and they
both need to advance through a level, which means you
need to switch back and forth and get them to
the end. And to do that you need to like
have Hannah sleep dart a guard that's in Alva's way
so that Alva can advance forward, and then vice versa,
Like you have to interact with them like that, and
it becomes like this puzzle of Okay, Hannah needs to
go here, how can Alva help her do that? And
vice versa. Keep playing for a few hours, loving the
g I'm advancing to the city, you know, we're trying
to find my brother. And then we're introduced to a
third protagonist that joins the crew named Sebastian. He's like
kind of the brute guy, so he can swim and
usually waters on the lowest level of the city. So
now I've got Alva up top. Often Hannah on the
ground level, and Sebastian's like kind of going low with
water and he can choke out guards. So that's like
the final piece of this three protagonist puzzle, and the
final few hours where you have all three of them
are so good, Like it's excellent puzzle design, it's excellent
stealth design. And I really enjoyed switching back and forth
on the dpad between the characters and moving them into place,
getting them ready to do. Okay, Hannah's going to sleep
dart this guy. Sebastian has to quickly run up and
grab this guy before he sees the guy that's now sleeping,
and Alva has to distract the chief that's watching over
everyone with a pebble. And it's really cool watching them
build on that, And honestly, it's I think like from
the moment you have those three to the end, like
the puzzles only get better and better, which is cool.
Like they start to introduce guns which are instant kills
for you, Like they instantly kill you. You don't get
the gun, no no no, no, no, no no no no,
you get to start to load down. Yeah, yeah, like
but it's really good. I had a really, really good time.
My biggest let down with the game was kind of
like retroactive because I really enjoyed it, and then I
get to the end, the last third of the game
with all three protagonists, and the game really sings like
it's really brilliant when you're using all three and then
I'm kind of like, well, dang, why did I have
to play two thirds of this game not like this?
I think ultimately, River End Games took too long to
get to the best part of their game, and by
the time I was like really loving what was going on,
I rolled credits, and on one hand, that's a that's
a cool feeling because I'm like, this game was awesome,
can't wait to see what they do next. On the
other hand, I'm like, man, I wish that the other
ten hours I played were as good as these last five.
That said, still very much worth your time if you
like puzzles and stealth games. It's also like one of
the most gorgeous games I've played. This year's cinematics are
on another level. Legitimately, don't know what this team is
doing to get cinematics like this in their indie game.
I kind of want to reach out and be like
what did you do? Because it's so beautiful and even
like the world designed, the top down view is gorgeous
as well. There's a really nice like boca effect around everything.
It kind of makes each level feel like a diorama
that you're moving through. And yeah, it's great. I think
it's going to be It's like under the radar game.
I'm already seeing not enough people playing it. I'm like,
I want more people to play it because it's really good.
And yeah, I thoroughly had a great time with it
and can't wait to see what that studio does next.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, yeah, you've really kind of shot this up
my list of things to play. I am really in
the mood for I am curious how it runs on
something like a steam Deck. Have you checked that out
at all?
Speaker 3: I didn't. It runs like near perfectly on steam Deck.
Oh hell yeah, okay, especially with I don't know how
much you tinker with steam Deck. But there's like a
new thing that the steam deck community is talking about.
It's like a lossless scaling update that people are pushing
through in the back end, and that especially makes it
run great. So I don't know the tech behind it,
but I just followed a YouTube video and it worked
out great and now a lot of my games are
running even better.
Speaker 2: It couldn't explain a thing like Valve put on the
Steam deck or is it like a no.
Speaker 3: I think it's something Valve supports, but it was like
one of those things I had to do through like
desktop mode, So like kind of yeah, kind of messing
with that.
Speaker 1: I'll request Wes if you ever get a chance to
write up a tutorial on the site now how to
improve my Steam deck. I would read that.
Speaker 3: I too, because I spend too much time tinkering with
my steam deck. It's like, yeah, kind of annoying, but
I love it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's cool though. I'm really excited to play Eric's Home.
I know they sent me a code, so I'm excited
to dive in eventually. Yeah, I hope this game gets
I was kind of just like been flipping through steam
dB and gamealytic dot com just to kind of see
how how it's doing in terms of like sales and stuff,
and yeah, I hope it's It looks like the estimate
is that maybe it's sold between three and five k
on Steam based on based on reviews. It's all, it's
all estimates. What is it forty bucks, which which yeah,
it's thirty nine ninety nine. Does it does that feel
steep for it? Or does it feel like how's it
feel to you?
Speaker 3: Obviously you've got a code, but yeah, I mean I
got fifteen hours out of it, and I could go
back and on each level like fine, collecticals and stuff. Uh,
I think forty is fair. I don't know, it's such
a it's hard because like, yeah, we know what this
industry is. So I'm like, I want devs to charge
a lot for their game, and I want everyone to
pay of course, of course, but yeah, forty dollars I
think might be steep for some people at any rate.
If that is Steve, like put it on your wish
list and Steam sales happen all the time, like I
would if this game drops even down to thirty, like
it's still well worth your time, Like it's yeah, it's great.
Speaker 1: I think like for Stealth fans, I think we whenever
we get something something that's worth playing, it's like, okay, yea,
I'll drop forty for that, right yeah, yeah, So hearing you,
hearing you talk about it, I'm I'm eager to play it.
It seems awesome. I hope that the developers, you know,
get what they need from it, and it sounds like
it'd be it'd be a great candidate for maybe a
second game where they really flesh out and kind of
give you those three characters from the start of that. Yeah,
well cool, that's Eric's Holme The Stolen Dream. You can
play it on Steam and PS five and Xbox. Charles
kind of go to you. You've been playing Shadow Labyrinth,
which is the pac Man metroidvania that features some some
other bandy ip I know in certain parts of the game,
like dig Doug. But how is it so far?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I we talked about it last time. It was
a hundred percent sure. I've looked it up and I
it seems like it's in the apparently linked dig Doug
Galaga timeline.
Speaker 1: The famous Kalaga time.
Speaker 2: It's like pac Man dig Doug Galaga. But it's very Yeah,
so I'm reviewing it. I got the code like this week.
It comes out the day we're recording on the eighteenth,
and uh, It's it's interesting. I don't love it. I'm
curious if, like, if I had a connection to some
of these old arcade games, if I would be really
into it if I'd be picking up on stuff that
I'm not seeing now. But it's it's like a series
of odd decisions that I don't think really comes together
in a way that is going to connect with a
lot of people. So you're starting off, it's pa pac
Man is the name of the game. That's like, what's
going to bring people in? You don't play as pac Man.
And also he's not called pac Man, he's called Puck. Yeah,
I think he's puck Man in Japan. If you've seen
Scott Pilgrim, you know, they change his name from pac
Man to puck Man because you could scratch off the
P and make it an F. That would be that
for business guys pack man now. And but in the game,
he's Puck and he's a like robot. So he's like
a spherical floating robot. Yeah that like reports to some
like galactic government force.
Speaker 1: And I didn't know that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just got to that point, like the UGSF
or USGF or something like the United Gallon you know, yeah,
for real more lore. There's also I did. I haven't
encountered any ghosts, but I did encounter a giant robot
named g Host which is just ghost with a hyphen
in there. I'm not really sure what that's about yet,
but yeah, you're not playing as pac Man. You're playing
as what I think is a robot who has the
soul of a human from what seems to be the
actual human world, because the game starts and there's like
a kid playing some handheld gets like zapped away, and
then this robot wakes up. Then he gets this like
floating robot arm, and then this sword, and the whole
thing is that Puck can't use weapons, so he can't
like force his way through this world to get these
things done he needs to do. So he got you.
He calls you number eight. I'm assuming that he's tried
this seven other times, and they.
Speaker 1: Sound like.
Speaker 2: Puck is not does not come across as a good person.
I guess I didn't really clarify that last time.
Speaker 1: It feels like you're like a soldier doing his bidding.
Speaker 2: He's he seems to be U. There's like a few
other characters you interact with in the world, and Puck
is always like, don't don't listen to them. They're they
don't understand what our mission is. Like, Puck seems like
a very like indoctrinated soldier in a war. He doesn't
fully understand. And he also is like a robot, so
I think part of it is he's like trying to
follow his programming. It's very interesting now that I'm talking
about it out loud. It is not very interesting. In
the dialogue of the game. It's it's one of those
things where it's like they're just withholding so much information
from you. It's really hard to like connect with any
one specific thing. The goals are usually very vague. It's like,
just go through here and then I'll explain, or just
do this and then I'll explain her. It's like, yeah,
you don't. You don't need to understand that yet. So
that's part of it. The gameplay is very stiff. I
described it to Hollo. I compared it to Hollow Night
before because of how the jump works, where it's like
it's very specific jump. It goes like exactly as long as.
Speaker 1: You're holding it. I prefer a flow to your jump.
Speaker 2: Or like at least a jump where you can like
correct yourself in air a little bit better. Yeah, And
that's the combat is that you have a sword. You
have a meter called the ESP meter. Which is both
like stamina and magic kind of. So you can do
like a really powerful sword swing that uses some of that,
but if you're like dodge rolling too much, you can't
sword swing. And if the meter goes all the way down,
you can't use any abilities until it's charged all the
way back up. So there's like a management system of
it's like you gotta use it, but don't use it
too much. And yeah, it's the combat's not like super interesting.
It feels kind of I don't know. I I one
of the things I talked about liking about Donkey Kong
is that you start off and you can do all
these different things where you can punch up and down
and grab stuff and pull, and it doesn't necessarily tell
you all of it, but you have like the full
what feels like a full kit right from the start.
And when you're playing Shadow Labyrinth, it's like the first
boss unlocks this powerful swing, I think, and then the
second boss unlocks. When you defeat it, you get the
perry for the first time, which is just like seven
hours into the game you get the perry. Since we
last recorded, I beat the third boss, which unlocks the
block button, so now I can swap a Perry for
a block if I wanted to do that, and it's
just it just took too long to me. I want
to be excited about beating a boss and getting an upgrade,
Like Metroid always surprises me when I replay one of them,
because I feel like I'm getting new stuff all the time.
You're always like excited to be like oh, I can
climb on that wall now, or like oh I have
a new way of like shooting my gun, and that
like really motivates me to go and explore and do
new things because I'm like, oh, what's the cool new thing.
Sam's is gonna get a lot of Metrivanias have that feel,
and this one it keeps feeling like I'm unlocking like
the most basic basic you would find in the control manual. Yeah,
part of it is you are here this robot dude
who's also a human and also Puck is here. Oh
there's little there's some parts of the levels where when
you jump on them, you turn into Puck and it's
just like classic pac Man style, like.
Speaker 1: You're on like a light rail kind of thing. Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, They're they're fine. I find them frustrating because specifically
because you have to jump between them, so it's not
like a pac Man level. And the reason that's annoying
is because pac Man can't attack. But if you press
the attack button, you transform back into yourself and do
this aerial spinning move thing, but you like launch yourself first,
which means if you're trying to hit someone, you have
to be far enough away otherwise you're just kinda kind
of yeat yourself towards them and then take damage. So
when there's enemies on there, it always feels kind of
clumsy because I'm like, I'd rather just avoid them, or like,
if I could be my normal sword fighting self, I
could just take them out. But it's like a weird
like con there. But they're fine. They're they're few and
far between, honestly, maybe too few and too far between.
If you're coming to this expecting like a pac Man game,
but you're that, and then also you're a like mecha Kaiju. Yeah,
I forgot how to turn into if you have like
a meter fill up enough, which just does more damage
and is immune to like terrain stuff. So if there's
like a there's some areas in the game where it's
like a big pit of spikes, and you have to
have your Kaiju charged up in order to like walk
over it and like unlocker areas and stuff, and I
know you can like eat people, right, Yeah, if you
whether or not you have the meter filled up, you
can click the right stick and it summons like a
ghostly version of the Kaiju to pick up whatever enemy.
You just defeat it and then eat it and get
like crafting items. And then that's also how you fill
up your Kaiju meters by eating a bunch of guys.
So yeah, it's interesting. There's like it's it's weird to
talk about because it there's a lot going on To
describe the basics of the game. It's got kind of
a weird world. It's got kind of a weird art style.
Speaker 1: That's one of the things I've talked to you about before,
is I. Yeah, I don't like the art style. It's
a little all over the place.
Speaker 2: Yeah. There, I keep running into characters that are on
the screen very small, but I can tell that their
character designs have so much like little details and touches
here and there that I just literally can't see because
they're not taking up that much of the screen. And
it's almost like it's a nice thing about pixel art,
like way back in like the you know, Arcade era
is it's like, hey, you have like twelve pixels to
make this guy, and you have to make sure we
can comprehend him from where we are. So these are
these simple character designs, but they're very easy to read.
You're like, I know what this guy is because they
had very limited space and conveying what it was. And
in this one, it's like they have the technology to
put as much detail on this character as they want,
but it ends up being like a little bit messy
and a little like overcome implicated of a design, and
you can't see it in the first place. So it's, yeah,
it's odd, and yeah, it just it. It hasn't really
come together in a way I have wanting it to.
I don't think it's a terrible game, Like I'm not,
I'm not like loathing every time I boot it up,
but it is very much feel like I'm kind of
going through the metroidvany emotions of being like I'm going
to go here and then here and then this unlocks that.
Speaker 1: And if you didn't have to for work, certainly not.
It's just taken too long.
Speaker 2: To get anything, and I think, honestly, when I'm these
boss fights are kind of long, and the checkpointing is weird.
There's main save points where you can heal and like
refill your healing items, but then there's checkpoints where when
you die you can go back there, but you don't
get your healing items back, So there's a weird juggle
of like do I want to respond at the checkpoint
or do I want to have to go back to
a save point like walk my wife, well they be back,
and hope that I have my healing stuff still. And
then some of these bosses are just like you just
got to hit them so many times, and it's not
in a way that really feels like I'm engaging that
it's really exciting, especially since I don't have that many moves.
Speaker 1: I can do.
Speaker 2: I'm just avoiding things and then trying to get as
many sword hits in as possible. So yeah, oh, and
to go through all of that so to there's like
a boss where it's like I'm spending like thirty forty
five minutes just trying to get through this boss because
it's like so repetitive and I gotta take this out
and olah blah lah to finally beat it and it's like, congrats,
you can have a block button now. Yeah. Oh, Like
I don't really feel gratified by it. Like if I
was getting good rewards out of it, I would feel good.
But yeah, it just feels like it's it's missing a
few quality of life things, and like.
Speaker 1: It almost feels like they should have hidden like the
pac Man like light rail system behind like a boss
fight or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, honestly, would that would be cool, or like even
the I guess you kind of you have to unlock
the kaiju and stuff, but there's some there's there's definitely
mechanics in the game that or even just just just
another fun move in combat like stuff like that would
be It doesn't even have to be particularly useful, as
long as it's a thing I can get excited about.
I don't know if I've ever played a game where
you unlock the block button ten hours in and then
you would presumably be excited about it.
Speaker 1: And you can only you can you can have that
or the pairy not both correct?
Speaker 2: Correct? Yeah, you have to swap between the two.
Speaker 1: Yeah it feels weird.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's awful.
Speaker 2: So we'll see. We'll see if it if it improves
at all, or if maybe at the very end, I'll
be like, oh my gosh, the story. I didn't even
realize that mister Gallagho was pac Man's dad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or whatever, we'll keep us. I am curious how
the rest of that plays out. Yeah, keep us up
to date. Please. But before we get out of here,
you've got one more game, Charles to talk us through.
And that's bravely default on switch to correct.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I just been playing. I've been playing. I started
playing it on vacation. I was on a trip with
my partner and we were just in Colorado, and I
just kept playing a little bit every night. And uh,
it's a game I have a lot of like nostalgia for.
It was like one of my first like big RPGs,
as like a teenager on three DS. One of the
games I remember voice actors from. It's like around the
time where I started being like, oh, who's voicing this guy?
And like his is the main guy is voiced by
I want to say Bryce Pipinbrook, who is like very
prolific anime actor. He's Aaron an Attack on Titan, He's
Kiirri tow and sort out online. And then Adaya is
voiced by Cassandra Lee Morris, who is Morgana in Persona five.
That's Galac in Marvel Rivals. Oh yes, sofis in fire
Emblem three houses.
Speaker 1: Yeah on my TikTok feed recently.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yeah, she's great. And one of
those things where in the dialogue they always write m
r g r g r and she had to voice
act that line. It's very much like in old Japanese
RPGs they'll just put in like a weird way of laughing,
like I know, in like Pokemon Emerald people go to
laugh a lot. Yeah, how you would say that, But
Cassandra Lee Morris so convincedly always goes murgerger and I
just love that because you would No one ever says that.
But she has to read the line. It's like her
catch phrase, basically, murgerger.
Speaker 3: It's a very voice voice acting centric episode we're having today.
Speaker 2: It really is, really is anyways.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and uh.
Speaker 2: The Swisschoo version has some mini games that use like
the mouse mode that I haven't played. Alex, you played them,
Wes you played them too, right, m hmm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're they're fine.
Speaker 3: They're option, they're fine, which is good.
Speaker 2: It's mainly just like a visual overhaul and just like
a way to play it on a new system. But
the one thing I really liked is they've changed the
way that there's a village you're rebuilding in the game,
and it's kind of like a mobile game style thing
where it's like, I want to unlock this shop, but
you can. You can sign twenty four hours, but if
you assigned two workers to it, that cuts it, and
half's like, well twelve hours, then another one it's eight hours,
and it's like, it's just cool. But the way you
got more workers in the three DS version was by
street pass and if you're just I don't know, theoretically
just sitting at home all day and not going out
and like passing people on the street, as many three
DS owners didn't do, you're just going to have like
two or three workers at a time and it's going
to take forever to unlock on them. Yeah, and now
the game just kind of if you're connected to the internet,
just automatically adds five new workers in the world in
major cities for you to go find and like add
to your town. So as I've just been playing this
a little. With every day I've been like unlocking stuff
and I have way more. I have like fifty villagers now,
and as we're talking, I think I almost like one
hundred percent of the village before I've beaten the game,
which is like a thing I never got even close
to doing in that three days.
Speaker 1: I can't remember. What does the village do for you?
Speaker 2: So's it's not that exciting. It varies. There's different shops
and they'll get added to. There's like a red traveler
guy that you'll find in the world and you can
say to him, but he'll you can also buy equipment
off of him, so you can unlock like really cool
powerful weapons that you can just buy from him that
you don't find in shops at all.
Speaker 1: Coo.
Speaker 2: And if you're like saving up, you can unlock like
really good weapons way earlier in the game. But then
you also get modifiers on special moves, so everyone every
weapon in the game has like a special associated with it.
It's like a really powerful move, and you each weapon
has a different criteria, so like I think for the sword,
it's like hitting people a number of times, but for
like a rod, it would be like casting spell someone
else might be healing someone else, it might be using items. Yeah,
and if you charge up the specials, you can basically
customize the moves. And if you're fighting a certain boss
and you're like, oh, I know this guy's week to fire,
I can be like, oh, all my special moves are
going to do fire damage, or if I know they're
a dragon type and be like, oh, they're all going
to be super effective on dragon guys. And you unlock
all those modifiers through the village and stuff.
Speaker 1: So hell, yeah, Well, I'm glad you're enjoying it. It
seems like I think you're saying that it's like probably
one of your more favored like remasters on switch.
Speaker 2: To West experience of their Yeah, for our.
Speaker 3: Switch To coverage, I played a pretty much all the
big re releases, and I think Bravely Default is like
the one i'd recommend most both that it runs really
well on switch to. It's a very pretty game, and
I think it's just like one of the better games
you could play on switch To. It feels right at home.
It's it's such a classic like Final Fantasy esque type game,
you know. Fine for Crystals Save the World, and I
do think it's like, I don't want to say slept
On because it was I remember people really liked it
back in the day. But I think overall the series
is slept On today because it's not as active and
it's just a really good game. It's like it's just
a fun time cool I.
Speaker 2: Also real super quick. I want to shout out a
game that my my partner I got to switch to
and my partner got to switch to on the same day.
We live with my partner's mom, and she saw us
playing our switch tos for like a week and was
just like, well, I want one of those, and then
like she bought a switch to and every superable accessory.
She has way more stuff than I have. She's like
kind of she like played games growing up, which is
how like my girlfriend got into games, Like they would
play Spiral on the PS one together. Yeah, So she
has a switch to, she has like the pro controller,
she has like a skin for her switch to, she
has like the SD card, she has like every every
piece you could think of, and both of them have
been playing a lot of Squeak Cross, which is a
game that was announced I want to say it a
wholesome games Direct last year. And it's a it's a
pit cross game, a squeak Cross, So you're playing as
a mouse and it's pitcross games and the pit cross
is cheese. And when you when you complete a pitcross,
you get a piece of furniture and you can decorate
this mouse's room. So they've been playing so much Squeak
Cross to just unlock pieces of furniture to fill up
this mouse's room. You can customize your mouse. You can
give him like hats and stuff.
Speaker 1: This kind of looks fire.
Speaker 2: They've both been playing a NonStop for like two weeks.
You can get stickers and you can like customize your
own home screen, which is fun and like every individual
screen you can just be like this is where all
my cheese stickers are, and this is where all my
mouse stickers are. And I haven't even few me on,
but I it's I like Pitcross and it seems good.
I think they're I think the only complaint they have
about the game is I had the same thing in
when I played Murder by Numbers, which is like Ace
Attorney meets pick Cross.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's hard to.
Speaker 2: Combine a puzzle game with a genre that does not
have puzzles with it. Because the puzzles can get to
make the game interesting. The puzzles should get harder over time.
But if you're in it for one thing, you don't
want to play really hard puzzles, then you get frustrated
because you're like, I don't want to do a twenty
five by twenty five pick Cross. I want to stick
for my mouth to say. Yeah. So I think they've
been like kind of, I don't. I don't know if
they'll like one hundred percent because I don't know if
they're as in love with like super hard pickcross puzzles
or they are like ten by tens or whatever, but
they've they both seem to endorse it, So shout out
to that.
Speaker 1: Huh. Yeah, it came out on Steam as well, June Fish.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not not a switch to exclusive. They're just
playing it on switch To.
Speaker 3: The team also has released a game in twenty twenty
two called The Spirit in the Mouse, So they're like
really into this, Like mice is the thing.
Speaker 1: I like that, Cole Niche, I like I like mice,
and I like little frogs.
Speaker 3: Big little frogs are they're grown up horses and anime
girls that act like courses is getting big in the
animal that was.
Speaker 1: A part of that was the part of the lost
episode I was hoping with stay lost.
Speaker 2: Was the horse Girl Charles riding anime girls as riding
an anime horse girl as a horse like piggyback style. Yeah, anyway, that.
Speaker 1: Was something I wish would stay dead.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that this one has the where I popped
my little thingy as Alex called it, one embarrassing quote
for another.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was riding my horse girl and I popped
my little thing. I'm gonna notes this part this time.
Stamp is gonna say Charles's horse Girls, just to let
you know, don't imply that I own them.
Speaker 3: We need to bring the like an issue meeting and
make it so where Charles has to like do an
in depth like feature on the horse Girls game.
Speaker 1: Assume right, is that what it's called? Pretty bumam assume
pretty derby?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Probably, I haven't played it to be clear.
Speaker 3: Sure fascinated. Sure.
Speaker 1: I was listening to the Giant BombCast this week dinner
and there they're reel in on that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, good times.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: If you have you want the the hard hitting journalism
on the horse Girls, go listen to uh this week's
episode of the Giant BombCast. I do recommend.
Speaker 2: Did Ash talk about it? Uh?
Speaker 1: No, Ash didn't have a chance to unfortunately. Yeah, well
we touched on it. I think that that was, like,
I know, that was only like a week or two
so ago. It feels like forever ago to me. I
get it, so I can't quite remember. But regardless, thank
you everybody for listening or watching this episode of the
Game Informer show. You can listen to it the place
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Don't forget to follow the guys here this week. On
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Thank you all for listening, and we'll see you next week.
Goodbye year,