Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Game Informer Show Everyone, a weekly
podcast covering the video game industry. Join us every Friday
for discussion of the latest gaming news, reviews, and exclusive reveals,
alongside Game and Former staff and special guests from around
the industry. I'm one of your hosts today Alex van Aiken,
and today I'm joined by Charles Hart. How you doing Charles?
Speaker 2: Hello, doing really quick? And I'm doing really good? Then
that was my Charles gamer done quick intro?
Speaker 1: Ah, Yes, Hello, Marcus Stewart, how are you y'all?
Speaker 3: I'd be here to sale the podcast sees.
Speaker 1: Also joining us is Eric van Allen, Hello, Hi, And
rounding us out this week is Wesley LeBlanc. How you
doing well?
Speaker 4: Hey, doing good? Excited to talk? Ocreen of Time.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, We're gonna be getting into our games done quick.
We said we would acknowledge it. We're getting into our
games done quick today? Are we visited games done quick?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 1: Ockeren of Time, We're gonna Wess has played it for
the first time in twenty years. You can't make that
face what.
Speaker 3: He's uh.
Speaker 1: We're also gonna be getting into our Assassin's Creed Black
Flagged Recinct impressions, talking about Don't Let It Starve, a
Bento Box style roguelike where you're trying to make food
for a monster that you're trapped in a room with,
and finally rounding out the show, we'll talk about cat
Mail Company, little new indie game that looks cool. But
before we get into the bulk of the episode, I
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With that said, guys, let's get into the show proper.
Eric and I, we've been We're in Minneapolis, that's where
we reside, which is where summer Games Done Quick usually
takes place, and this year's no different. Eric and I
and friend of the show John Carson, we went down
to ye Old Hilton in downtown Minneapolis to check out
Summer Games Done Quick on the first day. I don't know, Eric,
if you have been back. It's of course it runs
for a whole week, but it's the world's biggest speed
running event Games Done Quick. They have two sort of
primary versions that play out during the year, and I
think they are also like popping up at their packs
is now they're at I think Games Calm, but Summer
Games I'm Quick is one of their like flagship events.
I know there were some world records set this week
on things like UFO fifty. I believe we saw when
we first went. Eric and I saw, Actually I want
to hear Eric's perspective because this is his first Summer
Games I'm Quick in person. And Eric, you've been watching
this show for like fifteen years.
Speaker 5: Jon's yeah, yeah, yeah. I think even before a lot
of my games media aspirations or anything started, this was
still something I would tune into because it's just a
really cool event. They do stuff for charity. They always
raise money for charity. They show off really cool strats
and ways of playing games at a rapid pace or
in interesting challenges or ways of doing things even just
showcase high level gameplay in games you wouldn't normally expect
to see them in some of the rhythm games and
stuff that they've been doing recently. The showcases have been
really exciting to watch, showing off TAZ stuff, which is
tool assisted speed run, so you're using you're literally programming
a computer to play a game arguably better than a
human theoretically could, and then seeing what you can do
when you take the human part of the equation out
and start implementing things that only a program could accomplish.
It's a really incredible event that that runs twenty four
hours a day for an entire week, and yeah, this
is my first time seeing it in person. So when
we went on Sunday, which was the kickoff day, I
knew obviously I wanted to get in.
Speaker 3: I want to see a.
Speaker 5: Run, and we lucked out with our timing because the
run that we showed up as it was starting as
we got there, Fire Emblem three houses. They did the
Blue Lions route. Fire Emblem my favorite series and I
really love watching Fire Emblem runs, So getting to see
kind of the closing half hour of that runs as
we got in and got settled was really awesome, and
I think all of.
Speaker 1: That was veriddy.
Speaker 3: I was, I was electric.
Speaker 5: I was just excited to be there because I think
the if you watch it on stream, you kind of
see a very contained part of what that thing is.
And I would say something that impressed me about Games
Done Quick is that it is so centered on the
streaming and the stream room and the charity event as
like the focus of what everything orbits around it is
all about that. But you know, I was wondering, Okay,
so who shows up to this then to watch a
stream in a ballroom for an entire week?
Speaker 3: And what do you do there?
Speaker 5: And the answer is that you could absolutely go watch
a stream in a ballroom for an entire week, But
there's so many things that are happening around and outside it.
There's an entire artist's alley where they have a ton
of local artists were there on the day that we
were there, showing their wares, talking to people. They have
an arcade that is just open twenty four to seven
with tons of arcade machines, I mean pinball machines, some
candy cabs with some fighting games on them. You have
like the big rhythm games, the ones that look like
the laundry machines were in there and stuff like that.
Some DDR machines and stuff just always open, always available,
free play.
Speaker 3: Go down there.
Speaker 5: There's a music room that just has music equipment in it.
You can bring your guitars, your keyboards, your drums or
whatever and just set up and play in there as
like a jam session area. Yeah, there are panels that
happen and there.
Speaker 1: Are people in there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, there are panels ring what's like.
Speaker 2: Other Sorry that feels out of place to me, right,
was it not weird?
Speaker 3: That's what that.
Speaker 1: There's just like a gam These events are as usually
a big like especially like video game music and like
places like MAGFest and that kind of Yeah, usually like
a big music scene as well.
Speaker 3: I mean it's really cool.
Speaker 5: It's just part of all of it because I think
it emphasizes that, you know, there's there's a board game area,
there's there's places to do magic. We're probably going to
do a magic draft in a couple of days down
there as well, and like probably signed I'm going, yeah, okay,
we've put the money in, we are going to do it.
But uh, it is it is a community. It is
a group that definitely has speed running at the center
of it as the sort of thing that all of
this orbits around. But you don't have to be a
speed runner to go to games done Quick. You don't
have to be somebody who is competitive or plays the
most recent games or plays like the top speed running games.
You have to be like a super metroid competitive, top
one hundred liter board runner or anything like that. This
is a place where people have a common vested interest
in the cool things that GDQ does, and the community
that is around it a very inclusive community, a very
diverse community that has just a very open door for
anybody who is just interested and wants to do something
cool and do something awesome. And I think that was
something that I really enjoyed as somebody who's gone to
a lot of different convention experiences over the years, ranging
from E three to packs to stuff like the PlayStation
Experience and all that. A lot of those, you know,
even stuff like EVO and the International for DODA, all
of them are cool, but they kind of have a
like there is going to be some degree of focus
on the industry, on the product, on the thing at
the center, you know. I think the one I kept
thinking of as I was there was. I went to
one of the open weekend Overwatch League matches back in
the day and it was cool, but I kept thinking,
the only thing you can really do here is show up,
watch some Overwatch by some merch leave and GDQ feels
so much more focused on we want to support a
community here. We want to build and foster a community.
We want this to be a place that people can
gather meet like minded individuals. There were people just hanging
out talking in different parts of the hotel, going between places.
I love that they said that in the rooms in
the hotel they just have a feed, So if you
are staying in the hotel for GDQ, you don't even
have to go through Okay, I got to figure out
like YouTube on the TV and stuff like that and
get that there's just a feed broadcasting to all the
hotel rooms that is live, and so a lot of
the people working the show can know that. So that
way they know, like, oh, I have to I can
take a nap in my room real quick and then
wake up and you know, halfway through this run, I
know I need to get back down there from a
next shift or whatever.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 5: It's it's just such a cool experience and it just runs.
There's there's so much that feels like like a clockwork
machine of production and things moving behind the scenes and
then front facing, all these community aspects that just make it.
It's a wonderful experience. I really think if you watch GDQ,
if you enjoy watching these streams, I've been fully went
over to the side that you should. You should take
some time someday to come out to one of these.
They're pretty incredible. Were there any other you mentioned? Were
there any other speed runs that you guys saw that
most impressed yours was heyp We spent most of Sunday,
the one day that we've been so far, just doing
the stuff that was around the side, doing stuff in
the side rooms, the community stuff and all that.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 1: I am your Beast.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we did watch some.
Speaker 5: Of Your Beast as well, which had Zolivir the developer,
like sitting in on the call, which is pretty fun.
Today I'm specifically heading down there because I want to
see the there's a Mario and Luigi brotherhood, like like
a Kaiso thing that has been made. I love Mario
Kaiso run Kaiso is super difficult Mario, like like taking
Mario mechanics to their furthest end really really mechanically precise
platforming that that demands a lot of the player but
turns into a really fun challenge thing. If you've ever
watched like high level Mario Maker levels, you kind of
have an idea of what Kaizo usually looks like. But
there's a Kaiso run followed by a WEE Sports speed
run and I I can't miss that. I gotta see
we Sports get speed run. That sounds great. Speed run
we Sports, like you just go through each.
Speaker 1: Game, you just roll the ball and belt really quickly.
Speaker 3: There's there's probably some twist to it, for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of looking at a GDQ schedule and just being like,
I don't know how they could speed run this, and
every time I tune in, I'm like, oh, that's how
they figured. Like maybe it's like, oh, we got to
get like, you know, perfect metals on five games as
fast as possible, right, And it's always like it starts
as soon as the cursor reappears after the loading screen,
because that's when the input starts.
Speaker 3: Like, it's always always very specific.
Speaker 5: When I was some of my favorite runs have been
some of like the there's been a lot of randomizers
getting added now of things where games are so not
necessarily completely solved but understood by the community so well
that now you add in these factors of Okay, well,
now you're going to get power ups, but you're going
to get them out of order. So when you open
this treasure chest that would normally maybe give you a
key or you know, an important item like the hook
shot and a Zelda game or something like that, it's
just going to randomly give you an item that could
come out of a treasure chest, so you could just
get rupees instead. And you're like, okay, well I don't
have the hook shot that I need to proceed, So
what am I going to do now? How do I
rout myself differently? And there's some randomizer runs this week.
I also love bingo battles. I don't know if there
are any of those this week, because a bingo battle
is you literally have a bingo board of things that
you can do in a game. They're really popular fronts
from soft style games like Elder stuff like that sounds familiar, yeah,
And and so it'll say like you have to kill
a boss with a certain weapon or you have to
go beat this boss like beat Millennia or something like that,
and that's one of the bingo spaces, and you are
trying to get a bingo, but only one person can
claim each space, so there's kind of like a fight
happening where you're trying to get your own bingo and
lock out somebody else's bingo as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm I'm excited to go back this week. I
that Mario Kaizo run sounds fun.
Speaker 3: I seen those.
Speaker 1: I've never seen one of those in person, watch it
online and I think it was like one of the
Mario maker Kaiso runs. Yes, and the energy just even
like hanging out in discord of friends watching those things
is really tangible and so I can't imagine what it's
gonna be like in person.
Speaker 4: I want to.
Speaker 3: I want to try to check that out.
Speaker 5: And they support Incredible Causes a GDQ which is the
one that happens in the winter Awesome Games Done Quick,
which is kind of the original. The base one supports
the Prevent Cancer Foundation. This one in the summer SGDQ
supports UH Doctors Without Borders, which is I think just
it's it's an amazing cause and amazing charity. And when
I went there, they had a bunch of signage up
people like reps hanging out who were happy to talk
about MSF. The actual name is Medicines Soun's Frontiers, but
happy to talk about Doctors without Borders. And they also
apparently have a collab going with One Piece, So they
have Tony Tony Chopper out there in like a cardboard
cutout holding a flag, and it's like Tony Tony Choppers
supports Doctors without Borders, and I'm like, that's awesome. That's
my goat, right there is Tony Tony Chopper West.
Speaker 1: I know you're a big pirate. Are you a one
Piece guy?
Speaker 4: I have slowly watched some of One Piece, but it
is just such a garganguine task that I'm assuming I'm
just gonna be watching it the rest of my life.
I'm or, is what the pirate guy?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I don't know what makes you say that they're cool? Okay, cool?
Speaker 4: I mean the second I mean, Pirates of the Caribbean.
Dead Man's Chest came out on my birthday, which is
pretty cool. But yeah, I mean, you know, Nights Ninjas Pirates,
some cowboys. I like all that kind of stuff. I
gause pirates are cool too, you're.
Speaker 3: Like the four Pillars of fiction and stories. There were
definitely more four things from the nineties that list.
Speaker 1: Well, Wes, I do want to go ahead and throw
it over to you. You've been playing a game that
a lot of us have played, but it's your first
replay in twenty years.
Speaker 3: I've actually never beaten this game. Don't tell Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 1: You've been playing Akarina of Time. Well, I never had
money as a kid to buy games. We had only
afford to rent it, and I wasn't smart enough to
beat to beat Akorina of Time in like two days
or whatever the rental was, so I would just restart
it every time.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's an intelligence thing. I don't. I
just that just is not enough time to Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I used to try to, Like I was
like when you first meet Epona. I like was convinced
I could get her off the farm while she was
a child horse. So I would just waste like, you know,
two hours of my rental trying to you know, escape things.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I watched and they beat Operative Time in like twenty minutes,
so I don't really know. Yeah, yeah, but you went
back to Okarina. I want to know why, how you
enjoyed it, and more importantly, what you played it on.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so why. I'd been kind of like toying with
the idea of playing one, and then the Oquerreina of
Time remake got announced and people were like theory crafting
and talking about this or that, and I was like,
I don't know what. I don't know anything they're talking about, Like,
I don't know this game anymore, really, like it's just
a game that I'm like, Yeah, I played as a
kid and it's you know, one of the goats, but
I don't actually have knowledge of it anymore. So I
was like, I want to go back and refresh myself
on that. Another part of the reason why I wanted
to replay is because I have an ain Thor device,
a y n Thor. I don't know what the help
people were saying it, so I use a realm of
legend Elda ochrena Time three D that I own, and
I programmed it into my Thor. Legally, I owned that
rom and I downloaded a four K texture pack community
made was not did not cost any money, so it
was like a super beautiful way to play this classic game.
Speaker 3: There's also a playing remake. You said, right, yes, yeah.
Speaker 4: The a Y and Thor device is a Android based
three DS device basically Kyle two O lead screens. Yeah, yes, yes, yeah. Weirdly,
me and Kyle DM on Blue Sky exclusively to talk
about Thor. I don't know why, Like we don't talk
in slack, we don't do anything. It's just for some reason.
The Blue Sky DMS is where that happens. So, yes,
he is a Thor owner. Love the device. I constantly
sing its praises. It's expensive, but it's has been worth
it for me so far. And yeah, so I was like,
this would be a perfect game to play on the Thor,
and so I it up and now like surprisingly, like
thirty two hours later, I have the nock gre enough
time and it's kind of weird. I have issues with
it now, I have, Like in twenty twenty six, I'm like, yo,
they I'm more excited for the remake, I should say,
because I am hoping this is like a capcom style
remake and not what we just saw with Starfox. I
don't think that's going to be the case. I do
think it's just gonna be a one to one with
prettier graphics. But I think that Ock Green of Time
could use a lot of recontextualization and like reimagining in
the vein of something Capcom would do with Resident Evil.
I don't know if this needs to go like Square
Nix Final Fantasy remake style, but I do think that
making it more modern and analyzing what maybe isn't working
all these years later, and like fixing it or changing
it to feel better in twenty twenty six would be
really smart, because frankly, there's some dungeons that I mean, honest,
there's a lot that is just not as.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna ask like, what are your what
are your specific qualms? What do you think specifically doesn't
necessarily work?
Speaker 4: I think the most immediate thing is the combat is
I mean, you know, it's a thirty year old game
or whatever, and or is it older than that. I
might be older than that. I don't know.
Speaker 3: It's a old of the data.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's it's okay, so.
Speaker 4: Yeah ish, So it's you know, it is a product
of its time in a way. But that doesn't mean
I can't like judge it in twenty twenty six through
my twenty twenty six eyes, Like the combat is basic
and born, I'm doing it.
Speaker 3: I'm doing it.
Speaker 4: I'm doing it, stomping on them. Yeah, I am. Actually,
that was like kind of my goal going into this
was I really wanted to like remove the nostalgia and
the like just saying it's the greatest game of all time,
because that's what you say, and that's what you've been
saying for three I wanted to analyze that. I don't either.
That's Funnel Fantasy thirteen obviously, but uh.
Speaker 1: Deeply serious person West West stressed up for this. He's
he's looking. Yeah, he's got his okerina. Yes, that's outfit shaved.
Speaker 4: This is why I'm only on the podcast like every
eight weeks.
Speaker 3: They only.
Speaker 4: But no, the combat immediately is just so boring and
it doesn't go anywhere, Like there's no growth in the combat.
And yes, you get more tools, but ultimately you don't
need those tools to get through Ockerina of time. And
like Gin's fire for example, there's like two spots where
that's required. That's your magic spell that does like a
big fireball, but ultimately it has an annoyingly long like
little mini animation that plays when you do it. It
takes a lot of magic and like just pressing BE
to attack these people with your sword is ten times faster.
Like there's no there's a lot of tools, but there's
nothing in the game that's like saying, use these tools
to get through combat encounters, like ultimately, just press B
and you're just you're fine.
Speaker 5: I feel like I forget that magic is even in
that game, because other Zelda games definitely have magic more
front facing, and in that game, I remember using it,
like you said, maybe a couple of times for each
one of the spells you get or whatever, you get
one for each of the three. I forget what they
they are the elemental yeah, not the stages. Sages are
different because the stages are the people who are like
in charge of the difference, because there's like the Sage
of Time right in the stage of the Forest and
all that who's it's it's red, Green, Blue, it's r
GB whatever at those three and yeah, yeah, I think
you get a spell for each of them, and I
cannot remember what they do or why the.
Speaker 2: Greens nless you teleport back like a shield, yes, and
the dense fire is an attack right, Yeah, so I
think I only ever used the teleport one unless like
this story made you use a different one at some point.
Speaker 4: The teleport one is probably most helpful. I will say
something really cool about the thores. You can do like
safe states. So that was my method for you know,
traversing around faster and kind of made the Green Magic useless.
But like the combat is, I don't want to say
it's like bad, It's not bad, it's just it's aged.
Like if if the combat doesn't, if it get changed
for twenty twenty six, it will be a very boring game.
I think because combat has advanced a lot in three decades,
and even Zelda itself has advanced a lot. I think
that's probably my biggest takeaway is like how far Zelda
has come from Acarina. And I'm not sure if Akarina
is like it doesn't sit on the podium as the
best Zelda game for me personally, and I kind of
knew that going in, Like I had a feeling the
Wild was still my number one, but like it has
a lot to learn from Zelden. I really hope Nintendo
does look at what it's done since Ocarina to adjust
Ocarina dungeon design. I mean the water temple obviously is
you know, people, that's the one people go to and
like it is still very the most frustrating of the
dungeons to go through as an adult, it was a
little bit easier.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the three D s version is a little more uh.
It kind of gives you more signs of what to do.
The original version is just like screw you figured out, well.
Speaker 3: You also have to keep going in and out of
your menu to equip the iron boots. The three D
version that was just on in the touch Oh.
Speaker 4: My god, I didn't even think about that. Yeah, that's
something they got to do with this switch to remake
is a single screen.
Speaker 5: Oh wow, that plays as the menu pans from side, Like,
that's just lodging.
Speaker 3: I just make that a week, you know, just make
that an item.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they'll probably will do something.
Speaker 3: You know, they're going to be like hold the R
button and.
Speaker 4: Have it and they'll scroll through or thirty items.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the way they have all the ruins.
Speaker 4: But yeah, even like some of the other temples, I
will say, the Temple of Time is still a blast.
The Temple of what's the for the Forest Temple, I
don't know the official name for it, but the Forest Temple.
Speaker 3: Temple of Time is not a dungeon.
Speaker 4: No, it's not a temple of Time is the I
should have written all this stuff down, I was. I
played a lot while watching TV in theah. Was the
first spirit temple is?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 4: The one I'm thinking of is the second to last one.
If you don't if Gannon's Castle is the last dungeon,
it's the one before that with the in the desert,
that is the Spirit Temple. Yeah, okay, okay, yes, Spirit
Temple still rules. First Temple in the forest still rules.
Of the other temples. They need a lot of work.
In my opinion, it's not like this is a bad game.
It's just I think playing Okarina really showed its age,
like it has completely aged. Every aspect of it has aged,
even I don't know now, I'm just kind of dog
in the game.
Speaker 3: But like I don't even know.
Speaker 4: I don't even know why Gannon is like such a big,
like big deal because of this game I played, Like
Gannon's in like a cut scene he steals Zelda and
then he shows up and you're like, this is.
Speaker 3: The worst guy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yes, yes, yes, and yeah the comments are going
to be brutal on this one. And he's just like
Wes what were you saying?
Speaker 3: You were saying the soundtracks sucks.
Speaker 4: Also, soundtrack still rip, soundtrack still rips.
Speaker 3: Ye.
Speaker 4: Yes, I will say the Ocarina is very annoying to
work with and do and saying I'm telling you, I'm
telling you you have to.
Speaker 3: It's just it's cool. It's cool the first time.
Speaker 4: It's cool the first time, it's cool the second time,
maybe the third time. But like it gets boring quick
and it's silly, and I'm like, and I get that.
There was like this childlike excitement and joy that comes
with getting a new game and learning all these things.
Like I was, yes, it needs I need.
Speaker 1: Baby on subway surfers on the top screen.
Speaker 3: Yes. Only more offensive thing you could say is actually
he's not so bad. I don't know why people were.
Speaker 4: That's actually one of the points I have to make.
Speaker 5: What West had Zelda on the top screen of the
A Y N or subway surfers on the bottom screen,
and then was watching Family Guy.
Speaker 2: It's my favorite. I also feel like I want to
mention Wes volunteered to talk.
Speaker 1: About beats up. Just go for it, like nobody forced
this out of him.
Speaker 4: I'm happy to do. So here's the thing we got.
People just say his games the greatest of all time,
and then they haven't played it since they were a child,
and they just stick by it. And I'm here to
come and break those expectations and shatter those dreams. Like,
I think there's a lot of good that can be
done by going back and playing the games you think
are your favorite games of all time, and like actually
analyzing and figuring out if it still works in twenty
twenty six. And I think Ocarina still definitely works in
twenty twenty six, But like, is it anywhere near as
great as that I thought it once was? No, I
don't think so at all. And I think it's maybe
I'm more excited for the remake because it could resurrect
what Ocarina once was for me, But like, if it's
a one to one of what I just played, then
I don't know. Okarina has fallen great heights from the
sky islands of Tiers of the Kingdom and.
Speaker 1: Hey, you remember a blue sky like a month ago?
When you're like, we should people should tell me when
I'm dumb more often, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 4: Wow, That's what I'm out here trying to do that
For some reason.
Speaker 3: I mean, I feel like everything you're saying West is
probably what I g im he is.
Speaker 1: That's the guy who's never made it past de Tree,
like Gum was playing revisiting this game and going through
the same process in his mind, like, man, everything is garbage.
Speaker 3: What were we thinking back then? This is so much
better garbagemaking game going, guys, We need to get this going,
like Jesus.
Speaker 4: I mean, remaking a game is and and is in
essence admitting that, like there is work you could do. Obviously,
they remake games because of business and because of marketing.
Speaker 3: There's that is.
Speaker 4: I don't know. I think remaking is it is a
chance for developers to their works.
Speaker 3: I think it's both.
Speaker 5: It is, but like nobody is going back and remaking
very very few people are going back and remaking bad games,
like ten years from now. I don't think we're getting
more of the Rings Gollum remake like that.
Speaker 3: I think that's happened.
Speaker 4: No, No, you made you you make a remake because
you already know that the name is going to sell
millions of copies alone. But I think there are developers
out there who do shoeing remakes, and I think they're
developers out there who put a lot of work into like, uh,
taking a new look at what they have previously done
and changing and adjusting and seeing what they can do
different and new. Like there are good remakes and bad
remakes for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so are you a Majora's Mask guy? I do?
Speaker 4: I do? I do remember liking Majors Mask more than Akarina.
That's probably next on my list.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you got to catch.
Speaker 4: I don't know, It's not what I think about often.
I'm not like the biggest Zelda guy in the world. Like,
this is just me doing some homework ahead of the remake.
When was the last time you guys have played Acarina? Like,
or where do you guys even hold Akarina?
Speaker 5: And you're middle middle of the pack for me, Like
my my favorites are like Links Awakening and Breath of
the Wild, Like those two are kind of up there
in the stratosphere. And I've never played majoras though I
think I would probably like it. But like Okerina, I think,
even when I was younger, was always kind of middle
of the pack for me because I thought it was
a really cool game and it has really cool moments
I love. Like, yeah, like we said, the music. I
think the atmosphere, especially as adult link, gets really cool
and there's some cool stuff they do with that. But
I'm also of the opinion that I don't know why
we're doing this remake when Ocarina is. I mean, I mean,
to your point, there might be things that have aged
about it, but it's a very accessible game nowadays. It's
very easy to go play Okerina of Time right now,
so it feels that it is a little superfluous as
a remake to like I can just go play the original,
So they would have to do something that's pretty radical
to this game to make me feel like a remake
was not just trying to cash in on the Zelda name.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm I'm you know, we're having fun making
funny of view Wes, but like I'm in a similar
boat where you where, Like I'm kind of in the
middle of Like I played Okering in this day. I
remember when it came out, but I did not grow
up in an N sixty four, so I only ever
played at friend's houses. I was a PlayStation kid at
that that generation, so I only ever my memories of
playing it innsday are largely that opening Cacareco Village section,
because I just didn't have enough time to like dig
into the game when you're just over there for like
an hour or whatever. And I didn't play it from
start to finish until I was in college, and it
was the original in sixty four version too, so I
had this sort of more like academic appreciation for it.
But by that point I already beaten modern three D
z eldas like Twilight Princess and Scotland Story by that
point and other two D zelda, so it was more like, Okay,
I can finally go back and play the one that
I touched but everyone like loves and finish it and go, oh,
yeah that was cool. I still had fun with this,
but kind of like being like, yeah, this is you know,
this is of its age. And that was when the
game was I think the series was probably approaching his
twentieth anniversary at that point, so you know, I can't
imagine playing the original ver or I guess you played
the three DS version playing it now, So it's like
in the maybe middle of the package, just because I
just don't have the nostalgia for it, but I can
still appreciate it, so I'm amaged it in the remake
because it's old enough to if they wanted to do
a larger overhaul besides a graphical improvement, I would actually
really like to see that because I think the game
is great, great in terms of like the story, the structure,
the dungeons and stuff like. There's a lot of great
stuff there that I would love to see spruced up
in like a modernized way. So I'm actually really excited
for The Ockerring to remake, and I have not I've
only ever beaten a game once, and I was the
College Run, so my memory of it isn't as strong
as other people's, so it'll be sort of like semi
fresh for me in some way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there will be a lot of Oh, sorry, Charles.
Speaker 3: You can go ahead.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, I weirdly do have a lot
of installser for this game. It's uncharacteristic for a game
of this age because I played it on the we
virtual console as like a ten year old. This was
like the first Zelda game that I like really actually played,
so you actually, like you were ten, you were able
to kind of I was the correct age. And I
think that's like if if you're like a parent and
you're like, this game is really important to me in
my childhood, and I want my kid to like it.
I feel like the only chance you have of someone
like really appreciating something old is literally playing it before
they play the new stuff to like when you just
don't have a sense of like quality of life stuff that.
Speaker 3: Could exist at the time.
Speaker 2: Everyone's always like we were playing a Star Fox sixty
four on the Switch online with Marcus and Brian was
like this looked so good back in the day, and
I'm like.
Speaker 3: I can't I can't fathom. It's so ugly.
Speaker 2: It's clearly so so old, and it doesn't look like
anything's happened. He's like, this intro' is iconic. I'm like
four ships kind of.
Speaker 3: Floating in there. He really was stopping on on Brian's
this Alga glasses.
Speaker 2: I was, but it is a thing of like if
it is literally the first thing you play like, it's
a it's a good game in a void, and that's
why people like it at the time. But if you played,
if you played like my fiance is a much newer gamer.
She's played Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom,
I can't imagine her having patients for original opera of time.
Speaker 5: There there is stuff that has aged better than you
think it has. Like I played Chrono Trigger for the
first time a couple of years ago, and Chrono Trigger
holds up crazy well, like in ways that I was
sitting there going they did this on a Super Nintendo
that's insane. I do think it might be in that
weird era of they are jumping to three D animation,
they're jumping to polygons and things like that, that things
just kind of changed and there's kind of a weird
you see the age a little bit more, you see
the cracks a little bit more.
Speaker 3: I mean that generation in general, like that PS one
is sixty four generation, the first three D generation. That
is by far the hardest generation to go back to
for those exact reasons. It's when everyone was still figuring
out how we make worlds in a three D space?
How do we make characters move around? What do camera?
What are camera controls? Yeah? Camera controls are a huge one. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Ultimately, like to echo what you guys are saying, like Akarina,
what still works in a Karina is the atmosphere is,
the story is the tone, like is all the peripheral
stuff happening, but hands on sticks like hands on a
controller is where Akarina shows its age, not a surprise,
and like that that was my biggest takeaway with it,
was like, yeah, that these the the atmosphere still works
like these the music obviously still hits, Like I still
enjoyed the transformation from like young League to old link
and our adult link and seeing that happen and seeing
how high rules change.
Speaker 3: But like playing.
Speaker 4: The game, it was like a different experience, an eye
opening experience where I was like, oh, there is still
work to be done, Like there is work they can
do in the remake to impress me. It doesn't A
one to one would probably actually be disappointing. Like I
do think that this remake is an opportunity to to
make what once was is again. I don't even know
if that just made sense, but like they have the
opportunity to make what maybe that game felt like and
played like to us before. We have all this knowledge
that we have now fresh and real and new and
modern again at night, and like that's what I hope,
and it's like a part of the reason why I
have been Like why I replayed it and have been
analyzing it is because like I feel like the owkering
of time remake reviews are already written, like I know
what they're going to say. I know what so many
of them are going to say. I know how so
many how the game has touched so many lives, and
how it's so important and how like this and that,
and like for me, I don't know, I'm just not
really interested in that review like I want to. I
don't want review of your nostalgia. I want a review
of like what this game is today. And in order
for me to do that, not that I'm reviewing this
game for g I necessarily I don't. We don't know
who is. But like, in order for me to like
go back and and and analyze what this remake is,
I felt a need to like re experience that game
in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: No, yeah, like jokes aside. I know I've been dogging
on you this episode. I I think you bring up
a lot of good points. And you know, I don't
have as much of a horse in this race as
I said.
Speaker 3: You literally couldn't. You couldn't get the horse, couldn't get
the horse. I could.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I tried. I couldn't even enter the race, buddy.
You know. The first three d Zelda I beat was
Breath of the Wild. I have never played. I've never
played Madroid's Mask. I've never played game one.
Speaker 5: I think you would like Twilight Princess. I don't know why,
but something I have. My stepdad surprised this with a wi.
Speaker 1: During like all the Wee craze when I was in
I guess like early years of high school or late
middle school, doesn't matter. And I enjoyed it. I just
I had. I didn't beat it. I didn't really get
that far.
Speaker 3: And then do you tell me you never played one
Waker either. I've never played when Worker, I've never played one.
Speaker 1: I would love to do a series where I played
through them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but.
Speaker 1: We did that with Cold Yeah, Marcus and I also did.
We played Minished Cap earlier this year. I was playing
on my analog pocket and uh I had like I
I think I mentioned in the video, like I have
played two d Zelda was more than three d z Eldas,
like I really like you know, uh, the the Oracle
of like yeah, Links Awakening, Oracle Bajor like I played
those as throughout the years. The one that I really
liked was the three DS Between Worlds Link between the Worlds.
That was really good. I played that when it came out,
and then I went back to Minish Cap after only
like kind of dabbling in it and really kind of
what Eric was talking about Crono Trigger. There's some really
neat moments in this game, like they did this on
a GBA, like the I think it's the first dungeon
when you have to roll the log. Yeah, and I
remember being like this is on a this is wild
And there's just there's a lot of the really cool
moments in Minish Cap. Honestly, it's probably you know, apart
from Breath of the Wild's my favorite, Zelda, I really
really love Tears of the Kingdom, and then Minish Cap
is probably like my has become maybe my third favorite
so far.
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: I really have enjoyed and I've I've continued playing it
since we I'm probably at least halfway through the game.
I planned a beat it this year, but yeah, you know,
I would really love to go back, and you've kind
of inspired me Wes to maybe pick up I've got
the three DS copies now actually and actually, uh fan
or friend of the show, I would say, uh, Crater,
one of our community members. I met up with him
and in person, he gifted me the three DS copy
of Majora's Masks. So like, oh wow, oh no, I've
gotta I've got to go out there, I've got to
play that. I've got to play Akarina. So I think
you kind of inspired me. This's like a good time
to go back.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've been replaying older like I've in this month.
I've beaten Well in June, I beat Okarina of Time,
I beat any Musha one on e Musha two. Like.
It's it's been a slower period for new releases for
me personally, so I've been like going back and replaying
older games and it's just a really fascinating like it's
just it's good to do. I feel like, especially I
don't think, like, you know, if this isn't your job,
you don't you don't necessarily need to do that. But
I think it's smart to like go back and and
plug holes in your gaming history and revisit your greats
to see if they still hold up. And like, and
I think one thing with any conversation like this, but
especially the acrea of Time is like I think, criticizing
something that someone holds so special in their life like
feels like an attack on them. And it's just it's
just not like it's my thoughts on Oqerina of Time
are not saying what you thought as a child was
wrong or what you think of the game now is wrong.
It's just like for me, these are just how I feel.
These are just the way. It's just it's just I
replayed an old game, and sometimes old games feel old,
and I'm I'm looking forward to this remake more now
because of it, because I'm like, oh, there's there's room
to improve for me, and that's awesome. And Hey, if
you think Ockera of Time is the greatest game of
all time and this remake is a one to one,
then like, I'm very happy for you get a fancy
remake of one of your favorite games of all time.
Speaker 3: Situation I can't lose.
Speaker 4: Well, Yeah, play old games, playing gold games is good,
It's good for the soul.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, let's take a quick ad break. We'll come back.
We're gonna talk about Assassin's Creed, Black Flag Recinct, Don't
let It Starve, and cat Mail Company. We'll be right
back right after this, Welcome back to the game Informer show. Everyone,
it's time to get into ac Black Flag Recinct. Not
a colon in that name, believe it or not. Wes
and Charles, you both have been playing this. Of course
many of us played the original. Shout out to that multiplayer,
the Hide and Seek multiplayer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, black Flag also, I believe it's a captain Wes.
Speaker 1: Just Yeah, we can finally acknowledge the hat.
Speaker 3: What hat? I'm not wearing a hat.
Speaker 1: Oh that's the links Awakening hat. Yeah, Charles, I want
to hear all about Black Flag Recinct. I want to
kick it over to you.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I love the original game. I've beat it at
least twice, maybe three times. I'm I'm I'm a big
Assassin's Creed fan. That was specifically is the era we
were just I was talking in the break, I was
like talking about old games, Assassin's Creed, Black Flag back
in twenty thirteen, back when we were all in middle school?
Speaker 3: Am I right?
Speaker 2: And everyone looked at me weird?
Speaker 1: Yeah. But my first job after high school.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was in college.
Speaker 2: Yeah. My introduction to Assassin's Creed, weirdly was Assassin's Creed
three me and West share like some favorite like weird
little Assassin Creed games of like I really like Assassin's
Creed three because it was the first.
Speaker 4: One a good game. It's a good game.
Speaker 2: So four was the first one that I got like
when it came out, and at the time, I didn't
love it because I wanted an Assassin game and it
was very much a pirate game. And when I revisited
it later, I think I realized more that it was
an Assassin game in more ways than I had realized.
And also I guess the kind of metric for like
the amount of Assassin per game.
Speaker 3: Really got diluted over the years.
Speaker 2: They really were like yeah, I mean they don't really
have hoods anymore. This is kind of the vibe. And
this one is Edward Kenway, who is the grandfather of
the main characters as his Creede three, but he's a
pirate and he is a He was a normal guy
who was in he was married and was like dissatisfied
with his life and it is like I'm gonna go
I'm gonna go be a pirate and I'm gonna be
super rich and then everyone's gonna respect me.
Speaker 3: That was the midlife Crisis of the seventeen hundreds. Yeah,
he's because you just career pivot into Piracy.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: I really found that.
Speaker 2: The thing on the replay that I found with this
game that I really connected with is I just love
that he he thinks so much that money's gonna solve
his problems, and really what he just wants is to
be free, and the life of a pirate really appeals
to him because he's like, ah, there's money, and then
he slowly realizes like, oh no, it's it's freedom. It's
the not living under tyranny. It's doing what I want,
and then realizes that's kind of what aligns with the Assassins.
But the game itself, uh, recinc it looks really really good.
I'm having fun with it. I'm like maybe seven or
eight hours in right now. I have like minor nitpicks
with it. Uh, the main one being these controls make
me feel insane. I don't know if you feel this way, Wes.
I don't know if it's like, is this similar.
Speaker 3: To what it's like in Shadows? Because I didn't play
all that much of that game, I was gonna ask,
is it using old school AC controls that original Black
Flag did or is it more of.
Speaker 4: The modern stuff. It's it's so they got like, yeah,
go ahead.
Speaker 2: So like in the in the in an Assassin's Creed game,
that's like prior to like rig Yeah, if you hold
the trigger, that's like your sprint slash parkore button. So
if you're holding the trigger, then you're running and you're
like climbing up stuff. Eventually they changed so that sprinting
is like on the stick like normally enough if you
hold X, I thinking PlayStation controller terms. If you hold X,
then you just kind of ascend when.
Speaker 3: You move towards stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The thing in this game driving me crazy is square
is stealth. Square is crouch, which I feel like circle
is always crouch or the right stick is always crouch, yes,
but square in this one is stealth slash crouch. And
so many times I will go to stealth and I'll
press circle and I'll dodge backwards into a bush and
everyone's like, hey, there's a guy dance it around to
that bush. Or I'll try to click the stick to
stealth and if I click the wrong stick, that's the
sprint button. So I'll stand up and they're like, hey,
there's a guy over that bush and then.
Speaker 3: Attack is the right bumper.
Speaker 2: But my instinct is to hits square, So I go
into combat and then I crouched down and I'm doing that,
And you can change the controls, but if you change
a button, you.
Speaker 3: Have to change it in all of its functions. It's
kind of like a weird thing.
Speaker 2: So like square is stealth, but it's also if you
hold the trigger and press square, that's like one of
the combat shortcuts, and that's something else. Anyways, that's like
a mate. If you're playing this game for the first
time or you haven't played the original real long time,
it probably won't be all that big of a deal.
You won't notice it. But as someone who is like
very used to those older controls, it's throwing me.
Speaker 3: Off a lot.
Speaker 1: Also, yeah, stealth should always be on circle. Crowd should
always be on circle on a controller, Yes, or stick click.
Speaker 3: In Square is universally an attack button for like any
third person action game, right I. The one thing I
did do is.
Speaker 2: The one like control shift I changed and stuck with,
is you can go into the settings in combat and
make it so when you go into combat you automatically
lock onto the nearest person because that's how some of
the older games were you kind of go into combat mode,
and this one you have to click the stick. I
made it so you automatically lock in on someone, which
makes it easier for me to see them and easier
to parry because the perry window in this game it's
not like an Arkham style thing.
Speaker 3: It's it's much more timing base and it's a lot quicker.
Speaker 2: And that way you can just change clicking the stick
to the eagle vision, where right now you have to
hold the clicked stick for eagle vision now, and like, yeah,
anyway you can talk about the rest of the game.
That's like the one thing I was like on a
podcasting plan about the controls.
Speaker 4: You controls are weird, but I very quickly after realizing
they were weird, used brought out the duel sense edge
and like mapped crouch and x onto the back buttons
so I'm not having to move my hands in weird ways.
Like everything feels a natural now. But to your point,
a lot of people do not have back pedals on
their controllers, and if you don't, the game is very odd.
I it's like something that's happened over the past year.
I would say souls likes are what really pushed me
into back pedals, because I hate sprinting with like Circle.
Speaker 3: It shooters.
Speaker 5: For me, like having back pedals on a shooting game
on a controller feels so much better than having to
use face buttons.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I played Nine Souls and the heel was on the
D pad and I change it to one of the
back buttons because every time I went to go and
move my thumb to do the heel, it was throwing
me off.
Speaker 3: So I like switching the D pad to the shoulder button.
Speaker 4: It takes a lot of work to get used to
to back pedals. It's taken me a very long time,
but now they feel almost necessary.
Speaker 3: Battles to be clear paddles.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, yeah, I'm backpedaling on our pronunciation at back tattles.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, precisely.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I love Assassin's Creed Black Flag. It's probably my favorite
in the series. I don't know if it's like the
best Assassin's Creed game, but it is the best video
game in the series for my in my opinion. Kind
Of alluding to Charles's point, is like back in the day,
it was way more. It felt more like just a
pirate adventure where they kind of shoehorned some of the
Assassins Creed stuff in and playing Recinct, I'm about seven
or eight hours in as well, like it still kind
of feels that way, but I am happy about it
because Black Flag sits, in my mind, is like the
best pirate game ever. It's not. It is an assassin's
Creed game, but like, when I'm thinking playing Black Flag,
I just want to go be a pirate, and Recinc
very smartly leans into that pirate aspect of Edward's life
even more so now, like they have tuned a lot
of the game to feel even more like in line
with being a pirate game. Like drinking, for example, you
can just drink around like you see loot and if
it's a drink, it heals you, and that wasn't in
the original game, and a pirate drinking just and healing
makes sense, you know whatever. If you're does no, it
does well. Actually they no, they actually used to drink.
They used to mix water into their rum instead of
just drinking straight water, because rum, you know, helps fight
infections and disinfect and they didn't know that back then.
They didn't realize they were using alcohol in adicinal way,
but like it did help them. They they knew something
was being fixed by alcohol, they just didn't understand the
science behind it. So it kind of makes a little
historical sense. Probably not, but that the sea battles they
have like giant seed tornadoes, which I'm blanking on the
word for there is a word for a tornado at sea, water.
Speaker 3: Spout, a hurricane, or a typhoon.
Speaker 4: Relatively, yeah, they have like water spouts. Now they have
they have lightning strikes, and see like they have turned
it into every sea battle becomes something you'd see in
a movie, which is like it's way over the top
and it's super kind of wild because I'm just trying
to get some metal off this ship. But it's really
cool to all of a sudden be like, there are
seven water spouts surrounding me and I'm going to have
to navigate in and around those makes.
Speaker 1: Zero terified me as a kid. I was always terrified
that I would go to the ocean and get sucked
up by a water spout.
Speaker 4: I feel like you'd have to be so so far
off shore to see.
Speaker 3: Especially when you grew up out. I don't think it's
much of a concern for you.
Speaker 1: I grew up in a tidewater region of Virginia, Thank
you very much.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, still you're not you weren't in like never
everybody can back off.
Speaker 4: Oh you can't take the heat. Can't take the heat. Huh.
Get in the ocean and get sucked up by a
water spout.
Speaker 3: Why don't you by the undercurrent by like the undertoe
and stuff. I was like, that's a natural thing.
Speaker 1: To be afraid. You can look and see the currents.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, just stick your head underwater and look at
the undertoe. It's fine.
Speaker 4: Anyways, they added pets in the game. Now I have
a cat on my ship that's very pirate. Fan of that. No,
you don't get to name the cat, but you can't
pet it. I think there are other pets too. I
just have a cat currently. Parents I'm looking at.
Speaker 3: I think, so does a cat. Hope so. But there's
there's a guy who talks about pets, and he's like.
Speaker 2: There's dogs and cats. But I have always liked birds
and I don't have a bird.
Speaker 3: It's like you have to have a bird. Crazy, Yeah,
I would.
Speaker 5: I would think a cat wouldn't vibe with be on
a boat at sea.
Speaker 3: You surprised, and they can.
Speaker 1: They have so many places to jump up and and
crawl around, and they can. I think they can sharpen
their claws in the wood of the ship.
Speaker 3: They're actual.
Speaker 4: Historically, cats were very prominent on ships, uh, mostly for
the reason they would kill the rats on board, and
the rats would carry plague. The rats would get through
their food, so they would keep cats on board. Cats
were like one of the only actual pets that historical
pirates had. Parrots not super historical because they would usually
fly off or parrots were worth so much money they
could sell them, which is what a pirate would do.
Monkeys for obvious reasons, not really a pet. Dogs did
not survive at sea as well. But cats were very
common on just all ships at that age. But I
liked that they included that in Assassin's Great and obviously
more sea shantys more, you know.
Speaker 3: It's just how are the new sea chanties? Are there
any bangers in there?
Speaker 4: There is one that some might call a banger, the
Wellerman very famous on TikTok.
Speaker 3: That is that one in there? That is it?
Speaker 1: That one.
Speaker 2: That was probably I don't know actually every sea shame know,
there's one on TikTok whenever they passed through what's that
the Drake's.
Speaker 1: Passage, Uh, where they passed through it it's like huge high.
There's always videos of ships that of like that is.
Speaker 4: That that isyster colors? That's a very that's a that's
a real pirate chanty that is uh it's it kicks
off the start of Pirates of the Caribbean at World's
End And it isn't This game, the one I'm talking
about is like the one it was popular on TikTok
years ago. It was like a bunch of dudes.
Speaker 3: With something something something. I was always partial to the
what was it, Danny Riley? It was like about a
guy get this name? Yeah, that was my favorite, Billy Riley,
Billy Riley. I think it was Billy right. I remember
there was a three I went to where a bunch
of U at the j W ME and a few
other media peeps brought a black flag and then we
started singing a bunch of shanties, like very loudly around
other just guess, but it was.
Speaker 4: The games media.
Speaker 3: To do that again.
Speaker 2: I also wanted to call out they have I allude
to it quickly, but they've they've changed combat a fair bit.
Speaker 4: Yes, I don't.
Speaker 3: I haven't really decided. I don't remember the original game
having great but that was the era where Assassin's Creed combat.
To me, it was always serviceable at best.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I I liked the older combat was very easy,
and I liked that it made it feel like, oh,
I mean, these guys could just kill anyone. They're just
really really good at killing. It takes like one misstep
and then they stabbed you in your dead or whatever.
Now there's a lot it's a lot more intentional, Like
when I succeed, I feel like a sense of accomplishment
that I didn't really before. I don't know that it's
like improved a whole lot for me, but partially because
a lot of the times I'm like really tested in
combat is they've they've removed a lot of the encounters
in this game where it would be a stealth mission
and you auto fail if you get seen. Now everyone
just turns it you and tries to kill you. And
it's nice that you don't have to stop and do
everything over again, but it's kind of annoying when it's like, oh, hey,
you have to fight nine guys right now, Like you're
you're ready to sneak through, and they saw you because
you thought that the crouch button was the punch button
or you thought it was some other thing.
Speaker 3: The idiot.
Speaker 2: So I kind of thing, Yeah, go ahead, Wes.
Speaker 4: I was gonna say they updated with the nine guys.
Back in the old days Assassin's Creed. That was Assassin's Creed.
You'd have nine enemies surrounding you, but they would take
turns fighting and you would just counter each one and
it would ends to kill and it was kind of
funny to watch happened. But it was fun and it
felt cool.
Speaker 3: Now they have.
Speaker 4: Done a good job, although I don't know if I
like it. The enemies are like kind of ruthless, Like
they don't just sit around and wait. Some of them do.
Like if there's nine enemies surrounding you, they're not all
going to attack at once, but like two, three, four
of them will attack it ones and the Like Charles mentioned,
the Perry window is a lot smaller, and as a result,
combat is is much harder because you're juggling more pieces
and enemies will kill you a lot faster. I'm kind
of in the same but as Charles, I don't know
if I'm liking it more or less.
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 4: There's more to do in combat, but for me, like
I still try to play everything as a stealth game
because I enjoy that a lot. And like Charles said,
when you fail and then the entire camp is just
on you, it's kind of like, ah, all right, well
this I'm screwed now.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: There's also there's new moves you can do, Like you
can sweep your leg there's another like kind Yeah, there's
like these like new marshal techniques you can use, I
guess you'd say, but you can also just hit someone
until their guard breaks and then pair. Like there's more
moves you have at your disposal, but there's to like
Wes this point, but ocreative time, there's not always like
reasons to use them. You can just kind of wait
it out or just kind of swing past people. It's
not like there's a shield guy and you got to
use a specific move to get rid of the shield.
I never use the legs sweeps or the kick like
I just used them on accident.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, like I'm just breaking your armor and then
we're gonna fight, and I will I'm waiting for the
button that says take down to kill you immediately.
Speaker 3: I say, legs keep sounds good in the Assassin's Crag.
In my head, you would like like sweep a guy
and then stab them in the throat while he's on
the ground. You you definitely can do that. It's just
a thing of like.
Speaker 2: It just and yeah, someone someone's gonna play the game
leg sweep all the time and they'll be totally fine
and totally well off. It's just a thing that requires
like two seconds more of thought when it's not. It
doesn't make it that much fatter or it doesn't really
make the game that much easier. It's a cool move
to do, but it's just something that the game never
is you need.
Speaker 3: To do this to success. It's the point.
Speaker 4: And also talking about the controls again, like so you're
attacking with R one, but to do a leg sweep
you got to press R two and then press X
and it just doesn't like it feels very out of
your flow. Like if you're in combat, you're doing a
lot of R one and L one attacking and pairing
and blocking, and then to do like an R two
X move kind of just breaks the flow a bit.
And I mean even seven hours, and I'm already like, Okay,
I'm just not really going to use these moves like
they don't really I'd rather feel cool and continue to
look cool in a combo then interrupt to do like
a leg sweep.
Speaker 2: I do use the shortcut to shoot people with my guns.
You R two and triangle, then you shoot someone and
it either just kills them immediately or breaks their guards
super fast, and that that remains a very fun thing.
I had one more thing I wanted to call out
that was generally specific. I think also consensus. Matt Miller
reviewed it Gaven eight two five. I think me and
Wes are like, yeah, it's good. It's it's a little
different than the original. If you're gonna play one of
them now, I'd probably just recommend most people play this.
But I don't think it like revolutionized the game in
a way that's like transformed it. To me, I just
think it's it's cool.
Speaker 1: Can I say something that mighty oh the original.
Speaker 3: Likes better? Interesting? Have you played?
Speaker 1: Have you played this or you just know I've been
watching a lot of comparison I've my TikTok feed has
served me a lot of comparison videos and there's just
something about it that like it almost looks it just
looks like a remaster in a way that like they've
stripped out a lot of like the bloom that was
in the lighting and the original, and like I think
it kind of loses something a little bit.
Speaker 3: That's interesting. Black Flag was weird in betweens. It was
a cross gin, it was a cross chine.
Speaker 1: I think it looks more gray now than I than
it did back then, Like it looks more like grounded
in in a way. It kind of like loses something
to me. I don't know, it didn't. It didn't really
And maybe maybe the person the people I've watched streaming
it haven't had their settings, you know, turned all the
way up, that could also be it. But I just
thought it was interesting, like the there's a lot less
bloom on the highlights, and like the color's like a
different like sort of like color grade to it where
where it kind of just kind of looks to me
like it melds together a bit more. And maybe that's
just again that might just be the clips I've seen.
I'm curious what you guys think about the kind of
the actual graphics.
Speaker 3: I think that when you're at Sea.
Speaker 2: I think the remaster looks way way better, okay, because
there's there's a lot more like Techo, Like I think
if you're watching like cut scenes side by side, there's
a little bit more of a conversation. But like the
tech in the water, like the way the ocean moves
and the like okay sun rises and the sunsets, like
that stuff is really cool that it was Like it
didn't look terrible in the original game obviously, but that's
like a clear.
Speaker 3: Upgrade to me.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: I do think there's plenty of conversation to be had
of like you know, the opening cut scenes or like
when they do the flashbacks and stuff like, which are
those artistic decisions was better? And I do think there's
often a thing of like, once games can make people
look as realistic as possible, they forget to make decisions
other than realism, and like a lot of the times,
the the artistic direction you go and that's other than
that can be more interesting. But I do think I
do think there's parts of this game where it's like
absolutely was worth remaking just just to see the waves,
and that's where you are a lot of the game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, and again I have
not played it myself yet, so like take what I
was saying with a grain of salt. It was just
like I had seen some stuff and I was like, huh,
you know how this looks to me?
Speaker 4: Comparatively For me, I love Assassin's Creed Black Flag. I
actually think it's one of the ugliest Assassin's Creeds, like
the original, specifically in that era. Like I think the
face is the horrible. I think there's like some some
like ambiance and atmosphere that the remake has lost. But
like I have tried to go back to the original
and it's fine, Like I have replayed it's since launch,
like on computer and stuff. But I don't know, I've
as much as I love that game, I am genuinely
like kind of like propulsed by how the original looks.
So I was very much happy about this remake. And
there are like comparisons you can do. Like I remember
when they first announced this remake, there were scenes like
side by side that people would take and I generally
just write those off because like you can just pick
and pluck whatever you want to, like make your message
on your social post go viral. But like from what
I'm playing it this it feels like a remake made
in the vein of like the rose tinted glasses. Like
I'm like, oh, this is how this is how Black
Flag always looked to me as a kid, like or
not a kid. I mean, I was graduating high school
when it came out, but like, this is how it
used to look to me, and now this is just
what it is in my mind. Yeah, I don't know,
I think it.
Speaker 1: Until I play it myself. I was just curious what
your take.
Speaker 4: Was on that. Yeah, I mean it's like it's a
It's just that I guess that generation for me, like
I think you said in Marcus, like the PS three
to PS four generation was it was just an odd one.
I don't know. And Ubisoft's Anvil engine has come so
far and I think it really shows, like this is
a huge improvement even Overshadows in my opinion, and Shadows
just came out what last year or two years ago? Yeah,
last year. I think this is like a really, really,
really good looking game. It does have that kind of
that realism thing that Charles touched on, for sure, but
the game still gets a lot right visually, and especially
when you get into the more like Fantascal Assassin's kreedish elements,
or even like the the water spouts we were talking about.
When that kind of stuff starts to happen, it really
does feel like you're watching a I don't know, Pirates
of the Caribbean for lack of better other pirate cinema,
but like it does feel fantastical and mythological in the
way that pirates kind of are in pop culture.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: The last thing I want to mention real quick before
we move on is the subtitles are very interesting. Well
are you playing with the subtitles on? Are you subtitled?
Speaker 3: Am?
Speaker 4: But I have not noticed an interesting thing.
Speaker 2: The way they capitalize words is very odd. They will
capitalize basically every noun.
Speaker 1: And I as if a proper noun.
Speaker 2: Yes, And I'm pretty sure because the only other instance
I remember seeing this being like, huh, that's odd is
like reading the Constitution in like history class, and it
is like an eighteenth century way of writing. Of you
you just capitalized nouns, or you capitalize things in a
sentence that you want to like stand out as important. Yeah,
And so when you're playing the game, I was like,
at first, I was like, what the heck, this is
like a weird translation.
Speaker 3: And maybe it is. Maybe it's like a weird mistake.
Speaker 2: I know, you like capitalized nouns in German, that's the.
Speaker 3: Thing they do in that language.
Speaker 2: But in this case, I'm pretty sure that's what they
were going for. And at first I was like, they
keep making mistakes here, what the heck they need? They
need Charles Hart, associate editor to take a pass on
this script. And then the more I realized it was
like intentional, I'm like, that's actually really cool.
Speaker 3: It's like a of the era type thing.
Speaker 4: I haven't noticed that, but I'm gonna that is. I'm
gonna check it out now.
Speaker 3: It's cool.
Speaker 4: Before we leave Black Flag Talk, I have some statements
I wrote down. I'm okay, the jig is up. I
really love pirates. I pirates are my favorite part of history.
I love pirate movies and games and board games and
WHU no, because I know the real history of pirates
and that life sucked. But I wrote down some tru
or false statements, and I because I was actually just
talking with my wife about these. I'd finished a book
recently about pirate mythology, and I wanted to do some
true or false, and just see what you guys thought
and let the readers you know, kind of or the listeners, uh,
maybe get some right or wrong if you guys don't mind.
Pirates are Pirates wore eye patches so that one eye
was always attuned to the darkness, making it easier to
see below deck. True or false?
Speaker 3: True? Yeah, true that.
Speaker 1: Someone with the horizon.
Speaker 4: The answer is false, and that is because for the
most part, pirates just didn't wear eye patches, and they
also didn't have wooden peg legs or hooks for hands.
If you've got an injury like that, you probably just
weren't going to be on board anymore. But it looks
cool in movies, so that's great.
Speaker 3: Great, But why but the eye patch thing does work.
That's some tech they missed out on. Come on, it is.
Speaker 4: But they had like candles and stuff down below deck.
They probably didn't.
Speaker 3: You're a child.
Speaker 1: If you have like an eye issue, like a weak eye,
they will cover your strong eye to make it your
your weak eye. Kind of get up to get up
to speed.
Speaker 3: Disappointed, they solve the very problem with the solution of
we put lights down there.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, they use candles. Uh, Pirates made their victims
walk the planks.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna I'm gonna say yes, but maybe not in
the conventional plank. But I'm saying they did kick them
off the ship into the ocean. Be correct.
Speaker 4: Oh sorry, I should probably wait for everybody to.
Speaker 3: Answered.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna I get too excited.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say.
Speaker 3: True, but I mean what Marcus said was true and whatever. Yeah,
this is what I also co opping.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they did not like put the plank out, but
they would just kick. They would just throw people overboard.
Speaker 3: Like unnecessary. So then I then I was right because
you asked did they walk the plank or not and
the answer was no. Never mind, I'm just wrong. Marcus
was right.
Speaker 4: Because he said, like, I doubt they actually walked on
a plank, but I bet they threw people over there.
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to get out of the goose egg
right now. I'm over too. Uh.
Speaker 4: Pirates would maroon their victims on islands.
Speaker 3: True.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say false because how often are you just
running into an island that you can leave someone on.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say false because I think if they wanted
to get rid of somebody, they would just toss them over.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say true. I'm gonna
say they reserved it for like specific offenses.
Speaker 4: So the answer is true, but for different reasons. Basically,
if you got captured by a pirate and we're allowed
to stay alive, you had two choices, which was to
work on the ship or you could be marooned, which
would be swear to secrecy, promise not to come after us,
Promise not to you know, get us in trouble with
the law, but we will that you live on this
island and you can figure out life on your own. Obviously,
the chances of getting off the island are pretty slim
back then, but you had a chance.
Speaker 3: That is kind of a courtesy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, pirates created their own unique flags. True or false?
Speaker 3: True true, true, true, that's too funny, This is true.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they did create their own flags. Something that I
recently learned that I think is really cool is for
like the first half of the Golden Age of piracy,
they would have a red flag and a black flag,
and they would fly one depending on what their plans were.
If they flew a red flag that meant no mercy
and they were going to kill you and destroy your
ship and take your stuff. Black flag meant they will
quarter you, so they will try to board your ship,
and they will allow you to live as long as
you let the robbing happen peacefully. And so they would
kind of fly one or the other, depending on what
kind of mood they were in. Eventually, piracy just became
known for the black flag, and you just assumed pirates
had the worst intentions if you saw the black flag.
But for the most part, pirates were not jumping on
ships and killing everybody because back then men were valuable.
Why not have them work on the ship. And yes,
they did get a little flamboyant with flag designs, and
they wanted to be known and seen on the seas
as like these huge threats. Yeah, we actually kind of
touched on this one. But pirates drink rum on ships,
That one is true, but they would mix it with
their water because it provided them like disinfectant relief and
help them get over its sicknesses and illnesses. True or false.
Pirates were rich.
Speaker 3: False, I'm gonna say statistically false. Maybe the captain, but
like there's a whole crew, Yeah, I don't think they
all They.
Speaker 5: Kept putting all their treasure and holes in the ground
they can't. It's not accessible that that's actually not true.
Speaker 3: I know that that's that's I feel.
Speaker 2: Like the the goal of being a pirate is to
get enough money that you don't have to be a
pirate anymore. So the fact that they continued to pirate
implies to me, like the reason I still have a job.
Speaker 3: I'm not rich and ready to retire yet.
Speaker 2: You know, but if I just stumbled onto like ten
million dollars tomorrow, you'd be out.
Speaker 3: You'd be gone.
Speaker 1: I think the pirates for paycheck to paycheck.
Speaker 4: For sure, pirates were. They were for the most part,
not rich for the reason Charles stated, well.
Speaker 3: Also, ships are expensive, like whatever. Even if they got
a big score, it probably has to go a lot
of it has to go into maintaining the ship.
Speaker 4: They went into maintaining the ship, and they would also,
you know, ration out the money to everybody. Basically, pirates
were and and Black Five kind of touches on this.
Like pirates, they would stop whatever job they have because
maybe they had a huge debt back home where they
wanted to provide for their family. They would go be
a pirate with the goal of doing it for a
couple of years. Striking big and then coming home, retiring,
paying off the debt that's on them. Like it was
always supposed to be temporary, but as Charles mentioned, like
they did not make enough to they just had to
keep going from score to score.
Speaker 3: Just my summer gig being a pirate for a bit. Yeah,
just ave it.
Speaker 4: Black Beard put lit fuses in his beard.
Speaker 3: That is false, But I know it's like it's a
popular legend that was well, I guess we don't know it.
I know it is a thing that was spread about
him at the time, but I don't know if it
was ever actually conf I've never heard of this. It's
like a really famous black Beard he.
Speaker 4: Does in black flag he has Yeah, he does it
in black fuses.
Speaker 3: He does it.
Speaker 2: Yes, Yeah, yeah, I found blackleg He had him in
his hat, which is what I was going to guess.
Speaker 3: Beard Beard feels a little too close for comfort. Yeah,
I'm gonna I guess. I'm saying no because I don't
think there's any historical proof, but everyone kind of speaks
about it as if it was real. I'm saying false.
Speaker 4: Marcus is really good at this. It is generally believed
to be true because there's enough documentation of people talking
about black Beard that he would put fuses in his
beard so that it would smoke. He would he specifically
grew out his hair and did not tie it up
so that it looked kind of wild and wrangly, and
did other stuff like that to be more threatening on
the seas. There was one pirate I'm blinking on his name,
but when him and his crew attacked, they would all
strip down but naked as like a way to throw
off the crew that they were attacking.
Speaker 3: Color flag? Do you fly for that to let people
know what you're doing?
Speaker 4: Uh? Great question. I don't have the answer I question,
but I know there was like a lot of places
I could go.
Speaker 3: But I was the firewall catching a lot of answers
right now. I wasn't going to.
Speaker 2: Say, I'm actually gonna make someone a little bit upset,
so we're just gonna going to be cool.
Speaker 4: Yes, I have a few more. Women and children were
not allowed on board pirate ships.
Speaker 3: True.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say false, though I know there's all the
case of pirates like cross dressing. My MI understanding was
that more to get respect than it was like they
were banned.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like there are there are female pirates. But we're
talking about just like the rank and file crew and
not like someone higher ranking.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say, like civilian. Are we talking like civilian
women and children?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm gonna say there was probably a career day,
right yeah, yeah, all right, son, This is the part
where we strip naked.
Speaker 4: And they did not allow women on board because they
did not want men fighting over women on board. And
they did not allow children on board because there were
pirates were not good people and for similar reasons as
wanting women on board, they would bring children on board,
and captains did not want that interfering with what was
happening on ships. Pirates are were rapists and pillagers, some
were pedophiles. Like not a good crew or company to
be in. So women and children were not allowed on board,
not because they didn't want them on board, but because
it would interrupt the flow of work, which is awful. Uh.
Pirates buried their treasure? True or false?
Speaker 2: Marcus already said it was false, and he seems to
know everything about pirates.
Speaker 3: I'm going with false.
Speaker 1: I noticed his true false, Marcus.
Speaker 3: They did.
Speaker 4: They did not bury their treasure. There's no real documentation.
Respect that.
Speaker 1: I respect that really Marcus should go last, because.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like I love pirates stuff, maybe a step below Wes,
but I I've always also had a fascination with pirates.
Speaker 4: Pirates rule.
Speaker 2: I know all the words to black Flag or to
black Beard versus al Capone epograph Ale of History, So
that's something, okay, Yeah, yeah, that's where I'm pulling.
Speaker 3: Did he have his fus on his beard? In that video?
Speaker 2: There is a line of I'll use that fuse in
your hat to let up you and your buddies and
burn your sailboat down and collect the insurance money.
Speaker 3: That's an Alcalpone.
Speaker 4: That doesn't you do know the whole thing, don't you money?
Speaker 2: I like that fuse in your hat to no, I
already lost it. If I did it correct, then the.
Speaker 3: Cat anyways, does that pirates the best?
Speaker 2: The best line that that rape is actually sponsored by
Assassin's creed for Black Flag. There's a bunch of weird
references to the game in that verse, but the best
one is al Capone says, I'm the mc assassin slash
like Edward ken Way.
Speaker 3: Wrap so hard called me al dente. It's not like soft. Yeah,
it's not that cooking it to softens the noodle, but
it's but if you go too far, like you know
a lot of people when you say to don't, don't
the state of mind. I d state of mind like
Dante has a chew, but you generally want it soft
and not hard.
Speaker 1: You don't like you know, it's a spectrums.
Speaker 2: What's the next question? Is it about pasta pates like
their pasta cooked?
Speaker 4: Did pirates say are and talk otherwise like that?
Speaker 3: Like the classic pirate I'm gonna say false because there's
literally no evidence of video recording because that didn't exist
in the Golden Asia piracy. We have no way of noise,
is correct. They do not have video recordings empire or
audio recording, like there's no way. There's literally no way
of knowing they were.
Speaker 2: Black Beer getting canceled for that one TikTok he made,
Yeah black Beard apology video goes crazy.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they specifically said like yar and are.
I think it was probably they probably pronounced things miss
mispronounced things because I would imagine and people who found
themselves as a pirate due to like circumstance, probably not
as educated, like they probably didn't have access to the
same things as like royalty who are like very prim
and proper and pronounced things all correctly, and so they
kind of got this kind of fake persona from the
general public that like they say things funny and stuff.
Speaker 3: I mean, being a gate a ship and using the stars,
I mean that's pretty smart. Like see when you're a
streets Actually that's not streets smart smart. It's there.
Speaker 2: There's like an old movie that has a pirate in it,
and he talked like that, and everyone based their image
of pirates off of that one character.
Speaker 4: Charles is correct. That old movie is Treasure Island from
the nineteen fifties. That movie has largely determined pop culture pirates,
like walking, the plank, eye patches, peg legs, the accent,
all of that goes back to that movie pretty much.
For the most part, they just sounded like where they
came from, Wales, from the UK, from Scotland to Ireland,
and they might pick up some slang from like the Caribbean.
But yeah, they weren't like talking.
Speaker 3: Like that as a society. That Treasure Planet or Treasure
Island was a documentary.
Speaker 4: It was like, I mean, it just kind of like
took over. That was the that was their Avengers endgame
back then, you know, I have two more pirates use
cannons and other means to destroy ships on the seats. Yes, yes,
that one is actually largely false. A lot of pirates
did not have ships capable of holding guns, and so
they would just rob ships by like join them. There
were a couple of pirates who had secured larger ships
for the most part, Yes, black Beard is one of
the Yes, he's one of the more infamous pirates who
was able to acquire a ship that could hold cannons.
But for the most part, they're stealing, yes, and they're
stealing ships and a lot of only the navy ships
could have guns, like merchants weren't allowed to have cannons,
and that's usually what they stole was those small schooners
and whatnot. So unless you would like scored big from
the Spanish Empire something like that, then you probably didn't
have guns and you were just getting close enough to
board them and hopefully rob them. And this kind of
goes into the last question or true or false statement
the British Empire encouraged piracy in the Caribbean.
Speaker 3: True, I'm saying piracy was an inside job this whole time,
that sounds like I can't wait to cut that from
the podcast.
Speaker 4: Charles wasn't even alive for that presidency either, like a
little bit that's that's stolen presidential valor.
Speaker 3: And back and back back to one.
Speaker 4: Yes, true, the British Empire did encourage piracy. They actually
allowed pirates to a dock at Port Royals, specifically to
spend money in their shops so long as pirates uh
agreed soft agreed to not attack British ships and only
focused on Spanish ships.
Speaker 3: Which Royal Caribbean.
Speaker 4: I am yeah, like the actual Port Royal which sunk
in Jamaica by earthquake.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 4: And to round all this out, that ties back into
Assassin's Creed Black Flag because early in the game, Blackbeard
will tell you don't attack the British ships. We have
a little agreement with them. But if you attack the Spaniards,
that's fair game.
Speaker 3: Kill them all. Put the red flag up when you
see those guys.
Speaker 4: And that is my true or false hired segment. Now
I can take off this hat, but I'm not.
Speaker 3: Going star.
Speaker 1: Well perfect. That was a really fun game, think us.
Speaker 3: I love trivia yay.
Speaker 1: Also, your hat is so big that like your face.
Speaker 2: Is cut off in the camera to fit almost the
entire segment has been more hat than Wes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so people want the longer West talked about pirates,
the bigger the hack. Yeah, the hat expanded.
Speaker 1: I think at one point it was touching the camera.
Speaker 2: Less mudges the camera just figure his hat.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, let's get into a couple more games before we
get out of here. I just wanted to talk really
quickly about a cool new game called Don't Let It Starve.
It's developed by somebody named Edward O. Scarpatto, and it's
a sort of like uh your The premise is you
wake up inside of a cell and you look behind
you and there is a sort of man, what would
be the right word, like a not a hallway, not
like a like a portal, not not not like a
real portal, but like a hole that connects this room
to another room, and like something that you can pass
trays through.
Speaker 3: Oh oh, like a like a port a port yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And on the other side of that that, you know,
port in the darkness are just two sets of eyes,
and it's this monster who speaks French. He's got he
used a lot of French words, and he is like
the he's the thing you're not letting starve. Don't let
it starve. Don't let that monster starve. And it's like
a it's a chef adjacent monster, and he has like
certain things that he wants you to cook for him
and like put together. They're on binto boxes and so
you are you wake up. Also, it's really creepy because
at one point in time you turn around and I'm
like just like getting to know the room, and I
turn around and his hands are like almost at me
to get me. It's really creepy. And he's got like
multiple hands. You only ever see his arms to grab
trays and stuff.
Speaker 3: Is he he sounds like the same vibe as the
game master and inscription.
Speaker 1: Yes, very yeah, similar vibe and and similar to inscription.
You are in a room that has like puzzles that
like ostensibly you can maybe escape the room. I haven't
made it that far. But as you go and make
progress in the game, the you know you're gonna like
be looking out for clues and that kind of thing,
and there's notes left behind by other people who are
trapped in this room. But the primary, your primary goal
is to satisfy the hunger of the beast on the
other side, and you do that by making these Bento boxes.
But every round there's like a score that you have
to hit, essentially, and you only have, like at the
start of the game, you only have four bento boxes
to hit that score, and so you will when you
go to the bento box kind of assembly station if
you're looking at it, it's kind of straight on, and
you go and it brings up three sort of like tickets.
You can do a tiny bento box, a medium sized
bento box, and a large one, and the tiny one
will award you for each sort of like successful bento
box you create, you'll get three gold coins. For the
middle tier, which has like more slots for you to use,
and it's ostensibly it'll be easier to get a higher
score because you have more slots to put food on.
It'll give you like one gold and then the large one,
which you can certainly kind of reach your score with
most times, that actually takes away a coin from you.
And so above that is like a sort of there
are like three capsules that have food in them, and
so every time you take a food, it will sort
of reroll whatever's in those boxes, and so you're kind
of picking like, Okay, do I want to take a
sausage which is worth this amount? Do I want to
take a pickle or like an olive because it's only
it's gonna only take up one pip And actually I've
that's like the only food that's gonna help me complete
this bento because I need to fit it into this
one slot. And everything's kind of sort of shaped like tetris,
like different shapes and stuff, and you're trying to assemble
them to get the most amount of food on your bento.
And if you look to the right, if you kind
of step away from that main assembly station, look to
the right is sort of a a rotating shop that
has like new kinds of foods or modifiers or like
things that will like, oh I picked up one on
my run. That's like sausages are now worth extra points
and so okay, that's gonna like inform my run and
kind of like, okay, I'm gonna be looking out for
sausages and trying to like reroll my because everything kind
of uses these gold coins that you have as a
resource to it, and you're essentially like trying to manage
those gold coins to buy new foods, get modifiers while
also kind of juggling this like this score that increases
every round lest you become devoured by the beast. It's
really it's it's interesting, it's it's got a good vibe.
I'm really enjoying it so far. I think it's like
only eight bucks. But if you are a fan of
a game like Inscription or even games that are like
of of like these sort of like Bollatrow, like Rogue
Light strategy game where you're trying to get increasing multipliers
like and like kind of break the game and like
get these really high scores, this is like another one
of those games, except it's almost like a The Bento
kind of reminds me of like like a Resident Evil
inventory system, like you can kind of rotate things and
flip them around, and yeah, you're trying to.
Speaker 3: Just like make some wiz.
Speaker 2: There's like a similar minigame and Consume Me that you
play all the time.
Speaker 1: Where you're like, yes, yes, that's a great shout out.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 5: I was going to draw comparisons to like the i
mean the RI four briefcase, but there was a game
that was about managing an R four style briefcase where
you're trying to fit everything and and get like the
best score you could out of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that's sort of like the run to run.
And then there's this I'm too early in the game
to have figured out like how the whole like meta
system works, because there's like there's a safe on the
wall with like numbers. There's a little scribbles around the walls,
like there's one I found. It's like a four leaf
clover and it has the number one next to it,
so it's like, Okay, got to figure out what that means.
There's clearly like an exit hatch with a lock on it.
There's like a series of like four bells that you
can ring that are that's above that latch. There's a
lot of like clearly like very puzzly things. There's like
little thing scattered on the floor that feel like they'll
eventually be relevant. And I haven't quite unearthed with that
like Crossrun sort of meta like what I'm aiming to
get to is yet. But it's really interesting and I'm
I think it's a really a really well made game.
It's an interesting concept, and it's got like this yeah,
this horror tone that I think is you know, I
think eventually they introduced like timers on like you have
to assemble this binto box quickly, and like, yeah, so yeah,
it's it's really effective and I'm really enjoying it. So
I wanted to talk about it on the show for
a little bit.
Speaker 3: Sounds cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's called It has like not that many Steam
reviews also, so this is not like a yeah one
hundred and thirty very positive. Yeah, it came out June twelfth,
but I recommend it. It's been really fun so far,
and I'm gonna keep playing it again. That's called Don't
Let It Starve, which I have been confusing with Don't Starve,
the very popular survival sim games. But yeah, I recommend it.
It's being published by Black Lantern Collective, and they've I
think they usually just focus on like coreror games in general.
But but yeah, I wanted to shout that one out
and then before we before we head out, I want
to toss it over to Marcus. You've been playing a
game called Cat Mail Company, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: This is a cozy little game where you play as
a cat running an abandoned post office and trying to
basically pick up the pieces from the owner who has
vanished under mysterious means, don't really know much about them.
But this is like a post office that is like
on the water. So you have a delivery boat that
comes each day to either bring new packages or to
take the packages that are that people have given to you.
And you're pretty mu just trying to get it up
and running again. Like you walk in, you see like
piles and piles of abandoned boxes. Like literally the way
you unlock new areas of the post office is that
like some of the hallways are literally flooded with packages,
like just in a pile, and you have to like
kind of excavate them, and then the more you dig up,
the pile reduces, and then it'll be like, oh, there's
a door behind this pile that leads to a room
where I can fix damage packages. Okay, but it's neat,
it's very it's very chill. Like the basic loop is
that you have all these cats. Everybody in this game
is a cat come up to your desk and know
either give you a package that they want to mail
or they're coming to pick up a package. And if
they're mailing packages, you have to stamp it based on
which location needs to go to, like there's different other
islands that you gradually unlock access to throughout the game,
but it's like, oh, it's going to this like Lighthouse Island,
and you put the appropriate stamp on it. You have
to aid to packages, and depending on how much ways
you have to put x number of stamps, you eventually
unlock in x ray that you send packages through that
might reveal other attributes that need to be sort of marked,
whether like, oh, Okay, this thing's really heavy, I gotta
put like a sticker on this to let people notice
is heavy, or this package has something inside of it
it needs to be kept frozen. And then eventually you
open up a section of the post office that has
a freezer and you can stick the packages this in
there until the boat comes to collect them. And then
if someone's coming to pick up a package, they walk
in and a lot of them are kind of idiots
in the sense that they come with like barely information
about the thing that they have come to retrieve, whether
it's for them or if they're picking it up for
a family member. And I say idiots in like a
cute way, like they're cute dummies, and they're like, I
don't know, man, I just notice package has a yellow ribbon,
and it's like literally, there's some casts that are like
pretty sure this package is cube shape this box and
they're like, oh okay, well I've got a hundred of those.
Let me go through those real quick, and they'll give
you like like each package has a first name and
a last initial, so sometimes someone will come in and
give you the full name to person's you have to go,
but like, okay, that last name starts with an S.
Let me go through all my S packages and see
which ones it might be. And the space that you're
in sort of the storage room. You can organize your
packages however you want, like you have like multiple shelves
of different types and so like whatever organization method makes
the most sense to you, you go with them, like
whether you want to arrange it by the destination that
they came from or by the special attributes of like okay,
I'm gonna put all my super heavy packages over here,
or you can put them alphabetically. It's just whatever your
brain sort of sings with, which I like. But it's
a very like laid back game, like time advances every
time you deal with a customer. But when you don't
deal with a customer, which you act manually like you
have like a little desk bell that you ring when
you want to deal with someone. But when you're not
doing that, you're free to just kind of do whatever
you want without consequence, whether it's oh, I want to
organize the space a bit, or you're finding like pictures
where you see all these blank spaces on walls and decorations,
where it's like, oh, I'm gonna fill out all these
decoration spaces. Maybe I'll get like a reward for that
or something. And also just maybe like gradually revealing you
used to occupy this space because you're seeing like pictures
of a people living here and you're like, okay, like
maybe this is the owner that vanish. Maybe we're gonna
learn something about them. Because the only other character, at
least so far, I've interacted with that isn't a customer
is the boat captain who comes by us said he
seems relatively clueless about like, oh, you're not the person
I usually deal with, but whatever. I guess. I don't
get paid enough to test too many questions. I'm just here, yeah,
give you your packages. But it's nice. I've enjoyed it
as a very much like a second screen game. Okay,
I'm gonna have like a podcast on or I'm gonna
watch some just something on the other screen while I'm
just dealing with these cats. But it's fun. There are
some annoyances, like my biggest hang up with the game
is that it doesn't auto save frequently enough, Like it
only saves after every shift. So you have a day
shift and a night shift. Yeah, and each shift is
a certain number of customers that you have to get through,
and if you try to exit the game before you
end your shift, it just won't, like it'll tell you
the last time you save, and sometimes it'll go like
thirty minutes to an hour, depending on how long it
takes you to either find someone's packages, because again, somebody's
package descriptions and you have so many all the time
that you're just going through each one trying to inspect them,
like is this the one if they want so that can,
Like it is annoying having to get through a whole
shit before it's like okay, now it can quit the game.
So I wish I could just save any time and
then some many other package descriptions can be or not
even the package description, but some of the rules of
the game could be a little vague in terms of
I was trying to figure out for the longest time
because some packages I've had for like ever, and I'm like,
are these people ever gonna come for somebody? And then
I was on and since there were there when you
start the game, I kept wondering, like, do I think
if they see a bow captain or are they supposed
to be sent out? Is that why no one's come prettise?
But I don't know. I feel like he would I
would get a notification if I was taking too long
meal on these packages. I don't know, Like you kind
of at the end of a shift, you're awarded points
for how many packages you correctly labeled in shipped to
their correct destinations. If you label something wrong, it'll be
sent back to you and it might be damaged the
next day, so you have to worry about that. But
then I guess as you level up, you unlock like
just a little milestones happened with the story where it's like, again,
you might find a key to a room that you
didn't have before or stuff like that. But other than
those hangs up, it's cool, like it's it's just nice.
It's like a nice little break. I just wish I
could save whenever I want. That's honestly, with the game,
it's not fair enough. Yeah, it's it's like working at
a real job. I can't just walk out anytime I want.
I gotta wait for the end of my ship where
I can go home.
Speaker 2: Well, I think especially the way you're playing it with
it with it as like a second screen game two
of like you just kind of want to pick it
up for like twenty minutes and then put it down and.
Speaker 1: Be able to save an annoying right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you got to like finish it out as Yeah,
just kid.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like, oh my show's over. I'm ready to
do something else, but I gotta do like two more
I gotta do with two more customers before I can
clock out. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well cool, Well I think that's gonna be it for
the podcast this week. Do you just want to say,
please go pick up a copy of Game Informer magazine,
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I hope you all have a great week. Be sure
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Thank you for watching. Goodbye,