Donkey Kong Bananza And The Complicated Pac-Man Metroidvania

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