Crimson Desert Review And More w/ Hayes Madsen

<v Speaker 1>Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Game and Former Show, a
<v Speaker 1>weekly podcast covering the video game industry. Join us each
<v Speaker 1>and every Thursday or Friday or Saturday, whatever day of
<v Speaker 1>the week you listen to us for a discussion at
<v Speaker 1>the latest gaming news, reviews, and exclusive reveals with Game
<v Speaker 1>and Former staff and special guests from around the industry.
<v Speaker 1>I am your host, Marcus Stewart. We've got a tri
<v Speaker 1>force of a panel here. I if I represent the
<v Speaker 1>tri force of power, let's say, as the host, then
<v Speaker 1>the triforce of wisdom goes to Eric Van Allen.
<v Speaker 2>Hello, that's crazy.
<v Speaker 3>I look, I'm not saying I'm the courage try force, because.
<v Speaker 2>I'm definitely not.
<v Speaker 3>But wisdom's a little little I don't know if that's
<v Speaker 3>in my ballpark.
<v Speaker 2>Are smart guy? Yeah? Okay, so I'm not.
<v Speaker 3>I promise I'm not trying to like seek attention here
<v Speaker 3>with this.
<v Speaker 2>I do. I do really dumb things too.
<v Speaker 3>I'm not saying that I'm a I'm a stupid guy,
<v Speaker 3>but I'm saying that there is a balance, there is
<v Speaker 3>a counterbalance.
<v Speaker 1>Well, you know what, Eric, what is wisdom then learning
<v Speaker 1>from one's mistakes.
<v Speaker 2>You're so right, You're so right.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, actually I should take that. That's a wise thing
<v Speaker 1>to say. I should be wisdom.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, I'll take power. I'm down for power.
<v Speaker 3>I'd be responsible with power. I don't think absolute power
<v Speaker 3>would corrupt me. I think I I think I could
<v Speaker 3>tank it. That's what they all say.
<v Speaker 1>And joining us special guests Freelancer Extraordinaire returning to the
<v Speaker 1>GI Show Hayes Mattson, who wields the Triforce of Courage.
<v Speaker 4>Hello, Hello, I just courage fits me now. No, I'm
<v Speaker 4>back in the freelance world. You know, I think that
<v Speaker 4>works forging.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what triforce? I thought of courage.
<v Speaker 1>A cowardly dog, who is like, what if it was
<v Speaker 1>like that? He was the triforce trifle course of courage,
<v Speaker 1>the cowardly dog. I don't know where I'm going with that.
<v Speaker 1>This is really just the blame word association joke and
<v Speaker 1>also an excuse to express that I enjoy courage. A
<v Speaker 1>cowardly Dog's a good show.
<v Speaker 2>It's it's like a there's gotta be fan art of courage.
<v Speaker 3>Wearing like a green tunic and having the shield and
<v Speaker 3>everything like that has to exist. I'm sure there's no
<v Speaker 3>way we're the first people to think of that.
<v Speaker 2>It's got to be right.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, So Muriel is Zelda then, and Eustace is clearly
<v Speaker 1>the Gannandorf.
<v Speaker 3>Oh yeah, oh Eustace Ganandorf goes pretty hard.
<v Speaker 2>In my mind's eye.
<v Speaker 3>I'm not gonna lie like that's I'm envisioning like Eustace
<v Speaker 3>as Gannendorf and him flinging the fireballs.
<v Speaker 2>You stupid dog. Be real good.
<v Speaker 1>The next Selda game have Gannador but like you, stupid
<v Speaker 1>hero of time.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know, yeah, yeah, yeah, I.
<v Speaker 1>Believe it or not. Despite this opening, we are not
<v Speaker 1>gonna be talking about Zelda. Though it is the Zelda
<v Speaker 1>fortieth anniversary this year, so maybe this is our way
<v Speaker 1>of paying tribute. But we are gonna be talking about
<v Speaker 1>a brand new RPG that is getting a lot of
<v Speaker 1>Zelda comparisons in some ways. We are gonna be diving
<v Speaker 1>into our review of the much anticipated Crimson Desert, which
<v Speaker 1>releases this week. Hayes is here to talk about the
<v Speaker 1>game because he wrote the review for US. Eric has
<v Speaker 1>also been spending some time playing peerl Abysses massive massive RPG.
<v Speaker 1>We're gonna unload all of our thoughts on that. We're
<v Speaker 1>also gonna be talking about Starship Troopers, Ultiman bug War,
<v Speaker 1>as well as a few other games. But first before
<v Speaker 1>we dive into all of that, if you would like
<v Speaker 1>to support Game Informer, the best way to do it
<v Speaker 1>is to go to Game Informer dot com slash subscribe, because,
<v Speaker 1>believe it or not, we make a print magazine each
<v Speaker 1>and every month. We're always working on this thing. And
<v Speaker 1>if you would like to get a issue Game and
<v Speaker 1>Former magazine, Gamiformer dot com slash subscribe gets you Tennis
<v Speaker 1>is a year print and digital. We're holding up our
<v Speaker 1>latest issue on Invincible Verses, which is a cover that
<v Speaker 1>I wrote and Eric Van Allen also helped me put
<v Speaker 1>this together. Right now, there's still time to subscribe to
<v Speaker 1>get this as your first issue, and I would say
<v Speaker 1>that you should get a move on it because for
<v Speaker 1>one of the I think the first time we've ever
<v Speaker 1>done it, we have dual covers. You see here we
<v Speaker 1>have dual cover art. The front cover illustrated by Invincible
<v Speaker 1>co creator Corey Walker, the back cover illustrated by Invincible
<v Speaker 1>Versus developer Quarter Up. And if you want to get
<v Speaker 1>the version that has the Corey Walker art first, front
<v Speaker 1>and center, you're going to have to become a subscriber,
<v Speaker 1>because when this issue hits news stands in the coming weeks,
<v Speaker 1>it'll actually be reversed. The new stand edition has the
<v Speaker 1>quarter up art in the front and the Corey Walker
<v Speaker 1>art in the back, So I mean, you're gonna get
<v Speaker 1>both anyway, But if you want the version that has
<v Speaker 1>it in the front, or if you want to collect
<v Speaker 1>both versions, you're gonna have to become a subscriber right now.
<v Speaker 1>Get yourself this issue, as well as nine more throughout
<v Speaker 1>the year. It's a very very good issue filled with
<v Speaker 1>other stories. You can see Eric they're showing off our
<v Speaker 1>Warhammer forty K feature that's in here.
<v Speaker 3>I actually hadn't looked at this feature yet. I was
<v Speaker 3>looking forward to reading it. It's a Warhammer forty K
<v Speaker 3>like primer essentially on all the virtual world of forty
<v Speaker 3>K by our good Palin contributor Luis Gutierrez, and it
<v Speaker 3>looks really good. Good job design team they popped off
<v Speaker 3>on this one.
<v Speaker 4>I read that because I constantly feel like I don't
<v Speaker 4>understand Warhammer, and I enjoyed it quite a bit.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, say, Warhammer forty K is like it's it's space
<v Speaker 3>marines and Orcs Like, there's kind of like a bell
<v Speaker 3>curve to it where you start out as like, oh, there's,
<v Speaker 3>you know, kind of some cool stuff going on here.
<v Speaker 3>I like the imagery. I like space marines, I like orcs,
<v Speaker 3>Like that's kind of fun. You go up the bell
<v Speaker 3>curve and it's like tons of lore and knowledge and
<v Speaker 3>the Horus heresy and things like that, and you come
<v Speaker 3>back down the Bell curve, you're like man Orc's rule.
<v Speaker 3>They they literally manifest space power by yelling wog. That's awesome.
<v Speaker 1>The other thing I know about is that it's like
<v Speaker 1>Henry Cafell's favorite thing ever, and it's.
<v Speaker 3>All yeah, that and reloading his fists. You know, I'll
<v Speaker 3>never I'll never not think about that scene.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, yes, one more time. Game Informer dot com slash
<v Speaker 1>subscribe uh support Game Informer gets youself an issue, and
<v Speaker 1>of course, five percent of every magazine subscription goes towards
<v Speaker 1>supporting Saint Jude's Children Hospital, wonderful cause that we're very
<v Speaker 1>proud to hoop support. So yes, Crimson Desert Pearl abyssas
<v Speaker 1>giant single player RPG, the makers of such games like
<v Speaker 1>Black Desert Online and eventually and honestly guys. This is
<v Speaker 1>why I'm most excited that this game is because it
<v Speaker 1>means we're closer to them talking about dok av. There
<v Speaker 1>are other big rpg that looks awesome that it's gonna
<v Speaker 1>come out one day probably, I swear. But until then,
<v Speaker 1>we got to talk about Crimson Desert Haze. You have
<v Speaker 1>put upwards of one hundred hours into this thing. Your
<v Speaker 1>Rodar review, you scored the game a seven out of ten.
<v Speaker 1>There is a contingent of people online that probably are
<v Speaker 1>upset with you for that score, because for whatever reason,
<v Speaker 1>there's a I don't know, there's certain games like that
<v Speaker 1>that really gets that the community online really gets behind
<v Speaker 1>in a way where they really pour a lot of
<v Speaker 1>their hopes and dreams into certain games, to the point
<v Speaker 1>where when the game comes out and critics get their
<v Speaker 1>hands on it and they say it's just fine that it,
<v Speaker 1>it tends the way to irk them in a way
<v Speaker 1>that can be a little I don't know. It's it's
<v Speaker 1>it's it's it's it's a fascinating look at like the
<v Speaker 1>human Psyche.
<v Speaker 3>Sometime we'll say, if I may be so bold, it's
<v Speaker 3>it's a bit of a speculation thing like it it
<v Speaker 3>seems to happen fairly cyclically at this point and has
<v Speaker 3>has only gotten more and more like fever pitched since
<v Speaker 3>you know, a lot of speculation things have sprung up
<v Speaker 3>around the way that we consume stuff. But like, this
<v Speaker 3>is not too dissimilar from the likes of cyberpunk from
<v Speaker 3>I mean.
<v Speaker 2>I was gonna say witch a three.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I'm going to reach real far back for those
<v Speaker 3>in the audience that there are probably people reading about
<v Speaker 3>this hotly discussing this online who weren't around or who
<v Speaker 3>were too young for Fallout New Vegas back in the
<v Speaker 3>day that was a whole thing. So this is not new.
<v Speaker 3>In fact, this is frankly old hat for the industry.
<v Speaker 3>But h yeah, some people tie tie a lot of
<v Speaker 3>I don't know, they're their own faith, some belief system
<v Speaker 3>to whether a game scores well or not.
<v Speaker 2>And uh, I don't go play the game. I don't
<v Speaker 2>think idiot.
<v Speaker 3>I don't think anybody who ever scores a game poor
<v Speaker 3>is telling you that ten, right, which is good. It's
<v Speaker 3>also yeah, it's a seven out of ten. It earned
<v Speaker 3>more points than a loss, let's put it that way.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, And it seems to be relatively the consensus of
<v Speaker 1>running industry. There are some higher scores out there, but
<v Speaker 1>it seems like, no, I've not seen anyone say this
<v Speaker 1>is a bad game, Like it has not like earned
<v Speaker 1>an abysmal score. From what I've seen, it seems to
<v Speaker 1>be the general median seems to be it's fine. This
<v Speaker 1>game is just it's fine with some with some caveats.
<v Speaker 1>But heyce uh, you know, like I said, you put
<v Speaker 1>one hundred hours into this game, tell us all about it.
<v Speaker 1>What is it about Friends of Desert that so fine?
<v Speaker 1>I think the crux is that it feels a little
<v Speaker 1>messy and a lot of different regards. It's it's a
<v Speaker 1>little jumbled. It's hard to put this in my review
<v Speaker 1>that there are so many different elements to this game
<v Speaker 1>that it's almost hard to talk about it succinctly like
<v Speaker 1>it's an open world RPG, but it has this melee
<v Speaker 1>combat that is almost like Dynasty Warriors esque in the
<v Speaker 1>way that it's hack and slash, but then it integrates
<v Speaker 1>like these crazy physics elements and wrestling moves. And then
<v Speaker 1>outside of combat, you know, you have all the open
<v Speaker 1>world stuff you have on this exploration and this Zelda
<v Speaker 1>kind of puzzle solving you have this base building element
<v Speaker 1>as you reunite your allies the Gray Mans. You have
<v Speaker 1>side quests and gathering you have to chop wood and
<v Speaker 1>gather or for upgrading your weapons, all this stuff. So
<v Speaker 1>you know, this game started as a new MMO that
<v Speaker 1>Perlibis was making, and then it kind of transitioned into
<v Speaker 1>a single player RPG at some point, and you can,
<v Speaker 1>to me, you can still see the bones of that
<v Speaker 1>experience here in the way that it structures its quests.
<v Speaker 1>It's all very like a lot of a lot of
<v Speaker 1>kind of like fetch quests and go here to this
<v Speaker 1>point MMO quest design, right like you go to a point,
<v Speaker 1>watch a watch dialogue or a cutscene, go to another point,
<v Speaker 1>you have to gather a bunch of materials and it.
<v Speaker 4>You know, Final Fantasy sixteen kind of had this in
<v Speaker 4>the same way where it had that kind of like
<v Speaker 4>single player MMO design, and I can see that in
<v Speaker 4>this game too. It's just that Final Fantasy sixteen focused
<v Speaker 4>on being like a single player action game versus this
<v Speaker 4>focuses on being this expansive open world experience. And I
<v Speaker 4>think the exploration is what's really good in this That's
<v Speaker 4>what that's the part that really captured me because even
<v Speaker 4>though it's not quite as I guess, I don't want
<v Speaker 4>to well designed is what I'm going to say, But
<v Speaker 4>that's maybe not quite what I mean, right, But but
<v Speaker 4>for the Wild like really sign posts all of its
<v Speaker 4>content really well and it meticulously designs it out Crimson Desert.
<v Speaker 4>It's more about you stumble upon things as you're exploring.
<v Speaker 4>You're not you're not seeing it and then going to it,
<v Speaker 4>like in Breath of the Wild. You're just kind of
<v Speaker 4>stumbling upon it as you as you progress. But there's
<v Speaker 4>a bunch of little frustrations in this game that I
<v Speaker 4>think really hold it back from achieving greatness. And it's
<v Speaker 4>it's just this pile of things that stack up like
<v Speaker 4>Death by a Thousand cuts. Basically, like the inventory management
<v Speaker 4>is super frustrating. You don't really have a storage place
<v Speaker 4>for all your inventory. You start with a limited inventory.
<v Speaker 4>You get more inventory by buying items at shopkeepers to
<v Speaker 4>expand your bag, or you complete side question you get
<v Speaker 4>inventory expansion. We can talk about this. That was actually
<v Speaker 4>something that changed halfway through development or not development the
<v Speaker 4>review process. I mean, so inventory management was actually a
<v Speaker 4>lot more frustrating for like the first half of the
<v Speaker 4>time I was playing this game, it's admittedly quite better now.
<v Speaker 4>And then you have like the combat controls, which the
<v Speaker 4>skill tree of this game is really cool. It actually
<v Speaker 4>has one of the better skill trees I've ever seen
<v Speaker 4>in an RPG, especially in terms of how it like
<v Speaker 4>expands your combat options. But the problem with that then
<v Speaker 4>is that there are so many controls and so many
<v Speaker 4>combat options that while I enjoy how much you can do,
<v Speaker 4>I often found myself accidentally hitting the wrong button. So like,
<v Speaker 4>for example, there's a move that you have called blinding flash,
<v Speaker 4>where you hold your sword up and reflect light. You
<v Speaker 4>can use it in puzzles, you can use it to
<v Speaker 4>blind enemies, and it's you do it by hitting both
<v Speaker 4>bumpers at the same time. But during combat, you lock
<v Speaker 4>onto an enemy by hitting the left bumper and then
<v Speaker 4>the right bumper is your attack button. So if you're
<v Speaker 4>doing basic attacks occasionally you might accidentally use blinding flash instead,
<v Speaker 4>and I had this happen quite a few times.
<v Speaker 1>Can can you remap or like turn off commands at all,
<v Speaker 1>like in the combat.
<v Speaker 3>So there's an alternate like lock on. I don't know
<v Speaker 3>if it's an alternate lock on system or something, but
<v Speaker 3>you can hit down on the d pad to also
<v Speaker 3>do a like like a different because there's kind of
<v Speaker 3>like a free form, free flow lock on that you
<v Speaker 3>can have, or you can like just say single target
<v Speaker 3>this guy and that's that's down on the d pad.
<v Speaker 3>But that's also like a weird button to go down
<v Speaker 3>and hit when you're in the middle, like like in
<v Speaker 3>the middle of combat. Because like the pace of this
<v Speaker 3>game is so fascinating.
<v Speaker 2>I don't very fast paced, Yeah, I'm not.
<v Speaker 3>I'm not sure if there's button remapping on controller. I
<v Speaker 3>genuinely did not check.
<v Speaker 4>So right now, there's there's rebinds for keyboard mouse what
<v Speaker 4>there is not revines for controller yet, but I believe
<v Speaker 4>that's something that they're adding post launch, so it will come.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, is the uh the combat I'm curious most about,
<v Speaker 1>how to say, because that's the only So I played
<v Speaker 1>this game at games Come twenty twenty four, and the
<v Speaker 1>demo that I played it was more focused on just
<v Speaker 1>combat and a boss battle that it was about exploring
<v Speaker 1>the open world. And so I remember and I'm a
<v Speaker 1>big Stylus action game like I love crazy spectacle like
<v Speaker 1>fast spaced action, so I was excited for this game,
<v Speaker 1>and I remember playing a demo and immediately feeling that
<v Speaker 1>this combat was just it was just kind of a
<v Speaker 1>mess back then, like it was too chaotic, but it did.
<v Speaker 1>It was chaotic, but it didn't feel good. Like the
<v Speaker 1>it felt kind of floaty, it felt kind of like
<v Speaker 1>a little irresponsive, like the control like the actual configuration
<v Speaker 1>didn't make total sense to me, and like it didn't
<v Speaker 1>feel natural. And you know, you talk that up at
<v Speaker 1>the time to like, well, you know, this game is
<v Speaker 1>still very much and development. They're figuring it out. I
<v Speaker 1>told the demo West who was asking me my thoughts,
<v Speaker 1>I expressed all of this to him and was just
<v Speaker 1>but I walked away overall just kind of a little
<v Speaker 1>bummed out because that was one of the things I
<v Speaker 1>was most excited for for this game, especially when you
<v Speaker 1>because I've played a bit of Black Desert years ago,
<v Speaker 1>and I was like, oh, I feel like I like
<v Speaker 1>this better in Black Desert than I do here. I
<v Speaker 1>don't know what, you know, what what happened? Has that
<v Speaker 1>everything I have just expressed, has any of that ring
<v Speaker 1>true for you?
<v Speaker 2>Unfortunately? Yeah, I do.
<v Speaker 4>Combat is such a like like everything in this game,
<v Speaker 4>it's it's a very mixed bag, right, Like, there's things
<v Speaker 4>I really like about it. It has a lot of
<v Speaker 4>a lot of weight to it, and fighting a bunch
<v Speaker 4>of enemies is very fun, and especially as you unlock
<v Speaker 4>a ton of abilities later in the game, it can
<v Speaker 4>get really fun when you just can cause chaos. But
<v Speaker 4>the one of the game's biggest problems honestly is boss
<v Speaker 4>battles because this combat system is not does not feel
<v Speaker 4>great in one on one situations. The boss battles are
<v Speaker 4>frustrating in ways that don't feel fair a lot of times.
<v Speaker 4>A lot of the bosses feel almost over designed in
<v Speaker 4>a way, I guess is how I'd say, where they
<v Speaker 4>have all of these really big moves that can cause
<v Speaker 4>a lot of like area of effect damage or explosions
<v Speaker 4>that can damage you, and they have very very tight
<v Speaker 4>windows on when you can cause damage. And these genuinely
<v Speaker 4>some of the most frustrating boss battles I've played in years.
<v Speaker 1>In any game, what kind of boss? What is their
<v Speaker 1>approach to boss that are they going for? Like a
<v Speaker 1>if it's like a stylish action game, is ay thing
<v Speaker 1>like you just go in there and swing and maybe
<v Speaker 1>read some patterns or taking some souls inspiration where it's
<v Speaker 1>about animate like studying enemy patterns already, even doing like
<v Speaker 1>witch your style where you can you have the prepit
<v Speaker 1>advance or like you need specific you know, enhancements or
<v Speaker 1>things to deal with this enemy.
<v Speaker 2>Like, yeah, you're gonna need the prepid advance.
<v Speaker 3>You're gonna need to cook a lot of food because
<v Speaker 3>that is the healing system. I think you pointed out,
<v Speaker 3>Hayes in your review was another strange sprinkle in all this,
<v Speaker 3>and that you it has a very Skyrim healing system
<v Speaker 3>and that it's one of those you just start eating
<v Speaker 3>food halfway through a fight to recover health. And actually,
<v Speaker 3>fun fact for I've only played like a tenth of
<v Speaker 3>what you've played, because I was just playing this to
<v Speaker 3>get the gameplay.
<v Speaker 2>Capture for our video review.
<v Speaker 3>And I think it was about five hours in that
<v Speaker 3>I discovered that I had not been using healing and
<v Speaker 3>so I'd been going through some of those fights really
<v Speaker 3>just banging my head against the wall, not realizing that
<v Speaker 3>I could have been eating those delicious smoked eggs that
<v Speaker 3>I had bought from a shopkeeper. Uh, but yeah, that's
<v Speaker 3>what you just like hork food in the middle of
<v Speaker 3>a fight, and that's how you recover health. But that
<v Speaker 3>means you have to have food on you either bought
<v Speaker 3>from a shop keeper prepared, or you really need to.
<v Speaker 4>Prepare stuff because basic food does not heal hardly anything.
<v Speaker 4>The way you get stuff that heals a good amount
<v Speaker 4>is by cooking dishes.
<v Speaker 3>You clearly haven't eaten enough eggs. You gotta you gotta
<v Speaker 3>laid down those eggs.
<v Speaker 1>It kind of sounds like a little a little bit
<v Speaker 1>of like Zelda like Breath of the While a.
<v Speaker 4>Bit yeah, yeah, sure, yeah, but you I wish there was,
<v Speaker 4>like I really wish there was an option in this
<v Speaker 4>game to just like go in because you have to
<v Speaker 4>find a bonfire to cook first off, and I wish
<v Speaker 4>when you did that, you could just say like auto
<v Speaker 4>cook everything in my inventory optimized because you have to
<v Speaker 4>go in and you have to cook every single dish
<v Speaker 4>one by one, and you because you need so many
<v Speaker 4>healing items in the middle of this game. And you know,
<v Speaker 4>later in the it's a little better because you've improved
<v Speaker 4>all your stats and you have good items and you've
<v Speaker 4>upgraded all your weapons. But in the middle of this game,
<v Speaker 4>when you're kind of in that growing phase, like there
<v Speaker 4>are a few bosses that literally became do I have
<v Speaker 4>enough food to heal through the damage, And that was
<v Speaker 4>the only way I could beat them is if I
<v Speaker 4>simply had enough healing items to mitigate the damage enough
<v Speaker 4>that I could finish the battle, and in a few
<v Speaker 4>cases I didn't, so I had to go back out
<v Speaker 4>and collect food for an hour and cook stuff up,
<v Speaker 4>and then go back and do the same thing again.
<v Speaker 4>And that's kind of indicative of a lot of things
<v Speaker 4>in this game that I feel like. The number one
<v Speaker 4>thing I wish is that it respected your time a
<v Speaker 4>little more, because everything I like in this game is
<v Speaker 4>kind of padded out by it making you do a lot.
<v Speaker 4>I send my review that, like, I played this game
<v Speaker 4>for one hundred hours, but I kind of feel like
<v Speaker 4>it should have been more like sixty hours, just because
<v Speaker 4>like that food thing where you have to go and
<v Speaker 4>you have to collect a lot of food and cook everything,
<v Speaker 4>and I think, you know, I would have even preferred
<v Speaker 4>that I could just go buy a bunch of healing
<v Speaker 4>items at a store and then not think about it.
<v Speaker 4>And even the quest design, like so many of the
<v Speaker 4>quests are just ride to this point, do an objective
<v Speaker 4>ride to another point, and it kind of pads stuff out.
<v Speaker 4>Like the example I use in my review is the
<v Speaker 4>quest that you get to learn how to dye your clothes.
<v Speaker 4>You have an ally and they're like, hey, come to
<v Speaker 4>me to this die shop. We're going to learn how
<v Speaker 4>to die. You go there, and then you get to
<v Speaker 4>the shop and they're like, oh, sorry, we moved the
<v Speaker 4>cauldron that you use to dye stuff into town, so
<v Speaker 4>you got to go into town to use it. So
<v Speaker 4>you have to ride five minutes into town where they
<v Speaker 4>moved it and then create the dyes and then you
<v Speaker 4>use them and get the ability to die, and there's like, okay,
<v Speaker 4>go back to the die shop to die your items
<v Speaker 4>to finish the quest. So it's another five minutes to
<v Speaker 4>go back to the die shop, and this quest ends
<v Speaker 4>up taking like fifteen to twenty minutes in total, when realistically,
<v Speaker 4>like you could.
<v Speaker 2>Have just gone to the die shop and learned how
<v Speaker 2>to die and that's it.
<v Speaker 3>It's it's like very MMO design, and that way, like
<v Speaker 3>that exact quest progression would not feel out of place
<v Speaker 3>to me and say a Final Fantasy fourteen expansion or
<v Speaker 3>something like that. But I think the key difference here
<v Speaker 3>is there's also a deliberate haste to the game A
<v Speaker 3>very A lot of people have drawn comparisons to either
<v Speaker 3>Dragon's Dogma or red Ded Redemption two in terms of this,
<v Speaker 3>this game really wants to lean into the heft of things.
<v Speaker 3>The weight of things. In combat, it's very yeah, yeah, yeah.
<v Speaker 3>In combat, it's very fast, frenetic. You're doing superhuman things.
<v Speaker 3>I personally like combat unlocked for me when I learned
<v Speaker 3>how to wrestle and I was doing.
<v Speaker 2>Just wrestling stuff is phenomenal. That that stuff's awesome. The
<v Speaker 2>second I was.
<v Speaker 1>Can you name a wrestling move that appears in this game?
<v Speaker 3>Stone cold stunner is the one where you do the
<v Speaker 3>run up and you grab them and you boom and
<v Speaker 3>that that one goes crazy hard. I did that to
<v Speaker 3>a boss and I have never felt cooler.
<v Speaker 4>You like pile drive people through walls and they explode,
<v Speaker 4>and it's like, okay, genuinely really good bombastic stuff.
<v Speaker 3>In our review and maybe in the b roll footage
<v Speaker 3>they'll be showing alongside that, I show some footage of
<v Speaker 3>when I finally went into the skill tree and was like, okay,
<v Speaker 3>let's unlock some combat skills. Let's do that, And I
<v Speaker 3>got some wrestling moves, and at one point I throw
<v Speaker 3>a guy through a tent that then knocks over a
<v Speaker 3>brazier and lights the entire tent on fire. And I
<v Speaker 3>was like, that's like, like they're this game has really
<v Speaker 3>really good system interactions and ideas, like like it really
<v Speaker 3>does capture those moments.
<v Speaker 1>But what can you that two tables and light them
<v Speaker 1>on fire?
<v Speaker 3>No, you cannot stack two table? Well yeah, you know what, Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>I think you could try. Yeah, and someone prove us wrong,
<v Speaker 3>stack two tables and light them on fire. But to
<v Speaker 3>the earlier point, like there is a deliberateness in terms
<v Speaker 3>of you have to early game, you don't have a
<v Speaker 3>lot of fast travel access. You have to find the
<v Speaker 3>fast travel access literally and you often you solve a
<v Speaker 3>puzzle or something in the process of doing so. And
<v Speaker 3>I could not find any sort of you know, to
<v Speaker 3>make a dragon's dogma comparison a carriage service or anything
<v Speaker 3>like that where I could toss some coins to somebody
<v Speaker 3>to say, hey, take me to this town or something
<v Speaker 3>like that. It seemed like the intention was mostly go
<v Speaker 3>on foot, go on horseback, and it's it's like a
<v Speaker 3>moderately you know, fast pace, but it's still going to
<v Speaker 3>take you probably about five ten minutes to get anywhere
<v Speaker 3>from from one quest point to another in the game,
<v Speaker 3>and you end up retreading a lot of the same paths.
<v Speaker 3>You end up having to kind of stop and check
<v Speaker 3>your map and be like, Okay, where am I And
<v Speaker 3>I don't feel like it's grabbing the immersion that it
<v Speaker 3>wants to. I feel like it is just kind of
<v Speaker 3>increasing the tedium. I feel like it needed to either
<v Speaker 3>move the needle further one way or move the needle
<v Speaker 3>further the other way, either like make it a lot
<v Speaker 3>easier to do and give you more fast travel right
<v Speaker 3>off the bat, things like that, or push it the
<v Speaker 3>other direction and say, like you don't have a mini map,
<v Speaker 3>you have to look at a paper map and say,
<v Speaker 3>if they said you got to go really hard into
<v Speaker 3>the immersion aspect, then maybe I'm getting like a little
<v Speaker 3>bit more on board with it. But it feels like
<v Speaker 3>it's kind of straddling the middle line there, and I.
<v Speaker 4>Think the extra weird part there. I've seen a lot
<v Speaker 4>of people say, like, this isn't supposed to be a
<v Speaker 4>story game, right, a story focused game. It's an open
<v Speaker 4>world exploration game. But the key thing there is that
<v Speaker 4>this does kind of want to be a store game
<v Speaker 4>because the main story is very like single player RPG
<v Speaker 4>cutscene focused, very traditional story, and that kind of clashes
<v Speaker 4>against the open world immersion element a lot of times
<v Speaker 4>because the standard story is very linear, very boss battle focused,
<v Speaker 4>a lot of dialogue that doesn't really mean anything because
<v Speaker 4>this game does not take time to delve into its
<v Speaker 4>characters or tell you who they are, give them.
<v Speaker 1>Things like that, what is the like premise of this game,
<v Speaker 1>Like can you just touch on, like like who's the protagonist?
<v Speaker 1>What's his deal?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so, Lyff, let's talk about Cliff.
<v Speaker 4>The basic setup is you play as Cliff, who's a
<v Speaker 4>member of what's called the Gray Manes, which is kind
<v Speaker 4>of in the the country of paylun with. They're kind
<v Speaker 4>of like noble Viking warrior mercenaries, right, Like, they're kind
<v Speaker 4>of peacekeepers in pay. And there's another faction called the
<v Speaker 4>Black Bears that ambushes your company one night and kills you.
<v Speaker 4>It's not spoiler, it happens literally at the beginning of
<v Speaker 4>the game. They kill you, Cliff, and they scatter your
<v Speaker 4>forces and you kind of get resurrected by this supernatural entity.
<v Speaker 4>You don't really know what it is and go to
<v Speaker 4>this place called the Abyss, which are these floating islands
<v Speaker 4>in the sky of the world, and you get this
<v Speaker 4>directive essentially to like put the world right and fight
<v Speaker 4>whatever forces are kind of disrupting the Abyss and save
<v Speaker 4>high well the world. You learn a little bit more
<v Speaker 4>about that, but this game never really explains exactly what's
<v Speaker 4>going on or what the Abyss is or things like that.
<v Speaker 4>But essentially your main goal at the start is to
<v Speaker 4>reunite the Gray Manes and rebuild your organization, and then
<v Speaker 4>halfway through that focus kind of shifts onto more like
<v Speaker 4>supernatural story kind of stuff. That's kind of the basic setup.
<v Speaker 4>But Cliff is a bizarre character because he's almost a
<v Speaker 4>silent protagonist. He does have dialogue, but you never learn
<v Speaker 4>anything about his past really outside of a few couple elements,
<v Speaker 4>and most of the time his dialogue is people talking
<v Speaker 4>to him and him going hmm or that's weird or
<v Speaker 4>things like that. He's just like just reacts.
<v Speaker 3>He's like a nerve ending of a protagonist that like
<v Speaker 3>if you hit him with the hammer, the knee kick,
<v Speaker 3>like the leg kicks, but it's it's kind of like
<v Speaker 3>stopping at that point where I don't in the beginning,
<v Speaker 3>like the very start of the game, which is very
<v Speaker 3>I don't know if you even want to call it
<v Speaker 3>in media arrests. It's just you open with one of
<v Speaker 3>your comrades has fallen and everybody's kind of mourning them
<v Speaker 3>and things like that. You don't have any context for
<v Speaker 3>who this person was or what has happened to lead
<v Speaker 3>to it. Yeah, yeah, it's it is a very sudden opening,
<v Speaker 3>which I felt like I was a little fish out
<v Speaker 3>of water for and I was like, okay, I'll give
<v Speaker 3>them some some grace, some leway, let's let's see where
<v Speaker 3>it goes. And you have a brief moment of Cliff,
<v Speaker 3>you know, mourning this this comrade, and then immediately you
<v Speaker 3>have all the stuff that Hayes was just talking about
<v Speaker 3>where the company gets scattered to the winds and you
<v Speaker 3>kind of just start doing stuff. And that's maybe one
<v Speaker 3>of the weirder parts of the early story of this
<v Speaker 3>game is that there aren't really a lot of NPCs
<v Speaker 3>telling you, hey go do this next, Hey go do
<v Speaker 3>this next. There's a lot of the UI telling you
<v Speaker 3>this is where you go next to continue the story,
<v Speaker 3>and I felt it made me start to realize, like
<v Speaker 3>Cliff is not really a person that's involved in the
<v Speaker 3>story in a significant way. He's He's just he's there
<v Speaker 3>to be the player character. And I'm sure there's probably
<v Speaker 3>some deeper stuff the further in I get, because again
<v Speaker 3>I've played a small amount of this game compared to
<v Speaker 3>what Hayes has played.
<v Speaker 4>But we're going to point out too that there's two
<v Speaker 4>other playable characters in this game.
<v Speaker 2>That you unlock us and you can kind of like
<v Speaker 2>one between them.
<v Speaker 4>At any time, like GTA four or sorry GT five style,
<v Speaker 4>where you like select them and you pan out into
<v Speaker 4>the whole map and then zoom into the next character,
<v Speaker 4>and they have their their own skill trees, their own weapons,
<v Speaker 4>all of their own stuff. But I didn't really play
<v Speaker 4>as them much because one, they're not really as good
<v Speaker 4>as Cliff in anything. They don't have as good as
<v Speaker 4>traversal abilities, and they don't have as good as combat abilities.
<v Speaker 4>And also like the upgrade items that you guess these
<v Speaker 4>abyss artifacts that you find and you know, you find
<v Speaker 4>them through puzzles and you find them in the world
<v Speaker 4>and you kind of a crou them as you beat
<v Speaker 4>enemies too, but they're so limited that. I never found
<v Speaker 4>any reason that I would use them to upgrade these
<v Speaker 4>other characters when I need to update Cliff to because
<v Speaker 4>he's you have to use him in.
<v Speaker 2>All the main stories in story missions. Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I was going to ask, like, what what purpose
<v Speaker 1>did the other playable characters serve in the story? Did
<v Speaker 1>they have their own narrative beats like and is there
<v Speaker 1>points in a story where they push you to like
<v Speaker 1>you're gonna want to be this person? Or do they matter?
<v Speaker 4>They have their beats in the story, and each one
<v Speaker 4>specifically has one battle where you have to play as them,
<v Speaker 4>and that's it. Other than that, they're just kind of
<v Speaker 4>there if you want to do it. And I guess
<v Speaker 4>so you finish the main story and you get more
<v Speaker 4>artifacts and stuff, maybe you can invest in their skill
<v Speaker 4>trees more and play as them. You can also, again
<v Speaker 4>this wasn't there when I started reviewing the game, but
<v Speaker 4>there's now an option to summon them so they can
<v Speaker 4>help you in battle, but it only works in the
<v Speaker 4>open world. You can't some of them during main story
<v Speaker 4>missions or anything like that.
<v Speaker 1>That's such a weird approach for like, it just sounds
<v Speaker 1>like they're just a step above what would normally be
<v Speaker 1>a regular RPG party member, Regius just hang out with you.
<v Speaker 1>But it feels like, I mean, maybe going back to
<v Speaker 1>the criticism of this game is trying to be everything
<v Speaker 1>and like Jack of all Trades Master of None, where
<v Speaker 1>it feels like peerl Abiss looked at GTA five and
<v Speaker 1>was like, Wow, that's cool, let's do that too, But
<v Speaker 1>we're not gonna We're not gonna put the work in
<v Speaker 1>that Rockstar did to make all three characters be fully
<v Speaker 1>fleshed out personalities with their own fleshed out story arcs,
<v Speaker 1>and also make the effort to weave their stories together
<v Speaker 1>to make it to justify why we have three different
<v Speaker 1>playable characters. It sounds like we did the work of
<v Speaker 1>you're gonna switch between three, but really Cliff is the
<v Speaker 1>only one that actually matters, so there's little incentive to
<v Speaker 1>play the other two. We just thought it'd be cool
<v Speaker 1>because you know, like we we thought about whether or
<v Speaker 1>not we could do it, whether or not then rather
<v Speaker 1>than should we do it? You know.
<v Speaker 4>I think that's the story of this game is like
<v Speaker 4>it looked at all of these different open world games
<v Speaker 4>and what they did and said, that's cool. We want
<v Speaker 4>to do that and kind of threw it in. You know,
<v Speaker 4>it has like exploration of Breath of the Wild and
<v Speaker 4>some of the like esoteric elements Dragon's Dogma and has
<v Speaker 4>that character thing like GTA, and has side quests like
<v Speaker 4>Witch or three, and it does all this stuff, but
<v Speaker 4>everything kind of has an unrefined element to it. There's
<v Speaker 4>a little bit of frustration with almost everything. And I
<v Speaker 4>think that had the game really focused in on a
<v Speaker 4>specific set of things it wanted to do, it'd be
<v Speaker 4>stronger for it. There's just, like you said, it does
<v Speaker 4>too much. It's spread too thin, and it doesn't really
<v Speaker 4>master anything. Even though the one thing I will say
<v Speaker 4>is like technically it's incredibly impressive, Like the engine is
<v Speaker 4>crazy impressive. Graphically it's impressive. This entire world is rendered
<v Speaker 4>as one, like you load into the game and everything
<v Speaker 4>is just there. There's no loading screens outside of that
<v Speaker 4>first load or unless you fast travel them.
<v Speaker 2>You have a fast travel thing.
<v Speaker 4>And just the scope of it and the world itself
<v Speaker 4>is gorgeous. So technically it's really good, but in terms
<v Speaker 4>of like gameplay design, it just feels like it doesn't
<v Speaker 4>master any one thing.
<v Speaker 3>I feel like this is this is a game I
<v Speaker 3>would have loved in college, maybe if I could only
<v Speaker 3>buy one game for the semester, and I just want
<v Speaker 3>to have something that I could return to over and
<v Speaker 3>over and over again. I mean, that's what Skyrim was
<v Speaker 3>for me in a lot of ways. And this certainly
<v Speaker 3>scratches a Skyrin itch in my brain of I'm never
<v Speaker 3>going to run out of things to do here. I'm
<v Speaker 3>never going to want for something some activity to pursue
<v Speaker 3>in this game. And you know, some of them are decently,
<v Speaker 3>like like good fun. You know, the combat, I think,
<v Speaker 3>like going to clear out bases and things like that,
<v Speaker 3>you can just have some fun wrastling and then doing
<v Speaker 3>some cool moves and things like that. But also it
<v Speaker 3>just it doesn't really reach the heights. And I think
<v Speaker 3>that's where it falls a little bit short for me,
<v Speaker 3>Like Hayes was saying, is that I feel like it's
<v Speaker 3>missing that that key X factor, whether that is having
<v Speaker 3>a character like Gerald or Arthur Morgan at the center,
<v Speaker 3>or whether that is having a little bit more intentionality
<v Speaker 3>behind the high fantasy and the vibes that are happening.
<v Speaker 3>There's some really cool sites that you can see in
<v Speaker 3>this game. I went to Scolasti Zone is like the
<v Speaker 3>scholar cities.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and that was really good to look fair every year. Yes, Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>that's that's where the book fair is. That's that's where
<v Speaker 3>I thought I kept it underpants. Yeah it's and that's
<v Speaker 3>like a really cool city and you go there and
<v Speaker 3>you start talking to people and you suddenly realize they're
<v Speaker 3>these systems going on and all these sorts of things
<v Speaker 3>that you can do and explore that are really really
<v Speaker 3>cool and exciting. It's just missing that like thematic connective
<v Speaker 3>glue that that makes it all like I'm doing this
<v Speaker 3>for a purpose, and instead it ends up being I'm
<v Speaker 3>doing this because I want to play a video game
<v Speaker 3>right now. And that can certainly state a need, but
<v Speaker 3>I don't think that makes it something that's going to
<v Speaker 3>be particularly memorable for me in the long run.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, And like I feels like, oh no, you go ahead, heads.
<v Speaker 4>I was gonna say, like, I played one hundred and
<v Speaker 4>ten hours of this game. I had a good time.
<v Speaker 4>I don't regret that I played it. It's the kind
<v Speaker 4>of thing you're gonna play and you're like it's good.
<v Speaker 4>I had fun. But I don't think i'll ever go
<v Speaker 4>back to it, and I may not think of it
<v Speaker 4>in five years and say, oh, this was so good
<v Speaker 4>versus like I've played Breath of the Wild three times,
<v Speaker 4>and I've played the Witcher four A Witcher three three times.
<v Speaker 2>You played the Witch four. I wish i'd played, But
<v Speaker 2>I've played both of those.
<v Speaker 4>Games multiple times because I just love going back to
<v Speaker 4>those worlds. This is not a game that I think
<v Speaker 4>I will do that with. I will play it once
<v Speaker 4>and I will say that was good, and I will
<v Speaker 4>move on.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I think a lot of because I've seen I
<v Speaker 1>don't know what you guys think of this, this take
<v Speaker 1>from I don't know, we'll say the more ornery gamers
<v Speaker 1>out there about this game, or it seems like the
<v Speaker 1>one taking the most offense that the middling reaction to
<v Speaker 1>this game is that, well, a lot of things you're criticizing.
<v Speaker 1>I could say the same about Elden Ringer, or or
<v Speaker 1>the modern Zelda games, or or even maybe to a
<v Speaker 1>lesser extent, Dragon's Dogma. And I I look at those
<v Speaker 1>and I think, well, I think there's an inherent flaw
<v Speaker 1>of like in some cases it's the little apples and oranges.
<v Speaker 1>But also I think those games are like, yeah, they're
<v Speaker 1>big games, but they're also infinitely more focused comparatively to
<v Speaker 1>what this game is trying to do. And Eric you
<v Speaker 1>like you got.
<v Speaker 3>I'm going to be nice. I'm going to hold the
<v Speaker 3>audience's hand while I say this. Elden Ring is one
<v Speaker 3>of the most narratively dense games of the last few years.
<v Speaker 3>Like frum Soft does not skimp on the deep lore
<v Speaker 3>the world building. There are literal video channels in the dozens,
<v Speaker 3>if not hundreds, dedicated to breaking apart this lore and
<v Speaker 3>analyzing it and how all these item descriptions and things
<v Speaker 3>come together to create this grander world. And for what
<v Speaker 3>it's worth, I think Crimson Desert has some ideas in
<v Speaker 3>that realm.
<v Speaker 2>It has some of that lore too.
<v Speaker 3>I'm a I'm a big fan of the learning mechanic
<v Speaker 3>because there's something honestly, if they lean into this personality
<v Speaker 3>aspect of Cliff, I would have enjoyed Cliff a little
<v Speaker 3>bit more. When you look at something you like slowly,
<v Speaker 3>you have a progress bar that goes up and then
<v Speaker 3>you learn it and you're like, aha, I've learned it,
<v Speaker 3>and this is for everything.
<v Speaker 2>So at one point I was a milk and you
<v Speaker 2>get a cover. Yeah, milk.
<v Speaker 3>He's like, I learned what milk is, and I'm like,
<v Speaker 3>that's I kind of wish Cliff, what is milk. It's
<v Speaker 3>it's a It's a white, slightly viscous liquid that uh
<v Speaker 3>is used for cereal. I suppose, uh, I guess usually
<v Speaker 3>didn't have cereal in in Crimson Desert, not that I know,
<v Speaker 3>but yeah.
<v Speaker 1>One of the things the game doesn't have is serious.
<v Speaker 3>Oh it's barley, uh, lentils a lot of a lot
<v Speaker 3>of the grains.
<v Speaker 2>Uh No, it's a lot of me in this game.
<v Speaker 3>I think the learning mechanic is really cool because it
<v Speaker 3>does encourage curiosity, encourages you to go look get things.
<v Speaker 3>You'll get that little bar loading up, or you'll see
<v Speaker 3>somebody doing something in combat and it'll go into like
<v Speaker 3>a weird uh blue bullet time effect where you're watching
<v Speaker 3>them do something and then Cliff is like, I think
<v Speaker 3>I could do that too, and you like learn you.
<v Speaker 4>Have an example of like I wish they'd leaned into
<v Speaker 4>Cliff in a little more of this way very quick.
<v Speaker 4>There's like a little quest you take where two of
<v Speaker 4>your gray Manes have a disputed about soup and they
<v Speaker 4>want better soup. So you go out with one of
<v Speaker 4>them to get soup and you got to go get ingredients,
<v Speaker 4>and you like, you gotta get meat. And then she's like, oh,
<v Speaker 4>we got to get vegetables too, and Cliff goes, no
<v Speaker 4>vegetables and she's like, yeah, soop without vegetables, and then
<v Speaker 4>Cliff just goes, it's meat soup, just dead.
<v Speaker 1>That's it. It's just he's a big fan of constantpation.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>Like honestly, if they leaned into Cliff as as like
<v Speaker 3>a bit of a meathead a little bit more, I
<v Speaker 3>kind of would have found because at least that's a
<v Speaker 3>personality trait, you know. That's that's that's like a personality
<v Speaker 3>that someone can have. I'm not saying it's it's a
<v Speaker 3>good or a bad one, but it is one to have.
<v Speaker 1>And that's kind of a.
<v Speaker 3>Four year old Yeah, yeah, that he needs ketchup when
<v Speaker 3>he eats steak, like that sort of thing. Like I'll
<v Speaker 3>rock with that because it's better than nothing. But like
<v Speaker 3>I think, to be frank, a lot of discussion like
<v Speaker 3>this is happening because people have, for whatever reason, built
<v Speaker 3>expectations or hopes that this game will be something that
<v Speaker 3>they want uh. I don't really know if there's a
<v Speaker 3>pre order situation around this stuff. I personally think the
<v Speaker 3>pre ordering games in this day and age is kind
<v Speaker 3>of strange unless you're trying to get some sort of
<v Speaker 3>physical collector's edition or something like that. But if you're
<v Speaker 3>if you're just trying to get a game on launched
<v Speaker 3>age by it on launch day, it's we don't have
<v Speaker 3>scarcity in the digital age, but it's I I also
<v Speaker 3>think there's a degree of people lobbing expectations on a
<v Speaker 3>game that they themselves have not played yet, is what
<v Speaker 3>I will say. And I almost kind of wish there
<v Speaker 3>was a demo situation or something like that to where
<v Speaker 3>people could play this, play the first couple hours and
<v Speaker 3>kind of maybe start to see some of the like
<v Speaker 3>where this is coming from, and get their own sense
<v Speaker 3>of whether they still rock with it or not, because
<v Speaker 3>I don't think it's a failing to want to enjoy
<v Speaker 3>this game or anything like that. There are plenty of
<v Speaker 3>good critics I know who really really like this game,
<v Speaker 3>and I'm somebody who's a little bit more on the
<v Speaker 3>lukewarm side, and that's natural. That is how we interpret
<v Speaker 3>arts and then express our opinions to each other, and
<v Speaker 3>there doesn't need to be this whole justifying and rigmarole around,
<v Speaker 3>like we need to ascertain the objective truth of what
<v Speaker 3>this thing is. No, it's like we're all having opinions
<v Speaker 3>about this thing that we are reacting to. That's normal
<v Speaker 3>human experience.
<v Speaker 1>So yeah, and even some of the criticism again to
<v Speaker 1>go back to the well what about this and that,
<v Speaker 1>it's like, I mean, again, everything's subjective, like you said,
<v Speaker 1>but I think when you're comparing it's something like the
<v Speaker 1>modern Zelda as an Elder Ring or red De Redemption too, whatever,
<v Speaker 1>because those games are just again comparatively smaller to this game,
<v Speaker 1>which is kind of wild to say about those games,
<v Speaker 1>but because of there are a lot more focused they
<v Speaker 1>they do to things that they're trying to do better,
<v Speaker 1>Like they excel at most, if not all, of what
<v Speaker 1>they're trying to do, whether it's storytelling, whether it's combat,
<v Speaker 1>whether it's puzzle solving. It's such a high degree that
<v Speaker 1>it's why we hold those games in high regard. Like
<v Speaker 1>Wichard three is an incredible role playing experience, red De
<v Speaker 1>Redemption is an incredible, incredible narrative experience. Breath the Zelda
<v Speaker 1>games are incredible like just exploration, puzzle solving experiences, where
<v Speaker 1>again going back to what you guys have said about
<v Speaker 1>this game, where it's trying to do so much and
<v Speaker 1>it's spreads itself so thin that it doesn't It only
<v Speaker 1>does maybe a hand a couple of things exceptionally well,
<v Speaker 1>and everything else it does okay, or maybe in some
<v Speaker 1>cases just badly. And that's maybe one of the key differences.
<v Speaker 1>It's like, yeah, on paper, there they're going for the
<v Speaker 1>same things, but this game is is burdening itself by
<v Speaker 1>trying to be everything, and so it's like it's sinking
<v Speaker 1>by the weight of its own ambition, you know.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I think that's exactly it. Yeah, I will say
<v Speaker 4>I do think this is a case of like I
<v Speaker 4>think the fact that it has all that is a
<v Speaker 4>kind of a core design issue. But I do think
<v Speaker 4>this is going to be like a Final Fantasy fifteen
<v Speaker 4>situation as well, where like one two years down the road,
<v Speaker 4>I think they've probably this game could be fairly different
<v Speaker 4>after patches and updates and things like that, but that
<v Speaker 4>doesn't you know, that doesn't negate how the game is
<v Speaker 4>at this moment, and I don't think it will assuage
<v Speaker 4>all of those issues in terms of doing too much
<v Speaker 4>like that.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's kind of what I'm wondering. Like, I haven't
<v Speaker 1>played the game yet, and I'm almost tempted to like, like, oh,
<v Speaker 1>I'll play it as it is, but I'm almost tempted
<v Speaker 1>to like largely leave it alone for the next six
<v Speaker 1>months because I don't know if they've announced their post
<v Speaker 1>launch like support plans. I haven't really kept up. But
<v Speaker 1>it is, like I said, this does have the potential
<v Speaker 1>to be like if they address some things through updates,
<v Speaker 1>it could be a it just be a better experience overall.
<v Speaker 1>But that's also like again I don't know what they've
<v Speaker 1>talked about on that subject, like no promises. I guess
<v Speaker 1>on that either. But yeah, but like I said, like
<v Speaker 1>anyone that might be throwing their their shoe at the
<v Speaker 1>screen right now, it's like it doesn't sound like any
<v Speaker 1>of us, or at least you two, because you've played it.
<v Speaker 1>No one's saying that this is a bad game. First
<v Speaker 1>of all, if we said it was a bad game,
<v Speaker 1>it really shouldn't stop you from you know, we're not
<v Speaker 1>telling you to not go play it. Do what you want.
<v Speaker 2>You can know any bad games. I like a lot
<v Speaker 2>of bad game Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, really.
<v Speaker 3>One of my favorite games of all time is a
<v Speaker 3>notoriously like it had a terrible launch. It was Bugrind,
<v Speaker 3>it was a Vampire the Mass, Great Bloodlines. It had
<v Speaker 3>a raw launch and a really rough state. It's still
<v Speaker 3>if you don't patch it, it's in a rough state.
<v Speaker 3>But I love that game nonetheless. So it's it's enjoy
<v Speaker 3>what you enjoy, and then also, I don't know, seek
<v Speaker 3>out other opinions to just kind of widen your scope
<v Speaker 3>of what other people enjoy. That's the whole endeavor at
<v Speaker 3>the end of the day. So yeah, honestly, we all
<v Speaker 3>had the same opinion be kind of boring.
<v Speaker 2>So yeah, which.
<v Speaker 1>I mean that happens sometimes. But sometimes games are either
<v Speaker 1>that good or that flawed where everyone kind of lines
<v Speaker 1>up in the in the same way where we're like,
<v Speaker 1>I don't know, but again, I mean, if anything, it
<v Speaker 1>seems like most people again are kind of lined up
<v Speaker 1>in me it's fine camp, It's it's fine, like there
<v Speaker 1>is enjoyment to be had with some with caveats. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>well that's Crimson Desert everyone. It is out now at
<v Speaker 1>the time that you were watching or listening to this. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>let us know what you think of the game if
<v Speaker 1>you've already dived into it, and you know, if you
<v Speaker 1>agree or disagree with some of the points raised here.
<v Speaker 1>But yeah, this is definitely I feel like this is
<v Speaker 1>going to be. I wonder, like how much of a
<v Speaker 1>talker this game will be like six months from now, well,
<v Speaker 1>you know, like again if they continue to support it
<v Speaker 1>or as people continue to dig deeper and deeper into it,
<v Speaker 1>like I'm I'm really curiously where this game lands sort
<v Speaker 1>of like end of your discussions and stuff like that.
<v Speaker 3>Like, it's also a surprisingly packed window that it launched
<v Speaker 3>into that I don't think a lot of people anticipated,
<v Speaker 3>and I don't think you would have assumed, you know,
<v Speaker 3>six months ago that like Pocopia Marathon was the other
<v Speaker 3>game that hit in that exact release window that was
<v Speaker 3>also a big game. There's been a lot of Slay
<v Speaker 3>Aspire too early access. Yeah, yeah, there's there's been a
<v Speaker 3>lot of games hitting recently like that that are pretty
<v Speaker 3>big attention getters, that are pretty big, notable releases that
<v Speaker 3>have garnered a lot of public attention and stuff, And
<v Speaker 3>so there's no shortage of other stuff. You want a
<v Speaker 3>playb you don't like Crimson Dessert. If you don't like
<v Speaker 3>that other stuff, you might like Crimson Desert. But like,
<v Speaker 3>we're not hurting for games. But that also means that, Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>that's it's already a bit of a crowded year in games,
<v Speaker 3>which is fun, it's exciting. I love that, but definitely
<v Speaker 3>makes you wonder what December is going to look like.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, for sure, Well how about we get off of pie.
<v Speaker 1>Well I believe that's the name of the world in
<v Speaker 1>Crimson Desert, correct, Yeah it is. Yeah, let's let's get
<v Speaker 1>on our rocket ship here and let's take to the
<v Speaker 1>stars because we're going to be talking now about something
<v Speaker 1>completely different, which is Starship Troopers Ultimate Bug War. The
<v Speaker 1>bugs are back, guys, can you believe it? And it's
<v Speaker 1>only it's up to the Federation to put them down again.
<v Speaker 1>I am they always come back. I've been playing a
<v Speaker 1>bit of this game, so this is a this is
<v Speaker 1>an interesting game. So this is a again Starship Troopers.
<v Speaker 1>If you don't know Starship Troopers one, you should go
<v Speaker 1>out of your way to go watch that movie nineteen
<v Speaker 1>ninety seven cult classic. It's also kind a book. I've
<v Speaker 1>never read the book, have you ever read Starstroopers, the
<v Speaker 1>book from like the fifties or sixties. I think it's
<v Speaker 1>from the fifties.
<v Speaker 3>I watched the movie for the first time during the pandemic,
<v Speaker 3>and that was my experience with Starship Troopers.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it is one of many nights.
<v Speaker 3>Like it during the pandemic where I was like, I
<v Speaker 3>am inside in doing nothing. What do I do right now?
<v Speaker 3>I might as well just watch a movie I haven't
<v Speaker 3>seen before, And I was like, I should probably watch
<v Speaker 3>Starship Troopers. I feel like I hear people talk about
<v Speaker 3>that pretty often. I should know what this thing is,
<v Speaker 3>and yeah, I've probably watched it several more times since then.
<v Speaker 3>It is cheesy, fun goodness. It's yeah, yeah, it is
<v Speaker 3>so campy, and I really do enjoy a good campy
<v Speaker 3>rop like that.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's satire increasingly relevant unfortunately these days. But yes,
<v Speaker 1>if you don't know Starship Troopers, it's largely about like
<v Speaker 1>just this uh uber Patriotic Earth Federation that is in
<v Speaker 1>this all encompassing intergna actually intergalactic war with these insect
<v Speaker 1>like aliens. But it's really just it's a satire about authoritarianism,
<v Speaker 1>about like elitism, uh, just like the the perils of
<v Speaker 1>like like like like late late late stage capitalism and
<v Speaker 1>just like uber patriotism. Uh if you are a hell
<v Speaker 1>Divers fan, you you are already a fan of Starship
<v Speaker 1>Troopers rather than realizing it, because Hell Divers draws basically
<v Speaker 1>everything about it from Starship Troopers the movie, which you know,
<v Speaker 1>even the developer Health Divers will tell you like, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>we really.
<v Speaker 2>Like Starship Troopers.
<v Speaker 1>We're not We're not hiding that. Uh So this game
<v Speaker 1>I was wondering because of how popular Hell Divers to
<v Speaker 1>and specifically was I was wondering what this game was
<v Speaker 1>going to be of, Like, are they gonna like, is
<v Speaker 1>it gonna like snake eating his tail? Like this is
<v Speaker 1>just gonna be Hell Divers but with the actual star
<v Speaker 1>Ship Trooper's license And the answer is basically no. So
<v Speaker 1>this is not a as far as not a multiplayer
<v Speaker 1>squad they shooter. This is a single player first person
<v Speaker 1>shooter where you are playing a Federation soldier. This is
<v Speaker 1>set I don't know where in the timelins. I know
<v Speaker 1>there's other Starship Troopers sequels that I've never seen. I
<v Speaker 1>think they're all like direct to DVD, but this is
<v Speaker 1>at least sometimes passed because they actually got Casper Van
<v Speaker 1>Dyne back as Johnny Rico, who is like the leader
<v Speaker 1>in this game, like he is the head of the
<v Speaker 1>Federation and right off the bat. One things I love
<v Speaker 1>about this game is that it has a heavy use
<v Speaker 1>of F and V. Like there are so many live
<v Speaker 1>action cutscenes that they have recorded with Johnny Rico who
<v Speaker 1>was speaking to you, and they break the fourth wall constantly.
<v Speaker 1>We're right off the bat, they're saying, hey, thanks for
<v Speaker 1>buying this video game. You are supporting the Federation by
<v Speaker 1>buying this video game, and through this video game, you
<v Speaker 1>are going to learn how to be a good Federation
<v Speaker 1>soldier and go out there and kill those bugs. And
<v Speaker 1>it's just a bunch of these actors just looking right
<v Speaker 1>down the barrel of.
<v Speaker 4>The lens manuel for Federation soldiers.
<v Speaker 1>I don't I don't even think it's that. There's a
<v Speaker 1>point in one of the scenes where they just flash
<v Speaker 1>the box art on screen. But maybe it's in universe,
<v Speaker 1>like maybe this game also exists in universe. I'm not sure.
<v Speaker 3>I like that that's a fun concept, like that you
<v Speaker 3>have bought the training simulation for being a Starship trooper
<v Speaker 3>and now you are like going through it.
<v Speaker 2>That's I like that, well, but.
<v Speaker 1>Then you're not because so the game focuses on the
<v Speaker 1>exploits of one soldier named Samantha Deads, who is also
<v Speaker 1>a present like there is a live actor portraying this person,
<v Speaker 1>but it is an older version this character, and the
<v Speaker 1>idea is like you are going to relive her career,
<v Speaker 1>so you're playing in the past or you're playing a
<v Speaker 1>younger version of her, Like you start with her in training,
<v Speaker 1>you go through the chaining sequences with her crew, and
<v Speaker 1>then you go out on your first few missions and
<v Speaker 1>it's just her being molded into I guess this acclaimed
<v Speaker 1>and accomplished soldier that she is when she's speaking to you,
<v Speaker 1>like but yeah, it's like, hey, come experience my story
<v Speaker 1>because I guess in universe, I'm one of the most
<v Speaker 1>decorated Federation soldiers and now you're gonna get to see why.
<v Speaker 1>So I don't know if it's a trading manual.
<v Speaker 2>Or just it's in universe propaganda.
<v Speaker 3>It's like this is this is definitely a same that
<v Speaker 3>they yeah, that they give to kids to be like
<v Speaker 3>this is great, go play this and then go be
<v Speaker 3>a hero. That sort of thing that that would be
<v Speaker 3>very on the nose, sadly.
<v Speaker 1>One of my favorite things about this game is that
<v Speaker 1>there are a bunch of like little ads in between
<v Speaker 1>the like Johnny Rico telling you how important it is
<v Speaker 1>to kill the bugs. Like there's a an ad where
<v Speaker 1>they're selling few cemetery plots for soldiers saying like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>you can reserve your now, or you can send us
<v Speaker 1>a bunch of money and we can cremate you and
<v Speaker 1>put your ashes in bullets so that even in death
<v Speaker 1>you can serve the Federation by taking out these bugs. Like,
<v Speaker 1>there's a lot of really good advertisements in this game
<v Speaker 1>that I've It's probably one of my favorite, like rewards
<v Speaker 1>for completing missions and just seeing another FMV like cutscene
<v Speaker 1>or whatever, especially because Johnny Rico, because he has an
<v Speaker 1>eye passion now he just looks like the one dude
<v Speaker 1>from Austin Powers that is like doctor Evil's main mention. Yes. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>but the game itself first person action. It's got like
<v Speaker 1>a very boomer shooter kind of look like it's got
<v Speaker 1>like nineties kind of like polygonal style graphics. Like all
<v Speaker 1>the other soldiers that are with you are all just
<v Speaker 1>like flat animated characters that I kind of dig in
<v Speaker 1>a very kind of like late nineties FPS era, and
<v Speaker 1>you're just dropped the knees big explorable hubs and you're
<v Speaker 1>just completing different missions where you'll land on a planet.
<v Speaker 1>You'll see multiple waypoints saying hey, go over here and
<v Speaker 1>do this, whether it's go over here and defend a
<v Speaker 1>point from a waves of bugs, or go over here
<v Speaker 1>and collect a bunch of explosives that you need to
<v Speaker 1>plant on these giant bugs that are launching basically mortars
<v Speaker 1>and the soldiers and like just complete all these objectives
<v Speaker 1>until we send it a ship to pick you up
<v Speaker 1>and you're done. So it's got a hell divers like
<v Speaker 1>structure and nap way. But just if it was single player,
<v Speaker 1>you can have like you can have soldiers follow you,
<v Speaker 1>Like you can kind of make a little squad by
<v Speaker 1>just pointing to someone and be like, hey, come here
<v Speaker 1>and they can help you out, or they'll follow you
<v Speaker 1>on your own. What's great up this game is that
<v Speaker 1>they're friendly fire too, So a lot of times I
<v Speaker 1>was like mowing down my own guys just because they've
<v Speaker 1>got in the way or they were in the vicinity
<v Speaker 1>of a grenade blast, and it's like oh well, there's
<v Speaker 1>a but just like the vibe of its game, it's
<v Speaker 1>so Starship Troopers and just the weird, just patriotic grunts
<v Speaker 1>and and like there's even a dedicated button for saying
<v Speaker 1>I'm doing my part, like you click the right stick
<v Speaker 1>and Samantha her she just does a little like fist
<v Speaker 1>animation and she'll just be like, I'm doing my part,
<v Speaker 1>and I'm like, I love that I can just do
<v Speaker 1>that at will. That's pretty great.
<v Speaker 2>They said the line. They did a good job.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and it you can make her say the line
<v Speaker 1>as much as you want.
<v Speaker 2>That's the line.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's I Does it feel I guess, meaningfully different
<v Speaker 3>from Hell Divers, because that's kind of my concern nowadays
<v Speaker 3>with the Starshipt Troopers game is that Hell Divers has
<v Speaker 3>kind of realized the fantasy, so to speak. And it
<v Speaker 3>does sound like a boomer shooter approach, like a doom
<v Speaker 3>or a quake style approach to this might be meaningfully
<v Speaker 3>different from what Hell Divers is is a sort of
<v Speaker 3>third person hord action hord shooter game type thing. Does
<v Speaker 3>it does feel meaningfully different?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah? And squad based?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Yeah, I think the boomer shooter kind of angle
<v Speaker 1>does make it feel different because it's not it's less
<v Speaker 1>squad based. It's it's less tactical, and it's more about
<v Speaker 1>it's got a little bit of a mousau feel, honestly,
<v Speaker 1>because you're gonna be shooting waves of bugs constantly, like
<v Speaker 1>they're coming at all angles. They're rushing you and you're
<v Speaker 1>just like armed to the teeth and just blowing them away.
<v Speaker 1>And depending on what difficulty you play on, like you
<v Speaker 1>can either like there's four difficulties. I started with the
<v Speaker 1>third one and it was like pretty challenging, and then
<v Speaker 1>I bumped it down to one because I wanted to
<v Speaker 1>be a little bit more like I think I just
<v Speaker 1>want to get in there just mindlessly modise guys down
<v Speaker 1>because it's just kind of satisfying because the shooting does
<v Speaker 1>feel pretty good. Uh, and it's like the weapons have
<v Speaker 1>a light of weight. There's some like nice recoil, like
<v Speaker 1>it feels like it's got a it packs a punch
<v Speaker 1>to like blow these these bugs apart. But yeah, it's
<v Speaker 1>got it's got that satisfying musau feel with a with
<v Speaker 1>the boomer shooter stuff to where it's a little you know,
<v Speaker 1>outside of just completing objectives it's just a little bit
<v Speaker 1>more mindless in a way that I actually kind of enjoy.
<v Speaker 1>Like there's one point where can get into those mechs
<v Speaker 1>and stomp around and just murderized like a thousand of
<v Speaker 1>these things, and that feels pretty good. And yeah, like
<v Speaker 1>combined with just the humor and just the silliness of it,
<v Speaker 1>it's actually like I'm having more fun with it than
<v Speaker 1>I thought I would. There's different bugs you can kill
<v Speaker 1>two Like, it's not just the main iracnids that I
<v Speaker 1>think most people recognize. There's like and I don't know
<v Speaker 1>if any of these were in the sequels. I don't
<v Speaker 1>know if they made these bugs up or if these
<v Speaker 1>already existed in the universe. But there's like these grasshopper
<v Speaker 1>kind of things that shoot acid at you, so that
<v Speaker 1>are more like ranged inene me. So There's these little
<v Speaker 1>like beetle guys that can sneak up on you. There's
<v Speaker 1>these larger giant like bugs that just I think I
<v Speaker 1>mentioned before, they just fire mortar type people. There's like
<v Speaker 1>boss bugs, like this big armored guy, and so there's
<v Speaker 1>like decent variety. Because I was a little worried that
<v Speaker 1>again I only have seen the first movie, but I
<v Speaker 1>largely just remember the big irackned guys, so it's like,
<v Speaker 1>you know, am I gonna get bored just shooting those
<v Speaker 1>over and over? So they do mix it up, and
<v Speaker 1>they mix it up like right off the bat to
<v Speaker 1>like the first mission, you're fighting like upwards to like
<v Speaker 1>four or five different enemy types, which is pretty neat.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know if that like how much that evolves
<v Speaker 1>throughout the game. Like again, I've only finished the first
<v Speaker 1>couple missions, but like to have that that much variety
<v Speaker 1>from the first mission was like promising it, so you know,
<v Speaker 1>hopefully it keeps kind of like layering it on. The
<v Speaker 1>other cool thing about this game, or at least interesting,
<v Speaker 1>is that you can play missions where you play as
<v Speaker 1>the bugs. So every time you okay, yeah, so every
<v Speaker 1>time you finish a human mission, it unlocks a corresponding
<v Speaker 1>bug mission, and in Universe they frame it as well,
<v Speaker 1>the only way to beat your enemy is to know
<v Speaker 1>your enemy, so we've set up these simulations where you
<v Speaker 1>can play as certain bug types. So like the first
<v Speaker 1>one I played, you don't even plays the iraqnan ones.
<v Speaker 1>I played it this weird, like it was a bug
<v Speaker 1>that I don't even think I fought yet, but it
<v Speaker 1>was like this weird long tail, like like a mix
<v Speaker 1>between like a beetle and a scorpion or something, but
<v Speaker 1>it could fly too, but it like the bug had
<v Speaker 1>different modes, and you were more doing a similar structure structure,
<v Speaker 1>but just from the other side of the coin where
<v Speaker 1>the goal was to terrorize Federation outposts. So you I
<v Speaker 1>was traveling from outpost to outposts and switching basically like
<v Speaker 1>transformations or stances, so like you can have like a
<v Speaker 1>tank stance where you're a little sturdier but you can
<v Speaker 1>shoot fire, or you can have the basic combat stance,
<v Speaker 1>which is more melee focus, or you can have the
<v Speaker 1>flying stands where you just sprout wings and that's primarily
<v Speaker 1>how you get around is flying around to these camps.
<v Speaker 1>But you can like dive bomb down and you you're
<v Speaker 1>just destroying all of their crap until you fill a
<v Speaker 1>meter where they're like they've been appropriately terrorized. Is you've
<v Speaker 1>destroyed all their homes and their and their weapons, and
<v Speaker 1>now they don't know what to do and you're just
<v Speaker 1>slaughtering all these little like two D soldiers running around.
<v Speaker 1>I don't like that as much as just the standard
<v Speaker 1>human emissions, but they're they're kind of like fun and
<v Speaker 1>just like almost like a Kaiju Godzilla way of just
<v Speaker 1>like I'm just gonna be a big dumb monster and
<v Speaker 1>go around and rext uh and and that kind of
<v Speaker 1>sums up the main appeal in this game, Like it's silly,
<v Speaker 1>it's it's it's just fun to get in there and
<v Speaker 1>just like blast Bugs and honestly, like either have a
<v Speaker 1>podcast on the background. Except for the cut scenes. You
<v Speaker 1>should absolutely watch those cut scenes because they're very funny.
<v Speaker 1>Uh and Yeah, it's just like it's just it's dumb
<v Speaker 1>fun Like it feels like if this had come out
<v Speaker 1>and like Arcades back in the day, it would it
<v Speaker 1>might be considered like a bit of a cult classic.
<v Speaker 1>But it's cool so far. Also for this is a
<v Speaker 1>dot em you published game. Yeah, have you ever played
<v Speaker 1>the Earth Defense Force games? Because this sounds like to me,
<v Speaker 1>sure I've played god I forget which one, but it
<v Speaker 1>was on three sixty. I I'm not I don't play
<v Speaker 1>the series, but I played one of them. But now
<v Speaker 1>that you mention it, yeah, I guess I could. I
<v Speaker 1>could see that. So, like I think if you h yeah,
<v Speaker 1>like cheesy, those games also have like a B movie
<v Speaker 1>like cheesy fun vibe too, right, Yeah, yeah, like I honestly, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I think if you if you're a fan of that, like,
<v Speaker 1>I think you could find some enjoyment here. There's probably
<v Speaker 1>that Finn diagram of EDF and Starship Trooper fans. It's
<v Speaker 1>probably pretty big, honestly, so I think EDF was partially
<v Speaker 1>inspired by Starship Troopers. Honestly it feels like it was. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>but uh yeah, I'm enjoying it. I don't know how
<v Speaker 1>much more I'll keep playing in it, but I could see,
<v Speaker 1>like because it's all mission based, like just checking in, like,
<v Speaker 1>oh I'm just gonna just gonna play a quick mission,
<v Speaker 1>just get in narrow, shoot some bugs. I do want
<v Speaker 1>to see what other weapons do unlock. But yeah, it's
<v Speaker 1>it's cool so far. It's a it's a totally like dumb,
<v Speaker 1>fun kind of game, and it's cool to see. I'm
<v Speaker 1>most happy that it is separating itself from Hell Divers
<v Speaker 1>honestly more than anything.
<v Speaker 2>Awesome.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, but yeah, BA is Starship Troopers Ultimate Bug War.
<v Speaker 1>It is also out now as of this week. It's
<v Speaker 1>on I believe basically everything I want to say. Maybe
<v Speaker 1>it's on switch. I mean check real quick check what
<v Speaker 1>it is on. It is on switch switch to specifically,
<v Speaker 1>which honestly was probably would be a fun littlewitch channel
<v Speaker 1>game was gonna yeah, but yeah, check it out if
<v Speaker 1>you Starship Troopers fan. Seems pretty neat. But yeah, we
<v Speaker 1>are gonna take a quick break and when we come back,
<v Speaker 1>we are going to be talking about some Pokemon pocopia
<v Speaker 1>as well as a Trange.
<v Speaker 2>Overlord will be range.
<v Speaker 1>Hey everyone, welcome back, and Hayes, you have been playing
<v Speaker 1>a game that I have not heard of, but I'm
<v Speaker 1>interested to hear about called a Trnge Overlord, which I
<v Speaker 1>believe is the correct pronunciation. Uh, can you confirm whether
<v Speaker 1>or not is how you pronounce it? And what the
<v Speaker 1>hell is.
<v Speaker 4>A Trnge Overlord? I believe it is a trnge. Yes,
<v Speaker 4>it's actually the new game from the creator of Dysgaya.
<v Speaker 1>Oh.
<v Speaker 4>He founded a studio called super Niche and it's been
<v Speaker 4>kind of working on working on this for a while,
<v Speaker 4>and he was writing stuff under a pen name. I
<v Speaker 4>think he's credited under his pen name in this. But yeah,
<v Speaker 4>it's very big disguia vibes. It has that same kind
<v Speaker 4>of like irreverent sense of humor almost.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I'm looking at it now. The character designs especially, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>character designs especially, Yeah. But it's a really nice, like
<v Speaker 1>short and sweet, really compact, twelve to fifteen hour RPG.
<v Speaker 1>What really impressed me is that, like it feels so
<v Speaker 1>impeccably designed, Like every little element of this game, from
<v Speaker 1>like progression to combat to the story pacing just kind
<v Speaker 1>of feels like perfectly fit together for that little compact experience. Essentially,
<v Speaker 1>it starts out with Atrong Trong von Ronsenberg is her name.
<v Speaker 1>She's like a noble in this sort art online asque
<v Speaker 1>kind of fantasy kingdom, and right at the very beginning
<v Speaker 1>of the game, she's falsely accused for assassin aiding the
<v Speaker 1>king and Queen and she's beheaded and goes to hell.
<v Speaker 1>Like literally that's the beginning of the game. E Trun's
<v Speaker 1>getting killed and going to Hell, and she's like she
<v Speaker 1>knows she's wrongfully there, and she kind of has this,
<v Speaker 1>you know, the anime trope of like the overpowered, overconfident hero.
<v Speaker 1>She's kind of that character where she's really confident in
<v Speaker 1>herself and she has really powerful magical abilities. So she
<v Speaker 1>goes to hell and She's like, oh, I was sent
<v Speaker 1>here wrongly, so I'm just going to I'm going to
<v Speaker 1>live a happy life in Hell, and I'm going to
<v Speaker 1>take over Hell and live a happy life. And that's
<v Speaker 1>what she does. She starts defeating the demons there and
<v Speaker 1>recruits them to her side, and she goes to fight
<v Speaker 1>the overlord of Hell and ultimately kind of go to
<v Speaker 1>Heaven eventually as well. There's some really is that how
<v Speaker 1>that works?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you can't fight her way out of Hell? Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>it's allowed.
<v Speaker 4>There's some okay, interesting religious elements in this game. I
<v Speaker 4>won't say it's like it's not this like huge thematic piece,
<v Speaker 4>but it definitely has some stuff to say about religion.
<v Speaker 4>But that's essentially kind of the structures. You fight through
<v Speaker 4>Hell and you take it over, and she doesn't want revenge.
<v Speaker 4>She literally just wants to live a happy life and
<v Speaker 4>just and you recruit all these demons who are kind
<v Speaker 4>of scared of you, but also like I think that
<v Speaker 4>you're great, and they want to be your helpers and
<v Speaker 4>see your kingdom realized. And it's really well written, like
<v Speaker 4>surprisingly well written. The dialogue is surprisingly good in this
<v Speaker 4>It's really snappy and witty, and.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, the Sky games were always great up to
<v Speaker 1>like that's one of my I've only beaten the first
<v Speaker 1>this guy, but I remember loving just how funny and
<v Speaker 1>sharp the humor specifically in those pretties.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah you was really good.
<v Speaker 4>And it specifically tries to like play around with a
<v Speaker 4>lot of anime and RPG tropes, Like it has a
<v Speaker 4>lot of stuff about it subverts a lot of Isakai
<v Speaker 4>stuff and kind of comments on the generic feel of
<v Speaker 4>Isakai stories. And they have a whole bit here where
<v Speaker 4>like she accidentally creates a harem and doesn't mean to,
<v Speaker 4>and the hare.
<v Speaker 1>A harem.
<v Speaker 2>Happens more often than you'd think.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, yeah, yeah, it plays around with a lot of
<v Speaker 4>little tropes and stuff, and uh, it's a fun little experience.
<v Speaker 4>Combat is The combat is is surprisingly simple, but layers
<v Speaker 4>in a lot of like little different elements. So each character,
<v Speaker 4>you have a bunch of different characters and they all
<v Speaker 4>have their own attack and special attack, and that's very simple.
<v Speaker 4>But then it has this lane system where in every battle,
<v Speaker 4>power ups and items will run across these like musical
<v Speaker 4>notes that are on these lanes and you pick them up,
<v Speaker 4>and like you can pick up bombs and throw out
<v Speaker 4>characters and activate machines, and it's really good at like
<v Speaker 4>layering in little gimmicks on each level.
<v Speaker 1>Is it like, is it like fighting in a battlefield
<v Speaker 1>with like conveyor belt sushi kind of going around?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, okay.
<v Speaker 4>I think this was when this game was announced. I
<v Speaker 4>think it was like conceptually called like conveyor Sushi RPG
<v Speaker 4>or something that's sick. It's also it's also a musical.
<v Speaker 4>I didn't I didn't mention that.
<v Speaker 2>Wait, what Like they sing and dance and everything.
<v Speaker 4>It bills itself as a musical. It's the musical elements
<v Speaker 4>are a little less present than I thought they would be,
<v Speaker 4>Like scattered throughout there are musical performances. It's in Japanese,
<v Speaker 4>so it's Japanese musical.
<v Speaker 1>But are they good?
<v Speaker 2>They're fine.
<v Speaker 4>I would They're not bad. I wouldn't say like the
<v Speaker 4>musical element is not the focus. It's fine. I wish
<v Speaker 4>it was there kind of like a little bit more.
<v Speaker 4>But it's fun and it kind of like just enhances the.
<v Speaker 2>Rest of the game.
<v Speaker 4>But I was really surprised by just like a breezy
<v Speaker 4>twelve hours and I finished it and I was like,
<v Speaker 4>oh wow, man, that was that was really fun. I
<v Speaker 4>not a single second was I born?
<v Speaker 2>And the hour too right there is?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I say twelve hours, that's barely the intro of
<v Speaker 1>a the Sky game.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, let me tell you after after one hundred hours
<v Speaker 4>and Crimson Desert, I played that and I was like,
<v Speaker 4>oh my god, what a different experience.
<v Speaker 1>Holy cow.
<v Speaker 2>It's like the little like ice cream Sunday at the
<v Speaker 2>end of the like five course, That's exactly what it was.
<v Speaker 4>Like, Oh yeah, cool, Like I it's forty dollars, I
<v Speaker 4>want to say forty or fifty.
<v Speaker 3>It's not full right, So yeah, also like kind of
<v Speaker 3>budget oriented and stuff like that. I've been liking that
<v Speaker 3>a lot from a lot of the RPG publishers there
<v Speaker 3>out there. Square has been doing some of this too,
<v Speaker 3>where games are a little bit more targeted towards the
<v Speaker 3>middle range of they're going to put out a demo,
<v Speaker 3>they're gonna price the game a little bit more like
<v Speaker 3>lower than kind of what is full cost quote unquote nowadays,
<v Speaker 3>and kind of target a new audience and just kind
<v Speaker 3>of like try to drum up some some excitement around
<v Speaker 3>new IP or something like that. I've been I've been
<v Speaker 3>enjoying a lot of those games that have been falling
<v Speaker 3>in that category, they've been just the right amount, just
<v Speaker 3>the right length. Paranormo site was a great example, and
<v Speaker 3>now it's already like we're two games in, going on three.
<v Speaker 4>So yeah, and this falls into that same exact category
<v Speaker 4>where it's like this just this is really good. Little
<v Speaker 4>experience does something different. Thats exactly what it wants to be.
<v Speaker 4>And I appreciate that it doesn't overstay it what's welcome.
<v Speaker 4>It does its thing and moves on.
<v Speaker 2>That's awesome.
<v Speaker 1>I love the faces on some of these characters, Like
<v Speaker 1>some of these characters have like just cute cheaty faces.
<v Speaker 1>But then there's like a soldier guy to just it's
<v Speaker 1>like he has a very defined chat face. He's my
<v Speaker 1>favorite Schwartz. He's like a legendary mercenary who joins your
<v Speaker 1>forces because you beat him and he's kind.
<v Speaker 2>Of scared of you, but it's okay, okay.
<v Speaker 4>And then there's like like you fight Cerberus at one point,
<v Speaker 4>who's the guardian of the underworld? Right, and uh, and
<v Speaker 4>it turns into three anime.
<v Speaker 1>Cat girls and I'll have like it goes from a
<v Speaker 1>dog to a cat. I guess they're dog girls. Actually,
<v Speaker 1>now that I think about.
<v Speaker 3>It, Yeah, like like like animalistic in some way. Yeah, exactly, Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>feral anime girls. Yeah, don't don't google that or do
<v Speaker 3>I'm not your dad.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know.
<v Speaker 1>I need to see if this game that seems like
<v Speaker 1>this would be a really good switch game, and see
<v Speaker 1>if this is coming to switch because it's not. It's yeah,
<v Speaker 1>which one.
<v Speaker 4>Though, there's not like a native switch to versions, just
<v Speaker 4>switch one version.
<v Speaker 3>I'm wondering though, if it gets the because the handheld
<v Speaker 3>boost just came Yeah, right, I would imagine Earth yeah,
<v Speaker 3>the TV thing Yeah yeah, yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, uh yeah uh a Trane Overlord. It's not out yet.
<v Speaker 1>It comes out March twenty six. It looks like so soon. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>yeah soon. But there is a demo on Steam at least,
<v Speaker 1>I don't know if it's on console. But you can't
<v Speaker 1>play a Steam demo of it right now. Yeah, I
<v Speaker 1>want to check this out. This I had not heard
<v Speaker 1>this at all, but like a new game from the
<v Speaker 1>most people. That's what most people have said to me.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, this came out of nowhere and it went immediately
<v Speaker 3>from hey, check out this game. It's got a demo,
<v Speaker 3>And now I'm hearing I'm kind of I don't know.
<v Speaker 4>If there's like some rights issues or something, but they
<v Speaker 4>are not advertising it as like, hey, this is the
<v Speaker 4>disguis a creator's new game, and I feel like that's
<v Speaker 4>something you should do, right.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I don't think it would hurt you know, poplersheries.
<v Speaker 1>They still make those. Yeah, there's there's a wait. So
<v Speaker 1>does he not does he still make this guy or
<v Speaker 1>did he leave the series on one? Yeah?
<v Speaker 2>He left?
<v Speaker 4>Like what this guy that he's stopt the company and
<v Speaker 4>he founded he found his own studio. Okay, And I asked,
<v Speaker 4>Japan makes this guise right?
<v Speaker 1>Okay? Interesting? Yeah, I don't know to the lineage of
<v Speaker 1>the Diskaia series, I'm not familiars, I don't I'm curious now,
<v Speaker 1>like which intrigue was his last one? Like how long
<v Speaker 1>has this series been going without.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know exactly. I'd have to look that up.
<v Speaker 1>Okay. Yeah it Tron's Overlord March twenty six. Yeah, check
<v Speaker 1>it out. I will download that demo and give this
<v Speaker 1>a look. Yeah. We're gonna round out the show now
<v Speaker 1>with a segment we like to call the uh PO
<v Speaker 1>Copia check In because we've been playing Pokemon Pocopia Eric
<v Speaker 1>and I. I've not had a chance to talk about
<v Speaker 1>this game on the podcast, but I've been enjoying my
<v Speaker 1>time with this game greatly as someone that only got
<v Speaker 1>into Animal Crossing with New Horizons and has not really
<v Speaker 1>been into Pokemon in like a real way since Gen
<v Speaker 1>one really maybe a bit of Gen two, but it's
<v Speaker 1>always been a series that despite being obsessed with it
<v Speaker 1>when it first came to the States, I fell off
<v Speaker 1>of it pretty early. But because of how much I
<v Speaker 1>was into him when it first came out, I've always
<v Speaker 1>had a sauce spot for Pokemon and I always kind
<v Speaker 1>of like admire them from afar, and I tell myself
<v Speaker 1>every time there's a new like mainline RPG, like, maybe
<v Speaker 1>this will be the one I get back in, and
<v Speaker 1>then I never do when I just keep moving that
<v Speaker 1>goalposts back for myself. So this is easily the most
<v Speaker 1>I've played of a Pokemon game, probably since the initial
<v Speaker 1>Pokemon Go craze in twenty sixteen, and it's been a
<v Speaker 1>very fun like way to kind of like reunite with
<v Speaker 1>some of the like og Pokemon that I grew up with,
<v Speaker 1>but also to meet the like nine hundred that I'm like,
<v Speaker 1>I don't know what you are, but you look kind
<v Speaker 1>of cool.
<v Speaker 3>There's so many post Pokemon now, Marcus. I hate to
<v Speaker 3>tell you there's there's a there are more Pokemon you
<v Speaker 3>don't know than Pokemon.
<v Speaker 2>You know.
<v Speaker 1>Oh, I've known that for you. I mean that was
<v Speaker 1>the case pretty much going to starting in the Game
<v Speaker 1>Boy Advance era. But yeah, this has been This is
<v Speaker 1>like a really fun avenue to like be introduced to
<v Speaker 1>Pokemon instead of just like catching him in a while,
<v Speaker 1>Like just hanging out in my little town that I've
<v Speaker 1>been building up, and all of a sudden, I see
<v Speaker 1>some bushes shake and I'm like, oh, somebody's here. And
<v Speaker 1>then some weirdo jumps out and I'm like, what the
<v Speaker 1>hell are you? I don't know what are you? A
<v Speaker 1>new guy? Have you been around for a while? You're
<v Speaker 1>new to me? If I could, I got a guy
<v Speaker 1>that carries like he's like a muscle burro and he
<v Speaker 1>just carries a steel beam Arale.
<v Speaker 2>I think it's his name is it's Girder? Is the
<v Speaker 2>first one.
<v Speaker 1>Okay? Because I have I have the first one because
<v Speaker 1>he shows up first, because I think he's like one
<v Speaker 1>of your main He's like the first guy that kind
<v Speaker 1>of helps you build things makes and then I guess
<v Speaker 1>I got his evolve form because they look similar. But
<v Speaker 1>he carried the first guy, the young one, he's just there.
<v Speaker 1>He carries a two by four, so he's like Hacksaw
<v Speaker 1>Jim Duggan. But then this guy carries a full on
<v Speaker 1>steel beam, like he's putting a skyscraper together. And I'm
<v Speaker 1>wondering if, like again, we're getting into like some some
<v Speaker 1>like rabbit hole Pokemon question. I'm like, today, did they
<v Speaker 1>just come with that? Is it like a far fed
<v Speaker 1>situation where they just always have like an accessory timber.
<v Speaker 2>Organ Yeah?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, like is that part of their body that gird
<v Speaker 1>that steel beam is his heart? And then I want
<v Speaker 1>to know, like, oh, is there a third form and
<v Speaker 1>what's he gonna.
<v Speaker 2>Carry it is? Yeah?
<v Speaker 3>There there is there is a third form. You will
<v Speaker 3>not don't lock him't tell me what it is. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>oh yeah, I wanna be a surprise. He carries so much. Yes, yes, okay,
<v Speaker 3>he's much later in the game from where you are,
<v Speaker 3>and he's awesome.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, also of a monster, but we love him for it.
<v Speaker 1>Uh yeah, I mean they're all monsters technically.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, yeah, yeah, and and the thing that I think
<v Speaker 3>is is really charming about you experiencing new Pokemon this
<v Speaker 3>way is that they all talk. Now, they all have
<v Speaker 3>personality because because pomon is obviously.
<v Speaker 2>Beat Pokemon.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, because like this is again the dragon Quest Builders team,
<v Speaker 3>who was doing so much incredible work in those first
<v Speaker 3>two Builders games giving personality in life to these otherwise
<v Speaker 3>kind of you know, samey n PCs and things like that.
<v Speaker 3>All the the muscle bros of dragon Quests and stuff
<v Speaker 3>like that get like these really fun personalities that you
<v Speaker 3>get to learn as you go through each area. And
<v Speaker 3>they brought a lot of that clever writing into Poucopeia.
<v Speaker 3>So now you've got everybody has been loving Southern Keyogre
<v Speaker 3>Cowboy Kyogur.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, I bet Cowboy he's he's so good.
<v Speaker 1>Uh.
<v Speaker 3>There there are a few other Pokemon who also, for
<v Speaker 3>some reason just kind of talk like a cowboy, and
<v Speaker 3>it's been a whole thing. Bulbosor talks in a really
<v Speaker 3>funny way, so does Venosare and Cyth.
<v Speaker 1>Cyther's like a like a dude bro and I love.
<v Speaker 3>Him, Yeah, but I gave him flowers the other night
<v Speaker 3>and he was like, I thank you. I don't like
<v Speaker 3>talking to other people about how much I like flowers.
<v Speaker 3>But I really like flowers. This means you're like and
<v Speaker 3>he got like a little heart and I was like, oh, cytherea.
<v Speaker 1>He has like an image to keep and it's like, oh,
<v Speaker 1>is this like your guilty pleasure? It's flowers. I feel
<v Speaker 1>like you can talk to anyone about this.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, He's like, thank you so much, Please don't tell
<v Speaker 2>anyone about this. I'm like, yeah, dude, I got.
<v Speaker 1>You, but it also got you. It also exposed the
<v Speaker 1>like the like hidden or like the inherent tragedy of
<v Speaker 1>having blade arms because he asks you for flowers, because
<v Speaker 1>he says, hey, I love flowers, but I can never
<v Speaker 1>like pick them when i'm destroying them because I have
<v Speaker 1>these blade arms. And he never he's so enthusiastic about
<v Speaker 1>chopping things all the time, Like you bring him logs
<v Speaker 1>and he's like, hey, man, if you bring me some logs,
<v Speaker 1>I will cut some lumber. And I love doing it.
<v Speaker 2>But he's never not making a lumber for me. He's
<v Speaker 2>always on a number.
<v Speaker 1>I feel the little community bend just for him to
<v Speaker 1>give him something to do when I'm not there. But
<v Speaker 1>then he's like, hey, listen, there's a dark side to
<v Speaker 1>my existence, you know everything. I touched eyes technically, and
<v Speaker 1>I really love flowers, but I can't pick them as
<v Speaker 1>I destroyed them. Can you bring me some flowers?
<v Speaker 2>He's he's Edward Scissorhands basically, which is awesome. Yeah. I
<v Speaker 2>love I love this game so much.
<v Speaker 3>I have been staying up later than I should every
<v Speaker 3>single night since this game has come out, just to
<v Speaker 3>play more. I have rolled credits now, I have finished. Yes, okay,
<v Speaker 3>I don't want to look in my switch hours yet.
<v Speaker 3>I have started in the free build town to start
<v Speaker 3>to build what I am envisioning of a city, of
<v Speaker 3>a of a thriving town. I know some people kind
<v Speaker 3>of renovate the existing zones, but I wanted to kind
<v Speaker 3>of go into a free build area first and just
<v Speaker 3>start to learn the building process that way and put
<v Speaker 3>it all together and kind of envision what I want
<v Speaker 3>to make, and then maybe I'll go back to the
<v Speaker 3>free zone or the main story zones and do stuff there.
<v Speaker 3>But last night, yeah, I got done with I was
<v Speaker 3>doing my podcast Acts of the Blood God, and I
<v Speaker 3>was doing a bunch of other stuff and I got
<v Speaker 3>to like night, and I was like I'm so tired.
<v Speaker 2>I burned out. I sat on the couch. I just
<v Speaker 2>played poc Opia for a few hours and built a
<v Speaker 2>basically like a train stop.
<v Speaker 3>I might put some b roll here of me just
<v Speaker 3>building in that zone so you can see it, but
<v Speaker 3>it was basically just a little brick train station with
<v Speaker 3>some nice bushes and fencing and lights and stuff like that,
<v Speaker 3>and kind of a place where eventually I'll have my
<v Speaker 3>rail system for this place come in, because i want
<v Speaker 3>to have public transportation around all of this zone that
<v Speaker 3>I'm building. And there's something that just it's soothing. It's
<v Speaker 3>just I'm I'm putting stuff together, I'm making it look nice.
<v Speaker 3>I'm I'm mixing and matching and finding like the right
<v Speaker 3>things that are going to fit here to build a
<v Speaker 3>cool roof or a nice little overhang and things like that,
<v Speaker 3>and it's it's a delightful game. I think they really
<v Speaker 3>cracked the code on like Pokemon Builders and and somehow
<v Speaker 3>just nailed it in one go.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I'm having as much as I like Animal crossing
<v Speaker 1>new horizons, I'm liking this so much more because again
<v Speaker 1>having that soft spot for Pokemon, but also Pokemon I
<v Speaker 1>are just inherently more interesting than like animal crossing villages
<v Speaker 1>to me, like, I get far more of a thrill
<v Speaker 1>seeing a new Pokemon show up than I did than
<v Speaker 1>I ever did of a new village of showing up
<v Speaker 1>just because like one just like designed by his pokemon
<v Speaker 1>or interesting, but also because Pokemon have like powers associated
<v Speaker 1>with them. It's like, oh, you're here. I might get
<v Speaker 1>an ability now from I did on to copy, so
<v Speaker 1>that's exciting that.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, So it's like, oh yeah, I got like I'm
<v Speaker 1>only in the second zone right now because I'm playing
<v Speaker 1>this deliberately, like slowly on purpose, where I was like,
<v Speaker 1>I don't want to move too far ahead because I
<v Speaker 1>would like my areas to be decently built up, like
<v Speaker 1>houses and stuff, because I do feel bad about like
<v Speaker 1>just advancing and everyone's still sleeping outside. Even it's like
<v Speaker 1>you guys should have homes. I feel like I built
<v Speaker 1>a home for myself.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yeah, we are here to move forward, We're here
<v Speaker 2>to build.
<v Speaker 3>And so I teased it because we were talking before
<v Speaker 3>the podcast about this and I was saying, yeah, no, Well,
<v Speaker 3>for many of those areas when I finished them, they
<v Speaker 3>were still kind of low environment level because I was
<v Speaker 3>not building homes or dens or anything like that. I
<v Speaker 3>would kind of just put a habitat down, and the
<v Speaker 3>Pokemon would always be like, oh, like make this area.
<v Speaker 3>This is where this type of Pokemon might like to
<v Speaker 3>show up. And then they show up and they're like, actually,
<v Speaker 3>I like this completely different area that's way more complicated.
<v Speaker 3>And I'm like, okay, fine, I build that and I
<v Speaker 3>take them there and they're like, actually, I'm still at
<v Speaker 3>like average comfort level.
<v Speaker 2>Can you put me in a house? And I'm like,
<v Speaker 2>oh my gosh, can you just be happy you're You're like, they're.
<v Speaker 1>A difa because they don't want to sleep outside.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I'm like most in most Pokemon games, y'all are
<v Speaker 3>chilling in the tall grass, all right, like the it's
<v Speaker 3>and it's we're getting a little picky, a little choosy here.
<v Speaker 3>And I tease that I do a monstrous thing, which
<v Speaker 3>is I don't nickname my Pokemon.
<v Speaker 2>They don't get nicknames.
<v Speaker 1>Oh I don't either. I never did that in the
<v Speaker 1>old games either.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, okay, I thought this is a podcast that supports that. Okay, good,
<v Speaker 3>we don't. We don't nickname the Pokemon.
<v Speaker 1>Remember in the first anime that kid Ritchie who was
<v Speaker 1>like ashes doppelganger, like the Canto League final. Remember he
<v Speaker 1>nicknamed all his Pokemon, like he had pretty much the
<v Speaker 1>same Pokemon as Ash, but they had names. So it's
<v Speaker 1>like his Peaka Tree was sparky and even as a kid,
<v Speaker 1>I was like that kid, it's lame.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, Pokemon's fake, Ash, That's that's why you lost.
<v Speaker 2>He left the mental attachments.
<v Speaker 1>Well technically I think he did better than Ash in
<v Speaker 1>that tournament, but a beat No, Oh, I don't know,
<v Speaker 1>I didn't watch.
<v Speaker 2>I think the first tournament.
<v Speaker 1>He beats Ash. Yeah, but Ash knocks him out of
<v Speaker 1>the first tournament, Like he's the reason that Ash gets eliminated.
<v Speaker 2>Oh okay, yeah, because my point, don't nickname your pokemon.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah exactly, don't don't be a richie be an Ash. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, he will eventually win the Pokemon League.
<v Speaker 3>Like, I don't know.
<v Speaker 2>After twenty years of the anime ry.
<v Speaker 4>There's so many Pokemon now, it's like I can't come
<v Speaker 4>up with a name for a thousand Pokemon, like.
<v Speaker 1>And some of them are good wordplays already, where it's
<v Speaker 1>like I can't top I can't top Girder.
<v Speaker 3>Oh, I can't Alec Kazam is already a great name
<v Speaker 3>for a Pokemon.
<v Speaker 2>I'm not coming.
<v Speaker 3>I'm going to call him spoon bender, like I there's
<v Speaker 3>there's nothing good there, spoody o man uh, I don't know.
<v Speaker 3>It's never done anything for me. And also, when you
<v Speaker 3>were a kid, everybody just nicknamed their Pokemon butt or
<v Speaker 3>something like that, right, Like nobody actually used it to
<v Speaker 3>be like I named it after my dog.
<v Speaker 2>No, they just called it like a curse word and
<v Speaker 2>moved on.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, some kind of slur.
<v Speaker 2>But I don't know what school you're going to.
<v Speaker 1>I grew up in a rough neighborhood. But yeah, but no,
<v Speaker 1>I'm having a blast with this game. I'm it's it's
<v Speaker 1>like you actison becoming like before a bad game. I'm
<v Speaker 1>like in bed, chilling on my switch. Sometimes I'll have
<v Speaker 1>an ASMR video playing as I'm playing this game, and
<v Speaker 1>it's just like ultimate relax mode. As I'm putting a
<v Speaker 1>nice house together because I actually care about my Pokemon.
<v Speaker 1>I think my mouth should have a nice house to
<v Speaker 1>live in.
<v Speaker 2>I'm building houses now.
<v Speaker 1>The public hours remember any time? How much? Yeah, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it's getting it now. They don't have to wait for me.
<v Speaker 1>I'm like you know what we came in.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, infrastructure take time.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, there's just like I said, there is a compelling
<v Speaker 1>hook here between having just the most appealing sort of
<v Speaker 1>like I guess residents to to build a sort of
<v Speaker 1>like life sim game around, to the progression being satisfying,
<v Speaker 1>to like there's always something to do in, something to chase,
<v Speaker 1>and it's just it's just such a nice looking world
<v Speaker 1>to be in, Like it's like I just love occupying
<v Speaker 1>this world and it you know, everything you do in
<v Speaker 1>a game feel satisfying, Like I love just punching things
<v Speaker 1>and breaking blocks.
<v Speaker 2>That feels good. HU Dragons Fielders was really good about
<v Speaker 2>that too.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Yeah, and I liked what I played at the build.
<v Speaker 1>I never finished him, but I did enjoy what I
<v Speaker 1>played to those builder games because of that. But yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I guess again, maybe it's just having it wrapped up
<v Speaker 1>in a license that I care about a little bit
<v Speaker 1>more again, which is weird to say because I haven't
<v Speaker 1>played a proper Pokemon game in like decades, but I
<v Speaker 1>still hold dear to my heart that I do Dragon Quest. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>this is this is a it's a blast, Like I'm
<v Speaker 1>having a good time and right now because I'm only
<v Speaker 1>in a second. I'm in I'm in Bleak Bleak Beach.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Can you change the names any places, because like
<v Speaker 1>the first place, I think it's called like oh, because
<v Speaker 1>I'm like, the first place, what is it like withering wasteland?
<v Speaker 1>And I'm like, it looks like a gated community. Now
<v Speaker 1>I think we can draw like potht apocalyptic name now,
<v Speaker 1>like it does not look like a wasteland anymore in
<v Speaker 1>my game. It's actually quite nice.
<v Speaker 2>They they have other names.
<v Speaker 3>But I know there are some people because having recently
<v Speaker 3>done the podcast about this game, there are some people
<v Speaker 3>who still don't know kind of the big concept of
<v Speaker 3>what is actually happening in this game. And I don't
<v Speaker 3>want to spoil that for somebody who doesn't know, because
<v Speaker 3>I it's something you you will figure it out in
<v Speaker 3>the first hour of playing this game, like what is
<v Speaker 3>actually happening here? And it's a fun reveal, it's neat.
<v Speaker 3>So if you somehow have not spoiled yourself on it,
<v Speaker 3>I won't do it for you.
<v Speaker 2>But there are.
<v Speaker 3>You're in the world of Pokemon, let's put it that way.
<v Speaker 3>Reading those taking place on a different planet or timeline
<v Speaker 3>or anything like that, Yeah, reading.
<v Speaker 1>Those diarrantries has also been to explore. Yeah, there's there's
<v Speaker 1>some good stuff in those. Yeah, but yeah, that is
<v Speaker 1>our Poco Pia check in. We'll probably have some worthies
<v Speaker 1>because they're all pretty and damper to put this gay
<v Speaker 1>excuse me? Uh, hayes have you? Are you planning to
<v Speaker 1>dive into pocoke?
<v Speaker 4>I'm going to now. I bought it when the day
<v Speaker 4>it came out, and then I had to review Crimson Desert,
<v Speaker 4>so yeah, I put in like an hour. But now
<v Speaker 4>that I have some more free time, that's like the
<v Speaker 4>first thing I'm playing this week. Are you gonna build
<v Speaker 4>your Pokemon homes immediately? Or are you gonna wait for
<v Speaker 4>hours and hours and hours? I feel guilty about things
<v Speaker 4>very often. This one, we'll probably build them home. You
<v Speaker 4>have a heart, and yes, that'll only hold you back
<v Speaker 4>in my experience.
<v Speaker 1>Well, yeah, Pokemon pok Ope it's out now. It's a
<v Speaker 1>lot of fun. Uh check it out. Read our review
<v Speaker 1>on the website as well, and yeah, that will wrap
<v Speaker 1>up this week's episode of the Game Informer Show. Everyone,
<v Speaker 1>thank you so much for watching and listening. Once again,
<v Speaker 1>If you want to support Game Informer, go to Game
<v Speaker 1>Informer dot Com slash subscribe get yourself a magazine issue
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<v Speaker 1>you can't get a subscription. Either way, it's a great
<v Speaker 1>way to support us, keep us doing what we're doing. Hey,
<v Speaker 1>thank you so much for joining us this week. Is
<v Speaker 1>there anything you'd like the plug?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, if you you know.
<v Speaker 4>If we want to follow me, go to Blue Sky
<v Speaker 4>at so Fleet. I'm over on RPG site regularly. I'm
<v Speaker 4>a contributor there now and i run my own RPG
<v Speaker 4>newsletter bye way by weekly newsletter called an Evening at
<v Speaker 4>the end. It's kind of a mix of criticism for me,
<v Speaker 4>original reporting, sometimes interviews things like that. So go follow
<v Speaker 4>me on Blueskine and find that.
<v Speaker 1>Awesome. And you can also follow us on social media.
<v Speaker 1>I'm at Marcus Stewart seven, Eric is at cmucy. Be
<v Speaker 1>sure to check out visit Gaminforma dot com. Check out
<v Speaker 1>our Twitch channel for our weekly stream. Switch dot Tv
<v Speaker 1>Slash Game Informer visit our YouTube channel. We're still rolling
<v Speaker 1>out Invincible versus Coverage. We got a few a couple
<v Speaker 1>more video features and the hopper including a rapid fire
<v Speaker 1>coming your way in the next couple weeks or so.
<v Speaker 1>And yeah, I think that about cover zet. Let's get
<v Speaker 1>the hell out here. Let's go keep playing some Pocopia
<v Speaker 1>and maybe diving into some Yeah, let's go. We gotta
<v Speaker 1>I gotta build like five more Pokemon centers or something
<v Speaker 1>for all I know.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, I gotta.
<v Speaker 3>I gotta establish a combini. I think is my next
<v Speaker 3>uh is my next project. We're gonna put up a
<v Speaker 3>convenience store.
<v Speaker 1>Oh can you put a corner store in here? Can
<v Speaker 1>I have? Oh my god, I want. I want my
<v Speaker 1>Pokemon to walk around with forties and paper bags sick
<v Speaker 1>sound in front of the cyther with like his just
<v Speaker 1>like blade arms piers through like two paper bags walking
<v Speaker 1>around or maybe that's his next request. He's like, hey, listen,
<v Speaker 1>I don't talk about this, but I really love forties.
<v Speaker 1>But I can't ever drink grasp him. Can you just
<v Speaker 1>like pour it in my mouth for me? Please?
<v Speaker 2>I look, anything's possible in Bocopia.
<v Speaker 1>Anything is possible in Pocopia. Thanks for listening, guys. We'll
<v Speaker 1>be back next week with another episode of the Game
<v Speaker 1>Informer show Bye Bye,