Ninja Gaiden 4 Cover Story, Voidbreaker, And Metal Gear 3DS (Feat. Mike Drucker)

<v Speaker 1>This week on the Game in Former show, Brian Jay
<v Speaker 1>takes a deep dive into his Ninja Guiden for cover story.
<v Speaker 2>Ninja Guiden three came out in twenty twelve, and it
<v Speaker 2>just seemed like this franchise was dead for all intents
<v Speaker 2>and purposes. If you haven't familiarized yourself with Ninja Guiden four,
<v Speaker 2>it's just this super intense action game. The original Ninja
<v Speaker 2>Gaiden on Xbox, at least the original three D Ninja
<v Speaker 2>Gaiden kind of served as like this defining entry in
<v Speaker 2>the action genre. I traveled to Tokyo, visited Platinum Game,
<v Speaker 2>spent a full day in the studio, which was really
<v Speaker 2>cool to be in, kind of like the building where
<v Speaker 2>all of these incredible games were born out of.
<v Speaker 1>Emmy nominated television writer and former Nintendo localization writer Mike
<v Speaker 1>Drucker dives into his thoughts on UFO fifty Metal Gear,
<v Speaker 1>Solid three Snake Eater on three DS.
<v Speaker 3>And I texted Mike.
<v Speaker 4>I was like, Mike, this is this is almost unplayable,
<v Speaker 4>Like this is like you have to use the face
<v Speaker 4>buttons to aim and answers.
<v Speaker 1>A couple of questions for us about as time working
<v Speaker 1>at Nintendo.
<v Speaker 5>A lot of the things that I was assigned to were,
<v Speaker 5>you know, punching up certain scenes where they wanted more jokes,
<v Speaker 5>or things like writing the idle text. You know, writing
<v Speaker 5>the idols were basically trophies in the game, So getting
<v Speaker 5>to write the text for that was super fun because
<v Speaker 5>they basically let you do whatever you want to know,
<v Speaker 5>so that was super fun.
<v Speaker 1>We also talked Shanobi, Art of Vengeance, the Rogue Prints
<v Speaker 1>of Persia, Luminous Rise, and a new Rogue Light FPS
<v Speaker 1>void Breaker. The more that you increase your fov slider
<v Speaker 1>in the graphics setting, the faster you move, and there
<v Speaker 1>are other ones that are the higher your frame rate
<v Speaker 1>is the higher damage you do in the game. There's
<v Speaker 1>really like game breaking things that are really exciting. The
<v Speaker 1>podcast is about to begin. If you haven't yet, hit
<v Speaker 1>that subscribe button. Like the video and consider picking up
<v Speaker 1>a Game Informer magazine print subscription. Hey, everybody, Welcome back
<v Speaker 1>to the Game Informer Show, a weekly podcast covering the
<v Speaker 1>video game industry. Join us every week for a discussion
<v Speaker 1>with the latest gaming news, reviews, and exclusive reveals, alongside
<v Speaker 1>Game and Former staff and special guests from around the industry.
<v Speaker 1>I'm one of your hosts today Alex van Aiken and
<v Speaker 1>Today I'm joined by Kyle Hilliard.
<v Speaker 4>Hello, Kyle, Hey, I got ahead of myself.
<v Speaker 3>I was excited.
<v Speaker 1>Oh you're you're excited. I get it. We've got We've
<v Speaker 1>got a pack show. We're gonna be talking about our
<v Speaker 1>Ninja Guidan for cover story, the Rogue Prince of Persia,
<v Speaker 1>lumit Us Arise, and a lot more, alongside Charles Hart.
<v Speaker 1>How you doing Charles?
<v Speaker 6>Hello, I've played a little bit of one of those games.
<v Speaker 1>Hell, yeah, that's what that's what we're talking about mainly
<v Speaker 1>here as as like as a fun guy. Yeah, fulfilling
<v Speaker 1>your usual role. We are glad to have you here.
<v Speaker 1>Bryan Shay, Welcome back to the show.
<v Speaker 2>How you doing, Hey, I'm doing good. I recently rewatched
<v Speaker 2>eight Mile for the first time in like almost twenty years,
<v Speaker 2>and now I have his Terrible Sweet Home Alabama freestyle
<v Speaker 2>stuck in my head for the.
<v Speaker 1>Last Yeah, that's that's amazing.
<v Speaker 4>But also of gutten four, So we're gonna' that's.
<v Speaker 1>The big one. That's the big one. We'll get into
<v Speaker 1>that in just a moment. We're also joined by Emmy
<v Speaker 1>nominated television writer and producer Mike Drucker, Howda, and Mike.
<v Speaker 5>I'm doing great. Thank you very much, Thank you for
<v Speaker 5>having me.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Yeah, I've been following your work for a while.
<v Speaker 1>I everybody here has.
<v Speaker 4>It's funny to be led with the TV stuff when
<v Speaker 4>there's like, oh yeah, I was.
<v Speaker 1>Going to get into it. I was going to get
<v Speaker 1>into you know, known for Full Frontal with Samantha be
<v Speaker 1>the Tonight Show. You worked at Nintendo as a localization
<v Speaker 1>writer for a while on titles like Zelda, Skyward Sword
<v Speaker 1>and Kiddick Risk. And you have a book out right, Mike.
<v Speaker 6>Yep.
<v Speaker 5>It's called Good Game, No Rematch. It's available hardcover, digital,
<v Speaker 5>and audio, and it's basically a book about me growing
<v Speaker 5>up with games and how I've humiliated myself throughout.
<v Speaker 3>My life with it.
<v Speaker 1>That's awesome, It really good.
<v Speaker 4>It's really good to hop in there. I really liked
<v Speaker 4>that book a lot.
<v Speaker 3>Mike.
<v Speaker 4>I don't know if I've talked to you directly about
<v Speaker 4>your book, but it's like, it's like David Sedaris liked
<v Speaker 4>video games, is kind of how I feel about.
<v Speaker 5>That's a huge complement and I appreciate that.
<v Speaker 6>And he's also in the issue.
<v Speaker 1>Also, I was gonna say, yeah, yeah, you wrote a
<v Speaker 1>feature for us in this new issue of Game Informer.
<v Speaker 1>What was the feature about Mike?
<v Speaker 5>Well, in my book, I have a whole chapter about
<v Speaker 5>King's Quest and how much I love Roberta Williams. And
<v Speaker 5>so Kyle was kind enough to come to me and
<v Speaker 5>be like, do you want to talk to her for
<v Speaker 5>an article? And I was like, yes, I would like
<v Speaker 5>that very much, and so I got to have multiple
<v Speaker 5>phone conversation with Roberta Williams. If you don't know who
<v Speaker 5>she is, she was a massive, massive, massive video game
<v Speaker 5>designer in the eighties up till about the mid late nineties.
<v Speaker 5>She created King's Quest. She basically kicked off a lot
<v Speaker 5>of the big Sierra games, like even though she didn't
<v Speaker 5>make Space Quest or Police Quest, like, her games kind
<v Speaker 5>of were the reason those got made. And she, you know,
<v Speaker 5>did games like Phantasmagoria like she was one one of
<v Speaker 5>I would say, like one of the early game designers
<v Speaker 5>to have like a big name across the box where
<v Speaker 5>it's say ROBERTA Williams King's Quest.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's it's incredible. I'm so excited to read that feature.
<v Speaker 1>I actually normally in the cycle, i'm a little more
<v Speaker 1>involved with you know, knowing what's going in the issue
<v Speaker 1>ahead of time. It's just been so busy around here.
<v Speaker 1>There's a lot of a lot of cool stuff in
<v Speaker 1>that issue I haven't had a chance to look at yet,
<v Speaker 1>which brings me to my point. If you're listening, you
<v Speaker 1>can support us today by going to GameInformer dot com
<v Speaker 1>slash subscribe, picking up a print magazine subscription, or if
<v Speaker 1>you're overseas and you'd like to support us and read
<v Speaker 1>a lot of great and well researched articles about games.
<v Speaker 1>We've got a digital version as well for a cheaper price,
<v Speaker 1>so go check that out. GameInformer dot com slash subscribe.
<v Speaker 1>You still have time to place your order for the
<v Speaker 1>Ninja Guide in for cover, and we've got a lot
<v Speaker 1>of great ones coming down the pipeline as well. But
<v Speaker 1>we will get right into the show. We won't wait
<v Speaker 1>any longer. Brian, you have been playing Ninja Gaiden four
<v Speaker 1>as part of his cover story. I'm very curious about this.
<v Speaker 1>Can you tell us about it?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, for sure. So usually, Alex, you get to tag
<v Speaker 2>along on a lot of these covered story trips. This
<v Speaker 2>was kind of a unique one in that I went
<v Speaker 2>solo and so I'm the only person who had a
<v Speaker 2>chance at least on the game and former staff to
<v Speaker 2>check out Ninja Gaiden four. And you know, I have
<v Speaker 2>a long history with the Ninja Gaiden franchise. I remember
<v Speaker 2>going over to my neighbor's house and playing the original
<v Speaker 2>NES game, so dating all the way back to like,
<v Speaker 2>you know, the early nineties, I have a history with
<v Speaker 2>Ninja Gaiden, and I played the Dead or Alive games
<v Speaker 2>as they came out, and then like Ninja Gaiden kind
<v Speaker 2>of faded into the background of like being a dormant franchise,
<v Speaker 2>and then when they you know, revitalized it as this
<v Speaker 2>three D action title for the original Xbox just called
<v Speaker 2>Ninja Guiden, and then two and three came out in
<v Speaker 2>subsequent years. I remained a fan, although I'm not like
<v Speaker 2>the biggest fan of three. I think I gave it
<v Speaker 2>a pretty scathing review on another website that I wrote
<v Speaker 2>for before Game Informer, But it's been dormant for over
<v Speaker 2>a decade now, you know it was. I think Ninja
<v Speaker 2>Guiden three came out in twenty twelve, and it just
<v Speaker 2>seemed like this franchise was dead for all intents and purposes.
<v Speaker 2>Like I think there was like the Yaiba Ninja Guiden
<v Speaker 2>game that came out in twenty fourteen.
<v Speaker 3>Oh yeah, Ninja's right.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so its it. But that was twenty fourteen. I
<v Speaker 2>think it was pretty critically bashed, and you know, we
<v Speaker 2>haven't heard a peep from that franchise since, and it's
<v Speaker 2>been We've gotten a few dead or a live games
<v Speaker 2>here or there, but nothing like mainline Ninja Guiden.
<v Speaker 1>And this year and this year, yeah, this year we're
<v Speaker 1>getting three.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. This year it's been like I've called it the
<v Speaker 2>Year of the Ninja since like this year started coming
<v Speaker 2>into like focus because we got Ninja Guiden Black two,
<v Speaker 2>which was you know, an Unreal Engine five remaster of
<v Speaker 2>Ninja Guiden two, which came back out or came out
<v Speaker 2>back in like the three sixty. We've gotten Ninja Guiden
<v Speaker 2>Rage Bound, we got Assassin's Creed Shadows earlier this year.
<v Speaker 2>We had Shanoby Art Avengeance, which I reviewed for US
<v Speaker 2>this week and we can talk about that a little
<v Speaker 2>bit later. And we got Ghost of Yote coming out
<v Speaker 2>next month. So that all has been like this giant
<v Speaker 2>like re emergence of Ninja games, and it's been really
<v Speaker 2>cool because, like you know, ninjas are incredibly fun to
<v Speaker 2>play as because they have just this incredible suite of
<v Speaker 2>abilities and like tools and weapons at their disposal, and
<v Speaker 2>it's it turns out you can make a wide variety
<v Speaker 2>of games based on ninja's Like Assassin's Creed Shadows has
<v Speaker 2>so little in common with Ninja guid And four, and
<v Speaker 2>Ninja gid And four has so little in common with
<v Speaker 2>something like Shanoby Art a Vengeance. So it's like the
<v Speaker 2>diversity that we're getting even within like the subgenre of
<v Speaker 2>like ninja action games is incredible and having spent you know,
<v Speaker 2>time with all of them, I think, aside from Ghost
<v Speaker 2>of Yote, at this point, I think it's been an
<v Speaker 2>incredibly strong year for fans of ninjas, and it last
<v Speaker 2>release in that category for this year in terms of
<v Speaker 2>at least like mainstream is going to be Ninja Gaiden four.
<v Speaker 2>So it kind of feels fitting to have like this
<v Speaker 2>be like our end cap of like, all right, we're
<v Speaker 2>gonna kind of put an exclamation point on this year
<v Speaker 2>of the Ninja by putting Ninja Gaiden four on the cover.
<v Speaker 2>And you know, if you haven't familiarized yourself with Ninja
<v Speaker 2>Gaiden four, it's just this super intense action game. The
<v Speaker 2>original Ninja Gaiden on Xbox, at least, the original three
<v Speaker 2>D Ninja Gaiden kind of served as like this defining
<v Speaker 2>entry in the action genre for difficulty and like reflex based,
<v Speaker 2>skill based action combat. And it was kind of like
<v Speaker 2>the influential difficult action game before Soul's likes existed, So
<v Speaker 2>it was at that time it was like heavy combo emphasis,
<v Speaker 2>using like a wide range of tools and you know,
<v Speaker 2>defeating a group of enemies or a boss in like
<v Speaker 2>the most stylish and fast paced manner possible.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. I think of that and Anna Musha as those
<v Speaker 1>early titles.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah and Devil May Cry.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Games like that really defined that era of like like
<v Speaker 2>a stylish, adrenaline fueled action games. And in the time since,
<v Speaker 2>you know, the Souls like has really emerged as like
<v Speaker 2>the preferred three D action title. But it's really cool
<v Speaker 2>to see Ninja Guiden four kind of bringing the franchise
<v Speaker 2>back into the forefront alongside what would turned out to
<v Speaker 2>be an excellent two D side scroller in Ninja Gaiden
<v Speaker 2>Rage Bound, which came out I think end of last month,
<v Speaker 2>and so Ninja Gaiden four it actually unites two of
<v Speaker 2>the most iconic action oriented studios really in the history
<v Speaker 2>of video games. You know, Team Ninja's been the developer
<v Speaker 2>of Ninja Gaiden since the Xbox release back in the
<v Speaker 2>early two thousands. But they're bringing in Platinum Games, who
<v Speaker 2>you know, near Automata, the Banetta series, astral Chain, all
<v Speaker 2>these incredible action titles. They're bringing that wealth of experience
<v Speaker 2>into the franchise. And I've seen some people kind of
<v Speaker 2>express some concern that maybe this won't feel like a
<v Speaker 2>tried and true Ninja Guiden game because Platinum Games is
<v Speaker 2>co developing. It's not even like a support studio situation.
<v Speaker 2>It's like they had There are two co directors on
<v Speaker 2>Ninja Gaiden. One is from Team Ninja, one is from
<v Speaker 2>Platinum Games. They're really working hand in hand. So yeah,
<v Speaker 2>I traveled to Tokyo, visited Platinum Games, spent a full
<v Speaker 2>day in the studio, which was really cool to be
<v Speaker 2>in kind of like the building where all of these
<v Speaker 2>incredible games were born out of.
<v Speaker 1>I have a question about their office. Is it is
<v Speaker 1>it like a fancy office like a band diy or
<v Speaker 1>is it more of like a just four walls and.
<v Speaker 2>Cubicles it's very sterile, which I found is often the
<v Speaker 2>case with a lot of high profile Japanese studios.
<v Speaker 4>You know, I'm visited games laughing because it's like has it.
<v Speaker 4>I don't, Mike, have you ever been to like Japanese studios.
<v Speaker 4>I don't know if your career is every taking there,
<v Speaker 4>but no, but.
<v Speaker 5>I have worked for a Japanese game company that had
<v Speaker 5>somewhat similar design philosophy in America.
<v Speaker 2>He worked out of the Redmond office. So, like you've
<v Speaker 2>seen the inside of Nintendo, I've been upstairs at Nintendo
<v Speaker 2>and it it's very similar to that, where it's just
<v Speaker 2>like all right, we have very like white walls and
<v Speaker 2>like a TV up on the wall with a conference
<v Speaker 2>phone in the middle of the table.
<v Speaker 4>I think from Software has like a like two dark
<v Speaker 4>soul statues or something they.
<v Speaker 1>Have they have gone down to one gone like right
<v Speaker 1>next like the.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>So I've been to studios like game Freak and Atlas
<v Speaker 2>and Sega over in Japan, Squaring Nicks. They're all kind
<v Speaker 2>of similarly like uneventful in terms of like the decor,
<v Speaker 2>Like you see some cool artifacts, like they have a
<v Speaker 2>display case or several display cases at Platinum and you
<v Speaker 2>walk in, you're like, oh, yeah, they worked on that game,
<v Speaker 2>or that's a really cool like replica gun from Bayonetta.
<v Speaker 2>But like outside of that, and like the fact that
<v Speaker 2>there are like you know, twenty five gaming PCs in
<v Speaker 2>a conference room for like people to play builds of
<v Speaker 2>and everything, there's really not anything that would hint that
<v Speaker 2>like this is where these incredible games came out of.
<v Speaker 2>But you know, I got to play several hours of
<v Speaker 2>Ninja Gaiden four. I talked to the co directors. I
<v Speaker 2>talked to like the lead level design environmental guy, the
<v Speaker 2>one of the art directors, and one of the composers.
<v Speaker 2>So it was a pretty deep dive into not only
<v Speaker 2>how this game came to exist, Like we dove deep
<v Speaker 2>into like you know, how these studios united, how they
<v Speaker 2>got signed under the Xbox Games publishing label, and also
<v Speaker 2>like you know, just drilling down into the core mechanics
<v Speaker 2>of this game, because like they have to walk that
<v Speaker 2>like tight rope of Like, all right, there hasn't been
<v Speaker 2>a new Ninja Guiden game in over a decade, so
<v Speaker 2>the game design conventions have evolved so thoroughly that they
<v Speaker 2>have to address that in some way. They can't just
<v Speaker 2>put out Ninja Guiden four and have it play just
<v Speaker 2>like two or three. It has to evolve in some fashion,
<v Speaker 2>but if they evolve it too much, people are going
<v Speaker 2>to be mad. They're like, oh, well, I waited so
<v Speaker 2>long for this game, and it's unrecognizable as like a
<v Speaker 2>successor to the games that I loved. And so they
<v Speaker 2>had this difficult task of doing that, and I really
<v Speaker 2>think that they nailed it, Like it feels definitively like
<v Speaker 2>a Ninja Guiden game, while also implementing various things that
<v Speaker 2>Platinum Games absolutely brought to the table, like small things
<v Speaker 2>like you know, Platinum Games, when you hit an enemy
<v Speaker 2>with your weapon, there's usually a hit stop, like there's
<v Speaker 2>a brief pause when like there's a moment of impact
<v Speaker 2>and then you follow through. Right. That adds just a
<v Speaker 2>little bit like a visceral feeling. That's not something that's
<v Speaker 2>been present in most Ninja Guiden games. But they did
<v Speaker 2>implement that for something like when you delimb an enemy,
<v Speaker 2>because what that tells you is now you can perform
<v Speaker 2>these abilities that are like basically finishing moves called obliteration techniques.
<v Speaker 2>So that was the thing that Platinum Games brought to
<v Speaker 2>the table. They also designed the new protagonist Yakamo, who
<v Speaker 2>is like the super agile. He almost seems like he
<v Speaker 2>would fit like in with a Platinum Games title, Like
<v Speaker 2>he's very like stylish, action driven. He's kind of like,
<v Speaker 2>you know, edge Lord look to him, so he would
<v Speaker 2>fit right in. And like just uses the word.
<v Speaker 4>D limb with the reckless such like a video game
<v Speaker 4>thing that we just like walked right by. It's like, yeah,
<v Speaker 4>we literation technique is also.
<v Speaker 5>Because amputate sounds so broke, like when you amputate an
<v Speaker 5>arm off a character, You're like, wait, wait, wait, why
<v Speaker 5>are you doing.
<v Speaker 2>That's so surgical, You're not really like like you know,
<v Speaker 2>doing like a procedure.
<v Speaker 1>Stylish.
<v Speaker 6>Brian, your cover story used the word uh dismemberment a lot,
<v Speaker 6>which I feel like also fit d limb is like
<v Speaker 6>it fits in the vent diagram of like it is
<v Speaker 6>what I feel like they'd use in the plane office building.
<v Speaker 6>They're like, oh they do limit systems.
<v Speaker 7>Yeah, but yeah, Like so it feels really good in
<v Speaker 7>the combat is I would say, much better than what
<v Speaker 7>I remember Ninja guid and three, being like it's funny
<v Speaker 7>because I posted it on the Ninja Gaiden subredditor I
<v Speaker 7>was hanging out in there.
<v Speaker 2>Somebody else actually posted it and I was just answering questions,
<v Speaker 2>and somebody was like, how was the AI compared to
<v Speaker 2>previous entries, And I'm like, dude, it has been thirteen
<v Speaker 2>years since.
<v Speaker 4>I played ninjakaid in three.
<v Speaker 2>But they were, you know, they are quite aggressive, like
<v Speaker 2>the bosses in particular, and I checked out multiple modes.
<v Speaker 2>I fought three different bosses, and you know, all the
<v Speaker 2>bosses are instructive in their own ways. Like one taught
<v Speaker 2>you to, like, you know, use your your grappling hook
<v Speaker 2>to get out of danger and like remain super aggressive.
<v Speaker 2>The other one taught you to like how to deal
<v Speaker 2>with crowd control while there's also like a big bad
<v Speaker 2>in the middle of it, like you know, trying to
<v Speaker 2>take you out, but like there's also summonning minions and everything.
<v Speaker 2>And then another one was like just saying mobile as
<v Speaker 2>much as you can in a boss box. If you
<v Speaker 2>plant your feet for too long, they'll either throw a
<v Speaker 2>projectile at you or one case, she even grabbed me
<v Speaker 2>and like just basically like almost one hit KOed me.
<v Speaker 2>So there's a lot of like, oh, this boss teaches
<v Speaker 2>you this, and this boss is skilled checking you on this,
<v Speaker 2>and I think that's what a lot of Ninja guid
<v Speaker 2>and fans are gonna want, because, like, you know that
<v Speaker 2>these games are built around being a challenging and like
<v Speaker 2>skill testing experience, and I always felt like it was
<v Speaker 2>teaching me something new and then testing me on that
<v Speaker 2>very shortly after that. And Ryu and Yakimo are both
<v Speaker 2>playable in the game, even though Yakimo is the protagonist
<v Speaker 2>of this one. So I got to play the story
<v Speaker 2>chapters with Yakimo and then got dumped into challenge mode
<v Speaker 2>where I could go back and actually play Yakimo's levels
<v Speaker 2>as Reu Hayabusa, the longtime series protagonist. And they do
<v Speaker 2>control similarly, like they both feel like you know, if
<v Speaker 2>you if you just picked up your controller and played
<v Speaker 2>either of them, you'd be like, oh, yeah, they control
<v Speaker 2>the same, But when you bounce back and forth between
<v Speaker 2>the two, it's like Yakimo is so much more adile.
<v Speaker 2>He has a wider array of weapons, whereas Rio is
<v Speaker 2>just like a physical force. Like he he's a little
<v Speaker 2>bit slower, but he also has like just just his sword, right,
<v Speaker 2>he doesn't really have like a wider range of weapons
<v Speaker 2>in scam.
<v Speaker 1>Do you have a preference on how either of them felt.
<v Speaker 2>So I grew up playing games starring Reo and I
<v Speaker 2>will always like him, But like, I think Yakimo is
<v Speaker 2>a little bit more in the style that I like
<v Speaker 2>to play, like fast paced action games. I like a
<v Speaker 2>little bit more speed and like the ability to swap
<v Speaker 2>between weapons. Yeah, so Yakimo eventually will have four weapons,
<v Speaker 2>and then he also has this form that he can
<v Speaker 2>take on called Blood Raven form. He comes from the
<v Speaker 2>Raven clan, so he he's the Blood. He can transform
<v Speaker 2>into Blood Raven form, and that also transforms his weapons.
<v Speaker 2>So like he has like the dual blades as one
<v Speaker 2>of his weapons, which are like really like you know,
<v Speaker 2>evasive and fast paced, but when you take on the
<v Speaker 2>Blood Raven form, it actually turns into like this really
<v Speaker 2>like just ridiculously low blade that you can just like
<v Speaker 2>attack enemies from halfway across the arena. And then there's
<v Speaker 2>another one that transforms it from like a rap year
<v Speaker 2>sword into like a drill and you just like could
<v Speaker 2>perform like finishing moves on like the enemy with like
<v Speaker 2>just drilling a hole through their chest. Basically.
<v Speaker 1>Meanwhile, Reeve's just got a sword.
<v Speaker 2>He's got a sword, but I know, it's like it's
<v Speaker 2>the legendary sword that he's had in all of the entries.
<v Speaker 1>Though it seems like they're really pushing you to play
<v Speaker 1>with his Yakamo character. It's like, oh, it's also got guns,
<v Speaker 1>you know.
<v Speaker 4>Well he does.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, so Yakam also has this staff that turns
<v Speaker 2>into a hammer that you can just like smash enemies
<v Speaker 2>heads in with, and then he has this other the
<v Speaker 2>fourth weapon that we just learned about are the assassin's tools,
<v Speaker 2>and it's just this wide range of things like you know,
<v Speaker 2>a giant shroken and like uh like the claws that
<v Speaker 2>ninjas have sometimes and just this just wide range of weapons.
<v Speaker 2>And then the raven, the blood Raven form of that
<v Speaker 2>is he just sprouts two robot arms that give him
<v Speaker 2>more range and power with those same weapons.
<v Speaker 5>So it's just like just for.
<v Speaker 2>An indicator of how like absurd this is. Like it's
<v Speaker 2>not like they are like, oh, this is like we
<v Speaker 2>are taking this so seriously. This is only for like, yes,
<v Speaker 2>the challenge is serious and the gameplay is serious, but
<v Speaker 2>they're leaning into just like the bombastic storytelling and like
<v Speaker 2>over the top absurdity. So like you will not go
<v Speaker 2>into this thinking like all right, well this is we
<v Speaker 2>got to sit down and straight face to take this
<v Speaker 2>this game seriously with every every story beat that it delivers,
<v Speaker 2>like it's a fun story. I'm enjoying it. Like there,
<v Speaker 2>you know, like the basically like off screen ryu habusas
<v Speaker 2>like sealed this creature called the Dark Dragon, which is
<v Speaker 2>a recurring enemy in the Ninja Guiden series, sealed him
<v Speaker 2>away and thought he defeated him, but it turns out
<v Speaker 2>he's just raining down like this like toxic rain on
<v Speaker 2>top of Tokyo, turning it into like a ghost town.
<v Speaker 2>And Yakimo goes to like assassinate the Dark Dragon priestess,
<v Speaker 2>and she convinced him that actually we have to break
<v Speaker 2>the seal and that's the only way we'll be able
<v Speaker 2>to truly defeat him. So it is a very like, uh,
<v Speaker 2>just absurd story, so you'll be able to experience that,
<v Speaker 2>but like the combat itself, that that's where they really
<v Speaker 2>take it seriously.
<v Speaker 1>Mike, are you are you a Ninja Guiden guy?
<v Speaker 5>I was an old school Ninja Guiden guy. I think
<v Speaker 5>I liked what's weird is I like the Ninja Guiden
<v Speaker 5>that was on the ds because you got to like
<v Speaker 5>use your pet, use the stylist to like make the
<v Speaker 5>moves and stuff. The I think when I played the
<v Speaker 5>new ones, I just didn't have the patience for giving
<v Speaker 5>the difficulty a shot. I'm a little more patient now,
<v Speaker 5>so I should go back to them. But I think
<v Speaker 5>like when those came out, I was like, this is
<v Speaker 5>too hard. I don't want to learn this, and then
<v Speaker 5>just never went back.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, there is there is the Master Ninja Collection, which
<v Speaker 2>is on including Switch like all major platforms, and I
<v Speaker 2>just bought that after playing Ninja Gaiden four because I
<v Speaker 2>was like, oh, I should replay some of those like sequences,
<v Speaker 2>because I remember really liking one and two in particular,
<v Speaker 2>and I heard that like they made a lot of
<v Speaker 2>updates to three and it's still not great, like it's
<v Speaker 2>still the weakest of the trilogy, but like they improved
<v Speaker 2>it from the state that I reviewed, like the vanilla version.
<v Speaker 2>But yeah, I mean I think that was even recently
<v Speaker 2>on sale for like fifty percent off and you get
<v Speaker 2>all three of those games, like the revitalized versions, and
<v Speaker 2>it's on it's on game Pass too.
<v Speaker 4>I bet I bet if we pulled, Like, I bet
<v Speaker 4>if we pulled like fifty thousand gamers about Ninja guid
<v Speaker 4>and I bet we wouldn't get a single person calling
<v Speaker 4>out the DS game Dragon Sword.
<v Speaker 6>I was gonna ask, what's the full title?
<v Speaker 4>It was it's not you held it like a book,
<v Speaker 4>I remember, right, and dragon Sword was like the DS acronym.
<v Speaker 4>I was like, all right, I'm into all that. But
<v Speaker 4>it's like it's so it's.
<v Speaker 5>It's a goofy game. It's a goofy game. But that's
<v Speaker 5>why I love DS games. They're so weird.
<v Speaker 1>Also, Stylus is mightier than the sword. That's all I got. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>that would be my lead, Ryan, What were we gonna say?
<v Speaker 2>I'll just say Also, the Dragon Sword is is where
<v Speaker 2>I think we last saw the Dark Dragon, which is
<v Speaker 2>like one of the main like catalysts for Ninja Guidenf's
<v Speaker 2>story in game.
<v Speaker 3>Anyway.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, well cool. I mean it sounds really interesting.
<v Speaker 1>I mean, the the Yakomo, apart from sounding like he
<v Speaker 1>just got all of the budget put into him and
<v Speaker 1>for Rio is just you know, giling the dragons. Is
<v Speaker 1>there any other big highlights that that kind of came
<v Speaker 1>from from your your time in Tokyo? Or is that
<v Speaker 1>the predominantly, Like big focus of this story is that
<v Speaker 1>is that combat.
<v Speaker 2>The story itself, I mean the combat the contrast that
<v Speaker 2>exists between Ryu and Yakimo. Yakimo being kind of like
<v Speaker 2>the young upstart Ninja, he has like a full like
<v Speaker 2>he's got like the support of his clan behind him. Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>and like you know, so you'll be playing through and
<v Speaker 2>like hearing them chatter back and forth about stuff and
<v Speaker 2>like discussing like what's going on and what the current
<v Speaker 2>mission is and like the state of the world. Whereas
<v Speaker 2>with Ryu you don't get any of that because he's
<v Speaker 2>always been kind of like a lone wolf. But Ryu
<v Speaker 2>does have he doesn't have the raven form, the blood
<v Speaker 2>raven form, but he does have Gleam state, which is
<v Speaker 2>like achieved in the same way. And what that does
<v Speaker 2>it gives him like more aggressive combos and it also
<v Speaker 2>lets him use like the elemental like Ninpo abilities like
<v Speaker 2>the fire Ninto and I think there's one that like
<v Speaker 2>kind of creates like a singularity that sucks enemies in
<v Speaker 2>so Okay, he does have some tricks up his sleeve
<v Speaker 2>and he does have a lot more power behind his attack.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. I think it's interesting that both well, the last
<v Speaker 1>I guess what Rage Bound and then Ninja Guidon four,
<v Speaker 1>Reu's kind of taking a back seat in both. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>do you think do you think they're kind of setting
<v Speaker 1>him up to be Sunset or is this just a
<v Speaker 1>way to kind of reintroduce people to the series through
<v Speaker 1>through kind of new new protagonist eyes.
<v Speaker 2>I asked them about that, and they said that this
<v Speaker 2>they wanted it to be kind of more approachable. So
<v Speaker 2>by introducing it and having introducing Yachamoon, having the story
<v Speaker 2>told primarily through his eyes, they were able to achieve that.
<v Speaker 2>So it wasn't like you had to pick up, you know,
<v Speaker 2>Ninja Guidens one through three in or to understand the story.
<v Speaker 2>All you would understand was like, all right, Yakimo has
<v Speaker 2>been convinced that he has to free the Dark Dragon
<v Speaker 2>to defeat it, and Reu, the guy who sealed the
<v Speaker 2>Dark Dragon away, wants to stop him, and that's kind
<v Speaker 2>of like the core conflict. And so that was kind
<v Speaker 2>of the main reason why they wanted to introduce a
<v Speaker 2>new character, was so like it was a very basic storytelling.
<v Speaker 2>It wasn't a continuation. But if you played the original
<v Speaker 2>or the original trilogy of the Ninja guid in three
<v Speaker 2>D games, you would understand like some references and some
<v Speaker 2>callbacks and some recurring enemies.
<v Speaker 1>Well cool, Well, I know that you need to go
<v Speaker 1>here a second, but you mentioned Shanobi Art of Vengeance earlier.
<v Speaker 1>I just want to hear your quick thoughts on that
<v Speaker 1>now that you've you've reviewed it.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, So this is a game from lizard Cube, which
<v Speaker 2>is the studio that did Streets of Age four and
<v Speaker 2>they also did oh nice, okay, the WonderBoy Revival, So
<v Speaker 2>they've actually made a name for themselves kind of revitalizing
<v Speaker 2>these old Sega ip that had just been you know,
<v Speaker 2>kind of own in the storage closet for a while,
<v Speaker 2>and Sega has always licensed it to them, but this
<v Speaker 2>time they actually worked like hand in hand with lizard Cube.
<v Speaker 2>So it's co developed by Sega and published by Sega,
<v Speaker 2>whereas Streets of Rage four was just licensed by Sega
<v Speaker 2>and then developed fully by lizard Cube and then published
<v Speaker 2>I think by dot Emu. So it this is the
<v Speaker 2>first time that lizard Cube has worked directly with Sega,
<v Speaker 2>and I will say that the partnership has paid off
<v Speaker 2>completely because you know, it feels similar to what I
<v Speaker 2>was talking about with Ninjagaidon and four. They really walked
<v Speaker 2>the tightrope of like this is not completely unrecognizable as
<v Speaker 2>a new entry in this very very long, dormant franchise.
<v Speaker 2>I think the last one came out on three DS,
<v Speaker 2>so it's been quite a while. And they also made
<v Speaker 2>it so it is fully in line in step with
<v Speaker 2>like what you would expect from a twenty twenty five
<v Speaker 2>action platformer. And you know, it's arguably one of the
<v Speaker 2>most beautiful games I've played, probably in adulthood. Like it
<v Speaker 2>is just absolutely stunning. There was there's one sequence, there's
<v Speaker 2>some bonus stages in between like the long like main
<v Speaker 2>mainline levels, and you're just you're riding on a wolf
<v Speaker 2>and in the background there's all this stuff and it's
<v Speaker 2>very like painterly art style, and I was just like
<v Speaker 2>stunned at how gorgeous it was. And like eventually, you know,
<v Speaker 2>you do adjust to it. I'm not just like whoa
<v Speaker 2>every single time like something's happening on the screen, but
<v Speaker 2>like the first couple of levels, I was like, holy crap,
<v Speaker 2>Like this is just a beautiful freaking game. And it
<v Speaker 2>does carry through all the way to the end. It's
<v Speaker 2>challenging without being like controller throwingly difficult, although there were
<v Speaker 2>some parts that I got stuck on for quite a while.
<v Speaker 2>But the checkpointing is such that like you don't feel like,
<v Speaker 2>oh my god, I have to play through like the
<v Speaker 2>last twenty minutes of whatever. Yeah, it's it's you know,
<v Speaker 2>forgiving in that way. But at the same time, like
<v Speaker 2>you need to nail these jumps, you need to nail
<v Speaker 2>these combat encounters. You can seek out more difficult combat encounters.
<v Speaker 2>Like there are these like rifts that you can enter
<v Speaker 2>that are gonna be either like a really tough platforming
<v Speaker 2>challenge or a really tough combat challenge, and.
<v Speaker 1>That's like a little side room and keep going after that.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, and it's optional. And then there's also like
<v Speaker 2>elite squadrons that you can challenge in order to really
<v Speaker 2>challenge yourself. And like there's like I think four of
<v Speaker 2>those per levels or three or four of those per levels,
<v Speaker 2>so like you have like an ample opportunity for exploration.
<v Speaker 2>There's relics that you can find that allow you to
<v Speaker 2>open up more options in the stores. There's lots of
<v Speaker 2>rewarding explanation or explanation exploration, and that that gives you
<v Speaker 2>plenty of reasons to poke around these largely linear but
<v Speaker 2>like still Metroidvania inspired stages.
<v Speaker 5>So like the stages.
<v Speaker 2>Are laid out that like you know, as you explore,
<v Speaker 2>the map kind of like builds out and there are
<v Speaker 2>times where you need to go back and like, all right, well,
<v Speaker 2>now I have this ability, I can crash through this
<v Speaker 2>wall now or whatever. But they are largely linear, and
<v Speaker 2>like there's a point A, and there's a point B
<v Speaker 2>that you're trying to get to. There's a boss waiting
<v Speaker 2>for you at the end of every stage. But the
<v Speaker 2>exploration borrows so heavily from Metroidvania. For like, all right, well,
<v Speaker 2>if I want to expand my shop availability, I need
<v Speaker 2>to find these Oboro relics, and then that's gonna lead
<v Speaker 2>me to like take this path that's very clearly a
<v Speaker 2>side path, or like you know it's gonna it's gonna
<v Speaker 2>ask me to go back to level one now that
<v Speaker 2>I have like this new ability to punch through the
<v Speaker 2>ground and like reach through like to this other area.
<v Speaker 2>So like, there are so many reasons to explore, and
<v Speaker 2>like it's all very rewarding and the combat is super
<v Speaker 2>satisfying by the end of it. You have so many
<v Speaker 2>different combos and like customizable like load outs that you
<v Speaker 2>can build like through like either like the Ninpo abilities,
<v Speaker 2>the Ninjutsu like Ultimate abilities, that it starts feeling almost
<v Speaker 2>like all right, well, first of all, you can customize
<v Speaker 2>it however you want, and then two like it starts
<v Speaker 2>feeling almost like a fighting game where it's like, all right, well,
<v Speaker 2>now it's like, you know, square square triangle, triangle is
<v Speaker 2>like your your most basic comba. And then it's like,
<v Speaker 2>what if I throw like you know, some sharkens into
<v Speaker 2>that or some like some like Ninpo in the middle
<v Speaker 2>of that, like light the guy on fire in the
<v Speaker 2>middle of doing like a light and heavy attack, and
<v Speaker 2>you know, there's all these different combinations that you can
<v Speaker 2>pull off and you you unlock them through the store
<v Speaker 2>as you go, and it like the boss battles are fantastic.
<v Speaker 2>The levels, I would say are probably the levels in
<v Speaker 2>the art style really compete between like how like what
<v Speaker 2>is the what is the most perfectly designed part of
<v Speaker 2>this game? But also you know, the platforming feels great
<v Speaker 2>and the combat is fantastic as well. So right now
<v Speaker 2>it is the front runner for my personal game of
<v Speaker 2>the year.
<v Speaker 4>Wow.
<v Speaker 1>Damn.
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, that's crazy.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that sounds cool.
<v Speaker 4>Highly recommend it on the d Lemming scale.
<v Speaker 3>Where does it land though?
<v Speaker 2>I mean, you are you do unload a lot of
<v Speaker 2>heavy damage into people, and then you can perform an
<v Speaker 2>execution style attack that finishes them off and makes them
<v Speaker 2>explode like pinatas with like you know, drops and stuff.
<v Speaker 1>So sounds like a real obliteration to it is.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, So Year of the Ninja and between the you know,
<v Speaker 2>I wrote a Shanoby Art a Vengeance feature a couple
<v Speaker 2>issues for our first issue back, I wrote the Ninja
<v Speaker 2>guid and four cover story, and then I reviewed Shanoby
<v Speaker 2>Art a Vengeance. I'm just kind of tapped out writing
<v Speaker 2>about Ninja's right now.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's fair, that's fair. Well, Brian, thanks for joining
<v Speaker 1>us today. I'll let you get back to your your
<v Speaker 1>very busy Tuesday, but appreciate you coming on and talking
<v Speaker 1>about Ninja, Guiden four and Shinoby.
<v Speaker 2>All right, thanks for having me.
<v Speaker 1>All right, bye, Brian, all right, we are back and
<v Speaker 1>we're gonna toss it over to Mike Drucker here to
<v Speaker 1>chat about UFO fifty and anything else that you honestly
<v Speaker 1>want to talk about. Mike, this game came out I
<v Speaker 1>think during our Dark time? Is that right, Kyle?
<v Speaker 3>The Dark Period?
<v Speaker 1>I like a dark period version.
<v Speaker 4>We all were hibernating or something. I don't remember it.
<v Speaker 1>Was, Yeah, yeah, it was. It was during the Dark Period.
<v Speaker 3>I believe.
<v Speaker 4>Are you playing the Switch version? Is that what you're
<v Speaker 4>Is that what you're doing or yeah?
<v Speaker 5>I mean I have the PC version and I bought
<v Speaker 5>it again on the Switch, both because I there's a
<v Speaker 5>certain type of game where I'm like, I want to
<v Speaker 5>support it enough where I want more of this type
<v Speaker 5>of game, so I'm willing to buy it more than once. Yeah,
<v Speaker 5>you know, And also I just wanted it more places.
<v Speaker 1>That's totally this v game you could just jam on
<v Speaker 1>for a long time.
<v Speaker 5>That's what I love about it. I mean, like I think,
<v Speaker 5>what I think what people don't realize is it's not
<v Speaker 5>like Warrio where where there's a ton of minigames in here,
<v Speaker 5>or you know, micro minigames. These are full game, some
<v Speaker 5>of which take hours to complete, some take like fifteen
<v Speaker 5>minutes if you know what you're doing. But if you're
<v Speaker 5>not familiar with it, it's basically a collection of fake
<v Speaker 5>nes era games on a fake console. As if you're
<v Speaker 5>going through the chronology of these games from like nineteen
<v Speaker 5>eighty three to I think like nineteen eighty seven or eight,
<v Speaker 5>almost like you're going through the whole lifetime life cycle
<v Speaker 5>of the NES or the fancom except again, it's a
<v Speaker 5>fictional system. There's also sort of like a meta thing
<v Speaker 5>under the games, like the better you do in the games,
<v Speaker 5>you start to unlock little things that give you information
<v Speaker 5>about like this fake console. That's cool, but it's it's
<v Speaker 5>but like every genre is represented. There's a there's like
<v Speaker 5>a horror adventure game that's actually great. There are platformers,
<v Speaker 5>there's like a bubble bobble soccer type game. There's uh,
<v Speaker 5>there's a game called party House, which is just an
<v Speaker 5>amazing streated.
<v Speaker 1>That's a game the only game I played from this
<v Speaker 1>compilation so far, and I love party House. That game rules.
<v Speaker 5>Party House is almost worth admission, like the price of
<v Speaker 5>admission alone. It's so good. Basically, party houses kind of
<v Speaker 5>it's not a deck builder, but think like a deck
<v Speaker 5>builder where you're trying to h around. You're inviting people
<v Speaker 5>over for a party, and those people either bring in
<v Speaker 5>money or they bring in popularity. Those are the two
<v Speaker 5>resources and with popularity, you can buy more people, and
<v Speaker 5>with money you can expand the size of the house
<v Speaker 5>to have the party in. And then there's like little
<v Speaker 5>things like there's some people who are worth a lot
<v Speaker 5>of points, but they're jerks, so if too many show
<v Speaker 5>up at once, the cops come to the party, it's
<v Speaker 5>it's it's it's like an astonishingly fun and fast strategy
<v Speaker 5>and I love it so much.
<v Speaker 6>Buys people, but popularity increases the size of the house.
<v Speaker 5>I might have got that reverse reverse Okay.
<v Speaker 6>I heard it, and I was like, that's crazy game design,
<v Speaker 6>that's exactly awesome. I was about to I was ready
<v Speaker 6>to write an essay about No I hadn't.
<v Speaker 1>Swapped like from the game. Oh go ahead, Kyle, What
<v Speaker 1>were you saying?
<v Speaker 4>Is it a switch to proper game or is it
<v Speaker 4>a switch one game?
<v Speaker 5>Switch one? Switch one? But like it's also simple that
<v Speaker 5>you know, I'm someone who still uses my switch one,
<v Speaker 5>Like my switch one has become sort of like I
<v Speaker 5>live in New York City, so it's not like my
<v Speaker 5>throat in my bag and take it on the subway
<v Speaker 5>type console because I no longer care if I break
<v Speaker 5>it or lose it, because I have another one, which
<v Speaker 5>is a terrible way to view your things, but it
<v Speaker 5>runs just as well as on one is too, and honestly,
<v Speaker 5>you could say it runs a little better because it
<v Speaker 5>upscales to the higher resolution on the switch to and
<v Speaker 5>a few of the games you have a slight like
<v Speaker 5>dithering type effect a little bit with some of the
<v Speaker 5>pixel art. It's not a big problem, but like if
<v Speaker 5>you on like the fan forms, there's one or two
<v Speaker 5>people who aren't happy about it, but it works great
<v Speaker 5>on either console.
<v Speaker 1>The rules, any other any other highlights from besides Party House.
<v Speaker 5>God Like, like I said, I forget what the Horror
<v Speaker 5>one is named, but like, once you get into it,
<v Speaker 5>that's really good. There's the problem is they all have
<v Speaker 5>like sort of generic any style names, and so like
<v Speaker 5>I'll be like the one where the lady is jumping
<v Speaker 5>on clouds and going up a lot, and I put
<v Speaker 5>probably one hundred hours into this, and I'll be like,
<v Speaker 5>I think that's velgris because I'm so used to just
<v Speaker 5>clicking on the icon of the game and being like,
<v Speaker 5>all right, we're gonna play more of a Samurai Dodgeball,
<v Speaker 5>which is not the name, which is not the name
<v Speaker 5>of it at all, which is, but another one of
<v Speaker 5>the game is basically kind of like a sports game
<v Speaker 5>where you're to samurai who are hitting a disc or
<v Speaker 5>a ball back and forth. It's so good and it's
<v Speaker 5>so much value for your dollar, which I know is
<v Speaker 5>a weird thing to say about video games when I'm
<v Speaker 5>constantly begging them to be shorter. But there's so much
<v Speaker 5>to do in it, and like you said, like because
<v Speaker 5>there's fifty essentially full sized games in it each I
<v Speaker 5>mean not each, but a lot of them in very
<v Speaker 5>different genres. Like there's a game called There's There's a
<v Speaker 5>pin Golf where you're it's basically pinball and golf put
<v Speaker 5>together rules. There's so much to do there that it's
<v Speaker 5>It's one of those games also that like you can
<v Speaker 5>play for fifteen minutes with the sound off if you're
<v Speaker 5>on the couch, Like, you don't need to put a
<v Speaker 5>lot of time into it. You don't need to be like, Okay,
<v Speaker 5>if there's a cut scene, I'm not going to be
<v Speaker 5>able to play this because I only have forty five minutes.
<v Speaker 5>It's the perfect portable game that with experiences that take
<v Speaker 5>a couple hours or a couple of minutes. I know
<v Speaker 5>that I'm sounding like I made the game and I'll
<v Speaker 5>make money. I'm just such a big fan of this kind.
<v Speaker 6>Yeah the job. Can I ask when you played the games,
<v Speaker 6>did you what order? Did you play them in? Did
<v Speaker 6>you go chronological order? Did you just see what like
<v Speaker 6>looked good?
<v Speaker 5>I went, I saw what looked good. I thought about
<v Speaker 5>going in chronological order, but then I was like, I
<v Speaker 5>want to try the wall with the dinosaurs, and I
<v Speaker 5>went with again, there's a strategy game where you play
<v Speaker 5>birds who worshiped dinosaurs to get special powers for war.
<v Speaker 5>Of course, of course, as you do as you do
<v Speaker 5>so I initially my initial attention was like, I'm going
<v Speaker 5>to play them in order the way that God intended,
<v Speaker 5>And then I immediately jumped around when things look fun.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, and I love that. Like obviously, Derek, you
<v Speaker 1>kind of headed up the project, but he he pulled
<v Speaker 1>a lot of friends. I know Eric, I can't remember
<v Speaker 1>his last name. One of one of his buddies who
<v Speaker 1>has helped design I think he helped with like Spelunky
<v Speaker 1>and all that. It feels like such a fun you know,
<v Speaker 1>you kind of see their individual fingerprints on the various
<v Speaker 1>games as as you go through. I got it. I
<v Speaker 1>probably played like ten, ten or eleven of those games
<v Speaker 1>and was always one that I wanted to bookmark to
<v Speaker 1>come back to because it'd come out in a complicated
<v Speaker 1>period of my life, as we covered, and yeah, that
<v Speaker 1>reminds me pen Golf was. I was kind of looking
<v Speaker 1>up screenshots and I forgot that was the one that
<v Speaker 1>that I kind of had my eye on, but I
<v Speaker 1>never got to. So I might have to do we
<v Speaker 1>know how much it is on Switch? I can I
<v Speaker 1>guess I can look real quick. I won't say thirty bucks,
<v Speaker 1>but okay, yeah, oh yeah, twenty four ninety nine, Okay.
<v Speaker 4>Okay, I have it on Steam Deck. I got it
<v Speaker 4>during the Dark period, but man, I was just like
<v Speaker 4>intimidated by it, Like it's it was almost like too much,
<v Speaker 4>you know, and I do I need to I want.
<v Speaker 4>I just prefer playing games on Switch or switch to
<v Speaker 4>just because it's like lighter than the Steam Deck. And
<v Speaker 4>so maybe that's the excuse I need to like give
<v Speaker 4>it another It's not that I didn't like it or anything.
<v Speaker 4>It was just like I played the first two games
<v Speaker 4>and I was like, oh my god, I have forty
<v Speaker 4>eight more of these to potentially try and enjoy or
<v Speaker 4>maybe not even like and that's fine because I'll just
<v Speaker 4>go to the next one. But I don't know just
<v Speaker 4>that is it's a full time job.
<v Speaker 6>It's I mean, I like, I don't know if it
<v Speaker 6>has to do with our job. It probably has something
<v Speaker 6>to do their job. But there is a thing when
<v Speaker 6>I'm playing a game when sometimes I'm like, oh my god,
<v Speaker 6>I have like thirty more hours left of game before
<v Speaker 6>I get to the end of it, versus being like,
<v Speaker 6>I gotta upgrade my armor, I gotta talk to that
<v Speaker 6>weird guy in the alley. I gotta see if I
<v Speaker 6>can put these two pets together and make a third pet.
<v Speaker 6>Like all that kind of stuff is what like actually
<v Speaker 6>pulls me through the game. But it's like how long
<v Speaker 6>it is, Yeah, you can actually click with.
<v Speaker 1>Oh the number one thing. Number one like self sabotage.
<v Speaker 1>Thing I do is I'll be playing a game and
<v Speaker 1>I'll google how many chapters are in X game. See
<v Speaker 1>it's like thirty six, and I'm like, I'm on four.
<v Speaker 6>Knowing the chapters helps me a lot, Like chapters are
<v Speaker 6>really I way prefer chapters to an hour count because
<v Speaker 6>like I think I just play games slower than most
<v Speaker 6>people or I just get distracted very easily. But knowing
<v Speaker 6>I'm like four out of thirty six, I'm like, ooh,
<v Speaker 6>I can knock another chapter off today, and I feel
<v Speaker 6>like I'm making progress versus like I don't know fifty game.
<v Speaker 6>That's another example of like, you know, I could I
<v Speaker 6>know exactly how much I've done well, yeah, And but.
<v Speaker 5>I'm sort of like that with mini games, where like,
<v Speaker 5>for for example, like Final Fantasy Rebirth, there was a
<v Speaker 5>point where I was like, how many of these goddamn
<v Speaker 5>are there? And that actually helped me stop doing the minigames.
<v Speaker 5>I was like, I'm not going to do all of this.
<v Speaker 5>When I saw how much there was, I was almost
<v Speaker 5>like relieve that I would not be doing that.
<v Speaker 1>Yeahah.
<v Speaker 6>There's also a knowledge of letting yourself be like I
<v Speaker 6>actually I would rather finish this game not one hundred
<v Speaker 6>percent than drop it in the middle. Yes, where it's
<v Speaker 6>like I want to enjoy five UFO fifty games rather
<v Speaker 6>than never picking it up because it's too intimidating. But
<v Speaker 6>you have to I don't know, I personally have to
<v Speaker 6>talk myself into that. I'm like, it's okay, I don't
<v Speaker 6>need to get full synchronization or whatever every single level.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, great pull for UFO fifty. Have
<v Speaker 1>you been playing anything else, Mike, or is that most
<v Speaker 1>of what you've been kind of jamming?
<v Speaker 5>I've been. I've been for some reason, even though I
<v Speaker 5>know the remake just came out. In defiance of that.
<v Speaker 5>I'm playing Metal Gear Solid three again, the HD Collection
<v Speaker 5>version and the three DS version. Oh, you did start
<v Speaker 5>playing the three D playing them at the same time,
<v Speaker 5>same time, because the three DS version is so weird
<v Speaker 5>and it's not great, no controls, weird controls.
<v Speaker 4>Well, Mike and I left for we met, like when
<v Speaker 4>I was in New York doing the Meddle Gear event,
<v Speaker 4>like the review event, and you were talking, You're talking
<v Speaker 4>up the three D S version. I had remembered that.
<v Speaker 4>I think I think I actually got my copy from
<v Speaker 4>Game Informer, Like we got an extra copy back when
<v Speaker 4>we got like physical copies of games, and I gave
<v Speaker 4>it to my brother and I went to his apartment
<v Speaker 4>and got it and I started playing it, and I
<v Speaker 4>texted Mike. I was like, Mike, this is this is
<v Speaker 4>almost unplayable, Like this is like you you have to
<v Speaker 4>use the face buttons to aim in first person.
<v Speaker 5>It's so it's okay, Yeah, I love, I love. I
<v Speaker 5>love a bad video game.
<v Speaker 1>I love.
<v Speaker 5>I mean, I love like a bad version of a
<v Speaker 5>great video the Game Boy version of Mortal Kombat. I
<v Speaker 5>will the worst. I want the worst version of the worst.
<v Speaker 4>I will say it was picking the three DS back
<v Speaker 4>up and charging it up and turning it on. It
<v Speaker 4>was a moment of like, you know what, maybe we
<v Speaker 4>didn't talk about how cool this stereoscopic technology is, Like, yeah,
<v Speaker 4>it gives me a headache and I can't keep it
<v Speaker 4>on for too long, but like it does work, and
<v Speaker 4>that's pretty cool. You know, Because I just at a
<v Speaker 4>cert after the first like month of having my three DS,
<v Speaker 4>I like I would just turn it on to see like,
<v Speaker 4>oh cool it's in three D.
<v Speaker 3>Okay, let me turn it off and play the game.
<v Speaker 4>Like that's almost how I played every three DS game.
<v Speaker 1>But yeah, I have this miserable Oh sorry, Charles, go ahead.
<v Speaker 6>I was gonna say. I got to the point at
<v Speaker 6>the end of the three DS lifespan where I would
<v Speaker 6>start being like, oh, yeah, this thing's in three D
<v Speaker 6>and I'd check it and the game they didn't even
<v Speaker 6>bother to at the three D like a sixteen three
<v Speaker 6>DS game. It's like they were like, it's actually not
<v Speaker 6>worth the trouble.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I got my three DS I think twenty sixteen.
<v Speaker 1>It was really late to it, and I was kind
<v Speaker 1>of I knew this. I think the NX the switch
<v Speaker 1>had been announced at that point, and I wanted just
<v Speaker 1>something in that realm. I was feeling, you know, nostalgic
<v Speaker 1>about Nintendo and all that, and I had this horrible
<v Speaker 1>desk job, and I would just go to the bathroom
<v Speaker 1>and sit in the men's shower room and just play
<v Speaker 1>three DS. There's animal crossing, but I remember the stereoscopic
<v Speaker 1>stuff was just like kind of enchanting, even in twenty sixteen. Ye.
<v Speaker 1>But I would get nauseous really quickly, and so then
<v Speaker 1>I would have to go and work the rest of
<v Speaker 1>the afternoon, just feeling awful. But uh, yeah, I should
<v Speaker 1>I should play something on three DS soon.
<v Speaker 3>You know, are you?
<v Speaker 4>Are you playing metal Gear on new three DS or
<v Speaker 4>like a classic three D? So can you use the
<v Speaker 4>control stick on the new three DS? Do you have
<v Speaker 4>to like change a setting.
<v Speaker 6>Or so much better?
<v Speaker 4>God, I don't because I couldn't. I didn't. I didn't
<v Speaker 4>dive super deep into or anything. I just played for
<v Speaker 4>a couple of minutes, but I was like, I, I,
<v Speaker 4>you know, I don't know to use to like I
<v Speaker 4>I fondled the nub yeah yeah, and it wasn't moving
<v Speaker 4>the camera. That was the wrong word. Okay, So I
<v Speaker 4>didn't know if maybe I needed to like change the
<v Speaker 4>setting or something, because I think it came out before
<v Speaker 4>New three DS. But you, I said you were wrong
<v Speaker 4>at the time, but you were right. You can use
<v Speaker 4>the circle pad, so it must there must be some
<v Speaker 4>way to turn it on. I just don't know how
<v Speaker 4>to do it. Maybe I'll give it another shot so
<v Speaker 4>I don't have to aim with the face buttons, because
<v Speaker 4>I was just flabbergasted that that's how it worked.
<v Speaker 6>Mike A, someone who's who's never played Metal Gear Solid
<v Speaker 6>three has just started playing Delta. Can you pitch me
<v Speaker 6>the reason that I should drop my PS five version
<v Speaker 6>of Delta and pick up the three DS version instead?
<v Speaker 1>Uh?
<v Speaker 4>Do you hate yourself?
<v Speaker 5>Because if you do, and which I hate myself, it's perkay,
<v Speaker 5>Like if you if you want, if you want yourself
<v Speaker 5>to have a slightly worse time, if you want to hear.
<v Speaker 6>Any any other selling points.
<v Speaker 4>Oh the other The other thing. The other reason I
<v Speaker 4>was almost mad about having been tricked into playing it
<v Speaker 4>is I was laying on my back playing it and
<v Speaker 4>the opening it's like you climb up the tree and
<v Speaker 4>get your pack, and it's like it adds a balancing
<v Speaker 4>mini game right where you have to like balance snake.
<v Speaker 4>But the thing was I was holding I was like
<v Speaker 4>holding it on my back and it doesn't work, and
<v Speaker 4>it was like the middle of the night, and I'm like,
<v Speaker 4>a snake just keeps falling off the tree and I'm like,
<v Speaker 4>and I was calling the colonel or whatever, a commander zero.
<v Speaker 3>I forget what his name was.
<v Speaker 4>Which is funny that he was talking about the three
<v Speaker 4>ds and the tilt controls because they re recorded new
<v Speaker 4>dialogue for him to talk about it, which is very funny.
<v Speaker 4>But I had to like sit up at like I
<v Speaker 4>don't know, one o'clock in the morning and like properly
<v Speaker 4>sit so I could balance snake on that.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>So yeah, does that does that help you, Charles? Does
<v Speaker 4>that encourage you to go pick up?
<v Speaker 1>No?
<v Speaker 6>It really doesn't.
<v Speaker 5>I mean yeah, I mean I got I can't. I
<v Speaker 5>can't convince you to drop the malder one for the
<v Speaker 5>last one because I don't have a good I think
<v Speaker 5>it's just you know, like a game.
<v Speaker 4>Ye, yeah, you know, while.
<v Speaker 5>I don't know, I don't know, I will I will play.
<v Speaker 5>Like like a few months ago, like almost on a Dare,
<v Speaker 5>I emulated and played the ZX Spectrum version of Street
<v Speaker 5>Fighter Too, which is as I just I love. I
<v Speaker 5>love a good bad video game. I love it so much.
<v Speaker 4>While we're on three DS, this might be a good transition,
<v Speaker 4>But Mike, I want to at least talk a little bit.
<v Speaker 4>I wanted to connect to you and Charles because Charles
<v Speaker 4>is a big kid Icarus fan, and of course you
<v Speaker 4>worked on us and you and you wrote it and
<v Speaker 4>you talk about it in your book too.
<v Speaker 3>Working on Kid Chorus, which is fun. So yeah, I.
<v Speaker 5>The nicest compliment I got was that my Jason Schreyer said,
<v Speaker 5>my book has more about the inside of Nintendo than
<v Speaker 5>Reggie's book.
<v Speaker 4>Wow. Yeah, it really probably does. Yeah, he talks. It
<v Speaker 4>is funny because Reggie's book has a lot of discussions
<v Speaker 4>about like going out to dinner with me at Moto,
<v Speaker 4>which is like outside of literally this is how I
<v Speaker 4>outside the office.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah yeah, Charles, this is remind me your favorite game
<v Speaker 1>is the is Lego Batman? Is that right, Lego Batman too?
<v Speaker 1>This is this is there for you?
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, my first game I ever played was Lego Star Wars.
<v Speaker 6>So I have a very I have a lot of nostalgia,
<v Speaker 6>specifically like Charles is a baby.
<v Speaker 3>That's fair. I'm a baby.
<v Speaker 6>I was born in the year two thousand, which is
<v Speaker 6>relevant for my Kiddichrius story of it was it was
<v Speaker 6>like maybe the first game I remember finding out about
<v Speaker 6>on my own, Like I think there was like a
<v Speaker 6>we what even was it? They had like a Wei
<v Speaker 6>news channel or something like that, but it wasn't like
<v Speaker 6>the actual Wei news channel. It was like the way
<v Speaker 6>you they like played trailers for games or whatever, and
<v Speaker 6>that's how I learned about this game. And I was like,
<v Speaker 6>this seems cool, and it was like the first time
<v Speaker 6>I played a game, and like none of my friends
<v Speaker 6>had told me about it. I don't think I knew
<v Speaker 6>anyone else that knew what it was, but I was like,
<v Speaker 6>this might be the best thing anyone's ever made. And
<v Speaker 6>I'm twelve and I know that definitively. But then to
<v Speaker 6>return to it later and be like, oh, I actually
<v Speaker 6>I do genuine love this thing, and not in a
<v Speaker 6>metal gear solid three D way. But yeah, I don't
<v Speaker 6>I don't know what what you remember of it or
<v Speaker 6>like what I think.
<v Speaker 5>I think.
<v Speaker 6>The thing I am curious about is uh localizing like
<v Speaker 6>uh text and stuff. Uh that can come I imagine
<v Speaker 6>at a lot of different places in the development cycle
<v Speaker 6>of a game like that could be something that happened
<v Speaker 6>really early, or it could be like pretty late, right
<v Speaker 6>as you're like we're got to record stuff, we're gonna
<v Speaker 6>write it all up. So I don't know when you
<v Speaker 6>join the team or just what you remember about that.
<v Speaker 5>I mean, we The lucky thing about the Treehouse at
<v Speaker 5>Nintendo is a lot of their localization product projects, you know,
<v Speaker 5>so probably starting in like the you know, mid or
<v Speaker 5>late two thousands, they started working at the beginning of
<v Speaker 5>the cycle. So rather than it being like the old
<v Speaker 5>stories of a Final Fantasy game where like a translator
<v Speaker 5>got a giant stack of papers in three weeks to
<v Speaker 5>translate something, we were playing early builds of the game
<v Speaker 5>while you know, Soccari would give us notes or you know,
<v Speaker 5>we'd get an email that was like, hey, we've changed
<v Speaker 5>the story beat, which means that this dialogue in this
<v Speaker 5>section of the document has changed, you guys need to
<v Speaker 5>review it or you know, so like it. It's not
<v Speaker 5>like we were development with them, because that's a little
<v Speaker 5>bit grandiose to say, but we were part of the
<v Speaker 5>whole development process, so as the story changed, we got
<v Speaker 5>to change with it. And because Sakarai wanted it to
<v Speaker 5>be a funnier game, he was much more open to us,
<v Speaker 5>you know, not changing jokes without his permission, but making
<v Speaker 5>sure that things idiomatically made sense, making sure that the
<v Speaker 5>humor that he wanted in specific moments was evoked, rather
<v Speaker 5>than we've got to stick to this translation as closely
<v Speaker 5>as possible. Like, he encouraged us to like really make
<v Speaker 5>it our own. And it was such a cool, fun
<v Speaker 5>process I think. I think I personally feel lucky that
<v Speaker 5>I got to see it as it was being made.
<v Speaker 5>I think like, if I was just playing a really
<v Speaker 5>fun game and localizing it, it wouldn't have been as magic.
<v Speaker 5>It was honestly just so cool to be in the
<v Speaker 5>middle of that process.
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, that's cool. So does does Sagarai? Does he speak English?
<v Speaker 6>Does he understand the jokes when you send it to him,
<v Speaker 6>or would it be like would he get you a
<v Speaker 6>thing you would translate it and then someone would translate
<v Speaker 6>it back for him to understand or for the Japanese
<v Speaker 6>team in general to understand.
<v Speaker 5>That would be like most of it, because a lot
<v Speaker 5>of it would be communicational with email, like he does
<v Speaker 5>have a good grasp of English, but we I'm sure
<v Speaker 5>there must have been at least one video call, but
<v Speaker 5>I can't remember it. I remember a ton of emails,
<v Speaker 5>including at one point he injured his hand from playing
<v Speaker 5>the game so much so we got like emails from
<v Speaker 5>someone else that was like, Hey, you're gonna get emails
<v Speaker 5>from us for a little while because he injured his
<v Speaker 5>hand playing this.
<v Speaker 4>So that we talked about it retroactive at least.
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, that's so funny given the complaints people have about
<v Speaker 6>the game, uh, just the controls that literally. I also, I,
<v Speaker 6>for the record, always liked the control scheme. And maybe
<v Speaker 6>it's because I was twelve and had twelve year old
<v Speaker 6>sized hands that bothered me in the same way, but yeah,
<v Speaker 6>they should have just had a second I mean, they
<v Speaker 6>did eventually add the second control stick.
<v Speaker 5>On there, but yeah, I mean I remember, you know,
<v Speaker 5>even during development, this wasn't really part of our conversation.
<v Speaker 5>But since you know, you're also as a localizer, you're
<v Speaker 5>also writing the you know, you're localizing the man in
<v Speaker 5>the box art. That there was that conversation of whether
<v Speaker 5>or not to include a stand, whether or not to
<v Speaker 5>include some extra thing to make it work, Like I
<v Speaker 5>remember there being internally a lot of conversations about making
<v Speaker 5>this game more playing, yeah, because it is a difficult
<v Speaker 5>game to play on a regular three DS A little Did.
<v Speaker 6>You all you said you were translating of the manual
<v Speaker 6>and the menus and stuff. Did you all do all
<v Speaker 6>of that? Were you like assigned different parts? How did
<v Speaker 6>the work breakdown?
<v Speaker 5>Well, I it was me, and then there was I
<v Speaker 5>was sort of like I wouldn't say, I would say
<v Speaker 5>like junior. I would say I was the junior writer,
<v Speaker 5>and there was a senior writer named Anne Lynn, so
<v Speaker 5>she was sort of the overall person. And a lot
<v Speaker 5>of the things that I was assigned to were, you know,
<v Speaker 5>punching up certain scenes where they wanted more jokes, or
<v Speaker 5>things like writing the idol text. You know, writing the
<v Speaker 5>idols were basically trophies in the game, So getting to
<v Speaker 5>write the text for that was super fun because they
<v Speaker 5>basically let you do whatever you want, so that was
<v Speaker 5>super fun. I mean, like to a certain extent. I
<v Speaker 5>couldn't like, you know, you know, dropping a slur or something,
<v Speaker 5>but it was like an amazing thing opportunity to write
<v Speaker 5>all those idle texts. So Ann would sort of like
<v Speaker 5>assign me to do different things, and she was sort
<v Speaker 5>of in charge of the overall project, but she was
<v Speaker 5>also the one that was like helping to direct the
<v Speaker 5>voice recording and whatnot, so it was very collaborative. It
<v Speaker 5>was it wasn't like go off to a corner and
<v Speaker 5>do this. It was more like, hey, this new issue
<v Speaker 5>or this new change or you know, this new thing
<v Speaker 5>has popped up. Can you go handle that?
<v Speaker 6>Cool ell?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, very cool. Thank you for uh oh.
<v Speaker 4>I just wanted to make a request Mike to you personally.
<v Speaker 4>Could you get that game over to switch to?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah?
<v Speaker 5>Oh man, I would I would love that. I would
<v Speaker 5>love that, despite the fact I would not be paid
<v Speaker 5>for it. And there's like a ninety chance my name
<v Speaker 5>is not the credits for that one.
<v Speaker 6>Make make them make Kidd's Uprising. It can either be
<v Speaker 6>a sequel or it can be a port or whatever.
<v Speaker 6>Get it on switch to and the day it comes out,
<v Speaker 6>I will not play it, and instead I will go
<v Speaker 6>back and play the three DS version all the way
<v Speaker 6>through the completion and be like.
<v Speaker 1>You, guys, you gotta play the three DS version. It's
<v Speaker 1>so much better. I love it. Also, you're in New
<v Speaker 1>York apparently, Yeah, I'm in New York. That's what.
<v Speaker 4>Talks language.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, my mother was born there. Really is that true?
<v Speaker 1>Is that Charles Law?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah? I mean I I don't know that.
<v Speaker 1>I just know Cincinnati, Cincinnati.
<v Speaker 6>My my mom born and raised in New York, lived
<v Speaker 6>on Long Island. My parents met at school in Ithaca,
<v Speaker 6>but my dad was always like from Ohio, and then
<v Speaker 6>he convinced, convinced, he got my mom to move back
<v Speaker 6>to the Midwest with him. And my mom's immigrant parents
<v Speaker 6>were like, who's this white boy that's stealing our stealing
<v Speaker 6>our daughter away from us here to go live in Kentucky.
<v Speaker 6>That's weird. And it all worked out obviously good.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, well cool. I also recommend if people haven't go
<v Speaker 1>on the YouTube channel YouTube dot com slash Game Informer,
<v Speaker 1>we put up a rapid fire interview with the folks
<v Speaker 1>from the Chinese room on Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines too,
<v Speaker 1>and Cincinnati does make a does get a mission and
<v Speaker 1>a really funny joke. Actually, so go check that out.
<v Speaker 1>But kind of moving on, got a couple more topics
<v Speaker 1>can attack before we get out of here, Kyle, I
<v Speaker 1>want to toss it to you. Number one, The Rogue
<v Speaker 1>Prince of Persia came out last week surprise drop.
<v Speaker 3>In one point.
<v Speaker 1>That makes one point one point. It came out earlier
<v Speaker 1>this year, I think what April may Ish, I.
<v Speaker 6>Think it was.
<v Speaker 4>I played it, yeah, I did when they announced it.
<v Speaker 4>When they announced it, I did like a preview for it.
<v Speaker 3>I remember.
<v Speaker 4>For the shutdown, yes, yeah, and then and then the
<v Speaker 4>sort of surprise detail was like, oh yeah, and it's
<v Speaker 4>going to go into early access within like two or
<v Speaker 4>three weeks. So it's it's it's been. It's been in
<v Speaker 4>early access for a while.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>I don't know why I thought it was earlier this year.
<v Speaker 1>Huh okay. But regardless, even playing the one point, oh
<v Speaker 1>kind of came out of nowhere, surprise drop. How is it?
<v Speaker 1>I know, like the big the big difference between that
<v Speaker 1>and The Lost Crown that came out last year also,
<v Speaker 1>which is that you can kind of wall run along
<v Speaker 1>kind of like the the two D Escape.
<v Speaker 4>I mean, I mean there's a lot of differences. I mean,
<v Speaker 4>the only similarity is they're too they're both two D
<v Speaker 4>Prince of Persia games kind of ultimately, because I mean,
<v Speaker 4>Lost Crown is a great Metroid inspired game that I
<v Speaker 4>really love, and this is this is this is a
<v Speaker 4>rogue game specifically. You know, it's from the folks that
<v Speaker 4>make Dead Cells, so it feels a lot like Dead
<v Speaker 4>Cells in a very complimentary way. And then and then
<v Speaker 4>there's a bunch of like Prince of Persia mechanics where
<v Speaker 4>it's like, yeah, like the it's kind of hard to
<v Speaker 4>explain without like seeing it, but like sure you can
<v Speaker 4>see the wall behind you, Like there's not always a
<v Speaker 4>wall in this sort of the background, but when it's there,
<v Speaker 4>you can run along it. And that feels very like
<v Speaker 4>Sands of Time. I I love Prince of Persia, like
<v Speaker 4>that trilogy, like Sands of Time and Warrior Within and
<v Speaker 4>Two Thrones, like I adore those games. Those were like
<v Speaker 4>some of my favorite of that generation. And then the
<v Speaker 4>two thousand and eight game, I think is this like
<v Speaker 4>kind of underrated, beautiful game just for a million different reasons.
<v Speaker 4>So I've always like I've always been a big fan.
<v Speaker 4>And then rogues. I kind of like, I kind of
<v Speaker 4>like I'm like a fair weather fan, you know, like
<v Speaker 4>there are some that I really love. I love Undermine
<v Speaker 4>to the point where like when we were in the
<v Speaker 4>Dark Period, I went and like worked with Thorium on
<v Speaker 4>on Undermine and stuff like that because I adored that
<v Speaker 4>game so much. But then even the original Dead Seals
<v Speaker 4>I've never beaten, Like it's just like it never really
<v Speaker 4>clicked with me. But this one I really I really
<v Speaker 4>like because it's like the I just like the I
<v Speaker 4>like the the IP, which sounds really lame to call it,
<v Speaker 4>like you're a big jake Jill Princes, but it like it.
<v Speaker 4>It feels good for the combat. The wall running is unique,
<v Speaker 4>like it's not it does. It feels like Prince of Persia,
<v Speaker 4>but it doesn't really feel like a lot of two
<v Speaker 4>D action games. And then I also like this sort
<v Speaker 4>of story which fits well into a rogue structure because
<v Speaker 4>like the whole idea is like the Prince, the titular
<v Speaker 4>prince that you're playing as, has always been able to
<v Speaker 4>like rewind time. It was like a secret that he
<v Speaker 4>kept to himself. But then something happens where like the
<v Speaker 4>Huns come and invade his home and so he's having
<v Speaker 4>to like relive this day over and over where he's
<v Speaker 4>trying to get the Huns out of his home and
<v Speaker 4>like save his family and stuff like that. And I
<v Speaker 4>just always love like Hades does it well too, where
<v Speaker 4>it's like I love a contextualization of the mechanics, you know,
<v Speaker 4>and it's yeah, and it's it's cool that like the
<v Speaker 4>Prince has a memory of everything that's happening, like he
<v Speaker 4>is reliving this day over and over, and then he's
<v Speaker 4>like finding people and bringing them to this one area
<v Speaker 4>where they can like stay and they are also kind
<v Speaker 4>of aware of what's going on. So I just like
<v Speaker 4>I like the lore of it, like in a weird way.
<v Speaker 4>It feels good to play, and I like the lare
<v Speaker 4>of it, and it's it's one of those it's one
<v Speaker 4>of those games I've been playing on steam Deck where
<v Speaker 4>it was like one of those things where I was like, oh,
<v Speaker 4>let me check this out. I like Prince of Persia.
<v Speaker 4>I liked playing it last year and I did like
<v Speaker 4>three or four runs and I was like, I think
<v Speaker 4>I might be seeing this thing to the end, you know,
<v Speaker 4>like I really I really want to keep going with it. Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>it just feels good.
<v Speaker 1>I need a new Steam back game right now. My
<v Speaker 1>couch game, well, I tried to make it World of Warcraft.
<v Speaker 1>I'm trying to catch up on the last expansion before
<v Speaker 1>they dropped the big, the big new one next year
<v Speaker 1>with like the housing update and stuff. But then I
<v Speaker 1>forgot they they now Word of Warcrap is like a
<v Speaker 1>bunch of cinematics in it, and so it doesn't make
<v Speaker 1>it a good couch game anymore, unlike like Vanilla Wow.
<v Speaker 1>So then I've kind of been playing a lot of
<v Speaker 1>Magic the Gathering Arena and loving that. But last night
<v Speaker 1>I got like super punished. I've ranked up to I
<v Speaker 1>think like silver, which it really isn't that hard. You
<v Speaker 1>just have to play a bunch of matches, and I
<v Speaker 1>just got walloped, and I was like, I need another
<v Speaker 1>couch game because this is starting to stress me out.
<v Speaker 1>So maybe maybe the Rogue Prins of First or maybe
<v Speaker 1>that gets added to the rotation, because I mean, I
<v Speaker 1>think the that's I also own UF fifty on Steamduck already,
<v Speaker 1>so I should just play that instead of buying a
<v Speaker 1>new game. No, but I think the Saturday Morning kind
<v Speaker 1>of cartoon vibe of the art style really stood out
<v Speaker 1>to me for Robe Prince of Persia, and I heard,
<v Speaker 1>aren't there like something like, uh, isn't there like a
<v Speaker 1>special attention given to the weapons in the game? Am
<v Speaker 1>I remembering that from like the previews, like there's a
<v Speaker 1>lot of various weapons you can grab?
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, I mean if you think of Dead Cells, right, Like, okay, okay,
<v Speaker 4>so it's similar. It's works but basically identically. Like it
<v Speaker 4>almost sounds like I'm like being rude to the game,
<v Speaker 4>but it's like, man, I feel like Dead Cells.
<v Speaker 3>You should check out Prince of Pressure like they're very similar.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, all right, Yeah that sounds cool as hell. Kyle.
<v Speaker 1>You've also been playing Luminess a rise, right, Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, there's a demo that came out today. And I
<v Speaker 4>don't know how you all feel about Luminez Mike U
<v Speaker 4>Luminez fan.
<v Speaker 5>Uh?
<v Speaker 2>You know what?
<v Speaker 5>It is a puzzle game that I think I enjoy
<v Speaker 5>once every eight years where there will be like a
<v Speaker 5>week where I'm like, I love this game. Why don't
<v Speaker 5>I play this more often? And then I'll never play
<v Speaker 5>it again for like eight more years and be like,
<v Speaker 5>why why haven't I played this fun musical puzzle but
<v Speaker 5>I love Tetris effects, so like I do trust them,
<v Speaker 5>and this feels like that version of.
<v Speaker 4>Tetris effect was I was like a Day one PSP owner,
<v Speaker 4>and if you're a Day one PSP on or you're
<v Speaker 4>automatically a luminous fan because it is it was the
<v Speaker 4>best game for the platform, and it was also the
<v Speaker 4>one that you could most easily justify to your friends
<v Speaker 4>who are like, wow, you spend a lot of money
<v Speaker 4>on that thing, and be like no, no, no, but its
<v Speaker 4>like it has new Tetris on it basically. But so
<v Speaker 4>I love that game. And then when they released that
<v Speaker 4>game on Switch like twenty eighteen or something like that,
<v Speaker 4>I felt like way back in love with it, and
<v Speaker 4>I was like I was like doing a lot of
<v Speaker 4>like elliptical biking at the time, and I found that
<v Speaker 4>that was a perfect game to like turn off my
<v Speaker 4>brain and not think about the fact that I was
<v Speaker 4>like moving my body more than I wanted to and
<v Speaker 4>like time would just disappear, you know. And then it
<v Speaker 4>was funny. I played the demo and like was a
<v Speaker 4>pretty much immediately enamored, and I was like, this is wonderful.
<v Speaker 4>The music, it's very Tetris effect. Inspired. But then I
<v Speaker 4>had this moment where I was like, like the sort
<v Speaker 4>of the shifting style of like that that Tetris effect
<v Speaker 4>sort of does where it's like it changes like the
<v Speaker 4>way your blocks look and the music and all that stuff.
<v Speaker 4>I was like, I never connected the dots until that
<v Speaker 4>till this moment that I was like, oh, that's what
<v Speaker 4>Luminez has been doing from day one, Like this is
<v Speaker 4>how Luminez always works. It always changes music every couple
<v Speaker 4>of minutes, it always changes art style every couple of minutes.
<v Speaker 4>And it was it was just kind of a moment
<v Speaker 4>where I was like, oh, yeah, this is like perfect,
<v Speaker 4>Like this is like like this isn't really it's it's
<v Speaker 4>more that it's less that this is like Luminez's take
<v Speaker 4>on Tetris effect and more that Tetris effect was, you know,
<v Speaker 4>it's take on Luminez sort of retroactively where but yeah,
<v Speaker 4>but it's but it's it's great. Like I was sad
<v Speaker 4>when I beat the third level and I was like
<v Speaker 4>I wanted to keep going.
<v Speaker 3>This is so just fun?
<v Speaker 1>Is this one?
<v Speaker 5>Also?
<v Speaker 3>VR?
<v Speaker 4>Does it have a VR mode PlayStation VR two?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah?
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, which I.
<v Speaker 5>Oh, I'm one of eight people.
<v Speaker 4>I'm one of the eight as well, but only because
<v Speaker 4>Sony sent me once a review.
<v Speaker 5>Sony sent me one that I paid five.
<v Speaker 4>But this is I mean to sort of insult PSVR
<v Speaker 4>a little bit. This is the first time I've considered, like, oh,
<v Speaker 4>maybe it's time to plug that headset back in and
<v Speaker 4>play some luminez Arise, because yeah, Tetris Effect in VR
<v Speaker 4>is like one of the one of the best VR
<v Speaker 4>games frankly, you know, like period.
<v Speaker 5>It's so good. It's it's it's and I like that,
<v Speaker 5>you know. I like the PSVR two. It's actually like
<v Speaker 5>a pretty good piece of technology that just wasn't used
<v Speaker 5>that much.
<v Speaker 4>It's comfortable, it feels good on your face. But like
<v Speaker 4>I just will always go Quest three first because like
<v Speaker 4>it's just so much simpler, you know, like it's it's
<v Speaker 4>just like a pain to plug in the PSVR two,
<v Speaker 4>even though it is it's a nice piece of hardware
<v Speaker 4>for sure.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, although PSVR two is also really good for like movies,
<v Speaker 5>it's like a it's a little bit better, I feel
<v Speaker 5>like it, you know, if you have Blu rays and
<v Speaker 5>stuff like that, just watching them on a giant screen
<v Speaker 5>and isolated blackness is really fun.
<v Speaker 3>Maybe I should try that.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, I'm a terrible person. I feel like I've just
<v Speaker 5>convinced you guys. I have the worst game again version
<v Speaker 5>of Ports of Games, and I watch my movies.
<v Speaker 6>And VR and you look up multiple VR twos to
<v Speaker 6>one PS five.
<v Speaker 3>Oh, I don't know.
<v Speaker 1>I don't think.
<v Speaker 6>I'm just I'm just trying to be like this is
<v Speaker 6>I don't I don't mean this WI is sound mean?
<v Speaker 1>I was like, the answer is alone.
<v Speaker 6>This sounds like a really cool way to watch movies
<v Speaker 6>with my partner.
<v Speaker 4>Oh, I have to Oh.
<v Speaker 5>I can't buy two.
<v Speaker 1>Oh that's not what I need.
<v Speaker 5>No, no, no, no. Remember when I said you got
<v Speaker 5>to yourself. Listen, man, If you work on that every day,
<v Speaker 5>you can have a gaming life.
<v Speaker 4>Like what's the last movie you watched in the PSVR? Sinners?
<v Speaker 4>Oh that actually that actually sounds pretty freaking great and
<v Speaker 4>r actually yea, yeah, damn it, that's great massive. I
<v Speaker 4>was hoping you were going to say something real embarrassing,
<v Speaker 4>but that's that actually is like damn it, ye Sinners
<v Speaker 4>of the perfect to watch in there?
<v Speaker 3>Uh yeah.
<v Speaker 4>We were talking the other day speaking of PSP, about
<v Speaker 4>watching Spider Man two on PSP and like being that's
<v Speaker 4>kind of reminds me of that. It's like a really unique,
<v Speaker 4>kind of terrible way to watch a great movie.
<v Speaker 1>No, I had Yeah.
<v Speaker 5>Yeah, they had Shrek on the Jeep on the Game
<v Speaker 5>Boy Advance remember that.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah they also had Yeah they had you get
<v Speaker 1>I had Pokemon. Yeah, Bob also a Lizzie McGuire episode
<v Speaker 1>that you could watch on the game Boy Advance player
<v Speaker 1>that I definitely owned because I was obsessed with with
<v Speaker 1>Hillary Duff as a kid. But yeah, that sounds that
<v Speaker 1>sounds awesome. I'm I recently got sent a Metaquest three
<v Speaker 1>The Less Powerful or the Less It has less resolution,
<v Speaker 1>But I really I feel like this is my chance
<v Speaker 1>now to go back and replay a lot of enhances
<v Speaker 1>VR titles. You know, I loved Humanity on like a
<v Speaker 1>flat screen, but I want to play Humanity and VR.
<v Speaker 1>I think they also have some like exclusive levels in
<v Speaker 1>VR or something, and then Tetris Effect, and I think
<v Speaker 1>I can just do the Steam link thing where I
<v Speaker 1>plug the cable in and I could theoretically play Liminess Arise,
<v Speaker 1>So that might be that might be on the docket.
<v Speaker 3>Fee Yeah, I was.
<v Speaker 5>Just gonna see Yeah, and the Quest three not for nothing.
<v Speaker 5>The Quest three. Also, if you do the right pass through,
<v Speaker 5>have a giant steam deck screen. Really you're just sitting
<v Speaker 5>on the couch and want to have a giant steamed
<v Speaker 5>I know you could just hook it into the TV. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no,
<v Speaker 5>I've totally I've totally played it almost in that like
<v Speaker 5>ar type setting. You have a big screen floating in
<v Speaker 5>front of.
<v Speaker 6>Alex Is just looped back around to playing Wow on the couch.
<v Speaker 1>So cool, Yeah, exactly, exactly, Yeah, hell yeah, I can't wait.
<v Speaker 1>I I played Limitess a Rise a little bit at
<v Speaker 1>this past summer game Fest. I think I played like
<v Speaker 1>four or five stages and was really blown away. I
<v Speaker 1>mean the music is just I think, is it idellic?
<v Speaker 1>They did the Tetras effects soundtrack. I think they're coming
<v Speaker 1>back for this one as well. And I remember they
<v Speaker 1>were playing it through like Jeff Keeley's Samsung Partnership TVs
<v Speaker 1>that are like this, so there's like no headphones.
<v Speaker 6>That's the product saw Amazon.
<v Speaker 1>Exactly. Yeah, and so I remember like, can we can
<v Speaker 1>we turn the TV up? Because it's in like one
<v Speaker 1>of those private little appointment rooms and I'm just like
<v Speaker 1>ear up to like the TV as much as possible
<v Speaker 1>playing Lumines, but from what I heard, it's not great.
<v Speaker 6>But yeah, I played it for the first time when
<v Speaker 6>I played this demo, which I didn't even finish because
<v Speaker 6>it was like right before we were recording the podcast. Yeah,
<v Speaker 6>I just wanted to say they explained the rules to me.
<v Speaker 6>I kind of understand it. There's a chain mechanic that
<v Speaker 6>I didn't really grasp and that's new.
<v Speaker 3>So I was a little confused by too.
<v Speaker 6>Yeah, okay, so I didn't it didn't really matter, and
<v Speaker 6>I was like, I think I'm doing a bad job.
<v Speaker 6>But Brian earlier was talking about the background art and
<v Speaker 6>Shanobi and how he's like, whoa, that's cool, and he
<v Speaker 6>was like, but I was like playing the game, like
<v Speaker 6>I get blown away, but that i'd be playing the game.
<v Speaker 6>I don't think i've recovered from from that. When I
<v Speaker 6>was playing Luminous, right, I think I was just kind
<v Speaker 6>of transfixed. And the fact that it makes like a
<v Speaker 6>little piano note every time you move it back and forth.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, yeah, I felt like.
<v Speaker 6>An iPad baby.
<v Speaker 3>You know, it's like.
<v Speaker 1>You're gonna love it. Yeah, knowing you and your taste, Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>you'll you're gonna really like that.
<v Speaker 3>I'm excited for it for sure. Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, when's it come out?
<v Speaker 4>Not soon enough?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, October.
<v Speaker 3>I'm on the website.
<v Speaker 1>I bet I could find it.
<v Speaker 4>I also, I was just googling around to see if
<v Speaker 4>it is coming to Quest, which I don't know if
<v Speaker 4>they've confirmed November eleventh.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, they have not confirmed Quest. They've confirmed PS five
<v Speaker 1>and Steam. But I was thinking I could hook my
<v Speaker 1>my Quest up to Steam with the cable. Maybe what
<v Speaker 1>I was meaning by that.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, but yeah, demo's out now. To be clear, like
<v Speaker 4>it's you know, this isn't like we had early preview access.
<v Speaker 4>Actually I think we did have early access to it,
<v Speaker 4>but I wasn't able to get around to it, so
<v Speaker 4>I just played it the same time as everybody else.
<v Speaker 1>Well, speaking of early access, I've been playing a game
<v Speaker 1>called Void Breaker on Steam. It is a first person
<v Speaker 1>shooter rogue light, and you are the whole concept is yours,
<v Speaker 1>this person trapped in a digital construct prison, and you
<v Speaker 1>are fighting through combat scenarios to collect combat data for
<v Speaker 1>an algorithm, and you're kind of like stuck in this
<v Speaker 1>this hell, just replaying these these levels over and over,
<v Speaker 1>and there's kind of like you get introduced very early
<v Speaker 1>on to this you know this way out and you
<v Speaker 1>kind of like that is kind of the the main
<v Speaker 1>thrust for like your upgrades and stuff. But the core
<v Speaker 1>concept is you have this weapon and think, like I
<v Speaker 1>think I was describing for the podcast, it's very people
<v Speaker 1>have played ghost Runner like very Parkore focused. There are
<v Speaker 1>some other additional things you can do, like grinding on
<v Speaker 1>on on rails and and you know, you've got your
<v Speaker 1>mid air dash, your typical kind of like FPS modern
<v Speaker 1>PS mechanics. But there is a really robust layer of
<v Speaker 1>destructibility in the world and you are essentially being thrust
<v Speaker 1>into these arenas where there's these corrupt robots that are
<v Speaker 1>are kind of all coming at you. There's it feels,
<v Speaker 1>honestly yeah. It Void Breaker kind of reminds me a
<v Speaker 1>bit of of the stylings of of Returnal just in
<v Speaker 1>like the very like big lasers, lots of haze on
<v Speaker 1>the map, that sort of thing. But what makes it
<v Speaker 1>really interesting is there is a stagger system tied to
<v Speaker 1>various enemies, and similarly to like a doom game, where
<v Speaker 1>like you have to perform these staggers and rather than
<v Speaker 1>like an execution and doom and that's how you get
<v Speaker 1>health and AMMO back, and so you're really incentivized to
<v Speaker 1>you have a telekinesis to like pick up objects and
<v Speaker 1>throw it at folks and that'll help stagger them. Or
<v Speaker 1>you have a grenade that you can, like a basic
<v Speaker 1>grenade you can throw and like if they are above
<v Speaker 1>a st shore, if you're underneath like a bridge fighting,
<v Speaker 1>you can throw a grenade up above and the debris
<v Speaker 1>that falls down from the destruction will stagger the enemies
<v Speaker 1>and it kind of gives you another layer. Yeah, it's
<v Speaker 1>it's very cool. And then the I think the really
<v Speaker 1>big hook for this game is the way in which
<v Speaker 1>you upgrade your weapons. Essentially, it almost reminds me of
<v Speaker 1>the hacking mini game in Marvel Spider Man, where it's
<v Speaker 1>like this this like grid.
<v Speaker 4>That comes where you can press skip and not bother
<v Speaker 4>with it.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that part, that part, Yeah, yeah, I actually think that.
<v Speaker 4>To be clear, I actually quite enjoyed those and I
<v Speaker 4>did all of them. Okay, so I just want to make.
<v Speaker 1>That Wow, Kyle, you're really mean, think about like that
<v Speaker 1>Spider Marvel Spider Man like grid kind of look, but
<v Speaker 1>instead you have these sockets that as you progress to
<v Speaker 1>the run, and you can kind of similarly to other
<v Speaker 1>rogue lights, like you can kind of pick which which
<v Speaker 1>path you want to go through on your route. So, oh,
<v Speaker 1>there's a shop coming up, I'm going to prioritize that,
<v Speaker 1>I'll do that. But whether you do that or you
<v Speaker 1>clear an arena and a chest drops at the end,
<v Speaker 1>you are collecting these modules. And there are basic modules
<v Speaker 1>like increase your grenade damage. There are also other modules
<v Speaker 1>that are whenever you use your telekinesis and hit an
<v Speaker 1>enemy with it, they are briefly frozen, or you do
<v Speaker 1>extra damage to enemies that are on fire, and so
<v Speaker 1>those kind of like ramp up in a very natural
<v Speaker 1>and really fun way. There's also some really broken ones
<v Speaker 1>that I've seen on Blue Sky, where the module the
<v Speaker 1>more that you increase your fov slider in the graphics setting,
<v Speaker 1>the faster you move. And there are other ones that
<v Speaker 1>are the higher your frame rate is, the higher damage
<v Speaker 1>you do in the game. There's some really like game
<v Speaker 1>breaking things that are really exciting icy. Yeah, I have
<v Speaker 1>not gotten as Yeah, but that's kind of definitely like
<v Speaker 1>a carrot on the stick for me.
<v Speaker 6>Just to be clear, are we sure that that's actually
<v Speaker 6>a thing and not a joke, but a joke.
<v Speaker 1>But no, no, that is very crazy.
<v Speaker 5>I love that.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and then there are the other these other sockets
<v Speaker 1>that are multiplier sockets. And so let's say you have
<v Speaker 1>like a I had one socket that was like, if
<v Speaker 1>you press F, you will shoot a missile cluster down
<v Speaker 1>on the ground, like you'll kind of call on an
<v Speaker 1>air strike. And then I found a multiplier where I
<v Speaker 1>had to slot. Let's say my my missile was on
<v Speaker 1>the right, and I had a modifier that would go
<v Speaker 1>into the left of it and it would multiply that
<v Speaker 1>effect three times. And so now when I press the
<v Speaker 1>F button, I shoot down three missile clusters. But you
<v Speaker 1>can apply that to whichever effect you want, so if
<v Speaker 1>you wanted to, I did one where I had a
<v Speaker 1>modifier where my the I mean, the recoil on this
<v Speaker 1>gun was ridiculous, and I cranked it up even more
<v Speaker 1>in exchange for extra damage, and then I added a
<v Speaker 1>three times modifier on that. So like every time I
<v Speaker 1>shoot this pistol, it's like I'm shooting like a bazook down,
<v Speaker 1>but I'm doing like this ridiculous damage. And there's some
<v Speaker 1>really great recipes and there's that's like really where a
<v Speaker 1>lot of like the theory crafting and like the character
<v Speaker 1>building comes into play and all of that on top
<v Speaker 1>of it. FPS that feels honestly just incredible.
<v Speaker 3>It's it.
<v Speaker 1>One of my friends, Jesse Vittelli, was like, this is
<v Speaker 1>what Marathon should have been. I was like, Oh, that's funny. Yeah, sure,
<v Speaker 1>Like it's very much got that like that aesthetic, right,
<v Speaker 1>and I'm I'm really digging it. I'm only probably an
<v Speaker 1>hour in, but I'm gonna be playing more tonight. I'll
<v Speaker 1>tell you that. Like it's it's really neat. It's called
<v Speaker 1>Void Breaker. It's in Steam Early Access. But if you're
<v Speaker 1>kind of looking for something that feels really fresh and
<v Speaker 1>and just really playful, I think this is this is
<v Speaker 1>one to watch or if you're cool. I know some
<v Speaker 1>people avoid early access stuff, but it feels really polished
<v Speaker 1>and I'm really liking it. I can't recommend it enough.
<v Speaker 1>I'm excited to come back next week and hopefully I've
<v Speaker 1>stumbled on some of those more broken builds. I really
<v Speaker 1>want to get the FPS one.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, early access, right, is there a timeline for a
<v Speaker 4>release or it's probably not?
<v Speaker 1>There might be I'm not familiar with it, to be honest,
<v Speaker 1>if there is. But yeah, that one's called Void Breaker,
<v Speaker 1>and I very much recommend it. I think next week
<v Speaker 1>Eric's going to be on the show. I think we
<v Speaker 1>might talk about Deadlock. They've just released a huge update
<v Speaker 1>for that game, a bunch of new characters, they reworked
<v Speaker 1>a lot of it. And I also want to talk
<v Speaker 1>some magic next week, but I think that's gonna do
<v Speaker 1>it for this episode. Mike, thank you so much for
<v Speaker 1>joining us and for taking the time out of your
<v Speaker 1>busy schedule. Where can people find you find your work?
<v Speaker 1>Is there anything want to plug? Yeah, anything you're working on.
<v Speaker 5>You can find most of my stuff. If you just
<v Speaker 5>search at Mike d that'll probably get you in my
<v Speaker 5>social media page. Good game, No rematch. It's available everywhere
<v Speaker 5>in most English speaking countries at this point. I believe
<v Speaker 5>we finally got it out in the UK last month
<v Speaker 5>or in July rather. And yeah, digital audio, hardcover. Also,
<v Speaker 5>when does this podcast come out?
<v Speaker 1>It'll come out later this week on Thursday.
<v Speaker 5>On Thursday, September fourth. If you're in New York City,
<v Speaker 5>I'm doing my bad video game show called shit Arcade
<v Speaker 5>at Union Hall. Oh I saw that years.
<v Speaker 1>Ago Yeah, I highly recommend that. That is awesome.
<v Speaker 5>It's so much fun. I have spent like two hundred
<v Speaker 5>dollars on eBay buying new bad games. So you know,
<v Speaker 5>Wayne's World on the Super Nintendo. Probably going to bring
<v Speaker 5>back Balls three D just because everyone loves that. It's
<v Speaker 5>going to be a really fun, bad video game show.
<v Speaker 5>We've got some amazing comedians on it, like Josh Gondlman
<v Speaker 5>and Dina Hashem. So yeah, if you're in New York,
<v Speaker 5>check it out September fourth at Union Hall.
<v Speaker 1>All hit it up.
<v Speaker 4>Charles, Charles's mother, I think is I also, I do
<v Speaker 4>want to plug We didn't talk about it extensively, but
<v Speaker 4>I do want to plug. Mike's piece in the new
<v Speaker 4>issue where you just you just talked to a bunch
<v Speaker 4>of you spent what like three or four hour long
<v Speaker 4>phone calls with ROBERTA. Williams, and you broke this really
<v Speaker 4>great funny feature about just like what it's like to
<v Speaker 4>meet your heroes and stuff. I really, I really like
<v Speaker 4>how that piece came together. So it's if you're a subscriber,
<v Speaker 4>you can read it the digital version. It'll be in
<v Speaker 4>the Ninja Guy and four issue gameforma dot com slash subscribe.
<v Speaker 4>Thanks for thanks for doing that, Mike.
<v Speaker 5>I think, of course, no, thank you for setting that up.
<v Speaker 6>Man.
<v Speaker 5>That was honestly, meeting ROBERTA. Williams was like the conversation
<v Speaker 5>of a lifetime. That was so great.
<v Speaker 4>Oh good, good.
<v Speaker 6>It's also it's it's good in that it's very Mike like.
<v Speaker 6>I feel like we have a lot of when we
<v Speaker 6>have freelancers come in. Everyone has their own voice, but
<v Speaker 6>I feel like his was a very strong, personal author voice.
<v Speaker 6>I don't think there there'd be any confusion anyone else
<v Speaker 6>wrote that piece. That's I think that's really cool.
<v Speaker 1>Love that well Again, if you are interested in picking
<v Speaker 1>up that issue, head over to gaminformer dot com slash
<v Speaker 1>subscribe that I'll get you all the details. I think
<v Speaker 1>there might be a promotion running right now so you
<v Speaker 1>can pick it up a little cheaper. But yeah, that
<v Speaker 1>would greatly. That's the best way to keep the lights on.
<v Speaker 1>Help us out. Second best way is to share the
<v Speaker 1>show with a friend and review the podcast on your
<v Speaker 1>podcast platform of choice. Kyle Charles, Mike, thank you for
<v Speaker 1>joining me. Follow Charles at Chuck Tuck three six five
<v Speaker 1>and follow Kyle Hilliard at Kyle Hilliard on Blue Sky. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>that's really you can follow me at it's Van Aiken.
<v Speaker 1>Don't forget to follow Mike as well and Game Informer
<v Speaker 1>while you're at it. But that's gonna be it for
<v Speaker 1>the show this week. We really appreciate your support. Uh,
<v Speaker 1>and go follow Mike, go follow his work. If you're
<v Speaker 1>in New York, go check out his show next week,
<v Speaker 1>and uh, we'll catch you all next week. Have a
<v Speaker 1>good one, I te