[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: Hello. Welcome back to from 8bit to 4k. We're talking all things games. Got a special episode tonight. It's a reimagined episode. I'm Pillow Pet, your host this week and with me I have two other hosts. We have Mike of many names.
[00:00:27] Speaker C: Hello.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: Hello.
[00:00:28] Speaker C: How's it going everyone?
[00:00:30] Speaker B: And of course Jackson.
[00:00:32] Speaker A: I'm here. It's me.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: We're all here tonight.
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Me, Jackson, Mike, we've been playing some Vermintides and some Terraria and we have yet to talk about Vermintide and that is to come. We still have lots to dive in on that when we get time together.
[00:01:54] Speaker A: We just haven't had enough time to really get deep enough into it for us to have discussion topic for the
[00:02:00] Speaker C: pod yet for them too. I have way too much time.
[00:02:04] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:02:05] Speaker B: But I will say while we're on the topic, we're not going to dive into Vermintide. But I have been enjoying it and I think it was really cool. The fact how we learned instead of just trial and error pressing buttons to try to figure out how to open doors, we learned that one person can tell us what the symbol was while someone presses the symbol. I thought that was pretty cool how there's like puzzles in the game,
[00:02:28] Speaker A: things that incentivize actual cooperative play and not just one person doing it all and everyone else along for the ride, which is how most co op games go.
[00:02:37] Speaker C: Especially since I have so much more time in it. I have a lot stronger of a Character.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: Yeah. So we got. I still got lots to learn and lots to play on it. It's not like Terraria, where we can just dive in a little bit by bit.
But my first impression is good. I'm enjoying it. I do enjoy, like, these kind of games. So I'm excited to keep playing and tell you guys all about it.
So now that we're already on the top small talk topic, we got some. Before we get to it, I. I do want to. We want to go over some. Some Steam sale highlights, the summer sales going on right now.
So there's a list here that we want to get through. And I mean, I'll just start it off with. We got Vermintide 2. It's on sale right now for $3.
[00:03:20] Speaker A: Yep.
That is the base game. It doesn't include the DLC classes, but you don't need the DLC classes to have a great time. There's like 20 classes in the game, 16 of which are in the base game and. Or 15 of which are in the base game, and five are DLC.
[00:03:36] Speaker B: Yeah. So check that if you want the DLC classes.
[00:03:38] Speaker C: I think they're a buck each. On sale.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: Going down our list that we've curated for you guys. I'm gonna go ahead and let Jax go on for the next one.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: Sure. So we talked about Final Fantasy 7 Remake being on sale last time, but that sale ended before the episode came out. Well, it's still going for the Steam sale for the summer sale, so. Final Fantasy VII Remake Dual Pack, which is Remake, Integrade and Rebirth, is currently $32 on Steam and will be until the day after this podcast drops.
So highly recommend. That price is incredible. That's the first 2/3 of the full Final Fantasy VII story. The third part hasn't even come out yet, so it's all of remake so far.
And I'll talk more about remake later.
[00:04:26] Speaker B: Yeah, Mike, we're going to go down this list one at a time, take turns like we're in school.
[00:04:31] Speaker C: Fine, we can go with that one. Devil May Cry 5 is five bucks, which. Hey, five for five. Nice and easy.
Devil Cry 5 is well worth more than five bucks. It's a great game.
[00:04:43] Speaker A: To be clear, the entire Devil May Cry franchise is really cheap on Steam, but if you haven't played any of them, Devil May Cry 5 is the best starting point by far.
[00:04:52] Speaker B: The next one I'm pretty excited about because I didn't know was on sale. Witcher 3 is on sale for $4. I didn't look into it is that including the DLCs with it.
[00:05:03] Speaker C: I did not see if.
[00:05:06] Speaker B: I was usually pretty good about free DLCs, but I know there was a couple.
[00:05:09] Speaker C: I mean, the Blood and Wine was the original big DLC for that one.
[00:05:14] Speaker A: $4 is just the base game, but the complete edition is $10 and that includes Blood and Wine and Hearts of Stone.
[00:05:21] Speaker B: Okay, cool. Which were so.
[00:05:22] Speaker C: Which were $30 DLC and a $10 DLC.
[00:05:25] Speaker B: The cool thing about Witcher 3, I think that it's on sale right now on Steam is it's still really good game and you can upgrade the graphics on these games and I'm pretty sure there's mods for that or it's.
[00:05:36] Speaker C: That is $100 worth of games.
[00:05:39] Speaker B: Yeah. Like naturally it just might be upgraded because it's a PC. So if your PC can handle it, like just get that game. If you've never played it, dive into it, enjoy the lore. Then you get to go watch the show and love it some more. Up to the current season and like, it's great. Get into it. You're going to love that universe and fall in love with it. I'm surprised we haven't talked about which are more on this podcast, to be honest.
[00:06:05] Speaker A: I am too. But that's probably because I've only actually played a couple hours of Witcher 3. I own it. I've played it. I just haven't played it very much. I've actually put the most time in the franchise that I've put in is in the first Witcher.
[00:06:18] Speaker B: They were all good games.
[00:06:19] Speaker C: If you want to get one on two, one is 150, two is two bucks.
[00:06:23] Speaker A: Yeah, one and two, to be clear, are really old and clunky games. They're not what I'd recommend a starting point, but I have 25 hours in the first Witcher and I have four and a half in Witcher 3. Apparently it's not a knock against Witcher 3. Witcher 3 is definitely good. It's really freaking good. I just haven't had the time. I haven't even finished Cyberpunk 2077.
[00:06:45] Speaker C: There are too many good games to
[00:06:46] Speaker A: play, and these kinds of big games will just absorb your life if you let them.
[00:06:51] Speaker B: Jack, what games on this do you want to highlight next?
[00:06:55] Speaker A: Well, I just mentioned it, so I'll highlight. Cyberpunk 2077 is currently on sale on Steam. It is a really good price. It is $18 for just the base game or 33 with the DLC included, which is including Phantom Liberty.
Highly recommend. Just get The Phantom Liberty Bundle.
[00:07:17] Speaker C: If you don't have it, get the Phantom Liberty Bubble.
[00:07:19] Speaker A: Yeah, it's just worth it. Additional area and story add a lot of depth is the word that came to mind, but that's not what I mean. So they add a lot of like nuance flavoring to the world.
There's a lot of details they add that can recontextualize things or just make things feel more complete.
[00:07:40] Speaker C: Nuanced.
[00:07:40] Speaker A: Like it's.
[00:07:41] Speaker C: Yeah, nuances.
[00:07:42] Speaker A: Yeah, nuance is good. Okay, so yeah, that's what I'd recommend. Cyberpunk 2077 is literally just think every other big world, big open world rpg, but with good gunplay instead of swords and sorcery.
[00:07:57] Speaker C: But you can also actually. Good gunplay, but you can also stab people.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: Yes. And it has good, good enough melee combat. It's got a magic system.
Like it has it all, but it actually has good gunplay. Like it actually plays like a good shooter, if that's what you want as well, which is wild.
[00:08:16] Speaker B: All right, Mike, what do you got? Give us another one.
[00:08:18] Speaker C: I'm going to do these next two at the same time because I don't think either of you have played either of these.
We're going to start with the cheaper 1. Metro 2033. If you're someone who likes any of the dystopian, like end of the world things, the Metro franchise is phenomenal. And this is $1 for 2033.
[00:08:36] Speaker A: It's. It's such a ridiculously good price. Metro 2033 is fantastic.
Metro Last Light is fantastic. I'm looking to see what. I think that's five on that because I have played that one.
[00:08:51] Speaker C: Well, he looks for that real quick.
[00:08:54] Speaker A: Oh, it's way cheaper. What the fuck? Metro Last Light Redux is a dollar.
[00:08:59] Speaker C: Oh, it's also a dollar. Okay, get both of those. Just buy both of them. It's two bucks. If you have any interest whatsoever in the France and not just the franchise, but the genre in the slightest. It's hard to get better than the Metro franchise.
[00:09:13] Speaker A: Yeah, Last Light's the one I've played. The ambiance in the Metro games is incredible. They are so immersive, you feel like you are in a real post apocalypse scenario society. Like it feels like a world that has depth and like there was thought put into how it works and not just set pieces for the purposes of a video game.
[00:09:35] Speaker C: And the other, the other game that I betting that they have not touched is Dishonored.
Dishonored is maybe one of the premier stealth games. Ever made.
[00:09:44] Speaker B: It was a launch for Xbox One.
[00:09:46] Speaker C: It's two bucks.
It has actual consequences for how you play the game.
It's. It's got such a good character writing. It's great gameplay and it's two bucks.
[00:10:00] Speaker B: No, I actually love this game. Like, it was such a. It was so fun. It was so much fun. Like I said, it was a launch title for Xbox One and I remember getting it when I got my Xbox One on release day. It was so much fun. Like Mike said, there's just everything you do changes how this game plays. Everything.
[00:10:21] Speaker A: I apparently have played 30 minutes of Dishonored. I don't remember this.
[00:10:26] Speaker C: Dishonored 2 is also very good. I do not think I have. I do not. I don't think it's anywhere near as good of a good of a sale.
[00:10:34] Speaker A: Probably not. Usually the older titles get the bigger discount.
[00:10:37] Speaker C: Yeah, six bucks.
I'm sorry. There's a better version. There's the Game of the Year version which has more stuff, which is also two bucks from the base one. And then dishonored two is six.
[00:10:49] Speaker B: Dishonored. It's a good game. Next I got doom 2016.
It's four dollars.
[00:10:56] Speaker A: Fantastic reimagining of. Fuck Doom.
[00:11:03] Speaker C: Yeah. Fuck.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: We'll talk about reimagining soon. But it definitely belongs in that list. We're gonna add it preemptively. One of us can talk about it.
[00:11:15] Speaker B: All right.
[00:11:16] Speaker C: I can't believe that was on the list. Staring us in the face.
[00:11:21] Speaker A: You guys will understand soon. We have a whole list for our next top that should have been included and wasn't.
[00:11:29] Speaker B: Jax.
[00:11:31] Speaker A: Okay, I have one. That is not a Steam discount. This game is on sale on Steam. Do not buy the Steam version. Heroes of might and Magic 3 is possibly the best turn based strategy 4x type game ever made. It's certainly up there is so good.
Heroes of might and Magic 3 is literally the reason anyone cares about Might and Magic.
It is the game that the franchise that matters in the franchise.
The version that's on sale on Steam is just the original Heroes 3 but updated to be HD.
So instead of spending 374 on that on Steam.
Go to GOG and buy Heroes of might and Magic 3 complete.
It is $5 and it is Heroes 3 plus both of its expansions plus a whole bunch of work done by GOG to make sure that it still runs well on modern systems.
[00:12:34] Speaker C: GOG is always worth giving your money to. They actually care.
[00:12:37] Speaker A: They actually care.
It is Heroes of Might and Magic three is. There is nothing like it to this day there's been so many. We've gotten what, seven? I think six or seven Heroes of Might and Magic games total.
One and two are just three is just a better version of them. Like I've played Heroes 2 a lot. 3 is just better. 4, 5 and 6 are all worse in different ways than Heroes 3. Heroes 3 is the best Heroes game. It is one of the best turn based strategies ever made.
[00:13:06] Speaker C: I've tried playing them all.
[00:13:08] Speaker A: I'll give gog$5.
[00:13:10] Speaker C: I guess it's my turn for this one.
The Mass Effect Legendary edition, which is three games, three full games and their DLCs. Like everything about Mass Effect 1, 2 and 3 is in legendary. It's five bucks.
There is no better sale on this list.
[00:13:28] Speaker A: I don't know about that part, but that is a crazy.
[00:13:31] Speaker C: That is three full games plus DLC for $5.
And Mass Effect, if you care about story at all, is amazing. Some of the gameplay lags a little in one. It gets better as you go throughout the games, but.
[00:13:48] Speaker A: And also this is the HD remaster version of the game, which, unlike what I just said about Heroes 3, is a full complete experience that essentially supersedes the original. Unless you're nostalgic for the original.
[00:14:02] Speaker C: Yeah, unless you want my brand googly eyes.
[00:14:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Or I assume there's speedrunner differences, but that's outside the scope of what we're talking about.
[00:14:11] Speaker B: The next one that I wanted to bring up is I actually just remember seeing it. So I added it to the list just now. I got Watch Dogs 1, 2 and Legion, which not everybody's favorite game is Watch Dogs, but I really enjoyed them. So watch dogs one, the original you can get for $2.
Two you can get for $2.50. And then the most recent one that was released three years ago, you can get it for $9.
Now. I really enjoyed the futuristic Grand Theft Auto play style of it. I thought they were really good games. I really enjoyed the hacking of it. You know, if it's not on par with like Cyberpunk or any of that, it is definitely its own game. But Watchdogs I thought were awesome.
You're not out much if you want to try getting one and two. And if you like that, you can get the original for nine or the newest one for $9 and you get three games in this case for $15.
[00:15:10] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:15:13] Speaker B: Just all these games someone paid at some point 60, $70 for.
[00:15:17] Speaker A: Mm, yep. All right. Or in the case of this one, that is the last one we're going to Highlight this one. We're saving for last here because these are reimaginings, which is what our next topic is gonna be. But none of us have played them to be able to speak to them more precisely. So Resident Evil 2, 3, and 4 remakes are on sale in a bundle pack on Steam for $30.
Gets you all of the DLC, all of the remade games. I have heard nothing but phenomenal things about these games. I am probably picking this pack up and actually playing me some Resident Evil for the first time in 20 years.
[00:15:54] Speaker B: I'll probably end up getting them, too, just so I can try them out. Because I really loved Village and the seven. Is that the one with the hillbillies?
[00:16:04] Speaker C: Seven or eight?
[00:16:05] Speaker A: You're right. I played a little over an hour of Resident Evil 7 on my PlayStation VR. So that's the most recent.
[00:16:13] Speaker C: Seven might be big goth mommy.
[00:16:15] Speaker A: No, that's eight.
[00:16:16] Speaker C: That's eight.
[00:16:16] Speaker B: I think it was six. Six was the.
The hillbilly.
[00:16:20] Speaker C: I think six is more.
[00:16:22] Speaker A: Hillbillies are seven.
[00:16:24] Speaker C: Six is more of Western, Wesker and all this bullshit.
[00:16:27] Speaker A: All right, I remember 7 because I played it in VR and I was having a blast until the game made me teleport. And the teleporting makes me motion sick, right? Which is funny because for most people, it's the opposite. Moving around is what makes the motion sick, and teleporting avoids that.
I'm just weird in VR, apparently.
[00:16:46] Speaker B: So of these games, I'm gonna go with a baseline. $70 a game. We've listed 1, 2. I'm sorry, $60 a game. We got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. We got probably over a thousand dollars in games listed right here. You can pick it all up for probably less than 140. I'm not doing math, but you can pick all these games.
[00:17:10] Speaker A: I don't even think we hit a hundred for every game we listed combined.
[00:17:13] Speaker C: We have.
[00:17:14] Speaker B: I'm going.
[00:17:15] Speaker C: We have more than 100 because we have three things combined for 30 bucks each.
[00:17:19] Speaker A: Yeah, you're right.
[00:17:20] Speaker B: So you can pick all this up for less than $150 for over $1,000 worth of games when they were released. If we're going off of that, this is multiple years. You might find games that we missed that you're going to be like, holy cow, that's on sale. And you're going to be. Just go check out the summer sale. It's worth it, even if you're not even going to play it right away. Like, you might be bored. One Night and be like, I'm hopping on this. Why not?
[00:17:45] Speaker A: And even if you could just compare these to their current 2026 regular price, it was like $150 worth of games on sale. That would be like 450 plus.
[00:17:56] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:17:56] Speaker A: To buy them right now.
[00:17:57] Speaker C: A lot of these are at regular price. A lot of these I specifically targeted to be 80 to 90% sales.
[00:18:04] Speaker A: I can't believe Metro Last Light Redux is a dollar.
[00:18:08] Speaker C: Yeah, that's a 95% sale. Actually, that might be more.
[00:18:12] Speaker B: It is.
[00:18:12] Speaker A: The game's normally 20 bucks.
[00:18:15] Speaker B: So as Jax preluded. Preluded to we are talking about remakes, reimaginings, remakes that are more than just a graphical overhaul. It's a full reimagining. And they have a whole lot of list of games to talk about, whereas I only have a few in this list that you're going to be hearing me really have an opinion about, because I don't. Didn't play a lot of these games that they listed.
So I'm gonna let. I'm gonna let Mike take off with it.
[00:18:47] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:18:47] Speaker B: And you can go ahead and probably combine these two closer.
[00:18:50] Speaker C: I am gonna combine both of them together because these are both the same concept.
Exactly. Done at different times.
Very different in execution and very different in like what they were trying to accomplish upon release.
So both of these are Metroid remakes. In fact, it's Metroids 1 and 2 remade as Samus Returns.
[00:19:14] Speaker A: And Zero Mission, specifically Zero Mission is Metroid 1 and Samus Returns is Metroid 2.
[00:19:19] Speaker C: Yes. Samus Returns is the most recent of these.
This was released in 2019, I think it was for the 20 year reunion.
It was released for, I believe the 20 year anniversary for Metroid and then got timing delayed from COVID Metroid samus returns was 2017.
[00:19:42] Speaker A: You're thinking of dread for that.
[00:19:43] Speaker C: I'm thinking of dread. You're right. I'm sorry.
They tried to release that for the 25 years and 25 years and they failed at that.
[00:19:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Samus returns was a 3DS game.
[00:19:53] Speaker C: Samus Returns is a 3DS game and plays literally nothing.
Nothing like the first game, which was the first Game Boy game for Metroid. In fact, you could only play it on Game Boy.
Original Game Boy.
[00:20:10] Speaker A: Here's what annoys me. Metroid Samus Returns is the only main series Metroid game you cannot play on
[00:20:17] Speaker C: the switch because it's 3Ds.
[00:20:19] Speaker A: I have not ported it for some reason.
[00:20:20] Speaker C: Yes. Metroid Samus returns is a nine out of 10 game for me, I.
I love the Metroid franchise. So I am biased.
Anything that is Metroid done correctly instantly gets extra points for me. And Samus Returns is done correctly. The gameplay feels good and smooth on a 3Ds. They created a full new mechanic that they then brought into dread with this parry system that completely changes the feel of how the game plays. It's still a 2D platformer.
It's added so much content because the original game is a bunch of little tiles back and forth. And the bosses are simplistic as Game Boy bosses are. They completely remade what so many things about this game are to be something that it could never have been until the 3ds.
[00:21:24] Speaker A: I can agree with that.
[00:21:25] Speaker C: And it has some of the best music they've ever done.
[00:21:29] Speaker A: Yes, I agree. I'm going to push back on the 9 out of 10. I have two reasons.
[00:21:34] Speaker C: Go for it.
[00:21:35] Speaker A: 1. Metroid 2 is just not a very good game to begin with. The remake of it is a lot better, but it still suffers in many places from being a remake of Metroid 2.
[00:21:45] Speaker C: It does.
[00:21:47] Speaker A: And then 2. Metroid Samus Returns has.
[00:21:51] Speaker C: It has an unfortunate problem.
[00:21:53] Speaker A: Spots. You want to explain?
[00:21:55] Speaker C: Well, there's. There's a couple of issues with spots and what it forces you to do. But that's not why it's not a 10 out of 10 for me. The problem is is that there was a better version of this game released already.
[00:22:07] Speaker A: Okay, we're on the same page then. AM2R was a fan game of Metroid 2 that was a remake reimagining of Metroid 2 in roughly a Super Metroid style.
Metroid Samus Returns had not been announced at the time of AM2R's release as a fan game. And Nintendo sent a cease and desist to it and killed AM2R.
[00:22:28] Speaker C: You can still get AM2R. You just need to find it. It's out there for free. He's not making money on it.
[00:22:34] Speaker A: Yes,
[00:22:36] Speaker C: that game is worth playing if you can get it.
So is Metroid Samus Returns it. They do not play the same. They are different experiences and each of them makes new things in different ways. It's just that AM2R is more of the type of game I like. And that's my 10 out of 10 as well as Metroid Prime.
[00:22:59] Speaker A: I mean, 10 out of 10 is saying a lot because it's still Metroid 2. Metroid 2 is still a linear empty experience compared to the rest of the franchise.
[00:23:11] Speaker C: Fair. AM2R does a lot of work there.
[00:23:15] Speaker A: Yes, like if you thought Metroid Fusion was linear, Metroid 2 is actually more
[00:23:20] Speaker C: linear than Fusion, which is impressive. But Fusion is also dear of my heart.
[00:23:26] Speaker A: But let's. I love Metroid Fusion, but let's go
[00:23:29] Speaker C: to Fusion's sister game because these two were released within a year of each other and they are meant like to be tied together. You are meant to think of them together.
Zero Mission is the remake reimagining of Metroid 1. And oh my God, does it make something out of one of the most tedious games because you can play on Zero Mission, the original Metroid?
[00:23:56] Speaker A: Yes you can. It includes the NES game in the Zero Mission game.
[00:24:00] Speaker C: It's a tedious exercise in trying to play old games.
[00:24:05] Speaker A: Nestroid has aged like milk. NES Metroid is terrible. There are NES games that have aged well. There are NES games that have not aged well. Some of them are classics but are really dated and there's not much reason to play them unless you're nostalgic. Like I would put the original Legend of Zelda in that boat. Original Legend of Zelda, classic video game, important piece of gaming history. Why would you go back and play that when there's so much better games you can play? Metroid 1 is important to gaming history, but unless you're really nostalgic for it, just don't fucking play Metroid 1. It's genuinely not fun.
[00:24:42] Speaker C: If you're like a challenge person who's doing things for. For trying to do things because they're difficult, that's a game for you.
Zero Mission is a game for people who liked Super Metroid. It's a. It's an homage of what Metroid 1 could have been if Super Metroid had been what was capable at the time. And then on top of all of that, which is they made the whole game but good, then they add another like hours worth of extra content at the end of the game that is only in Zero Mission.
And that sort of explains a little bit of how the Metroid franchise goes forward with things. And you get to see a little bit more into the universe that really isn't shown in the first game, but that was expanded upon heavily in the rest.
[00:25:35] Speaker A: Yep, I love Zero Mission. I think it's the second best 2D Metroid behind obviously Super Metroid.
I love Fusion Fusion. I honestly have more nostalgia feel for. But unlike Fusion, Zero Mission adheres to the tenets of being a Metroid game in that it is relatively non linear. It has an intended path and there are ways to break it that are not glitches but are just clever use of game mechanics or like skilled play.
[00:26:11] Speaker C: And that is I think why those two were released in sort of tandem as a sister games. Because one gave you the nostalgia and allowed you to play the original. And one went, here's how we're reworking things. And the story of Metroid Fusion really is where it goes hard and makes it more than every other game before it. But also the SA X is horrifying. And that fucking game creeped me out for Gears.
[00:26:34] Speaker A: Yes.
But yeah, Zero Mission also it came a year later than Fusion. But they deliberately undid some of the things they did in Fusion. Like the way Fusion handles wall jumps now they reverted wall jumps to have as much freedom as they do in Super Metroid for Zero Mission because it's intended to be more of an open ended game. There are dev intended shinespark sequence breaks in Zero Mission and shinespark puzzles that are complicated as fuck to showcase like the level of technical skill that 100% 0 mission requires because they just hidden energy tanks or missile tanks or whatever in crazy places. And Zero Mission also if you want to watch a speed game has some hilariously awesome speed tech. Yeah, it's not Super Metroid level, but nothing is.
[00:27:23] Speaker C: Yeah. Anyway, yeah, those. Those are both like some of the best remakes I've ever played. They got me into a franchise and secured that one of my franchises.
I had such high hopes because of Samus Returns and then Dread afterwards.
I'm my girl. They're killing my girl.
They did her so well.
[00:27:45] Speaker A: Okay, hear me out. There's been a leak of the next. The title of the next Metroid game. We might be getting a new game sooner than you realize.
[00:27:53] Speaker C: Fucking hope so.
[00:27:55] Speaker A: I want to say it was Metroid. Ravenous is the leaked title.
[00:27:58] Speaker C: Yes, that sounds familiar. Which means it's probably post Dread.
[00:28:01] Speaker A: That would be my interpretation of that being as vague and non spoilery as I can be since we did not give a spoiler warning.
[00:28:09] Speaker C: Yeah, all right.
Hey Jax, I think you have quite a few things to talk about.
[00:28:15] Speaker A: I do. So I'm gonna do a couple of quick hits. First, do you like turn based strategy games? How do you feel about Fire Emblem?
[00:28:24] Speaker C: Love it.
[00:28:24] Speaker A: Did you play Super Smash Bros. Melee and Wonder who the fuck Marth was?
So Marth is the main character of the original Fire Emblem, the NES game. But that game was not released in English. There was however a full on from the ground up remake of the original Fire Emblem called Fire Shadow Dragon that was released on the ds.
[00:28:48] Speaker C: I did play this game.
[00:28:49] Speaker A: And this is not the best Fire Emblem game. It's not even the best Fire Emblem game on the original ds.
[00:28:55] Speaker C: It's the worst of any of the Game Boy DS Fire Emblem games, period.
[00:29:00] Speaker A: Yes, but that's. It's still like a solid 7 or 8 out of 10. The reason it's the worst is just a lack of content because the original Fire Emblem is a really basic game and they were remaking a really basic game.
But it's a full on remake from the ground up of that original game's story. But with all of the like mechanical differences that have happened in Fire Emblem since then.
So like units that didn't exist in the NES game are units that exist in Shadow Dragon. It has mechanics, it just, it lacks things like the, the WAIFU simulator parts of Fire Emblem that have become a staple that were not in the original.
[00:29:41] Speaker C: Oh yes.
[00:29:43] Speaker A: There's just. There isn't that kind of relationships between your characters in Fire Emblem, Shadow Dragon period.
[00:29:49] Speaker C: Relationship rating is the thing that is just not existent.
[00:29:51] Speaker A: Then the other thing I wanted to highlight about Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon, this was a DS release that could be played entirely with the touchscreen if you were so inclined. You want to know how I know that? Because I did not play Fire Shadow dragon on the DS. I played Fire Shadow Dragon on a Galaxy Note 3 while I was working as a security guard.
And I played it with the stylus fully touch on a DS emulator and it worked great. It was a great time.
[00:30:20] Speaker B: Only played one Fire Emblem game.
It was the one. I think the main character was some blue haired woman. I don't remember which one it was. It was on Advanced.
[00:30:30] Speaker C: That's Lynn. That's the first Fire Emblem that we got in English.
Great game.
[00:30:34] Speaker A: Yep. I say I love that game. I probably should play it at some point. I think that one's on Nintendo Switch Online.
[00:30:40] Speaker C: That is the best like difficult one that is of the originals. It, it has such a great, great set of characters. Pretty good story.
[00:30:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that one's the one that's on Nintendo Switch online.
I'm not 100% sure.
Yes, Fire Emblem GBA 2003 and Sacred Stones 2004 are both on Nintendo Switch Online. And then if you have a Switch 2, Fire Emblem, Path of Radiance, the GameCube game is on that, that Switch Online.
[00:31:13] Speaker C: That's the one with Ike, I believe.
[00:31:15] Speaker A: I think so. Because that was the new one at the time that Melee was made and that's why Ike is in Melee.
Okay, next one I wanted to highlight is a reimagining only really of the last segment of the game. The rest of it is more of a traditional remake. But Black Mesa takes the original Half Life and says this game's amazing. But you know what wasn't amazing? The fucking Zen levels. The entire last act of the original Half Life is genuinely bad. Everyone hates the Xen levels. They are terrible. And Black Mesa says yo, but what if they weren't? What if we just made good levels instead and redesigned everything? And Xen is a totally different experience And Black Mesa rules. I think it's also on Steam sale right now for like five bucks. I'm double checking what the price is, but this is. This is the epitome of how to. It's $4. This is the epitome of how to do a remake of a game right where you are only reimagining the parts that are broken. Xen was broken. It was genuinely terrible. So they redid it from the ground up. It's totally different and it's great. The core, like escaping from the Black Mesa facility chunk of the game really didn't need much touching up beyond major graphical overhaul. So it's a modern engine and major graphical overhaul for those portions. I love it. It's great. Half Life rules. The original Half Life is a frickin masterpiece. A 1010 game easily. Should I keep going?
[00:32:52] Speaker B: Yeah, keep it going. Let's, let's.
[00:32:55] Speaker A: Alright, next one I want to highlight recently got a remaster, but the remaster. I don't have any thoughts on the remaster itself. I have not played the remaster but the original. I've played both the original original and this remake. It is wanderers from Y's or Y's 3 and the remake is titled the Oath in Felghana. Y's is spelled Ys. This is a long, long running Japanese fantasy action adventure RPG series.
The original Y's games came out on the PC engine which we didn't even get in the US.
I think it's equivalent to like the TurboGrafx 16 but I'm not 100% sure.
But IS3 got a super Nintendo release in the West. That's where I played. It was the super Nintendo version. Ys 3 is a side scrolling action platformer. It's pretty jank and the translation's not great but it's a fun game. After that they went on and made other games and by the time Oathen Felghana was made we were into the PS2 era. E6 had come out E6 is great. It's a PS2 game and Japanese PCs at the time.
But the PS2 port is where it got released in the US when it came out.
So then they made the Oath in Felghana which was hey, that old side scrolling ease, that was really good. What if we just reimagined that as a top down ish 3D action adventure game?
So they did and it controls fantastically. The combat feels tight and responsive and it is a completely better in every way experience than the original.
I love the Oath in Felghana. It is my favorite entry in the franchise.
Highly recommend.
I'm looking to see. I could have sworn it got a remaster.
[00:35:00] Speaker B: While you look that up, I'll go ahead and jump in and talk about one want to talk about Legend of a Link Between Worlds.
Now I know me and Jax are both in agreeance here that this game is a reimagining of a link to the past.
And the reason we say that is fundamentally it is the same game. What Link Between Worlds takes that game and creates a whole new game with new mechanics.
This, the whole experience of the game is different.
But there is. You could clearly see the similarities. We talked about it a little bit last time because we were previously, you know, we're talking about what the new Ocarina of Time that's going to be coming out. And this came up A Link Between Worlds is where Link gets to become paint a painting a paint on the wall and he gets. You get to solve solve puzzles by going flat surface and going 2D and moving through the world like that.
Whereas. And it's got a dark world and it's got a light world. Whereas A Link to the Past does the mirror the light world and the dark world. And this has portals in the wall to go to the different worlds.
It is a whole different game inspired mainly from A Link to the Past.
[00:36:31] Speaker A: It is very clearly intended to be the same version of Hyrule as Link to the Past. Just reimagined a bit. You have all of the landmarks that you remember in roughly the same place in both the Light and Dark worlds. Like I don't know how anyone claims this isn't a reimagined remake. Granted they do make a lot of sequel. They make a lot of exact same story.
[00:36:57] Speaker B: I would say that a lot of their maps, especially on like the Game Boy games, very similar to this games. But. But this game is very. You can tell like you can just tell when you. You're like oh I know exactly where this is I know where that's at.
It's. It's a very. It's a very good game.
It's fun. It's got its own story.
It gives you the parts of a link to the past that you love in a modern world.
A link to the past. I could go back and play it right now and love the game very much. It's just such a fun game. I like playing the randomizers.
[00:37:35] Speaker A: Lick Cast remains the best 2D Zelda ever made.
[00:37:38] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:37:39] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:37:40] Speaker A: And like, there's a lot of good 2D Zeldas.
[00:37:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:43] Speaker C: I have nostalgia for other ones. A lot of the Game Boy ones are fantastic.
A link to the past is just something else.
Even the Game Boy version, I'm still
[00:37:52] Speaker B: holding out for a remake or reimagining of Oracles, but we'll see.
[00:37:58] Speaker C: Seasons, ages would be grand.
[00:37:59] Speaker A: Yeah, it would be nice just to have an easy way to play one than the other. Because right now I think the only way to do that really is the passcode system, which is tedious.
[00:38:11] Speaker B: Yes.
All right, Jax, what were you getting ready to. What were you looking up?
[00:38:16] Speaker A: Okay, so apparently the remaster of Oath and Felghana is not available on PC. It's a console only release. That's why I couldn't find it. But the PC version still is great. Like it's a fun game. And also the music in Y's slaps, it's like great J rock. Like it's headbanging music in every boss fight. The stage music's great, but I'm gonna move on from that. I got two more games to talk about. This one is probably one I doubt anyone listening to this podcast has ever played. Back in the 80s, there was an arcade game called Battlezone. It was a tank combat game. It's notable for being one of the first vector art games ever made. Like you're literally driving around wireframe tanks around a battlefield and shooting each other.
A very rudimentary game.
Back in the 90s, there was a remake of Battlezone for the PC just called Battlezone.
And it reimagined the original game as a tank rts.
You drive your tank around and you could do tank combat yourself, but also you were base building and commanding other tanks and other units that you had constructed from your base to literally wage RTS war.
It is awesome. There's an actual story. Whereas the 80s game obviously did not have any kind of plot at all.
It's. It's a lot of fun. It's definitely old. Like, this is a game from 1998. But it's. You get to play an RTS where you also get to drive a tank and blow things up yourself. It's awesome.
And it's. They. They got. They adapted an arcade game into that.
[00:40:10] Speaker B: I was looking. There is actually a more modern of that. Battle Zone.
[00:40:16] Speaker A: Yeah, it apparently got a remaster in like 2013 or something. But that is the 1998 game.
[00:40:22] Speaker B: It was 2017 and is 89% off right now for $3.84.
So if that's playable with or without
[00:40:33] Speaker A: a VR device, I don't even know what that is. All I know is the.
[00:40:37] Speaker B: The.
[00:40:37] Speaker A: The remaster that I was talking about is Battle Zone 98 Redux, which by all accounts is a good remaster. But it's just a remaster. So I'm just talking about Battlezone was a remake of an 80s arcade game.
It's awesome. Highly recommend. Last game I wanted to highlight is a remake of one of the mana games. So I love the mana games. And next episode, when we talk about disappointing remakes, I'll talk about a different mana game remake. But for this episode we're going to talk about the good one.
So if you've played Secret of Mana or any of those, you may know that Secret of Mana is actually the second in the franchise.
The first one was released on the Game Boy as Final Fantasy Adventure. But it's actually Seiken Densetsu 1. Secret of Mana is Seiken Densetsu 2.
There was another Super Nintendo game called Seiken Densetsu 3, one of the like group of SNES RPG classics that were not actually released in the West. They were Japanese only. I've talked about terranigma. I still need to play terranigma. It's on my list to play on stream. Seiken Densetsu 3 was in the same boat as Terranigma and that was the case for a long time now. You can now today play the original SNES version in English. Officially it got an official English release in the. I forget what they call it, but there's like a collection of Seiken Densetsu 1 through 3. It's regularly like 20 bucks. But they also remade Seiken Densetsu 3 from the ground up. It is a completely different game that is the same story. It's called Trials of Mana and it's good there. I have one complaint about Trials of Mana, which is that it doesn't have multiplayer. Seiken Densetsu 2 and 3 could be played in 2 to 3 player cooperative play where instead of having the AI control your teammates. You would just have your friends do it with their own controllers. Play the damn game. Which is awesome. My wife and I played through the entirety of Secret of Mana in co op. Trials of Mana has no co op whatsoever. It is a single player only rpg. That is my only complaint about it because the actual game itself, the combat feels pretty good. Definitely doesn't feel like Devil May Cry or something, but. Or Even Final Fantasy 7 Remake. That I'll talk about in a little while. But like it's decent action combat with dodge rolling and all of that stuff.
The plot is the same plot but fleshed out more. You get more scenes, more character dynamic, more, more writing. There's simply a much larger script to the game and it's. It's a good rpg. I highly recommend Trials of Mana.
[00:43:27] Speaker B: I always hear you talk about it, so I definitely always want to check it out and play it because I love those old RPGs. There's always so much fun. They got such a charm to them.
[00:43:38] Speaker C: It's not one of the RTS one thought RTS RPG ones like the standard jrpg, like Pokemon style ones.
It has a more action oriented movement thing. This is more like an ARPG.
[00:43:56] Speaker A: Yeah, the original Seiken and Setsu 3 and Secret of Mana play more akin to like a hybrid of a traditional JRPG in a Zelda game. The combat feels almost Zelda like but with like a cooldown timer on your sword attack or the ability to charge it up and do bigger, badder, more powerful sword attacks.
And Seiken Densetsu 3.
It's different, but again feels kind of top down Zelda ish in terms of the combat.
Those are the ones I'd recommend if you, if you want to try this series, play the Super Nintendo Secret of Mana or either the the Super Nintendo or the remake of Trials of Mana. Because they did keep the name Trials of Mana for the Super Nintendo release of the game that they've done now in that collection. Seiken and Setsu3 is a great game. It's a shame that it did not get an Original release in 1995 Whenever it came out in the west, because it's phenomenal. I would have loved it.
[00:44:59] Speaker B: All right, I got one more I want to bring up. We've talked about it a little bit in detail in the past, but it does belong on this list kinda.
So I want to bring up the Pokemon Let's Go series. You got Eevee and Pikachu and it's not going to be much. I know Mike and Jax are not big fans of this, and I understand why. Because they reimagined this game to cater to and hopefully bring in Pokemon Go players to the franchise to try to appeal to them. And the way they did this is by reimagining completely the catching mechanic of. In the. Even the leveling mechanic and the wild battling mechanic of this game by. You just throw out a ton of pokeballs and you get streaks and you catch shinies and go for IV or. Yeah, IV Hunting. And the story is almost the same.
Almost just spot on. The story is the same. The locations are all the same. Everything you do in the Overworld is the same.
But they completely changed up the Catch Wild Encounter battle system.
So there's not much to go into. It's not everybody's cup of tea. I recently did another playthrough of this game because I do get some satisfaction from Shiny Hunting. I think that's fun.
I really like the, like, shiny Charmanders and all of that. I think it's fun to go for them. There's a little time sink. It's not everybody's. I get it. If you like Pokemon Go, you might. You'd probably like these. So give it a try. It'll introduce you to the world of Pokemon in a different way.
Do you guys have anything you want to add to that or. All right.
[00:46:49] Speaker A: So like I said, I just. I just don't like what they do.
[00:46:54] Speaker C: There is a second thing that I dislike about them, which was their whole marketing of the Pokeball thing to try and get the.
[00:47:04] Speaker B: Yeah, all the poker or whatever, poke
[00:47:06] Speaker C: controller, which is how you could get your own mew in the game. And there's one per. So they did a whole big thing with that that was very like.
Each person who wants a mew is going to pay, what, 50, 60 bucks to get a mew, essentially, to get it. So you're buying for I. That. That just rubs me the wrong way.
[00:47:27] Speaker B: Now. For me, I didn't care about that. I just bought the game because I really like Eevee and I went with let's go Eevee.
But you can't evolve the Eevee, and they don't tell you that, which is understandable because that's how the first games kind of were. You couldn't evolve your Pikachu, and it's neither here nor there.
But I don't think you could evolve your original Pikachu, could you?
[00:47:49] Speaker A: In Pokemon Yellow, you couldn't.
[00:47:51] Speaker C: I'm sorry, that's the one. I did not play Yellow. Yeah, you're right.
[00:47:56] Speaker A: In yellow, you could not evolve Pikachu unless you traded it away and back, which removed the flag that made it special in the first place.
[00:48:03] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:48:05] Speaker B: So the game that just popped up on our list, we're going to go ahead and talk about it together. We brought it up. Doom 2016. Mike, I know you're a huge Doom lover, a Doom player, you talk about it quite a bit. So let's give us your point on this first.
[00:48:21] Speaker C: Okay, so doom 2016 is a full new remake of the original Doom. It has the same levels, it has the same names, it has the same style of like what it wants to be, which is, let's take that bombastic Doom game and take that feel, pull out everything that made that original Doom itself. Apart from that, it's a first person shooter. And we want the basic story thread that was what little basic there was in Doom. The basic concepts of what the levels were and a basic idea of what the, the monsters were. And then they went, all right, how do we make this a modern game?
Bam.
Everything was updated into the new modern system. And then on top of that they added in extra mechanics. And then on top of that, they added in this really fun story that you don't have to pay attention to in the slightest. Like one of the most fun things about the game is in the first five minutes someone is trying to narrate the story to you, but you're Doom guy, so fuck that. I'm gonna break this as you're trying to get me to do things and I'm not listening to you.
[00:49:39] Speaker A: It's. It's so great. And they officially call this a reboot of the franchise, but that's why we're including it, because it is a reimagining of the original Doom. And then the franchise just went in its new direction after this because it was so good.
[00:49:55] Speaker C: Yes. 2016 also did something spectacular in that they found a way to make this, this little niggling thing that was a problem in games.
Enjoyable, fun and not intrusive. Which was the Glory Kill.
The Glory Kill or these, these, these extra like men. You're putting these things in. They made them fast, they made them fun to do, they made them strategic to do, and they made it such a good feel.
[00:50:31] Speaker A: And I want to compare this to another game that has a similar mechanic, but it doesn't feel good. And I love this game. Bayonetta is a great game, but Bayonetta has these over the top dramatic finisher moves for a lot of fights and A lot of enemies and Glory kills and Doom are just that idea, but done well because it doesn't take you out of the game the way bayonettas do. Bayonettas. You do your finisher move and now you're just watching a cutscene for 8 seconds or however long it lasts.
[00:51:06] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:51:07] Speaker A: Doom, even though you are technically in literal sense watching a canned animation happen, feels like you are still in control while the cutscene is playing. Because they did such a good job with all of the. The little aspects of the feel and look and sound design of their glory kills to where the like two seconds it takes.
[00:51:28] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:51:29] Speaker A: You don't feel like you're stuck in an animation.
[00:51:31] Speaker C: None of the non boss ones take more than two seconds. The boss ones, even though they're a little longer, they're like the cathartic end to a boss kill. And even those are never more than like 10 seconds at the most. And those. There are enough different animations for every enemy that it doesn't feel like all I'm doing is seeing the same animation a thousand times.
[00:51:54] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:51:54] Speaker C: Because like, I'll give you a great example. One, there's the big Satan demons. You can rip off their head. You can break off a horn and slash their neck off. You can crack their skull.
[00:52:06] Speaker A: Yep.
Doom 2016 fucking rules. I do Eternals a good game. I'm sure people like Doom the Dark Ages, but I. I have not played those. I don't care about those. Doom 2016 was special.
[00:52:21] Speaker C: Doom 2016 is special in a way. Now the other two are those who
[00:52:25] Speaker B: are picking it up, thinking of picking it up just for the adrenaline rush of playing the game again.
[00:52:30] Speaker C: Doom 2016 is one of the two most cathartic games I have ever played. If you are having a bad day and you need to just let off some fucking steam. There are only two games I recommend for this because nothing does it better once you get the flow and feel of it of Doom 2016 or the original Space Marine. The only two games that get that concept of a proper glory kill and get it going and quick and it's meaty.
And what Doom does that Space Marine does not do is it does it to one of the most bitching soundtracks of all time. The heavy metal synth that they have going for doom 2016.
[00:53:15] Speaker A: Mick Gordon absolutely outperformed himself in this.
Like he's done a bunch of other game soundtracks, including the subsequent Doom soundtracks.
The doom 2016 soundtrack is special.
[00:53:29] Speaker C: If you want a hit of nostalgia, but also some really cool information.
There's an E3 interview that he did talking about the creation of the Music of Doom 2016. This is an old interview. It's like one of the old E3 talks, which don't exist anymore because E3 doesn't exist anymore.
So if you want some, like, deep insight into one aspect of game design and then just have Doom layered into it because it's really fucking cool, take a look at that E3 interview.
[00:54:06] Speaker B: All right, well, that ends the topic. And now we're gonna get into what we've been going. What's been going on in our lives.
Jax, we're gonna save you for last.
Uh, so I'm going to go ahead and kick it off, because just in the spirit of. We were talking about remakes, I got to play Star Fox. I bought is not a reimagining.
It is a just remake, complete remake, graphical overhaul of the Original Star Fox 64, which was a remake of another Star Fox, which is a remake.
[00:54:46] Speaker A: Have Star Fox 64 on our reimaginings list. Star Fox 64 is a reimagining of SNES Star Fox.
It's the same story, but Star Fox 64 is so much better in every possible way.
[00:55:00] Speaker C: The exact same thing with why we didn't have doom 2016. It was staring us in the face, and we went, whoops.
[00:55:08] Speaker B: All right, well, then let's go ahead and step back and we can talk about it real quick. And it'll lead right into. I'll continue to talk about Star Fox.
[00:55:14] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:55:15] Speaker A: So let me. Let me lay the groundwork for SNES Star Fox, then. SNES Star Fox was way ahead of its time in a technical sense. This is a 3D game on the Super Nintendo. It had to use a special CO processor chip in the freaking cartridge to make that even possible to do. It is very simple. On Rails shooting. It runs at, like, 15 frames a second at best.
Star Fox 64 took that framework and said, what if we reimagined that as a whole game that runs at a. I think it runs at 30 on the 64. It might be 20fps, but it's stable is the important part. As opposed to the SNES version's heavy fluctuations. And then on SNES Star Fox, there's three routes that go through different levels to get to Venom. And then star Fox 64 is like, okay, well, we're redoing everything anyway. So in addition to new levels and additional levels, there's simply more in Star Fox 64, as well as completely new versions of the same, like, Planet.
What if we Made it so that there's dynamic objectives throughout the missions that send you to different next levels instead of having static routes.
And they added a charge shot that didn't exist in the original Star Fox.
And it's just so much better. Star Fox 64 is a masterpiece. Whereas SNES Star Fox is a historically important game. But that's about it. And I've replayed SNES Star Fox recently to make sure that I'm giving an accurate opinion of SNES Star Fox. Like it's playable. I had fun.
[00:56:57] Speaker B: And that leads us into Star fox for the Switch 2. It is just a remade.
A very well done remake of 64.
All the same routes are in there.
Same boss battles, the same enemy spawns, the same metal awards.
They do take it a little bit step further. They add lore to this game that you collect as you play.
There are some online multiplayer battles that you can partake in that look really good. I haven't done it myself, but I have seen it done.
They look really good. It's on a point system. And your dog fighting it looks really fun.
I can't remember, did 64 kind of have like a computer like. Like a versus an AI kind of dog fights that you could play in a separate mode? For some reason that's ringing a bell, but I can't remember.
[00:57:57] Speaker A: I don't believe so. It had a training mode that was very rudimentary and then it had multiplayer which was just versus dogfights and then the campaign.
And that was basically it for Star Fox 64.
[00:58:09] Speaker B: Minus gameplay wise.
Yeah, I remember now because like yeah, the training mode was what I was thinking of. Gameplay wise.
[00:58:17] Speaker A: This game in 64.
[00:58:19] Speaker B: This game is fantastic. Gameplay wise. I will give it exact. You know, it's better than 64 because we have better technology now. It's more well polished out. There's a lot of details. The boss fights are more.
They could. They are a little tougher. As far as health wise. There is no like just throwing a bomb and cheese in some bosses. Bosses are nertly in this one don't take damage much from bombs.
You actually have to do the mechanics as they were intended. You can't just throw a bomb and it like one shot.
[00:58:59] Speaker A: A part of the boss that varied dramatically in the original. Some bosses were ridiculously vulnerable to bombs intentionally or unintentionally depending on the boss you're speaking about. Some bosses were not supposed to be vulnerable the way they were.
And some very much were. Like there's the boss of zones literally feeds you bombs because you have to use bombs to fight the boss.
[00:59:21] Speaker B: Yeah. I was thinking like, if I remember and it's been a while since I've played 64 bombs kind of would trigger multiple hits and like do continuous Daniels.
[00:59:33] Speaker A: In this case, some of the common example of that.
[00:59:35] Speaker B: Some of these bosses don't just like go down real quick with bombs. So there are. There is just like you have to.
To the boss as it was intended, which I'm not going to say that's bad.
You know, there's still the hit system, which is your point system to medal. And then once you medal all of the worlds, you get to unlock expert mode and get to. You have to do, you know, all of it. Then there's a challenge mode which they give you specific challenges on each world that you have to complete. So there is a lot of replayability to it.
There are some negatives to it. But before I jump into that, Jax, did you have anything to add about gameplay?
[01:00:15] Speaker A: So I actually talked to one of my friends that I made. Playing Super Metroid is a like very good star fox 64 score attack player. Like can regularly get over 2000 points in a star fox 64 run kind of player. He's extremely good. I've always been in awe when I watch him play. It's crazy. I asked him for his thoughts on the Star Fox remake and his assessment is all of your experience from Star Fox 64 will carry over to the new game. Controls are good. Level design is great. Cutscenes add explanations to the lore that we didn't get before.
It falls short of the original in some of the readability of things because the graphics are so much better sometimes that detracts from just being able to tell what's going on because there's suddenly so much more detail. Your eyes can't focus on the details you need to in some cases, which is a common modern game problem that just didn't exist back then.
And the voice acting kind of sucks.
[01:01:15] Speaker B: That's what I was going to get into as my big quirk with this. And it's only probably for a nostalgia factor for me. The original voice acting was phenomenal.
Great Fox, for one, is the biggest downer for me in this game.
He doesn't do the good luck, you know, at the start of every. You don't get the good luck at the start of every level.
[01:01:38] Speaker A: The the robotics heard enough of the voice acting. The new voice acting is bad regardless of your feelings of nostalgia. But also there's so much nostalgia for some specific aspects of Star Fox 64 that I am genuinely shocked that they didn't just redo it the way it was before for nostalgia's sake. Great. I would say, though saying good luck
[01:02:01] Speaker B: as an example, you know, and the robotic voice, it's not really robotic anymore. Like in my head I can hear, you know, location confirmed, sending supplies. Like, I hear that it's. That's like, that's. They've changed a lot of the dialogue itself from the original, which is somebody who really enjoyed the original. It's kind of like, oh, you know, I was disappointed, but someone who. This might be their first Star Fox experience. It's probably fantastic. And I'm like, I don't want to take away from that because it is a very good game. But for an old head who like the original, it's just a disappointment. Not necessarily a bad thing, just for me, a disappointment.
[01:02:40] Speaker A: I find it weird that they didn't offer an option to just have the original voice acting play instead.
[01:02:48] Speaker B: Right? I mean, for the longest time as a kid, I will admit I thought Slippy was a female because I didn't know much about it because she was voiced by a female or he was voiced by a female.
[01:02:59] Speaker C: So that is the only, as you say, Slippy right there. That is the only thing about the new one that I legitimately enjoy. The weird new graphical update to Slippy makes Slippy look like a real frog with the way the eyes and the skin is and how that works. Like, Slippy is the one improvement they've made.
[01:03:19] Speaker A: So I did also ask my friend about a couple other specific details.
He did confirm your teammates will still steal your ability to get the medal in Sector Z.
Sector Z is a notorious level in the original Star Fox 64 because you have to get 100 points to get the medal, 66 of which come from you killing all six missiles. If your teammates or cat, if you came from zones, land the last hit on one of those missiles, you get zero points instead of 11. And that is still true in the remake.
For better or for worse, they kept that mechanic.
However, apparently in the Star Fox remake, if you do not die but instead pause and retry a level still costs you a life, but you will retry the level with whatever you had coming into the level. So if you had hyperlasers coming into the level when you retry, you'll have hyperlasers again instead of being knocked down to basic lasers like you were In Star Fox 64, which is a godsend when going for medals because again, using Sector Z as an example turns Out. It's a lot fucking harder to get all six missile kills when the best lasers you can get are twin lasers. Because there's only one laser upgrade in
[01:04:36] Speaker B: Sector Z.
I will say the. The shooting in this game does feel better. It's not just spam the button as many times as you want. You press the button, it shoots multiple times. Repress the button shoots multiple times again.
It took me a while to learn that they did the bomb tracking, which is very nice. Lock on bomb tracking, but it can also be a hindrance because sometimes you don't want to track with your bombs.
[01:05:01] Speaker A: That was true in the original as well.
[01:05:03] Speaker B: Was it? Gosh, Yep.
[01:05:04] Speaker A: You could lock on and then fire a bomb and it would home in.
[01:05:07] Speaker B: And sometimes it's so long, I don't even remember that. But there is an option to disable your tracking as far as, like, there's a button you can press that turns the tracking off just so you can send your, like, charge shot or your bombed.
[01:05:21] Speaker A: Okay. Strategically, in the original game, you could do that by holding both Z and R, which is your barrel roll, left and right buttons. If you held both of them, your lock on would not lock on.
[01:05:34] Speaker B: Okay. So it's the same. They kept.
[01:05:36] Speaker A: This is a speed. This is a speedrunner tech or score attacker tech. Because if you fire a charge shot that is not locked on and it hits the ground plus whatever a target is, that's two hits and you get an extra plus one on your combo.
This is one of the things score attackers do to get ridiculous scores. On some levels, they actually have special rule sets for score attacking the Original star FOX 64. Because there are some levels where if you do that, you can literally just max out the score. You can get 999 on a level because you just do that until you have 999 and they're like, that's boring. So we're making doing that against the rules.
[01:06:15] Speaker B: But they did keep that. You can still do that in the remake.
[01:06:18] Speaker A: Yes.
Good.
[01:06:20] Speaker B: It's a good game.
[01:06:20] Speaker A: That is something I noticed in the demo.
[01:06:22] Speaker B: It is a really good game. It is exactly what you would expect from a remake. Like, this is a very good remake. Not a reimagination, but I do suspect that this is going to create a surge of more Star Fox games. And so hopefully we can continue in the universe of Star Fox and get really good games out of it.
[01:06:43] Speaker A: Really just want, like, now that they've laid this groundwork, make an actual new Star Fox game using this engine and these graphics and everything. And just maybe do a better job on the voice acting when you do it. Please.
[01:06:55] Speaker C: Now all we need is for them to remake F0. And we've gotten pretty much every original Smash character's remakes.
[01:07:00] Speaker A: Yeah, we're never going to get the remake F0 deserves. If you want to play an F0 game, go play F0GX. It's on Nintendo Switch Online. You can just play it on Switch 2 if you have a Nintendo Switch online subscription.
[01:07:14] Speaker C: One of the best racing games.
[01:07:16] Speaker A: The GameCube. F0 is one of the best racing games ever. It's made by the Monkey Ball people. Amusement vision made this F0 game and it's. There's never been anything like it. It's just the best.
I fucking love F0GX.
[01:07:31] Speaker B: Spent a lot of time on Star Fox. I know we're probably running a little short on time, but it was part of the remakes. We just wanted to drag it down here because that's the only game I've had time to play.
Mike.
[01:07:42] Speaker A: Well, and because we make not a reimagining.
[01:07:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:07:46] Speaker C: But also I have much less to say because I don't have a game this week. I have what I told you I would be talking about this week. Spider Noir. It's everything I wanted it to be. Which is to say it is very much a classic detective noir with Spider man, but also starred by Nicolas Cage.
Everything about this is what I want. It has something that I did not realize initially. This is the same producers who did into the Spider Verse, but also project Hail Mary.
It's really good. I prefer the color version because I'm not a black and white movie person.
Like, yeah, Casablanca is great, but I'd rather just watch a movie in color.
I don't think it adds anything particular to watch it in black and white. But hey, if you're someone who needs your noirs to be in black and white, then you can get your noir in black and white.
It is not initially what I expected it to be, which it has a surprising amount of really good comedy, but also like it. It tries to play it as straight as they can, but there's still Nicolas Cage at the helm. So it's really hard to get a straight.
If you watch into the Spider Verse and you went, man, I need some more of that Nicholas Cage spider noir. Spider Man. You get it. You get everything you want, but also a little more and a story that's completely unique because it's a detective noir story.
[01:09:28] Speaker B: There is a fun. If you Google search Spider Noir, you Get a fun little animation. Oh, just. Just found that out.
All right, Jax, this is up to you. I'm gonna turn you down for a little bit just in case so I don't ruin myself.
[01:09:45] Speaker A: I'm gonna talk about the game without spoilers, and then I'll give a warning.
I finished Final Fantasy VII Remake's main story. I have not played intergrade yet, which is the side story that was added when Final Fantasy Remake was ported to PS5.
So I don't have opinions on that yet, but I've played all 18 chapters of final Fantasy VII Remake.
This is a fantastic reimagining of Final Fantasy vii. They've added so much depth and nuance and characters that were characters in the original, but now are characters fleshed out and so much detail. And the combat feels fantastic. It feels like a good Tails game in combat, which is awesome.
I have a few gripes.
Final Fantasy VII Remake is good about signposting points of no return. Unfortunately, it's a little too aggressively good about it. There's definitely points where you get to where it's obvious there will be a point of no return and you should go do side quests and then you do all your side quests and you go to that and they. The characters will literally say like, once we go past here, we can't go back.
Like in a cutscene character dialogue, which feels a little cheesy and like fourth wall breaky. And then you'll do it and you can't go back from that point. But the game will still tell you like two more times over the next couple chapters. Because to be clear, there are sections of Final Fantasy VII Remake that are more open ended. You can go around and do side quests and talk to people and most of the game is straight up linear gameplay, like linear point A to point B. There is no deviation that can be done for most of Final Fantasy VII Remake. I think out of the 18 chapters, four of them have side quests.
So do we really need on like the second and third chapter in a row of linear Final Fantasy 7? Do we really need to be told about more points of no return?
Oh, no, I can't. If I go past this, I'll fight the boss. I better make sure I'm ready first.
Well, yeah, but like, what am I gonna do? There's a bench to heal and a vending machine to buy things at and that's it. I can't go back.
What would I do? What would I accomplish by going back? It's unnecessary and makes the Game feel more like a game, which sucks. But the actual game itself is really good. It's a lot of fun. I had a blast.
I have 38 and a half hours in final Fantasy VII remake. When I bought it, what, a month ago. It's great. Highly recommend. Since it's on sale right now.
Now is where I'm gonna drop the spoiler warning. So spoiler warning. From here on out, I am going to briefly talk about the end of Final Fantasy VII remake.
So there's your warning. If you don't want to hear about that. That's why we saved me for last, so you can end the episode here. Okay, I think that's enough warning. If anyone's still here, that means they want to hear it.
So Final Fantasy 7 Remake ends after you escape Midgar, which is like the first act of the original game that was known. We knew it was only the Midgar portion of Final Fantasy 7 from the get go. So that's not the spoiler here. In the original Final Fantasy vii, the way this is handled, because that's only the first act. You do all of the events of Shinra Tower and then you escape Shinra Tower and there's a big highway bike chase escape sequence. And then you're out of Midgar and the game continues. Cause it's. That's only the first act of the game. Final Fantasy VII remake, you do all the events of Shinra Tower and then you escape from Shinra Tower and there's a big bike chase sequence. And apparently they felt that wasn't a good enough finale. Because then they decide to end the bike chase sequence with a new bit that didn't exist in the original game. You get to the end of the highway, you're at the edge of Midgar, and they're like, okay, now we're gonna have a boss fight. That is the will of the planet. Cause you're defying destiny. So fight the will of the planet to choose your own path in life. And then you do that. And then now also, Sephiroth's here. And you need to fight Sephiroth. Because of course Sephiroth has to be the final boss of a Final Fantasy VII game.
And this sucks.
Like this absolutely fucking sucks.
I love the rest of Final Fantasy 7 Remake. But this is. This is not it. This is the worst part of the entire game. Stupid boss. Out of nowhere. The whole thing looks like, by the way, a fucking Devil May Cry set piece. Because it's just like disembodied bits of highway and other terrain that you're just standing on and fighting. Like it feels disconnected from the world in a way that the game has not done the entire time. The entire 18 chapters do not feel disconnected from the world until this will of the planet boss fight. And then the Sephiroth boss fight. A, it's a bad boss fight and B, it's just out of nowhere and feels unearned and like irrelevant. It feels like they felt the need to have a finale to the game because it's the end of Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Because Rebirth wasn't out yet. At the time, I would have been so much happier if they simply said the boss you fight in Shinra Tower is the final boss. It was a boss fight. It was. It felt appropriate and thematically correct. I do not remember if that boss was fought there in the original game or not. Does not matter. And then have the bike chase sequence, which is awesome. And then they could have been like, okay, show the bike chase sequence, the characters get out of Midgar, have your ending cutscene and then fade to black and say to be continued. Would have been a ten times better way to end Final Fantasy VII remake than what they actually did.
The final two bosses are just unnecessary and make the game worse.
That's it. That's my rant.
That's all I had to say is just, it's a great game, but God, I wish they did better in that one way.
[01:16:03] Speaker B: Guys, I had him muted, so I have no idea what he said because I'm. I played the game before but I don't remember it. So it's kind of like a new experience for me. But we're going to call it there.
If you are in our Discord. I did post all the games that we talked about from the Steam sale in our highlights channel, so check that out. If you're not in the Discord, join us so you can find that list and we'll bring up other games when it comes. Because we like talking video games and we can do it all night, but it'd be very boring for you. And I don't think anybody takes a long enough car ride for us to be able to do that.
[01:16:40] Speaker A: This is already going to be like an hour and 15 hour and 20 minute episode once I kill the silences.
[01:16:47] Speaker C: I don't know about you. I use three RPOD podcasts all the time.
[01:16:50] Speaker B: Guys. We've been from 8bit to 4k for Jackson, for Mike of many names. Wait, wait, I forgot. You can find us on Twitch sometimes playing these games. Got Twitch tv, Jacksonman, Twitch tv. Mikeofmanynames. And you got Twitch tv, Pillow Pet, where you can sometimes catch me streaming. Maybe you can catch Mike of many names.
You can always catch Jax on there streaming something. I think lately he's been playing Path of Exile and Leak. So get on there.
[01:17:24] Speaker A: Stream path much? Because no one wants to watch that. It's a boring stream game, but I stream when I'm playing other stuff.
[01:17:31] Speaker B: Get on there. Follow these guys like I said. For Jackson, for Mike of many names. For Pillow Pet.
Have a good night.
Bye.
[01:17:41] Speaker A: Bye.
[01:17:42] Speaker C: Good night, everybody.
