Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Hello, welcome back to 8bit to 4k where we're going to be talking all things games, game related, multiverse, and just everything that's been generally going on in our lives.
I'm Pilliput, your host this week and with me I have three other hosts. I have Mike, many names.
[00:00:29] Speaker B: Yes, you've heard three, not just two.
[00:00:33] Speaker A: Jackson.
[00:00:35] Speaker C: Does this mean we're gonna have to commission a new logo already?
[00:00:39] Speaker A: We might have to.
And returning with us is Witch of Black Mass.
[00:00:44] Speaker D: Hi guys.
[00:00:46] Speaker B: If we want to go realistic here with how insane some of the graphics have been, we could just take a photo of them and put it next to us.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: That's true.
Unreal.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: Unreal
[00:00:59] Speaker A: Engine, Black Mass.
First I want to do a shout out to our Patreons at the shout out tier. We got Codex, Ninja, Labana, Uncle Chrisco and Skippius Esquire. Yes, you heard. We have a Patreon come support us at the PA on the Patreon. $1 a month, we'll just tell you that you love us. $5 a month gets you an exclusive feed of some behind the scenes audio from our prep work before each show and $10 a month gets you the exclus. And we'll also shout out your name during the intro of every episode. This also extends to our four Wards podcast, our League of Legends podcast.
Join our discord. The link is in the episode description. Come talk with us about games and tell us what you want to. You think of our opinions and topics and if there's anything in there you want to talk about or continue the discussion on, we'd love to talk about it and you can come play games with us. Somebody's always in there playing games. You can come ping us.
The link to join that discord is in the episode description as well.
So tonight we got a fun topic.
We are going to jump into great games that had very underwhelming sequels and which I'm really interested in getting into yours first. And this was your topic idea. So let's jump in with you first.
[00:02:23] Speaker D: Sounds good. I think mine is kind of universal thoughts like for my first one, I think that the majority of people that love the Fable franchise love the first one. The first iteration of the game. They actually released like an extended version of that game whenever they first released it and that's like considered like the actual full version of the game and it was just kind of like a beloved like franchise. People want another Fable that's actually good. And in my personal opinion they in Fable 2 and Fabled 3 they like watered down a lot of aspects within the game and I don't know why they chose to do so. They added some different aspects like instead of using a bow, used a gun and you had different traits to do within the game. But a lot of the aspects that made the game a little bit more challenging like just decided to remove and I don't quite understand why they chose to do that. For example, in the first game they had like mana costs for using spells. They removed that in two and three. So you essentially can just spam the button in both the games to cast whatever spells you want indefinitely within a fight. And they removed like armor value within like the game. So all clothing within both 2 and 3 are completely for looks based and like getting notoriety with people within the world. And I don't really understand why as I said like it's.
It wasn't, it wasn't something that needed to be taken away in my opinion. I think it just added to the game and they just removed stuff like that and I don't understand why they did that. It was very weird.
[00:04:06] Speaker A: Like they almost took the role playing aspect out of it and just turned it into like you said, a button masher with some,
[00:04:14] Speaker D: yeah,
[00:04:15] Speaker A: exploration.
[00:04:16] Speaker D: Some of the, some of the fights like don't get me wrong, none of the fights in Fabled were particularly hard. Like they're not crazy but you had to think about like the way that you wanted to fight stuff in the first game you had to actually use like your healing pots, you had to use your mana pots if you were using like magic abilities and stuff like that. And in Fable 2, Fable 3 they just completely removed that aspect within the game. So it just became like you're playing just for the storyline essentially. Like, I don't know how else to say it and get in Fable 3 it people like the Monopoly aspect of the game over the actual game itself where you're collecting and like buying all the properties within the world. And I, I don't know, like, it's just not. If you like Monopoly then I suppose. But yeah.
[00:05:00] Speaker A: What are your hopes going into the new Fable?
[00:05:02] Speaker D: I'm hoping that they just bring more stuff into like the game that actually like brings like value towards like the systems within the game. As I said, like I don't think there's any problem with adding contextually difficulty within a game even if it's like fake. Like I think that keeping it like super simplistic and removing aspects that were already there just didn't make sense to me. And so I'm hoping that they bring some of the stuff back where like, yes, you can wear like this different shirt that makes your attraction higher and you can you more people like you within the game. Or you could wear this armor that's like more scary, I suppose. But also you don't take as much damage within a fight if you wear that stuff like that. I don't know.
[00:05:52] Speaker A: Keeps you alive. Time to dress up nice and a time to dress up like a soldier or a warrior, you know. And that, that I think that gives you a little bit more of that role playing feel as well be able to do something like that.
All right, Jax.
[00:06:08] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:06:09] Speaker A: Let's get into yours.
[00:06:10] Speaker C: All right. I'm going to start with a softball one.
So y' all may have heard of this game franchise called Devil May Cry. Devil May Cry 1, fantastic game. Little bit dated. Devil May Cry 3 still probably the best game in the entire franchise. Devil may cry 4 is extremely good. Devil may cry 5 is exceptionally good. You'll notice I skipped number 2. We tend not to pretend. We tend to pretend that Devil May Cry two does not exist. And the reason is because it's.
It's not a bad game, but it's so much worse than every other game in the franchise. Even the haters will almost unanimously agree that DMC is massively better than Devil May Cry 2. That's how bad Devil May Cry 2 is.
Again, not actually a bad game. It's just offensively mid.
And
[00:07:05] Speaker B: that's something that's debatable on a lot of people. A lot of people will call DMC2 bad.
[00:07:11] Speaker C: Right. And that's because DMC1 is so good and DMC2 has none of what made DMC1 great. It doesn't have.
Go ahead.
[00:07:23] Speaker D: Is it more like the, like the storyline aspect of the game or is it like the different? Because I know that Devil May Cry played too much of it, but
[00:07:33] Speaker B: yes,
[00:07:33] Speaker D: a lot of it's like combo based, like, like attacking and stuff like that. Is it like just like not flushed out or is it more so the storyline? I guess
[00:07:42] Speaker C: it's not really the story itself. It's the. The areas in DMC2 are bland, the combat is repetitive. The boss battles are mindless. The game is really easy, which is very much the antithesis of what the rest of the franchise is.
[00:08:00] Speaker D: Yeah,
[00:08:01] Speaker C: it just. It doesn't feel like a DMC game at all.
It's. It's frustrating because the reason Devil May Cry 2 is bad is well documented. Devil May Cry 2 was not made by Hideki Kagmiya. It was not made by Team Little Devils, the people who made Devil may cry 1. Capcom assigned Kamiya to work on a truly great game that came out the same year as devil may cry 2. He made viewtiful Joe, and they had a different team come in and develop Devil May Cry 2. And Devil May Cry 2 suffers horrendously for it. The team that they assigned did not truly understand what made DMC1 great. Kamiya actually thought he was being fired when they asked him for his documents from DMC1 so they could work on DMC2.
[00:08:53] Speaker B: It's. It's such a.
It's such a huge shame because it's. I think the best thing I can use to describe it is just uninspired.
[00:09:03] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:09:04] Speaker B: Everything about it is milquetoast.
[00:09:08] Speaker C: Yep. And. And to be clear, I'm not sad that they had Kamiya make Viewtiful Joe, because Viewtiful Joe is one of my favorite GameCube games,
[00:09:15] Speaker B: one of the most underrated
[00:09:16] Speaker C: games
[00:09:16] Speaker B: of all time.
[00:09:17] Speaker C: It is so goddamn good. I just wish they had just waited to make devil may cry 2 until he was done making Beautiful Joe and then make devil may cry 2.
[00:09:28] Speaker D: You know what's sad, like, in the current, like, video game landscape, too, is that, like, it's interesting that something like this could not happen where a sequel bombs. It would basically be like, okay, we're not making another game of this anymore. Like, they try to do that, and, like, a lot of studios closed down because, like, it's just, like, they can't support games like this. So, like, glad it happened back then. Where. Yeah, glad it happened back then because, I mean, I.
I played the later versions a little bit more, and.
Yeah, I mean, I like them. So. Yeah.
[00:10:03] Speaker C: And I do want to be clear. Devil may cry 3 was also not made by Hideki Kamiya, but the people who made Devil May Cry three understood what made the first one good. And that's why three is still considered the best game in the series, because it was made by people who loved the first game and understood what was good about it. So it's just the wrong studio at working on it. They just didn't get it.
[00:10:26] Speaker A: This is one of those games will chalk up to I never played. So unfortunately,
[00:10:31] Speaker C: you shouldn't have played it. Devil may cry 2 is not worth playing.
[00:10:36] Speaker A: Well, I mean, any Devil May Cry game I've just never played.
[00:10:40] Speaker C: Have you ever played Bayonetta?
[00:10:42] Speaker A: Nope.
[00:10:43] Speaker B: That feels weird. Because you're a Nintendo fan.
[00:10:45] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:10:46] Speaker A: God of War. Yes. I've Played a lot of God of war.
[00:10:48] Speaker B: The first two more than the third one. But the first, first three similar
[00:10:54] Speaker C: are very similar to Devil May Cry. The PlayStation 4 and the new one are not the dad of war ones are their own thing. That definitely has some.
Some things.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: No, I mean I played the original like the button mashing and going through waves and waves of monsters and all the good ones. And I really enjoyed that. The quick timing, boss fights, all that good stuff.
[00:11:20] Speaker C: Yeah. That being said, you should play Devil May Cry three and five. Those are the best ones to pick up to play three. If you want to play the older style, it is just genuinely the best. And five is the most recent. Devil May Cry. All right.
And I think they sell a 1 through 3 HD collection. I think that's what's on Steam now. I could be wrong.
[00:11:42] Speaker B: I mean the story. The story in two is actually just not necessary.
[00:11:47] Speaker C: Yeah, it's the latest chronologically at the time and I think it's been retconned by 4 and 5, so it really just does not matter. And yeah, they do sell a HD collection. If you get the HD collection, you're getting it for Devil May Cry 1 and 3.
[00:12:03] Speaker A: All right, Mike, give us one off your list.
[00:12:07] Speaker B: We're gonna start with the most similar to what everyone else here is talking about, which is a great game that had a horrendous sequel.
This game is kind of a niche one for me. It's a. It's a nigga game. It's a genre I quite like. It's an isometric sort of space game. It's called Spaz Space Pirates and Zombies.
Game was really fun. It had a lot of a very unique style of isometric space combat that I haven't seen enough games. I. It is a game very similar to a couple of others that I. I've always tried to find more of them and never could because that gameplay just feels fun to me and had actually a surprisingly fun story for something that goes down. And then the sequel came out and I think every single thing about Spaz that I loved just wasn't in the sequel. It was no longer the isometric thing. How you did ship works completely changed into a just kind of horrible, like I think legitimately horrible gameplay to try and do shipbuilding.
Gameplay itself just felt bad. Story was just bad.
Every single thing that they could have done to this game, they just failed at. And that really kind of bugs me.
It had so much promise.
But
[00:13:30] Speaker C: I feel like there's been a lot of smaller games that get sequels and the sequels just either just don't land in the first place or don't get the same attention or care or anything as the first one. Like, I love Darkest Dungeon with a passion. I've never even played two.
[00:13:50] Speaker B: I've heard actually surprisingly good things about them. But I know
[00:13:53] Speaker C: I've heard
[00:13:54] Speaker B: good
[00:13:54] Speaker C: things. But not as good as the first one.
[00:13:56] Speaker B: No, I mean when I. When. When a game comes out of nowhere and is wild, you have to do something special to even it or become better than it.
[00:14:04] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:14:05] Speaker B: You have to at least match the same thing. And they didn't do any of that in Spaz. Like, you essentially have to be Hades to do that. Well,
[00:14:12] Speaker C: they didn't even try in Spaz is what it sounds like.
[00:14:15] Speaker B: Yeah, it has since gotten better reception.
It. It just feels wrong to me. Everything about it just feels like a worse version of what I enjoyed.
[00:14:24] Speaker A: All right, well, mine. I'm gonna lean away from going into my.
Everything afterwards. It's been awful. I'm gonna start with Dying Light mainly. Like, so don't get me wrong, Nightlight 2 is a good game in its own. I don't know if you guys have played any of the Dying Light games or not, but it is.
So I'll briefly explain it. Dying Light was a.
You dropped into the city to try to. I think you're trying to find some files or something for this company. You got bit and infected and there's this serum or shot that they give you that keeps you alive and keeps you from turning.
And so like you're in the city now. You're trying to help the people out.
And it's. It's. There's a lot of tense tension in this game because when it becomes dark, all hell breaks loose. Viral zombies come.
Zombies get faster, they get stronger.
And your only protection is safe zones or UV light, which keeps the zombies at bay.
And then there's Parkour. It's just a really fun game.
In Dying Light 2 tried to hold on to that, but they dumbed down. The Parkour took away like just the. The aspect of it being kind of tense and survival and turned it more into like an open world role playing kind of situation where it didn't. They didn't need it. It was just disappointing. Like I was really excited. Looking forward to Dying Light 2 When it came out. I still played it, I still finished the game. I enjoyed it. But it wasn't what the original had, which was a lot of tension, a lot of like scary, like absolutely not. Not going out at night. Refused to. And Then into it was like, yeah, I can go out at night, no big deal.
And I took away that. That scare factor.
That's it. If you haven't played it.
I mean, I always Recommend Dying Light 1, but if it's not up your alley, then I wouldn't.
Unless you get it on a really good sale.
[00:16:37] Speaker D: I've never played it, so I. I can't really comment on Dying Light. I think I actually might have it, but I don't. I
[00:16:44] Speaker C: am gonna point out Dying Light, the original, is currently $2.49 on Steam.
[00:16:52] Speaker A: If it's that cheap, I highly recommend it because it's. If you like tense zombie games. I know Mike doesn't like horror, so he wouldn't like
[00:17:00] Speaker B: it.
[00:17:01] Speaker A: Actually, it would be hilarious to watch him play it because there's a part of the game where it forces you to be out at night. And I would love to just watch the sweat pouring off of Mike's head as he's trying to get through this.
[00:17:16] Speaker C: We need to force Mike to do a Halloween horror game stream. It would be funny.
[00:17:21] Speaker B: I know the game that I probably should do with that and I don't want to because I don't want to install it again.
[00:17:27] Speaker D: Play like Outlast or something
[00:17:28] Speaker C: like
[00:17:28] Speaker B: this Dead space. I made it like 10 minutes into that game and noped out of it.
[00:17:35] Speaker C: Do it, Mike.
[00:17:35] Speaker A: Now we need to put you into the Escape the back rooms.
[00:17:40] Speaker D: I remember as a when I was younger, I used to like Bioshock's. Not like I don't think Bioshock is like a scary game, but as a kid when I was playing it, the atmosphere of the game was kind of
[00:17:52] Speaker B: Bioshock.
[00:17:52] Speaker C: I'm
[00:17:53] Speaker B: going to push that horror.
[00:17:54] Speaker C: Bioshock is not a horror game, but it is a scary as game, especially if you're playing it in the dark and surround sound.
[00:18:03] Speaker B: It's. It's horror in the classic horror sense. It's more of a thriller nowadays for the world that we have now. But like, it's built on the same sort of suspense horror as System Shock.
[00:18:15] Speaker C: Yeah, it's absolutely horror adjacent.
[00:18:19] Speaker B: All right.
[00:18:20] Speaker A: I'm a horror junkie. So it is. Halloween
[00:18:24] Speaker C: is Saturday.
[00:18:25] Speaker A: Sunday. Halloween
[00:18:26] Speaker B: is Saturday. Okay.
If we have enough people do some form of either comment on our things or go into the discord and say it. I will.
[00:18:37] Speaker C: Hear me out.
[00:18:37] Speaker B: I will do a Halloween stream.
[00:18:39] Speaker C: Here's what we do. We make Mike play a scary game and when he bitches out, then we play left 4 dead 2.
[00:18:46] Speaker B: I need to reinstall left 4 dead 2.
[00:18:48] Speaker A: Now we play Phasmophobia. Go hunt some ghosts.
[00:18:52] Speaker B: Oh, it's 13 gigs. Yeah, I gotta reinstall it for dead two.
[00:18:55] Speaker C: I'm actually shocked it's that big.
[00:18:57] Speaker B: It's actually 14, but it's 13. Nine.
[00:19:00] Speaker A: All right, which.
What do you got?
[00:19:03] Speaker D: Hey, we're going, we're going down the. The zombie adjacent. And also mine is a little bit more streamlined, I would say, for my second choice. But the Last of Us, I think the Last of Us, the first game is like no, like notoriety, like story based games is like very beloved and everything else. And then like everyone else, I went into the second one and I think the game tried to do two different, like too many different story beats that people didn't necessarily want and it divided a lot of people. Whenever it came to the game itself, I don't think the game really differentiated and made it worse. I would say like whenever it comes to like actual gameplay within the game, but story wise, definitely not as strong as the second.
I don't think that people would really argue that point just because spoilers, I guess. But they just decided to off like the most beloved character within the franchise within the first act of the game. Right. And so in doing so is going to be very polarizing towards people. Right. So yeah,
[00:20:18] Speaker B: this, this game is like witch. And I have very similar feels in that this game was a massive downgrade. That is not the like general consensus opinion in that this is a polarizing one. There are very many people who say Last of Us two is one of the best games of all time. And there are a lot of us who are incredibly disappointed. It's. It's either one or the other. I don't think I've
[00:20:43] Speaker D: heard anybody say super polarizing.
[00:20:45] Speaker B: It's just like good.
So yeah, I agree with him here.
[00:20:51] Speaker A: All right, Mike,
[00:20:53] Speaker C: I was
[00:20:54] Speaker B: going to
[00:20:54] Speaker C: say, do you want me to keep going with the zombies?
[00:20:56] Speaker A: Yeah, you know what? Sorry. Yeah. Jax, keep going. Jax,
[00:20:58] Speaker B: keep going
[00:20:58] Speaker A: with the zombies.
[00:20:59] Speaker C: All right, so y' all may know I have a fondness for the Castlevania franchise. I like the old side scrolling action adventure Castlevanias, like the original Castlevania 3 super Castlevania IV. You might notice I skipped Castlevania 2 and you might think that's what I'm gonna talk about. And while that game is flawed in many ways, it's not the one I want to talk about because in 1997 we got Symphony of the Night that completely changed the direction of the franchise forever.
And how does Konami decide To follow up, Symphony of the Night, one of the greatest video games of all time, with the Castlevania game. So bad that they released a remake of it later in the same year to try to make it less bad. It's mostly just known as Castlevania 64. Its title is technically just Castlevania. It was the franchise's first 3D game and it shows.
Castlevania 64 is offensively bland, more so than other N64 games. It has just boring, empty environments.
It's ugly, it doesn't play well.
It's.
Everything about it just kinda sucks. But not in a, like, this game offends me, it's so bad way. Just in a like this feels like a low effort n 64 game kinda way. And that's, I think the most offensive part of it is that it just. It feels like they didn't give a shit. And that's wild. They literally remade it later the same year, like 10 months later, we got Castlevania Legacy of Darkness, which is a prequel that also is a remake of the original game to the point where there's no reason to ever play Castlevania 64. Because while legacy of Darkness is not good, it's a lot less bland. It's not bad.
And I just don't understand how you go from Symphony of the Night to this.
It's so crazy to me because after this, then we got the GBA Castlevanias that are all good to great, like Harmony, Dissonance is merely good. And then we got the DS Castlevanias that are all great.
And like, I don't understand this is
[00:23:31] Speaker B: even the
[00:23:31] Speaker C: most 3D
[00:23:32] Speaker B: version.
[00:23:32] Speaker C: That's the worst. What's that?
[00:23:34] Speaker D: I think they just got 3D effected. Probably like they just tried to transport it and like in doing so, it just.
[00:23:41] Speaker B: Well, no, it got. It got the Nintendo 3D effect like the first one, which was the problem because Even the next 3D version, I like Lords of Shadow.
[00:23:48] Speaker C: Yep. I was gonna say it took 11 years for us to get another 3D Castlevania after this game and its remake, sequel, whatever you want to call it, because this game was so bad. Lords of Shadow is fine. Lords of Shadow is Mercury, Steam, the people who made Metroid dread.
[00:24:05] Speaker B: It is. It does help that that game has Patrick Stewart doing a shit ton of narration.
[00:24:09] Speaker C: Yeah. But yeah, it's. And that's why I'm talking about Castlevania 64 instead of Simon's Quest, because Simon's Quest is just a flawed video game. And Castlevania 64 is an offensive one. Flawed video game,
[00:24:22] Speaker A: I think does that.
Nope. Mike, you go next. You got. You got a. Another.
Somewhat.
[00:24:30] Speaker B: Another actual battle. So I could theoretically claim zombies, because the Flood are sort of like zombies. But by the time this
[00:24:36] Speaker C: game rolls
[00:24:36] Speaker B: around.
Yeah, by the time this game rolls around, we're not dealing with them anymore.
Because the original three Halo games are just good. They're good to great potentially on people's best games of all time. Because Halo was just the game that made the modern shooter. However, you'll notice that there's only three games on that list. I mentioned Reach, we'll give a pass to. It's not part of the franchise here. ODST will give a pass too. It's not trying to be the other games, but then you have four, which has a massive downshift in quality. The storyline gets really weird. It has some really great emotional moments, some really great voice acting, but noticeably worse. Even though they tried to do something different, the story had ended and now they're just trying to bring it back for no fucking reason. Well, for a specific, it's Halo. They wanted more Halo. And then five came around and that got bad reception. And it continued to go, not necessarily even more downhill from there because six is better than five, but it's not better than four.
And then, and then they made the offensive point of having a separate like charge release for the multiplayer and the campaign, which. Yeah, letting people do multiplayer for free. Okay, fine. That's actually. Yeah,
[00:25:55] Speaker C: I was gonna say I'm actually okay with Infinite's model because they just made the multiplayer free so that there would be a player base and then charged for the campaign.
I'm okay with that. My issue with Infinite is just that the multiplayer was the only good part and it wasn't well maintained after release.
[00:26:14] Speaker B: They didn't do anything to keep it going.
One of this shows as to why they had to re release the original game again a couple months ago. And I don't know how that's reception went because it is their third or fourth release of Combat Evolved.
[00:26:32] Speaker D: The OG. Yeah, because they released it on 360 and then they did the Collector's edition and then they did the newest one they just remastered. Yeah, they did it again.
[00:26:43] Speaker C: Okay, I can tell you how Campaign Evolved was received.
Its all time peak at release on Steam was 25,000 players.
You want to know how many people are playing it right now at 7pm Pacific Time on a random Monday.
216.
[00:27:06] Speaker B: How far the mighty have fallen.
[00:27:07] Speaker D: True.
[00:27:08] Speaker B: This is. This is how to kill a franchise 101 and they're. They're making very, very good strides into driving themselves into the dirt. I am surprised that this wasn't the studio that people started closing, but then again, they're owned by Microsoft, so they're never going fucking backup.
[00:27:31] Speaker C: It kind of is though, because didn't they reassign the Halo franchise from Halo Studios, the studio that they founded to make Halo games for Campaign Evolved?
[00:27:44] Speaker D: I'm not sure.
[00:27:45] Speaker B: The thing with that is, is that those people and that that company are still technically in existence as opposed to, you know, recent bioware, potentially 99% death.
So, like, this was. This was just a tragedy.
[00:28:01] Speaker C: I'll be honest, I'm surprised we only have two Xbox franchises on our list of great games with underwhelming sequels because Fable and then Halo are on here and they're the only ones we have that are like.
[00:28:11] Speaker B: There were more I could have said
[00:28:13] Speaker C: with Xbox. Right, that's my point.
[00:28:16] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:28:16] Speaker C: Because this is kind of Microsoft's M.O.
[00:28:19] Speaker B: get a franchise and drive it into the ground with. With horrible sequels. Yeah, it. It essentially Halo's model did the exact same thing or the model with. With Halo happened again with Gears of War, where it's a beloved franchise. Bear there with three very good games and one very good storyline that they can't fucking stop milking and so they ruin it. Into the ground.
[00:28:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:44] Speaker C: I've heard the new Gears of War is decent though,
[00:28:47] Speaker B: if. If it is, it's the brand new one that was also released this year.
[00:28:51] Speaker C: Yeah,
[00:28:51] Speaker D: yeah,
[00:28:52] Speaker C: yeah. E Day or whatever it is.
[00:28:54] Speaker D: Yeah. I've heard some people say it's relatively decent.
[00:28:57] Speaker C: Yeah. Not amazing, just much better than the last couple.
[00:29:03] Speaker B: That doesn't necessarily mean anything.
[00:29:05] Speaker C: Right.
[00:29:06] Speaker A: All right, I'm gonna jump into my next one and I'm gonna jump into another Nintendo game.
Actually, this might be the first one on our list that we're gonna talk about.
[00:29:17] Speaker C: First one on our
[00:29:18] Speaker B: list because
[00:29:22] Speaker C: it wasn't made by Nintendo.
[00:29:24] Speaker A: So this is made by.
I'm going to jump into the Paper Mario series. And when you think Paper Mario, you don't even think Paper Mario. The first one. Your thoughts are immediately going to be the Thousand Year Door, which is the best version of Paper Mario.
[00:29:44] Speaker C: And that's not to say Paper Mario, the original is bad. It's a great game.
It's just. It's like a nine out of ten. When Thousand Year Door is a ten out of ten.
[00:29:52] Speaker A: Yeah, they.
They added in. They made like the. The storyline, the partner system, the bad the better badge system.
They just made it an all around better game, which is how a sequel should go when the game, the next game should just be better. It should just build on the game and make it better.
We have not had. And this isn't going. This isn't me saying that every Paper Mario game since then has been bad because I mean, in their own game they're fine. Like if that was your first introduction to a Paper Mario game, you'd probably be fine with it.
So we got Super Pair Paper Mario, Paper Sticker Star, Color Splash, Origami King being the most recent new installment. And then they remade it, remade Thousand Year Door, which again was everybody's favorite.
Where they went wrong is they started veering away from the partner systems and the.
The turn based battling and made it more open world combat, I guess you could say, or level based combat. However you want to.
You're fighting and it's. It's not turn based.
I have played Sticker Star and like I said, it wasn't a bad game. I still enjoyed it. I've played Color Splash, it wasn't bad. I still enjoyed it. But it's not gonna ever scratch the itch that Thousand Year Door gave me. I can go back and replay the Thousand Year Door anytime and just enjoy it because it's just that good of game. But I mean that's it. It's just a game that it's just didn't produce good after the Thousand Year Door and they kind of just kept it stale.
[00:31:46] Speaker D: Yeah,
[00:31:47] Speaker B: yeah,
[00:31:47] Speaker A: no discussion needed. But that's. That's it, Jack.
[00:31:52] Speaker B: Sometimes you just don't need to.
Sometimes everything you just said is. Yep, that's our.
[00:31:56] Speaker D: That's true.
[00:31:57] Speaker B: That's. Everything's correct.
[00:31:59] Speaker C: All right,
[00:31:59] Speaker A: Jax, take us into our next one.
[00:32:01] Speaker C: I want to talk about a game that I actually think is a great game that has been maligned for decades. And it is the other Nintendo game we've got on our list.
So Nintendo released the Legend of Zelda in 1986 and obviously absolute masterpiece, super well regarded. So they had to release a follow up. And the follow up game they made was Zelda the Adventure of Link.
And Zelda II is generally disliked by most people who have played it. It doesn't play like other Zelda games. It's got more RPG elements. It's weird. It's a side scrolling platformer. It's actually a Metroidvania if you want to be literal as to what genre it is. But we didn't have that language for it yet in 1987.
It actually, I think predates Metroid wasn't Metroid 88 anyway, it suffers from a being really Nintendo Hard. And also, no, metroid was apparently 86. So Zelda 2 doesn't get credit for inventing the genre. Not that Metroid was the first one anyway.
It was really like, frustratingly Nintendo hard in a way that other Nintendo games also were, but not in a way that many RPGs were, and not in a way that Zelda 1 is.
Zelda 2 is annoyingly hard. There are so many opportunities to just get knocked into a pit and die. Oh, you died three times. Game over. Go back to the beginning palace and now you have to run back to the dungeon you were actually doing. You don't lose any progress, but the runback made it really annoying. But here's the thing. For all of its faults, and it does have faults, it's not a perfect game. Zelda II is charming. The combat feels good when you get the hang of it. It is smooth and controls well.
The RPG elements they added we saw adapted into a lot of other games later, like Castlevania. Adding level ups and getting experience for killing things.
It laid out a lot of things that became Zelda staples.
Most of the towns in Zelda 2 are the names of important characters in Ocarina of Time.
Matter of fact, five of the six sages in Ocarina of Time are towns in Zelda ii. And then Mido, the guy who blocks you in Kokiri Forest, is also a town.
Zelda ii, it's a good game if you can get through the NES hard. Bullshit. I like hard games, so that part doesn't faze me as much.
And also the music fucking slaps.
Zelda II has some great NES music. I love Zelda 2, but it is generally considered the worst mainline Zelda game. I don't think that's really debated by most people. Most people agree with that.
[00:35:07] Speaker A: I mean, I. I mean, I enjoy Zelda 2.
[00:35:10] Speaker D: What are we considering mainline here? Because I think there's some, like, DS games.
[00:35:16] Speaker C: So,
[00:35:16] Speaker D: like,
[00:35:16] Speaker C: I wouldn't count Spirit tracks as mainline. Or
[00:35:19] Speaker D: yes, spirit, whatever
[00:35:20] Speaker C: the other. Yes, one was. That's in the same vein. But like, I would count
[00:35:25] Speaker D: Phantom
[00:35:26] Speaker B: 1 bad. But it was
[00:35:27] Speaker C: so
[00:35:27] Speaker B: like,
[00:35:28] Speaker C: here I pulled up a list. I would count Link's Awakening as mainline. I would count Majora's Mask as mainline. I would count the Oracle games as mainline. I would count Minish Cap as mainline. I would not count Phantom Hourglass or Spirit Tracks or Four Swords anything as mainline.
[00:35:44] Speaker D: Yeah,
[00:35:45] Speaker C: that's how I would distinguish it. And I think like general public opinion, it's either Zelda II or Skyward Sword that is considered the worst mainline Zelda.
[00:35:55] Speaker A: Oh, I would push back on Skyward Sword. I really enjoy that one.
[00:35:59] Speaker C: A lot of people really don't.
[00:36:01] Speaker D: Yeah, I feel like people didn't like that. The. The we like specifically
[00:36:05] Speaker A: the
[00:36:06] Speaker D: Wii Motion stuff, like for like it's literally what deterred it, like, I think.
[00:36:09] Speaker C: But that's what I mean. It's like it's between those two and I don't think either one is a bad game. I think Zelda II is an abrasive game, but it's really good if you can get through the bullshit. And Skyward Sword, I think is much better now that it's no longer forced to have Wii bullshit in it because you can play the HD version.
[00:36:27] Speaker D: Yeah, there's a reason why, like Twilight Princess on WWII is like $10 and then the Gamecube version is like 200 or something like
[00:36:34] Speaker C: that. Is it worth that much? I should sell mine.
[00:36:37] Speaker D: I forget. But it's worth a substantial amount more than the Wii version, so.
[00:36:43] Speaker A: All right, Mike.
[00:36:44] Speaker B: So I have something that is along the same vein as Jax here. In a sequel that many people consider to be not just the worst on the franchise, but the worst game, maybe by the developer and I want to push back.
[00:36:58] Speaker C: Those people are crazy. I've played other games by this developer that aren't in that franchise and they're fucking terrible.
[00:37:05] Speaker B: There are a couple of armored core games that are. You are correct there. There's a couple of armored core ones that are pretty, pretty bad on that list.
[00:37:11] Speaker C: Also, like, have you heard of King's Field?
[00:37:14] Speaker B: King's Field
[00:37:15] Speaker C: makes the bad armored core games look amazing.
[00:37:18] Speaker B: Kicks feel old.
[00:37:20] Speaker C: It is,
[00:37:20] Speaker B: but
[00:37:20] Speaker C: fine. I know
[00:37:21] Speaker B: fine.
So
[00:37:23] Speaker C: are the old armored core games.
[00:37:25] Speaker B: Yeah. But yeah, I'm going to be the defender here of Dark Souls 2 in that it is not a better game than one. It is not a better game than three. It is on par with them. It had still a very good story. It had minor gameplay improvements, I think, and a couple things that were taken forward and not taken forward. And to be honest, it's the reason I love the franchise.
The first game didn't hook me as well as Dark Souls 2 did and that's saying fucking something. But the main complaints that Dark Souls 2 has are a bit of the sameness and it lost a lot of its non linearity. However, that's also just sort of not true.
It lost sort of its, I guess I could say interconnectedness. You couldn't go down one path, go around a corner, and suddenly find yourself underneath where you were in the first part. There were multiple different directions you could go, but they weren't all perfectly interconnected in the same way. They all sort of revolved around a singular hub that you would head back towards and then head out from it. It has its problems, but every Souls game has their problems.
Even the best of them have their problems.
I think it's just way better than people say it is. Yeah, it has a little bit of a samey enemy type at the beginning of the game, but that starts to open up drastically.
[00:38:52] Speaker C: Okay, I have a question. And remember, this is coming from someone who does not like Dark Souls games.
[00:38:58] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:38:59] Speaker C: My understanding is most of the, like, people hating on Dark Souls 2 as opposed to just, it's the worst of the three, but it's not a bad game. Kind of attitudes came from the original release and that it got a, like, update Scholar of the first SIN version that improved a lot of things.
[00:39:16] Speaker B: So here's two parts of this one, very much like devil may cry 2. This was not directed by the original director. This is the only one of that franchise. It wasn't because he was busy while making. While they were making Dark Souls 2, making Bloodborne, which is one of my favorite games of all time. So I can't exactly blame him for working on something better. Same thing with Feasible Joe on the other half.
[00:39:41] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:39:42] Speaker B: So the things that were changed in Scholars of the first sin versus the main one, they added context to the storyline that a lot of people didn't find initially because there were more blatant and obvious things within one that were, hey, this is where things are. And then people went into two and they went, how the fuck is this connected to one? Where does this go? Why am I not feeling the same thing? Why do you have certain things that are the same but not. And it took because he was.
He didn't direct it, but he gave sort of the plan laid out. And as opposed to the first game, which only had its one DLC, and the second game, which had two, it took all three DLCs. And because of how Dark Souls works, a lot of the story is hidden within item descriptions and behind certain discussions and accidental kills. You didn't get the full context of how it plays out until they were able to get all three DLCs. And then with Scholar of the First Sin, he went, hey, here's a slightly better layout for enemies so that it's not as grating for some people.
And here's that little bit of extra context that I had written that they did not have the time to release because of how the release schedule went, which tied things in perfectly and also gave you three DLCs for no additional cost. So, like, it is a good game. It is. It is not. It is not terrible. It may be the worst in the franchise, but that's. That's again saying, oh, no, the 9 out of 10 and the 10 out of 10 beat the 8 out of 10. The 8 out of 10 is still pretty fucking good.
[00:41:23] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot of franchises out here that are gonna be under this general umbrella where the first game was freaking amazing and the second game was just like, oh, well, I mean, it's good. But
[00:41:36] Speaker C: yeah, you'll notice we
[00:41:36] Speaker A: hit the first game
[00:41:38] Speaker C: several where, like, the second game is either good or, like, polarizing.
[00:41:44] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:41:44] Speaker C: As opposed to actually bad.
[00:41:47] Speaker B: So I have a suggestion for us
[00:41:48] Speaker C: now.
[00:41:49] Speaker B: I think with. With this discussion, maybe our next episode or a part of the next episode is a sequel to this, in which it is. No, with the games where the second in the franchise is just the best.
[00:42:00] Speaker A: No, the next episode, I was going to say is going to be very busy. One mike. Next episode, we got World of Warcraft Forever.
[00:42:08] Speaker B: Yeah. We have so many things to talk about. You're not. You're not wrong.
[00:42:12] Speaker A: We're not.
I was getting ready to bring it up. Next step of time. Next episode that comes out, we are going to have full oot discussion. Wow. Forever discussion. It's going to be a busy one,
[00:42:24] Speaker C: so we'll just save that for maybe late November.
[00:42:26] Speaker B: Yeah, we can get on that.
[00:42:28] Speaker D: Yep.
[00:42:28] Speaker A: Well, moving on, it's time to hear what you guys have been up to and what's going on in your lives.
Jax, we'll just start it from the top.
[00:42:40] Speaker C: Okay, so when you, the listeners, are hearing this, I will have already played and lost my first match in the Super Metroid Map Rando Tournament because I'm up against someone who's really goddamn good. But it's fine. It's a group stage. I have two other opponents, and I just need to beat them to place into the higher brackets for the bracket stage of the tournament. We'll see how that goes. But I'm competing in the Super Metroid Map Rando Tournament. I did this last year. It was a lot of fun.
I'm gonna be doing some commentary for it as well. So join the Discord and see when I go live or when I post in the stream notifications channel that I'm doing commentary on speed gaming and come hang out with me while I do map rando. What I've actually been
[00:43:24] Speaker D: how did you.
How did you do last year? Last
[00:43:27] Speaker C: year I so I got put into the the lowest tier bracket because I'm nowhere near the best map rando player. But I made a pretty deep run. I think I made it to the quarterfinals of my bracket so I was like one of the better of the bad players basically.
[00:43:47] Speaker D: Awesome.
[00:43:49] Speaker C: We are doing a slightly different format this year where the rules are a little different and also we're doing a group stage first so we'll see what bracket I wind up in. I'm expecting the copper bracket but there's a chance I over perform and get it put into silver and then get my ass handed to me in silver. But that would be fun. Anyway,
[00:44:08] Speaker D: what are you hoping for out of the two?
[00:44:10] Speaker C: I'm hoping for just performing. Well. I don't really care where I get placed. I know I'm not the best map rando player but this is an excuse for me to play it a lot more and improve.
Try to get more sub hour completions because I still only have one ever.
So.
[00:44:24] Speaker A: Think you'll get there?
[00:44:25] Speaker C: Other than that, I've been playing the new Castlevania.
Belmont's Curse is out and I have been playing the shit out of it. I've already got the bad ending, which I had to clarify to Mike, he didn't realize that bad ending and good ending is a staple of the Castlevania franchise. They've been doing that since Symphony of the Night
[00:44:45] Speaker B: much longer than I thought they had.
[00:44:47] Speaker C: Yeah. In Symphony of the Night, if you go fight Richter, the boss of the main castle, without having done some secret special stuff, you'll fight Richter, you'll defeat Richter and you'll get the bad ending. If you do that secret special stuff, you'll see the Dark Priest Shaft controlling Richter, be able to defeat him, breaking his control over Richter and be able to go to the Upside Down Castle which is the true ending of Symphony of the Night.
So naturally Belmont's Curse has something similar and I've reached the bad ending. I'm not gonna spoil what it is, but I've made it there so I'm a good chunk of the way in. I have my theories as to how to get the good ending, but I'm not there yet. I have not been able to confirm them and I'm not looking up spoilers.
My impressions of the game so far.
I generally like the movement. It feels very Prince of the Lost Crown, and that's a compliment.
The combat is fine.
It has the same kind of problem that Dead Cells had with its combat, where it can feel a bit floaty at times, but it's good. My actual only complaint so far is the music, which is weird because Castlevania games are kind of known for having awesome music.
This one has a lot of really repetitive music that just isn't that great in the first place. And then it just drones on and on and on and on and on and on.
It's really been kind of a bummer. It has one moment that did really good sound design with the music.
They have a segment where it leads up into Bloody Tears, one of the, like, big Castlevania songs. And you enter this area and it starts playing, like, the intro of Bloody Tears, and then it loops that, and as you progress through the area, you get to a climactic moment, and then it kicks into full Bloody Tears.
And that's awesome. And their version of Bloody Tears is very good.
[00:46:41] Speaker B: That song sounds so good in metal.
[00:46:43] Speaker C: It's so good. Which makes the music being so repetitive and boring and kind of crap everywhere else so much more frustrating.
And I want to save my last thing for after you guys are done so we can end the podcast on it.
[00:46:56] Speaker A: Sounds good. Mike, you're next.
[00:46:59] Speaker D: Mike's gone.
[00:47:00] Speaker B: I'm here.
[00:47:00] Speaker A: Oh, don't
[00:47:01] Speaker D: worry.
[00:47:02] Speaker B: No, I'm still
[00:47:02] Speaker D: here.
[00:47:03] Speaker B: Okay, so I have a continuation from last week, in which I had only played, like, two hours of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 when we were talking last time, and I just started out with it. I have significantly more time in that game now.
Yeah, this is what I wanted when I was starting to play Metro.
I really like the base gameplay of it. I really like how the storyline is going out, how the environment is playing. It feels great. It feels bleak. It feels difficult, which is a core thing that, like, I enjoy difficult games. And I have to very carefully manage things like ammo, which leads me into my one real complaint. The big thing that really is kind of annoying is the other staple of Stalker games, which are the mutants that roll through the zone.
Fuck, man. Like, half of those mutants are just royal dicks. They are beyond bullet sponges. Like, I emptied every ounce of shotgun ammo I have into one of the enemies, and he did not die, which it was not a small amount of shotgun ammo that I don't think anything that you can face in the first four hours of a game should take up half of your ammo because then you are left almost dead.
But that. That. That's pretty much my only real complaint with S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is.
And maybe later in the game I will find better things and it won't be as big of an issue. But as of right now, I hate mutants. I hate them.
So in a similar vein to Jax, I am also doing another tournament of something that I did at the end of last year, the beginning of this year.
As many of you have heard and have talked about, I'm a big 40k person. I'm a big Warhammers person. And there is a little sub game that I've talked about a couple times called Necromunda. And we are about to start another campaign of Necromunda in two weeks.
So I have a brand new little faction. I'm almost finished building them up, gonna start painting them soon. I might post some pictures of that once I get those things done. Just to. Just to share it because I love the stuff.
I ended that last campaign as the overall winner, having not lost a match and only drawn three times. I am not going to have that same amount of success this time because man, things are different. That unlike the previous time, we have a new addition. So rules have changed and they've updated and I don't know them as well as I did last time.
And so I'm unable to do the thing that you do when you play those games, which is exploit the rules.
So I'm. I'm in a. I'm in a much tougher place and I'm probably going to lose a couple games, but hopefully I can still end up at least in the top couple. The final thing, we're continuing on the Warhammer thing, but this time we're going into books.
I find that there is a massive shift in quality in Warhammer books. You can find things that are just fucking stupid to not just good Warhammer books, but like legitimately fantastic fiction. And one of my more recent listens is the first.
This book just got a sequel that came out like a month ago. And so I rechecked this one over before getting into that sequel. The book is called Infinite and the Divine and it is.
It is a hilarious romp between two immortal robots over like 8,000 years being stantler and Waldorf. And it is maybe a great way to get into the franchise if you don't know a lot about Warhammer, because it likes to explain things and the characters are likable. But I wouldn't necessarily call it the best introduction if you want to try and get into them. I have plenty of other books franchises that I would gladly introduce people to before if they're at all interested in Warhammer. But these are like some of my favorite characters.
Doing some really fun shenanigans and being the absolute funniest Warhammer can be. Which it is a relatively bleak setting. So finding anything that is as funny is amazing.
[00:51:26] Speaker A: All right.
So for myself I haven't had a whole lot of time the last almost month to really dive in and play a whole lot of games. I've gotten some league in when we've done like the podcasts and afterwards, but other than that I have just been so busy with the house stuff. It's coming be done in about a week or two.
I just sent in my last photos today for final inspection. I just had to build some stairs today. That was fun. Really quick to build stairs. Didn't realize how quick it would be because you can just buy like the, the stringers already made and just throw some boards on there and boom, you got some stairs. So that was, that was pretty, pretty nice. And then other than that I've been continuing to run my small business. I started of mower repair and that has been surprisingly keeping me super busy on my days off where I'm like getting up at 6am so I can go get me some breakfast and then I start doing some parts runs for stuff that I need and I'm all day till three or four running around fixing mowers and I'm always on the hunt for somebody selling a mower cheap that's not running so I can buy it, flip it and it's been pretty successful.
I did however find a game that I've put a little bit of time into, but just a game that I can put 5, 10 minutes in and get up and walk away if I need to. It is called Azeroth Heroes and I'm pretty sure it is a completely illegal game.
Actually I know it is a completely illegal game, but it is a roguelike where you are placed on a rand like a map of in World of Warcraft. Like the first starting zone is like Elowent forest and your first boss you face is Hogger. You get to pick your class and you get some spell cards and it auto casts like a roguelike. It's like Vampire survivors and you every so often a boss bonds, you beat the boss, you move on and you go for like 16 to 18 minutes. I think on some of these is how long they are. It's fun. You get talents, gear drops, things like that. I've been enjoying it. I've only played it a few hours, so I can't. I could see it gets very stale fast. It's not like a game that you're gonna be able to sync weeks and weeks and weeks. And it has a. It has a timeline on it.
Whether it be you run out of things to do in it or Blizzard shuts it down. We'll see which one comes first.
[00:54:13] Speaker D: Which. Whichever one comes first.
[00:54:15] Speaker B: This is, this is 100% going to conceive and desist as soon as they find out enough about it. Because, yeah, that's. That's incredibly illegal
[00:54:23] Speaker A: to
[00:54:23] Speaker B: be using their names.
[00:54:24] Speaker A: There's no way they don't know about it because asmongold has been playing the crap out of it.
[00:54:29] Speaker B: Okay, so they may have already sent out a seasoned assist to this guy.
[00:54:32] Speaker A: They probably have. Yeah.
[00:54:34] Speaker D: Interesting.
[00:54:35] Speaker A: All right, Witch, what do you got going on?
[00:54:37] Speaker D: So I changed one. Yeah, I changed my, my topic because I wanted to be a little bit more game oriented. But recently, about like maybe six months ago to eight months ago, I picked up an. An Amberick device, which is an RG Cube. It's basically an emulation device to play older games. But I wanted one that I could play PS1 and GameCube games and tinker around with the games to be able to actually play them on like a portable device.
So.
Because it's really hard.
I have a family with kids and stuff like that, so it's really hard for me to actually sit down and play like my older backlog of games and stuff like that that I already own.
So it's nice that I can just sit at the table, play like 10 minutes or whatever, and have the kids around me or whatever it might be.
So it's been fun, like tinkering around with it because, I mean, I'm sure all of us have tinkered around with emulation devices and stuff like that. You always have to fix like a few of the settings and like stuff like that sometimes.
It used to be a lot worse.
[00:55:37] Speaker C: I personally haven't messed with emulation devices. This is basically just an Android phone, but with game controls attached. What I instead have done is run emulators on my phone using a phone game controller, in my case a Gamesir X5 Lite. And I can run emulators straight on my phone that way. And I've had a lot of fun with it. That's how I played. I talked about UN Squadron last episode. That's how I was replaying it because I was just doing it on my breaks at work.
[00:56:02] Speaker D: It's just.
I know it sounds silly for me to have like a separate device, but I find it so. And Portal, I just find it so easy to play portably versus like me booting up my TV and like starting everything that it's oh,
[00:56:17] Speaker B: there are emulation devices I would like to buy.
[00:56:20] Speaker C: And also if you don't, if you're not like me, I can charge my phone while I'm at work. So draining the battery playing games on my break isn't a big deal. If you don't have that luxury, you don't want to play games on your phone because you'll fucking kill your phone battery before you get off work.
[00:56:33] Speaker B: But also like some of the older systems are either prohibitively expensive or impossible to find. I would like to get something like an analog pocket.
[00:56:41] Speaker C: Okay, on that note, I did buy an analog device. I haven't received it yet because it's a pre order right now. Analog has redone reissued the super nt which is the Super Nintendo FPGA remake that plays cartridges.
I got in on the pre orders of that. I wasn't able to get the North America colorway. I got the Super Famicom colors. But I got one. So come December, whenever it ships, I will be able to play my physical Super Nintendo cartridges again instead of my broken Super Nintendo that I have in the crate next to me that I haven't figured out how to fix yet.
[00:57:20] Speaker B: I
[00:57:20] Speaker C: literally own like 50 actual Super Nintendo cartridges that I've been unable to play for years, including some truly great games. I own a copy of Chrono Trigger.
[00:57:30] Speaker B: That's expensive. That's expensive.
[00:57:32] Speaker C: Yeah. And I haven't been able to play it
[00:57:36] Speaker B: in a very similar manner. Like I want to get an analog pocket because I have a ton of Game Boy color and advance games that can't play anymore. 3Ds just doesn't have that anymore.
[00:57:45] Speaker A: I still have a Nintendo SP Red.
[00:57:50] Speaker B: Mine is long gone. I wish I still had mine.
[00:57:53] Speaker D: I. I'm a big collector so I have a lot of like old consoles and stuff like that. It's just a. The convenience factor for me. That's the reason why I have it. It's just as I said, right now I'm playing Final Fantasy 7 like fully on it. And so I have never actually fully completed the game. So it's been nice to be able to pick up and put down because of me being able to literally sleep on, sleep off the console.
[00:58:18] Speaker C: As someone who most recently replayed the Original Final Fantasy VII on the switch, where I had the same luxury. Yeah. That game benefits tremendously from being able to just sleep the console immediately.
[00:58:29] Speaker D: Yeah. And then other than that, I've been just kind of getting ready my for the fall. I live in Canada, so winter's coming, so it means snow's fallen, So I have to actually clean up my. My house, get stuff outside.
[00:58:44] Speaker B: You're in.
[00:58:44] Speaker D: Tidy it up and all that jazz.
[00:58:46] Speaker B: I said you're in Canadia. That's going to be a problem.
[00:58:48] Speaker D: I am in Canada. Yeah.
But, yeah, just cleaning up the backyard. I have a trampoline out to put that. Take that down soon. You know, just stuff like that. Just getting ship prepared, essentially. So
[00:59:00] Speaker C: you just got to prep for the White Walkers. I get it.
[00:59:02] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:59:03] Speaker A: Exact thoughts? I just put it in the chat. Winter is coming.
[00:59:07] Speaker C: Yep,
[00:59:08] Speaker B: winter's coming.
[00:59:10] Speaker C: All right.
[00:59:10] Speaker A: It's about time I rip out the Game of Thrones rewatch.
[00:59:14] Speaker C: So I said I wanted to save mine for last. And that is because I think literally every single person listening to this, all of my co hosts go watch Wildwood in theaters.
This is the new stop motion animation movie from Leica Studios. The people who made Kobo and the Two Strings in Coraline.
And it's easily the best movie I've seen in 2026.
Not even close.
[00:59:44] Speaker D: I've heard a lot of great things about it. Like, people. People have been saying, from what I've heard is like, one of the best, like, stop motion movies. But then they're like, cutting it off, being like, no, it's probably like, one of the best movies, if not the best movie this year.
[00:59:58] Speaker C: It's genuinely the best movie this year. Like, no qualifiers. It's that good.
It's extremely well animated. There are so many shots throughout this entire movie that I literally was like, how in the did they do this in stop motion? I don't understand how this is possible.
Laika are wizards, but also, like, separate from the technical marvel.
It's artistically gorgeous. It subtly, and not subtly foreshadows all sorts of shit. It's really well told. The basic story is basically the labyrinth.
[01:00:39] Speaker D: That's awesome.
[01:00:41] Speaker B: Okay.
[01:00:42] Speaker C: Yeah,
[01:00:42] Speaker D: yeah.
[01:00:43] Speaker C: You have a teenage protagonist. Her baby brother is abducted, and she goes on an adventure to save her baby brother. That is like the first 10 minutes of the movie is setting that up. And the rest of the movie is the adventure of saving her brother.
[01:00:58] Speaker B: Did you see Project Hail Mary?
[01:01:00] Speaker C: I have not.
[01:01:01] Speaker B: Okay. I have. And I'm going to probably try and go see Wildwood in the Next couple of weeks, if I can. That may be the other movie that I would put in contention for the best of the year. I still say it's not as good as the books, but it's hard to be as good as the book in a movie.
[01:01:15] Speaker C: Yeah, but in all seriousness, like, this movie is that good. It is a PG13 fantasy movie. So fair warning, this is not a little kids movie. This is a movie made for adults and older kids.
[01:01:31] Speaker B: Do they use their one fuck?
[01:01:33] Speaker C: They do not.
[01:01:34] Speaker B: Damn.
[01:01:36] Speaker C: But there are a lot of acts of violence. It is a violent movie.
Matter of fact, I'm just going to quote this review, which is the story is simple but gripping. The world feels alive and dangerous. The danger itself is real. People die in this. The animation is so good, I forgot it was stop in stop motion at parts. It is art in motion on screen.
[01:02:02] Speaker B: I mean, if you show old Disney movies, they're still fucking dangerous. So if you've shown your kid the Lion King, I'm pretty sure you're good with this one.
[01:02:09] Speaker C: This is a little more violent than the Lion King. Lion King is like he falls into the herd of wildebeest and then he's dead in the next scene. There's like people getting maimed and stabbed and cut in this movie. Like, it is violent. There are on screen deaths in this movie.
[01:02:29] Speaker A: Hmm. Might have to go check that one out.
[01:02:32] Speaker C: And this is not a spoiler because it is literally the very first scene of the movie. There is a scene of suicide. Like, this is a dark movie. It opens dark and then it's gonna have a lot of shit that makes you laugh because they do such a good job of nailing the tone you want in a good fantasy adventure. It is dark when it needs to be. It is lighthearted when it needs to be. It has twists and turns, some of which you will see coming and some of which you're going to be like, wait, what the fuck are they doing? And some of which you're going to go, oh. That's why
[01:03:07] Speaker A: I can honestly say I've never seen a movie have a 99% on Rotten Tomatoes.
[01:03:13] Speaker C: Yeah, it's gone down. It was 100%
[01:03:16] Speaker B: when I went for a con.
[01:03:18] Speaker A: Wow,
[01:03:19] Speaker C: that's
[01:03:19] Speaker A: impressive.
[01:03:20] Speaker C: It's deserving of it. It is truly that good. Please do yourself a favor. It's gorgeous. Go see it on the big screen. Like, this movie is worth it. Go watch Wildwood. That's where I want to end the episode is just go watch Wildwood it. I want them to make all of the money so they can keep doing like this.
[01:03:43] Speaker A: Well, you heard it there, folks. We're gonna end it on that. Go watch Wildwood.
That being said,
[01:03:50] Speaker D: I will be.
[01:03:50] Speaker A: Make sure you go look us up on Twitch. We got Twitch tv Jackson. And maybe you can catch him after his map Rando. Still practicing on his Metroid map Randos. He got Mike many names
[01:04:05] Speaker C: for the next while.
[01:04:07] Speaker A: Yeah, Mike of many names at Twitch tv at Mike of many names.
I don't.
[01:04:14] Speaker B: We're doing something on Halloween.
I'm gonna get forced to do something. Whether or not I'm doing a horror game is up to you.
[01:04:22] Speaker A: This will be. It might just be
[01:04:23] Speaker C: left for dead, but we'll do something.
[01:04:25] Speaker A: Yeah, so get on there and let's pester him into playing some horror games for Halloween.
And which do you stream?
[01:04:34] Speaker D: I haven't streamed in a long time, so no, I don't stream. I have to pick it up again. To be honest,
[01:04:40] Speaker A: it's so hard with kids. I understand.
I. I'm in the same boat. There is no free time.
That being said, guys, we're going to end it right there.
Look forward to the next episode. We're going to have a lot to talk about.
For Jack Soman, for Mike, many names for which of Black Mass.
[01:04:57] Speaker B: Which is black.
[01:04:58] Speaker A: Have a good night. Yeah, Black Mike. Have a good night, guys.
[01:05:02] Speaker C: Bye bye.
[01:05:04] Speaker D: Good
[01:05:04] Speaker B: night everybody.
