Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to 8bit to 4k. My name is Mike of many names joining me, we still have Jax Omen.
[00:00:17] Speaker B: Hey Mike. Forgot to say the episode number. This is episode eight.
[00:00:20] Speaker A: I did indeed. And we also have Pillow Pet. Hello, you can find us at the four Words podcast. We're part of the network. Join us on our discord that should be in the description below. Don't worry about trying to figure that out. We've got you covered over there.
And we also have a Patreon.
Before we go in any of that, we've got to shout out our supporters Codex, Ninja, Pillowputt here, Skippius, Esquire, Labana and Uncle Chrisco. Thank you guys for supporting us in the shout out tier.
We greatly appreciate you. You help us not only get this thing going but also four Words in general. Thank you very much. If you don't want to spend of course that $10 you can just $1 a month tells us you love us. And then if you go up to $5 you get some exclusive feeds that give you some behind the scenes audio prep work. We've just done a couple episodes today together so you get a bunch of Excite behind the scenes audio not really related to each other but if you want to it's some interesting content for it.
But I think that covers all our intro information.
So let's start with you Pillow. What's going on in your lives? What games you want to talk about?
[00:01:29] Speaker C: Well lately haven't been playing a whole lot. Times have been kind of limited for me the last week or so but I have been playing on WOW Anniversary Classic. You know like their third re release of Vanilla Classic. Been on there playing. I got hit within a wave of nostalgia and wanted to go back to the Elowin forest and hearing the music and my first time walking into Stormwind and just experiencing it decided this go around. I turned off all add ons and everything about it and just I'm experiencing it completely just raw with no help and I forgot and I don't even know how 21 years ago. 20 years ago I was playing this game as a kid without any help other than the few websites that popped up during that time on dial up Internet.
[00:02:24] Speaker A: I'm right there with you. 21 years ago I was playing there with you. Oh man. Absolute wildland.
[00:02:31] Speaker C: And then I've also been playing Legion Remix. I've been it's my favorite wow expansion was Legion so I've been enjoying going back to that and playing those old raids in a more sped up and A lot wilder experience than the original. So remix, if you don't know what it is, is you.
It's a pretty much a level up event and getting cosmetics event.
So you, you, you level up through Legion and you, while you're leveling up, there is no like loot other than like set pieces of gear that kind of just slowly scale with your level. And you, as you're going, you collect like stats and these stats stick with you permanently through this time as your Legion artifact weapon.
And now when you're leveling it up, you're leveling up your versatility, which a max stat of 999% so increases your damage by 999 and reduces the damage you take by half of that. So, so you become just, just unkillable, ridiculous character. I mean, there's people out there doing plus 110 like mythic pluses, which is ridiculous if you know how the scaling goes in Mythic Plus. So it's pretty fun. It's ridiculous. Exactly what you'd expect it to be.
[00:03:54] Speaker A: Entire entirety of everything is just fixed into Legion. You don't go anywhere else?
[00:03:59] Speaker C: No, Absolutely no. Yeah. You're stuck in like the timeline. The Legion timeline.
You can't go to like Stormwind or Orgrimmar unless there are certain missions that send you there for the sake of Legion. But when you go like, you can't fly out of the world and it's an instanced world, you're not like mixed in with the other retail version of wow. There's nobody there. There's no NPCs. It's just an empty Orgrimmar or Stormwind. No guards, no anything.
[00:04:29] Speaker A: Cool. I didn't do Legion remix. I did miss a Pandera remix. That was pretty fun.
[00:04:34] Speaker C: Okay, Yeah, I enjoyed that one.
[00:04:35] Speaker A: Jax, you seem like you also have a very little on the plate.
[00:04:40] Speaker B: I have just been going hard on Path of Exile. We've got a new league. They revamped the Breach League in Keepers of the Flame. I actually don't like the Breach revamp really very much, but the core game is still really goddamn good.
My character, this league is ridiculous. I literally explode the screen so hard that I'm causing my computer to turn into a slideshow on some encounters, which is great. Like that is if you've ever played Path of Exile. The goal of Path of Exile is to make your character so ridiculous that you can't keep up with it anymore. Either your computer struggles or like you're so fast and everything that you can't play it at its peak speed anymore. That is the goal of the game. So I'm getting there. I have so many upgrades left to achieve, but I've reached the point where every subsequent upgrade is expensive, meaning it takes many hours of grinding to accrue enough resources to get it. So it's slow going from here.
[00:05:35] Speaker A: Have you hit the vaunted level cap of 100?
[00:05:38] Speaker B: No, I'm level 97. I die way too much to reach 100 without actually spending time on specifically grinding for experience.
And I've been trying to grind for profit for gear upgrades because it'll make more of a difference than experience will at the point I'm at. But I plan to get to 100 before I quit the league, either because my upgrades make me so strong that I just stop dying, which is actual goal, or if I keep dying, I'll have to actually do some dedicated like there's a specific type of content that I've been farming resources to run repeatedly that is really good experience and low danger.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: Okay, well, it seems like I'm the for once the most prolific player around, and that's almost entirely because I'm finally starting to recover from broken fingers. I'm able to play more than just a couple of games now. I can't do as much sessions as I could before, but I'm now able to play league for a few hours at a time.
And since this I've started to drastically expand and play more games. But since this time I started playing a game called Fellowship, which is essentially as Pillow was saying briefly, mythic plus. The game it's just run mythic pluses. So if you're a dungeon fan of any of the MMOs and you don't want to do any of the other MMO extraneous, you just want to run dungeons. Fellowship is really fun. I've had a fantastic time with it and it has actually gotten me to get several friends who I know don't want to do the entire MMO grind to play this with me because they enjoy just playing games and this allowed us to skip having to do all the rest of the MMO to have fun doing dungeons together. Fellowship is super fun. It is the standard tank healer DPS Trinity for the Trinity force the Trinity. So the, the Holy Trinity is is there and and it functions like you do 4 person co op. It's entirely 4 person co op. There is no PvP as of right now, it's just into early access that had an open beta a little over a month ago. Game plays very, very well. They're still putting more effort into it. I assume they're going to be making more things, putting more dungeons, hopefully getting some more classes in there. But as of right now, I'm having a huge fan, having a great time.
[00:07:56] Speaker C: Is it, is it, is it just like a dungeon crawler or are they doing like raids? Are there going to be raids for larger parties?
[00:08:03] Speaker A: So far it is straight dungeons. It's all four player content. They have eight, I think small quick dungeons that are one boss dungeons and then they have four or five quote unquote super dungeons that are larger scale, like three to five boss dungeons that take much longer to do and they have. It does the same thing that Mythic plus does or if any of you played Diablo 3, very much a similar style content to.
[00:08:35] Speaker A: The keystone dungeons. So as you go deeper and deeper, more mechanics unlock more progressively harder content just becomes. Every mob becomes stronger, every boss becomes stronger as you go down. And then at certain levels of difficulty, things gain more power, they'll gain a new effect, there'll be a new static thing that happens throughout every dungeon, etc. Things like that.
[00:09:01] Speaker C: Sweet.
[00:09:02] Speaker A: Very fun.
Also started playing it just. I don't know why at the very, very end instead of at the beginning, I started playing an idle game, but I started playing space idle.
It's really fun.
I don't know, I don't know why I randomly got into idle games at the very end, but fuck it, I'm having a good time with it.
[00:09:22] Speaker A: It's. It's a really like. If you enjoy doing Ship System works, it's Ship system works the game core, core stat upgrades, you have a computer computations.
[00:09:33] Speaker A: It'S synthesized materials, there's prestige fighting, there's reactor information research wars and you can find bases. There's challenges, there's warp zones and I'm not even. I'm less than a quarter of the way through the game. It has 100 levels and I'm at 23. So like there's a lot of stuff to do with it. It'll keep you busy for a long time if you just want something to go very light into right at the tail end. Right at the end of last week I started playing a game called Dredge. I don't know why I started playing Dredge. I don't usually like fishing, it's not usually my thing. But Dredge is a quasi horror fishing game in which you sort of wash up at this creepy town and you know, to pay for the boat that you wash up in that someone loans you, you gotta Pay them back and fish. And as you go out and fish, you find weirder and weirder shit. And then the night rolls in and the fog comes down and you can't see anything. And then suddenly you're eaten by a fucking giant sea monster. Or a weird mutated superfish comes up out of the corner.
It's. It's weirdly fun and relaxing.
[00:10:45] Speaker C: Dredge is one of my, like, favorite games. Like, it's. It's 100% a Lovecraftian game. Oh, yeah, it is. Like you have a sanity meter, which is what kills you at the end. Like, your lights will start going out and lights are what keep you sane, so you need to find light posts and your sanity goes. It's. It's so much fun. I don't know how far you've gotten into it.
There's like, altars and stuff with, like, puzzles and it's so fun.
[00:11:19] Speaker A: I had just gotten to the town with the traveling fishermen. Okay, not terribly far in, but I got attacked by a giant sea monster and that fucking creeped me out.
[00:11:29] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Like, there's that one. There is. That's the one where you're, like, going through the. Like the cliffs, right? And there's that monster that chases you. Oh, yeah. It's terrifying. It gives you such a. Like a sense.
[00:11:45] Speaker C: What's the word? I mean, I guess just dread that you're being chased and you're scared.
[00:11:49] Speaker A: The worst thing is once you're attacked and your engine just stops and you're slowly trying to make it back to any port and you've got no movement speed, it's both really, like, weirdly horrifying, but also like the. Come on. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
[00:12:09] Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
[00:12:10] Speaker A: And then. But that was really the tail end of my broken fingers. I've played less and less dredge now that I'm able to play the other games I wanted to play primarily, I started going back into playing the original Hollow Knight again. Fuck, I love that game. Fuck, I love that game.
[00:12:23] Speaker B: Now I was healed enough to actually play more of it.
[00:12:25] Speaker A: I can use it. You had started it before I just started.
[00:12:27] Speaker B: You had started it before you hurt yourself, right?
[00:12:29] Speaker A: I just started to play it before I hurt myself. I had gotten into the. The main big city underground and.
Oh, God, I. I love that game. Silksong might be my personal game of the year, and Hollow Knight is a slightly less refined version of it, but still every bit as fucking fun. There's a few things about Hollow Knight that I like a little bit more than Silksong mostly the weird void powers. I love how they. They function. I like them a little bit more than the tools, but, oh, man, it's. It's just more Hollow Knight like Silksong was just more Hollow knight. It feels so good to play.
[00:13:06] Speaker B: All right, so status update us. Where are you at in the original Hollow Knight? Because you never beat it. Right. This is your actual first playthrough.
[00:13:14] Speaker A: Yeah. I stopped my first time. Well, before now, I barely played into things. Right now I am facing down the Mantis like court.
[00:13:26] Speaker B: The Mantis Lords.
[00:13:28] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:13:28] Speaker B: That boss is fun.
That boss in particular. I love the design where they. The pattern doesn't change, just the tempo changes. There's a boss like this in Hollow in Silksong as well, where it's like a tutorial for the first part and then you beat the first Mantis Lord and then two come out and it's faster and now you're facing the real boss.
[00:13:50] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think you can see this was the prototype. That next one in Silksong is the opus of that fight. It is. It's really good. I like. Obviously I say I like the Silksong one more, but that's partially because of the story behind that fight. That makes me really love it.
[00:14:10] Speaker B: I actually prefer Mantis Lords over Clockwork Dancers.
[00:14:13] Speaker A: I think Mantis Lords is a better fight fight. I think Clockwork Dancers fills the story better.
[00:14:19] Speaker B: That's fair.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: But that's where I'm. That's where we're all at in gaming right now. I have plans to be playing some things very soon and stream some more Hollow Knight. I might stream some more Hollow Knight. There is a game that I might be streaming depending on how people want to talk about it. And it's going to be relevant to what we're talking about because it is quite possibly going to be one of the. We are talking about the game awards. This. This game might be the most nominated one of the game awards. I'm might be playing Claire Obscure on stream. I saw it was on sale. I went. I needed to get that game. I've been planning to get that game. We're gonna see if I'm playing it, but right now we're gonna be talking about what we think about the categories, the nominees that have been going on for the game awards right now. Hey, Pillow, which one do you want to start us off with?
[00:15:07] Speaker C: I think I'll just start us off with the best rpg because this one is gonna have.
I mean, everybody's always going to have their own opinions when it comes to this.
So the nominees for best RPG were avowed. I haven't played a vald. I've heard good things about it but that's. I never. I don't know anything about it. Claire Obscure.
I'm not going to get into it. Because you haven't played it yet. I've played it myself.
Probably got four or five hours into it.
I really enjoy it. It's fun.
You immediately fall in love with these characters and you immediately like feel heartbreak and all this with within like short times of each other.
There's Kingdom Come Deliverance to this one is my personal RPG of the year and for it is just a 100% an RPG. There is nothing about it that is not RPG ish. This is probably one of the hardest RPGs that I've ever pull played. It is a hard game to play as far as role playing goes. Like you are exactly what it puts you in there to be and you have to build yourself up.
The combat system is very hard to get used to and figure out if you ever play Kingdom Come Deliverance. The first one the combat was absolutely insane like the direction they went with it. So it's.
You have. It's timing based like you have to block, you have to parry. I mean it's old school like medieval. What you would expect combat to be.
Monster Hunter Wilds another RPG on the list. I have heard really good things about that. Never played a Monster Hunter game so I can't really go in on it myself. And then the outer worlds too. I didn't like the first one so I never even bought the second one. What do you guys think on it?
[00:17:07] Speaker A: I want to know how much you played of Kingdom Come Deliverance over how much you played of Clerics care.
[00:17:13] Speaker C: Oh, I total in all the Kingdom Comes I probably. Well in this second one I probably got like 30 some hours in it. 30, 40 hours.
[00:17:22] Speaker A: So this is going to be one of my points in this and I think specifically for RPGs the more you play them the more you get attached to them. And so one of the reasons why you have Kingdom Come over over Claire Obscure is because you've played much more of it so you've gotten a much better feel for the game as a whole.
[00:17:40] Speaker C: I never like okay, so I'm not attached to any of the characters in Kingdom Come. Like they don't. I don't fall in love with any. Any of their like character the character building and Kingdom Come Deliverance. To me it's par at best. But what I'm looking at is how much do I feel immersed, immersed into this game? Like do I feel like this. I'm role playing this game? Like to me, like Kingdom Come Deliverance felt like that.
And again, I don't want to talk too much in a Clear Obscure. To me it kind of felt like I was playing a, like a Final Fantasy game.
[00:18:18] Speaker A: The JRPG versus the Western style rpg. Okay.
[00:18:22] Speaker C: Yes. Yeah.
I've always been a huge fan of like Open World, do whatever you want style RPGs.
That's why like Kingdom Come Deliverance personally to me feels more RPGish in my opinion. But I haven't again put a good amount enough time in Clear Obscure to know if that changes at any point. But the character development and Clear Obscure is just. I.
There's not even a comparison in between the two.
[00:18:53] Speaker A: Okay. So your RPG list is this one is me building a character versus I get to play as somebody's character.
[00:19:02] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:19:03] Speaker A: Perfectly reasonable. I have played Monster Hunter Wilds if you like Monster Hunter. Monster Hunter Wilds is more of it and very, very fun. I love it. But if you're not into Monster Hunter, it's not really your game.
Middling of the RPG stuff. You don't really get to do too much, make a character look like something, build your items around it. But you're. You're not really a person as much as you are on the others. You are an avatar of destruction, killing monsters or capturing them. I don't think any of us have played a vowed yet. It's on my list today.
[00:19:33] Speaker B: I haven't, I haven't played any of the games in this list and I.
[00:19:36] Speaker A: I have no desire to play Outer Worlds 2. It was never on my list either. So I think. Yeah, it sounds, sounds about right. Kingdom Come Deliverance or Clare Obscure probably is going to win based on what people decide is best in an rpg.
[00:19:50] Speaker C: I think at the end of the day, I think Clear Obscure is going to probably wipe most of these categories.
[00:19:56] Speaker B: Yeah, there's. We'll get to it after we talk about the categories we want to talk about. There's like three games that are expected to basically sweep every category they're in this year.
[00:20:07] Speaker A: Yeah. And this is, this is going to be a game that if you at any rate shape or form like the style of game, this may end up being one of the best games ever in the style from what I have heard. I will be able to tell you later because once I finish working on that, maybe Pillow and I can do a discussion on it. If Jax doesn't Want to watch? Or maybe he'll join and watch us if he doesn't want to play.
[00:20:31] Speaker B: I mean, I want to play Claire Obscure.
[00:20:33] Speaker A: That's true. All right.
[00:20:34] Speaker B: I just haven't yet.
[00:20:35] Speaker A: That's our.
That's our thoughts on the rpg. Jax, which category do you want to talk to us about first?
[00:20:42] Speaker B: Alright, I'm gonna start with the one that I think is more contentious.
One of the categories that the Game awards has for nominees is best performance, which says awarded to an individual for voiceover, acting, motion and or performance capture. They nominated three different people from Claire Obscure. I don't know who Ben Starr, Charlie Cox and Jennifer English are. I haven't played Claire Obscure so I have no opinion. They also nominated Erika Ishii for Ghosts of Yotei. They nominated Konatsu Kato for Silent Hill F. And then they nominated Troy Baker for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. And I have not played any of these games, but I have watched a fair bit of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on Streams and guys, I cannot stress this enough. Troy Baker sounds more like a young Harrison Ford than Harrison Ford has sounded in 30 years.
It is incredible. He is so insanely spot on. The mannerisms, the vocal ticks, the actual timbre of his voice. All of the above. He is so convincing as Indiana Jones. If you have fond memories of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom and Last Crusade, like holy shit. He does such a good job on that.
[00:22:03] Speaker A: I don't care what your opinions are about Troy Baker and how prolific he is and things. He's there for a reason. He is one of the best voice actors of this generation. He is phenomenal. Yeah, you see him a lot. There's a reason you see him a lot and it's for things like this.
I have heard a couple of the voices from Clamiscorp but I don't really have enough of an opinion on this. I've heard Erika Aishi's part in Ghost of Yote sounds pretty good. Konatsu Kato. I've heard just enough of Silent Hill F. She's my dark horse. She is so good.
[00:22:38] Speaker B: Yeah, and that's, I think the key. I'm not throwing any shade at any of the rest of these voice actors. I'm sure they're all great. But holy shit. Troy Baker's performance.
[00:22:47] Speaker C: You've heard Ben Starr, I'm sure because you play Hades 2, correct?
[00:22:50] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:22:50] Speaker C: Or have so Prometheus. I just looked it up. That's why I know. Okay, that's been star.
[00:22:56] Speaker A: So I want to.
[00:22:57] Speaker B: He's a good voice actor.
[00:22:58] Speaker A: I want to float your opinion on this one because I think this. This category needs to be broken up. Like a couple of other categories have been. This needs to be. And I think this needs to happen now. A best male lead performance, a best female lead performance, because they're going to give very different kinds of performances. I think there should be a best supporting just in general. And I think that's like those three categories. Switch it up from best performance to best male lead, Best female lead, and best supporting, because I honestly think multiple people on this list deserve to win right now for different reasons. Sometimes you just don't see some major voice actors because they weren't the main character, or sometimes the main character is vastly overshadowed by the secondary character. I think this needs to be one of those things that needs to be broken up into multiple different categories. And we'll be talking about a couple of other things that have been broken into multiple different categories, which is a good thing for them to be broken into multiple categories.
So what's. What's your opinion on this, guys?
[00:23:57] Speaker C: I'd say that's probably fine.
[00:24:01] Speaker B: I don't know necessarily if it should be broken up into male and female specific, but I think best lead and best supporting would be a really good breakup.
I also just don't like that they nominated three separate people from one game because it's inevitably going to split the votes between the three of them and no one is going to win from those. Like, think this is the gate. This is the category where Claire obscure does not win, period. Just because the votes can be split three ways.
[00:24:28] Speaker A: That's totally.
[00:24:29] Speaker C: It's just gonna. I think it's just gonna come down to who the people's, like, favorite character was in that game. So, yeah, it's just gonna be split.
[00:24:35] Speaker B: And I think that's just unfair to all three of them.
[00:24:39] Speaker A: That's totally fair. Yeah, that's. Maybe. Maybe limit something like that to a singular. Because in multiple other categories, there's no way to get multiple entries from the same game in it.
[00:24:51] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, you could, like, I guess put an argument for game with best voice acting and just like, if you want. If you want to put multiples in it and fine, just put it. Give Claire, like the.
[00:25:04] Speaker B: That's why I tend towards, like, have best lead and best supporting.
Yes. You will get instances where a game does not have a lead character. There are games with ensemble casts. I get that.
[00:25:15] Speaker A: Cool.
[00:25:16] Speaker B: Then they just get to have a nominee in best supporting. It's fine.
[00:25:19] Speaker A: I'M going to give a nice one for that. Baldur's Gate 3 It had no main character. I would put the main character.
[00:25:25] Speaker B: It had a main character, but the main character was the Create a character you made.
[00:25:29] Speaker A: Yeah, but I would put that. The main character for that voice line should have been the omnipotent voice, the narrator. The narrator. Her voice. Acting. Brilliant job. She was never gonna get anything for that because she's not. She's not doing an acting line. She's just a brilliant support though.
[00:25:47] Speaker B: Okay, fair enough.
[00:25:48] Speaker A: I think. I think it's time for me to explain a little bit about what I'm talking about and why I'm talking about needing to split categories. There is a split category of best independent game and best debut independent game.
And I think this is a brilliant fucking idea because there are some games on this list that should definitely win best independent game in my eyes. But because of what was also released just this year as a first game release, I do not see why they should not also win. Clair Obscure is a first independent game release.
[00:26:29] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:26:29] Speaker A: But silksong, Hades 2, Bollocks Pit, these are all games that have other games behind them as an indie game. And I personally, I've been mentioning it. Hollow Knight is possibly my favorite game of the year. It's in my top games of its genre of all time.
[00:26:49] Speaker A: This is. This is what I mean. Like, I think this is a fantastic divide because it allows you to get. Yeah, I think Clare Obscur absolutely deserves to be the best debut indie game, but I think some other indie games, at least as my personal preference so far, have outstripped it.
[00:27:05] Speaker B: That's fair. I just like that this is split because it gives me a place where I can vote for Clair Obscure having not played it and still feel confident because I know none of the other three are going to be as good to me as Clair Obscure will be when I do play it.
[00:27:19] Speaker A: Also fair. I have heard every game on this list, actually both lists, both independent and debut indie. All of them have been things I have heard fantastic things about or I have played and know they are good. Bollocks, pet. I've heard fantastic things about Blueprints. I've heard nothing but good things about since it came out. Obviously we've been talking about Clair Obscure and we're kind of glazing the fuck out of it, even though only one of us has played it.
But I'd like. I. I'm so happy that this has been a nice little split game. Nice little split category and there's to continue this sort of theme. The next sort of split category we're going to be talking about pillow ongoing and community support. Something that can very easily be intertwined but is a very good thing that has been split in my eyes.
[00:28:05] Speaker C: So yeah, they have best ongoing and best community support.
[00:28:10] Speaker C: So they got similar games.
So we'll start with best community support. Got Baldur's Gate 3, Final Fantasy 14, Fortnite, Helldivers 2 and no Man's Sky.
Just outright no Man's sky for this. For me, I mean I've talked about it I think on several episodes in.
[00:28:32] Speaker A: The past story serious work on this one. Like this game has received possibly the biggest, biggest glow up from its release.
[00:28:41] Speaker C: Because oh yeah, it's got the comeback.
[00:28:43] Speaker A: Story put the effort in that they.
[00:28:45] Speaker C: Wanted to and the support from the community through all the years like since 2016 till from it's like it's nuclear like release where it was promised to be something that it wasn't and it wasn't even released bad. And we've talked about it in the past so I'm not going to re talk about it. But from where it was release state to where it is now like in the community that stuck with them the whole time, it's to me it's, it's. There is no doubt in my mind that to me no Man's sky gets best community support. And then of course like best ongoing game to me is still no Man's sky for the same reasons like they they have not stopped paying putting out major. And I when I say major, I mean major.
Like updates and patches to this game to make every time that there's an update, a major update and patch to this game, it feels like a completely new game every single time.
Like it gives you unlimited replayability. Sure. Once you're done with that patch, like it's kind of like okay, I've experienced all this.
You get to that like kind of that like in game feel when you're playing like an mmo. Like you're just like, all right, I'm kind of doing the same thing over and over again.
But by the time you get to that point it's like all right, here's another update. And now you got a whole new game and a whole nother way to explore this game.
So that to me is also going to be no Man's.
[00:30:16] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. It's done what like Path of Exile and Last Epoch two, where it gives you seasons that give brand new mechanics that push in new new information they had a new ship type section.
Build your own ships recently came in for a thing. So like I, I 100% agree. But this is also. I'm very no Man's sky pilled.
I think all of us have played Helldivers. Helldivers is really fun. I think it's not putting in the same kind of effort. No Man's sky is Helldivers does a lot, but it's Helldivers.
[00:30:50] Speaker C: Helldivers is a really fun game. I played it. It's really fun. In the same concept is why like people find like Halo fun or battlefield fun.
It's a fun little four person party. Go out, shoot some bugs, do a mission extract and go back, do it again over and over and over and over and over again. And like do a different mission here. But the variety of missions is kind of not there. No Man's sky, like the mission might be the same, but the world you're on is 100% always going to be different. You're never going to see the same place twice.
They have way more variety.
[00:31:28] Speaker C: It's not as limited. Whereas like Helldivers 2 has a.
[00:31:34] Speaker C: Has a cash shop. We'll say that has a cash shop. Like you can spend money to get better stuff and cosmetics.
No man sky don't do that. And we've talked about that in the past. And that for another reason is another reason why I love no Man's Sky. It's not a cash grab.
[00:31:48] Speaker A: Big, big difference there. One, no Man's Sky. I think it's like 40 bucks. I don't remember if all divers two was 20. Big change there.
[00:31:56] Speaker B: I think it was 40 originally.
[00:31:57] Speaker A: Okay. No Man's Guide initial price, great. And they've always kept it to that free point. The other two games that I think of them in the category that could take it, I think the big one might be Marvel Rivals. It's not a game I play, but I've heard they've been putting a hell of a lot of work into it. In much the same way that like when Overwatch first came out, they were putting so much into keeping Overwatch going. It was really big. Marvel Rivals is doing the same thing here. And Fortnite's here. Fortnite does a lot of work. I don't think Fortnite has put anywhere near as much effort. They get some skins sometimes from other universes. They grab some things, they grab some new modes. I don't think they're putting in the same kind of work as no Man's Skyrim. Rival Rivals is on. On the average patch. So.
[00:32:40] Speaker C: And granted, we could just be like no Man's sky fanboys and like, completely oblivious to any of the flaws. So, I mean, that's.
[00:32:48] Speaker B: That's very possible.
[00:32:50] Speaker C: I think Fortnite, like you said, like, they do a lot of work. Like, they completely change their maps over, you know, their skin system. Much like, you know, one of the popular games that we play, League of Legends, does, like, the same thing. It adds nothing to the game at all, but it makes you happier when you get the skin. Like, I think recently they did like the Simpsons crossover, and I think there's like, Springfield or something in there.
I don't know. I haven't looked a whole lot into it, and that's really cool. I like the. What they do like the.
The Marvel one. Didn't they do a Marvel one? It's like, with like the Infinity Stones and all that stuff.
[00:33:27] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:33:27] Speaker C: Iron Man.
I've never played Marvel Rivals, but I've seen it played. Looks really good.
Jax, what do you think? We're fanboying over here over no Man's Sky. What do you think?
[00:33:41] Speaker B: I don't have any opinions on no Man's sky beyond just. I know that it has gotten a lot of support over the years. I never played it. I was not interested in the first place.
The only. I did not vote on Best Ongoing because I. Literally the only one I've played is Helldivers 2, and they haven't done enough in Helldivers 2 to keep me playing it. I have it. I liked it. I'll go back and play if people want to play. But like, eh.
So I didn't vote. It's fine.
[00:34:10] Speaker A: I just. I think I agree the.
[00:34:13] Speaker B: The specific games they've nominated just are generally not in my wheelhouse.
[00:34:18] Speaker A: I played a little bit of Marvel Riders.
[00:34:19] Speaker B: The only one between. The only one between both of these that I want to play is Baldur's Gate 3. And I'm not sure why it's on Best Community Support.
[00:34:27] Speaker A: They keep giving out free patches, a lot of free patches that have increased more content to it.
[00:34:33] Speaker A: So they've added like a whole new sets of endings, an entire. Another difficulty setting.
[00:34:39] Speaker A: A bunch more voice lines, which are an insane amount of work. If you. If you looked at what happened for the original one, the amount of work they put in is unbelievable. And they've added in like, more hidden things. So Baldur's Gate, I understand why it's there, but I. I Love Baldur's Gate 3. I've got over 150 hours in it. Fantastic game.
I agree with Pillow that no Man's Sky. I think should take this one.
And then Jax.
[00:35:10] Speaker B: No, I want to make you go next because I have a point I want to make that ties into mine.
[00:35:14] Speaker A: I'll allow that. Let's do this. I'll go into art direction. Oh, man. This is an interesting one because every.
[00:35:22] Speaker B: This one has a nominee that I think also deserves to be here, as opposed to some of the others, where these three games are going head to head, where it's like, why are the others even here?
[00:35:31] Speaker A: Yes.
Of those games, the one that I have no interest in is Death Stranding.
However, I have seen Death Stranding and I perfectly understand why it's here for art direction. The other games on this list, as is blatantly obvious from what we've been talking about, Claire Obscure, Hades 2 and Hollow Knight, each of them absolutely deserves to be here for very different reasons.
And my personal one, if you remember me talking about Ghosts of Tsushima, you understand why I put Ghosts of Yotei as my point.
Holy fuck.
The visual in this is everything and how it blends with gameplay. Art direction in Ghosts of Yotai is a more refined and more distinct palette than Ghosts of Tsushima. I have not gotten to play. I've only gotten to see. And just from watching 10 minutes of it, I immediately knew this game was one of those things that if you. If you're a person who just plays games for the Visual, get your 4K monitor, get this game and put it on immediately.
It's a visual experience.
But as I say that we talk about Hollow Knight and Hades, these cartoony, fast pace, no real background in comparison.
Absolutely deserving to be here for art direction.
[00:36:59] Speaker B: Yes.
And the point I wanted to make. We'll get to my category in a moment, which is best score in music.
This category is specifically visual art direction, which is an important distinction because if this was just the whole, like, presentation of the thing, I would vote Hades 2 and Heartbeat. Hades 2 is the best combination of visual and sound design of any of these games. And I think it's like head and shoulders above the rest. But for just visuals like Claire Obscure looks good. I think it's actually outclassed here by its indie counterparts completely. Hollow Knight Silksong is gorgeous in way that screenshots cannot take.
[00:37:41] Speaker C: Breathtaking.
[00:37:42] Speaker A: Beautiful. Breathtakingly beautiful to play.
[00:37:44] Speaker B: The. The detail in the animations in Hollow Knight and Hollow Knight Silksong are what made these games so stunning. If you just look at a screenshot of it. You will not understand. You need to see it in motion. And Hades 2 is just. The whole game looks hand painted. It's so pretty.
I do think Ghostlyote is a totally valid choice. It's stylistically beautiful. There's so much good art design to it. I personally voted Silksong because I voted for Hades 2 on the other category that I'll cover in a moment.
[00:38:17] Speaker A: Perfectly, perfectly valid for that one. I understand every vote in the. This is my actual category, which is the absolute perfect category. Everything in this category deserves to be here. And I can understand anybody voting for any one of these. I think there is a clear standout because of how I view Ghosts of Yotai, but that's a personal figure. Death Stranding 2 is something else. Visually, it's not my cup of tea in a game, but fuck, is it beautiful.
[00:38:49] Speaker B: Yup.
So they nominated the same five games for best score in music.
It's Death Stranding 2, Ghosts of Yote, Clair Obscura, Hades 2 and Silksong. And I want to drive home how good the sound and music in these games are as well. I bought the soundtracks for Both Silksong and Hades 2. They're so good that I felt they were worth extra money to obtain.
[00:39:15] Speaker A: Now, to be fair, neither of us have heard the entirety of Claire Obscurus. It may end up taking this in a straight thing. I know.
Yeah, I know. Ghost of Yotai is a Kurosawa film and music, so it's traditional Japanese music. It's beautiful.
[00:39:30] Speaker B: But I was gonna say I've heard several Clair Obscure songs through just random YouTube stuff and they sound great for me. Darren Korb's soundtrack for Hades 2 is hands down the best score in music of the year. The range of different styles he presents. We get Clever remixes of Hades 1 songs, we get completely new soundtracks for different moods. There are haunting melodies in Hades 2. There are rock and bang and boss musics in Hades 2. There is everything in between. There is a ton of actually vocalized song music in Hades 2. The obvious candidate being the four different songs that Scylla and the Sirens will play for you during the boss fight, but also four different versions of the Oceanus music that plays for the entire level before you get to them. That starts out as purely instrumental and then kicks in their vocals.
As you hear the siren's haunting melody leading up to the boss, you know which song the boss is gonna play because they have a version of the Oceanus music for each of their boss songs, which is an Incredible detail that literally took me like 10 runs to notice that it always correlated.
[00:40:53] Speaker A: I want to point out for something from that. I think we need to discuss another category that none of us have put on this briefly with Best audio design. Because I think that should belong to audio design and not just score and music.
[00:41:07] Speaker B: And that's why I'm putting Hades 2 above and beyond. Because I think as far as just. I just want to listen to this in the car. Like, Silksong is about as good. Honestly. Claire Obscure is about as good as. But it's the environmental sound design of Hades 2's music that is so fucking good. And I even touched on. There are. Outside of Scylla and the Sirens, there's songs that Hecate sings with her chance kind of. There's a song that Artemis sings that you can go join in with her and have Melanui sing. There's a song on the end credits that is fully vocalized that Apollo sings.
It's. There's so much song music in Hades 2 that is always so perfect. There is not a single song in Hades 2 that I'm not like, this song is a 10 out of 10 banger. It doesn't exist. There are nothing. There's no song in Hades 2 that is not a 10 out of 10.
[00:42:05] Speaker A: Everything that Darren Cobb has ever written, I have loved. Darren Cobb works with supergiant games a lot and everything he's written is beautiful.
The reason I bring this up and switch into audio design, I believe that that point you made belongs in audio design. And the fact that both Silksong and Hades were pulled out for Battlefield 6 to go in for audio design, I understand Silent Hill F, that deserves it for a different reason. But the fact that neither of them beat that over Battlefield 6 is a crime to me.
[00:42:39] Speaker B: Yep.
It's absolutely absurd otherwise because to me, like, Hades 2 should literally be every single one of those games for audio design as well.
[00:42:49] Speaker A: I don't know enough about Silent Hill F. I know that what they've done with their audio design is part of why the game is a horror game. And that. That is so valid for that to be in that list. I don't know if it deserves to be over like Death Stranding, because I don't remember again, didn't play that one. Maybe that one should be pulled out. I don't. I don't see why Battlefield sex should be here. Pillow, you're the one who plays Battlefield 6. Is there a reason it should be an auto design over like some other things? Why is that here.
[00:43:15] Speaker C: So Battlefield six, it. It's. It's really hard to explain.
[00:43:22] Speaker A: It.
[00:43:23] Speaker C: It's probably the same reason that Battlefield 6, and I was just thinking about this a second ago, is why it's in, like, best. Best action game. I mean, at the end of the day, it's just a shooter, you know, but every part of Battlefield 6 feels like a cinematic. And then when you top that with the music in it, I think it's just the atmosphere that the music's creating alongside the gameplay. So if that makes sense.
[00:43:51] Speaker A: Atmosphere to it. Okay, so Battlefield 6 is not like music out of nowhere. Not great. It actually.
[00:43:58] Speaker C: Well, it's not Battlefield. It's not the music in Battlefield 6. That's the audio design. The Battlefield 6, the audio design comes from, like, you got explosions going off, right? Gunshots to your left, buildings falling in front of you and behind you. And, like, you're just there, like you're creating all that. And none of that is just. I don't feel like any of that's put in the game as a. As a.
Just sigh sound to fill the gaps. Like that sound being created by another player. Like, everything.
Like the sound is that game. If it was just like, if you just drop somebody in Battlefield 6 and it's like, all right, if you put it on with no music or no sound, like, it's. There's no adrenaline to it. The adrenaline comes from hearing people getting shot or screaming like, I need a medic or I need ammo off to the right, and then your buddy and your squad off to the left. You see him get shot and you hear his. His body or his voice go. You know. You know, you hear him die and it's.
[00:45:02] Speaker A: It's.
[00:45:03] Speaker C: I think that's where audio design for Battlefield 6 is going to come in.
[00:45:07] Speaker A: Okay, so it deserves potentially to be in there.
Then I guess it's time.
[00:45:13] Speaker C: I don't think it'll win it by any means.
[00:45:14] Speaker A: I don't think it should either, but I understand why it's there. I guess let's have our beef it out of here. Of the games of the year that are up, who do we think should win?
[00:45:25] Speaker B: Okay, so first, the games that are nominated for actual Game of the Year by the game awards. It's the three you'd expect from the way we've been talking. Clair Obscure, Hades 2 and Hollow Knight, Silksong, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 and Death Stranding 2 both are on this list. And then Donkey Kong Bonanza, something we have not discussed at all. None of us have a switch 2. So we haven't actually played played it.
[00:45:47] Speaker A: I've heard it's a great Donkey Kong game.
Yep. I haven't played many of the Donkey Kong games since the Super Nintendo versions, so I don't really have an opinion on that one.
[00:45:59] Speaker B: Here's my thing. Donkey Kong Bonanza would have to be literally as good or better than donkey Kong Country2 to be justified to be hanging in this list with its competitors.
[00:46:10] Speaker A: Very true. Considering what we've been talking about. I've been talking about Silksong as possibly the single best thing. Hades is one of the best of its genre. Claire Obscure sounds like it could very well be.
I don't know anything about Death Strike. None of us do. So we're all sitting there going, oh.
[00:46:27] Speaker C: I've played a third of these games. You just like Deliverance, but I don't think it's Game of the Year. I don't think it's Game of the Year. It has its problems. I don't think it's a great game for people who like that kind of game. We got to look at this as if you were to place someone that doesn't play games and have them play each one of these games all one of each one of these six games to completion. Like a non gamer, someone who doesn't have preferences and let.
It's tough. Like it's really taught. It's really hard. So they're all different games.
[00:47:03] Speaker B: Do we all agree that it's really a race between claire obscure, hades2 and silksong?
[00:47:07] Speaker C: I would say yeah. Donkey Kong Bonanza has no chance. Death Stranding. I've never played it. I know it's got a following, so I couldn't really tell you anything about it. King Come Deliverance. Again, another small following. Well, not small, but it's just got a specific group of people that play it. Say with like Hollow Knight and Hades. I think, you know, it's got a specific group of people that play it, like myself. It's not my style of game, but I'm not going to knock it by you guys. The way you talk about it, it makes me want to go play it, but I'm not going to.
[00:47:38] Speaker B: Does that mean your vote is clair obscure right now?
[00:47:41] Speaker C: My vote is Clair obscure.
[00:47:43] Speaker B: Okay. Mike, am I correct in my assumption that your vote is Silksong?
[00:47:47] Speaker A: You are correct. My current vote, as I have not played Clair Obscure, is for Silksong and.
[00:47:51] Speaker B: Yours is for Hades and mine is for Hades too. And that's why. That's why this is literally in our document as this is where we all argue over which game should actually win game of the year.
[00:48:02] Speaker A: So I think each of us should bring a point about the game into why it deserves to be the game of the year.
[00:48:10] Speaker B: Sure.
Do you want to kick it off then?
[00:48:12] Speaker A: I think I will kick it off.
Wow. Silksong.
How the fuck does any game make me like bugs to start with?
I don't like bugs. I don't like bugs. They have somehow created something that is charming and beautiful and haunting.
The music is wonderful, the atmosphere is everything.
The gameplay is incredibly tight.
Wonderful. And the story that's told while you're playing is great.
I think all of these things combined, all of them combined make this possibly the single best Metroidvania ever made. I'm not even counting the art style in general, which is this absolutely beautiful quasi cartoon, little like cel shade thing. It's. It's beautiful.
[00:49:11] Speaker B: Okay, so here's my thing for me personally, my gaming tastes. Silksong is my game of the year.
But I voted for Hades 2 for 1 very specific reason. Silksong does not offer any way for the vast majority of people who would ever want to play it to enjoy it. It is too fucking hard for most people to ever have fun in Silksong with no option for an easy mode. I like the difficulty where it is. It's perfect for me. It's brutally hard but fair. But a huge percentage of the population will literally make it through 2, 3 bosses at most before they give up because it's just too fucking hard.
[00:49:57] Speaker A: I forgot my last reason.
[00:49:59] Speaker B: What's that?
[00:49:59] Speaker A: My last reason is it's 20 fucking bucks.
This game. This game, they did everything with it. They took seven plus years to make it and they went by the way, $20.
[00:50:11] Speaker B: That's actually kind of a theme. All three of the games we've picked are cheaper than your average AAA cuz Hades 2 is 30 and Hades 2 is my pick because I think it does everything that was good about Hades one, just more of has more music that's just as good as music. In Hades one it has more levels to go through, more boss fights to do more variety in the weapons that actually don't suck because Hades one had a lot of weapon aspects that just sucked.
It's just so fucking good. And it has accessibility options so people who are not God gamers can still have fun. You do not need to be the greatest gamer in the history of gamers to reach the actual ending of the epilogue in Hades 2. It has challenges for you that I can't complete. People have beaten Hades two Surface runs on max fear, which is one of the hardest things you can do in all of video games.
It's insane. But it has more granular difficulty and it's such a good, appealing game to anyone. If you're really not there for the combat because you're just not a big combat technical gamer, you can turn on God mode and just experience the really good character writing that Hades 2 has and the gorgeous art. If you like the technical combat, leave God mode off and it's a technical, challenging, Fun game like Hades 2 is the complete package. It's so fucking good. So even though my personal pick for myself would be silksong, I think Hades 2 is the better product for everyone.
[00:51:52] Speaker C: I guess that just leaves Claire obscure.
[00:51:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:54] Speaker B: Which again is only 40 bucks. It's still cheaper than everything else.
50. But considering 70 currently.
[00:52:02] Speaker A: 60 or 70, yeah.
[00:52:04] Speaker C: This is a $70 game. Like hands down, this is a $70 game. They get away with it.
Why? I think it's gonna win game of the year. And this is coming from a limited play point of 5 to 10 hours. It is polished. It has broad appeal like this appeals from people from RPGs.
You got turn based games.
I mean it's, it's just got the appeal and I mean it's even got like soul like vibes to it when you're playing it. There is a difficulty slider for say on it where you can, you can make the, the turn based combat a little bit easier, you can make it a little bit harder.
The art on this game is just, I mean, hands down, like, it's one of the best art styles that I've seen as far as this game goes. Will it age well? No. It's got that kind of art style to it.
Realism.
[00:53:01] Speaker C: It's got. The soundtrack is like, my God, there's a reason that it's on there. Like it's just my first impressions of this game. Let me. You fall in love very quickly with the characters and then have your heart broken very quickly at the same time.
The. The game itself is tragic as far as the story to it.
I don't want to get into depth out of it because we have two people that's in this podcast right now that still want to play it and I don't want to ruin anything.
[00:53:30] Speaker C: This game is a indie game by all rights. An indie game like this is a.
[00:53:36] Speaker A: Game that first release indie game, which differs from both Hades and Silksong, which are sequels. These are not first Time they, yeah.
[00:53:44] Speaker C: This is an underdog story that had no support, like, other than, you know, I'm. I'm sure it had, you know, play testers and betas or alphas or. I don't know, I don't know the story of it coming up. To me, it just like one day Claire Obscure appeared and I'm like, oh my gosh, this game is great.
So I bought it, played it, loved it. It's really hard to beat a fan base when they're passionate about a project and they're in love with the story of how this game came to be.
So for an underdog to be this high on the list of so many categories says something about the game. And that's why I think it's going to end up being game of the year.
[00:54:30] Speaker C: I can't speak 100% of the whole story, just the parts that I've played and I just. I never want to put it down. And what ended up where I put it down was I had to work and I just several days away from the game and I forgot to come back to it because when I did get to play games, I got pulled into like playing games online and playing with my buddies or something. Like, it didn't have enough time to really, like, appreciate the same reason I haven't really played Baldur's Gate a whole lot. It's not. I haven't. I don't have a whole lot of time to dive into it. And this is one of those games where you want to set aside time so you can just immerse yourself and dive into this game and love it and know, like, it's. It's awesome. I. I can't really explain it without ruining it, but you guys are gonna love it. I can't wait for you guys to play it.
[00:55:19] Speaker A: If after I play this game and my opinion changes on game of the Year, I will give an update on that.
Because as of right now, this has to be something monumentally special to take it away from Silksong for me.
But everything I'm talking about says it.
[00:55:36] Speaker C: Sounds like it could be a fun thing in this. If, like any rpg you get armor, you can get like cosmetic armors to apply. And some of them are just absolutely silly.
Like there's a mime armor set where you look like a mime and it's.
[00:55:51] Speaker A: Of course the French game would have a mime armor set.
[00:55:53] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, of course.
[00:55:55] Speaker B: I will say now that I've got a steam link working on my phone with an actual controller that holds My phone, I might pick it up and just play it when I'm like lying in bed or something.
Because that's been my biggest barrier for Clair Obscure is when I sit down to my computer, I'm usually playing league or path. It's hard for me to go and play other games when I'm sitting at my computer. So I usually get this kind of game on my switch where I can play it in bed or on the toilet or in the backyard while the dog is playing fetch with my wife or stuff like that.
[00:56:28] Speaker C: It's definitely a couch comfort kind of game.
[00:56:31] Speaker A: Okay, so now that really.
That really covers pretty much everything about the Game of the Year awards that we wanted to talk to you about for now because of course there's going to be some more information coming. Now, we've mentioned that this is all about this Game of the Year awards we want to talk about. There's a category they mention that we want to talk about because for the most part, I don't know if any of us really agree with anything on.
[00:57:01] Speaker B: That list, but also has games on that list.
[00:57:04] Speaker A: Pillow has a couple from that list. Okay.
[00:57:08] Speaker A: Are a little more esoteric in what we're looking for. So there's a category that I'm not really sure deserves to be in a Game of the Year thing, which is most anticipated game. I don't know why this is a thing that's listed there because this is a horrible idea. I guess it's just to drive hype. It's a bad idea to be there.
[00:57:28] Speaker B: It's a marketing category. That's all it is.
[00:57:31] Speaker A: But each of us does, in fact, have games we are very much looking forward to. I'm gonna start us off with something that has gotten no information since it was first talked about a couple years ago. You guys may remember at one of these events, there was a brief visual boom. Elder Scrolls 6. That's it. We've still heard nothing. I want more.
[00:57:54] Speaker C: But we already know how Todd Howard does these things.
Like, that's how he plays. That's how he does it. He creates slow, dripping anticipation where people are just begging for the game and then it comes out and it's a brick.
[00:58:08] Speaker A: The same thing happened with Metroid.
[00:58:09] Speaker C: I'm kidding. Last part. But.
[00:58:11] Speaker A: And. And at least we've gotten information. And then a reason why it took so long. They had to completely change developers and scrap literally everything.
It's been like eight years since we heard about Scrolls 6 and I've heard nothing.
[00:58:26] Speaker B: So on that note, I do want to point out. Metroid Prime 4 will be coming out about a week after this episode drops, and I think both me and Mike are extremely excited about it. We just have excluded it because it's literally coming out a week after the episode drops.
[00:58:38] Speaker A: Precisely. It is it. If not because of that, that would be my most anticipated game of the year. Because I fucking love Metroid.
[00:58:47] Speaker B: Yep. If it runs well on the original Switch, I am literally buying at day one. I'm literally just waiting for that. And it's Nintendo, so there's a high likelihood it does. Outside of Pokemon, their stuff tends to run well on their hardware.
[00:58:59] Speaker A: That's because Pokemon is actually just made by Game Freak, and Game Freak has no idea how to make a fucking game.
[00:59:04] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:59:05] Speaker C: I'll talk about mine real quick because it's on the actual list.
Did you guys ever play Wild Hunt? Witcher 3?
[00:59:12] Speaker B: I played wild Hunt.
[00:59:12] Speaker A: It's on my list of games to play. It is. It is on my list. I have not gotten to play it.
[00:59:18] Speaker C: Have you played Witcher games at all?
[00:59:21] Speaker A: No, actually.
[00:59:22] Speaker C: Okay.
Why is the Witcher 4 on this list? On my personal list, it would. Even if it wasn't on this list, it would have still been on my list. The Witcher series does something to me that games fail to do for me to this point is when I Finish the Witcher 3, it's like finishing a season of your TV show or finishing an episode and you're like, okay, what's next?
Where am I going now? Like, I want to hear the more of it.
[00:59:52] Speaker B: I want to make Pillow cry for a moment. I went and checked on Steam. I have played four and a half hours of Witcher 3 the Wild Hunt.
I've played 25 hours of the original Witcher.
[01:00:04] Speaker C: The Witcher games are so good.
[01:00:06] Speaker A: I know why I haven't played the Witcher 3. It's because when I got it, I got all three at the same time for $5. Because Steam was amazing and CD Projekt Red gave an insane deal.
I intended to play one, then two, then three. I got like 20 minutes into one and I went, oh, my God, the game feels terrible.
[01:00:26] Speaker B: That's why me having played 25 hours of one, but only four and a half of three is going to hurt pillow because Witcher 1 sucks.
[01:00:35] Speaker C: They don't age good at all. Like Witcher 3 Wild Hunt. Like, it's hard for me to like, even a fanboy to go back and play Witcher 3 if it wasn't for being in love with the entire.
[01:00:49] Speaker C: Cast of characters in that game.
I wouldn't, I wouldn't be able to probably stomach the game.
Like they're just, they're just so hard to play. But I mean it's old, it's an old game, but the way it plays is, is so good. The story, the gameplay to some people might suck, but the story carries it the whole way.
[01:01:14] Speaker B: I think Witcher 3's gameplay is perfectly fine. It's a decade old at this point, but it feels like every other PS4 era game in terms of gameplay. It's fine. Witcher 1 and 2 are offensively bad on the gameplay side of things. They're great stories and great writing, but the actual moment to moment gameplay sucks.
[01:01:35] Speaker A: It's. It's real hard to go back and play them because it's very obvious they were figuring especially one they were trying to figure out how the to make it into a game and that gameplay did not work well.
[01:01:47] Speaker C: Yep, Geralt is such a great character and I'm nervous and excited to see where they go with Witcher 4 with Ciri being the, the main character of, of the story. I really hope that Geralt's in it somehow or somewhere and I'm sure he will at some point. They can't just like do away with the so main character.
[01:02:11] Speaker A: CD Projekt Red has not released a bad game story wise. They fucked up a little bit with, with the release of CD Cyberpunk 2077. That was technical problems and they fucking fixed that. That game story is fantastic though.
[01:02:28] Speaker C: I don't know of any bad games.
[01:02:29] Speaker A: That they've released, so I trust it's one of the few companies I trust right now.
So we've got, we've got you for Witcher. Jax.
Give us one of your designated games.
[01:02:42] Speaker B: All right. I was excited for Y's 10 when it came out. I didn't wind up picking it up because I was playing a gazillion other things.
I love the Y's franchise. I've talked about this before. They all follow Adol Christian and his adventures across alternate Europe and their fun action adventure, hack and slash RPGs. Ys. X is another one of those.
But I'm glad that I was sidetracked by other games and waited because February 20th it is getting an updated version of it called Y's X Proud Nordics, which is the original game but upgraded for Switch 2. If you have a Switch 2 or even on the PC version, it has additional story elements, additional mechanics, additional dungeon. It is the complete version of the game. This is like Final Fantasy 10 international versus the original release of Final Fantasy 10 kind of thing, if you remember that.
Which, if you've played Final Fantasy 10 on the HD remakes for the PS3 or PS4 or PC, all the extra content that wasn't in the original PS2 version, this is that for Ys X.
I love the Ys games. I play every single one of them. Except for the stupid bump combat early ones, because those games are genuinely bad. But everything that has real combat, they're great fucking games. I'm so looking forward to Y's X. Proud Nordics.
[01:04:06] Speaker A: I guess I shall continue. There's a.
There's a game that's coming out.
[01:04:12] Speaker A: A little bit soon.
I'm a very big fan of the franchise in general. I'm a big Warhammer 40K fan. A big Warhammer fan in general. And right around the same time that Baldur's Gate 3 came out, they came out with Rogue Trader, which is why Rogue Trader, you didn't hear anything about and Baldur's Gate came out because they're the same style of game, only you.
Baldur's Gate 3 is the pinnacle of any of them ever. The amount of voice acting and the amount of other work that was put into that game is astounding. And so Rogue Trader got put into the sideline. The same studio that made Rogue Trader is now making Dark Heresy. These are both 40k worlds and there's a slight difference in like if you know 40k, you'll be working on most of the same faction, but slightly different things. I don't need to go into the minutiae of the Inquisition versus Rogue Traders.
That's going over most people's heads and we don't need to get that far. But they made a fantastic game and I cannot wait for Dark Heresy. Now you may also notice that these are. These are RPG names. These are tabletop game names. There's Dark Heresy game, there's Rogue Trader game. Yeah, these are straight RIP mechanics from them.
So if you are at all a fan of the Tabletop Warhammer games, you're gonna find something you like here, I think. And I think these are going to be places where people can get introductions into the Warhammer franchise. If you've ever been interested in it, it is. It is the genre defining Grimdark. If this is at all interesting. Dark Heresy, I think is going to be the point to come in on because that's. The Inquisition exemplifies Grimdark and I. I can't wait to try it. Hey, Pillow, there's one more game on that list there. That sounds very interesting.
[01:06:06] Speaker C: Okay, so, I mean, there's no doubt in my mind that all of us are 007 fans. By the way, we talked about GoldenEye when we were going over Nintendo 64 games.
[01:06:16] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[01:06:17] Speaker C: The creators at IO Interactive believe that's how they go by the same makers of Hitman are creating a double oh7 game called now first light. It was project 007. Now it's double oh7 first light. I don't know a whole lot about this game. I had to do some quick research to figure it out. It is not a Hitman game in its own right. It is a James Bond first story of James Bond, like kind of a developmental story of him.
And I don't know what to expect from it. So, I mean, just going based off just the category, I'm just kind of anticipating it being a good game. I'm kind of excited about it because, I mean, if it plays anything like the Hitman games, and we've talked very highly of the Hitman games. You know, just with the level design alone, I don't see how this could be a bad game. I've never played a bad Hitman game, so we'll see. I can't give you guys much more than that, just that I'm just excited for it.
[01:07:22] Speaker A: I can see this being phenomenal. I can see this being informative. This could be a real interesting, interesting title. And it's cool that we don't nothing about it right now, but I would like to know some more.
[01:07:34] Speaker C: And I mean, I will. Honorable mention, of course, Grand Theft Auto 6.
I mean, you know, if you are ever on the Internet, you know that there's constant memes out there as, hey, we got this before Grand Theft Auto 6. It's one of those games like any Bethesda game. Like you have to wait years for the next game to come out. And then the highly anticipated push back the release date in the delays, like it's going to happen. Which has happened to Grand Theft Auto six already several times.
And I'm excited for Grand Theft Auto 6. I've never played a bad Grand Theft Auto game.
[01:08:10] Speaker A: Jax, take us away with the last one. What do you got?
[01:08:14] Speaker B: Okay, my last one, this one kind of came out of nowhere. So Square Enix has been remaking the original Dragon Quest games. They've got HD 2D remakes of Dragon Quest 1, 2 and 3. And I think most people assumed that that's what they were going to continue to do. But instead they announced that they are going to be releasing Dragon Quest 7 reimagined, literally February 5th, like it's, it's coming soon.
And I need to explain Dragon Quest vii because Dragon Quest as a franchise is a very, very traditional JRPG.
Dragon Quest VII originally released on the PS1 and then it had a 3DS remake 2014, 2015, somewhere around there.
And this game is one of the longest JRPGs to ever be made. I am not exaggerating, this is not hyperbole. It is literally an actual 60 to 100 hour main quest.
And while some of that is classic JRPG padding of like encounters and grinding and all of that, it also just has a gazillion dungeons, a gazillion plot twists and turns, a huge, huge world. And this is also a game that has a great sense of humor. I'm gonna give very mild spoilers for a 25, 30 year old game. In the game's story, heavily you're dealing with a battle between the Almighty is how they translated it on the 3Ds. But it's quite literally just the Christian God versus a clear like Satan analog. I forget what they called him, the Devil King or something like that.
I forget the actual name they gave him. It wasn't Satan, but he's clearly supposed to be an equivalent of Satan. He's an evil demon lord.
And after you've beaten the game and saved the world and done all the story things, there's bonus dungeons in classic JRPG fashion. Except in these bonus dungeons, the final boss of the bonus dungeon is God. And if you beat God up fast enough after you've kicked his ass, you can invite him to your town that you built during the main game. And then God just comes and lives in your town. And I think that's one of the funniest things in any JRPG to just be like, you know, it's always like, oh, we defeated this dark God and saved the world. And then in this game it's like, yeah, we did all that and then we go kick God, like Christian God's ass for fun. And now he just lives in our town. He's one of our buds and it's so funny. But so this reimagined version of Dragon Quest 7, they are specifically targeting some of the slog of the game, making it play faster, making it a more modern experience. In that regard. They've specifically said that they are remaking this game to bring it to modern audiences.
[01:11:19] Speaker A: This is like genres that created grinding.
[01:11:22] Speaker B: Yes, because this game is so long and so grindy. So they're cutting out a lot of the need to grind, they're cutting out a lot of the tediousness and they are revamping the job. This game has a job system by the way, like full bore Final Fantasy job system in Dragon Quest.
I'm pretty sure Dragon Quest was the.
[01:11:46] Speaker A: First one with the job system to a degree.
[01:11:49] Speaker B: Three did do it, but not usually as like well fleshed out as Final Fantasy has done. Dragon Quest 7, it's fleshed out like Final Fantasy 5's where it's a full born system where you can customize your party and their powers over the course of the game in interesting ways to where it actually affects your decision making instead of just you stack all of the most powerful classes and you're done.
Something bravely default has been really good about in more modern times.
[01:12:23] Speaker B: So they're very much trying to. That's why they skipped 4, 5, 6 is because 7 is the game that they felt was most in need of this kind of attention at this point. And it's not an HD2B remake. This is a full bore like revamp from the ground up in its own style.
More reminiscent of like Dragon Quest xi, but still very much its own thing. It looks so good. I'm so excited. I want more people to play Dragon Quest VII. I think Dragon Quest 7 is the best entry in the franchise, like period. But it's just such an inscrutable slog that I don't actually recommend it to people. If you were to pick between the ones available right now, I'd probably tell you to go play either the HD 2 remake of Dragon Quest 3 or play Dragon Quest 8 because they're the most accessible ones to play. So I'm really excited. I hope that the remake goes right. I hope that they don't fuck it up because there's a lot of room that they can fuck this up and make it just a worse version of the game than the 3DS version, which is the current definitive version of the game. The 3DS version is just better than the PlayStation original.
[01:13:30] Speaker A: And I think I will end it off here. A game that I'm one Dragon Quest, one of my favorite franchises. I love them quite a lot. I will end it off with a game that I heard about and I have. I have found a lot of things about that I love and I cannot wait for. There's a game called Blood of the Dawn Walker.
I want to be a fucking vampire in video games. I love it. I was. I was very Disappointed with what they did with Bloodlines because it's not a Bloodlines game. And this feels more like it's a bloodlines game, except it's medieval, so it's not true bloodlines. Blood of the dawnwalker looks awesome. I.
I loved those classic Blood Omen games where you got to play as.
[01:14:16] Speaker A: He was essentially Dracula. I do not remember the character's name off the top of my head, but that kind of game where you just. You get to descend into the brutality of what it would be to be a vampire. And this looks good. This looks real good.
It's. It's got enough that makes me highly anticipate it. It's got. It's got the. The gameplay that it looks like I'm gonna like. It's got the systems that look like they make me want to try it out, and it looks like it's not just. There's no. There's no cash grab here. There's no other franchise. This is brand new, so it doesn't look like they're gonna just phone it in. And on.
[01:14:55] Speaker C: That looks good on that.
[01:14:56] Speaker A: On that note, I think that ends our episode for today. None of us got anything to say for the end of the episode. Anything else you got?
[01:15:04] Speaker C: Nope.
[01:15:05] Speaker B: Go vote for the game Awards atthegameawards.com.
[01:15:10] Speaker A: Please do act. Don't just take what we said and vote based on what we said. Look at things, and if you want to try one of the games, play it. You got a little bit of time beforehand. Put that. Put that play in before you can vote. You can revote if you don't like your vote before the time comes up.
[01:15:26] Speaker C: And don't vote for the last of Us. Season two is the best adaptation.
[01:15:31] Speaker B: Oh, God.
[01:15:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:15:32] Speaker B: We didn't even cover the the best adaptation category.
[01:15:35] Speaker A: I swear, last of us. They're all actually very well adapted.
[01:15:38] Speaker C: I just didn't like season two.
[01:15:40] Speaker B: Fair vote for Devil May Cry. It's actually a really good show.
[01:15:44] Speaker A: All right, well, thank you, everyone.
This has been from 8bit to 4k for market money. Names, Jack Selman, Pillow Pet. Good night, everybody.
[01:15:56] Speaker C: Good night.
