Castle Super Beast - CSB317: The Jankoisseur feat. Casey Explosion

Episode Date: April 24, 2025

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["Sailor Moon Theme"] Hello, what is up? Hello everyone. Hello. We are joined by a sloth. Hey Casey. Hey, how's it going? Fantastic. Welcome to the Castle Superbeasts.

Appreciate you jumping on with us. We have, this is our first VTuber guest. I guess that's technically accurate. That is the case. I mean, I have a rig, but I have not yet... You used that rig the one time. It's very difficult. It's very complicated.

It involved getting a VR headset and base stations and arm trackers and a belt. It was a whole lot of tech. Just point your iPhone at your face. So there's the face tracking version of it that I had as well. But the full body thing for the 3D thing was way more complicated than just the face rig setup.

So what I'm hearing is that you spent 10 times as much work to get like 1% of the output. I mean, there is a simplified version that is like available and in fact I would say the Like you know the the the the face rig kind of setup is it's it's it's definitely good enough But I did like the ability to have like the 3d model. You know and the ability to like use that for other Potential purposes or whatever, but yeah, I went in to figure out how to do that I see that your rig is working just fine working great have a spaceship built around I do not I do not have the room for that kind of stuff at all I've got I've got a little webcam and I bought face rig on steam

Yeah, like when it was like 75% off like Five years or more ago and it it's fine it works okay it's good it's doing it's doing its job um well thank you for for being here hey oh there it is yeah that makes more sense awesome so if anyone is unfamiliar with Casey, I know Casey primarily from her incredible, incredible recommendation lists on social media in which I don't know how you, I asked you this, how do you keep up with the 400 indie games you cover a day? Do you really want an answer? I would love an answer.

Okay, so I follow a lot of different indie developers, and they're very cool about sharing each other's work. And I'm also following a lot of other, like people are tuned into some of the weird indie games and stuff, and sometimes people just at me, and sometimes I'll just browse upcoming, what's upcoming on Steam, and I just find stuff that's nice and sometimes I'll just be looking at what whatever certain publishers are coming out with I'm

always I'm always keeping an eye on them shout out to Dave from New Blood who's always always putting out bangers. Dave from New Blood does come into my stream to make fun of me. Oh yeah. Oh I didn't tell you about that? I was playing desk. I've put out bangers. He does come into my stream to make fun of me Yeah, oh yeah With controller and I ran into some bugs That like only exist on controller and like Dave what's up with these? We don't have any of the testers play on controller because it's for babies Okay, great

Yeah, I get I keep trawling trolling Dave because he tries to send me early copies of the games so I'm just like, nope, gotta buy it. Nice. But yeah, I play first person shooters with controller whenever I'm... Yeah! Whenever the option is there. Because I am old my I get like a bit of RSI If I'm playing with mouse and keyboard too often

So anytime anytime does this the option for controller? I'll I'll take it and some some very very very cool first person shooters have great controller support and some don't Proteus yeah burst and shooters have great controller support and some don't. Prodeus, as fantastic. Oh that slaps. That feels really really... there's a nice bit of nice bit of snap to us. Like a little bit a little bit of snap too. I'm in a goofy spot with playing games on mouse and keyboard now because in my in my house

Whether or not I have access to the mouse or the keyboard depends on where the baby hid the mouse or keyboard Mm-hmm, so I have been I've actually like navigated my desktop Using the steam function where I hold the PlayStation button and move it around with the analog stick Because I can't turn anything off because I hit the mouse I mean you have basically your your the home couch setup is like my streaming one where you're like It's a couch in front of a TV. This is not a table with a PC, you know So it's get it gets a lot less comfortable to deal with. Yeah, but I also have a tiny gnome That think it's it's really funny to take the mouse and like try and hide it in the bathroom. It's funny because one like I'm just thinking of ultra kill and how like I feel every time there's

like a controller issue or configuration bit I feel like Hekita just seeing my complaints about something with the controller is like begrudgingly being like fine I guess we have to support this you know angrily. But you can also put on the little warning message on Steam that's like, this game is better with a controller, as a thing. And I'm like, thank God, I like seeing that, that's nice. Because I think just, it's at this point been long enough

that my childhood being based on Nintendo into Super Nintendo into the first four or five generations of controller usage, PC mouse and keyboard stuff is just always going to be like a second preference to wanting to hold a stick or a D-pad and buttons to play a game, even if it's suboptimal in some cases. This is such a good segue into talking about City of the Wharves, honestly. Because I discovered over the weekend, over yesterday, whatever, the day before, Fatal Fury City of the Wharves, I really don't like that game at all. Really? Yeah, I really genuinely don't like it at all.

And it comes down to one thing. It's the controls. I do not like the way the controls are mapped out, and I can't find a way to map them out in a way that makes me happy. Huh, OK. I did find the defaults were not great for me, and so I ended up switching them up. So, yeah, okay, so I guess we'll just jump into our Garo chat right off the bat.

Casey, did you play Garo, Mark of the Wolves, or City of the Wolves? No, I didn't. What's this one? It is a sequel to Garo Mark of the Wolves from 1999, which is a game in the Fatal Fury franchise where Terry Bogart goes. Oh, right. Okay, yeah. I know who Terry Bogart is. Yeah. Everybody knows who Terry Bogart is. He's Humphrey Bogart's son, isn't he? The actor? That's the one. Nailed it. Yeah, son. Only the actor that's the one nailed. Yeah, absolutely

Right right with the with the suit and the the sharp dressing mm-hmm And he's got a big red hat and he tosses it around and then every once in a while Like Street fighters can will pick it up and toss it back to him, and he has no job and no prospects and a dead girlfriend Hey, she's fine Yeah, she's totally Lily man. Oh Okay, the the the Blue Mary Train is this leaving the station and all aboard seems like that's the way things are going. Yeah, Blue Mary's fine but anyway, no, uh the Yeah, the latest Harry Bogard game has just come out.

So in terms of the controls, I've always found that like, so SNK games that are four buttons make it really nice for a controller that has four buttons facing it. Absolutely. And that felt much more comfortable than the like, dealing with triggers too much back in the day. But what I found for my configuration on this since I'm yeah, I'm much more pad oriented on my fighting games these days is I switched L2 and R2. The default for them is like punches on the R2. It's really it's a really strange default on kicks on L2. And I think it's because the thought is that most people have their trigger finger ready to go more often So they put them on that side I swapped them so that punches are you know on the left side kicks are on the right and then I think what works best

for the extra options for L1 and R1 is faint on L1 and rev on R1 so that you have your two breaking options that that feels like the most comfortable way to play it Right now, so what is your having really simple? I don't like to do a motion and then click something with my left hand ever ever and This is a five button game that uses ex's constantly, so back to back, two punches, two kicks.

Like, you know, special move into special move into special move. So my first thing was, I'll put R1 and R2, the right side trigger and bumpers, with the EX buttons. And so I basically turned it into Street Fighter with the cards, you know, light, medium, hard, right? But then Rev, the button that does level 3s, overheads, and anti-airs is now on L1, which is awkward as shit. And so I'm like, oh, I'll put Rev on, I'll put Rev on, because it's a five button game, it's not a four button game, right? Rev is your fifth button. Yeah. is a five button game it's not a four button game right rev is your fifth button yeah so okay I'll put rev on r1 and you know then I'll have or r2 and then my bumpers will be the X's and like doing EX into EX while using like L1 or

L2 sucks for me like it actually is such a massive bummer that I'm like oh I hate like I hate the feeling of playing the game okay, so for for me I've basically like I'm able to press Square and triangle together with one finger and same for X and circle at the bottom and such mm-hmm. I do tiny little baby man hand right can't do that question like a child's hands Question though. Because I have like a child's hands. Question though, what do you do for Street Fighter? You still play on stick?

No, I play on pad on Street Fighter. Okay. So what I do on Street Fighter is I have all six, light, medium, hard, going square, square triangle, R1, and same thing for kicks. And when I do an EX move in Street Fighter, I'm hitting, for punches, I'm hitting R1 and square Yes, that's what I'm getting R2 and X for kicks

That's that's also what I'm doing. But like you do have to do motions with that and the trigger Yeah, but nothing on my left hand My left hand is for motions. My right hand is for buttons. I Literally never use L1 and L2 in a fighting game ever in my entire life okay so in this case you would need L2 for the for the the two kicks basically yeah which sucks I don't want to do it because because the right side the right side triggers are fine to do motions with yeah no the left side of the controller is for fighting the right side triggers are fine to do motions with. Yeah, no, the right side of the controller is for fighting.

The left side of the controller is for moving. Yeah, and I agree. It does feel awkward to do stuff with the L2 in particular. I think you can mostly avoid that input though if you... Yeah, I guess, are you able to hit the X and circle with your art with your thumbs on the on the pad at the same time. I don't want to it's awkward I might my finger like fits between the two Because my finger isn't big enough because I have a tiny baby man's hand Hmm, okay

I remember when people remember when I was drinking those small Red Bulls on stream and people were like, wow, you need to cut down. I'm like, this is the small 250 mil Red Bull, but people thought it was the giant can because of my tiny hands. They're very small. So, this is, there's a, I mean, there's a couple different ways, I guess, like, I don't know, if you're looking for solutions, you know, there's a perhaps. So here's the other thing.

I'm not looking for solutions. That's so let me ask that first before I start trying any. Yeah. Because on top of that, I don't like that the bread and butter combo system is EX into EX into EX. Okay. Bread and butter combo system is ex into ex into ex Okay, and like one of the things that it was really strange and this is a this is a There's a warning to everybody out there. So I thought I really liked mark city of the wolves I thought I really really liked it until I played it by myself and then realized that every time I had ever played city of

The wolves before that I had played it with you, Woolly. Where I was like hanging out with a friend of mine of 20 years playing fighting games and oh yeah. But then when I actually went to play it like ranked matchmaking I was like, it's fine, I guess. It's okay. And then the controller foibles and I'm like, I should just go play Street Fighter if I want to play a fighting game. And also Street Fighter doesn't have that fucking human garbage over there on the character select.

That's a very compelling extra bit that I would say yes applies to this game as well right no fucking Ronaldo. And also Virtua Fighter is only three buttons. You know you can do a whole fighting game with just three buttons. It's all you need. In terms of the control stuff yeah I again if you're there's potential solutions but again if you're not really looking for one, then that's fine. I think the the X system with the with of going from move into move

and stuff is pretty good. I think it works well. I like that. That's the one. That's the one of the major like new flavors that the game has. But everything else is very old school. So people that have been like fighting game fans for a while are kind of like looking for something that feels like a throwback fighter. And this is one of the best bets at that.

This feels very retro, like the, again, defensive options, the way you can do a lot of, you can do a lot on defense and on offense. And it's very tame with like, I guess, comeback factors and things like that as well. So it definitely appeals to like, yeah, if you if you enjoyed fighting games in the late 90s to early odds, the yeah. And I do feel as well like I'm like the system, like, I'm not sure what

in particular is the part about it, but maybe maybe is it is it because of the fact that it's you're having trouble doing it that's making that oh well that's part of it I mean it's not fun when I try to do it and my hands feel bad and I go I hate it like that game has one too many buttons. I wonder if you could like put like two punches and two kicks on, you know, L one and R one and R two respectively, and kind of throw rev like on a different trigger and then just have that be like, it's rarely being used as a part of a motion input. So you know what I mean? It could it could kind kind of be like which of these buttons are you using most

you're gonna use your two punch and two kick combinations more often so put them on the our side and then I mentioned this and I mentioned this earlier and some folks were like why don't you just get a fight pad or something like that and it's like that would probably solve my controls issue. But that is me spending like eighty dollars on a game that I'm not sure I even like to figure out if I do like it, which when I have this other Street Fighter game over here that I know I like for sure. A controller, a controller with six buttons up front would would also,

you know, help for sure, as would a stick. Right. This is one of those things where, for me, I'm finding less and less that there's games that I jump on stick for. But there still are some. Things that feel, things that are Marvel-based, that feel like Marvel versus Capcom to me, I kind of still jump back to a stick on.

So are you playing on a stick for City of the Wharves? No, I'm not. I feel like I've gotten used to pad for most things now. But like I have so much muscle memory with like Marvel versus Capcom on a stick that that like for that I still have to go back and do it. And similar for Dragon Ball Fighters as well. I still have to go back to a stick to play that game. Hey Casey, let me ask you, because I saw a question in the chat that opened this up to a broader question in my mind. Somebody said that Pat has a really simple system where if the game feels bad to control at any point, he just pulls his parachute. How do you feel about that? Like game feel as an extreme because?

Fighting games are like literally nothing but round-to-round combat and so if I have a bad icky feeling I just go And I'm like I'm done. I'm completely done because you're playing so many weird indie games. You have like a higher tolerance for like Jank game feel or what? Probably but I kind of get what you mean sometimes. Sometimes if something rubs me the wrong way, I'm just not feeling it. And yeah, that's me out. Folks in the chat asking, do I play many fighting games? No, I'm more old school. So I'm happy just to let Pat and Wally talk about this. Because I haven't played much.

Well, I was going to jump into it a little bit later, but Pat, you brought it up right away. So I'm like, OK, we're just going to go heavy into it. I know, but I wanted to like have a more inclusive conversation first before jumping into the deep end. But you're going right into it. So I had to follow. I'm happy enough just sitting this one out because I got pizza. I should have eaten something. I would share, but it's not going to fit into the... I've got a grill in front of the microphone. It's not going to fit in there.

This would be a great time for a stuffed sl like like sloth hand prop to like stick up from the bottom of Pat's camera. Well I mean I got this thing. Try it with the comic dog style. There you go. But like this I mean he's he's not doing much today. Just like a shaking kind of muppet hand. Alright Lily what you said you had a wider conversation you wanted to try.

No no no, no I just I was gonna get to the fighting game stuff later is all I meant. I was good. That's all but but that's okay because I Did have I mean what we can talk about? The other part of this which is to X KO in a little bit But I did have some thoughts about like with mark of the wolves and one god city of the world Hey, I'm gonna stop you there for a second. How often do you botch that cuz I botch it every single time I'm still saying Garo. I still say Garo like I mean it's good mark of the sorry city of the wharves like yeah every

Yeah, I've talked about that game because it's been 20 plus years. You know, it's just it's just baked in at this point when I say Garo though I think most of the time people know what I'm talking about, because in most cases you're not talking about the game from yonder. But yeah, I don't think it feels bad, I think it feels great. I think it's a lot of fun, and I think it's a very nice, I'm glad that this kind of game exists in a time when fighters are fairly modern and leaning in towards the new things the genre can do. I do like the idea of building something that has a backbone that's structurally traditional but still has some flair to it, you know, and

Of course, it's also just satisfying to like see these characters after all this time again And you know, there's a part of that like the nostalgia value there too Yeah, it's bummer about the kid though the controller issue you're describing there I mean I like again I do I do feel like that is obviously me but I do feel the games a little bloated with buttons I do feel like that is obviously me, but I do feel the games a little bloated with buttons I mean, it's yeah, they added a fifth one a lot of games are six button games these days So it doesn't and I don't feel like it's that big. So here's the thing. I don't think that that is a five button game Because exes are so important that feels like a seven button game So I also think this is where arcade stick usage comes into play where it's like, you know, if you're playing Street

Fighter six, you have drive impact on one L two button on your L one and wherever you set it. And then you have your parry over there as well. But you're using the shortcuts for those, right? So this is a game where you can use the five to do everything you need to. You can do breaks or faints or EXs, whatever you need with just those five.

So if you're playing with stick, you're usually combining the two. And you're only going to use those extras if you are having a hard time not combining them or so. But I think this is more or less a... You're the first person I've heard mentioning this as an issue. And I do think that like, if you... It's also, again, something that can work if you're on a stick or so. You don't know that many people with tiny child's hands. No, but I mean, there are solutions to this issue, I think. But overall, that part aside, yeah,

taking a look at what the game has, the things that stand out to me the most that are worth talking about is the fact that you can edit colors on your characters is so great. And basically... Except for that one guy. So, well, yeah, no. Because what if you put him in the wrong soccer uniform?

What if you put him in the wrong footy uniform? Oh, that would be wrong to do. That would be terrible. No, so basically, Casey, for a long time, in a fighting game, you'd have a bunch of different colors available, and then there were a couple that came along back in the day like Capcom versus SNK is one of them, where you could go in and edit the characters to be whatever costume colors you wanted. In fact, I want to say that there was a moment in Japan where there

was a competition and somebody made Cammie's outfit like all flesh-colored in the arcades back in the day or in a console like tournament back in the day and Capcom was like, uh-oh, we didn't expect this. That's no, that uh-oh. You know, and having a naked looking sprite jumping around was a problem. So they might have been like, OK, we're never doing that again, you know, because of I think it was, yeah, Aru and the Daigo was telling the story some time ago. But anyway, that was a there was a moment with that. But like SNK, you know, the the Terry Bogard games have always had these little willingness to be like, yeah, go in, make your own outfit, color, costume, etc.

I remember you could do it in KOF XI, for example. It's great. It's great, yeah. And KOF XI in particular, or KOF XIII that came out afterwards, because the sprites in that game were so beautiful and they had a whole new lighting system, they could even like in a lot of cases, they would it would be like almost like a Photoshop color swatch, where it'd be like, okay, anywhere that is read on my Shiranui, you can click on that and turn it blue. But in that game in KOF 13, you could even go like, no, no, no, just the pants, I just want the pants to be one

color, just the shirt to be another. And it was like very, very comprehensive. It was really awesome for like a color editor in a game. So yeah, now a lot of games like sell you colors and kind of have it as a microtransaction to be like, or something unlockable in some cases to be like, here's the different outfits and things like that. And in this case, there is going to be like, here's the different outfits and things like that.

And in this case, there is going to be, it seems like, different overall outfits for the characters, but you can just jump into the color editor and make very top to bottom customized looks. And so when you go online, you're fighting against everyone's unique versions of their characters, you know? You know what else? You're going online to fight Wooly? Yeah. You're going online into the only fighting game I've ever seen in my life that instead of giving you like a placement match just goes, hey, are you good at the game or not? And you just get to pick where you're starting matchmaking?

Yeah, yeah, it says like are you... And so you're fighting like a hundred people in a row that are like fucking professionals? That are like I'm just a little baby. I'm just a little little newcomer. I don't know how to play I mean starting starting yourself out low while like Knowing a lot is is nuts. I mean, that's crazy I know they have built a smurf option into their fighting game. It is absolutely unbelievable I think I think there is the acceleration system though. We're like, you know a bunch of wins against much higher ranking things

At a lower account clearly shows that you don't belong here and we're gonna shove you out as quickly as possible, you know If you are in any of the lower ranks and you clearly beat people an entire tier above you, it's like, all right, just take the points and get out. But yeah, I think there's been one or two other games that have done that as well, where it's been like, hey, where would you like to start? Or do you think you're a beginner? Do you think you're intermediate or advanced? And then from that point, there's still a whole bunch of way to go, because the highest you can pick, I think, is the end of grade C. And then you go all the way up to S and beyond. But anyway, but colors are really cool seeing everyone coming in with their different looks right off the bat. And yeah, I took my time.

I took Kane and I made a little Dante and Virgil, you know, blue and red jacket. I made a an Edgeworth colored, you know, like out for it for the character as well. Like I went in there and had some fun with those colors and I made a little Jojo, you know, color palette as well. Like I went in there and had some fun with those colors and I made a little Jojo, you know, color palette as well. So I like that you get that option on cosmetics right off the bat. And there's also I guess like it's not quite Tekken level cowboy hat and floating bear and shotgun coming out level of goofiness. You know, it's kind of just like it's still the outfit, but you're doing what you want

with it. Yeah. And their season pass is also incredible, which is there's no season pass. You just characters will come out. Everything for the first season is all included. Like that's great. And the full game plus season pass is cheaper than all other base game fighting games as well. Alright, so smart move on that.

I think as well the fact that the game includes a whole lot of music from every previous entry in the Fatal Fury franchise is great because I've, you know, like listened to and heard some of the new music and stuff and I'm enjoying it, but I definitely am like, oh man, I want to hear some old Mark of the Wolves. And it's weird too in a way because I feel bad almost replacing the new songs because I'm like, I'm not even giving them a chance to fully sink in, you know, because I'm so attached to the music from super long ago that I'm just shoving that in as part of the replacement OST. But it's almost like with when Smash Brothers kind of allowed you to do that. You know, you go like, all right, every stage, you can have a rotation of,

you know, five plus tracks on random. So if you go to the the wrestling ring, you could choose the old wrestling ring theme or the new one. You know, I just put that on like full random of the whole every track every time every single track has an equal amount of chance showing up in allows it okay yeah I specifically chose to make it so that the stages for the characters are like the alternating versions of those themes, you know Yeah, so there's there's that part as well

There's a couple bits with like story mode. I don't know if anyone has seen it. I mean what spoilers for If you're I mean the embargo literally was like hey be careful about spoilers. Okay, like it's a fucking fighting game. What are you? Yeah? Okay? Well, there's a Billy Kane is truly the goat of this of this world Billy Kane is awesome And I'm glad that Billy Kane is is around and important and being cool because I always liked him even from the beginning Didn't realize he was shaving his head being cool because I always liked him even from the beginning. I didn't realize he was shaving his head. Like his hair grew back. Yeah, but he had it under the bandana.

Oh, I thought he was just bald as shit the whole time. No, no, no. He just had a British bandana on. Oh, that was it. You know. I thought it was bald. Yeah, that stuff's pretty dope as well. So anyway, I think this is going to be a game that kind of is,

in the same way that Samurai Showdown existed, a little off to the side or so, I think this is something that will be around as an alternate main stage fighter that can exist. And I think they did a really good job. I'm not going to go too, too long and hard into the amazing stuff the game is doing defensively, but they came up with some brilliant, brilliant stuff. Suffice to say that the just defending feels really fun to do when you get good at blocking at the last minute. And then they even put in, they put in parries. Like you can tap forward at the last second on a multi-hitting move to basically do a third strike parry. And you can get all the excitement

of like what you could do in a game like third strike, you know, the legendary evil woman 37 type of thing. You can, that's all possible in the way this game has been set up. And furthermore, it makes it so that like, it's the opposite of kind of what tech N8 was recently doing with its busted patches where offense was just, you know, like the name of the game. In this case, if you're really good defensively

and you can read your opponent, you can do amazing sick stuff that's gonna look stylish as hell. I'm glad that they they've made the game you know all of that and boy oh boy there is Ronaldo yeah so Casey are you up to date on the Ronaldo in the no Fatal Fury situation? Nope. No idea about it. This is news to me. If it's fighting game stuff that is like in the last 20 years maybe, I'm completely out

of tune except for maybe Mortal Kombat. So I freaking loved fighting games back in the PS1 era. That was where I was a big fan of. I'm in Ireland. Yeah. Okay so out there y'all like your football. Footy even even I am aware of it does exist not it exists all right the controversy about the inclusion of a very famous soccer player into the fatal fury game city of the wharves is that he is an admitted rapist in your fighting game it's Jesus it's not good it's fucking horrendous and allegedly whatever but it's like allegedly admitted baby legal allegedly I've said it to my lawyer directly and then it was thrown out of conversation

without money was exchanging hands and it's fucking garbage is what it is and so here's my question but it's also a famous it's also famous sports player you do and so that is something that comes in and just tarnishes this game that has been very highly anticipated for 20 years now as a sequel to something from 2000 and yeah it's just a garbage element of this whole thing. So I have a question about this. I have been told that the soccer rape man on the roster is actually a really strong character.

Is that true? He's a very strong character. He can kick the soccer ball. So, you know, so you're saying he can kick the soccer ball in a way that makes him particularly hard to defend against. Yes. So what you're saying is that this is like the worst possible scenario for like, I don't know, a tournament setting where you're going to see this dude a lot on the screen at a major tournament. I mean, look, Reggie and I have already said a couple times on stream that it's just like,

yeah, good luck for commentary on this is going to be wild. It's going to be exciting. It's going to be absolutely batshit. And this player character that would not be allowed to attend the tournament 100% 100% I mean the the the literally the the level of like oh no what if the character is someone you see very very often and it's not just some dumb addition furthermore because it's not DLC it's not like you can just be like oh yeah don't include and it's not just some dumb addition. Furthermore, because it's not DLC, it's not like you can just be like,

oh yeah, just don't include it in there. You just not download it. It's in the base roster. So that's fucking garbage as well. So no, and so to the end of all of this, to be honest. Just the soft, oh no. Oh man. So the kind of the bottom line on all this

and when we first brought it up as well and stuff where people were, if for anyone that was just like, yo, that's, I'm out, I fucking hate that. It's like, absolutely, completely, totally, I get it. That is perfectly acceptable as a reason to be like, I fucking don't want to play that, that feels bad. I have my controller issues and that's what put me off, but I have no desire to fight for this game with that dude in it

That's always gonna some of my like willingness to go. Yeah, I'll push past it Yeah As someone who is a very big fan of the fucking franchise With a tattoo of the circuit board of the previous entry of the game on my arm I am I am someone who has always wanted and been waiting for this goddamn game for such a long time. And I'm happy that it is not a franchise that has gotten ignored and deleted, but the fact that you have to monkey's paw it back into existence with this part of it, and it's just never going gonna be not a part of it.

It just sucks because I'm like, this is the first time we've ever had this in this genre in a way. Absolutely. And then the idea of overall of being like, well, guest characters as a whole now, just everyone needs to just chill on real life people perhaps getting put into games because of exactly this type of dog shit. I would like to apologize to Tekken for being so mean about them putting in the Walking Dead character in to Tekken.

In hindsight, you know what? That was great. And at the end of the day, that is Negan, the character, not the actor, the human being. Right? You can, there's always, you know, that bit. Or there's even characters like, you know, the, I forgot her name, but in King of Fighters 14, there was the eyeball idol.

Oh, that was like a VTuber or somebody? Not a VTuber, but a real J-idol that like has concerts and stuff. And like, it's a character inspireduber or somebody? Not a VTuber, but a real J-idle that has concerts and stuff. It's a character inspired by her. And there's a couple other things like that as well over the years. Here's someone inspired directly by this person. Or in some cases, it'll be basically

an alter reality version of them or be voiced by them or so. Sylvie, yeah, there you go. That's the name. And you still get a bit of that distance or so. Sylvie, yeah, there you go, that's the name. And you still get a bit of that distance or so. What's kind of interesting is seeing how everything with the other guest character, Salvatore Ganacci, people are like, yo, this guy is goofy and fun and he actually likes the franchise and stuff. Yeah, his character seems really stupid in a goofy way.

Yeah, and that was one of those bits were like his animation looked really silly, too But it was like oh well that's on purpose there from the jump You could see that he's doing the animations that are meant to look silly And then if you go look further, they're like oh This is all the way he moves in the music videos and everything so it feels like people are like okay This goofball kind of DJs funny man you know they're they, they're kind of turning the corner on that to some degree and at least the guy likes the franchise and has something

to do with it in a way. But it still doesn't change the fact that it's like, yeah, but both of these inclusions are basically because it was prescripted from Saudi Arabia top down. I saw a great thread that was like, which is the worst fighting game character Cristiano Ronaldo or Yoda from Soul Calibur? And it was like oh man what a shitty conversation to have You know it was in Soul Calibur So that was in Soul Calibur 4 and he's which right up ruined that game It was a crazy because you could not hit him because Yoda was too small to be hit

It was like odd job in GoldenEye on the N64. Oh my god. It was terrible. It was terrible. But, but the fact that Yoda is, and a Star Wars character, a Star Wars character being in a Soul Calibur game was goofy as hell and we're like, this doesn't fit at all. What the hell are we doing? But now, like, you don't feel a part of your soul die

with the inclusion of Yoda in Soul Calibur. So I think, I think we're gonna say that Yoda's fine, actually, in retrospect. I apologize to you, Yoda, you weren't as bad as it could get. Yeah. I'm a fan of the guest characters in the Mortal Kombat series because I don't know, not exactly everybody's favorite fighting game series, but since I was a kid, Mortal Kombat has been mine. I freaking love the 11 you got you got Robo cop this is so and he fits right in

You've it Casey. I want to say that you have done an us an excellent service by like kind of allowing us to talk about our little fighting game toys and Then when you see because you're not super familiar with the genre and they're like hey what what game do you actually like to play? Mortal Kombat Also Also the thing about Mortal Kombat's guest characters is that there's a thematic kind of connection in that they're all Parts of that B movie were willing to

cross over with each other like they had spawn in us yeah right they got they got they got freaking spot and they got Keith David to voice him as well like yeah brilliant old old we loved that spawn cartoons show old movies with like you got T 1000 and you got Predator, and you've got Alien, and you've got Conan. I can see a movie in which the T-1000 fought the Alien, like Fox could have done that way back in the day. I bet you there's a comic book of it already existing, right?

There's a Robocop versus the Terminator Super Nintendo game. There's been Alien versus Predator a million times, obviously. I mean, Spawn vs Batman vs Alien was a thing at a point. Oh yeah, I read that. All of these franchises are super willing... And Judge Dredd vs Aliens happened at some point, unless I'm misremembering. Yeah. No, I think it did. I think you're right.

These crossover old movie character Creatures and characters have all have that willingness to like show up in things and like yeah MK did grab all the right people for that, you know and then like now they also did they went on they grabbed Omni man and Which we call it homeland so yeah That makes sense because they made fucking injustice which had evil Superman. So you might as well throw the other evil Superman into the other fighting game. And also they're like super peak violent, horrible, you know, people. So it's like great.

That fits into this setting too. You know, no, they did a good job picking out their guests over the franchise years for sure. And recently, we got to switch off fighting games. No, they did a good job picking out their guests over the franchise years for sure and recently We got to switch off fighting games. We do in an hour. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No for sure So so anyway, that's what's going on but as a fighting game City of the Wolves is a good fighting game and it is it is a fun to play one and as a product of

international capital it is play one and as a product of international capital it is new emotions new emotions are being felt by everybody where this is the world this is the world we are now living in yeah the the whole bit and I you know anyway the whole the whole bit about like we we all know, you know, you're using the phones made from horrible conditions. Oh, we can't get into this. No, we can't. And I'm not about to.

I am not about to. But I am just saying like, but you know, that feeling is always like, right? And then there's the like what percentage of the Saudi Arabia own of this company? It's like, oh, it's 96%. Okay. And then you go and look at the list and you go see like oh how much of Capcom do they own? Oh, that's too much. We just said we can't get into this right now. You're getting into it. It's one sentence I'm saying one sentence which is to say that like it continues to feel bad and gets worse over time

And I just know that like this is a new thing, but I know it's going to continue Fucking careening and getting worse as we go. Just go play old fighting games under a bridge. It'll look like a fighting game stage. Fightcade under a bridge can never be stopped. Okay, that aside, there's a couple other things, but Casey, how was your week? What did you get up to? What have you played?

What's going on with you? My week was wonderful. I went I went to Went to Dublin at the weekend to see the PlayStation concert Oh, yeah, which was freaking nice freaking awesome. Cool. Okay so they like if you if you're not not aware they had they put on this amazing show that Played a lot of music from from, you know, various PlayStation IPs like God of War and Horizon and Last of Us and Ghost of Tsushima and I didn't know at the time but it was like this was the first

the first date on the entire tour and So I was like one of the first people to see it. It was cool as heck. And orchestra, like a lot of great orchestration. There was very talented musicians. Like they got at the Taiko drums for doing Ghost of Tsushima stuff. So like it was real hecking good.

I enjoyed that a lot. They did one from Bloodborne. Not that old, no. Oh, they know Vibrib and the Symphony? No, they did Astro Bot. I was about to say, did they hit Astro Bot? Cause that's what I wanted to know. They did. Yeah.

I am Astro Bot. Astro Bot. Astro Bot. It's great. I did not know that there were PlayStation concerts happening, genuinely. Yeah, this was just this year. Like really talented musicians, I was very impressed. Had an amazing time.

Oh, it's in Europe. Really good. That's why I don't know about it. So, you know, the Final Fantasy concerts have been doing their thing here in North America for a while and it seems like the the way they they kind of set the things up as they go to a city, they get the local orchestra, they practice and then they perform. So, that's how they kind of

like the touring concert is not quite a whole orchestra themselves traveling around, you know? Right. But like, yeah, an opportunity to catch some video game music live is always awesome. That's super cool. Was it so it was just it was all like PlayStation first party stuff. And was there anything like third party that happened to, you know, No, I think it's all first party. Okay you had like you know stuff from Uncharted as well and like that one one one song from Bloodborne which was really oh nice they remembered they did oh I was I was very happy was there a little the the little big planet theme that did that the sack boy pop up at any point?

No, no, they're dead. No gravity rush either No, really the music and gravity is excellent Hmm. Yeah, it's just it was just like no knock either. They didn't they were necklace. Okay Well, well then blood-borne is the crumb for people like us then You get a crumb Cool How'd you play anything cool this past week or two weeks or what have you oh? God, I've been playing so many cool games. It's this this month this month alone has been absolutely

100% This month alone has been absolutely, 100%, like I cannot hold all these watermelons or lemons or whatever the meme is, I can't hold all of these. It's limes? Is it limes? Oh, I'm thinking of- I can't eat all of these pancakes. I'm thinking of pots, I can't put all these pots away. I'm thinking of that stock photo

of a guy dropping a bunch of lemons or limes. Okay. I'm just constantly, all of the games are falling on top of me. I've been playing Look Outside, which I know Pat has played. I did play Look Outside. That is so, that might be my game of the year.

It. And just bought it. So I saw you say that, right? Yeah. And I went, that right yeah and I went that's fucking ridiculous that's silly mm-hmm and then I played look outside and I was like I don't think it's my game of the year but like mmm like I could listen to somebody argue that it could be that that kind of place in my mind yeah I picked it up in the impression the wall it was recommended to me as a like fear and hunger like you

know experience in a smaller setting so I spoke with the I spoke with the the the writer on it Frankie C Francis Cologne I don't know if Frankie sees his name. He's the artist as well. Frankie Smile Show? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was like, I was chatting with him about the writing and what to expect, and I did not know that it is made by tons of the people who worked on Barclay's Shut Up and Jam Guide. And I was like, what? And it's like, okay, Francis Cologne was the Barclay 2 artist and C Boyardee did all of the music and a lot of the writing for Look Outside. And then one of the other writers is the guy who wrote Katana Zero.

So like, this is star studded. Wow. So I don't know Fear and Hunger, right? I don't know anything about it other than it's mean and that if you play it on stream, you got to mod it so that there's less dicks. I mean, I'm playing cyberpunk right now. So, you know, but what I can tell you is that it on my interpretation, would it be is that res undertale took from Earthbound like all those wholesome vibes look outside takes like the nightmare shit.

Look outside takes like the nightmare shit. So the RPG element I guess that I'm curious about is, because I've seen it compared to Fear and Hunger, but one of the main things with Fear and Hunger is that like you die in two seconds like on a random encounter. I reloaded many saves in my time with Look Outside. Okay. I had to restart Look Outside because it turns out, I got to the first floor and I was having

a really, really tough time with it. It turned out I'd missed a whole load of stuff that was like somebody came to the door and I didn't answer it, but partly I could've got a cool maniac friend to come and stay with me and be in the party and now we're going on a little adventure and having fun murdering horrible things and making horrible friends. I love this.

It's amazing. It's really incredible. It is also very stressful. I was going to say, is it very hard on top of that by default? Yes. Okay. Is it saving? stressful. I was gonna say is it very hard on top of that by default or is it okay? Is it saving? So like as a really good example so think of like an RPG maker style like RPG with like first-person battles kind of thing like an SMT thing but like one of the first things that happened is I picked up a baseball bat

yeah baseball bat will help increase my attack and then all of the special moves on the bat like that would use your MP equivalent are Does way more damage increases the likelihood of the weapon breaking? And then in the middle of the fight my weapon just like snapped in half And then I was left with my fists and okay wasn't ready, and I fucking died. Yeah, okay, okay? Nice There's also a... Sorry, go ahead. I was gonna say, something else I was playing recently,

there's a real great game for Seco's, called the Tower of Calamonvo. What is that? It is super old school, kind of Diablo 1 influence. How do you spell that? How did I write that? Yeah. Oh, there it is.

Tower of Calamity. Yeah. Calamity is so cool. Oh my God, this looks just like Diablo 1. K-A-L-E, Monvo. Okay. Oh, this is for sickos, isn't it? Yeah. And there is a demo. would I would I would I would tell people try the demo because it's a game

That has quite a bit of rough edges it is gloriously archaic, I think that's how how I described us and Like it's it there is no controller support You're playing mouse and keyboard Like, there is no controller support. No, no, you can't have those modern conveniences. Is it for sickos leaning on the window going, yes, yes! Yeah, absolutely, that's the sicko, yeah! Yeah, okay.

Yeah, if you crave like a very, very old school kind of action RPG dungeon crawlery thingy, this game is super, super good. Would you say that this game is operating under the logic that Diablo 2 was too streamlined? Yes. Okay, all right. Oh, that answers so many questions. Pat, as a person who has made the mistake

of Diablo-like identification in the past, I would like to ask a question. Yeah, go for it. If I see two orbs of different colors on the HUD at the bottom left or the right... So that is the number one signifier of a Diablo-like. Okay. Yeah, is the two orbs... Got it. In there. Because those games are about a meat grinding they're like

pre vampire survivors okay like meat grind the orbs speaking of vampire survivors have either of you played halls of torment I have played halls of torment it didn't really do it for me oh I thought I thought it was it was a nice like remix of the of the vampire survivors like flavor. Yeah, the Diablo like visuals were pretty cool. And the the unlocking and progression were pretty fun. Um, I think I still prefer vampire survivors as a whole, but I'd say this was the one I'd spent the most time with

as a secondary, you know? Some of them made the mistake of putting too much control in your hands and asking you to do more than just walk. And I see that as a downside. I'm like, no, no, no, no. I'm just here to walk. But they want me to aim, and I'm like, I don't wanna aim. No, no, I'm not here for that.

Which was a 30 minutes till dawn? Yes. Yes, that's the one I'm thinking of. It's excellent, it's a great game. Yep. It's good, yeah. But I don't wanna aim the game. But it requires aiming. I aim the gun. The holo cure one as well does require some aiming,

or it has the option, I believe, that that's on but I think you can turn it off Yeah, yeah, keep it keep it simple make it all about the stick Yeah, what else have I been playing lately Gotta got a game in my inbox Coupled last week called smomooshy Come Home. That one's really neat. It's a little 3D platformer. Kind of reminded me of a short hike, if you've ever played that.

Oh, I don't know what that is. Oh, short hike is really, really lovely. It's very like, you play a little bird who's climbing up a mountain to get good signal on his mobile phone. Oh right, I had this on my wish list but I never got around to it. It'll take you an hour, hour and a half tops. It is a very short hike. Very, very beautiful game. Really love it. You collect feathers to increase your stamina. It's just really nice. Cosy core? Something like that. It looks like a Playstation game. Yeah, Smooshie comes

home kind of reminds me of that. It's a little bigger, but it's that kind of a game. It's just nice. It's just a nice time. And of course, Blueprints as well. Yes. I spoke at length about Blueprints. Let me ask you, have you felt like the RNG is too mean in Blueprints. Let me ask you, have you felt like the RNG is too mean in blueprints? Yeah, but I haven't gotten that far into it yet. I actually have a question about that, Casey. When you're going through a lot of indies, what's your personal checkpoint for progress or at least getting an impression of it?

A lot of games obviously have their onboarding early part. Do you kind of like, you know, a lot of games obviously have like their onboarding kind of early part and then you kind of take, then it's variable as to like when it gets to the meet or so. But like to come to cover a lot of stuff in a short period of time, like yeah, how do you approach that? Well, a lot of indie games are quite short. So that's helpful. That can be very very

helpful and it just depends on where along the way I vibe with it. Another game that I was playing, I was streaming last night a game called Rosewater which is a very old-school point-and-click adventure. Fully voice acted, kind of old LucasAr kind of style thing, but they got these nice rotoscoped animations. And if you've ever watched the show, it's beautiful. It is absolutely beautiful. The moment that it kind of clicked with me, like it's this kind of like steampunk Western kind of vibe to us and it's reminded me a bit of did anybody here ever see the adventures of Briscoe County Jr. with Bruce Campbell?

And he's this kind of science fantasy Western setting. No, no. What? Oh, oh my god did it is amazing and like the the villain in it I think was a Billy Drago play dumb so it's like holy crap. This is such a good example of every single conversation I have ever had with you Casey. Hey Casey what's up? Hey here's this thing you never heard of that you're gonna add to your wishlist. Thank you, Casey

I'm sorry about rosewater until you said it now Yeah, the rotoscoping looks incredible. That's really good. Yeah, I love the other part the guy who voiced Arthur Morgan is in that as well Oh, really nice. Okay There's something fun about the old like Lucas style like point- point and click and scum VM games basically, where it's not just like the detail of the rotoscope moments, but it's also like standing around and having conversations where people are kind of animating a little too much and things are a little too exaggerated. It's like the rotoscoped actor decided to dial up the

exact the the physical you know comedy to like 11 specifically to create like I'm tumbling off a roof but my limbs are everywhere as I'm doing it you know it's cuz they're acting man this looks great yeah so, so that's a game specifically I'm thinking like the onboarding period. What clicked with me was, you get the start, the first act you're in this town of Rosewater and then after that first act you get all your gang together, you get Posse, the main mystery is uncovered, there's a treasure hunt you're going to go on, and you get this steampunk wagon and you're going off on the trail. And all along the way you're getting all these little mini adventures kind of like mini adventures and little mini mysteries

and things like that. And it's like, all right, this is really, this part of the game, this is really doing good for me because it feels like, yeah, it's kind of like an episodic kind of TV show kind of vibe to it. And it's like, I'm having a little kind of like this character centric episode this time and then next time it's a much bigger mystery or you know it's got such a great vibe to it. I love it. Okay. Is it point and click in gameplay as well or just the aesthetic? Yeah.

Okay. It's all point and click. Gotcha. Right on. So I've yet to finish that one. Right on. I've yet to finish that one. I was gonna wait until I finished it, add it to my Steam Curator page and give it the official thumbs up saying, hey, check this out. Got so far into it last night. I was playing for like five hours and I was like, I need to go to bed,

I need to go to bed. So it got very late. So I feel like when it comes to like keeping on top of indies and things like that, I remember the exact- It's impossible, there's too many. Well, I remember the exact moment. There's way too many.

The exact moment when I felt like I'm drowning, and I just will never be able to keep up, and it was when Humble Bundle started. Yeah. Oh, that's horrible. That was the beginning. I have to stop buying bundles. Yep. Because you're like, these are great.

There's 12 of them. They cost like very little. That's insanely affordable. I will play four and the others will just be in my library and it's like not their fault. I have like games that I have reached out to publishers to get codes for, gotten the code, can't wait to play this and that was like 18 months ago. Yeah, it's.

Yeah, but it's tough. There's a return to Metroidvania on Humblebunnel. Oh, I love Metroidvania. I mean, so like a friend of mine who was, you know, working on a game was just kind of describing for me like, you know, when he looked into like the metrics on like, yeah, the amount of releases and the things that come out and basically, like, you know, the, the, the, it's the, you know, like the back in the day with Wii when there was like the shovelware days, right? Yes. Where you're just like, oh my God, this eShop is gonna be filled with like,

God knows what track. But then every once in a while you'd be like, oh, look at this Muscle March, what is that? You know, and then that'll be like a weird thing that stands out and be as a quirky gold mine. But with Steam, like there is multiple great games that you personally would love that fit your own thing that come out every single day and there's just no either no marketing or no word of mouth or nothing to get it in your

face but it's just and tomorrow there will be another two or three and it's just constant you know it yeah it doesn't it doesn't stop today oldies just came out and I haven't picked that one up yet because I want to finish Rosewater before I get that. Old Skies, from the guys made on Avowed, it's another point and click. That just came out today. Either of you played on Avowed? No, ma'am. No. Really hecking good. First like old school point and click adventure. Great voice acting. Just keep going on the wishlist and just adding more shit. Oh, yeah. Well, sorry.

Well, this looks like a like noir version of the game you were just describing, actually. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's really wonderful though. Some really great voice acting in that one as well. And that's one of the games that actually got me into the genre in the first place. I see. Yeah, so I do genuinely apologize.

If your wish list is getting, I'm I just in Piling more stuff on the pile, but like but that's better than the opposite where like I remember being a kid and Being like oh man. I hope a good game comes out this year and part of that was like way less games came out But also it's like if EGM didn't point it at me, it might as well have not existed. Yeah, friends at school might bring it up or sometimes I'd go see something new on the shelf at a rental store, you know, like I'd go to the video store and you'd catch

it that way or so. And you know what too? I will say that like for the beginning of the Xbox 360 era, when Xbox Live Arcade was happening, so I used to work in QA, and I feel like everyone back then would like all, everyone tried to keep up with like the Xbox Live Arcade releases at first. You know, you were grabbing a little bit of like

almost every new thing. And then at a certain point, it's like, oh no no you can't grab every single one of these things they're certainly even just keeping up with like what catches your attention you know yeah like this this month has been positively and just oh it's untenable like untenable entirely like well you and I were chatting about it just briefly but like French Lost Odyssey is out today. I'm gonna be streaming it later today. I'm gonna be streaming it myself as well.

I'm looking forward to that a lot. We played the preview versions and that preview version was excellent and then all subsequent reviews of the full game have been excellent. I feel like in my brain there's some day, there's that potential like maybe one day we will like, there will be a time where I'm stuck in a cabin but I have internet. Yeah, that's going to be...

This is my hoard for when it happens. That's going to be when you're in a nursing home. Ah, ah, yes, okay, there we go. Yep, that'll do it. And in between the nurse helping change your poopy diaper, you'll be like, do you know about Mark of the Wolves? And then they'll pretend to play it with you. Another one that came out, White Knuckle.

Oh, fuck, I never heard of a single one of these., White Knuckle. Oh, fuck. I've never heard of a single one of these. Oh, God, yeah. Okay, sorry. I'm sorry. No, no, no, no, it's good. It looks so good, though. Oh!

I need to play this. I mean, just a list. How the fuck? This is one of those, like, okay, go back and listen to this list afterwards. Oh, it's being published by Dread XP? Okay. Whoa, interesting art style. Yeah, okay, 3D climbing, your hand is latching onto things. Full controller support apparently. Okay. Interesting.

Wait, it's a roguelike? It's a climbing game roguelike? Cool. Apparently so. Yeah. And it's interesting how like retro art style and things that are like reminiscent of earlier generations are more than just an aesthetic choice, but actually like a budgetary practicality, you know, as well. In a lot of cases, I love a lot of horror games. And I find like the retro to kind of retro aesthetic, it's more than I've personally, I find that it's more than just a nostalgic thing. In the term in terms of like, the lack of detail can often lend to your imagination filling in the blanks. I totally agree.

Yep. Yep. And I kind of like horror games that look too shiny and pristine and stuff. It doesn't do it for me the same way something creepy and grungy and grainy does. Like there's this amazing, it's not a strictly horror game, it's a first person shooter called Rot. And it kind of veers into, it kind of veers into horror after like, towards the end of the first episode.

And it gets super creepy. That's the brown Soviet shooter, right? Yes. Oh that game is absolute like chef's kiss amazing aesthetics because like whatever it's doing the guy who made it made his own custom engine for us and Whatever it's doing visually it looks like The shadows just all kind of light just drops off. It's like dark in a way that other games just are not. And it's creepy as hell.

I've heard a lot of good things about it. Oh, Krott? Okay. I did not know that. Oh, play it, play it, play it, play it, play it. It's amazing. Can I recommend it? There's a creepy horse in it as well.

I mean, like, I think, you know, like, obviously games like Crow Country, like, that relies on its art style, really, you know, to like pull off a lot of what it's doing besides the the the emoji parts. And yeah, a lot of the time you can also, you know, mess with the, the aesthetic as well and do interesting things, you know, like, it's not perfect, but for what it does, inscription is an awesome way to play with the visual style of things being a throwback. And then, you know, you kind of establish a look and the way the characters behave and then you change that up.

And yeah, there's, there's a whole lot to that as... But it's also like it's an elegant way to make it immersive but also again it's like you're not attempting to achieve reality with this and it's not too expensive. You can you know in a lot of cases go with something that like we enjoy the look of like really detailed nice pixel work or a good low poly model in more cases than something that is like approaching realistic but like it's still kind of like uncanny valley you know well one of the things that happen is so gene played and put out a review of expedition 33 today where he lavished

his praises but he pointed out something that I had like Unconsciously picked up, but I didn't know how to put it in the words which is expedition 33 like looks like a fucking 360 game Like it looks like an unreal engine 3 game With like the way that the the specific like broad shading of like greens and blues and reds are broad shading of like greens and blues and reds are. Okay, I just want nostalgic for the 360. I want lost Odyssey vibes like, yeah, no, that's not hitting me over the head. I want that. I want that badly right on.

Okay. I can't wait till we have this somebody is for games. Oh, give me that sweet chromatic aberration. Oh, remember when they put this shit in every game? Oh, yeah. I mean, brown shooters is already a thing in our brains. I feel like, well, you know, what are, like, we need to get far enough away from the generation to see what the flaws are in the things that are, like, the, we need to get far enough away from the generation to see what the flaws are in the things that are being attempted by its peak releases, right?

Oh, I got one for you. Oh man, remember when games used to cost too much? Oh look, they made these new ones cost too much also as a form of nostalgia. So somebody in the chat, I think that I think it slipped by me. Yeah, somebody mentioned tail concerto The developers thought have a new game coming out next month Fuga melodies of steel 3 The furry orphans for Furry orphan crushing machine, I believe was the game.

Have you ever played it? The first game is amazing. No, but I've heard a lot about it. And I bought it and I haven't touched it yet. But yeah, what I've heard of it and described in detail is pretty fucking incredible. So like, Fuga exists on the spectrum of like type of game that I would like to get through both of the front mission remakes and Valkyria Chronicles 1 and 4 first before I can get to Fuga 1. So there's like five games in the way.

Do you know what I would most compare it to is like Darkest Dungeon. It's like the... Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. I will transfer my interest over to you, Woolly. I love me some Dungeons. It's like a little linear kind of path kind of exploration. It's like...

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean the... Does the... Sorry. No, just everything about the... Well, certainly at least the Darkest Dungeon character loss, you know, parts of that, and Mecha as well as Right Up My Alley too.

Yeah, are there other elements that are similar that you're thinking of? Sorry about that. Not really. It's just, it's like, there's always tension to Fuga because it does have that mechanic that was rather controversial when it came out. I was like, no, I don't want to stick the orphan in the cannon. And you don't have to. It introduces the mechanic to you. I will, even if someone says in game,

you really don't have to do that. It's one of those things that a mechanic that's that's there as as a threat. Oh, OK. As such a good. You can do it. Well, like you don't have to. Like I unlocked child labor as like my first technology. Nice. It's important. The kids need to work the furnace with their tiny hands. Okay, so we're talking about like, you know, things that get like the current generation throwbacks. And, you know, obviously, yes, we didn't say it, but the quote that we bring up every time

is the, you know, whatever you find now, weird, ugly, uncomfortable and nasty about a new medium will surely become its signature. CD distortion, jitterness in digital video, the crap sound of 8-bit, etc. The thing that I'm realizing playing Cyberpunk 2077 right now that I want to see is a future game that harkens back to open world jank where you walk around the corner of a world and you see the NPCs T-pose populating, dropping out of, you know, spawning into existence. Like, the fact that the cops barely can track their way over to you when you like get a one star or two star thing. Open world jank is still a problem.

The Oblivion remaster came out yesterday. Uh-huh. And from what I've been seeing of it, it is an Unreal Engine wrapper on top of the old engine. Oh, yeah. So it looks really shiny and fancy, and it is like flying apart every time you interact with it. There we go. Okay, I mean, I'm describing a game that on purpose is making fun of these problems, but

it is hilarious that this is still doing that thing. I have played a lot of jank Polish and Eastern European shit, and I will tell you that it has to not be on purpose. Like, you can make a bad movie on purpose, and it's usually not as good as a bad movie by accident. Right, which is why when Tommy Wiseau says it was supposed to be like that, I'm like, I don't believe you. No, bro.

I don't believe you for shit, Tom. But like, j yes is accidental Casey are you familiar with the term euro jank as as coined by oh yes oh yeah yeah so that particular I can be a bit of a connoisseur of jank a jankank-a-sewer. Well, you should play Witcher 1. If you want some fucking jank shit, you should play Witcher 1. That is the most, that is the game that has been fixed the most

from its original release that is still massively fucked up. You know. Honestly, I recommend playing Witcher 1 without any mods or anything. Just just play it. Just go. Just go with it. Someone just yeah, just just go right in. Someone has has has a couple years ago, I, someone said something to me and I'm still thinking about it, which is I've been Picking my own LPs and games to play on stream and I've been eating too good Because I've I've received the same yeah. Yeah. Yeah comment because back in the day, you know with best friends

We used to suffer every now and then we would pick games to fuck with the others And now by choosing my own meals, I've been eating too good. And that you need to remember to wash the taste of something terrible out of your mouth. And you need to return to jank, return to the call of bad, so that you don't forget your roots. And I'm like, damn, do I truly need to drop, like, games I love and the cyber punks and

doing my Silent Hill return, or Dead Space exposure for the first time in order to go play some horrible asset flip, you know? Do I truly need to feel the real, the cold cold bitter wind to remember what it's like you should play? There's a it's a it's a very strange game someone in chat can help me it's called something like Hey, you want to play those games. Don't you oh yeah, what's the name of that? Let me check here. Someone in the chat, cause Vinny recommended it, but the name is really specific and weird. Okay.

Okay, somebody in the chat got it. It's called, yeah, you want those games, right? So here you go, now Let's see you clear them, and it is a mini game compilation of Like dozens if not hundreds of games based around fake ads from like tick-tock Yeah, oh That's great Here, I'll post the steam page. That's super good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Thank you. I love the sound of that. I Mean so like I mean to be fair like

Out of spite. I did just sit down and I Marathoned through Omicron the Nomad soul in its entirety So I have not the same man. I Did already did that shit years ago? So I have- That's not the same, man. I did- You already did that shit years ago. And then I, but I did it again.

And I was like, okay, so there was that, but I know there's a, there is something. Yeah, people are yelling, you're, you've gotten weak. There's a weakness inside of you that only bad games can strengthen. Do you want it? Do you want a really, a really cool cool game that is it was something for sickos Like me again, there's a game that came out this year called asylum that has been in

Development for like two decades nearly. It's the same developer as scratches right you remember If you remember Scratches, like this really weird, mist-like, kind of first-person point-and-click adventure. Okay. And I freaking loved it. And I couldn't finish it because of a game-breaking bug. Ah.

And I would still recommend it anyway because it is the... It is... It feels like a game from like 30 years ago. So it was announced in July of 2010 and it came out March of this year. Yeah, it's amazing. The voice acting is really great and like the the the character models are really really Really off-putting they're they're upsetting to look at they got that like that weird kind of turn-of-the-century early

early 3d model looking weird ass faces Are these and it's like- Am I seeing a pre-rendered mansion that you're navigating through? Like mists? Yeah. Okay. It's all- Yeah.

It's- There's nothing today that plays like that. I just- I loved it. Okay. It's flawed as hell, but it's one for the secos okay I'm here for the seco rec the sicko recommendations yeah yeah perfect no that was that's a lot of them in a very short period of time and I'm going to have to go back again and I've been making note and just adding things to my cart as you've been talking but that's a lot of cool shit.

I could keep going. Yeah, you really could. This would be a decent time to at least tell people like where to check you out and where to find you. I'm on Twitch, twitch.tv slash Casey explosion where I will be streaming some Claire Obscure Expedition 33 later on to you. Hell yeah, you're gonna stream it in French? No I don't think so.

Is that an option? Well, I mean, no, no, I mean with your voice. Oh, right. In French? Why? Why not? Why not? You can stream in French? really looking forward to that and I have a Steam curator page where I

stick all of the games that I recommend on there and one of the things that I find really neat about the whole Steam curator system is like it's it's Valve has let it just just just go to crap but it's actually a really really good functional feature so if you follow my curator page stuff that I recommend will start showing up on your steam homepage So you can get like games for sickos, okay? Okay, see I have like a really stupid question and this is extra stupid because I've followed you for years How do there are no stupid questions get to your Steam curator page? I can throw you the link.

Okay, yeah. Because I don't know how to get to that in Steam. It is not a stupid question. And in fact, it's a very, very... It's good of you to say so. When you're looking at the steam homepage I got this up here now and on the left side this like

Brows like categories right and There you go, oh my god, I can't believe I never saw that. I follow one curator. Nobody sees us. Casey Exposion. Okay, I did it. I did it at some point. You're not the only one to find where the hell are the curators. Most of them are not good but I think there are some really, really great ones and it makes some ones that put in the extra effort and do things right, makes them stand out a bit more. It's all the more important.

It's a great feature. Oh, you played Rainbreaker? Yeah, that was really good. It is? I was thinking about it. It's, I'll tell you, I'll tell you now, it's a very flawed little game. Because it feels like it was meant to come out in early access. And they just kind of finished it up and put out what they had. Oh, yeah. And before what it is, it's actually, it's really fun. And it's like 10 bucks or something like that. And it's priced accordingly, I thought.

But the music is really good. Some great visuals. It's very much cut from the same cloth as Hades. Like they know what they were doing there But like the moment moment gameplay is Really good. It's it's snappy and responsive. It's it's it's it's good shit but be prepared for a But be prepared for a much smaller, a much far smaller experience than what I think it could have been.

This should have been an early access game that was added on to over over years like Hades was. And it's like they just they kind of pushed this thing out and like I think I think I think that the publisher was was should have funded that for for for like a good stretch hey it could have it could have been a lot better than it was I have a I have a question speaking of games that they going to just push out whether or not they're ready or not that the publisher probably have should have funded it for more no matter how long it's been in development and should have released

early access. Hey, Wooly, did you play the Alpha Lab 2 for 2x KO this week? I sure did. I sure did. Yes. There you go. I was just gonna say that I think just as a sidebar, I think the Hades style development is like a really awesome way to Go about it if your studio can afford that if you can make that work, you know Cuz I mean they did a great job with it But Hades gets like a free pass to compare to other things because the first version of Hades and Hades 2 was better Than like half the games on Steam There's that right there's there's the quality of what they put out certainly

but and I think to the genre as well makes a difference to where like Hades has it has narrative and story and bits but like for the most part, the raw core run is what you're enjoying the most of. And every time you play it, you hear new lines of dialogue you've never heard before. So like it was the perfect genre for that type of development.

And you know, I mean, their previous game, Supergiant would do stuff that was just like, yeah, packed all in Bastion, Transistor, I mean, their previous game, Supergiant, would do stuff that was just like, yeah, packed all in, Bastion, Transistor, etc. But scaling up this way also seems to be like a way that, you know, you can start low and then as people are, as word of mouth spreads, you know, the 1.0 release has the best chance of being a big thing because people are already invested, you know, heavily. So, yeah, that was, that's a great one. because people are already invested heavily. So yeah, that's a great one. But yes, development takes long and sometimes

despite how awesome things are looking, boy, you gotta just get it out the door, ready or not. Casey, unfortunately, we're segueing back to a different fighting game, apologies. Oh, before you do, you've asked me where else to find. Oh, that's right. I completely forgot the YouTube.

I have a YouTube channel now, Casey Explosion on YouTube, and I have meant to have a new video out soon, but it hasn't happened yet because I'm still script-scrobbling on the script. But my top 12 games of 2024 video was out. Why 12? Why not? Because there were too many good games. Okay, well that's the right one. Do you know how long I was working on that script and trying to

like see which ones would make it. I had to not include a lot of stuff and had to cut out so many honorable mentions and it's still like three times as big as any other video that I've done before and also there was 12 months why not 12? Yeah Cool number three will not shock you mm-hmm Yes, right So I wanted to give a slight amount of background for 2x ko to Casey because she's not deep into the fight And I pits like we are can I take this as an opportunity to have a quick bio break? Absolutely back to you in like what one two minutes?

Yeah, I'll take one myself, and I'll take the dog out as well. He probably could use it sure thing Okay, all right BRB apologies for this no problem There we are let's take a quick we're back and once we're free from the tyranny of piss It is a cruel so did you hear the one about the pizza Did you hear the one about the pizza no Never mind, it's too cheesy. Oh See I was worried you were trying to connect to the subject that Pat mentioned with what you mentioned.

I'll kick her out of the show. That's terrible. Oh my God. I was... That's a lot. I'll take that. That's a lot better. Okay.

I need a sponsor to soothe my wounded spirit. Yeah, that'll swerve us off of the tyranny of piss, I believe your phrasing was. Yeah it was, yeah. Gotta make the rest of the chat, gotta make them piss. This week, the podcast is sponsored by boot.dev. Oh, man. I need this because I don't know how a computer works. I pretend like I do, but anyone who watches me start my stream muted knows I don't know how a computer actually works.

Okay. I don't know how a computer actually works. Okay, well if you need help figuring that out, that's probably... There's much lower end places to start, but this is... No, I'm gonna go straight to coding. Okay. Well, if you're trying to learn how to code, if you're trying to learn programming, if you're trying to learn start to finish Python, Golang, or SQL. The best ways to do that is to make sure that you can learn in a way where you're never bored and so that you stick with it long enough to reach your goals. And yeah, I am someone who has wanted to, you know, I've worked on lots of projects and I've

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Do you have the willpower to sit there and flip through this thick textbook and understand how to actually do it and how to do it well? No, is the answer. No, I'm terrible at it. It sucks. I've always struggled. But even at my hardest, when I tried to make characters in Mugen, the program your own fighting game engine, I struggled across the finish line with those. And if I had a service like boot.dev, maybe my dreams could have come true faster. All my fighting games could have come true. Yeah, probably actually. Yeah, no, absolutely. Because coding was a definite roadblock. Every time.

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You know team up together to do and to defeat enough code lessons to do enough damage to the boss The whole thing is set up in a really smart way with gamification As your your way of staying interested in and locking into it, and I know that that helps me a lot so Whoa, all right Hey and I know that that helps me a lot, so. Whoa, all right. Hey, there we go. Game of vacay, we just, we're cow mode now. That's cool.

Holy crap. That's gonna really, really, can use a body. Holy cow was right there. Holy cow was right there. You're correct, we're too vulgar. But, but, but, but hey, so yes, boot.dev is in particular, you can go there to learn if you're whether it not just Python and go, but they've also got JavaScript, Git courses, Linux courses, memory management and see SQL databases, Docker and Kubernetes. That's the first time I've seen that. That's new to me.

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And yeah, if you use the code castle-super-beast, you'll get 25% off your entire first year if you choose the annual plan. Thank you very much, Boot.dev. Thanks Boot.dev. And this week, the podcast is sponsored by Turtle Beach. That's those good headphones, in particular having a high quality Turtle Beach headphone. For my setup, when we're streaming on the couch over there especially, I've gotten

a pair of those over the years that's been a go-to for playing games and having a good quality surround experience, but in particular, the Gen 3 Stealth 700 headset is very, very quality. It's got a battery that lasts an insane 80 hours as well. That's incredible. Plus, you've got the quick charge going with that. No crackly mics, nothing bad quality if you're using the internal mic. And I have mentioned before as well, the single greatest feature I've used on any headset has been the ability to connect to a device such as the Bluetooth on my console, on my

computer or whatever else, and then on my phone as well and then it will play and lower the volume so that you can hear both at the same time. So if you're playing a game and you're listening to that and then you take a call on your phone, it actively drops it down so that you can hear both simultaneously as you continue. That's incredible. I don't know how that works, but that seems cool. Love it. Listening to a podcast, playing something, whatever it is that you're doing. Because we all, I find like found time, I guess is the term for multitasking while listening

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gaming experience with Turtle Beach today. Thanks Turtle Beach. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Alright. Alright. Casey is the perfect guest for this as they relayed to me that the early while you were while you were still in the bathroom, Willie, that fighting games are an old time thing for them. You were telling me about how much you love Bloody Roar. Oh, awesome game. Yeah, Bloody Roar was like, there was a

PlayStation one era is where like my peak fighting game kind of era was big into Darkstalkers, rival schools. Yes. That game freaking slapped! Yeah! That was so good! It's about to get re-released on Steam actually after a long time.

They're finally putting out a collection with it. Super cool. No way! So wait, does that mean that like your default form is the sloth but then when you bloody roar So wait does that mean that like your your default form is? The sloth, but then when you bloody roar go beast mode it becomes a cow I Why not? Whatever you want so mid combo this level of fighting game background is

Perfect for the question that I have been wrestling with really hard every time I think talk or play about the Project L slash League of Legends fighting game 2XKO. Casey, if you were looking forward to a fighting game that had been in development for just under a decade, how many characters do you think should come out on the launch day of that game? 64. I love how every time, like Pat, your ability to load the questions up with all the toppings is unrivaled. The most loaded questions of all time. Yeah, here. Yeah. So, would you say that 10 is a weird number for that? Possibly. The way you were phrasing that, it was either going to be a really big number or a really

small number. Right. So, I probably overshot. So the Alpha Lab 2 was this weekend or whatever, right? And I played some of the Alpha Lab, I'm sure you did too, Woolly. Yep. Or 2XKO. And it's crazy to me how,

because Casey, the Alpha Lab for this, you know, essentially a free Alpha that you could sign up for and play, right? And my initial impressions were, hey, this is pretty cool, but there were only like six characters available because, you know, it's a test, right? And I'm like, oh, I can't wait to see how many more characters, like, oh, this roster's going to be really cool, I bet. And now...

Oh, wait. Now I know the skin. It's the League of Legends fighting game thingy? That's the one. That's the one. And so then they announced that the total roster at launch would be 10. Which is most people were expecting like... A lot more. 30.

Something like that. And it has completely changed every single way that I feel about this game entirely and because one of the things that I was worried about I played the alpha lab and I'm like all right let me sit down and play the alpha lab and I saw the same three characters in every single match I played for hours I saw Darius or Ari in every single match I played during the alpha lab for hours and It was like oh, this is going to be a bummer Yeah, so oh yeah, I was watching you play this the other one why did I blank on this one? Oh, you actually saw my stream of the I was actually watching your stream. Yeah, so well

It's not out yet. This just washed over my head completely. It just did not, nothing latched on. It is, it's not out yet, but it'll be coming out shortly. And it's been in development for a really long time. And yeah, as a League of Legends related property, it's had a really long time to develop and they've had, I guess, the ability to kind of... I think the goal with each of the games is kind of like,

whether it's this or Runeterra or Valorant and stuff, they always kind of are like, we want to make a big, big splash in the space of the genre that we're coming out in. If not, like, take it over, you know? Or at least land in those top three most discussed games, you know? And they certainly picked, you know,

the team that, like, has the ability to make a, like, really good fighting game that is, like, also being made in North America, you know, without necessarily going to, like, one of the Japanese developers that made, like, Guilty Gear or Capcom or something like that. But I think in like seeking like perfection out of the gameplay, which is very, very tight, and I have a lot of points on, you know, my impressions of the alpha from this weekend, it just took them so long to get the roster out that we're gonna probably, yeah, I think this first year variety is the number one problem that the

game has right now. And I think it's not just that the roster is small, Casey, it's they're all like really normal looking characters. They're all really, really standard. The guy you were, They're all really really standard The guy you were that was watching you were playing the other day and I was the plane as a guy who looked like a knockoff of Garrison from battle chasers. Oh, yeah Yeah, is that Yeah, absolutely cuz like League of Legends has a massive roster But the ones they've picked were all though are all from like the beginning of the game's lifecycle

And they picked all the normal right or human adjacent allow. We came later, right? I believe that what I was told some sauce, but It does I'm also reminded every time we talk about the lack of giant freak characters that we love, I'm always reminded of that Asia top 100 versus North America top 100 and how the Asian top 100 characters are all like the pretty human beings. They're all the pop stars, right? Everyone that is beautiful and young and hot is the most popular. So like North America is way more down

for the volley bears and blitzcranks, you know? But like that is a localized flavor. That being said though, oh, well just, character variety I'd say is yeah, number one thing with it as well, because the other problem that goes alongside character variety

is that in a game like this where it's team based, you're gonna see the more characters more often, because it's teams of two that you're fighting against, and if somebody on that team is really good as an assist or that jumps in to support you, that character is gonna be seen even more often because they have a really good utility that means that people are not just gonna pick two

that they love, they're gonna pick the one that's a great partner and the one they love. I'm seeing a future in which there's the three out of 10 top tier characters and the 2 good assists and now all of a sudden your 10 character roster is down to like 4. And this is kind of what happened with Marvel vs. Capcom and Dragon Ball and a lot of fast hyper fighters tend to have a similar thing where you're going to find, you're picking two characters that you're a fan of and maybe one that you don't care about,

but man, are they great as an assist to help you throw a beam out or do something that's great for your offense. And then of course, there was Marvel versus Capcom Infinite where they said, well, let's just put the the stones in place let's put the infinity gauntlet stones to replace a character pick you know and I think here this game kind of has something similar where the fuses are all like a very very unique way that your your team is affected and variety is gonna come more from fuses than from the cast yeah no, no one likes that. But that's not enough because looking at the game, you want to see

this giant source roster of hundreds of characters. It's coming from a place where the whole thing is, I want, I have, everyone's got a list, you know? And when you're kind of like... Every person who's interacted with League has a big list of like 50 characters they would like to see, and way too many people are like, how did zero of the people in my list make it onto this roster? You're getting prepared to be like, I guess I'll accept seeing five that I want and then

the remaining 50, you know, will show up later or something. I can't make even a full team of two characters with characters I like in the current roster. So that's the number one thing I'd say, the number one flaw right now that we feel for sure. And then at the same token, I feel like when you look at, okay, how much work is going into each character and like how is this taking so long? Jinx is the new character that was available and did you mess with her at all? No, I didn't.

She's incredible, right? She's a very, very sauced up, like, zoning character. She's really good. And it feels a lot of fun to use her tools together. She can, you can immediately see that, like, the way she plays is she's got her little gatling gun that you can shoot straight forward or you can, like, aim it upwards in, like, an arc that sweeps. She can send out little robot monkeys.

She can send out little flying drones and bouncing like, you know, biting traps. And then she has the ability to like shoot them to make them fly further forward towards you or like electrocute them and then they move in different patterns across the screen. And overall, the combining of like her little traps and your ability to shoot your guns and shoot your missiles and fill the screen with stuff is very, very like, there's a lot of freedom in like how you can play as her, you know, and then when you get really good, you can start to see like her combos involve very skillful juggling of your opponent with like

using your big rocket hammer to launch them into the air, throwing out a trap, shooting them, and then the trap is bouncing behind them to grab them back, and then you continue the combo. It looks really cool. She seems very well-built, you know, in the same way that, like, a lot of these characters, they think about a lot, and they make sure that each time a character comes out, they put a lot of work into it.

You can see that. And so I feel like the philosophy here is like a part of the reason why things are gonna take this long is because each time they build out a character, they're gonna make sure that they're very thorough and complete and have a whole lot going on with them. But I'm just like, I don't know if that the trade off is going to mean as much for general audiences?

Because as someone who likes fighting games, I love when a character feels like they have a very complete kit that works really well within itself. But are we trading off quantity and quality in a way that might hurt the game in the long run? So, Wully, I totally agree and understand everything that you say, and what's interesting is that somebody who used to agree with you and now no longer agrees with you is Tom Cannon, the lead developer of this game, because he just gave an interview a couple days ago about

how he feels about the roster going forward. Oh yeah? I have the quotes up here. And so he thinks that the quantity over quality is the road forward? I can say that we have champions that we're working on that you haven't seen yet. I'll tell you for me, a number that would feel better than 10, just my personal opinion, is around 24. I think that at 24 you're like, okay, now there's enough to keep me going and then we can add more and more but as what? Would be a good enough for me or rather a good starting point 24

Yeah, I don't know if he's saying they're gonna hit 24 by the end of the year So then we're so then we're no he's so he's agreeing with me then I'm saying I think the number of characters going up matters more Especially given the license this is connected to and the impression that you want to have for a game like this coming out free to play for a lot of people. Picking characters and just connecting with them is the first thing you do in a game like this. And the fact that there's a lot of, I can see why they take as long, but I think more

characters is more important for a game like this. So there's a second part to this, which has something that I really want to criticize very heavily. He goes on to say, we're not close to that now, so we're going to work quickly to get to that point, which is 24, and then we're going to keep going. The reason why I'm being a little cagey at this stuff is because honestly, we're still getting better at this. This is a new fighting game team, even though we've been at this for a little while, which in a little while

is 10 years, even though we've been at this for a little while, we're not on like version five of a franchise, right? We're building this team. And as we go, we're learning how to do things. You're seeing the game get better, look visually better, and the character kits get more dialed in as frankly, we're getting more familiar with the game and better at our jobs. So my main complaint about this statement is first of all, it is very reasonable and I get it. My main complaint is he goes, well, we haven't been, you know, this isn't version five of the game, right? And it's like, I know for a fact it is version three of the game

that they have built up. This is the third version of 2x KO after it used to be something else and then they scrapped it and then they used to be something else and then they scrapped it. So they are essentially on their third iteration of this game. I think I think what he's I took that to mean like releases because there is a difference between Internal re scrapping and starting over versus the public reception. Sure, but they could have totally re-released this game at least twice by now. Definitely it could have been but I think that there's a huge difference in the amount you learn from a release and from the

Public getting their hands on something and taking that into your sequel versus the internal like shit we fucked up start over, you know, I I You know, but I don't know Tom Cannon I've never met him and I've never spoken with him and I'm sure and I know he's behind GGPO And this team is clearly working very hard. I Think they have made the game wrong I think they have made the game wrong if they are at the point of nine years of development that they're coming out with something that is actually under like 18 months to two years

of development. That's kind of like what happened with Anthem. Yeah. I mean, I don't think anyone would... I think it's clear that something did not go according to plan if this is the launch roster for sure. The whole time we've been talking about this game over the years, looking forward to it, the discussion has always been about, man, what a big roster to pick from.

Who are we going to get? That has been the assumption for eight years, talking about this game. I don't know what their plans were But I feel like they like they really should have looked at the fact that the expectation was for a big Marvel style roster a million per whole time Mm-hmm. I think Besides the fact that like riot is like I guess willing up to a point to You know point is that girl this that yeah I guess, willing up to a point to, you know, backroll this. Yeah, but they were willing to up to up to now kind of like let it go and just keep keep cooking. What I will say is that, like, optimistically,

yeah, the game, the problem that we're describing is a fixable one. It just it's like you need to start putting out the characters and getting that number up. And as that number goes up, this problem becomes less of an issue. And I think that you're gonna see that over time as well. And it doesn't have to have the, by being free, it's not the Concord thing, right? Where you're like, okay guys, please pay for 10 characters and enjoy

this incomplete kind of you're fighting the same character a lot vibe for a while until it slowly gets where it wants to be. I think that like by coming out free and then doing this, it's one of those games where you can play it, get in and be like, maybe I'll tune back in when I see who I want to play show up. Maybe I'm looking for again, a volleyball blitzcrank team. Oh, right. By any arcane character, whatever the case is. And it can be something like that. But overall, this is a solvable over time problem

that you're not hitting the wall of like I spent my money where the fuck is The variety I'm looking for I worry about that because like so League of Legends has 170 characters ish and 20 of them are free on rotation at any given time right so 20 is Two times as many characters as you need to field a full match in league right? This game is gonna come out with 10 how many of of the and it's a free to play fighting game, so some characters will be available for free on rotation. I assume it's going to be two or four characters on rotation. That is going to be a lot of matches

against the same characters. You mean the free? Yeah, in 2XKO. Because you're going to have to unlock characters in that game if they're not on rotation. OK, so was League where you, was it Dota or League where it was full roster and you buy cosmetics? It's Dota that's full roster at all times.

Okay, League, you had to unlock through game currency or purchase? Or buy. And they rotate the free ones around. Okay, okay. And 2XKO, they announced that they're going to have a tournament mode that's offline that unlocks all the characters. Yes. Which says that the main online mode will have most of the characters locked. Right, okay. Which means like,

I think Darius and Ahri as a tag team is really like outrageously common now. And all I can think of is wait until those are the only free characters available for like an entire month. free characters available for like an entire month. Has that, has that release structure worked? Have they done that for all their other games as well? Yeah, I believe so.

Okay, cause this feels like a game where the Dota approach would actually be way better. Oh yes it would. For what they're going for and that like, this would be a good time to try that out instead like This would be a good time to try that out instead that would be a good time to try that But to do the Dota approach they need to have like four billion cosmetics for all the characters Yeah, so um yeah, I did see I did see as well. Yeah in sage. I'm talking to The team they mentioned that there would be some unlocking through some way that we haven't seen yet. Is it your credit card?

Who knows? It probably is your credit card. But yeah, no, definitely for a tournament and for the ability to play this game in locals and things like that, there needs to be something that is friendly for, we'll have every character unlocked ready to go like a normal fighting game. know because... Hey Casey let me ask you, you said you saw me playing 2xKO, if you were the kind of person who was like oh that game looks

cool and it's free would you be excited to hop into a free to play fighting game where there were only two characters available to try? Not particularly no, I don't play too many free to play games in the first place because I don't like characters available to try? Not particularly, no. I don't play too many free to play games in the first place because I don't like the monetization kind of models. So it's kind of not my scene. Therefore, no, not too keen on it, no. So yeah, they need to work on the roster

and get that up to stuff, to snuff for sure. There's a bunch a bunch of other stuff about it, uh, impressions wise that I've, I've felt that I think I want to touch on just before we get off the topic. Go fast. Okay. Well roster big problem agreed. Uh, that aside, uh, the stuff that that it's doing really well, and I think what'll be the Hallmark identity of it is like the co-op elements are fantastic. The co-op elements in this as a tag team fighter that you play as two people together are better than anything that's happened. Do you feel like a lot of people are going to use that? I think it'll, I think possibly.

I don't know. It's hard to guess. It encourages it in a lot of ways and the fact that they put in a bunch of new stuff to like do more as a duo, I'm encouraged by that. I feel like it was a lot of fun kind of just originally, you know, seeing how you could play together and switch off back and forth. But now that they have ways where you can be, if you're very good at fighting games, but you have a friend who's not too sure how to play, there's a specific way that you can

come in with them as like an assist that helps you and they can learn the game while you are taking over as the main character and stuff. It's like a fun teaching kind of mode. That's the sidekick fuse. I think stuff like that's really, really great for also making the game stand out as a unique thing. really, really great for like, also making the game stand out as a unique thing, you know? People played Smash Brothers in teams of two before and of course there's a multi-versus which came and went, which also had a dedicated kind of duo mode. But this is actually playing in a way that is legitimately like, refreshingly new and fun and you have synergy with the

person you're playing with. And I think this is the standout that is gonna make this game like if you are somebody that wants to play cooperatively with your friends and stuff together this is gonna be more memorable for sure as a feature compared to other fighters you know if you have somebody be like hey you should try this game out in fact I'm pretty good at it or let's play together and then you'd be like okay I've never touched it before but you show me the ropes I'll just join a team with you and then they can kind of walk you through it I think that's a really cool thing that other fighting games couldn't do and so that that's that's

That feels stronger here because they have this thing right the sidekick thing. I mean, let me ask you How do you feel about the length of matches? Gonna get there. Let me just let me just hit some of the things, right? So Juggernaut also is a really cool way that you and your friend can both be on the same team, and you can almost like play together, and you can jump in on rounds where you think, ah, I got this match, let me take over, or let me just watch you play.

And so that's another way as well of you kind of playing together with a friend. And a lot of what I've wanted fighting games to do you play. And so that's another way as well of you kind of playing together with a friend. And a lot of what I've wanted fighting games to do has been my main feature I want them to have is squad up on the title screen, give me the same thing that an Apex Legends or Fortnite or any of these other games do where you're encouraged to just jump into a Discord chat with your buddies and play together. You know, I would love that. And I think that here you have you have that ability, right? So

like, I'd like to see them further lean into these really awesome things they're doing. I think that something as well that is it's nice is like, okay, they've they've made the combo shorter. And that overall has, you know, affected that that feels better to in a lot of cases. You don't have the same super long Ahri combo loop that we saw that took a million years before and that felt very boring to just stare at a long thing lasting forever. The flip side of it is that shorter shorter combos kind of get into like this ideal damage range?

Faster and then if you do like extensions and try to style too much It really really scales downward and like kind of stops it from paying off So there's a little bit of a feeling where I tried to do some more advanced stuff with Allowee and I kind of realized it's like even when I pulled it off the damage wasn't worth it You know, so there's a little bit of a homogenizing effect there that I'm like, okay, well, I hope that the variety with your assists and stuff can still keep that fresh. But overall, shorter combos does feel like you could get back

to the game and it's more engaging in that way. I also think that the change they made in the Alpha Lab 2 where you can do push blocking more frequently, is great. Because you call in your assist to do that now. Whereas before it used to cost a meter, which I'm like, I don't want to spend a super just getting you off of me for one second. Yeah, that's ridiculous.

So putting that on your partner is a lot better. And that means that, great, I've used my partner up to push you off. Now I don't have an assist for a couple seconds. But hey, it doesn't feel as bad to use that resource because it does replenish, you know, after a couple seconds. And then I also think that when you beforehand, when you died, if your character had a leftover meter, and you switch to the new character, that leftover meter, you wouldn't be able

to do anything with it. But now they have a very elegant solution where you can use that leftover meter, you wouldn't be able to do anything with it. But now they have a very elegant solution where you can use that leftover meter to do a super assist with a dead as a partner. And I think that's a really smart way to use something that was otherwise just sitting there pointlessly. So that was well done. I think there's also when you jump online, you get an end user license agreement that basically says, don't be a fucking asshole and we will kick you if you're a griefing shit.

Which is like, I wanna see how they enforce this, but the messaging that basically is like, if you're a rage quitting baby, if you don't like playing with others and playing nicely, then there's other games for you, get out. Yes, like League of Legends. I appreciate the wall they put up on that agreement sign. Let's see how they enforce it.

It's nice to see that it's part of the policy. If you're a winy diaper baby, we have League of Legends over here for you to diaper baby your way as much as you want. Please try one of our other offerings on the Riot Launcher. Now yes, so character variety. Now, back to, so as far as the problems go, that's the one of them. And then the second thing is,

because they've increased the ability for you to, okay, so shorter combos also means that they've increased your ability to like tech roll, get out of situations, avoid situations where your character was stuck on the ground and then you had to like wake up and guess, you know, what was about to hit you. Now you can evade that a lot easier and so as a result some people are playing much more defensively and much more keep away. Much more defensively.

I noticed that at the lower level matches when people don't really are not too familiar with the game things were more or less fine it was it was going along and everything was Every match was reaching its intended conclusion And then when I fought against a lot better players there was a lot more like actually I'm gonna hang back and run away from you and that resulted in more time overs So that was a really long timer. It's like 120 seconds. Yeah.

So that was something I saw other channels were discussing this too. I felt it when I had some, yeah, some of the matches against some stronger players and people were just like, you're chasing them down the whole time and they're like, I'm going to, I'm, you know, I'm playing run essentially, is that we used to joke about it because in Street Fighter X Tekken, the timer and the damage numbers and the ability to just run away was the optimal way to play. And here this has happened again in some bad ways where like, one of the examples that was given in a Broski video was a situation where both characters, one person was down a partner, so they had two on one

side and then the opponent had one character left. The one character left was likely not going to win because on her own she was just going to likely be outclassed. And so it was a situation where if she were to fight back at that point, she would be giving her opponent more resources by fighting. So it's better for her to just die. But then the opponent is like, I want those resources, so I'm actually going to wait for you to come to me to make sure that that, you know? And so it became this moment of both characters being like, I'm not going to come to you and I'm not going to come to you. And you're like, uh-ohoh the incentive structure to fight has broken Right, which is a very

Specific thing that can happen when people are playing the game at a level where they understand how the resources work and how much it's Like, you know, I need to prepare for the next round. This round is already gone You never want your fighting game to become something where like injustice man. The best move is not to play right? game to become something where... It's like Injustice, man. The best move is not to play, right? Injustice is one example. The thing I think of is King of Fighters XII, where it became like every minute or less or every couple of maybe like 20, 30 seconds, you would build up this meter that made you

so strong and for the next 10 seconds I got to run away from you. We play cat and mouse and then when it's gone we can go back to playing the game normally. That's not fun, that sucks. You know what's really interesting though? This is actually something that happens in League of Legends all the time.

Really? Well yeah, it's like okay two of my guys are dead, there's a big team fight coming up, it would be three versus five, they wanna take the tower. The smart move is to not fight them at all and let them take the objective. Because if we fight them, we'll lose

and then we'll be even further behind. Yep. That is bad. If your game incentives break apart and you're like the best move is not to play, then you need to change the rules of the game to make sure that doesn't happen. No, man, it's accurate. It's accurate to League of Legends. They're doing it on purpose.

So what I will say is between the last Alpha Lab and this one, they did address some of that stuff, so this is a new problem we're seeing and hopefully, you know, they address it the same way they did the stuff last time, but they got to fix that for sure. I think that also calling it an alpha lab is so silly The games have been in debt for nine years, and it's still an alpha with guys Yeah, okay You're not even in right as opposed as opposed to beta or yeah or content complete yeah or release candidate. Yeah, are you serious? Yeah? Yeah? The complete, yeah, or release candidate. Yeah. Are you serious? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The, what else did I mention? Oh, yeah, like I kept accidentally, they changed the sweep inputs to be like, I think it's like down forward for sweeps and like down and down back is for launchers. And I kind of prefer the invert of that, but whatever. That's extremely minor. The last thing I'd say on the negative side as well is I tried ranked and I couldn't get a single match

So it seems like ranking Nope and I saw a tweet that implied that there was a particular range of time where they told people Try ranked from like 5 p.m. To 8 from like there's a window where they said we want to try this out here now as A part of the test, but for the regular duration of the Alpha Lab, Ranked was just not working. Couldn't play one single match. No. Other bad note about the Ranked is that

apparently when it does work, it resembles Guilty Gear Strive's Ranked system, which is that you are in a room with your Ranked opponents and you're basically, it's like tower floors where you have to fight everyone in that room as opposed to just hitting a button and saying, find me anyone anywhere that matches my criteria. And that sucks because people can- It takes time to polish these things out.

And so that ranked option sucks because you just give people the ability to dodge ranked fights or to pick and choose. And Guilty Gear Strive gave us a lot of reasons why you need to not have people having control over what ranked fights they're going to have. You need to just hit the button and get something. So I hope they fix that too because that's a bad idea. Mad Fientist I have a question for both of you, especially because you're both on opposite

ends of the level of interest on this. I want to know if I'm being an asshole here. I feel like for every year of development on a game over four, nitpicking becomes more justifiable. If 2xKO came out in two years and it had all these little issues, I'd be like, well, you know, they're working on it. But at this point, I expect this game to come out with a mirror shine. Well, to me, the thing is, when we talk about Silksong, it's like lasted so long and has become such a topic.

Silksong must be the greatest game ever made we do we do feel it more because our jobs involve talking about it week to week what's that Casey I'm just I'm just saying let them cook don't be weird about it just let them cook I'm I'm hoping that so for forXKO, getting my hands on it, so Pat, for me I'd say like, getting my hands on it, it feels like I'm confirming that I'm having fun with the way this game plays and it feels more real, so I'm excited about the things I like

and I want more of that, right? If you're looking for an out or a reason to not care about these games, then you can be like, that shit sucks, I'm outta here, fuck that, if you want a ripc out or a reason to not care about these games, then you can be like that shit sucks I'm out of here fuck that if you want a ripcord or a parachute to escape no I'm in the opposite camp I want a reason to care about this game because there are tons of characters I want to play in it and they have not put even one character. I want to play in it

Okay, and I would I and so all the other little minor issues are like infuriating And I could ignore all of minor issues are infuriating. And I could ignore all of those if they put a character I wanted to play in it. I think that in the overall, well, I feel like I like Illaoi so I didn't feel that part of it, but I want more. I want to see all those. Yeah, I want to see all those other characters

I mentioned from a while ago. If they put Timo and Nautilus in this game, I would never complain about it again. Mm hmm. I would I would run that team no matter how shit it was. But with this and, you know, you know, we mentioned with girl a little bit and stuff, like in terms of like when I when I touch it and I go like, yo,

this is a thing that I'm going to have fun with. I enjoy what's here. And there's these problems. I want to see these things ship up and get into better shape. I think they can. And yes, I'm also invested in the genre. So I'm optimistic about good entries in that, like working out and helping the health of fighting games over in the long run.

So I'm always going to be like, well, is that a fixable problem or is this fucked forever? And if it's fixable, then it's like, okay, cool. Well, I hope by this time, within a couple of months, or maybe even by next year, it'll, it won't even, we won't even be thinking about that. You'll just be like, oh yeah, here's what's going on with it. And, and it'll be a good part of the FGC, you know? I have, I have a reverse thing to say about the roster or I don't know if there's a character They could put in that I would be like roster saved But I do know that there's a character they could put in that I would be like this roster is cooked

Like if they put in there's a character called Garen Aldo. No, no, no, there's a character called. Yes. Yes There's a character called Garen that they could put in and I'm like if Garin made it into the launch roster I would be like this game has no hope of future because Garin is the guy that Darius is ripping off oh the other Ryu the other guy yes the evil the good the hero guy. I remember in Runeterra he was a thing. Yeah. I mean, if he's a launch default expected thing, just push it later. If he has to be there, then let him show up but just push it later. He needs to show up in four years.

But yeah, that's kind of, all it is is just, it's a matter of perspective, right? I look at these other things and like to me, what matters a lot is how the game feels to play What what's going on with the whole 2v2 system or 2v1 system? the the how fun it is to you know use the characters find combos matchups all that stuff the the the ingredients that we enjoy in a fighting game and like the roster is like something where I'm like, if they say they're going to fix it, right, they've, they said they're going to announce characters

and they're going to come out. So all we can do is just like, wait to see how frequently that happens. But I said something really interesting. You said that you described all the mechanics as the ingredients that that we enjoy in a fighting game. Well, the, no, no, okay, the stuff that I'm... No, no, like, no, no, I understand what you mean by that. And I'm like, I think there's a genuine difference of perspective here, is like, to me, the single most important ingredient in every fighting game is the roster.

Yeah, no, no, no, I completely agree, right? I don't want this to sound like, oh, I'm like FGC pill-brained and that's all I care about the functions versus the cool-looking thing because, hey, look, I got me a muscle mommy and I'm happy and that's dope. Even though that game's for babies because like Richter Belmont's in it. More to the point, more to the emphasis I want in what I'm saying is that if they said, yeah, I don't know, we'll see when these characters show up

and that's all there is to it. It would be so depressing and crazy to just be like, who the fuck, like literally, like you don't know. That would be so cool of them to do. And that's thankfully not what we've heard. Like you don't know so cool of them to do and and That's thankfully not what we've heard it's just they say more is coming There's nothing else to do, but see whether they whether it comes fast enough, and I hope I was law I would I hope it comes fast much. Yeah, they just went yeah, I don't know what one way Oh

So come completely At the other end of this I don't I You have to have good characters to hook you into something, I think. Completely. There is, there is, that's why all my favorite fighting games from back in the day are like, here's a bunch of cool people. You gotta hook on to something, you know? So like, we've talked at length, like ridiculous because the number is small, but it's actually, to me anyway, a much larger problem is that like League has like a crocodile man and like a sand demon and like an evil scarecrow and like a bunch of millions of weirdos, right? And every single character on this roster is like a normal looking human with like a weapon. You need something for the sickos.

Yeah, you need you need that shit for freaks. You need something for the sickos. Yeah, you need that shit for freaks. And if someone out there is like a big Echo and Braum like main team happy, then if someone out there is like, I got my mains, then it's like, that's great. I have seen those people. I've seen them. They're satisfied.

But no, you don't want to then end up fighting a ton of mirror matches that gets very dry very quickly, right? The Skullgirls problem, you know, we've discussed is that Skullgirls is a slow had a small roster on launch and you could pick up to three at a time. So you saw that roster three times faster than you otherwise would have completely agreed, you know, Marvel rivals is out and it has a bunch of characters that a bunch of people care about and they drop new ones every two seconds and it stays being discussed because people are discussing what's going on with Emma Frost right

now and then it'll be Blade and then it'll be you know whatever else is coming like it's a one have the balls to go up to Tom Cannon and be like why does your shit suck so bad compared to Marvel rivals? Just like the most disingenuous version of the real question possible because I mean I don't know that yeah like What what's the difference between? Between net ease and what they've given that project versus what riot has given this one. I don't and what they've given that project versus what Riot has given this one. I don't care. You know, I will say that when he says the part where he if the quote is that, hey, they're a new team.

That makes sense, too, in the sense that like, OK, they're like, that's a very honest, I guess. Like, it sounds like, yeah, we were learning and we fucked up that the that part of it. learning and we fucked up that part of it. I take that, I don't see, I'm not given reason to think that that's not true. So I think they're just saying like, yeah, we're gonna try to fix the roster and there's not much else to get into besides cool. I hope that's what happens

because I like the game otherwise. You know what I mean? We only have 20 minutes to hit news and emails. Did anything happen this week? Sure did. Yeah, I'll skip over talking about Fatim Liberty, but that thing's going great. And this Saturday, I'll be at the Spring Overture Montreal Airdashers Fighting Game Tournament. It'll be streaming on Willy Versus as well

That's so mad for short. So tune in at 1pm Every version of that tournament name is funnier than the last one They always come up with a new one. They always come up with a new one So so mad is streaming at 1pm on Saturday We're running the the brackets over on Willy Versus as well. So tune in you'll see me and Reggie jumping on commentary for some fighting games. It'll be a good time. Yes. Okay. So one, PAL World has stated its defense against the lawyers that Nintendo's patents lawyers have filed against them. And their stated defense, there's a lot of different ways they're coming at it, but one that has been quoted is specifically that this lawsuit

has no merit because there are games that also have done the exact same thing and they name drop specifically Rune Factory 5, Titanfall 2, Pikmin 3 Deluxe. There's a whole bunch that they go on that the same things Nintendo is coming after them for. They're like, these other games have done that, right? Yeah, they're totally right. In particular, those three make it easy to see how a player character can perform an action to release a monster or capture

them like a ball and fire in the direction by releasing a button. Pikmin 3 Deluxe, Far Cry 5, and Tomb Raider showed that there can be different types of throwable objects. Pocket Souls, Octopath Traveler, Monster Super League, and Final Fantasy XIV made it easy to imagine that one could pick targets on the field, show an indication of a likely capture operation, succeeding. So they've basically brought their homework

and are going, there's receipts all over the industry, why us? So like, I don't know how well this works because like I completely agree with their argument, I'm not a lawyer, I'm not a lawyer. But it also feels like you getting a speeding ticket and pointing out your window. What about all those guys speeding while the guys riding you up?

Yeah, I don't know. I think the gist of what they're saying here is that like they're trying a bunch of defenses and you know, we'll see what sticks but if now if Nintendo has a very narrow registered series of patent rules that are clearly things that have been in violation in a bunch of other examples and their cherry picking pocket pair in particular, it lends strength to their defense. Like is part of their argument that Nintendo should sue the developers of Pikmin 3 for infringement?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, so yeah, the question is, is like, if Nintendo goes, oh, thanks for the heads up, we are now launching lawsuits on all of the aforementioned games. Titanfall is now getting sued by Nintendo. You know, I don't know. But it was interesting to see that come up as part of their defense. The less that happens, we do not need more mechanics locked behind patents in games. It's ridiculous. It is.

And I don't know, and speaking of that, did you see that this year the patent on the Insanity system from Eternal Darkness is now up. Yes, I did. Yeah, that's another thing. That and the Nemesis system, they never should have been locked behind patents. It's ball-pucky. Yeah, the fact that they got away with that, you know, Bandai Namco got away with loading screen mini games for a long time. Sega took over the arrow pointing you at an objective like Crazy Taxi. Oh, it's all bullshit. It's horrible because it's quality of life features being patented by publishers, you know.

So, yeah, I guess a game can now use the insanity system if they choose to. And I guess fighting Psycho Mantis doesn't really count as that because it's not you, but it is the boss doing it. I don't know. There must be some reason why, you know. I mean, certainly other games have messed with the player, but this particular one where it's based on like, you know, calming down, getting rest and your mental state affecting like everything in general, you know, like was just like they were allowed to get away with locking that down. And I have to wonder if there were other games that had cool ideas that were like, nah, we got stopped because of the patent. Probably.

Even if it wasn't significantly close to a patent, it can have a chilling effect. Yeah, so we will see what that means, but fuck that entire process, you know? Quality of life, I want games to borrow from other games as soon as someone figures out something good that can smooth over, you know? Or rather, anytime you go back to a game, quality of life, I want games to borrow from other games as soon as someone figures out something good that can smooth over.

Or rather, anytime you go back to a game, imagine going back to a third person shooter that had like PS1, no analog aiming, no cover, L1, R1 to turn, and just like, wow, horrendous. Or like Mega Man legend style, you know anyway What else is going on Claire obscure Expedition 33

They released their RPG and also oblivion has released itself as well. Yeah why'd they try and horizon on Expedition 33 man? And that seems really unfortunate but they're taking it like LOL by tweeting out oh my god it's like Barbenheimer so they're just like yeah it's fine they're both like we got they got ambushed by an unexpected remaster. I'm so million times more excited for expedition 33 mm-hmm oh yeah like no question no doesn't even doesn't even compare big really enjoyed oblivion back in the day like I was old school Morrowind also I don't understand their their shadow dropping logic now because they shadow dropped hi-fi rush to kill it I don't understand their shadow dropping logic now. Cause they shadow dropped Hi-Fi Rush to kill it.

I don't think they're trying to do that with Oblivion. I mean, it feels like an Elder Scrolls shadow drop is just meant to crater whatever's happening around that time frame. Well, all I can take from it, with my gut, is that I remember Microsoft was really mad There was no fallout game to come out alongside the fallout TV show yep, because it'll be a while before the next fallout game and my gut of

Shadow drop oblivion remaster is oh My god elder scroll six is so many years away It is there many years away. There isn't going to be an Eddler Skrull 6. It's not coming out. Oh, it's not coming out? Just straight up? Nope.

It's just going to stay in development and you're going to be an old man with a long beard down to your toes and then you'll get a teaser fart and you'll die. Your soul will exit you. Yeah it's just it's just gonna it's not happening in our lifetimes. They're gonna keep Todd Howard in suspended animation just bring him out every 10 years for another Skyrim. And he will say leave Jiren to me. I feel like there have been a lot of open world RPGs that have come out since Skyrim that have massively improved on it in every way.

And then I look over at what they're doing with Fallout and how their Fallout games have not improved on any of themselves at all. And like, man, I would be sweating if I was having to make a new Elder Scrolls game. Frickin' Dread Delusion. It's awesome! Is a better, it's a better Morrowindlike than anything Bethesda's done. Yeah, Dread Delusion's awesome. That is so goddamn good. And Kingdom Come Deliverance is a way better oblivion than Skyrim ever was.

So this is one of those cases where the genre has gotten away from the leader of it. Well, the big problem with Starfield is it was like even shittier Fallout 4. And you're like, what the fuck? Everybody else out there is getting better and better and this game's like a genuine step down. Hmm. Well, at the very least, Expedition 33 is, again, they seem none too bothered. They also like, you know...

Drowning in high praise. Yeah, they went tee-hee at being the best rated game of the year so far. They seem none too bothered. They also like, you know. Drowning in high praise. Yeah, they went tee-hee at being the best rated game of the year so far. So like fucking, yeah, good on them. There have been multiple, so we talked a little bit about this earlier, just touched on it, but just like PSA, beware.

There are multiple fake beta test scams going on now. And Konami has warned about it for, there's a fake Silent Hill F beta test going on. And CD Projekt is warning of a fake Witcher 4 beta test where they're basically putting out a fake page where you just sign up and or zeding or skeeting or whatever, pages that look like official signups to get your hands on games that are about to come out

or highly anticipated or so, double check to make sure and verify that those are real if you see any of these things. Because yeah, you can get your data stolen. So watch out. They were already running this, we started seeing this scam on like YouTube channel, like people like, like different various channels

have been getting taken down by fucking crypto shit and you know, fake messages and whatever, but like it's expanding now out to like, if you're looking to sign up for these games, so watch out. You see the new Night Rain, Elden Ring character trailer? Yeah, it's a big boy. The Raider. I never thought that like, Earthbending would have a place in this setting, but it looks

rad as hell and kind of boss breaking. Yeah, it's like, look, I'm on a high spot and you can't hit me. Yeah. It's like, look, I'm on a high spot and you can't hit me. Yeah, it's really good. You know, the whole thing about like Souls games where they're like, you know, you got to get down there and, you know, roll around with the boss and survive and do it the hard way. And then the characters whole bit is like, nah, I'm up here though. Like how about I just snipe you from high ground? Is it weird that I'm not interested in Night Reign? Well, it depends what you're coming to the Souls games for. Yeah, it's always been more of a single player kind of experience farming with a little bit

of co-op on the side. It's just not grabbing me. Oh, I'm not going to play co-op on Night Reign, like, ever. I'm going to play a solo version of that game. I've ignored I've ignored multiplayer in every Souls game that I've played the entire time I But playing the beta for night rain and just jumping online with people and going doing some runs with it I was like, okay, this is fun. You know, the beta kind of convinced me on the idea cuz

It's overall the idea that there's like an Elden Ring arcade, you know, experience that is just, you know, it's not meant to be the next entry in a full-size FromSoft single-player adventure. It's just meant for if you feel like doing where we drop in, but also Parry's roles and fighting the Nameless King with a set, fast, kind of like paced version of the game. I could be in the mood for a one hour quick Souls romp without necessarily wanting to restart a whole character in a campaign.

I just wanna play Elden Ring, rogue-like. Chalice Dungeons? No, rogue. I am honestly, I cannot wait to do something Sekiro related That was all my god if they do a bit It could all I'll always I got time. I can't believe they never did you'll see they were there hinting at in Sekiro

Lies of P as well as, um, God, I loved that one. More than Bloodborne at Home is what I'm told. Yeah. Oh, it's, oh, Lies of P is great. It is really, really good. It is probably my favorite non FromSoft Souls game. Absolutely. It nailed it. And one of the things that really, really

impressed me about Lies of P is it didn't run out of steam towards the end. Every single new area was like adding in fresh enemies and fresh mechanics and like new enemy types and combinations of enemy types and I was like damn this just this was just hitting on all cylinders. And the really incredibly excellent final boss. Yeah that that final boss was incredible like and the music. Okay. Wow. Yeah no it's it's it's it's on the list for sure. It's been nothing but praise. All right. Yeah, that's pretty much it.

There's a Doom Dark Ages trailer that dropped and Doom looks cool. It's just funny. You're going to shoot demons. You're going to shoot the devil. Yeah. But now these trailers have more plot than ever and it's just funny because I can never forget the beginning of the first remake or the first new Doom game doom game were just like grab story get it out of my face I want to fucking kill the demons. You know you're gonna shoot the devil

Yeah, and I sure hope that's what doom is about and when we go into these narrative trailers I hope that like that energy where the Slayer is like. I don't fucking care shut up I hope that continues to some degree you know Yeah looks cool Ghost of Yotai Got an announcement a date. Yeah. Yeah October of this year. Yeah I'm hanging on till that gets that gets ported to PC. Then I'll enjoy that Yeah, I think I'm gonna do that as well this time.

I really enjoyed Tsushima on PC. So will that be when they announce the third Ghost game then? Yes, yes it will. And this will be to promote it? They'll do the PC release as a fucking late thing? Well, you know, if they're paying for it. It's an interesting strategy, right? Alright, we've only got a

couple minutes, so let's wrap up with an email. If you want to send an email, send it to castlesuperbeastmail.gmail.com. That's castlesuperbeastmail.gmail.com. Also, to anybody watching this live, in about an hour, I'm going to start streaming Expedition 33 over at twitch.tv slash patstairsat. All right. Let's take one over here. Pat stares at. All right, let's take one over here. Hello, Willardo and Patricio. My name is Jorge. And my question is about my experience with games. The thing is I have a busy life. I'm a neo-natologist working in a NICU. Oh, this is a for realsie proper doctor important person. That's a job.

That's a real, real, real job. Being a long time follower, you got years, I tend to pick out games that definitely I found spectacular or A plus for my personal enjoyment. That way I can maximize my quality time when I get to play games. But sometimes I can't help but think I'm missing out on something by not playing bad games or cringing throughout a horrible story You think i'm crazy or have you people? That you know had this feeling as well

So we just touched on this earlier in the episode For I think watching people play the bad game is enough to get that that experience if you would like I don't know that you need to go spend money on it. Yeah, suffering for your loss is overrated. Yeah, buy good games and enjoy those regardless of whether you're watching someone play them. For bad games, you know, maybe save your money and enjoy the suffering remotely. Yeah, I don't think you're missing out, man.

I wouldn't worry about it. You should just spend all of your time doing good things. Controversial statement, I know. Do you dive into bad games from time to time, Casey? Um, yes, boss. I don't play too many bad games. The last like genuinely bad experience I had was trying Concord. And then the Fates like agreed with you.

That was not good. You're one of the chosen ones. But I do think that like there's a lot of, yeah, I'm one of the people who played both Concord and Battleborn. Oh, wow. That is... Battleborn was actually OK. Yeah, I just got beaten by Overwatch. You have accomplished something.

I don't know what, but... I don't know what it is either. But that is... Did you play... Wow. EA's dead MOBA Dawn Gate? Nope. Oh, no one has.

No, I do think you do need to mix things up a bit. I don't think you necessarily have to play a bad game to appreciate a good game, but mix things up a little, play something a little janky or a little rough around at the edges. It's always nice. Like that game I was talking about earlier, Tower of Kalamonvo, it is a very dedicatedly old school experience. It's not going to be for everybody. But there's a demo. You can try it. It might be for you. It might be fun. You might like it. You might have some of the stuff to kind of rub you the wrong way.

It might be a bit abrasive, but it is a fun game. I like, I always recommend playing a variety, you know? Not stick with any one kind of thing, because if I stuck playing the same type of game, I would get bored. For sure. You know what that reminds me of? You ever see these content creator thumbnails that are just like, games just aren't fun anymore.

There's no good games out. And it's a screenshot of Call of Duty or Battlefield. Uncharted. And you go to the channel and literally all they play is Call of Duty or Battlefield. Quadruple A only. Yeah. 100%. I think as well we're in a position that is, so because of the old channel and

because of the fact that like, coming from QA, we had that let's celebrate the bugs energy, which that meant bad became good. And overall created a thing where looking look, finding the bad was a cause for celebration and fun and popping off and stuff. Like, there was a bit of a culture created around that, you know, from the old days. And so having that be something you can do with friends, almost like watching a bad movie, is a fun thing I think you can do. If you're going to play a bad game, if you're going to subject yourself to it,

do so with friends on a Friday night, maybe get some drinks and just subject yourself to it together with the safety of strength in numbers. Yeah, it's like when I took people to see The Greasy Strangler when they did a screening of that in my local cinema That's not a movie. You just go to see that's a movie you inflict on other people. There you go. Right? Have you ever seen that movie? I have not Yeah, oh dear god help me all right, I'm sorry go check out The Greasy Strangler, it's horrible

Okay, I'll put it on the list of bad movies to watch with the wife. Casey, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate you. Thank you so much for having me. Sorry if I was a little quiet when you were like getting into the real fighting game grognard kind of like into the minutia. It's like I found it it fascinating not at all, but I had nothing to add No that you're fine I mean it just happens to be a week where Two big ones released that we've been waiting on a while and we got our hands on them any week

It could just be random, but it happens to be one of those things You know I would have been the same it's like devil Cry, something related to that were to happen or anything else. I think it's important to have somebody around sometimes to remind us that nobody gives a shit about fighting games. There you go. I give a shit, but just not a lot about the more modern ones. My tastes will always be the old school. You're right.

Yeah. And thus, Pat, there's no reason to ever get excited ever, and let's just- Don't you fucking dare. And let's just doomer on everything. Let me hang it up as I'm streaming them this weekend. God damn it. All right, we're outta here, everybody. Thank you.

Have a good week, everybody. Take care and thank you. Have a good week everybody take care and thank you