Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Bugsnax Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 48

Episode Date: November 9, 2020

OoOOoO -- we're talking 'bout Bugsnax. Join Greg, Blessing, Joey, and Imran to see if Young Horses' latest game is more than just a meme. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up everybody? Welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast. I'm one of your host, Greg Miller, alongside the new face of video games. Blessing at Eo Yeh, Jr. What's up, Greg? Not much. What's up with you? You know, man, I'm just hanging out here being kind of bugs, kind of snacks. That's exactly who you are. Let me see, hold on it. So directly above you in the grid, he's the former, informer Imron Khan. How are you, Imran? Bunger. Oh, dude, big bunger fan of this house. Big bunger fan of this house with me. And rounding out our quartet, it is Christmas in November.

Joey Noel. Hello, Joey. I'm so ready to talk about bug snacks. If you didn't know by the headline or the podcast, you clicked on, ladies and gentlemen, this is the kind of funny games cast review of bug snacks. Full disclosure, of course, my wife works in PR and worked on this game. So you can take my opinion with a grain of salt. however, there's no way she could possibly pay off these other three at the same time.

If you didn't know, this is the kind of funny games cast each and every week. We get together to talk about the video games. We love the video games we don't love and everything under the video game sun. If you like that, you can head over to patreon.com slash kind of funny games where usually you can watch us record the show live. You can get your questions read on the air. You can get the show ad free and you can get it with the exclusive post show we do each and every week. Of course, as we are in the throes of the holiday rush, lots of embargoes happening, hence why bug snacks review, not live, just getting to you as fast as it possibly can to meet the embargo. Remember, if you have no bucks tusser way on patreon.com slash kind of funny games, it's no big deal.

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with brand new impressions, reviews, and so much more. Even though this Bug Snacks review is popping brand new as a games cast, guess what? Three hours ago, another episode of the Games cast pop up, and it was the Assassin's Creed Valhalla review.

And before that, of course, there were reviews of Spider-Man, Miles Morales, and Astros Playroom. Of course, these were all on the games cast feed. There's the PSI Love UXOXO feed. You can go to kind of funny.com slash PS5 or Kind of Funny.com slash Xbox to see all of our hands-on impressions and reviews of these brand spanking new

games systems and the next gen. Thank you to our Patreon producers, Blackjack, Tom Bach, ALWT Gaming, Kevin is the best Christmas elf, Jeffrey PeeP, Pee, P Long, Sancha West Gaming and James Hastings. Today we're brought to you by Honey and Hems, but I will tell you about that later. Now, let's review, ooh, bugs snacks. Imran Khan.

How long did it take you to beat bugs snacks? I would say somewhere in the area of eight to ten hours. There was a part I had to redo, so I would say closer probably to ten hours. What do you mean you had to redo it? No spoilers, by the way. Spoiler free, of course, review. Like, just I was not happy with my performance at that part of the game, so I read that part. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

how long it did it take you to beat bugs next uh probably about seven to eight eight hours um and i there are like side quests and stuff you can do in the game and i pretty much mainlined it and so yeah with that about seven to eight hours i'd say overall gotcha i would say you know of course i'm playing on playstation five uh PlayStation provided by or PlayStation five provided by PlayStation uh for review purposes uh and now that there's that game clock in there it's got me set at 13 hours that includes me platinum it so i did everything i beat the story and then I went back and did all the side quest and then I had to beat it again,

not play through it again, just finished the ending again. Joey, where are you with bugs next? So I haven't finished it yet. I have like two thirds-ish of the map unlocked. So I would assume that I'm two-thirds of the way through.

I think I'm like it. Yeah, I think I'm like at six, five or six hours probably. I'm also like horrendously bad at this game. So I'm not surprised that. Are you enjoying it? Are you enjoying it?

It's the most fun game that I'm really terrible at. It's very frustrating because I want to keep playing, but then I don't want to keep playing because I'm just not, my brain does not work in the way that this game wants it to work. Gotcha. And so I think that's the best place to start, Mr. Con, over on patreon.com slash kind of funny games. Carl wrote in and said,

my main question is this, what the hell even is bug snacks? Imron, bug snacks, of course, this meme, this movement, this song, this cute trailer that came out with the place, alongside the announcement of the PlayStation 5. Now that you've beaten it, what is bug snacks? It is, it has more in common with Pokemon Snap than I would have thought of just being this thing of you have to, you're given a puzzle.

And that puzzle is, how do you make these two things interact with each other? And those two things may be my trap and, you know, the bug snack itself or these two bug snacks and whatever. And through those like questions given by the villagers, you are told, hey, do this thing. Get me this one bug snack or like piss this other bug snack off or, you know, whatever. And that is the entire game essentially is getting these villagers happy by interacting with bug snacks through relatively small puzzles. Right. That's the thing, right? It's a puzzle game. I think, you know, there's a lot to dissect about it. But at its core, that's the idea. You see a sin a snail on the wall over there

and you have to figure out, okay, how do I get that? My grappling hook attaches to it, but it doesn't pull it off the wall. What is the combination of my different traps or my different abilities? How do I get it down? What do I need to launch? Do I need to make another Bug Snack angry at it to run over there and get it? Blessing, is that an accurate description?

Yeah, I'd say so. Like, it, bucksnacks feels like a combination of quite a few different types of games. Like, it does have the collectibility aspect of a Pokemon. Both, like Pokemon snap and I think just Pokemon in general in terms of you're going around and you're scanning different buck snacks and what you scan them is basically taking a picture of them because you're a journalist and then that then adds them to your journal and through that you're able to basically see a polka decks of all the different bucksnacks uh and see like oh right yeah no this buck snacks or this bug snack uh only flies in the air and never it never lands so that then kind of that that then kind of leaves to you trying to figure out different ways in which you can catch a buck snack. similar to like a Pokemon, just similar from Pokemon because you're not battling them,

but you are basically solving puzzles, which leads back to it being a puzzle game. And I don't know, it's a very fascinating setup because it doesn't really do anything new per se, but it is a combination of, I think, a bunch of different comfort foods in gaming. And that's kind of why I enjoy it,

is because it feels like, it feels like Pokemon, but then it also kind of feels like dark cloud in a way where you are going through these different areas and bringing back people to the town. And with that, you are then talking to those characters and then accepting quest from those characters and you have that aspect to it. Like, whether, whether your comfort is just like the scanning portion, the collecting portion,

the solving these small puzzles portion, talking to these fun characters with quirky, quirky writing portions of the game, like, there's so much here to love and enjoy. And, yeah, like, it comes together in this kind of cool, fascinating way. Yeah, that was what didn't catch me off guard, I guess. Yes, but my concern once we learned, it was more of a puzzle, right? It was like, okay, cool, you're going to be collecting these things. And while that sounds simple, obviously there's going to be a challenge. You know, bless, I think back to when you and I did our first impressions of it

and we played through it. And there was that thing with the bunger, who is one of my favorite bugs next, but we'll get to our favorite bugs next in a bit. And it was, you know, we needed to capture the bunger. Okay, cool. And we had at that time such basic equipment, right? Because eventually you're getting, you know, like we talked about, You have your sauce launcher that you can send out ketchup or cheese sauces and certain bug snacks will be attracted to it or repelled from it or whatever.

But we had that in like our snack trap. And so far what we've been taught is to put down the snack trap, which opens up like a giant umbrella. If a bug snack walks into it, you can close it and capture them that way. And the bunger was the first one that we met that was like too big for the snack trap and could knock it over. And then it was this thing of, okay. And I remember you and or me playing, but you watching West. and we went around for like what. I feel it feels I want to say 10 minutes.

It was probably five minutes before I was like three and a half minutes. I'm like, okay, like what am I missing? And you and me debated for a while before by accident, right, by just screwing around with the ketchup packets, I got the bunger to run into another bunger and that flipped the bunger over

and I was able to capture him that way. And I feel like that's what this game is. It is trying, you know, pretty quickly have all the items, right, which range from, you know,

a strawberry and a ball that like runs around in a hamster ball that you move around the laser that other things will chase the the snack trap we're talking about the slingshot you eventually get a trip wire you get most of those pretty quickly and then it does become this which both maddening and freeing thing of okay i have everything i have all the tools i'm just too stupid to figure it out and my concern had been that it would keep me if that kept going how am i going to hit one of those puzzles eventually where it is it's been 20 minutes and i'm just like i don't know what to do. Joey, is that where you're at? Yeah.

Yes, that is exactly. It's a snail that really broke me of like, it's the... Oh, yeah. And it's latching on and why isn't it coming back? And why am I too dumb to play this game? So, yeah. On that note, I assume Joey and I are both playing on PS4.

Bless and Greg, you guys are both PS5. You guys had an easier time because... Yes, probably. me about this with the the PS5 has a hint system built in that was not available to us that made like more harder. Well if you would just upgrade to the next generation of games you'd be fine. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I'm actually really excited to get to finally talk about this game because we've been obviously over the weekend over the last week, by whatever time this thing posts. We've been talking all about the PlayStation 5 and the different features of it and like what we love, what we don't like. And game help is the thing that I've wanted to kind of talk about

but have not really had a good example because I didn't really use it in Miles Brownless. I didn't use it at all in Astros' Playroom. Bugsnacks is the shining example of the game help functions and cards and why, like, a use case for, I guess, why to use them or how I use them.

Like, there are so many times of Bucksnax where you are sitting there and you're like, how in the world do I catch this thing? Like the big bopsicles in particular, I was like, how in the world do I catch a big bopsicle, which is, my favorite buck snack. And, you know, in certain use cases,

I don't think I, I don't think I used it for the big bops school. But there are certain moments where I was like, all right, what is the thing? And I opened up my game help thing. Basically, I just opened up the card menu. And the cards will say, like, what quests you're on. And magically, they just know what step of the quest you're on. And so, like, I clicked it.

And it's like, oh, yeah, if you want to catch this thing, do X, Y, and Z. And it's pretty quick. It's pretty easy. And it's always like a, oh, all right, cool. And then like, I go about my day. video there and stuff. Yeah, you know, it's, you when we're talking about it. Oh, instead of me bugging you guys, it just tells you. Oh, 100%. Yeah. And it's that interesting thing of, you know, we, I'm right there with you, bus, right? You know, we just, it's live now as of our

lives and it's been live for a while with you watching this later, the review of the PS5 and mentioning that in there and not being able to talk about this example because, yeah, for Miles, I never did it. And like, when you, if you haven't seen this, and I'm sure you have, but if you haven't, you know, when you tap the PlayStation button now, you bring up a quick menu at the bottom of the screen and then the cards come up in over the top of that and I think what's interesting and what bugs snacks does so well as a showcase forum is it shows the quest you're on it'll give you a percentage of how close to being done with the quest you are and the quests again are like yeah you know go do this for grumble or whatever get them this amount of things and bring them back or

whatever so it'll have the percentage there but yeah if you click into it you can get the game help from it and get that step from it and it was more just again screwing around that the first time I opened up. I'm like, all right. Oh, right. And there's the video in there of what to do and how to do it and the explanation of this is the way to do this. And it's, it definitely is easy mode to an extent. It definitely did. Once I did it that first time, I used it again and then had that moment of like, I got to stop. Like this is no way to play a game. I'm sitting there looking at the guide, right? But it is helpful when you get into the moments like Joey is where she can't figure out what to do. Yeah. And it's a weird thing because like, I feel like for those who,

are going to play the game after it's come out. I don't know how much help game help is going to be. Sure. Because at that point, you can just look up a guide and get the stuff, the game help features that are in the PS5 don't detail how to catch every single buck snack. I don't think.

And so like, you know, it, it's that hard thing to do because obviously there's the game help in there. And then, yes, there's going to be guides online. But,

you know, I had that moment where I have to imagine, you know, young horses is the developer of this. the folks who made Octodad, dad dadliest catch, they must have had that vision of the water cooler conversations we always talk about.

I was like, oh, they're going to be having these. And I remember the day after busing and I both beat it, I was like, how do I get the flaming cheap hoof? And like, he's up there.

Have you gone to me? Like, I haven't got him. Hold on, though. I'm going to go try some things. And you came back with the solution. And it was that,

like, fun give and take. Like, he, the cheap hoof was for a trophy and for my, you know, guide of collect, you have to collect all 100 bug snacks.

So it wasn't that the game help knew I was looking for that and it could tell me how to do it. It was specifically about the quests. Exactly. And so like game help doesn't have everything. And like for me, game help was an awesome thing because we're playing it pre-release. And so there are not guides. Sure. There aren't really things we can look up.

And so like there are plenty of places in the game where you're going to be, we're just going to be stuck and not know where to go. And for me, uh, in our specific use case, yep. Game help was awesome. But like for people who are playing down the road, like who knows, I'm very curious to see how much people actually use that as opposed to like, going online. Sure. But with that, there are a lot of moments where I wish I was playing this game post-release

and had the experience where I am having those water cooler conversations and talking to people and trying to figure out how I catch certain things. Because it reminds me a little bit, and I feel like this is making an extreme example, but I'm going to make it anyway, it reminds me a little bit of the witness where you play the witness and you're like, how in the world do I do this line puzzle? And after staring at it for two hours,

you either like talk to people or like go away and come back and immediately you're like oh wait no I had I know how to do this and the fun of the game is figuring it out like the fun of the game isn't just like looking up a guide and then completing a thing like I had so much fun putting different trying to figure out like okay I have my my snack trap if I get the this Oreo cookie looking creature to just like walk over it will that capture it okay no what if I try to like run up to it grab it does that work no what if I try to get like this weird thing that's flying over here to like bump up against it. Did that work? No. And as frustrating is that my sound as I'm saying it, that is the fun of the game.

Like that is what I got to enjoy. Like they have these different systems that are working in it. And I feel like I compare everything Breath of the Wild. But that's my curse. It's my gift to my curse. But like in the way that Breath of Wild has these different systems where it's like, okay, yeah, like the thunder strikes ground, causing fire, all this different stuff. And I can use that in cool ways. Bugsnacks has similar sort of things where you'll see a flaming chie poof and it's basically like a hot chito type of thing but it's actually on fire and of the flaming cheapoof okay let's see does I guess the flaming chief chepoof is attracted to cheese and so if I launch my the cheese sauce at this other thing that isn't flaming will like then we'll catch this second thing on fire and like that's that that's awesome like that's the thing I love about this game is

there's those moments in figuring these things out and I forgot how I got here. I guess I got here off of game help and how like I the actual experience is actually experiencing it. Well, I want to go back to Imran. Yeah, because I know when you were getting onto your diatribe there to make it where you have to connect it to the breath of the wild. Imran, you're like, yeah, when he was talking about getting stuck, I have you got, did you get stuck a few times in this? I can't remember such a big examples, but there were times like they would give you a quest and they don't ever give you more information on that quest than what they say immediately then. So they're like, hey, let's grab this bug snack. Like, cool, how? And there's never, never any explanation or

anything. So it's like, I know. You do spend some time like bashing your head against certain things because like not everyone figures out puzzles the same way. And if you're not thinking about it the exact right way they want you to, which is not always, you know, the least obtuse thing in the world, then it can be difficult. And there were a couple of ones where I just like, I did feel dumb after I did figure it out, but it did take me like 20 minutes of bashing my head against something until I realized, oh, I should bring this thing outside the cave because there's a bug stack it's perfect for doing this one thing that I need done right out there.

And I kind of wish that it was just like, not necessarily like them telling you exactly what you need to do, but a little more granularity in the hints of, it doesn't have to be exactly the solution, but a little bit more than just get me this bug stack and that's it. A nudge. Yeah. Well, I feel like there's some of that there, though,

like with the scans. Like there will be certain times or if you scan like a, I guess Flaming Cheapoo was going to be at, example. If you scan the flaming sheet poof, it might say that like in the scan that they don't land or they don't like the cold and then that then kind of, it is very vague, but like, I don't know, those nudges help me a bit. Yeah. Yeah. I think one of my examples is at one point somebody asked you to get the big bopsicle. He says he needs two for his feet. Yes. So that's the one, that's the one where like I struggled with that for a while. Like I figured out immediately,

not immediately, but fairly soon that, oh, if you check the smore moth, whatever that thing's name was, and like make it hit the big bopsicle, then it will de-freeze and you can catch it. But it also does a thing where it splits apart. It's not only called big obstacle, it's just called bopsicle. And at

no point in the game, anyone tell me that counts as big bopsicle. Wait, you guys? A regular bopsicle? Yes. For that quest, at least. I don't know about like your Pocodex or whatever. I was struggling for a while. because I kept breaking them and I was like

what the fuck man so like I just tried it it's like oh yeah okay the quest is done and that's the kind thing I like you know maybe be a bit more clear about that sort of thing and I don't have to spend forever be like oh god what did I do wrong yeah I feel like there's no matter what even with game help there's those moments of you feel like

you have the solution you do it and it doesn't work and then I move on and then I try to do it again and then it works that time the way it was supposed to and it was the same thing of I think talking to blessing, maybe even talking to Jen, when she saw I had one of the, yeah, I must have been Jen, where she saw I had one of the snacks in my catalog. He's like, oh my God, you got that. How did you get it? And I'm literally like, I don't know. It was like one of those times of I'm out there

trying to do one thing. This thing rushes me. One from the air comes down and attacks. It's pandemonium because they fight each other. Bugs'necks don't get along necessarily. I reap the reward, but I have no idea how I got this very specific creature. Or you have the wrong item equipped. And so you hit something and you're like, I didn't mean to hit this or use this sauce. But then all of a sudden you have three things there and no idea how any of them. But it's back to, I'm sorry, going. I'll see, even when Greg hit me up about the flaming chief poof, I figured out how to catch it. And once I figured out, I was like, I don't think that's the right way, but it's the way that worked. And so I'll just tell Greg that that's the way.

That's a great example of it, right? Where the flaming sheepoof is in a lava cave and there's the basically the stew bowl. I figure what it's name is. All of the, that's a great. the bug snacks obviously are puns and they're just, they get said and you forget, and some of them are really cute names. And none of them are great puns either. Like they're all like kind of off, which I kind of dig. Now hold up a second now. I do want to go around and put

a pin in that and when we get to favorite bug snack because my favorite bug snack is a great pun. Anyways though, so like I there's a, you know, the flaming guys, the flaming stew bowl was there. I got flaming cheapoof up here and then I got the bopsicle. And it was like, I knew the bopsicles involved with getting the

flaming cheap hoof, but every time I'd put down the trap to try to shoot up to get the cheap hoof. Like the bull would hit the traps, set that on fire. Then the icicle, the big bopsicle will get bumped by the flaming stew bowl. And then he wouldn't be cold anymore. And it was just like, fuck, I know I have this. Why can't I get it? And then Blessing is like, oh, you got to launch the flaming bopsclan?

I'm like, no, it attacked. And all it was is right, I needed to basically move in-game four feet up the ramp, right? To where I wouldn't trigger the stew bowl. I would only trigger the bopsicle. And it's like, yeah, that's on me, but it's also like, God damn it. Like, you know what I mean? Like, even with that example, though, like, in terms of launching the big bopsicle, the big bopsicle also freezes the launcher. And so, like, it seems like I think that shouldn't work that just happens to work because however things may shake out.

Or maybe they meant for it to work that way. But if that's the case, then it felt like a kind of a little bit of a janky solution. Yeah, there's a lot of solutions that feel like I don't know if, like, I glitched this game and it just worked or whatever. But, like, there will be times where I just, I got frozen. And then I closed the trap and like I somehow caught two things like sure that it worked. That's fine. Yeah as long as I got what I needed and I got my Pokedex filled out and I was able to move on with it. Great, whatever. So we're all positive, right? We all like this game. Yeah. I love this game. I think it's awesome. Yeah. And that's the thing is like we're complaining about I think like these little things and like but like complaining about the puzzle things, which as we're talking about it I feel like it is all the time of like, fuck yeah, I should have thought about that.

I mean, like, when I do finally reach out and ask for help, nine times out of ten, the answer comes back, like, yeah, that's the one thing I didn't do. Or I did it early and I didn't do it at the right moment to do the thing. Or you didn't do the right order. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So then...

I won't say, like, in terms of, like, negative things, sure, for, like, going to that. Yeah, you guys played on PS5, so I don't think this is that big an issue for you, but the load times on PS4 are bad. Like, uh, areas. Yeah, between areas. So, like,

occasionally there are areas that are sub-a and there's like the main village. And they'll occasionally have to go between, like, go from a sub area to another sub area, which means crossing through like four things. It takes anywhere from like 15 to 30 seconds per load. And if you're doing four of those in a row, it takes four. Like I did one, I took the stopwatch out and just to see.

And it was a minute and a half of load times for each like going through there. And that's, that is unacceptable. That is like, if you're going to play this game, probably play it on a PS5 or a PC with a fast SSD because like it is I don't think it's supposed to be that way it feels like it was kind of like you know made to work on a PS4

but in terms of oh I need this one thing so I need to go back to the village and that's annoying because like I need cheese sauce but that's all the way over there but they grow some in the farm here but that still takes too long I can totally like I having to go through it for like the binging thing for the review process it was more annoying to me

than I imagine it'll be familiar people but sure that is the thing that like if you got a choice i don't think ps4 version necessarily the one you want to play i don't understand why there why there isn't a fast travel i feel like that wouldn't necessarily be out of place in this game uh especially because for that exact use case where you are all right i'm on one side of the map i want to make it to this area that's on the opposite side you are going through three or four different load screens and that's not like a situation that doesn't happen like that is towards the end of the game you're going to be doing that quite a bit when you're like okay cool i want to get this one specific flex snack all right

they're on the other side of the map. Let me run there real quick. In actual land space, it's not that crazy because the map isn't huge. But yeah, when you're loading each area, that's when it, I imagine on PS4, that gets really annoying. Like going to the mountains, you do that like five or six times towards the end game. And it's like, that just takes forever each time because there's actually a lot of walking. There are a lot of load times between you in that last spot.

Yeah, and PlayStation 5, the lows are, you know, nothing. They are there, but they're not that. But even for that said, it was the same thing, especially. especially at the end cleaning up for platinum where it is, I'm doing all the side quests and then a couple of them become like, oh, I need these three snacks. And like I have them already in my polka decks, which shows me where they are on the map.

And it's like, ah, fuck, these are like three really far away different areas. And it is why can't, I'm already looking at the map. Why not just say, boom, fast travel me there?

Because it's not like you're walking through these areas and having random events happening. They're very static in terms of what's going on at that moment in the world with the quest. Positive thing. I really like the story in the characters. The writing is really fun.

It's very lighthearted, very wholesome in a way that I didn't really expect. Because I think we all kind of had the theories of like, all right, there's probably like something dark but beneath the surface. And the game never got as twisted as I thought it ever, as I thought it would. Like there are turns and twists and all this stuff,

but like it was never like, oh, by the way, like here's a fucking, here are cuss words all of a sudden. and like, you know, where this is actually a commentary on capitalism or whatever. Like, it doesn't really, it doesn't really, well, it kind of is. I guess there's a little bit of that kind of stuff. But like, it never, it never gets stupid deep. Like, when the first trailer ended with the weird bug snack monster, it was like,

oh, is it going to be like an until dawn survival horror? Is that thing going to start, like, cutting people open? Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah, and there's, there, there, it, I'm not, I'm not going to say where it goes, But like, it never really went all the way in terms of like a, okay, yeah, no, now shit is really real. But I didn't mind that. It's like, body horror for children. Like, yes.

It's like, how would you present it until dawn for like a five-year-old? And that is most of bugs back, honestly. Yeah. But yeah, I was happy to see them continue through with that because that was, you know, when we did the preview, bless, that was the first thing that stuck with me was that jumping into this weird game, I was expecting it to be more Pokemon snap or Pokemon just captioning them, right? And then I was like, oh, I actually enjoy the puzzle aspect. But I also am strangely already attached to Philbo, who's the guy in the mayor sash, who, you know, in the very beginning, you meet and he's already down on his luck. And then in our demo, he eventually talks to Bephika, who is a complete jerk to him. And I hated Bephaca and I wanted to hug Bifika.

You're crazy, Joey. All right. She's your best. She's so fun. You are Bephica. You are Bephka. But like, I'm not even going to take that as a, as a, not compliment. I can't think of words.

Insult. Thank you. I'm not going to take that as a doc compliment. But it was that. And then as you're talking busing, I think the more characters they continue to introduce, of course, remember these are grumpuses that you're meeting on the island

that I'll live there together. The more I start to dig into who they are and what's going on with them, right? And there's the farmer grumpus, right? When we meet him, is like super surly and on the outs with his wife. And obviously we're going to try to help patch that up or whatever. And then Gramble, who's the guy who trains

the bug snacks and doesn't want people to eat the bug snacks and considers them as kin. Like he's really well done. Like, he's, like, Whiggle is my favorite. Oh yeah, of course, Wiggle. Of course. Wiggle's awesome. Great singer.

I know people who like, exactly like Wiggle. Like sing when they talk and all that stuff. Like I love it so much. And that's the thing is that they go through and have these ridiculous characters and ridiculous names, but at the core of all of them, their motivations are, are base concepts.

It reminds me of that movie I never watched that had all the emotions that were colored characters. Inside out, right? And it's a good movie. Yeah, it's animated though. You know what I mean? Like if it doesn't have Superman punching something, it ain't my thing. This is the idea that like, even though these people are all weird and outlandishing their grumpuses or whatever, they're like, you know, fuzzy Muppet walruses, like at the core of all of them are like real issues we deal with or self-doubt or, you know, you can find something in there that is who we all are, I think, and having to wrestle with that and help them out and go through and be the, I love the interview. I love the interview.

segments because at the end you are a reporter you are there for they getting the true story of bugs snacks so once you've helped them and gotten them back to town you open up your little notebook and have a tape recorder you hit record on and then start asking questions like it's really well done it's got a crazy voice cast that i know we've talked about before but like you know having uri lomphal and stuff from spider man and roger you play huh who does he play because i i'm not going to hold on uh i haven't done he's uh the athletic one that i shanlo i fucking love chanlo yeah yeah yeah yeah Yeah, Shanlow is my other favorite. Like I absolutely loved his character because at first I was like,

all right, here we go. The jock character who seems like he might not be that smart. And then later on you're like, no, this guy's great. Like he loves everyone, super nice to everyone, like super great. He reminds me of the, I think Italian dude from Joey. What's the reality show on Netflix where they can't leave their room? The circle. Joey. Joey, he reminds me of Joey from the circle,

Whereas like, I don't think I'm going to like you. And then by episode two. I like, I told me out by name and asked me this. And it was his name. It's his name. But you get to episode two and you're like, oh, no, he's great. I like this guy. Yeah, he's a moment.

Yeah. So shout out to Shanlow. But then also shout out to the voice acting of the actual Bucksnax themselves. Like, I'm going to keep coming back to Big Bopsicle. I fucking love whatever Big Bopsicle says its own name. Because it's not all the books next pay their name. It's all day, man. Bunger is to standout performance.

performance of 2020 is Bunger. So is Bunger your favorite bug snack Amrock? I think no, I think my answer is I don't remember the name of it, but it's the big pizza kaiju. Not sure.

Yeah. Mothra. No. It's Motsa. Motsa. Motsra? Yeah. But it's like, one, that's a really cool design. Two, it's like, that is kind of what I wanted more of this like from bug snacks is what is the

most fantastical way we could take some of these things. And like after just areas of like, these are just all bugs. They're just small little things. You walk into that one area. You look up. You see like a giant like pizza monster floating out there. Like, okay, yeah, this is great. I love this.

Well, that was the thing I didn't expect from it, right? And this isn't spoilers. You hope you by the time you see this. The trophies will probably be alive and everything else. But like the legendary bug snacks, right? Where it was, yeah, we had all these little ones, but even Motsra or whatever the hell the pizza moth is. Like we had seen that early.

I never really anticipated. fighting it or whatever to have boss battles with gigantic, you know, bug snacks in them that are different than what you've seen on the ground. I thought that was really cool. And I liked those battles. And again, they weren't like what I, the one thing we haven't touched on,

I guess, for this game that I think I like so much about it is that even though you'll have these moments like, fuck, what am I supposed to do here? I never felt like, fuck, I just missed my opportunity or there's,

you know, there's not a fail state. There's not a game over in bugs snacks. Like you are playing through it and it's, stress level zero. It's as much stress as you want to put on yourself to, you know, finish this. And yeah, obviously, you can get to that point of like, God, I've been trying to figure out how to get the snack and I can't do it. But even in these boss battles, like, it's got a chill fucking soundtrack that I love. Like the soundtrack, obviously the bug snack song is its own beast, you all know.

But like this one in just the way the music is and the vibe the entire game has because of it. Like, I never felt like I was under pressure to do something in bug snacks. I always felt like I could take it at my own pace and figure it out. Mothazzo is the name of it, by the way. Mothozo is Supreme. Yeah. Yeah. Most of the same.

Okay. Cool. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. My favorite, and I think that you're talking about the, you know, the names or whatever they get. The shy weenie worm.

They have a weeny worms in there that are hot dogs, right, and a bun. But then they have a shy variation like Chicago, like a Chicago hot dog. And it's the poppy seed bun. It's got the mustard on it. That's great. Come on. Come on. The portillo's guy.

I was like, that's really good. So I'm all about the shy wean worm, which surprises me. because, of course, I was all about the buffalo locust running into this. Yes. He's kind of, he doesn't even have a great point. Especially because, like, I love the fact, like, that's one of the things that if you know anything about food,

even a little bit, then you can kind of puzzle out some of this stuff a little bit better. It'll show you in scans, obviously, but I knew immediately, oh, there's a buffalo wing thing. I bet if it will react to hot sauce or ranch really easily. Yep, yep. And, like, it's hilarious the fact that just knowing about eating things makes puzzles easier. Yeah, they did a great job of having them be logical, right?

Which I thought was a fascinating way of, yeah, because again, sauces we've talked about ketchup, but yeah, there's cheese, there's ranch, right? Like there's peanut butter. Yeah, chocolate, yeah, yeah. So, like, you have obviously dessert things. And at some point people want sweet bug snacks and they want green bug snacks. And you have to actually sit there and either look for your journal and figure it out or think a little bit about it. I want to get back to, I need to still know what Joey's favorite bug snack is.

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All right, Joey, you're on the hook now. Favorite bugs thing. It's so hard to choose. So the one that I love that I haven't actually caught yet is the snackery, I think. A little daugherie. Oh, the daughery one that like shoots out of the water. The water, yeah. Yeah. So really like that one. And then

I also really like, which is a week. one. I like the little snack pack guys that just like hang on the cave. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A little like pretzel and chip guys. Uh, I like those two. Those I also, I'm also really mad at the baked potatoes. Oh, they're really little fucks, aren't they? Jesus Louise. Yeah, they run it. Because it's that little cavern. You don't have like that many places to go to get away with them. Yeah. Like, again, there's, you can't be killed by a bug snack, but they will definitely chase you, knock you up in the air. you and burn you and all these everything. I can't say the ones that freeze you.

That's where I'm like, all right, fuck all these guys. Get out of here. The fire one is the ones that annoy me the most where it's like, oh, I'm pretty sure. I have like a split second to catch this one bug snack. And then suddenly a fire one will just like ruin my day. It's like, well, guess that's over. Yeah. Yeah.

They'll shout to chili nilly. I like that guy too. He's like the ice cream sandwich one. Yeah. Oh, he was a good one. Yeah. Hold on. I'm trying to get into my trophy.

He's like the one bucks. that makes me like really want to get an ice cream sandwich. Like I'm looking at them right now and I'm like I'm really hungry. There's a couple of them that are like, you know, I could go for some food. Like I could go over some like actual. Oh yeah. Mastula does that to me too. Yeah. I'm trying to figure out what the names.

Oh, you brought the snack packs. Oh, the snack pods. There it is. Snack pods. There we go. Snack pods, shout out to them. Because they're just on the wall sticking around and you think they're easy. And then there's a trophy called grab bag,

which is empty one biome of all its snack pods. And after I got, when I did, I was like, oh, okay, I saw it. And I was like, oh, I know where the three are in the beach scene. I went and got all three of them. And it was like, no, there's more. And I was like, how the fuck are there more? I finally went to the very, very first level, which I was, area, which was way easier. I thought to see them all and got them there.

But I was like, damn, they are hiding some of these things incredibly well. Yeah. What about grumpuses? What's your favorite grumpus? Hunger makes me hungry also. Yeah. Now I'm just like, I'm like,

Western bacon bunger. Yeah. Did you say what your favorite? No, because yeah. Mine is big, big, big bopsicle.

Big bops. Oh yeah, you did say. Okay. And then Bephika is your favorite grumpus, Joe? Yeah, I love it.

What about Bethica? The town rumor monger makes you like her. I mean, I've been watching a lot of trash TV lately where it's like, and that's the mood I've been in. So I feel like that very much feeds into it. Everybody loves a good, like,

like town gossip story, you know? Okay. Amron, favorite grumpus? We just talked about him. I've already forgotten his name. The one Yuri Lowenthal plays. Chanlo. Chanlo, yes. Sure, sure, sure. Is, in a game where everyone, like, it's about making everyone less suspicious of each other

and, like, bringing them together to actually understand that they, you know, need each other. Chandlo, he's already understands all that stuff. He's already relentlessly optimistic. He already knows that you need other people. It's just he's chosen different people that, like, Philbo wants him to. He wants everybody in one. one area. So I like that Chanlo is just nice and happy

and generally just takes the world at like at stride basically. Sure. And then blessed. Did you say your favorite? It's between Wiggle and Shanlo. I'd probably I'd probably go towards Shanlo. I like how Wiggle I like her voice acting.

Like I like the singing. I love her attitude. I can't stand Wiggle. You don't like really? I stopped to request because she annoyed me so much. Just like, I love her. She's got your juice back, I don't know what it was.

It was just like, every time I talk to you, it just makes me want to skip through dialogue because I just don't like talking to her. Oh, I find her voice so soothing. I don't know. I like to. I like how her side quest pays off. No spoilers.

Shane Lowe, though, takes it for me, though. For all the reasons, Emeron said, like, I think Shane Luz is very lovable and very positive. For me, it's grand. We already talked about, obviously, the guy who's in the strawby hat and thinks they're all his kin and all his friends. And he's super nice to all of them and wants to rehabilitate all the bug snacks and work with it. And then also, again, you want to talk about like the game being dark or whatever.

Shout out again to, I never would have thought of it if it wasn't for the trophy, but like he sleepwalks at night and you can sleep feed him bugs next. And that is so fucked up. The guy you know loves bugs snacks and wouldn't eat bug snacks, you make eat bug snacks. and he does not take it well in the morning. Oh, no. So, everybody's pro on Bugsnacks, right? Yeah. Yeah.

I'm super excited to try it on PS5 with the little game card things that you guys are talking about. I'm sure. I might load it up on PS5 and start playing through to like finish out of the trophies and all that. It's a good enough game for me to definitely do that. Yeah. Yeah, so it's that thing where I really,

I had a great time. I love Bugsnacks. And I think it scratched an inch. I didn't know. needed, right, which was, hey, here's a cute puzzler where it's going to be no stress. And it was that, you know, the same thing we talked about, Blessing, our run up to getting the PlayStation 5. It was that idea of having those experiences where, you know, Miles is a story and it is

challenging and there are fail states, right? And even for Astrobot, there's going to be platforming sections or trying to platinum it that'll, like, feel like you put you into a different mindset than what bugs snacks did. And so having a fun story, actually caring about the characters, vibing with the music, like, I can't say enough nice thing. about it. Like I was really, and this is especially coming off of like, you know, Octodad I've said now for I feel like years, but obviously just since they started talking about bug snacks,

like Octodad was a cool idea and a fun in a fun packs demo that I felt when I got home, I was never compelled to finish. Whereas with this one, I was always like, oh, I want to go play more. And I've even thought about it since there are separate trophy lists going back and playing on PlayStation 4 now, just to platinum it again. But then I'm like, these load times. I don't know if I want to do it. I think it's like, I think this kind of occupies the same place Goose game does. Oh, interesting. There's like this kind of meme

zeitgeist around it. And then people are like, okay, well, I don't really know what to expect of this, but I know that the memes are funny. So I think people are going to go into this kind of like going, you know, this is a nice, charming experience.

It's not going to be revolutionary. It's not going to like set the indie world on fire. But it is a fun little game that I think if you're looking for a launch game, this is a good one. I don't know, man. Goose game won so many awards for some year.

Dice Awards. I can basically this being the kind of like a game developer's game honestly. And I guess put a final question around the horn here and we'll start with blessing. All right.

Sam's request wrote into patreon.com slash kind of funny games and says, my question is, is the game actually fun or is it just the meme of bug snacks that makes it fun? Oh, I think the game is super fun.

Like I, it goes way beyond the meme. I understand where that expectation comes from, both from their previous game being Octodad, which, you know, was half meme, half game, I guess. And like, you know, seeing the, the Bucksnacks theme and everybody's saying it and all that stuff. Like, I get where people would get that idea.

But when you actually get your hands on it, like, I think it's, if you like puzzles, if you like, I keep thinking about the tweet. And I reference that every time we talk about bugs snacks, but like the program we're talking about, like, here's my personal inspiration for Bucksnax, right? He lists Viva Penaenaenaena, Apiscape, Pokemon, Snap, and Dark Cloud. and then another, I think the creative director, retweets it and says, like, here are some of my inspirations and them being Pikmin 3 at Adventure Time, The Muppet Show, and Bioshop. Right, like, actually getting my hands on it,

like some of those really shining through. I don't really totally get the Biosec thing. Oh, maybe I can kind of see where that comes from. But, like, for the most part, though, if you like that exploring, right? Like, Bioshock, you know, that first person, you're exploring a new area. Something's going on. You're not 100% was sure what it is.

though. I'm reaching. I'm reaching, but I'm just putting out there. No, that definitely lines up. The tools are also unlike plasmids in function, really? That's fair. No, these are all fair points. But yeah, like, if I, those inspirations I'd say shine through, like, in terms of the dark cloud stuff, right? There are characters for you to talk to all that stuff. You're building a town back. You're doing puzzles. You're snapping bug snacks. There are things to do in this game, and they are fun to do. At least I find them. fun to do. I think the game fits perfect as a PlayStation 5 launch title two when we talk about

the grand scope of what the launch lineup looks like. I'm glad that embargoes are opening up now so I can talk about how good the PlayStation 5 launch lineup is because everything kind of complements each other in the way that yeah, like Miles Morales, this action adventure game they're going to have fun with this big AAA PlayStation 5 game. Astrobat or Astro's Playroom, you know, being this tech demoish thing platformer fun for the family but it's only like two hours. Bucks next definitely does feel that's of here's a game for the family but also like the stories

fun and interesting it is somewhat meaty like you can actually spend time in this game no yeah like it's good I would recommend people check it out like I think it's worth playing can I ask you do you think somebody should play with this in her family not giving like no spoilers or anything like that is this a quit like

I strikes me as like an E-10 plus sort of situation if you ask me if like you play with my young kid play with him for like four-fifths because like I knows people who are playing this with like young children I'd be like yeah at some point maybe don't

like some point like just be like oh game's over cool we're done I feel like I haven't watched much Adventure Time I know this is going to blow people away like how dare you go watch Adventure Time but I figure like I imagine Adventure Time has a similar tone to this knowing what I know about Adventure Time

I don't know if any of you guys have seen Adventure Time I played stuff in Lego's dimension. Lego dimensions have a little time pack. But this strikes me, you know what, Billy and Mandy would probably be a better example, because I have seen Billy and Mandy. And I feel like Buck Snacks kind of strikes me as a similar level of, all right, yeah, this is a kid's thing, but at the same time, like adults watching this might be like, yo, okay, you guys are,

you guys are taking it places. Like, they're kind of pushing the boundaries a little bit in terms of the kid's stuff. But overall, like, I think it is safe to let a kid play this game. and experience it four-fifths the way through. All right. Well, there you go, ladies and gentlemen. That's your Kind of Funny Gamescast review of Bugsnacks. What do you think from what you've seen?

Let us know in the comments below. Then, of course, keep checking out YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. Again, it's the holiday rush. There are more reviews than you can shake a stick at, whether it be on the Kind of Funny Xcast, whether it be on the Kind of Funny PS-I-L-UX-X-O. Whether it be on this here, Gamescast or just Games Daily, there are a million different shows packed full of news.

First impressions. First impressions. That's out there too. Tell them about it was. Oh, man. It's where we give our first impressions. It's awesome. It's a podcast feed as well as a YouTube video feed.

So go get it there. Remember, of course, though, this has been the Kind of Funny Games cast each and every week we get together to talk about all the things we love in video games and some of the things we don't. You can get the shows early on Patreon.com. Slash Kind of Funny Games. You can be part of the show on Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny Games. you can get the post show on patreon.com slash kind of funny games.

However, I will tell you, spoiler alert, there's not going to be a post show for this bug snacks review. Because, of course, like I said, three hours ago, a games cast went live. Did that one have the post show? Or is it the other games cast we're doing this week? One of them will have a post show. I'm not going to tell you which one it is. I don't want to ruin the surprise. I want you to open up each one on patreon.com slash kind of funny games and figure it out.

And maybe if we don't do it, just realize we're exhausted. If you don't want to give us any bucks on patreon.com. Slash Kind of Funny Games, no big deal. You can get the shows on YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games. Rooster teeth and podcast services around the globe. Joey, Blessing, Imran. Thank you for joining me today. Thanks for having.

It was really fun. Until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you.