Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Final Fantasy VII and Metroid - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 26

Episode Date: July 10, 2015

Tim and Colin discuss their worries about Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Nintendo gets flack for it's new spinoff games, we discuss which game series should be annualized, and we question what the most important franchise of last generation is. (Released 07.03.15) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everybody, it's me Greg Miller, and I wanted to let you know Comic-Con is coming up and kind of funny is going to be there. So if you're at San Diego, we have a bunch of stuff you can come do with us and you don't even have to have a Comic-Con badge. On Thursday, we're going to polite provisions. We're doing a meet and greet there. 5 p.m. You don't need a Comic-Con badge. You do need to be 21. Don't blame me. Those are the drinking laws in the United States of America. Friday, we're doing the Game Over Greggie show at Petco Park is part of Geek and Sundry Studio Stage.

No Comic-Con badges is required. We're doing that at 3 p.m. And then I'm moderating a whole bunch of Comic-Con panels if you do have a Comic-Con. badge, so come hang out with me in the convention center. All the details are up on kindoffunny.com slash news, so head over there for the full rundown. What's up, guys? Welcome to the first ever episode 26 of the Kind of Funny Games cast.

As always, I'm Tim Geddies. I'm joined by the coolest dudes in video games, Greg Miller, Colin Moriarty. Yay. It's your golden episode, because you just turned 26. I did. So this is your golden episode. If episodes were years, this would be how old I, the show would be how old I am. I mean, if episodes were years, the show would be as old as you are.

That would make sense, yeah. Yes. But they're not. They're just episodes. Yeah. But the number. The number is still how old you are. Numbers don't mean anything.

Okay. This is a nice shirt. How about that? It is. I like it a lot. It's upsetting. There's a lot of origin story to this. I won't get into the whole thing.

But I originally bought my pigeon shirt because I was jealous that Scott Lowe had a dinosaur shirt. Sure. And I wanted that dinosaur shirt, and they stopped selling it. So then I saw the pigeon shirt. And my pigeons will do. So now I've just been all. The dinosaurs of the sky. Yeah.

It's like struggle. I found the sharks. Here they are. They're the dinosaurs at the sea. So that was your story. That was like a long story. Just that. No,

there's more details. We didn't need to get into all that. You bought a pigeon shirt and then later bought a shark shirt. Yeah. That was the story. Yeah. There's a Mickey Mouse shirt in there somewhere too. Yeah.

It's part of your new prints. I just like all these like all over animal print stuff. It's good. It's a look. Do we still count Mickey Mouse as an animal? Mm-hmm. He's a mouse. I know.

I know. Don't be wrong. I know. Technically, he's a mouse. Yeah. But he's also a person. Yeah. Guys, this is the Kind of Funny Games cast. Every week we talk about video games.

Four topics broken up day by day, Monday through Thursday on YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games. Full episode on Friday at that same place. Also, you can get it early Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny Games. It's great. You should do it. It's awesome. This one, it's worth a dollar.

Yay. Yeah. I don't know if they've been worth a dollar for a while. Oh, man. But this one, definitely. This one's going to be good. It's going to be good. specifically because the first topic of the day

is Final Fantasy 7 and I am so excited to talk about this the remake's coming and I want to know you guys's thoughts on this what's it going to be when's it going to come out will it ever come out what systems it's going to be all the questions there's these burning questions everyone's talking about on the internet

everyone's excited about it everyone's trepidacious but why because they haven't started it the director didn't know he was the director that's clearly years away That was my favorite story was when, I think it was Nibora, right? Yeah.

Was saying that it was on Katako, I think, when they were saying that he didn't even know that he was in charge of the game. Until they saw like some sort of slide show or whatever at Square Enix in Japan and he's like, wait, I'm the director of the game. They're like, yeah, you're the director of the game. He's like, no one told me that. So off to a good start. Yep. Final Fantasy set a remake. Yeah, I mean, the thing, the reason people have trepidation about it is because, and they should is because it's a Square Enix game coming out of Japan.

so you have every reason to be fucking nervous about it, not only in terms of its quality, but in terms of its timeliness, right? Final Fantasy 13, very questionable trilogy. Some people like it. A lot of people don't. And so it makes sense to be nervous about this, but I think moreover, people are nervous about it

because it seems like Square Annex has a lot of balls in the air and some pretty important balls as well with Final Fantasy 15 and Kingdom Arch 3, some very important balls together. Yes. So adding another important ball in the air when they're already juggling, the clown known as Square Enix. And I don't mean that as a derogatory thing, but let's just imagine that the clown is juggling. You're painting this metaphor.

I mean, two balls is usually enough. Yeah, two balls is enough. Three balls, you know, it's getting crazy. It's getting crazy. So, yeah, I think people are nervous about it because the game is so clearly in pre-production. Or just, you know, as they say, I think the verbiage they use just entered production. So you're looking at 2019 probably for this game. And I would, I'd be shocked if you saw it before then.

And that's like best case scenario, 2019. Yeah, because they have to. Square hasn't had a lot of best case scenarios lately in terms of getting games out. Yeah, it's a problem just in the sense that this isn't something you do lightly. This is a game that is now 18 years old. It can't be just remade or remastered. They are, they are releasing the PC port of it to kind of tie people over on PlayStation 4, which I respect. And I'll play it and I'm excited about it.

Actually, I'm very excited about it. But are you going to play through it? Are you just going to play it? No, I'm going to play through it. You're going to beat it. Yeah. I haven't beat Palm Fantasy 7 since I think I was in high school So Matt

All right Yeah no I'm gonna play it and beat it and I'm looking forward to it It'll be an old kind of experience that I'm looking forward to But this isn't a game that you just Hand off to someone It's it's important that they do this right Which is why I think that they could probably do it in three years But I don't think they will

Because they have to now sit down with the script And figure out like well do we want to rewrite certain parts They have to sit down with the battle system Materia and all these kinds of things Be like is there anything that needs tweaking here. They have to be very, very careful with what they do with this game. This is a game that is going to sell millions and millions of copies and needs to be done right because Final Fantasy 7 while I don't think it's this incredibly sacred game that a lot of people think it is. The fact of

the matter is a lot of people do think it's a very sacred game. So I feel bad for them that now that it's real that they're actually doing it. It's something that people have been asking for for years, but I didn't think they'd ever really do it. And I thought that part of it was the fact that they don't think they could do it. Yeah. So there's every reason to be nervous about, but there's reasons to be excited to. So that's my thing is like I'm very excited about it, but I'm just as nervous because it's like there's no way that they're going to recapture the magic.

There's no way this is going to be what people want it to be in their heads. And that's because really, that's my question is what do you want it to be? Like what is it that you want it? Because if you just want the exact same game, but just prettier, that's not going to happen. Like there's no way they'll ever do that. And it's like, should they even do that? Like, is there a purpose for that?

And would that game even be the same? release now. Right, now you're talking nerdy stuff. I'm going to go get a coffee. I don't like Final Fantasy, though. Yeah. Never played it. I started playing, and I never could get through it

because it was really boring. No, I mean, I would want a scene-for-scene shot-for-shot remake of the game. I mean, I think that's like that kind of how you have to treat it. It's not a reboot, right? So it's implicitly called Final Fantasy, or explicitly called Final Fantasy 7 remake. Remake.

Which they said that that's not going to be the title. And they only did that to show at the press conference at D3 that like this isn't a movie, this isn't a whatever, this is a game. And to me that means, you know, I think that, you know, and these are, this is what we always talk about with words and meaning definitions. Like, I don't know what a lot of people think about with remake, but to me it means you remake what has already existed and you remake it again, which means that you stay true to it, as opposed to a reboot, which is like the Devil May Cry reboot from Ninja Theory or

something, which is a different game. Or, you know, the reboot of whatever movie, you know, has been rebooted in the last seven years, which is, you know, everything. So I personally want to see something that's totally true to the original So something similar to Resident Evil on the GameCube compared to the PS1 one where it's like it was very faithful but you know there was added stuff That would be to me the ideal situation. I just still don't think they're going to do that I don't either I I I just to me if they want to read you know obviously if they want to rewrite it parts of it I think that's fine

The translation we got in the States on PS1 for Final Fantasy 7 is notoriously bad as a lot of translations were at that point. I mean, when we were talking to Ega about Castlevania Symphony in the Night, and I said to him, what is a man? He didn't know what I was talking about, and Ben Judd was talking about how, like,

that is not even in the original game of Japanese. He asked, what is a person? And that's a totally different thing, you know? So I think that there's a lot of that kind of stuff going on in Final Fantasy 7. A lot of the translations are just bad. So if they want to rewrite it on the Japanese front to make it even better in their language

and then have a proper localization like we get now, I think that's totally fine, but there are just certain things you cannot remove from the game. And I think it's very dangerous to start talking about Final Fantasy 7 in a revisionist sort of way because I don't think that people that want this game want that. If that's what they wanted, they would get a new Final Fantasy Sima game, which we already got with Crisis Core, et cetera. But I mean, that that's kind of the problem, though, is that, you know, this revisionist thing where if they were to rewrite it, like you're talking about just making the quality of what already existed better, like the grammar and just like the storytelling, telling the same story just, you know, more concisely and just better,

creating a better world with Midgar and all this stuff. But the problem is with what we've seen of the universe of Final Fantasy 7, since 7 has come out, there hasn't been anything that's been amazing. There's been some stuff that was decent. I enjoyed Crisis Core a lot. Yeah, I like Crisis Score as well. Durgea Serberus was obviously not very good. Not well received.

And, like, I've been children, I mean, it's one of those things where it's like, everyone was so excited for that being a movie and like continuing and stuff but really what it comes down to is that movie was just fan fiction you know and it was a fan service is a better way to to put it it was just like it gave everyone what they thought they wanted at the time but then once they saw it they're like this isn't what i wanted like that's not cloud that's not like why is sephoroth back like all these questions came up and they weren't you didn't feel fulfilled watching it you're just like oh this is cool they're fighting you know but it just felt like a glorified CG cutscene, which is great, but it's like that wasn't what Final Fantasy 7 was.

It didn't have the humor and it didn't have the just personality of the characters, you know? And it was, it was like a weird, hot topic meets realism meets Dragon Ball

thing, you know? And we kind of saw that then go forward into the aesthetic of Fontan Fantasy 13, but what's interesting is I don't think, and especially now that we've seen

this trailer, it obviously looks at like Advent Children. It's like, I don't understand how they could rewrite it without just making it more, for lack of a better term, emo, and just more fitting the aesthetic of their, the rest of the Fall Fantasy 7 universe as opposed to the one standalone thing that is the original game. Sure. Yeah. And this is the hazard of doing something like this is that I don't really feel bad about it because I often said that the financial imperative is for Square to do this because they can make a lot of money doing it. And at some point you do have to listen to your fans.

Final Fantasy 7 for many younger gamers put Square on the map when they were still Squarespace. And it wasn't for me. I mean, I was playing, you know, many of us were playing Square games long before that. But for a lot of people, that was a come-to-Jesus moment about Westerners liking PlayStation games, liking role-playing games, liking Japanese games. And so it's a game that holds a special place in people's hearts. So I don't think that, although I don't disagree that they can go in different. directions with Final Fantasy 7 or they can go in different directions with other games they remake. I think with 7 you have to be very careful because people are going to have a certain

expectation of what it's going to be. And I don't necessarily think it's controversial to say that most Final Fantasy 7 fans want a prettier Final Fantasy 7. With cutscenes and beautiful environments and beautiful character models, I don't think they should fuck with the fighting system. I don't think they should fuck with the material system. And have the same flow through the game. You know, don't, I don't, that's the one thing. I still know the game in my head pretty well, you know, like where it goes and the places you visit, and those things are still important. So I'd be disappointed if they added a new town or a new playable character or someone. It's like, that's not what your charge is right now. What you're charged with doing over the

next few years is remaking it what already exists. And I understand that the biggest problem, and people have brought this up in the past, I think it's a really important thing to think about is that the people at Square Annex as an any game developer are, they're creative people and they want to make games and they want to make, they want to implement their own ideas. And to be put on a task like this might be exciting for some people, but for many people it's going to be harrowing and it's going to be what they don't want to do. Because they have

a certain confine in which they have to stay within. The rules have already been made. The parameters exist for Final Fantasy 7. And so they're going to have to dance that the tight walk, tightrope dance of what can we do and get away with, but how true do we want to keep it? And the fact is they can't... The worst thing, man, is there, at the end of

the day, they are just going to get picked apart for what they did wrong. If they did try to perfectly remake the game. No one's going to be there. Like, oh, good job, guys. It's going to be like, oh, you fuck this up. Why didn't you do that? Like, oh, this character designs off.

Oh, this character, you know, all these little things. And that's if they do it perfectly. Like, if they try to actually remake what was already done, if they just try to, if they do what is going to end up happening and just kind of like make a spiritual rem? I don't even, what is it going to be? Like, what would you even call that? I think it should just call Final Fantasy 7 and just be like, this is Final Fantasy 7.

And that's, so like, yeah, what you would call something like that, a spiritual successor, a spiritual remake of, I don't know. What I know is that they have their work cut out for them. What I know is that this game is nowhere near coming out. Years away, years away. And that's what's the most interesting to me about this entire announcement is we've talked about it so many times. Like this being what Square needed to do to please the fans and all that stuff. But it's funny that it happens now because now is the time when I'm like, this is not when they, need to do this. They should have done it a couple years ago or a couple years from now.

Like, specifically with Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy 15, it's like, let's get those going. Let's get those good, you know, and, uh, or else cancel one of them and make this the priority. Like, not that I would want them to do that, specifically not this fucking long after I've waited for these games, but it's like, don't announce this third thing. That's just like, they're either going to work on it and it's going to to take away from the other two games or they're not going to work on it and everyone's going to be pissed off that this game just keeps being shown in like really obscure long CG trailers that you know a couple points down the line it's going to be oh that character you saw on that trailer

doesn't even not even in the game anymore as an outside of this whole square you next thing that's the whole point of what's going to happen with this it's going to be trailer after trailer talk after talk every show now they're going to ask about these three games and what's happening and the news will never be good the news is never going to be all right it's almost done it's coming out this September. You know, finally that trigger trigger is going to fall or be pulled, I should say, for Kingdom Hearts, for, you know, the Final Fantasy they're working on, too, with the guys gone on their road trip.

But it's like, now this is hanging over their head larger than, it's looming, larger than ever. You know what I mean? And I thought PlayStation experience was a weird thing to come out, toy with everyone's emotion, then just do the PC port, but then come out at E3 and say, oh, no, it is. You're like, what are you doing? Like, what's the plane here? Well, it's clearly, it's clearly something that happened in between. You think it's reactionary to everybody's reaction to it?

Yeah, I think, I mean, I don't know for sure. These decisions are made lightly, but it was about seven months, six and a half months between the announcement of the PC port and then the Final Fantasy 7 remake, which is just entering production now. And mind you, we still have no idea

who's making the fucking game, which is not a good sign either. So we know that Square Next leadership is producing and directing it, but that doesn't really mean anything. Meeamoto's directing or producing fucking Starbucks doesn't mean anything. Unless you're like the director

or the producer of that team, but a lot of these things are more symbolic or like, you know, like in Afune, for instance, is helping create and directing and producing recor with a studio that is 5,000 miles from Tokyo. So how intimate do you think his relationship really is with armature on a day-to-day basis? Probably not very.

And I'm not saying the game's going to be good or bad, but it's just something to keep in mind as an ancillary kind of thought. Sure. But the problem with seven is indeed, was this a reactionary move? And if so, good on them because they're listening to what people want.

but and I still think Final Times 67 remake sells more than Final Fantasy 15 you know like I don't think that that's out of bounds to say I don't think that's out of control to say I think Final Time 78 remake is going to be fucking huge yeah and it's going to be huge regardless of when it comes out or how good it is um but I agree with what Greg's saying in the sense that Square Nix is setting a weird optic issue for themselves where it's like well what do you like where are your games like when are they actually going to come out and they have all these Western games coming out, which is great, you know, something like, you know, Tomb Raider, for instance,

but, um, which they're publishing, but it's, it, it calls up interesting questions about like, how are they using their own teams and their own internal resources? And also, how are they tapping outside stories, uh,

sources, because as the stories that I was reading after E3 said, you know, CyberConnect was connected to the Final Fantasy 7th. And I haven't seen that since, which means that it's probably just a fleeting rumor. But I don't believe they're making this game internally. And one of the big questions you have to ask is who the fuck is making it.

And then, uh, from there, you kind of go into a direction of, okay, when is it going to be ready? And when are you going to announce the release dates for these other games that people are really waiting for? Because I know some people were mad at me when I said it, but Final Fantasy 15, the demo, the fact that they're patching the demo is still some of the stupidest shit I have ever heard in my life. Why are you doing that? You put the demo out to get feedback and then you put it in the main game.

Who cares about the demo anymore? It shows to me that they have a whole whacked out view of when these games should come out and how much time they should be taking on them. that's why I still say Final Fantasy 15 probably fall 2016 Kingdom Hearts Fall 2017 probably the earliest if not 2018 Final Fantasy 7 2019 it would have been nice for it to be ready on the 20th anniversary but that would mean that they would have to accelerate the shit out of this

And I will say as an aside that Square has an interesting example although an unusual example of how they can do this game which is in Final Fantasy 4 when they remade 4 on the DS it was you know they made the characters like Chibi and all these kinds of things and and they rewrote some of the story and balanced the difficulty,

but it was the same game. And that's the example. I want to see a retranslation. I want to see pretty graphics and all sorts of things and throw in a few elements and balance things that weren't unbalanced and get rid of some shit that sucked. Or add some new things in if you really want to, but make sure it doesn't affect the fabric of Final Fantasy 7.

And so I actually think that that is a great example of the game they've already done. Exactly. But so my question you, Colin, is what is the percent chance that they'll do that compared to doing something else. And what do you think that something else is? Like, do you think that they would change the battle system to be more than 13? I know, but where do those rumors come? Those aren't, like, the rumors are just rumors of people worried, you know?

Well, this is that, well, that and the problem with Japanese game rumors, as I think a lot of fans of Japanese games know, is that some of the rumors are just unfound, you don't know where they come from. A lot of them comes from sites that we don't read and sources that are totally trusted that we just don't know. So it's hard to, like, boil all that stuff down sometimes. So, yeah, you have to take things on a case, by case basis with those kinds of issues

with the rumors and so like that. I think it's about 50-50. I think that it's going to be an internal fight with the team. And the good news is that you have some people involved in the leadership that worked on the original game. And I think they're going to want to stay true to it. But the aside from that is that they probably have looked at that game over the last 18 years and been like,

I wish I could change something about this. And now I can. Yeah. You know, it's not just static on a black bottom PlayStation 1Disc anymore. Now it's something that they actually can get into the code mold again. And so while I have faith that the leadership will keep it true. I also have faith that the leadership will now be able to rectify the issues that

they were not able to rectify the first time around. So it's a super dangerous game. I don't know. I just know that they, fucking with the battle system is a huge mistake. And that's what scares. That is going to be the news that I'm most excited to hear is if the battle system, what they do with it.

And if they change it. And it almost worries me, though, because it's just like, I don't know that the battle system makes sense with the aesthetic of Final Fantasy 7, what it is now and what this is going to be. I think it does. Well, because what we've seen of this CG trailer is that it's Advent Children.

And from Advent Children, the battles look like crazy ass dragon ball shit. That doesn't lend itself to active time battle of we're just going to walk and hit and walk and hit. You know what you mean? So it's just like it's, I'm going to be shocked if they actually go through with that because they're going to want it to look right and to look modern and to look like a 2019 game. Yeah, but ATB is still, is still random and capital. It's turn-based in the sense of stamina. So it's not turn-based like Dragon Quest, but it is turn-based like in the sense that you are taking turns.

It's just that some guys go quicker than you. And so eventually it stacks up where they lap you and stuff like that. So I think that is still classic. Like that is a classic way to fight in a Final Fantasy game. And they shouldn't fuck with that because then it has the law of unintended consequences. How does that affect the material system? How does that affect? Like the material system will not work properly if you don't have a system like that.

It just doesn't work because then they become more like some. maybe, but that's not really the intent of materia. The intent of material is to make yourself stronger and attach it to your weapons and your accessories. So, and then it has the effect of how does it affect the enemy designs and the enemies and how many enemies there are and all these kinds of things. They can't fuck with that shit. See, that's what I'm saying, though, is it just like, I can't imagine. So, okay, that we're really in this game, in an Advent Children style game, we're going to see ice monsters, little like ice triangles. You know what I mean?

Well, they don't have to be triangles. In other words, like, I'm always thinking about the intro with the soldiers with the guns, right? And like the harrowing intro of Final X-7, which is a fucking great intro on the train and they go up into the tower. And there, you meet a bunch of humanoid enemies with guns, right? They're soldiers. They're Shinar, like, whatever guys. And you could, you could, I think they're Shinar. I don't really remember anymore.

You could imagine a situation where, like, in my head, like, when I saw the free member, I'm like, that sits, I can't wait to see what this looks like. you know, there's still a place for, like, I know a lot of people think JRP systems like that are archaic in a sense, like, okay,

you're gonna run around, you can't see the enemies you magically appear in a battle with them, and then you like take turns fighting each other. I'm just saying like there are games that do that

very well still. And I don't, and I don't think that that that's gonna be a massive issue. So if they, yeah, there's like weird polygonal fucking garbage enemies. Well,

I was thinking about how cool are those shinra soldiers going to look like in the remake and how real are they going to look and how is cloud and how is cloud going to look

in that fight that though and more about the how the actual fight looks because like it's not so much about the gameplay because I'm with like the gameplay should be that way but it's more about the aesthetics of what we're seeing like is it really just gonna be cloud just kind of like standing there bouncing waiting for the bar to go up and then walking

up and doing a slash because from what we know from what the rest of the Falun Fantasy 7 universe is it's never like that it's throwing the sword up jump and grab and slice and like doing a million like freaking combos on him you know what I mean it's more like the Fallen Fantasy 13 battle system yeah that

If they put Final Fence 13th Vowel System, which is fine. Final Fent X's the Bial System is actually very good. I enjoy it a lot, but it's not Fonfancy 7. No, it's not. It's totally different game. And that was actually one of the only good things about Final Fence 13 was actually the fights. I don't know, man. This wasn't enough of them. That's the thing is that there are no answers, and I don't think there are any answers at all, period.

That's the thing is what I'm saying is that I don't think they know. I think right now they're probably rewriting the script and trying to figure out how the fuck they're going to do this. And it's all super nebulous. Yeah, exactly. And the fact that the director didn't know he was the director is all you fucking need to know about this project and how quick it was coming from fruition, which is why I think it's a direct reaction to the ultimate troll moment

at PSX in December, you know? But that's nuts, though, that they're releasing that game. They are releasing a PS4 native version of Final Fantasy 7 and then going to do this, even if it is a couple years later. Like, it's confusing to say at least. I guess it's confusing. I don't think it's that confusing. I think it's them saying they expected it to be done earlier.

It's clearly not. It was supposed to be out by now. and them saying like to me it's not confusing at all it's them saying like here you have your final fantasy seven game and good fucking luck if you think you have any idea when you're going to get the next one which is their whole I'm oh I still can't believe there are people that think that final fantasy 15 and kingdom hearts three are like a year away that's like that's the shocking thing to me I'm like you're out of your mind so but goofy

goofy said it so just that's how square annex works and I appreciate them they they clearly have a lot of money to burn so because the burn rate on final fantasy 15 must be astronomical at this point, and they're still going to put it out, and they're patching the demo. So, I don't know, man. They're a confusing company, but I do appreciate them. I think that this is a good arc forward for them. Now I just want to see Dragon Quest 11.

Yeah. Of course you do, Colin. All right, so we're moving on into the second topic, which is sponsored by Lute Crate. Would you classify yourself as a geek, gamer, or pop culture nerd? Then LutCrate is a subscription box for you.

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I don't know what the team is. I don't know what's next. Yeah. I don't know. It wasn't in the other thing. They're figuring it out. Thank you, Luke, great, for your support. So this topic is about Nintendo.

Something very near and dear to my heart. So at E3, they come out. They announce all these new games. People are thrilled. Some of that statement is true. Some of that statement is not. One of those games was Metroid Prime Federation Force. People lost their mind.

They were so excited. Another one of those games was Zelda, Triforce. I don't remember what it was called, but... Who cares? Yeah. TriForce Trinkets. Yeah. So there's that thing.

And people did not like this. The Internet uproared. They were angry. The Internet comment? Oh, the internet was really mad. I don't believe that for second. So then Mega 64 made a hilarious video that you guys should check out that was making fun of the internet, making fun of Nintendo. But really, they're also making fun of Nintendo because that's how that all works.

Yeah. And it was ridiculous. It was really funny. And they essentially pretended they were terrorists at our terrorist group that was upset that a real Metroid Prime was coming out. You're saying it's funny. You're saying it's a funny video for Mega 64. You were also saying they've crossed the line. This might be too much.

But it's not to Mega 64. I'm aware that's Mega 64. I love Mega 64. But watching the video, I was like, good Lord, like, they just do what we would never do. Because I'm a fuck-ass bitch. That's why. They really do got balls. They got three balls.

Just like Square Enix. Three balls, but not in the air. No. No, they just got the good balls. Firmly in their sack. Firmly in their sack, Mega 64. So, they did this, and then our boy, Reggie Fizema came out, and he's just like, we get it. Look.

Like, we understand people don't, are very upset about this, right? but you guys need to play it in order to understand what we're doing and we want to make sure that we're breathing new lives into our franchise and you're talking specifically right now about Metroid about Metroid, yeah, the reaction metric, yeah, the reaction metric. Because people had a lot of issue with the Zelda game too, but that seemed to be a little less aggressive.

But you know why, you know why, because they know they're getting the Zelda Wii you that they want. They're getting Zelda Wii. They've also had Zelda games in recent times. So, you know, like the last Metroid game was OtherM. Before that it was Prime 3. And OtherM, a home run. Yeah, I mean, other end...

Well, we all thought Samus sounded like... Yeah. Other Em had a lot of issues, but it wasn't horrible. I feel like OtherM gets a bad rap for being like garbage, but it really just wasn't good. Yeah. You know, I think there's a... Something to be said there. Although, again, Prime 2008 was like the last real great Metroid game.

So for him to come out and say this... You're saying Metro Prime 3? Yes. Corruption. Yeah. Okay. Right. Yeah, I just want to make sure you were...

You said Metroid Prime 2008, which would be three. The original Metroid Prime, which was what, 02? Yeah. The last Metroid Prime game was 2008, was Metroid Prime 3 on the week. Right, okay. And that was a great game. It was as good as the first, but still, it was great. So there's no new Metroid Prime game announced.

Out of nowhere, they announced this Metroid Prime ball hunters, and then they renamed it Federation Forest. And there was hunters on DS and all this stuff, and this looks kind of like a weird successor to that in some way that no one asked for at all. And I think that's what we're dealing with now is the fact that everyone's like, no one asked for that, everyone asked for this, why aren't we getting this? Why are we getting that? Why are we getting that? Because for me, I definitely, I agree with the people that are upset. I'm like, why aren't we getting this? I totally understand that. But at the same time, it's like, I don't think that this game takes the place of that game. And it just, the fact that it has the Metroid name almost doesn't matter. Like, it's just, it's a spinoff thing. And they're just using Metroid because it's the style of game is a shooter. type thing. And it's like that Metroid's their shooters. It's like Mario,

just because like a Mario party game's coming out doesn't mean that a Mario Kart game's not being made, you know? Yeah. Having hung out with Colmori already long enough and done Colin a lot long enough. I already know one of the arguments he's going to make about all this, right? And correct me from wrong, sir.

Love her. Is the fact that Metroid historically doesn't sell. It sells fine, not juggernaut blockbuster. So that's why you're not getting the Metroid game you want. Now the problem with that, our line of thinking when we apply it to this other game, Ball Hunters, is the fact of why apply the Metroid franchise to that? If it already isn't selling, it's not going to sell this weird, not Metroid game that you don't really want thing. You know what I mean? And that's

the thing about Mario, right? Mario sells, and we already know Mario can be applied to a million different things, and the fact that Mario tennis might come out doesn't stop the next 3D Mario from coming out, right? Whereas with this, I think they're clearly searching for what to do with Metroid, right? Metroid other M was a different direction of like, all right, let's see, Jesus, prime critically acclaimed. Everybody loves it. These gamers love it. How do we bring it, but it's not selling it.

Can we sell it if we base it around a story and put the Remember Me guy in there and all this stuff? No, we can't. So what's the next way do we play? We put out the collection of all the primes, right? It doesn't sell juggernaut. It's not a mega success. So now you go and reapply here. It's them searching and they're taking this thing around trying to figure out what the hell they can do with it.

It's similar in a way to what Sony did with Ratchet and Clank, right? Or insomniac, really, I guess. but of just like, all right, we know Ratchet does well here. What if we do something? Oh, no, nobody likes those. Nobody likes that. Okay, let's get back to just making Ratchet games. Like, where do you go and where do you put Metroid is the big thing?

And to Collins' point of the fact that they don't sell well, and that's why you don't get the Metroid game you want. I've said it before on our programming. I'm like, from, you know, again, an outsider standpoint of somebody who didn't grow up with the Nintendo, but like appreciates what a Metroid does, right? Is I would say go backwards with it and make a simple 16-bit Metroid, put it out on the e-shop or whatever, get people stoked

about that, excited about that, new fans come to it, everybody knows it's this awesome thing, it's 14 bucks, 20 bucks, everybody downloads it plays, it loves it, and then you start to build the groundwork, or lay the groundwork to get yourself the next really big Metroid game. That would be amazing. I feel like that is the

right way to go in terms of the core gamer and what we would want from Metroid if we're not going to get another prime. Even if we are getting another prime, I kind of want that. That sounds pretty good. Yeah, I mean, there's a few things that people ignore about this, about this situation, I think. A, like Greg brought up,

Metroid historically doesn't sell, and the whole series, 11 games have sold about 18 million copies, which is nothing. So, what was the Dark, what was the Souls number today? So, yeah, we were comparing to Dark Souls.

Namco Bandai announces that Dark Souls 1 and 2 sold 8 million copies. So, like, right there, you see a game that, on average, is selling three times more than a Metroid game. And Metroid has this cachet with everyone, but it's not a game that people buy.

I think that, you know, I like Metroid. I love the original Metroid. I love Metroid. I love Metroid Prime. I love Super Metroid, although I think it's overrated. You know, there's a lot of good Metroid games to play, but the fact of the matter is people treat this like a marquey title, and it simply isn't.

That's why Retro hasn't been making them. Now, there's another thing that we ignore with Retro particularly is that people want Retro to make the game, and the possibility exists that they're autonomous enough to say, like, we don't want to make a Metroid game. And that's so that's possible, too. and when if that hypothetical is possible, then you have to hypothetically assume

that Nintendo then goes around and is like, well, what do we do with this franchise? If anything, remember, they, Metroid sells especially soft in Japan and them going to Team Ninja, I think, was a way for them to be like, can we get the Japanese audience on board? And can we also, you know,

make something that the rest of the world will like and buy, and the answer, of course, was no. So to them, it's not so obvious what to do with Metroid. I think Greg makes a great point that if that's the case, then why I put Metroid and attach it to anything? I think it's that Nintendo's saying, well, we're trying to give you something, at least in the universe, while we figure out what we're going to do with this. As I've said before, Nintendo is in the

space in between right now. So what do people want to them to announce a Metroid game if they're going to strand on the Wii, so it sells half a million copies and no one gives a fuck about it? It's smarter for them to say, like, anything we have in production where Metro, we need to shift over to the next console and we need to be quiet about it. We have nothing to announce at this time. So it's entirely possible. People are way overreacting to this. You know, because you're right, Tim. This game being existing with probably a budget of a couple million dollars, maybe, is not going to stop them from giving $15 or $20 million to a studio to make a real Metroid game.

One doesn't exist, you know, at the exclusion of the other. And I think that that is an important point to make, and you made it. And I think in addition to that, though, it's not even just the fact that the, they're two different games. It's that this is a 3DS game. That is a Wii U game or whatever the hell. NX, you know, throw it up. But it's like, it's just,

totally different, it's a different market, it's a different thing, you know, and like, this game could have just been Federation Force, simply Federation Force, but why? Even if Metroid doesn't sell Federation Force isn't going to either. The Metroid at least helps a little bit in it. Also, it just builds,

it does what Nintendo does and create a Nintendo universe, you know, where it's like you have all of these different characters and they have all these different spinoffs and all this different stuff, and it's like, I don't know. Could the counter argument be the fact that we're sitting around right now,

tossing around Metroid sales, it doesn't sell compared to Dark Souls, da-da-da-da, when Metroid Federation Force comes out and does even worse, is the argument, and at least to a Metroid fan's opinion, they're going to be,

well, of course, now Nintendo's looking at those numbers and thinking it's even, it means even less. I don't think that's the case. I still believe in my heart that there's a Metroid game in development. I just don't think that they can,

they can say anything about it right now, because there's nothing to say. The game might be embryonic or in pre-pro. It might have just entered development. it could be an NX game in which they're not going to talk about it at all. Metroid isn't dead. They know what Metroid means. And I agree with Greg.

I would love to see a really robust. That was we saw with Axiom Verge, a robust like 2D sides rolling Metro, which we had seen on GBA and DS, but, but, you know, people just really overestimate the power of Metroid. And I think Nintendo is probably,

even though they have to do some PR spin to be like, all right, we hear you and all these kinds of things. And at their board meetings, they're probably like, who the fuck cares? Like, no one buys Metroid anyway. So, you know,

we're going to make a Metroid game to please these people, but it doesn't matter. that they're upset, they're going to, the only people, let's back up, right? The only people that care about this are the Nintendo hardcore fans who are fewer and fewer as everyday passes, right? And when you diminish that even that, even that, you know, group of people to the people that care about Metroid, it's a much smaller group. And Nintendo's thoughts are in the exact opposite direction, which is like, they're going to

be there anyway. So what can we do? And they're going to buy Metroid when it comes out. And some of these people, if not a lot of them, are going to buy this Federation force game. So let's not worry about them. What can we do to make Nintendo relevant again in the console space and what games and franchises can we create? And I say create to, you know, engender the goodwill of a new generation of people, not regurgitate the same shit over and over and over again. And in a sense, them not doing another Metroid Prime, half-ass, not from retro,

but from someone else. It's a great example of them kind of treating their IP with care, which I think is something that they, with the exception of Mario, do pretty well. And, um, So, Nintendo is going in a different direction. As we said so many times, this is a new Nintendo. And I could feel it. Like, I know it. Like, this is a different, this is a different Nintendo. And everything they're doing is different.

So, Metroid fans should take heart that a Metroid game will come out. The people I really, the only people I feel bad about are not the Metroid fans and not Nintendo, but the people making this game. Because they're probably making a pretty good game. And everyone hates it already. It's not their fault. See, that's the thing about Nintendo games, though, is that whenever they're announced, Whenever they're first talked about, everyone fucking jumps on it and hates it.

And the media, like, criticizes it. And, like, all the comments, like, this isn't what I want, blah, blah, blah. Why this? Why that? But then it happened. It comes out. And I think, generally, it's always a surprisingly

positive reaction. We saw it with Spatoon, where when that game was announced, everyone was like, this is fucking stupid. Why isn't this Metroid? You know, if we're going to have a shooter, give me Metroid. Yeah, why is everyone obsessed with Metroid? And then, you know, all this stuff,

and they're so mad about all this stuff. It's in space. No, you're in Space. Spice. And, but even with DS games, You know, like, when these things are announced, these smaller things, it's like, oh, why am I not getting a Zelda? Why am I not getting whatever? But it's like, then they

come out and you're like, oh, man, I love all these things. So, I don't know, we'll see. I'm not, I didn't play Federation Force, so I don't know if it's good or not. But going on to the Zelda game, like, so many people are like, I don't want the Zelda bullshit. I want a core Zelda game. I don't want a Zelda spinoff, but it's like... I do too. I mean, that's what I felt when I saw that, but I'm like, it doesn't matter. I don't care what I want.

But that's the thing, though, is it's just like, Zelda is a franchise that we've gotten. so many core games from, you know? It's not like we're... You already see it on the horizon. That's the difference. Like, there's light at the end of the tunnel for Zelda. You already see it and you're like, oh my God, Skyrim Zelda's going to be amazing, right? Where's Metroid? I think the fans feel adrift.

Yeah, but I mean, even on the, not the console front, but the handheld front, it's like, you know, we got link between worlds. We got Ocarina, we got Majora's Mask, like, the remakes, but still, like, there is a good amount of Zelda games. Sure. When you add on the virtual console, when you add on all this other stuff, it's like, we don't need... need more Zelda core games.

We don't need any of this stuff. But when it comes to the spinoffs, I'm actually happy this game's happening. Like, Four Swords Adventures was fucking awesome. I remember when it first happened on the GBA remake of Link to the Past. When you could play Multipli, I was like, whoa, this is a really cool idea.

And then they released the GameCube won. Granted, it was way too hard and you needed way too many peripherals to actually like make it all go. Make it work. Yeah. When it did work, oh my God. It's like, it was a flip on

the Zelda game and it was fun and it was unique and like you can that's what Nintendo's great about is like taking experiences you know and love and then changing it up just enough to make you be like whoa this is a whole new experience and I love this and this is fun those the four swords adventures was fun I loved playing with my friends the co-op slash kind of multiplayer thing the Nintendo kind of made a thing again with like new super Mario bros and all that stuff and like that's their their thing and it's Mario 3D world and all that and even smash bros. You know what I mean? Like it's competitive but it's just fun and you can kind of

just mess around and all that stuff. It's not a big deal when you lose. You don't feel like you Mario Card even, you know? It's like they they kind of have this really nice style of games that it's competitive fun and this Zelda game looks like that. So I don't know why people

need it's not this we're not not getting a Zelda game because the Zelda game. Yeah I agree with that too and to me two things stood out to me with that Zelda game one the 3DS is really showing its age. That game looks awful in terms of its aesthetic. But that brought up to mind at E3, another thing to me, which is like they're going to make

another Zelda game, and it's going to be on their next handheld. You know, like the, they're not quite in the space in between the 3DS yet, but I think they're pretty close. Because they cannot,

they cannot continue to extract blood to that stone for much longer. That thing is so weak. Well, you forget, you know, it's going to unify the platforms. Yeah, we'll see what happens with NX and what even that is, but like, 3DS is so weak that,

and I'm not a graphics guy at all, but when I look at games like that, I'm like, this doesn't look bad, it just looks old. And eventually they're not going to be able to get away with that anymore. They're already kind of not getting away with it, I think, in some respects. And so, again, it's them saying, like, we have the space in between Zelda for you right now, and we'll have the real Zelda.

We just released a real Zelda game two years ago on 3DS. I don't know what the fuck people want, you know? But you'll get your next Zelda game. And so, again, this is a Nintendo that is riding things out right now. They're certainly riding the Wii U out, and they're going to ride the 3DS out soon. you have to imagine. And these games will migrate over and you're going to see your 3D Mario game and you're going to see your Zelda game and you're going to see, you know, this Wii use Zelda game probably

ported over at some point. And they'll have something to say when it's ready. You see, you can't, you, Ubisoft had the luxury of announcing watchdogs as I've said before without announcing its platform. And everyone knew what you couldn't really say. You can't really do that again. You know, so while I expected that Nintendo might have been bold enough to do it with something like Metroid, they clearly are not going to say anything about the games until they

they have something to say about the hardware. And in a way, that is a unified message in a small. message, especially considering how woeful we use rollout was. We don't even know what the fuck it was. So yeah, this is a Nintendo that's going to be, this is going to have weak offerings for a while, but it's because it's

laying in weight and strengthening its future, which I think is actually the smarter move instead of like just shitting everything out now on a dead, a console which is totally fucking dead. And a handheld, which is for all intents and purposes, just not able to run their visions probably for much longer. So people need to relax a little bit.

Zelda will be fine. Metroid, you haven't seen the last of Metroid. It's impossible to imagine you've seen the last M-Zero anything like that either. It's just like, you know, all in good time. All in good time. Nintendo put themselves in a bad space and they have to lay in the bed, you know, that they made. It happens.

Get into bed, Miamoto. Now. Lay down. All right. Top of number three comes from Patreon from our boy, John Euling. I don't know how to spell or pronounce U-E-H-L-I-N-G. I'm going to go Euling. Euling, yeah, I would say Euling.

John Euling. It's a long one. Shuey Yoshita spoke about not being a fan of annualized series at Dice 2015. However, there's no denying that companies like Activision and Ubisoft make a lot of money doing so, i.e. Call of Duty and Assassin's Creed. Despite being moneymakers, the rush to make yearly deadlines and corporate obligations brings into question the quality because of bugs, as we've seen with Assassin's Creed Unity, or a perceived lack of innovation or stale gameplay and story from previous editions,

like all dirty ghost. Are there any series that you envision being on the cusp of annulization? Which your beloved series of games would you love to see annualized with the caveat that it's normally extremely high standards may take a hit in order to reach the yearly quota?

For example, instead of 9 to 10 scores every three years, it would generally get 7 to 8 with occasional 6 and 9s for stale slash excellent iterations. I think it's actually a good way to look at it. Thanks and keep up the great work. P.S. to Greg, M-I-Z. Z-O-U.

There you go. Is anything on the cusp of annualization? I mean, no, right? What would we think would be on the cusp? I'm thinking. Like the Assassin's Creed model, right, where it's different studios switching off. It seemed for a while that they were trying to do that with Arkham, right?

And they wouldn't have been annual annual, but when they brought W.B. Montreal into the fray, people were like, now we're going to start getting an Arkham game every year, every two years or whatever. Or DC game, you know what you mean? Exactly. Even if it wasn't Batman.

Exactly, exactly, exactly. And now W.B. Montreal, of course, this week was announced that these things are out there hiring for a new IP, so we'll see what that means, exactly. But on the cusp, I mean, you have to talk about a franchise that's super successful, and most people are smart enough now I feel to know that that's what he's describing. Was it Tom? John. John Euling. What John's describing there is the fact, the matter. If you go to this annualization scale, you start to lose quality, you start to tire out the audience.

And so how do you make that work? I really feel like, and Colin, you can correct me from one, Tim, obviously, too. it for once. Assassin's Creed feels like the last franchise that kind of jumped on that annualization train and now it's like we're out of the station. I don't think you can't pull that off again and do it.

I mean it's interesting because I feel like we're in a renaissance of the annualization thing. It's a very different type because now it's way more important. But back in like the even the PS2 era, there was so many games that they were annualized. In addition to the Maddens and stuff like that, like Tony Hawk, need for speed. Like these games just happened

every year, you know? And then eventually that kind of, that style died out for a bit. And then it did come back with Call of Duty and Assassin's Creed. Guitar Hero. And like, oh yeah, exactly. Guitar Hero, rock band and all that. So I don't know. Do you have any good examples?

No, I mean, where my mind goes, where my mind went in terms of recent is Assassin's Creed. I don't see anything jumping aboard that because I don't think that the model is necessarily sustainable. I do disagree with what he's saying that you exchange quality for regularity because that doesn't necessarily have to be true. And I think Call of Duty is actually an example of that being true. Activision has the means to have three studios plus basically every one of their other studios jump in and out to help with Call of Duty in such a way that the same studio isn't responsible for the game every year

because that would not be possible. So Call of Duty is on a three-year dev cycle, which is normal for a game. Three years is a normal cycle for the creation of a game. So you don't necessarily have to sacrifice it if you have the means in which to create top-tier AAA. games, which they would, whether you like dislike or like Call of Duty, they're not bad games. Not even, not even remotely are they bad. They, I've said before, and I'll say it again, Call of Duty has the best gun play of any game. Like, they've just totally nailed it.

And why, like, why companies don't just copy the way Call of Duty feels is, you know, totally beyond my understanding. But what he is right about is the staleness factor. And I think that that is the big concern with a lot of publishers because Call of Duty sales are not lowering, but there are plateauing. And what people have seen, I think, in the industry over the last two years or so is a great example of what happens when you leave and disappear and then reappear with the game. And that game is Grand Theft Auto 5. Yeah.

And which essentially was annualized. It was annualized. And it was being done by a lot of the same teams too. And I think that they were extracting as much out of that they could out of that engine. And they saw great commercial and financial success. But what they didn't see is what they saw with Grand Theft Auto 5, which was a ubiquitous crossover game. Grand Theodore. phenomenal.

Exactly. Grand The Thunder 3 and Vice City and San Andreas were great games and people enjoyed them outside of the gaming realm mostly because PS2 was selling so well by the time San Andreas

came out over 100 million PS2s were out there so it was, it was volume, right? And that's why people learned it. With GTA 4, when GTA 4 came out in 2008, there were not that many consoles out there.

There were maybe 40 million at that time, yet GTA4 was a phenomenon that pushed hardware. What Rockstar saw was like, this is the way we should be doing things, making big, meaty games that we can stand behind. We invest a lot of money in the front.

We get a lot of money behind it. And then we get a lot of money back afterwards. Plus, we make really meaty DLC, which they did with the Balladay-Ga-Ga-Toney and the Lost in the Damned, which were great pieces of D.S. I wish they do that for five. I think they will. I think that they're just focusing more on GTA.

Five, but then they just went quiet again. And then they came back and they made all of their money back in one day from the development of Grand The Fault Othold of Five, plus hundreds of millions of dollars, presumably in profit in a very short amount of time. And that probably raises the bells that you. be solved in Activision being like, we don't have to support all these studios. Rockstar North is the studio that's making these games.

And we can just support a three or four or 500 person team plus our satellite teams and our PR people and our home office and all that kind of stuff. And then make a lot of money on the back end if we're more patient. And so I think what we're seeing is not necessarily a renaissance of annualization, but the exact opposite, which is the reconsidering of annualization that has happened for probably the last 10 years or so. and a way that they can pull back the reins a little bit and be like,

we can be smarter with our money by investing more in the front and getting more in the back because this is more of an event. And that's why Call of Duty is plateauing. It's not, the sales aren't going down, but they're not going up.

And that should be a worrying sign because a lot of these Call of Duty games are already in development. But see, I think that's, that's the way they look at it, though, is it's like they're not putting all their eggs in that basket. That's just another thing they do.

So it's like, whereas, you know, GTA, that's it. Like, they just do that and that's their event or whatever. But then it's like, with this, I feel like with Call of Duty and Assassin's Creed, like, obviously, UweStoff makes a ton of different games, you know,

so it's like they can annualize, they have this cash cow, the reliability to get the money here, but then have the other things to get the money there and there. You know? And it's just like, there's not too many devs that have that kind of reach, but UiSop Activision, they are, you know?

Sure, but I think that Assassin's Creed is the Canary and the coal mine, I think, because Assassin's Creed's big and it's going to be profitable and it's going to do well this year and it looks fun. I'm not going to play it, but it looks fine. But here's the thing is that I think demonstrably, if not anecdotally,

excitement for Assassin's Creed is going down. And they're locked into this now. And the series is clearly coming to an end as well, because it has to. I mean, they're getting to almost to modern day. The game has to wrap up at some point. Then we go to space. Yeah, right. They probably will. I think that annualizing Assassin's Creed was actually a huge mistake

because Assassin's Creed, in my opinion, I want to put that in my opinion, was never good enough to justify it being out every year. And so there's like two tiers of Assassin's Creed games, the ones that people accept

and then the ones that are like the in-betweens, right? That people are like, well, Brotherhood wasn't really an Assassin's Creed game? I'm like, well, was it an Assassin's Creed game?

You know, what would have Assassin's Creed looked like if there were only four of them? And they were fucking awesome, you know? People stopped and focused and,

exactly. Let's see what we can do with this, push the boundaries. Exactly. And like, I think Ubisoft, yeah,

they make money and they, I appreciate their candor and saying, like, we make these games every year because the market demands them every year, and that's true. But could Assassin's Creed sell 15 million or 20 million copies if it disappeared? And is that a relevant thing to ask yourself?

Because then you don't have all these dueling studios that you own that can be making other games doing the same thing. And I think that Ubisoft might be taking a hint at this because I was surprised to not see Watchdogs too this year, which is clearly in development. And I'm not saying it's coming out this year, but I'm surprised I didn't see it at E3. And this might be showing a more careful approach to these games, a more judicious use of assets and resources, which I think Sony is really good at doing. which is why you will never see an annualized they only have one annualized game which is MLB

and that is a studio Sony San Diego that is totally dedicated to that game and this also brings up a point that I brought up to Rammer at EA Sports when we were talking about NHL 16 which was are these games eventually not going to be annualized too in other words are you going to make a platform we often talk about it with Grand Tourismo which I think would be

a game as platform and I think we're going to see that and he was like that is the you know I'm paraphrasing but he basically said in the interview like that is kind of what we think is going to happen. And so I think the annualization thing is collapsing. I don't think you're going to see it. It's not like it's not an earthquake that's going to bring it all crumbling down now. But you're going to start seeing diminishing returns because there are more games to buy.

There are better quality games to buy. And when something like, what's a good example? Like Uncharted 4 is a great example. When Uncharted 4 comes out, well, it's been four years since we saw Uncharted. And that means something to me. I'd be less excited about Uncharted 4 or if it was really Uncharted 6 and I had just played three or four and five you know last year and two years ago. Same thing with Fallout, right?

Yeah, exactly. We all flipped out to finally have Fallout 4 announced and know something about fallout. Well, it's because it's been gone forever. We're excited to see it again. Whereas Assassin's Creed, like, when Kitaku will leak Assassin's Creed, you're like, well, I don't need to read it because I knew this was coming. I'm not excited. Where is it going to be?

Exactly. Where is it? What's the time? Cool, cool, done. And there is a big difference in, like, there's a strata between the developers and really the publishers that seem to treat their IP with greater care. And I think the Vezda is a great example of that. And then the stakeholders that are trying to make as much money as much as humanly possible, as soon as human possible, which is Activision. And I'm not saying one is better than the other, but I'm saying that people feel much more positively about Bethesda than they do about Activision because Bethesda doesn't shove their games down people's throats every year.

Bethesda could easily take the engine for Skyrim, could have taken the engine for Skyrim, giving it to three different studios and been like, you make Elder Scroll 6, you make Elder Scrolls 7, you make Elder Scrolls 8. Your game comes out 2015, your game comes out 2016, your game comes out 2017. They could easily do that. There are fucking students that fall all over themselves to make a fucking Elder Scrolls game or a fallout game, but they don't do that. They did that with New Vegas,

and New Vegas was a game that took two years or three years, I guess, to make, and it was awesome. And then they just disappeared, you know? You have to kind of hit and run like that to treat your IP with care. I think Ubisoft is certainly starting to bend the curve towards Activision in a way that makes me a little bit uncomfortable because I still think that they're the most real

regular AAA publisher out there. I think you can learn a great deal by the more judicious use of IP that you see from something like Microsoft of Halo or Gears. I don't know. It's a dangerous game to play to oversaturate and annualize things in the AAA space. I do think that there's

room in the A space to annualize games. Yeah, this question of like what should be annualized and whatever. I think it's anything, I think it's when we get away from storing, you talk about gameplay. You always talk about Castlevania, right? If they were to put out side-scrolling casillanies every year, you'd buy them and they did. And that's the thing is that they did.

So we saw it. We saw an action. and it was fucking awesome. It was glorious. You know, it was a glorious time to be a DS owner and a GBA owner. But then they stopped

and whatever. So there are games that exist outside of the AAA realm that could be annualized because it is about gameplay. The experience is gameplay. The experience is not necessarily story. Two Mario games.

That's how I'm sure about them. And it's like, it's, I say that and then everyone bitches about it at the same time like, oh, it was too much Mario, but it's like,

whatever dude, if it's an annualized game, like, cool, just keep giving me. And with Mario Maker, we'll see that. Yeah. I mean,

for me, I mean, like just to rattle off things, of course, Pat upon for me, because I'm just playing that for the fun. So do that, right? So Pat upon, I would think about, Shovel Night is a recent example. Hotline, Miami, Rogue Legacy. I would love a Rogue Legacy every year. You know what I mean?

With a new dungeon, new castle to go down and take everybody down and do stuff like that. Like those games where it's like, I don't give a flying, fuck about the story. I'm just here to play and have fun playing. That's what I want. Just give me that. Yeah, cheap, games that are cheap to make with low overhead that only have to sell 100,000 units to become profitable at $20,000. a piece is really the way to go.

And I think that that's totally possible, but again, it conflicts with the annualization as a platform as opposed to annualizing a product. And I think that this is a conundrum that needs to be overcome by some brave publisher. And I still think that the publisher that can do it and I think might do it

first as EA. Because I think they have to do the math to say, like, we don't really need all of these studios making these games every year. We can take EA Canada, have them spend three years on a beautiful hockey game that we can then support after that.

And they don't need to worry about getting these things in a box. People don't appreciate how hard it is. These guys get a lot of shit. It is really fucking hard to make a video game. And they're making a game in nine months. Nine months. Same with the Madden team, all these sports teams. It's, you know, yeah, so do San Diego.

The guys do Madden, the guys do FIFA. People like the shit on EA, but the fact of the matter is, like, those games are really hard to make. It's just unfortunate that those developers are put in that position where they have to make sacrifices as they did with NHL 15 last year,

which was fucking awful on PS4 and Xbox 1 in terms of feature set because they didn't have time. So imagine a world where EA Canada had time and they could support a product for years and not have to worry about churning games out in an annual basis. It seems like the annualization thing is,

like I said, certainly going to collapse, not necessarily due to financial pressures, but due to the kind of the dearth of creativity when you have that kind of pressure. And I think Rockstar is the proof the pudding, man. Like, they, Grand Theft Auto is

a fucking phenomenon because they do not fuck with it. And they treat it with care. And they could so easily fuck with Grand Theft Auto. Like I just said with Bezza and the engine for Skyrim and the engine for Fall Out 4, they could have been like, here you go, make a Grand Theft Auto game. You have two years, you know?

Grand Theft Auto Chicago, Las Vegas. Yeah, yeah. And they just don't do it. And they fucking make an enormous amount of money. You know, so, I don't know. It's a complicated question. It's a good question, though. Very good question. Thank you so much, man.

All right. Euling. John Euling. Moving on topic for... Once again, we are sponsored by Tops. Thank you so much, Tops. Star Wars Card Trader is the official Star Wars digital trading card app available now exclusively on the App Store and Google Play. Open, trade, and collect cards entirely online.

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head on over to tops.com slash kind of funny. That's T-O-P-P-S dot com slash kind of funny. Thank you. Tim. What up? What is the update on the Wado card?

Do we know about the Wado card? I do not know, but we should look into that. There's a chance it's there. I hope it's the future version of Wado. Can you look for us? Star Wars card trader out? Wato. Thank you.

Thank you. Use the code. Topps.com slash kind of funny. Thank you. Don't screw this up for us, Kevin. All right. So, once again, we are going, to respond to the user questions and comments.

If you want us to respond to your comments, go to the Kind of Funny forums at Kindof Funny.com slash forums, go to the Gamescast forum, and then leave your questions in there, and we'll get back to you. Just like we're about to do to Lucas Betta. Lucas Betta.

He wants to know, what are the most important franchises that began last generation? That began the last generation. Uncharted. Gears. Yeah, gears. Yeah, uncharted.

Um Assassin's Creed Sure I'm running through my shelf Dark Souls Batman Yeah the Arkham games Sure

Um Dark void No I don't know I don't know about that That game was pretty rough Washington all of North Korea Just saying everybody

Um I feel like there's some That we're Resistance Grinning like the Gron. Oh, God. Yeah, I mean, there are more than Dead Space. Yeah.

It was just important franchises? Yeah. The most important. The most important. I mean, I feel like the most important are uncharted in Gears. You know, those are now the two... Synonymous with their franchise. Faces of the consoles, right?

Like, I mean, you know, Microsoft still has Halo, but Gears is up there. It's their other, you know, whereas uncharted. It's hard with Sony Because when you think Sony I don't think there is one game that you're like Yep Sony in the same way that Halo is Microsoft You don't think it's uncharted now But I think that Uncharted would be it

If you know if you had to choose one Yeah But for some reason like Uncharted doesn't have the same I don't know what it is But it doesn't have the same thing Halo does In terms of the link to the system To me at least For a while they were trying really hard

With a little big planet That's from last generation Yeah We're putting Sackboy out there But then that kind of feels like it fizzled with Little Big Planet 3 launching broken and then nobody caring. Yeah, no one really does care about a little bit planet, that's true.

For a while I was doing real hot and then just fell out. Oh, LB2 is huge. Yeah. But they made a mistake by Oh, the guitar hero games. Oh, yeah, and rock band. Yeah, that's really good. That's a good one. No. Didn't those games start on P.S2? Yeah, that's PS2.

Damn. Well, rock band. Rock band. Rock band. It's still kind of a... Yeah. That's a splinter of guitar hero. Still, though, I'd say rock band's different enough than Guitar Hero. Sure. That it gets its own nod.

I think you're giving a nod. It gets the nod. I don't know. That's all you're infamous. Yeah, I mean, yeah. I mean, now we're just naming anything. Now we're just getting into things that are there. We've gone down the list.

Uncharted in gears. We should have moved on. So we're moving on. Interested on your thoughts on Sony promoting a Kickstarter in their press conference. Will this be something that happens again? Yes, it will be. And I said this, I think, on Colin and Greg. I was shocked by people.

by people's reaction to this because this is something I've been saying for years now because this isn't the first time Sony has done this and with Amplitude they did with Sports Friends which was an even bigger example

because I was like I remember saying at the time I'm like two two and a half three years ago whatever it was would be like this is kind of weird isn't it? Like they're promoting this game and they have a blog post

pointing to Peter at Kickstarter I'm like if you believe in enough you should just pay for it and I said the same thing with Amplitude which I think was fucking nonsense because they own that IP. So it's different

with sports friends, which is just a third-party game. They own amplitude. And they still were like, okay, we'll give you the right to make a Kickstarter for it. So I thought that was where when no one,

that didn't resonate with anyone. I stopped. I think people just don't pay that close attention. So like this was like, to a lot of people, this was the first time Sony never did this, but it is not the first time Sony

never done this. So yeah, I think you'll see more of it. I understand why things are unsavory to people. It is weird. But you have to understand there's a lot of complicated shit

with this IP. Sega owns this. IP. Sony is clearly going to help fund it in the back end probably. It's unclear. I don't know. I don't see how you can make a game like Shenmoo for $5 million. It doesn't make any sense.

So there are a lot of questions to be asked, but I am more shocked about how people are acting like this is a new thing is the new thing. It's the biggest thing I walked away from actually with it. I feel like it's a game that wouldn't happen without Sony intervening. So can we, I mean, it's like, yeah. I mean, like for sports friends, a little bit different amplitude of thing you own,

but for this game, right, that is tied up. And there's so many different threads. even amplitude. Amplitude would never happen if it wasn't for this. Like that's just a game that's just, it's not going to sell that well, period. And I feel like it's going to sell better because they had a Kickstarter. Yeah. Like that just kind of brought back the kind of publicity. And I think Shenwood was a perfect example too where it's like that the type of conversations being started now because they're doing this.

Whether or not they're negative, it's wazing around is for sure. Right. It's one of those things like it's similar to when just in general Kickstarter happened. And Colin had problems with and stuff. I'm just like, well, I want that game. Like, it's not going to happen any other way. And granted, there's the examples of games that clearly would have happened without Kickstarter. But if this is how this game has to be to make it happen, okay, I'm fine with that.

You know what I mean? Yeah. And I guess for me, it's like, it's definitely unsavory and it definitely is weird. But whether or not it would happen if it didn't happen, if there wasn't a Kickstarter, to me, that's the first thing. I'm just like, whatever, this game wouldn't have happened unless there was a Kickstarter. But on top of that, it's like, even if the game would have happened, I'm just supporting the thing I want. Like, if it's just an extra option, you don't have to do it.

And it is as unsavory and weird as it is, it's like, whatever, if I want to support this thing, I'm happy there's an option to. You know, it's weird that they did during their press conference, but at the same time, that's also the best promotion for a Kickstarter ever. Yeah. Hey, everyone's watching this thing. Online right now. Right now. Go do this thing now. Like, that's business, man.

Like, that's smart. Like, it's literally, hey, I want your money right now. Yeah. I'm going to tell you something that's going to get you real excited. Like, all right, cool. When I finally convinced you to give you. me the pat-upon rights and I start my Kickstarter movie a similar way. Probably at PSX now.

That'll be good. I'm excited about that. Dan Phillips wants to know are we fans of retro game collecting and have we ever thought about doing it ourselves? Yeah, I'm a big fan of it. I have a big retro game collection. But I feel like it's a thing that always exists, but the art of doing it is

kind of waning because of the digital revolution. So it's more important to me that these things are available digitally for everyone to play at some point as opposed to having like a cartridge of an obscure game that is only playable on a cartridge. At some point you have to worry about making sure these things are here for generations. History.

Yeah. Yeah, I respect it. I'm a fan of it in terms of looking in collections and going through people's collections or being at the store, right? Or like whenever we go to Opax and walking through little things and like marveling over cartridges, I remember, right?

But like, do I do myself no? Like I really hate having collections. Like I got out of that. When I was growing up, I was very much like if I wanted the new game, I had to hustle and trade. and other stuff. So I was always trying to cycle out of collection

and not keep a library going. And so, like, when I was back in Missouri, this last time, I was walking downtown, went to Slackers, which is the store in Columbia that resells video games and stuff. And they had this huge collection of Genesis games, and we just got in the Retron. And so I started pulling things off shelves

and I had like four carpenters in my hands. I'm like, no, put them all back. Like, this is not, I'm not going down this road of bringing them home to our small San Francisco apartment and trying to figure out where the hell they are for us to do two let's plays and never do anything again with them, right? Like, I try to keep games over there

on the shelf and that means something to me like a bunch of master system stuff, right? And a signed copy of infamous. And I took a photo over the last week of Metal Gear Solid on the PlayStation 1. Yeah. I try to keep the stuff that means something to me. But everything else I'm not too worried about.

Yeah, I mean, I obviously am a huge fan of that stuff because I love retro games and I'm a hoarder when it comes to this shit. And I like collections. I like collecting things and I like having physical stuff. So the idea of having all the games that meant something to me, even from a small, even in a small, all way. Like just, oh, I rented that once. You know, it's just like, that's weird, but it means something

to me and even just having it. There's something about having it that I'm like, I love this. But then it's like, you really got a question is this worth going down this rabbit hole? Because I know how I get. And like, if I bought Crash 1, well, I'm going to need crash 2 and 3. Right. You know, if I buy Spiro 2, I need to buy the first one and the third one, even if I didn't play the third one. You know what I mean? It's like, I have this completionist thing in me

where it's like, I need to just go crazy with all of it. And that, it's the same thing with my Blu-Rays is the same thing where it's the reason I try not to buy comics because that's just a rabbit hole of death. Yeah, yeah. You know, but when it comes to the retro games, it's like, I know one day I'm going to cave and I know one day I'm going to spend thousands of dollars. Exactly. I can think, I can envision a future where I have like a cool man cave theater or whatever space you want to call it, right, where it's a nice TV and like all the consoles like are organized out and inaccessible. And when I do that, like, you know,

having Kevin come over and drill through the back of the wood to have it all go down one hole for every system and then like the walls being shelved and having everything but that's like not possible in san francisco that's when we sell this company to google and i go retire to columbia you know what i mean like so it's interesting but i definitely do really really respect the people that do it it's always interesting to see how into it they get and like when people get like sam claymore in it ign i mean his whenever he gets excited about these random things that i never heard about i'm like that's fucking cool yeah you know like there's this whole ecosystem of people that like buy and trade and like all that stuff and I'm super

interested in that even if that's definitely not something I'm fine I don't care about having something just because it's rare yeah I do care about having the rarest version of things I care about I love that I saw this happening bless you yeah Colin looked very concerned I don't know where that came from yeah but more importantly Kevin has updated us oh there is a water card yay so he's a junk dealer That's, yeah, thank you. Thank you very much, Kevin. Good job.

Goat Choker. Jesus. Why do indie devs suck at announcing release dates? Because they're a small team. Yeah, it's hard. I think that a lot of them are afraid to commit to dates ahead of time because they know they can get squashed pretty easily by a AAA release that happens the same day, which is unfortunate.

And I also think that they have to send the games through cert and often get games kicked back to them. So certification is hard to get through. And they're typically less experienced at doing it. so when the game's catastrophically broken and certification is a really rigorous and weird thing for a game to go through where you have to make sure

do you have the trademark logo after PlayStation every time you use it? Do you are using the right button things? Is this clear that this is online and all like there's a lot of random shit that gets kicked back in certification all the time and so I think that they're less prone to be able to deal with that initially

and then when it gets kicked back they have to fix it as opposed having a whole team of people to fix it. So I think there are a lot of of like reasons that they don't want to get too ahead of themselves until they are sure they are ready to go as opposed to a bigger developer that is confident that they'll push their game gold and send it to cert and then they'll get through um i think that a lot that probably has a great deal to do with it totally i think it's just the fact that it's a huge undertaking

to get a game out when you're four or five even 10 12 guys yeah and so yeah it's hard you the game's done what it's done and there's less of a reason to announce a release date too because you know of stockholders and shareholders to worry about. As I was about to read the next question, Kevin, Kevin then texted me another great image that you're going to need to show this to the people, all right? Please tell him this image of Boba Fett, who is labeled as a Django Fet clone. And he does not look cool at all.

Finally, someone's calling him out on what he is. Good Lord. A long-haired hippie kid. Just out there to fight the galaxy. Thanks for that, Kevin. All right. Rogformer says, Raj former wants us to talk about bad ports

and how much it matters. Relevant because of Arkham Knight running like garbage on PC. It matters a lot, and it matters a lot when people like Kataku or people at Kataku break stories such as we, you know, that WB knew it was broken

and released it anyway. It's a huge problem. As PlayStation-centric gamers like Greg and I are, we dealt with bad ports last generation where unless you were getting a developer or a game from a Japanese developer, it was typical that you would probably get the worst version of the game on PS3

every time. Yeah, Bain out of Final Fantasy 13 was better on PS3. There was a lot of examples of that but very rare. Bad ports matter and it sets a bad it sets a bad rhythm for your console. PS3 became known as a place where you didn't play third party games if you had an Xbox 360 because

you know... They looked bad. They ran bad. You got them late. I mean, we got games like Bioshock really late. Orange Box was a great example of a game that was awful on PS3. So it matters. Because then it has a trickle-down effect on the library of games you get in the future. And, of course, the money that the console manufacturer makes to put out more games in the future as well.

So the fact that Sony is nipped out in the bud this time and clearly has the advantage over Xbox 1 in terms of power means that they now have the advantage that they lacked last generation, which I think matters a great deal. And I think it's proving out in the sales. Semiotic Love says, how about Recore? Was it revealed too soon considering it as only 14 months into development? maybe i was surprised uh that it was revealed that soon but i don't know i think that microsoft has to make moves to show that they have a diverse catalog of games and they certainly do i think they have the better announced catalog games of sony by far um you know in comparison um but i don't know how much armature has really been able to do in that short amount of time so

the game could only be 15 months or a year and a half away it's not it's not you know maybe less than that it's not unheard of but i mean it's i don't think that i think that was a one of those announcements you put in your press conference to get people excited. That's crazy. I never expected it. But I don't know many people who have been hanging their hats on RECOR is my most anticipated game. Right? Because it was a cool trailer and that was it. Now they go into the darkness and maybe next year they come back with.

And I think it's good to. Just like, hey, here's a new IP. Like we are doing something new. Yep, yep, yep, things are coming. You'll see it when it happens. All right. Last question comes from indie rock star 75. He says, Tim, are you still excited for Kingdom Hearts 3 even though there's still no release date and it seems like it's never going to come out? Yes, you know, we talk We've talked about Kingdom Hearts 3

Extensively on this show We're gonna keep talking about it Because it's gonna keep being revealed 10 million times in different ways, you know? But my thing is, specifically this trailer at E3 I've watched so many times And like, even last night, I was at dinner with my friend And I showed him it because like we're big Kingdom Hearts fans

And he's been, he's not like a guy that reads gaming sites every day So he doesn't really keep up to it And I showed him stuff and he's just like, fuck man, I'm stoked for this. I'm like, yeah, don't get too stoked. Like, it's not coming for a long time. But really, like, looking at the trailer, I'm like, this game looks awesome. Like, the game looks good.

It does look very good. It looks, like, graphically, it's amazing. There's certain scenes in that trailer that just show how big the world is. And I'm like, good Lord. Like, I never imagined a Kingdom Hearts game to be like this. So I think the game's actually going to be really good. And, like, if they take a million years to make it, whatever, like, I don't need to play it right now. And I think that's the biggest thing.

It was the reveal that. They revealed it too soon. Everyone knows that. It's a big difference between. you know, a lot of people have been asking me about Fallout 4 and how done I think the game is. And I keep telling them, I think the game's done. I think that they're an alpha and that they're probably polishing now and, you know, get anything to a fine sheen and fixing bugs and squashing bugs. They announced a game that was done.

Rad bugs. Rad bugs. Yeah, rad bugs. They were at the advantage of sitting on a game for years and revealing it at the right time. The way Bethesda did it is the way everyone should be doing it. And I think you're going to see a lot more of that in the future as opposed to the Kingdom Hearts kind of scenario, which is the exact opposite. I'm curious about how I'm curious

You know, you're talking about the world And so I'm curious how complete That world is I'm curious about how Vertical that slice was That was that was shown at In other words like Did they polish that

To a machine as you often do With a vertical slice Or is there more of the game That looks like that And plays like that And my My, my, my My, my,

I bet that there probably is a bigger portion Of the game that plays like that. I think they're probably Getting somewhere now with it Yeah. But you know, it's just, It's just such a big difference From Fallout 4 which we only,

we only just wished for and was announced It's like the game, the way they showed the game off and something like, I'm like, the game's done. You know, like, they finish the game. Now they're going to like, the quests all are there. Everything's there. The world's there. Now they have to go through and make sure everything works properly.

But like they announced the game that was done and that's why everyone's so fucking excited about it. Yeah. And that is, it's shitty that King of Hearts is like that. But I feel like a big difference with Kingdom Hearts is that I remember we're playing one. And then I remember the way for two felt like forever. And I don't remember the year's difference, but I think it was like four or five years between one and or maybe I was just young and it felt I don't think it was that longer than it was.

But then, you know, the weight between two and three, if you don't count all the other ones, it's like, that's been ridiculous. So the fact that they actually even announced Kingdom Hearts 3, I was like two years ago at E3 shocked that it's like, they did it. They actually announced number three.

This isn't some spinoff, this isn't whatever, it's happening. And I was very surprised with how much they showed during that first trailer. It was all CG, it was all whatever, but there was gameplay in it. You know, like, whether or not, like, I didn't believe that it was real gameplay. It just looked like

CG gameplay. But then now that I see this, I'm like, oh, shit, that gameplay that we saw a couple years ago was gameplay. It just didn't have the Hudson stuff. Right. And so you're saying it the vertical slice, I definitely do think that this is just what's done of the game so far, but I'm surprised that even that much of the game is in a state

to be shown like that. And it was two years ago, too, because we've seen other things like that and all the Disneyland rides being, I don't even know, they're not summons, but like, special or something. But either way, I am more excited for King of March 3

than I've ever been. And that's the opposite of Final Fantasy 15, which both of them I've been waiting for for about the same amount of time. And Final Fantasy 15 is getting to the point

where I'm like, am I even going to actually sit down and play this? I don't know. Whereas King of Hearts 3, I am definitely sitting down and playing and I'm more excited than ever to do that.

We'll keep being excited. You'll be this excited in two years. Yeah, I know. It's going to be great. That still won't be out. Ladies and gentlemen, This is Van Net, the first and last ever. 26th episode of the kind of funny games.

Tim's age. I'm 26 now. This is weird. I need to get used to it. I'm so used to saying I'm 22. Let's go. Yeah, I'm done, dude. I'm done.

All right, bye, guys. I love you. Bye.