Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Game of The Year So Far - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: March 12, 2026

Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial today at Shopify.com/kindafunny 00:00:00 - Start00:04:11 - GDC Week 202600:18:12 - Imran’s Game of the Year So Far00:21:56 - Bless and Parris’ Game of the Year So Far00:23:46 - Stella’s Game of the Year So Far00:27:45 - Pokemon00:28:51 - Ads00:29:58 - SuperChats00:35:45 - Marathon00:41:44 - Slay the Spire 200:44:03 - Nioh 300:46:16 - Cairn00:47:26 - 2XKO00:49:24 - The Rest of 202600:52:50 - SuperChats Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Start your business today with the industry's best business partner Shopify. And start hearing, sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash kind of funny. If you want to get our shows ad free and our exclusive shows, go to patreon.com slash kind of funny. Yo, what's up? Welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Thursday, March 12, 2026. I'm on your host, Blessing, Adioia Jr. joining me is a motley crew of host. alongside me. Let's start off with the dawn. Amron Khan. Howdy, howdy? Amaran, how's it going? It's going all right. It's interesting to be back here. Interesting, I mean like, man, it feels like

time is not past at all. Yeah? Yeah. Like, you're just here yesterday. Yeah. Far as I had a stroke. I might have just been here yesterday. Who the fuck knows? Well, Enron is really nice to have you back. It's lovely to see it because, like, you don't live here anymore. No. And so it's like, whenever I see you, it's a treat. Yes. And it's always been too too long in my heart. Yeah. I, I'm always like, I should read up the blessing and invite him to Kansas City. And I'm like, that's an insane thing to do. It's not an insane thing to do, but it is always the thing where I'm like, damn, Kansas City is just

it's a little far away, but I want to go specifically for you and Rev. Yeah, also a barbecue. Also for the barbecue. I feel like we need to give them a room, you know? I mean, honestly, if you guys want to like head out. Well, yeah, because like it sounds like nobody here has played games in 2016, and so me and

Amron can just kick. Oh, I'll get to you. Of course. Right there is the best voice in the biz, Paris Lily. Morning, Blest, how you doing? It sounds like you have played games. I have played some games in 2026. There you go. We're going to have a conversation about that. And this is my first GDC.

Really? Yes. Wow. How are you enjoying it? It's been good. It's been interesting. It's in some ways not what I expected. In some ways, better.

So it's good. Yeah. And of course, that over there is the... That? That's crazy. I was like, that's mean. Wow. Right after Women's Day.

That's insane, dude. You're right. You're right. I apologize. Even though I was going to call you the best at the FPS, but I'm just going to call you Stella Chung. Yeah. Oh, and I'm going to call you the guy who didn't offer his hand to me when I was stepping off a stage yesterday at a party, and I had to jump down.

Here's the thing. Almost collapsed, by the way. I cannot be held accountable for my actions last night. Not a gentleman. First of all, I, okay, so me and you were leaving a party last night, and we were like on a stage that was an elevated platform. And I looked down, and I was like, I'm just going to jump down. I didn't expect you to follow suit. I thought you were going to do the responsible thing.

No, everything else was like blocked off. So I was like, oh, I guess I'll just, I think you had your back turned to me the whole time. So I was like, all right. He's my thing. I was also still landing. I like hopped down the thing. You were fully landed.

Both feet were planted. NBA rules. I land and then a second later here. And I'm like, what's just happened? Like a zap shooter like JFK assassination like slowly watching and like, and blessing was still landing when Stella jumped off? 100%. He went back and to the left.

And like, Stella was like, why didn't you catch me? And I'm like, I didn't even know. I didn't know. We were all jumping. I thought I was taking the risk. If I, if your friend jumps off a bridge, you jump it off a bridge?

Sounds like yes. I clearly did. Sounds like yes. Was it the karaoke party? It was the one across the street. GGP. I was gonna ask what you saying, but.

Oh. I sang at the karaoke party. What'd you saying? I did kick push by Louie Fiasco. Nice. Yeah. And the footage is on somebody's Instagram story. Ashley.

Well, I wasn't going to reveal who's Instagram. Because I'm a little bit embarrassed by it. Oh, no, go watch it. Go watch it right now. It's one of the ones where in the moment, Of course, I was a few drinks in In case you can't tell by my voice

I feel like I'm holding up well But I was a few drinks in And so like you ever do karaoke And you're a bit faded But it's like you're in the moment And it all feels good You're killing it, all that stuff Do you ever do karaoke and you're not faded?

Like you know that's a really good point Yeah Like sober karaoke is not a concept That makes sense to me at all That's 100% a good point But I was feeling it last night And then I woke up and I watched the Instagram story And I was like I'm not reposted this

I'm not putting this on my story I'm not doing that But how are you guys to GDC? So Perry, you said it's your first one? Yeah, this is my first one. So what has lined up with your expectations and what surprises you?

Panels. Being able to sit in on some panels and actually hear from developers or subject matter experts on how these games are made and how they're implementing these tools and stuff like that. That was pretty educational,

which was the reason I wanted to come. I wanted to better educate myself on game development. So that's been good. But the thing I realize is with a lot of these appointments, you're not on the show floor. I've spent more time in hotel rooms than I have actually in GDC. Dude, right?

Yeah. That's really interesting because that was the one actual appointment I had was in a hotel room. Yeah. And I was like, oh, man, I'm not even at the show floor. This is wild. Stella, how's your GDC been? Good. It's been busy.

You know, almost injured myself last night, almost died because of some kind of funny. So brain. All right. We're going to make this the joke with the pod. Yeah. I tried my best. I'm so lucky that I'm strong. But yeah, no, it's been great.

It's been really fun. The Xbox event was always cool. Yeah, oh my God. I can't wait for Mix tape, dude. Oh yeah, you got to check that out. Yeah, I still haven't played it. How have you not? Honestly, at this point, because there's always a line.

Well, and also, it's going to be out soon. So honestly, just keep it fresh for yourself, right? Yeah, that's the bigger thing. You know, like, mixtape was at Dave's. It was at the Xbox thing. And it's one that always sticks out where I'm like, I know I'm going to love this game. But yeah, partly it's because it's always a busy booth. But then also I'm like, well, I'm already.

sold, I can just probably wait until it comes out. How'd you guys, before I even get further, because I want to talk about the Xbox event and some of the games you guys might have played. But Imron, how's their GC been? It's been pretty good. I have the opposite thing of Fierrez, where I do love going the panels have not had time for, I think I've only had time for two.

One of which was like, Jeff Grub was at a panel. I figured, yeah, I know Jeff Grubb. I'll go see that. And I saw the Donkey Kong panel. And like, those were interesting, but all of my time has spent appointments, demos writing about appointments and demos. Nice. How's the the DK panel? Is anything cool there?

It was neat. They told most of what they were talking about in the panel in public interviews. So like there wasn't not, there was not that much information but also that's the thing about GDC as press is that I feel bad for being here. These people should be here learning from each other.

Yes. Talking to each other. And that's what that panel was about was them working collaborative in a video game development like context. And like me being like, that's not enough new information. Let me know more things is stupid. Yeah, I feel you there. Yeah, I think we're all press slash creators slash media at GDC.

We're in that bucket of people, which makes it really interesting because it is the game developers conference. And so it's a fun, it's an interesting thing where it's so not aimed at us, but I think that makes it a bit exciting because we feel like we're on the inside. Yeah, you're a fly on the wall. Yeah. Yeah. Get those conversations. Exactly.

But we all went to an Xbox event, the other day. Selly, you bring up mixtape. Were there any other standouts for you guys at that event? Yes. At fate's end

is I think the game of the show. Dude, that's the one that people kept telling me I needed to check out and it was a similar situation where there was always people at the booth I could not make my way in there.

So that was the same thing with me is like, I'm going to call out Lucy James because Lucy James was there for like a fucking hour. And like good on Lucy James for taking that time. But man, I really wanted to play that game.

So I ended up emailing Thunder Lotus, who the Bellbirds of Sunnard and Sparer, after and be like, hey, can we do a private demo later? So they did. I got a chance to play that game privately yesterday. Amazing.

Like, legitimately, I think, the best game of the show. Wow. Yeah. That's high phrase. But I didn't even interrupt, but it was like you said, I never got a chance to get in there. It was always somebody on it. Well, yeah, because you were too busy playing replaced for like an hour. He's the one that I was waiting on.

Are we just like bitching about people now? Hey, man. You started to call. Like, oh, this is the same face. I'll dare you. It's the GDC airing of grievances episode. No, it's fine. Totally fine.

Well, let me say you on the premise of this game. Yeah, please. So you play as this girl, Shan. Shan is in a family of demigods, but she is like the runt of the family, and she's like not the strongest one. They were all given like these special swords.

Her sword is well known in her family is the weakest. When her mother died, she was told she is actually supposed to be the princess of swords, and she is supposed to have all the family swords to take care of them and wield them. I'm going to pause you right there and tell you that's the coolest shit of all time.

The princess of swords? It gets cooler. So she has to go to her family, some of which she gets along with, some of which she doesn't, and then claim their sword to meet her destiny. Her first person she meets is Camilla, her sister.

Every time they use their weapons, they have to give up a part of their body. So Shan's sword comes from her throat. Her sister, Camillas, comes from her arm. So Camilla, not happy by the fact that Shan is the Princess of Swords gets into a battle with her.

Camilla goes way too far, knocks her out, and decides to take care of her in Camilla's own castle. Which is when the actual like adventure portion of this game begins because that was a boss fight. This is like a deduction adventure game now. Oh.

Now you go through her castle and you go through the surrounding village of which she is the demigod of it and you start finding out stuff about her. You find out that one time she got way too drunk and caused a storm that killed a bunch of of people. You find out that her castle is in a dilapidated place and like monsters have slowly invaded the castle. So she is not doing a good job of taking care of this place. So when you do go fight her again and you do get through that phase in which she like knocked you up before,

you now have these dialogue options of like, hey, I hear things are not going well for you. You can also be more aggressive and like, what the fuck are you doing? Like what, why is this, why are the people that village hate you? And if you do that, you will probably not move the boss fight on. But if you like, try and understand. her a little bit. If you try and like get to where she meet her in the middle, like the boss fight will move on and then you could slowly start getting to a place where you two talk is family and during the boss fight. And like that's what this game is about. And the way that spirit event, the way that spirit fair is about grief and moving on. Yeah. This game is about

you have a family that is fucked up and you are trying to find a place to meet them in the middle or move on beyond them. Oh my God. Yes. I've never been so sold on a video game in my life. That sounds fucking awesome. Looks really good. Also, I know that that was a good experience for you playing the demo because that sounded like you were just spilling tea. Yes.

Like for a second, I forgot you were talking about a game. I thought you're just talking about regular tea. And I'm like, oh, yeah, please say more. Please say more. Did you already make the joke about, because the sword comes from her throat, throat, did you already make a joke about that? I did not make that. The person who made Spirit Fairer, I feel like I would have been like,

okay, well, yeah, I'll just leave the demo now. I want to keep talking about the Xbox thing But before we get there I want to shout out of course If you're watching live You can be a part of the show By super chatting in over on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games

Of course you got an all-star cat This is like the kind of funny Avengers of people That have worked with KF right And so super chat in Let's have some good conversations Remember we couldn't do this with our producers over on patreon.com slash kind of funny

So thank you to Carl Jacobs Omega Buster and Delaney The Somatwining For now let's begin With topic of the show dots dots dots dots the original topic i had remote and i just mouthed the original topic i had was game of the year so far

i'm going to shelve that for now maybe we'll get back to that i want to keep hearing about the best games you've played recently and it could be at the show could be outside of the show but hearing about at fate's end is what it's called i gotta write that down hearing about that that sounds fucking awesome what else paris is there a game for you that is stuck out stella already freaking blew it but uh i mean replayed But honestly, not even replace.

If we just go by it at the Xbox Showcase, the game that surprised me the most, and it's a sequel, was Echo Generation 2. Oh, yeah. Because I played the first one. I really liked the first one, but I liked playing that demo so much at the thing, because there was two chapters.

There was one demo, I guess, which is out on Steam Next Fest or whatever already, but there's a chapter two that was just there. I played both chapters, because that's just how much I was into it. And Echo Generation is kind of turn-based RPG, and you're picking up these cards, And you get different weapon types, shields, health benefits, things that you can stack on top of each other.

And different enemies that you're coming, they have their own different power techniques, shields, like, effects to burn, radiation, all these things. So you have to figure out what cards work best in the right combination to be able to take down these enemies. And I got all the way to the boss of Chapter 2. I didn't defeat them. And I guess the guy that was there was saying only one person actually was able to do. defeat them, but it was really tough. And I love the challenge of it. And it makes me want to play more. So I think of the things that I hadn't already played, that was the thing at that Xbox showcase. I really, or the, what was it called? The ID at Xbox. Yeah. Was it really good. I never

played that first game. Did it look like that? Because that game is mesmerizing looking. Yeah. Okay. Wow. Yeah. And, you know, obviously you see all the different characters here. They're showing in the different enemy types. But then secondarily replace, which I had already played the demo. But I just So you didn't need to be sitting there for an hour? I have been anticipating this game for, what, like four years at this point? Me too. Me too. For the fantasy critic for like three years in a row. Greg stole it from me this year. I thought I was going to be slick and get it in a waiver wire

and Greg got it. So I don't have it. I would have been fine with you taking up that space if that was the first time that you played. I just I just love it. I love that art style, the combat in it for what it is is really, really good. I mean, the story seems pretty intriguing for what we know. far. That's for me. And we pass this along. And yeah, I think Replace has the potential to maybe not anymore after what you just said, but it'll definitely be up there for indie game of the year. It'll be right up there with it. I checked out the demo that came out around Steam Next Fest. Yeah. I'm sad that the demo felt kind of short because, and maybe that was a good thing

because they left me wanting more. Do you know what it reminded me of? It reminds me of like a play dead game, right? Like a limbo or inside as far as how the moment to moment feels. as you're working your way through the world because you're going through this 2D space, you are like climbing over things, hiding from like guards in the background, the light source is trying to chase you and it reminded me so much of an inside.

But then it adds on that combat layer over it as well where you get into these fights that feel like Batman Arkham, right? It is like these, you're fighting groups of enemies and you are pressing the Y button to counter when you see the icon flash above their head. Like it's that type of game, which is interesting in 2D. I don't know how I feel about that.

about that specific thing yet because of the 2D, right? It kind of gives a different sort of feel to it compared to what you get out of a Batman Arkham or a Shadow and Mortar. But I think it's interesting because the animations look so good. I think this game is all handcrafted too.

Yeah. I think this game is going to be carried a lot by like the strength of the animations, which inside had that as well. When you play inside, I think every interaction that you have for solving a puzzle and jumping over things, they all feel unique and handcrafted.

And I think, replace is going to have a lot of that energy as well. Oh yeah. So very much looking forward to that game. Yeah. Stella. What's your top game? Okay, cool.

I'll just work my way down to the thing. So mine was something that I didn't really think about at all. It's called screenbound. So it's this game where it absolutely fucks with your mind because you are playing, you get sucked into this video game. So it's like, it's set in the 90s or something like that. So you're playing on a handheld, right? Like the old, it looks like a Game Boy, but they're not calling it a Game Boy, but they're not

calling it a Game Boy. So you get sector into a game and you're in this platformer world. And so you're holding the device and the whole time you need that device on your screen like in the very bottom because you're in a 3D world, but you need the 2D. You're also playing 2D at the same time like that exactly. It's actually so wild because there's some things in the 2D universe that you can see, but you can't see it in the 3D. So it like it actually makes your brain think in overtime. That's breaking my brain to look at. No, it took me so long to get used to it.

It took me like 10 minutes to understand it and finally get into a rhythm. But it is so cool. And the amount of content, I got to talk to the dev about this, but the amount of content that they've already put into the final build that they've already got. They actually had it at the Xbox place. Yes. So like behind the screen, you could play a little bit more of it. And you got to see what they have for, what is it?

Tape 1 and tape 2. Because tape 2 is like the old Legend of Zelda games, where it's top down. So now you're in 3D and pop down. It's really fucking cool. So my mind was blown. I don't know how smart they were to do this. Like I could not.

I could barely play the game. So this absolutely blew my mind. When I tell you, I played this demo as well. And the amount of times I accidentally walked off a cliff. Because I'm like looking at the 2D. Like I'm looking at the Game Boy. And I'm like, oh, that's the thing over there. And I walk forward and I just fall off a cliff because I'm not looking at the 3D space anymore.

It does break your bring in a bit. But it's a really cool concept. It's so cool. And I was asking about the programming and all that. He was like, yeah, no, it was really tough, but we love making this game. And I'm like, yeah, I can tell. There's so much here that shows you how passionate they are about this project. Yeah.

This is absolutely a labor of love. A really cool thing, too. Like, one of the things that just happened in the video, in the 2D game boy screen, you can see the balloons in the sky, but you don't see it in 3D. But if you notice in 2D, you can, like, hop to a balloon and it will let you float a distance. Yeah. And so like I was stuck on my puzzle for a while until I figured that out. And once I did, I was like, oh, that's cool.

Right? Yeah. And so shout out. What's name of this one again? Screenbound. Screenbound. Yeah. All right.

Enough about the games we played this week. Let's talk about the games that we've played this year. Of course, topic of the show is our 2026 game of the year so far. Emphasis on so far. Because, of course, we're only in March. We're only three months into the year. And so this is like kind of our quarterly check-in. I think it's a fun one to do with guests to kind of get a different perspective on what

2026 has been so far in video games. So I want to go down the line again and ask, what is your current game of the year so far, Imron? Let's see. Okay. So we had to separate this. I think I did two categories. One is I did not play this yet.

I did watch my wife review it. Uh, Pocopia. Yeah. I mean, that's the, I think that's the, the most recent for sure contender. Yes. so like that that game it just seems like ooze quality it seems to be like the kind of game

that everyone can get on board with like no matter what kind of genre sicko you are you can be like okay this is just like one of those put a little snow cone in my head and just enjoy myself for a little bit kind of game yeah if we do not include that

because I'm not actually put my hands the controller on it I will probably say my game of the year it's probably Monster Hunter Stories 3 really Yeah. How's that? So I was on the lower end of reviews with that game.

But lower end means we were at three, I put it on three stars. We are now since that review came out at a three and a half star system. So I would put it like the three and a half stars. I, that game is like a GameCube RBG that has lost to time. Interesting. That like at first it has a story that I did not necessarily, I was not digging, a world that really wasn't feeling it.

and like there were so many systems that just like cascading over and over at the beginning of that game that I was like, I'm just not enjoying this game right now but the more you play it, the more you start getting into the checklist gameplay of it of like, okay, I want to raise the ecology of this habitat up.

And by doing that, I go find eggs of certain monsters, raise those eggs, let them out into the wild, and then I've raised the rank of say the Rathian in this habitat. Then suddenly I've raised it to S-rank and now it mutates it to a pink Rathian so now I can raise that up. And this is like just watching Bards fill

essentially as I'm just doing more and more like things. And I put about 60 hours in that game. I don't 100% games for reviews. Like that's insane. There's no reason to do that. Yeah. I damn near 100% of this game.

Really? Just because I was having so much fun doing all this like side stuff. So like... That's awesome. Yeah, like the game itself is never going to be like anyone's 10 to 10. Yeah. But it is one of those games that just kind of like keeps tickling my brain a little bit.

And you're like you, you're almost 100%ing this game at around 60 hours. Yeah. I mean, that sounds awesome. That sounds great to me. So then what would you say is mainline length for this? I think if you mainline it, you'd probably be done in like 15 to 20. Okay. Yeah.

Okay. And you mentioned like, you know, this is not going to be anybody's 10 out of 10 necessarily. I remember seeing the reviews pop for this. were really high. The reviews are super high, like so much so that I'm kind of sad I didn't get this for the Fancy Critic that we're doing. Because yeah, it's had an 87 on Metacritic right now. Yeah. Catcom is really popping off this here. Yeah, Capcom's doing their thing. Oh, dude, of course Capcom is doing the thing. Of course, if you want to talk about it, I'll talk about mine real quick, right? I won't be super long on it. But Resident Evil Requiem, you know, that's up there for me.

Is that the one for you, Paris? Yeah, the same. Oh, yeah. I mean, you can go ahead and talk about it. Oh, no, I'll just, I'll just jump in to say that I'm not a Resident Evil guy either. It's not like I'm big on that franchise. But playing this one, I mean, obviously the visuals are off the charts on it. I played it in the dark, headphones on.

The jump scares were great in it. I felt the tension in that. I think the action combat with Leon felt very satisfying. My thing is it didn't overstay its welcome. I probably 12 hours did it, but there's some replayability there

to go back and find certain things and all that. So I definitely want to go back again and play it because that's just how much I enjoyed it. And just to the point, so you can get your bars in too, yeah, I think Capcom has just been doing some amazing work lately. The fact that they got someone like myself who isn't into the Resident Evil franchise to just jump midway into this, half of the references I understood, half I didn't,

but still I just enjoyed the ride that it took me on and I want to go back and do it again. So, yeah, right now, this would easily be my game of the year. Yeah. You talk about it not overstaying its welcome. And that's one thing that I think really, I really resonate with that as well. Mainly for the reason of last week, after playing the game, I put up a blue sky post. That's a BS Tim. That was essentially like, man, we need more game. We need more AAA games like Resoney.

And I mean that in terms of like length. I think that 10 to 13 to 15 hour range is so great for this game. And one of the replies that kept getting from people is like, well, you know, Resny Evil. are meant to be replayed. You replay them, right? That's how you get the lane. I'm like, listen, when I say 10 to 15 hours is great, I mean I mean that as a, I mean that is the fullest compliment. And I think more games

should have that idea of like 10 hours, but like we have reasons for you to replay, right? 10 hours, but here's a new game plus that makes it exciting. 10 hours, but here's like, here's a different gameplay route that you can do. You know, I want to see way more of that. And I think Capcom really takes advantage of that idea for Resident Evil and it works for the audience.

Bella, what about you? What's your game of the year so far? Actually, I saw on chats. I'm not alone. I have not played any games this year that have come out this year. So, yeah. Been in your backlog. Yeah, actually, which has been great. I actually started Nicely Old Republic 2 because I've never played that.

Yeah, so I've been working through that, but also a biotic factor because that came out last year and I've been trying to get through that as well. Yeah, it's, I don't know. It feels very early. I was also very busy February in this month. So I haven't been able to play a lot of the games. And I wasn't sure about Pocopia. You sound like someone who's coming in like, okay, here's why I don't have my homework.

You understand. You care. I didn't tell you guys this topic until we sat down. But I mean, that's valid, though. I mean, if your game of the year so far is a game from previous years, I think that's valid if you want to make it, Knights of the Old Republic too. But I also know you played High Guard.

So, like, technically. Yeah, and I gave that a six at GameSpot. So, which I do explain why. I don't think it was a bad game. I think mechanically, it was sound. There were a few things that did come out in updates after it launched, but I feel like it should have been

in a better place when it did launch. So I don't know. It wasn't bad. I don't think it would be my game of the year. Um, I don't know. I do really want to play Resident Evil Requiem. I think you'd like it.

I'm, I'm just such a coward with horror games. Oh, I think you hate it. I can do horror movies just fine. Yeah, I played the demo and the part where the sneak past the,

dude, my hands are sweating and I was like, I don't know how I can do this. So I know people would like watching me play it. I don't think I would like playing it, but I really want to play the story because it looks good. So you stream a lot.

I think Resum of Reckwin would be a banger stream game. Oh, no. I just don't want to turn off the lights. Did the Mario Tennis Fever come out this year? Yeah, Mario Tennis Feeder, that was February. Okay. Because I want to play that too. And that might be, if I really enjoy it.

Because, you know, it has a ranked system. It is competitive. And I'm like, I'm all about that. So that might be my new main game. So are you still in those, like, like online? Not as much. I was, I really was for the first two weeks, but it's been the deluge of games now,

where if I'm picking up my Switch 2, funny enough, I really want to play more Pocopia. I'm about three hours into Pocopia, but the thing that's dominating my Switch 2 time is Pokemon Leaf Green. And I love it, but I hate it. Because for this job, there's always the, you know, the feeling of, oh, I want to keep up with the new thing.

Oh, there's new game releases. I got to play this so I can talk about it for work because people are expecting me to play the new thing or whatever. And my mind wants to play Pocopia. My mind wants to play all the new games. My heart just wants to play Leaf Green. Because when I tell you, it is like coming home. It is the ultimate comfort food.

There's something special about, you know, I bought the magic harp from the guy in the route between Pewter City and Surrelian. And then I also bought, or I caught an Abra with a great ball, right? And it's like, now I'm just trying to evolve those. And like evolving my magic carp into a Geredos is like such a, I don't know, it like brings me back and it makes me happy.

It makes me excited. And I think part of it is part of it that especially excites me is the idea of I have myself convinced that I'm going to be into Pokemon champions, which is the competitive like Pokemon battler that's coming out later in the year. And so I'm like, oh, what if I assemble my Pokemon team so I can take them into champions and like make that a thing? And I know this is just all a pipe dream. Like it's not going to work probably the way that I wanted to work.

But I don't know. I'm preparing for the future right now. I'm building up my Gerados. And so you also have to hope that they bring home functionality to Leaf Green before Champions comes out. Because I don't think it's available right now. But I mean, they confirmed that they'll at least bring it later. So even if it's not at launch by champions, you know, I know for sure eventually I'll get my gear out of my geridos in there.

Can I say like, I'm building up my garados is like a great self-affirmation? Like you could have that on a T-shirt. I'm building up my garados. Yeah. Yeah. Listen, I was thinking about this yesterday. I was thinking about Pokemon Go. Uh-huh.

Because me and Jake, Jake Baldino was on the show and Pokemon Go came up. And, like, the fact that, like, Pokemon is such a, I think inherently nerdy thing when you think about what it is. Like, you're going on adventures to catch your little monsters and get into little GRP battles. But it's the biggest thing in the world. Like, not even, not even, like, anecdotally the biggest thing. Yeah. Legitimately, numbers-wise, the biggest thing in the world. We're all in.

that like a shirt that says I'm building up my garados, I can expect that like there's going to be a good amount of people that are like, oh yeah, I get that. Yeah, I'm right there with you. Yeah. That's universal. That's great. I love folks.

We all have a Garrido story in our hearts. 100%. Yeah. We got a lot more to talk about. I want to talk to the audience. Guys, Super Chat in, if you have a game of the year contender so far, I have a list of games that have come out this year that, you know, could be on the list. So we're going to make our way through that.

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That's Shopify.com slash kind of funny. And we're back. Let's get into some super chats real quick. Smores and Orioles writes in and says serious game of the year contenders so far. Mugenics, slay the spire to you. Karen. Okay, first of all, they're just spoiling the list I'm about to get into. Karen, esoteric ebb, all so good, show some sweet indie love.

We had one that just came in from Mello Fellow who says, horsey game on PC, the Dark Horse of this year, surprisingly deep mechanics with breeding and open world wrangling for horse racing, sumo, etc. Bear, can you bring up footage of Horsy Game? Dark Horse is a good joke. That is a really good joke. Have you heard of this? No.

Has anybody heard of this? Nope. There are, in my defense, too many horse games now. Oh, my God. This game? Oh, yes. I have her. Oh my God.

Tari-2,600. This is awesome. It's so stupid because, like, these, you can pick up horses in the world, but then you don't really know, you can kind of test out in field what their stats are like. You can see how they run. And then depending on whether or not you want them, you can just toss them back into the world. This is one of those ones where I'm like, the Mandela effect is real, man.

There's no way this existed before right now. Like, I felt myself shift. As Barrett brought up the gameplay, I felt myself shift into the next. next dimension where this game has existed. We just got a super chat in from Greg Miller who says, Game of the Year so far is Pocopia by a mile. I'm curious, with the fervor behind Pocopia right now, do you guys think there's a chance this ends up in like the nominees at the end of the year

for like Game Awards? It is, I think, the highest rated game of the year so far. Yeah. Yeah. Highest rated Pokemon game of all time. But what does it do mechanically that is different from the other like Nintendo crafting games that would really set it above anything else that came out? Have you ever played Dragon Quest Builders?

No, but that's what I keep getting this compared to. Yeah, it's the same team. It is a, I would say life sim in the form of, like, you are creating habitats for Pokemon. Okay. And, like, in that sense, it is sort of a Minecrafty crafting style thing. But I think where it excels is the fact that, like, all these Pokemon have, like, individual personalities.

And I think that, like, they are extremely well written, actually, and, like, well, translated. like it's funny to like meet Kyoger the legendary C Pokemon and he has like this Jersey accent he's basically like A I'm swimming here kind of thing. That's so funny because I saw a TikTok joke about that and I thought they were

I didn't realize that that was an actual thing. No it's very much real and like I don't want to spoil like I'm sure people will play but but at this point like there are legendary Pokemon that do not sound like how you think they think they would. They're regular Pokemon that like like Bubblesore just walking around

going like let's make this place human. It's stuff like that that I think Like Playing this game is just kind of a joy I'm just like yeah Thing oh this is a world come alive That's really awesome I love that

Yes thank you Didn't you said this I think you sent this to me Oh yeah Because I was like this is something blessing Would absolutely say So you have to get You have to get his habit

At humid Because he's the only way he wants to live I mean that is how I keep my apartment So just stop it around going like that I love this Bringing in another one from Jose Cortez, who writes in and says, I love this panel.

I'm so excited to play these games on my Xbox ROG ally. Just got the gaming pillow for my birthday. Thanks to my lovely wife, Megan. Keep up with the great work, everyone. Stella, squat bless. Oh, yeah, Megan. Maybe later.

I don't know if I got it. I need to recover from the hangover first. Oh, no sudden movements. Got it. Yeah, no, I cannot do that right now. Do you remember when Yusuf, like, squatted Greg and then... The power went out? The power went out?

Yeah. I could see the same thing happening. Stella squats me right now. of a sudden everything goes dark in here. There's a gif of me doing that with you on my back. Oh yeah. That was the studio opening. Yeah, it was. It was.

Good time. Inverted X. Soul writes in it says, Katama and Academy Citadel, anime style Metroidvania, has a super nice parry, also does time travel in a unique way for puzzles, 100% of yesterday. I've not heard of that one either.

Kotama in the Academy Citadel. There's too many video games. They really are. High Voltres writes in and says, I'm a big RE fan, but I genuinely think Requiem is a 7 out of 10. Lack of puzzles,

a weak second half, lackluster replayability, a cool clone villain that you'd never fight, linear level slash map progression, etc. Seven's still a good score, though. That's still a good.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion. There you go. Nate writes in and says, this might be my favorite cast of people, enjoy GDC. Robert is really excited about Paris, says Paris Lily live in the studio, wow.

Dexter Schwarzler writes in and says, shame on bless, you owe Stella 50 pushups. I got you on that later. Arturotron, rubble bartender, writes and it says, shout out to Emron, best puns in the biz. Hell yeah. Stella is literally the best.

Paris. Blessing, the voice of a generation. That's crazy. And then we have one more from Send Nuggies that says, no floating heads game of the year in parentheses, games cast of the year. Send Nuggies is wrong. Now, I have a short list of games.

I was looking through the, the Game Informer, 2026 calendar, and I picked out the ones that are like, okay, yeah, these are the standouts of this year as far as the games that I know a lot of people are talking about. So going from most recent, working our way back, Marathon just came out. I feel like the reviews have come out. Of course, we had a review earlier this week, led by Snowback Mike Perez. Were you on that? I wasn't because GDC stuff, but I would have been, so I didn't get a chance to get my opinion on it. But do you want to give your opinion right now?

Yeah, I mean, I'll say this now. And I watched a little bit of, of it, you know, with him, him and friend. And, right, who am I blanking? Oh, Jericho. Jericho was on it. Yeah. I like Marathon. I think it's really good for what it was a year ago to what they've improved it to now.

But the problem I think with Marathon is the onboarding. It takes you a while to get it because once you get it, you love it. It's fantastic. And that's my worry with it long term. How many people are actually going to give it a chance to give it enough. time to get it. Because you got to spend 40 bucks. Then you're going to have to spend probably at least a good five to maybe eight hours

getting it. And then you need a good crew. Yeah. And it's an extraction shooter, which already is a niche genre. So it's not for everyone, you know, right off the top. I, you know, I know there's all the weird stuff with the steam numbers and all that. But I think Bungy did something really good here. I think if you give it a shot and it's worth the investment, but let's see how long.

PlayStation gives them. I don't know. That's kind of the big thing right now. I think if they give them a long leash, that game, what it is today, will be vastly different and better a year from now, but I don't know if it's going to get a year. That's my word.

I would say, like, my guess is that PlayStation needs a live service win of some sort. Hell divers? Well, it needs a live service win right now. Hell divers is a win, but like it's a two-year-old win at this point. But people still play it and spend money. I spend money in it for sure. I think they need something that will make somebody up there look not embarrassed.

I get it. They need a more monetizable game. Yeah. And like this game is not even that monetizes. Like it's they sell micro-transactions. But like the, I think ideal thing for this for Marathon is it brings people into the PlayStation ecosystem. It gets them accounts.

It gets people who are on PS5 to start paying for PS Plus. Like if it can do that, then I think that a game is a win. And I could see it probably going at least a year. Yeah, that was my complaint with Marathon as well, and it's why I didn't buy it, why I'm not playing it. First, okay, first of all, Bungy, if you're watching this, depleted means that you can't use it anymore. Nothing is in the charge. It took forever to figure out when I picked up, like, depleted health kits or whatever. I was like, oh, that means, it's trash.

Why would I, I can't use it. I can't use it. If you have gray shields, it fills up just enough. I was like, are you kidding me? Oh. Flavor checks, please fix that. I was just like, oh, I felt so stupid. Um, then, that's on them.

Yeah. Yes. So, um, the menus are, oh my God, they're jarring. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, the onboarding is really bad. I think that what they should do with the different characters, because you don't want to go into a match just to test out character abilities and then be like, oh, I actually don't

like this character. Yeah. Um, I think what they should do is do trials, right? So you can have like a little training room where you can like try that different abilities. And it's like, oh, kill X many, um, robots with this ability or do, uh, heal. this many teammates on your team, right? And it's like a small little room where you do that and then you get rewarded with like five full health kids. I think that could be a really great system to onboard players because marathon is a really difficult game compared to arc readers where you do

use the prox chat. You do make friends in the game as opposed to marathon where yes, you might have those matches where you do make friends. But ultimately it is a bungee FPS game where it is very competitive. And so, and especially with the stability or the stamina system and the different gunplay and all that. It's very specific. So if you're not good at FPS games, if you don't understand the core mechanic of extraction shooters, especially with what Marathon introduces, then you're kind of fucked and you're not going to want to go back and play again. Two things you said, difficult. It's not an easy game. I think that's one thing right there. But it's also, I think, part of what Bungie needs to get in people's heads early on is don't be attached to your gear.

you know whereas you come from playing destiny or something like that that's the whole loop of the game is getting all this awesome gear and building up your character you might do that in marathon have a few good runs like oh i'm feeling good man that shit is gone and you got to start all over but you'll be able to recoup that pretty quickly because that's the loop of the game and i don't think everyone goes into to marathon understanding that and that that's where i'm saying they got a look if i was smart enough i'd be there probably but they got to they got to look if i was smart enough i'd be there probably but they got they got to to fix onboarding somehow, right? And like you said, the menus and the UI definitely need some tweaking. That's kind of Bungy's problem overall, right? Yeah, it wasn't Destiny 2. They just don't get onboarding. Yeah. Like, then they make the problem or in Destiny 2, at least they made the problem worse by

vaulting stuff. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's a fine game. It's very sound mechanically. I do think, like you said, it's going to suffer from the problem of just dwindling down to the hardcore audience. I mean, in the server slam alone on like day 2, I noticed that the difficulty ramped

because a lot more people understood the way to play. A lot of people who could spend so much more time in the game than other casual players, right? So jumping in, you're like, oh, I lost my gear immediately. Keep losing. Keep losing. Keep losing. I like the free kits they give you. That's very nice. And I know it's very standard of extraction shooters. But the power creep on players who have stocks of options,

especially with the upgrades, the chips specific to each class, it is so apparent when you come up against a team like that. And so I do think there needs to be a little bit of balancing. I understand that there is supposed to be that, like, powerful feeling of like, oh, my God, all this good gear. I got all the rare stuff. And it's like, yes, that's good,

but also you need to make it fair enough that new players who have to use the sponsored gear don't feel overwhelmed and, like, they're losing all the time. So, anyway, sorry. That's just, I have a lot of opinion. I mean, that's where matchmaking some, you know, and again, there's all the back end stuff,

trying to get newer players, less to quit players matched up against that same type versus throwing them against, against these super advanced people because yeah you're gonna be dead immediately basically take your time it's a marathon not a there you go that's a perfect place to transition into another very recent game slay the spire two speaking of we got a super chat in from snow 13 writes in for me it's slay the spire two but i'm also really enjoying marathon just got monster in his stories three in pacopia yesterday and so lost the two early access today so lots of tough choices for game of the

year so far slay the spire two is one that i'm scared of booting up Because like I mentioned, I'm juggling a lot of games right now. And with the amount of concurrence that Slate Aspire 2 has in the kind of game that it is, and for how much I really enjoy Slate Spire 1, I'm scared that the moment I boot up Slade Espire 2, my life is over. Yeah. Like, review code for that went out, like, I'm not sure if it went out day of release or a little bit before, but I know someone who was reviewing it and they already have $200 on their account. And I'm like, wow, I can't do that.

I can't do that right now. I like it's it's one of those things where it's like the mcuffin of my life right now where as soon as I as soon as I hit that boot up button it's going to be all I think about it's going to be all like it's for me me me meugenics is kind of like my current one of those where I'm that's another game of the year contender for me like that's right beside resident evil for me for sure yeah and it has that thing that that that loop that keeps me coming back that keeps me addictive I'm scared that Slate the Spire 2 is going to be a bigger version of that for me, and I can't handle that right now. Are any of you guys actually playing Sly the Spire 2? Or playing to boot it up? The same exact reasons you're not playing it. Yeah, yeah. I got to see it. It'll consume me. I can already tell.

Well, before that, we have Pokemon Pocopia. Already talked about it. We got Reservuit Evil Requiem. Already talked about it. I pulled in Demon Tides because I know a lot of people enjoyed demon tides. I know Roger was playing it and was talking to him about it. Reanimal is another big one that came out this year. Although I feel like

conversation came and went a little bit Did you guys check out Ring Animal? I didn't. I planned it enough to be like Yeah, there's like little nightmares, but new. And I was like, all right, cool. I probably should have given it more time but it is cool that it is what it is.

Like it's cool that that studio is doing what it does best and gets to keep doing that. There's also Mario Tennis Fever that we talked about for a second. Mario Tennis Fever, probably my number three. Like right under Reson Evil and Muggenics absolutely adore Mario Tennis Fever. fever. And then there's Mugenics

I talked about. Neo 3 is another one. Where I think kind of funny is like in a weird place where the Neo games is not resonating with us. But Imran, I know you like Neo. Yeah. I remember doing a let's play of Neo with you, I think. Literally the last video we shot pre-pandemic.

Yes. Yeah, it was Neo 2. It was Neo 2. Yeah, I'm playing 3. I've been plugging away at it. Neo, Neo was interesting to me because every single game, every single game consistently, what it has been is me starting that game going, this is not too hard.

This is actually fine. I'm pretty good at action games. I'm pretty good at Zol's likes. Then I get to a boss that I am stuck at for several hours. And I did get to and pass that boss this time. So I'm enjoying that game. This is one is a little bit more open world,

but not quite an Eldon Ring open world. So it's like, I understand just saying, hey, make an open world is a lot for a developer, especially one the size of Team Ninja. But like, I kind of wish they went full hog as opposed to not quite going far enough. Yeah. But I am enjoying this game. It is a good

good one of these. But I do think for most people it'll probably be too difficult for them. I just need them to get back to a stranger of paradise. You know, give me another one of those. You want to know a hot take? We're not doing the actual, I started playing Stranger of Paradise recently because like I got maybe into the forest last time and I picked it back up. Yeah. I think that game is better than FinalVans 16. Okay, well that's, I did not expect

you to say that. That's crazy. That is a hot take. I thought you're going to say it's like the best team ninja game in like recent time, which I might have been on you with that because I do love. Yeah, actually I agree with that too. Yeah, because I love Stranger in paradise. Yeah. But I almost I almost love it in like a little bit of an ironic way, but also like it comes back around where I think the writing is so bad and nonsensical that it comes back around to being entertaining for me. Right. It's so confident in its non-sensicalness. Yeah. Nonsense. That's the word for it. So confident it's nonsense

That it's just like, yeah, okay, I'm with you on this ride. Yes. I will go wherever you want to go. 100%. I also have cairn written down here. Are we got any care in people? Any rock climbers? I have that game and I've not played it yet.

No. I unfortunately rage quit. I just couldn't do it. I could have. So for me, it was the survival mechanics like keeping yourself full, drinking water, all that stuff. They have an option to turn it off, but my pride wouldn't let me. Oh, I know. Yeah.

I'm a toxic gamer in that way where I'm like, I'm not turning off the systems that you put in the game. We're going to do it all. And I'm going to hate it. But I love the rock climbing. I think it's such an inspired game for what it goes for. And I totally like, I think there's something special there if it's the kind of game for you. And then the last three I had written down here are Mio, 2XCO and Hightail. Do those speak to anybody?

I've played any of them. I played a little bit of two. XKO. I think the fundamentals are there. I think one, they should not have named that game to XKO because like the news is already out there about like they did some layoffs of the team. I don't think they're going to suddenly replenish it and that game is going to get like get a revival. But that they should not name that Texas K.O. They should have named it League of Legends fighting. Honestly, even though it has nothing to do with Arcane, they should have named it Arcane fighting or something. Oh my God. Yeah. That would have been sick. But like I don't, I think what

that game's quote unquote failure. It didn't fail. It just did not succeed. It tells me is that even like a free to play fighting game, you need single player content. Like you can't just rely on the sickos. 100%.

I agree with that. I have the Metacritic up for the highest rated games of the year. Bear brought this up a second ago. So I think this will help for a little bit of cleanup here. Because one that I didn't bring up that I should bring up is a very recent release called Esoteric E.

Have you guys heard of this one? No. Heard of it in passing. It's like a disco-alnesium like CRPG. It has like dice roll and I think maybe some like light like D&D mechanics there. Don't quote me on that part. But I've seen quite a few people talk about this one being special. Yes.

This seems like the kind of game that if you get into it will be like we'll tickle that civic part of your brain real well. Yes. They even use the D&D font. Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah.

And even like the logo that looks like the. This specific, yeah. I do remember seeing this and thinking it looked really cute and very approachable as opposed to disco elysium, which looked a little bit more daunting to me. I think it's just like a darker story. So I'm like, okay, I got to be in the right headspace for that. But for this, it feels like an adventuring tale like you do in D&D, right? Yeah.

So it feels way more approachable. Yeah. This is when I definitely want to, I want to hopefully make the time to get to what I'm worried that I'm not going to because there's so much going on. Yeah. Time just stopping for like two weeks would be so great. Oh, my God. I know.

Catch up just for two weeks. That's all I need. My hot take is that I want us to like pick a year coming up. Let's say 2027, no new games. Let's say no new games for a year. We're all just playing. We're all just playing catch up for a year. That might, that's not an impossible.

That might actually happen. We are at Ramageddon at the moment. There could be a time where everyone just goes, yeah, we're, we got a toll off for a bit. Yeah, 2028, 2029 with the next gen was going to be playing. They're like actually. Well, I mean, just think about the rest of this year. I know we're talking about games that have already out,

but you look at the rest of the calendar of the year of things that we know about are coming out, and then it all culminates at the end with GTA 6. It's, yeah, we could take 2027 off. I think we'd be perfectly fine. Yeah. Plenty of games we'd be playing. Like, someone was asking me,

what games are you looking forward to the rest of the year, and I just sighed. I'm not thinking past Pragmata at this point. I know. Well, that leaves me. Oh, by the way, I just saw us in the chat and just reminded me. I have Planet of Lana 2 is out. Yeah.

And I've not played. it and it's killing me. So I got to play that too. Lessing, can you check is vampire crawlers out this year? Because that might be the only 2026 game that I've played, like the demo of. There was a demo, yeah. And I fucking loved it. Yeah, that demo was great. I'm still

playing vampire survivors. That's like my nighttime game. So I saw vampire crawlers and I was like, oh shit. I'm not, I've never done like a deck builder game. So Slay the Spire, I was really nervous about doing that. So playing this, I was like, oh, it's like babies first deck builder game. I fucking love this. Let me talk you about this game.

I know. I know, dude. One of my favorite games of all time. Hey man, part of adulthood is realizing, oh, I do like these other kinds of games that I didn't think I liked as a kid. Can we talk about that? Because, like, that's become one of my favorite things in video games, in gaming in general, because I think this extends to magic the gathering for me of discovering that I love something. Like, whenever I play something, like, me, Genix is probably the latest one where I'm like, oh, I like this tactical game. I usually don't like tactical games. But something about this one is really resonating with me.

Now I can't wait for Fire Emblem the next one to check out, right? I love that. Can I admit something right now, everybody, live. Please. How do you pronounce it? Is it ball pit or ball ex pit? I say ball ex pit. Yeah, I say ball ex pit.

I think that's how it was announced at Dice. I don't remember. It was, you were hosting. Yeah. Yeah, but I didn't say it. I wasn't the one listing it. So I don't know. I pronounce it ball times pit.

It's actually ball cross pit. Cross pit. Yeah. No way knows. I'm pretty sure it's just ball pit. yes that's what i i keep hearing but i was like i like ball ex has such a nice ring to i don't but also it doesn't make any sense when you talk like think about it it's like hunter hunter yeah oh yeah okay fine fine spy family think about it yeah although spy ex family i feel like that

i know the ex-c sure things cooler uh whatever although when i want to go back to when stella mentioned vampire survivors being a thing blessig have you ever played vital shell vital shell you would like this game is that the It's a, describe it. It's a 90s mech anime Survivor's game. Bring up vital shell. Mowing genre, I think, is the term I've been using.

Yeah, I've seen this. It looks like the kind of game you would find on a demo disc. Yeah. I just played a fuck it out for like $300. I love the art style. It's so funny because I actually hate the vampire survivor's art style,

which is why I tried vampire crawlers and I just can't do it. There's something about it that's like, I understand what it's doing, but it just doesn't, it looks ugly, which is purposeful, but also it doesn't work. This has a similar

thing of it very much is going for a certain era. It looks ugly, but it looks good to me. Yeah, right, right. Right. Like, I think it, this is where I think the age thing comes in of my, I came into consciousness with an N64, right? And my friends having a PS1, which this looks more PS1 to me. So, yeah, this is giving me a feeling. This has given me the nostalgia that I want.

Yeah, I want to check this. That was my game on the plane on the way here. I'm like, actually, this game rocks. Yeah. Okay, I'm going to have to play that. Let's hop back into Superchats before we get out of here. Chase, 8628 says, Esoteric Ebb is really fun

and great comedic value. I'm gonna, I really want to get around to it. I can't promise that I will, but I really want to. I'm gonna try to, is what I'll say. That's the thing you're talking about, like, sometimes you go to a game and like you just end up playing Pokemon.

Yeah. Like, sitting down for a game feels like the bar can go either way. It can either take energy or like energy. And a great game doesn't necessarily, like, gain energy. And a bad game doesn't necessarily take energy. It just, yeah.

It's just sometimes you have a feeling of what you want to play. And like, it sucks to be like, I don't know which game this is going to be and I don't want to risk it. That's such a beautiful way to put it in, Ron, because I've not been able to put words to it. But yeah, there are so many times where I'm like, I want to play this, but it's taking energy from me. But then, yeah, leaf green just gives me energy. Yeah. That's such a great way to put it. I've never thought about it that way.

Plazuka writes in and says every kind of funny panel should have this diversity. Hell yeah. I agree. If you're an audio listener, you know, turn on the video real quick. Just take a game in here. Let's run a Ku-on, Greg. It's a hot cast right here. Let's see, what else we got here?

We got one from kebabs that says, discussion. 88 on Metacritic feels real low for the best rated Pokemon game in history. I totally thought heart gold, soul silver, or black and white, too, got 95 plus, you know? Most, I mean, most of the Medicare doesn't break 90 these days. Like, generally things that do are things that are both agreed to bond to be good and don't have that many reviews. because you have so much diversity of opinion that you're going to generally settle around the 80s and the degree in which you settle around to the 80s

is like a good indication of quality but like the highest rated games last year were Red of the Wild and Tears the Kingdom Switch 2 versions because not many people bothered to review them and they are generally agreed on to be quality games but like for the most part anything new that's going to get a review is going to get like some highs some lows and kind of settle into the middle

Like so far there's nothing this year that has hit 90 on Metacritic. But also 88 is a great score. So like, 88 is a fantastic goal. Like Resident Evil Requiem, so many people are like, man, this is one of the best Resident Evil games. It's sitting at an 89. Yeah. There's a lot of the best games ever that are like low 80s, high 70s, honestly.

Yeah. Bringing in another one from, I already read this one from Snow 13. Shout out to you, Snow 13. Let's do this one from Phantom Tempest, who says, somehow it's 2026 and Fire Red is my game of the year. No regret. And then one from Darth Anslow who says

Play Hyperbeat Two Dev Team out of Seattle I'm gonna look up Hyperbeat Have you guys heard of this one? No Where are you saying everyone? Were you at Day of the Debs, right? I was at Day of the Debs, yeah

Did you play Dennis Disco? No, but I played I played Dennis Disco at a They had a demo like a year ago that I checked out. It might be better now, but This is Hyperbeat. Yeah, this is Hyperbeat

This looks cool. Dude, the art is, I love the style This is really cute. Yeah. I mean, this is another, like, you know, Vital Shell isc thing, but like it's more... This looks like it came off a PS1 demo desk. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Have you guys seen, so I saw this at Gamescom last year. It's called Don't Stop Girlie Pop. It's like this high speed movement based, a movement tech based FPS, but you can... It looks like a 2000s commercial. Yes. It's like Y2K aesthetics and stuff. It's so cute.

That's kind of what it reminds me of. I love that we are getting all these different artsy games. And. Here's the thing. I love that we're, thank you very, you're the best. I love that we're at this point in games where most people are understanding that, oh, indie games, like, they're awesome. Even if they aren't like hyper-realistic, like Unreal Engine 5 typical things, right? I know there was one person in YouTube chat who obviously was like,

the type who was like, oh my God, this, it looks so, it looks so cheap, it looks so basic, you know, and it's like, no, you have to understand that there's so much more that goes into the game than just the visuals. I mean, there were even text-based games that are, like, there was one that was nominated IGF last night. So it's great. And this is so cool because, like, when I first saw this, I was like, oh, this is very overwhelming.

But as soon as you played, it's such a different experience when you're actually in control. So it's super cool. I love this. I love that we're in this resurgence of indie games and expression of art, especially in a time where I feel like we really need it. Yeah, 100%.

Yeah, this looks really cool. It's really fun. It's really fun. It's really fun. It's the name of it. And the music? Oh my God. It's so.

good. It's like hyperpop and oh god, dude, yeah. Yeah. You know, one of the things that I think gets brought up a lot, especially for me, is that there's too many video games. But to a certain extent, the thing that I'm, I think we'll start to see and we already see a lot right now are games that are very much tailored for that specific audience where to relate it to music, you know, in the, I guess before let's say the 2010s, we all had the thing of we all, we listened to radio, right? You ask somebody about the, they're the best, songs from 2007 and we might all list very similar songs because we were all

listening to the radio in 2007 but if I ask you about your favorite music right now in 2026 we might all have very different lists because we're all choosing like what we're playing or what we're listening to right we all have like that autonomy to go oh no I'm firmly into this artist this genre this

whatever and there's such a vastness because of the internet of options out there that we all kind of have our own tailored thing I think video games are the same thing where you know Stella might be playing don't stop Don't stop Girlie Pop? Yeah. Imron, you know, might be over here playing

Vinyl Shell, right? Paris might be playing his own thing. I might be playing Eust, Eb. And then we come together and we're like, yo, yeah, no, I love this game for this thing. Paris is like, yo, there's this other game over here that I'm playing. And like, we all have these vastly different things. I think that's going to continue to happen because I think indie is only thriving more and more. Maybe on the financial side, it gets wonky.

Yeah. And that might continue to happen for a little bit. But I think when you compare it to AAA and all the shit that's going down in AAA as far as how hard it is to to fund games or at least like how much money shareholders are looking for and trying and asking for versus the autonomy that a lot of these studios have when you look at the studio that made clear obscure or a studio like super giant or like you have so many indies that are very much like all right we can do whatever we want we don't have big Microsoft or big PlayStation or big

Activision breathing down our necks be like we have to make this thing I'm going on a rant but I'm just saying indie games are cool And to wrap it up And to add on that Like we are extremely privileged To be a community Where we can complain about games Not being for us

Because that means there's just that many titles Which is incredible Yeah I think again I think it's just this online culture of like You expect your algorithm To be tailored to you It's not perfect though So when people see something

And it comes across their timeline They're like Why isn't this for me? Make it for me fix it When there's so many other things That could be your style You just haven't explored outside of your box.

So this is why I love that a lot of the devs, the mix, they show off all these games that may not resonate with you, but to someone else who's watching at home, they might be like, wait a minute, that looks like a game that I played like years and years ago.

Let me look this up. When I was a kid, you either liked Castlevania or you kept playing Gasco. Yeah, 100%. That is going to bring us to the end of this kind of funny games, guys. I wish we could do an extra hour.

It's so fun. I know. We could keep talking, dude. Honestly, I didn't bring up the Avatar fighting game because I know we would talk about it for 20 minutes. I was about to bring up the Avatar Finding game, but we're doing a,

what have we played this week episode tomorrow as I was keeping that in my pocket for tomorrow. But let me tell you, that Avatar finding game is fucking awesome. Another hot take for me. I played both that game and token. I like it better than token. I agree.

Yeah, I play both as well. And yeah, I enjoy the Avatar game better. You know, Barrett never beat me in it. I mean, I think there's video proof of the exact opposite. Not if I go into the back end. Make sure nobody ever says. I think we did it live in front of a couple thousand people who now all know that I am the true I can get a thousand people live for me.

Whoa. So like Target leaked some shirts of the the adult team avatar thing for the new show, our new movie. And like they said for Toff, they have the word Toff, like Toff in the picture of the word Tof, Zuko, Zuko, all that. For Ang, it just has a picture of Ang and just says air. Fuck yeah. That's awesome. So that's his new name.

It's air. Air. I mean the airbender. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah, this game is gonna be awesome. Yeah. This game is gonna be incredible.

It's, I swear it looks better every time I see it. Yeah. Like, I think even the art looks better. Like, when they first revealed this game,

I would have told you it looked like a flash game. I was like, all right, cool, but it flows so well. We're doing the thing I said, we're not, we're not gonna do.

Wait, wait, real quick, because you guys are the fighting game people. What about the Invincible game? I didn't play that. Yeah. Fun. Yeah,

a lot of fun. Yeah, I think it's cool. Okay. I didn't play it. Okay. I don't know what invincible is. I don't have watched it.

Oh, sure. That's fair. Okay. If I'm doing my power rankings on 2026 fighting games right now, like I got Avatar number one. Wow. Which I would not have told you coming into this year. Yeah. But Avatar Marvel.

Oh. Invincible. Okay. Actually, Invincible 2X scale might be like tied a little bit. Because 2X scale, I think, is a good fighting game. It just isn't like exceptional in a way that makes me want to like move. that move games over to get to it. Invincible versus I'm in a similar place where playing it, it's fun.

I think it's cool. I like the characters. I like Invincible. Yeah. Right? So like all that's there. But when it comes out, I'm going to play it if like if I got the time for it. Like unfortunately, it's not like one where I'm not going to move Soros or anything else that might be in the way of it.

Okay. I also don't know if it has a release date. So I have no idea when this is coming. But we'll see. Cool. Let's go down the table. Where can people find you guys so they want to continue to support your car? content, Imron.

You can find me on Blue Sky at Imronconcom. You can find me at restart run which is where I'm writing right now. I did an article

the other day that was like, because they have the list of what bio weapons cost in Resident Evil 9. I did that like what would

video game acquisitions instead be if they'd said bought like tyrants or lickers? I thought it was really fucking

funny, but everyone who would have laughed at that is at GDC this week. So no one read it. So go find that article and

read it. Go check that out. Paris. You can find me on social media at Vicious 696. My personal YouTube channel, which is Paris, ML. Just look it up,

find it. I'm lazy. The content, all that. And then obviously, Gamer Tag Radio, and of course, when I get a chance, right here. Don't Google just to Sydney Paris. You will just find... There it is. You want two R is, not the one R.

Stella. Yeah, you can find me everywhere at Paralek. Stella. I've been really loving diving into like deep dive of news and such. The latest one was the, oh, oh my God, I can't remember it. But, okay, it was a lot of the. Is it the Xbox? It was Xbox and it was the new, the Maverick Games racing game that's being worked on that Amazon dropped. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was on that. I do love doing the deep dives. But also real quick, I did want to shout out my partner. He is releasing his new game on Steam on Monday, this coming Monday,

it's called Dice with Death. If you guys could check it out, that'd be amazing. It's only like, it's under $15. And if you like dice building games, that's what it is. So, yeah, it's really cool. What's funny is I made the joke earlier that, you know, I don't know if I'll move Soros out the way to get to Invincible Verses. And I threw out just a random AAA game.

Soros does come out the same day as Invincible Verses. And so I don't know. Literally, I don't think I'm going to move Sorrows out the way of Invincible Verses. But y'all, thank you so much for coming through. Thanks so much for coming down to the studio, hanging out. Of course, I know the audience loves whenever you guys come through, and I love whenever you guys come through. And so it's fun to have us all together on one panel talking games, kicking it.

Right after this, we got a stream. Actually, is that right, Barrett? What's that? Well, we got in review. We're taking it back to Pixar in review for hoppers. Ooh, all right. We'll hop on over to that if you want to check that out. And then after that, we got a stream.

Right, Barrett? Unless we got something out. Yeah, the stream will be Gamescast plays with you and Roger playing. Ghost of Yotee Legends, which I'm really excited about. All right, that's out this week. I mean, Stella,

you want to stay, play some with us? Oh, no, I have an appointment, but like when I get home, can we play? Yeah, I'm done. Okay, great. Yes. All right. Until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you.