Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Mario Golf Super Rush Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 78

Episode Date: June 24, 2021

IGN's Simon Cardy joins us to review Mario Golf Super Rush and Final Fantasy VII Remake Intermission. Follow Simon Cardy here https://twitter.com/CardySimon Time Stamps - 00:02:00 - Sonic the Hedgehog 30th Anniversary 00:10:00 - Topic of the Show: Mario Golf Super Rush Review 00:47:58 - Final Fantasy VII Remake InterMISSION Review 01:04:20 - Stranger in Paradise Final Fantasy 01:09:10 - Amazon Luna Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to another kind of funny games cast. As always, I'm Tim Getty's joined by one of the coolest dudes in video games, Greg Miller. Bonjour, Tim. The nitro rifle, Andy Cortez. Slow down the internet. The new face of video games, bless you getting at your age, junior. Bonjour, Tim. How about you?

Oh, wow. And of course, we have a very special guest today for all of this Mario Golf Goodness. And his name is IGN. very own, Simon Cardi. Gouldenarbon, Fiegates. Oh, wow. I don't know what we're doing. I like all the different languages going on.

And to explain for literally everybody here that isn't part of this show, wouldn't know that before the show, what Andy's referencing is, in fact, Greg Miller coming up with the Queen's master evil plan to slow down the internet. Well, what we're talking about, of course, is that Simon Cardi's internet runs weird with us, right? And so he... What now? Is that a hook on your hand?

It is a hook on my hand. I will not be taking any further questions. Thank you, much. I won't, I won't take any further questions. Simon's internet isn't running well. And so he's like drifting out of sync on Discord. And so we were like, why would this happen? And then somebody said, well, he's really far away.

And I said, yeah, you know, Queen said slow down the internet. I don't know what happens because I have very good London internet. And London internet is. But that's like, it's dial up. I was going to say dial up, right? I've got 300 meg download speed at the moment. That's good. Really?

Really good. What's your up? Fine? I haven't looked. It wouldn't load. It wouldn't. And every week we get together to talk about video games and all the things that we love about them. And there's a lot to love this week.

A lot of great games coming out. A lot of great games to talk about. And a lot of great music to talk about as well. And we're going to do that right here on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games or roosterteeth.com. If you want to get it as a podcast, just search your favorite podcast service for Kind of Funny games cast and will be right there for you if you want to get the show ad free if you want to watch live as it's being recorded and if you want the exclusive post show you got to page you got to go to patreon.com slash kind of funny games just like our patreon producers donovan harkness omega three tyler

ross delaney to winning julian the gluten-free gamer james hastings kisi andrew and elliott have done because of that they won't have to listen to our ads later about express bpn and human like the rest of you will have to but that's not yet because we need to talk about some very important stuff blessing. Isn't that right? That is absolutely right. What are we talking about? We're talking about the Sonic anniversary concert.

It happened right before the show. And me and you watched it. You title the show Mario Golf Super Rush Review. And this is how you're going to open it. Talking about this. Sonic is the most important thing that happened today. It is Sonic the Hedgehog's 30th birthday today, Greg. Show some goddamn respect, okay?

I love Sonic. Yeah? Through the generations? Because if you do, you should have watched this concert and you should have felt the feelings. Right, bless, that was a 10 out of 10. I can't believe a Sonic concert. Actually, I can. I can't believe a Sonic concert was that incredible because they took advantage of the one objectively amazing thing about Sonic

across the board, across all the games, the soundtracks. Like, you can talk about quality all you want. We can talk about how most of the 3D Sonic games aren't that great. We can talk about how even some of the 2D Sonic games aren't that great. Well, you can't tell me that isn't great out of the. Sonic the Hedgehog franchise is the video game soundtracks. They're bangers. And it's as if somebody over there was a fan and they're like, hey, we nod to do this.

We got two acts to fill. We're going to make the first act. Do they call them acts in concert? They didn't, but they should have. They should have called an X because that would have actually fit in, yeah, zone one, zone two. The first act was basically an orchestral, hey, we're going to go through the Sonic games that you love. We're going to go through your favorite songs.

We're going to do Emerald Hill. We're going to do a casino night zone. We're going to do Sky Sanctuary, all the songs that you love. We're going to do a song from Sonic Art. We're going to do all the songs that you love in orchestral form and make it beautiful and make that shit hit. But then in Act 2, we're going to fucking bring out the big guns. And we're going to fucking make, we're going to bring out guitars. We're going to bring out Crush 40.

We're going to bring out EDM remixes of some of the biggest slaps from Sonic history. And it was fantastic. Dude, that second half took it up a notch who was just like these motherfuckers. Because the first half, all the orchestra stuff, it was great. I love how obscure they got. Of course, they did the medleys for the main core games. But Greg, they did a game gear medley where it was just the 8-bit Sonic games. Like they were getting kind of crazy.

There was a Saturn medley, little hints of the Knights and the Dreams theme. I'm like, these motherfuckers are knocking it out of the park from the arrangement to the performance itself, to the way the video was edited. It was awesome. And then the second half happens. And they just start upping the notch so much with the different rock bands and the different electronic groups that have worked on Sonic colors and stuff. But then towards the A,

they start combining the two and they start having the orchestra playing with the fucking rock bands and we get escaped from the city from sonic adventure too and it was just perfect it was like one moment where sonic fans could all just hold hands and be like we did this together guys the power of friendship i could not be more happy we live through this we made this these are our memories and here we are i hope they go on tour man from now on in the future can we just in the future can we just say that sonic is you know for younger generations to kind of get them you know, acquainted with it. Like Sonic the Hedgehog is a cartoon and movie franchise with awesome music and they also made some video games. Like they made video games too. You're gonna worry

about them though. Like they made the movie. Like we could just kind of like change history right here right now. You have to worry about maybe two of them. We could change history right here right now. Like I love how bless intros it is like look the music is fucking phenomenal. Yeah, a lot of 3D games bad. Some of 2D games bad.

This franchise is not grand. It's honestly just trying to get ahead of the comments and get ahead of all the fucking there's so much good in the Sonic franchise. There's a lot of bad too. But like, look, we're talking about the good here. And even the bad games have great music. And they presented that extremely well.

And even place with the good stuff. So it's like it just proved that there's something special about Sonic. There's something special about that fandom. And I'm happy to be a part of it. Let's go to the theme park last 2023. Oh my God. thing parks coming in soon. Tim, you missed a banger episode of Kind of Funny Games Day that they could have used

you because there was a lot of Sonic news this morning. But even the songs from the bad Sonic games made me nostalgic. They played songs from Sonic Forces that had me like, oh yeah, this was a slap. There were songs from Sonic 06 that had me like, oh shit, yeah, this is a world baby. It was really good. It was really impressive

and it was really awesome. And for me, the moment, because sadly, I couldn't finish the whole thing out because I had a scheduling conflict that I had to go take care of. But I was there for one of my favorite Sonic songs, which is the Sonic Heroes theme song from the iconic video game, Sonic Heroes for the PS2. And when I tell you, I felt emotion when they started playing that song, when they got into it. I've never felt like, I never felt emotion like that listening to a video game soundtrack.

And I love video game music. The undertale orchestral concert that they did was one that touched me as well. I thought that was fantastically done. But Sonic Heroes playing at full blast on full volume of my headphones in the live version across all these different Sonic songs was something special and I'm always going to remember that that was dope as fuck I highly recommend even if you're not the biggest Sonic fan check this out just to see the potential that we now have going forward for video game anniversaries I think this is a new standard this is something that I want to see other publishers and developers really kind of take

hold of and do something special with because I think a lot of franchises could have this a similar type of like holy shit there is legacy here and it matters so it was it was type as hell I scrolled through it. I agree. It was very cool. And I hope to see more video game publish, you're mentioning, Tim, more devs and publishers do that shit because it was really cool. Seeing the actual rock band at the end.

And then Nate wants to battle singing city of scale. Like, that was cool as shit. Very cool. Oh, yeah. And for me, like, I put out a tweet earlier on that was like, what other video game franchise can do it like this? Like a concert like this? Not just a concert, right? Because plenty of video game

franchise that's done concerts. Like, we love this all a concerts we love Undertail. Assassin's Creed has had their concerts. But like, to frame it in Final Fantasy, to frame it in this way where the first half is that orchestral thing and the second half is what it is. And all that shit was dope as fuck.

I feel like it's very few and far between in terms of who can do it. Kingdom Hearts can probably do that same thing. You mean just like spanning a bunch of genres, right? Spanning a bunch of genres, but then also having like the songs that they played in that second half were all fucking like slaps. Dude, Mega Man. Mega Man could do that.

Escape from the city. Like vocal slaps, though. Like, so, like, vocal songs with, like, actual jams to them, like themes, like anthems. Sonic has them, man. Sonic has that, I think. Yeah, I reckon persona you could do it. Yeah, persona could do that as well.

Yeah. All right, Greg. And GTA. All the GTAs. Let's do a GTA concert. I don't know. I think Simon. I think Simon.

Great Miller. Yeah, restart time. It's in series. Real bad. Real bad. The Mario stuff here. I tell you the Queen. You know what I mean?

Right? She's in there just messing all. And we decree, the internet must be slowed. You got the parchment paper reading it out. I couldn't watch Sonic. The Queen wouldn't let us because our internet was just getting destroyed by Sonic. I couldn't do it. Furthermore, no blue hedgehogs from its fault.

Mario, golf, super rush. Please give me a review, grass. The official review. That's why Simon's here. He's, of course, doing the official review for IGN. This is one of those that, yeah, I'm the only one of kind of funny who's been playing it. I know we are all waiting with bated breath for it. So yeah, I figured I wanted to make sure you had at least two experts on here for the panel. We brought in Simon. How much of you've played? How much have you played, how much have you played, Simon? I'm not actually reviewing it for IGN. I lied. That's just how you got your code. That's all you did. I've lost track of how long I've played. I've played pretty solidly the last few days. like five days probably enough to feel like I can review it which is always how you should do it exactly I I don't want to I don't want to start off on a down next I know you like it probably slightly better than me I've given it a six out of ten on I Jan which is underwhelming and

disappointing because I love Mario Golf I love the Mario Golf games but there's just so much lacking in this one that I I want to see and it's a shame I I do think I like it more than you, but it's not by any, I, as somebody who, you know, you let me read your review ahead of time and give you some notes or whatever. Like, it's definitely, we are in the same page. I think if I was scoring, I'd come up to a seven. Like, I'm not getting crazy with it by any stretch to imagination. And so like, for me, Tim, I think it's something that you are so familiar with usually when you review a Nintendo game and especially in Nintendo game and a series of Nintendo games, right? Where it's like, there are omissions here. And like to compare Super

Rush to Mario Golf World Tour, right? Which was the 3DS version. which I adored and put like 100 some odd hours into. It's like, why are there no online tournaments and why are there less courses and what are fewer courses and stuff? You start going down that thing. Why there are you? Undy. Yeah, exactly.

Weird Nintendo decisions, right? Why are there fewer unlockables and stuff? But all that said, I am still, you know, as the Miller family, we're still buying Jenna copy on Friday. Like, I still think the game is a ton of fun. I enjoyed playing it. I still enjoy playing it. Even after Simon and I, this is, I have a feeling this is going to be one of those.

reviews where we sit here and nitpick so much of it. So I think it's important to start at the top that the Mario Golf. Mario Golf. Mario Golf mechanics you'd expect are here and they're still fun and it is still Mario Garlph and it is Galf. Why am I saying golf? Day two of me saying

golf weird. There is so much there is so much to love here and so much to get into but it's that traditional W or NWD right of it could have been great. It could have been amazing. It could have easily been a nine. It's just the things they chose to omit or not do, don't work out for it in the end

in terms of like, you know, their adventure mode, right? That's what they call it. That's what they call it. A golf adventure, right? Like, cool, start this thing up, you know, bring in your me and have your your golf RPG thing that, you know, we all love and want to be really into, right? But it's what you and Blessing, I think, walked away from the preview talking about of like, like, it's kind of empty, right? And it's like, it is empty. And in terms of like, you know, there's not like, there's a bunch of side activities to do. There's a bunch of people you can walk up and talk to who'll say one line for no reason

and then it doesn't do anything. You're there to play the course. Oh, you don't have the right badge yet, but you can practice to earn your way to get into the right course to do the right thing. Okay, but it's wandering around these environments doing it. But then there's this push and pull of it of it like, okay, cool, but the golfer stuff you're doing there

is introducing cool mechanics, is introducing, you know, the shot that skims against the water, how to use a lob shot and really get it up and get it down. Like, all, all cool mechanics, except you never use those in the real golf. You use them in these very specific examples in golf adventure. And then when you go out into the real golfing game or when you want to play online, you're not running into those kind of things.

So it's this weird choice there. And then on top of that, like, you're playing through it and you're earning XP for your character, right? And like you're leveling your me up. Like my me can right now outdrive any of the 16 players in the game. Like, you know, your Luigi's, your Mario's, or whatever. Which is why Greg has been talking nonstop shit. gone sorry was that any I'm sorry what was any I just this motherfucker this guy Cardi this guy's been challenging me publicly and I can't talk about the

embargo he's saying Andy I'm gonna whoop your you're you're me with this spaghetti noodle like arms he's gonna be driving the ball 40 yards and I can't be like well yeah you've been playing it for several days this fucking guy anyway I'm glad to take you on as Mario don't worry about it I don't have to play as my me I don't have to show you the skills I got don't you not Mario because I like to choose Mario try I can I can be warrior. I can be anybody.

Don't worry about it. Whoever you would want to be out of you. Wario. Greg is Wario. Greg, Greg sent me a link that says probably want to keep this handy for Friday's stream.

And it is a link that says, top five excuses that the golf makers make. Like golf players make. Listen, when we both came out of cryofreeze to play everybody's golf, I beat you then. You know what I mean?

So I'm not worried about beating you with a default character here. Don't worry about it. You're going to have an acucy want in the book. Don't worry about it. Honestly, your own psyche for Friday's stream, you should probably let me play as my me

so that you have an excuse as to, oh, of course I couldn't do it. His me can drive the ball 280 yards or whatever it is. You know what I mean? Get off my back. But here's one of my things about golf adventure being weird.

You play through, it's a story mode. There is a conclusive ending to the story mode that we won't spoil. But it comes out of left field. It's super weird. Even the story part out of it. When you come back to then,

it's like, all right, we'll dial it back before the final event so you can keep playing and you can keep leveling up. It doesn't get, you any quality of life stuff where it's like here's a map you can look at but the map is like when you flip over a denny's menu and it's like here's a map of the united states it doesn't like show you actually how to get anywhere so if you want to wander off and go replay stuff it's like you have to

take the long walk and figure it out back to whatever course you want to do it's like why would i ever do it this way so it's like that kind of weird stuff where it's like why wasn't this a more well thought out thing to do simon i'm sorry i've been ranting go for it no it's fine i it's a similar thing isn't it? Why would I want to go back when all there is to go back and do is talk to 50 Gumbas or say, do you know if you'll hit the ball harder, it'll go further? I mean, yeah, I did know that. It's maddening. Like, the adventure mode is, I was looking forward to it so much because I do have fond memories of the single player, like RPG type modes in these games. And it's just so hollow. Like I said, I think I did it in under four hours, I think. And it's just, yeah, like you said,

you do some basic golf lessons at the start and it's really simple and easy and then it just takes this left term where you're doing these weird like almost boss battle puzzle platforming bits which aren't very good they're clunky and it's a shame because yeah i just want to love this so much but i feel like there's so many games the last couple years i want to love this game so much but they just won't let me and sounds like tim of pocunders kind of yeah yeah like the courses that's a big thing. There's only six courses in the game at launch. And I know they've said some more might be coming, DLC,

but that's too less than the N64 version had, which is just a bit crazy when you think about it. It just lacks so much stuff like that. And that was the thing of like, you know, I went back and looked at so much stuff for World Tour. Because World Tour at this point in my life, right, is one of those games that's ascended into a Greg Miller story of the T-Times at IGN and loving it.

But then you really start, I'm like, what was? was world tour. What about it? So I went back and read the IGN review, and I watched up at noon, and I watched the game trailers review of it to reaffresh myself. And just looking at the creativity they put into those courses of their being like underwater or peaches thing.

And like, here's the speedups and stuff like that slow it down. Even these six are basic courses. Like, don't even wrong. There's one that's super rainy all the time. There's one that's desert. Like it's not that they're, okay, you're getting fewer, but they're, you know, crazier or they have more thought out. There are more holes if you really wanted to get into it, right?

Like World Tour had 10 total, but then there was only like three that were the full 18 and the others were the smaller things. I would have gone for more of a shakeup here because there are a couple that look a lot of like and do things that are pretty much the same. And you're playing golf and stuff. It's fine. Tim's telling me Toadstool Tour, right? I'm not talking about GameCube. I'm talking about 3DS. Oh, shit.

Okay. Mario Golf World Tour was the one on 3DS. Toadstool Tour, another great game. that I adored in college was GameCube, yeah. Don't worry. I got my Mario Golf on lock. Yeah, but so it's like, it is this weird balance with it of, we're nitpicking it, right, because it is this idea,

but it's again, that thing of I want to see it rise to a different level. I want it to be hands down the best golf game you can be playing. And right now the idea I have with it is it's a lot of fun, and I can't wait to stream with Andy, and I can't wait to, you know, open up the thing of put out, my friend code and have people come. We haven't talked about battle golf for online. We haven't talked about the different golf things.

Speed golf, battle golf. There's a bunch of different standard golf. There's things to do in it right that other games don't do. But it is going to become that thing where I'm playing it. And I'm just like, why am I playing this over everybody's golf? Like everybody's golf is a more content-rich, better golf game than this. And so here it is the idea that it is the Mario universe and, you know, it's quirky Mario and yada, it doesn't push it as far as something like World Tour did where you were like

wow I'm underwater wow I'm running on the pink greens or something Andy the side modes like this speed golf mode and like the other kind of silly shit that they're doing do they seem like those gimmie things you play for a day and then just immediately move back to the standard classic golf mode I really like speed golf I think it's the best thing they've introduced in this game like it generally is the most fun I had in the game. It kind of, if you don't know what speed golf is, it's rather than take your shot and just magically appear next to your ball for the next shot, you actually have to run in between

where your ball is and where you took it from. And you have special like dash abilities and stuff like that. So it's kind of mixing a little bit of Mario Kart into Mario Golf, which I liked. I think I wrote in my review, I would have preferred if it was actually literally getting in Mario Carts and driving to your ball and smacking into people, that would have been fun. But it's just still fun enough about speed golf, which I, I appreciate it as an addition to speed golf is something that has been in Mario Golf before, right? It's the addition now that when you take a shot, that's 30 points added to your clock.

So it's not only finish the hole as fast as possible. It's just finish the hole as fast as possible with the least number of shots because it's going to cost you that as well, which is how well. They're called strokes. My apology. Thank you very much, Andy Cortez, number one game journalist. Keep me honest. I like that. Gotcha.

But yeah, that's speed golf. And I think it's a lot of fun. And I don't think it's a gimmick to it. like, you know, Simon's talking about, right? This is the one where you're all going at once, you're all running at once. You have this, you know, stamina meter that can, that you do your super special run. And then you have to refill it. And then there's hearts around the field that you get to fill in the meter faster.

There's coins around the field that you get to fill in your special shot, which for me personally, as somebody who's played with the me most of the time, and then even for there ones, I don't understand fully why my special shots, that's special. It just keeps it really low, which is good to get it through trees sometimes or whatever. but some of the other characters a little low cut right there yeah yeah yeah and be straighter and have more power and some of the other ones have way cooler stuff though

of like you know it lands and a bomb goes off and it'll knock other balls away it'll land and ice the field so it's different there it'll put like a hex on your ball so when you hit it right it'll go left that kind of stuff but are you trolling other players and battling them like in this sort of like are you hitting them and colliding and shit?

Yeah there's kind of got that Mario cut thing of frame red shells ice got that kind of Shardin-Froeder thing of laughing at someone else's expense and kind of yeah you have those moments like I think that's why I said earlier that Wario is overpowered just because his ability is he can

kind of summer a giant thunder cloud above an area of the course and lightning is really annoying in this game because it basically puts like the top I don't know sixth of your power bar like in a hazard zone and if you do your shot too powerful into that it just electrics you and it

counts as a stroke so it just kind of puts everyone else like I hate warrior but I will play it as him every chance like that they sounds like a lot of Mario party kind of aspects to that as well yeah we also call that by the way with that low-cut shot we also call that a worm burner it's solo to the ground sure it could it could burn a worm man if you think so your head out of the books and learn how to play a video game golf man you probably be better at video game golf you know we'll see over there we're going to top shot I think that's gonna help you it's not gonna help you all you know

I'm gonna see about that bitch oh Carter you're saying that the adventure mode is like four hours and that a lot of the talking characters isn't that interesting. But do you think that it's worth playing through or should we just stick to the... Well, I would say it's worth playing through because you might as well. And also, it's kind of necessary because that's the only way you unlock the other courses. Otherwise, you'll only be able to play the first two courses. So you have to play the Venture Mode to unlock the four subsequent courses. So, yeah, you should play it just because it's there.

You have to play it, right? Because it's the only way to upgrade your me and make your me be playable in a way that actually covers in. And yeah, that's how you unlock all the other stuff in the game in terms of courses, in terms of being able to use your me and a couple of other things. And so I think what's important about it is, and I shouldn't put words in Simon's mouth.

For me personally, what's important to call out about it is it's not, again, that it's bad. It's not even that it's brain dead, which it kind of is of just followed the red thing to the next golf thing. Don't talk to anybody. The challenge they're putting you in are actually interesting and i would have loved to see them extrapolate that into the game because there's one section that was an awesome and i hope it's going to be dlc for the rest of them where it is cool

you are given the course there are holes littered throughout and you have 40 strokes to do all of them and it doesn't tell you how to do it it doesn't give you the directions to do it and it's like three tiers of like you're like in a rocky you know like a canyon kind of thing so there's low mid and high and then there's these cyclones of wind that you can use to ride up to the next thing, but also if you get in a spot, you can get your ball up and do it with that. And it was maddening. I think I tweeted about it a couple,

I mean, I tweet a lot, obviously, but a couple, last week during E3 or something, where I was like, you've had the game for a while. Wow. Yeah, I know. They want to send it to the really good players, so they make sure they get really good.

It's that thing where I said in the tweet of like, you know, I just beat something in a video game that's been vexing me for a while and it feels so good. And it was this idea of the amount of times I was, you know, crap, I have one hole left and I'm two, I have two strokes to go and I am not even going to be able to get there unless everything went right and nothing went right. And so it was, I did that, I did that mission, I don't even know, maybe four times before I finally, maybe five, actually, where I figured out what to do. And it was that thing where, God damn it, I wasted so much time,

but also that was really fun of trying to figure out how to do it and what to do. And I'd love to see them do something more like that. But they introduced that idea and you'd think, oh, well, that's going be something I can challenge blessing with eventually or whatever when you get out of it and you don't. It's just something you do there. And they have a couple other things like that where you play through it. It's like, okay, cool. The golf you're doing in the adventure mode is fun, I think, personally. Like, you know what I mean? I think it's, and again, the other thing overall with adventure mode and what you're playing with is I feel very much that the game is cool. And Andy, if we can put jokes aside for a second. I can ask you a real question of somebody who does play golf. I feel like most of my

friends who play golf, it usually is so much when they go out and play other people. Sure, they'd like to be the best in the group, but it's also about really playing against your own score. And like, okay, you could do. That's 100% what adventure mode is because none of these clowns are ever challenging you. Like the only times I failed adventure mode would be when I would run out of time on a speed golf and you only have so much time to earn. Yeah, speed golf and you only have so much time to use on a hole or whatever. That's when I would get, oh, fail. I'm like, oh, man, I took too long. That's on me or whatever. I took too many strokes. That's on me. But I was never being challenged like you know i think sometimes the downside to everybody's golf right is the

fact that cool you've got to beat this guy to advance and you can lose a lot and i know they've since patched i think where now there's a thing where you can put it on gimme mode or whatever and have a better chance but it is this risk or reward push of it all where there's some cool stuff introduced there but then the a i isn't pushing you but then doesn't need to because i'm in there just trying to be better for me personally you know the build up to this is that the fact of i can't wait to play with all you guys and i can't wait to play with jen and that then speaks back to the fact that of like Jen was so excited to sit down and play with me and she's like, cool, can I use my me? And I'm like, well, no, you didn't, we haven't, you have to do adventure mode.

And I was like, oh, and then she's like, Pauline's cool, but I really want to be, and so I opened it up and I started adventure mode and then I bounced out. And it's like, here's your character that has none of the power invested in anything. You can't like, one of the things you unlock as you play is the ability to shape the ball. So like, you know, the way it works obviously is like, that's almost cheating. Yeah, well, I mean, it's, it's cheating, but it's also like one of the, hooks to the game, I think, right, in terms of like making it again, Mario Golf. Yeah, yeah, like that.

But the idea of like, you know, like it's, it works like, you know, every other golf game you've ever played, right, where you hit A, go to the top of the thing and either hit a for, you know, double, A for top spin, double B for super backspin, B for backspin, B for backspin, whatever. And then another one goes up. And this time you don't have to hit anything. This is strictly for you to move the left stick and shape the ball in terms of like if you want it to have a curve or whatever.

But as you level up or whatever, you unlock multiple segments. So if there's a tree right in front of you, you can hook it all the way right and then come back left. And then if you really want it to again, even hook it right again to try to get it or give it more lift or whatever. And so it's like, that's all awesome. But there's no, after you beat adventure mode, why not give me like the ability just to copy and paste that to all sorts of me's and let them be able to play? Yeah. You guys talked a little bit about this. But something I was mean, blessed, we're both really excited about seeing the preview event is while it did see most of the NPCs would be Gumba's telling you hit the ball for it to move.

there was a couple hints at things like there was this hooded kupa that seemed kind of interesting and there were a couple characters and like even the boss fights i was like this seems weird how are they going to introduce this are there standout characters that are in the adventure name oh hell no no no i might still in sync i'm just wary if i'm a mile's up no no no no no you're a little out of see for it sounds like your audio's fine it's just the other thing okay oh i'll just speak for this bit uh yeah there's no characters um There's a few characters that are fun. Like, you start the game, and I was really excited. Like, the first five minutes, I was like, okay, this could be good, because it starts just like a Pokemon game. You kind of start in a house that looks like a Pokemon house, and you go downstairs, and you talk to Berto, who's kind of like your mom, and, like, is like, you should go out and become the best.

And I was like, I've got to collect these badges. And I was like, yes, this is going to be, like, Pokemon. And then, yeah, and then the game starts. And, yeah, it's just, you, every, everyone else you speak to is literally just like, I like golf too. And that's like, that's all they have to say. It's, I don't know, like, it really does. It's just, there's just not a lot to it. I struggle to talk about this adventure mode. I'm so much better at Ryan about it than I don't speak about. There's just not a lot to it. And that's what

disappoints me. It's not, like we're saying, it's not bad. It's a little boring. It's a little clunky. It's just too short. There's nothing to it. And yeah, I just want so much more. Blessing. I want to kick it to you. But one thing I want to toss in in in this conversation. right here is just the fact of like yeah like the gear changes right the shifts in this this adventure mode are so brutal in like just neck whipping right where it's like sure all of a sudden when they introduced the cupa the first time in the cloak and then the next cupa in the cloak it's like oh that was a weird thing but it kind of makes sense but then there just starts being these leaps of like it goes from just being like yeah you're trying to be the best golfer yeah now you need to kind of save the world

but it's not interesting in saving the world how they're doing it kind of thing and then on top of it it's like all right cool Wario and Luisa why Luigi showed up. That's neat and they're actually having things. And then literally it's just like, and now fucking Mario needs your help. He's the best at everything. It's like, what is going on? And then it's like, all right, cool, credits.

You're like, all right. Like that was a really, you have this amazing cast of characters that you could have easily worked in. You could have had him be challenges and they make them easy. I don't care. Have it be that you graduate and like, oh, you want your gold badge. You're going to have to beat, you know, peach or something like that. It just doesn't happen.

I'm sorry. Blessing, go ahead. Yeah. my question about the adventure mode was going to be, is there any hook out after the four hours of beating the adventure adventure mode to go back and keep playing? I know you can level up your me, but outside of that, do you have any desire to go back and keep playing? Absolutely not. And now I'm just going to reset my distilled. Yeah, the only reason I found, and I haven't like, you know, hit level cap or whatever. I actually haven't pulled up in the second screen. I think I'm 80 something in my adventure right now, right? I'm 83 right now. And so the only reason I keep going back is that. that yeah, I want to keep putting power in to be able to drive better, spin better, control the ball better or whatever. And like now it's more about even adding into my speed or stamina when I'm running through it. Because it's like an RPG in terms of, you know, you put your points in to level it up.

But eventually what happens is to balance it out is that, you know, you put more points into drive, but then it'll cut down. I'm talking about like right now even, you know, high level. You put more into drive and it'll cut down your spin. So it's like, all right, cool. If I want to take the next point to get spin back to 10, then the next point's going to go back to drive and you play that little move the shells, keep it going. to increase your stuff.

But that's the only reason to keep going back to it. I've never gone back to level up the character just because I've been trying out all the other characters and they all have their own abilities. So I was just trying to find out who has the coolest stuff really. And yeah, we haven't really talked about Battlegolf, which I know you enjoyed quite a bit. Yeah,

you and I just come down on the same side about it. No, we're on, we think differently about it. It must sound like I hate this game. I think it's fine. I love Mario Golf as a core game. I like playing against people on Mario Golf.

I just wish there was twice. Mad, basically. Disappointed, not mad. No, exactly. I'm just, I'm just disappointed. But yeah, Battlegolf is, I like it as a core concept. It's, you're in an arena, there's nine flags, there's four of you, and it's first to get three holes, basically. But each time someone gets one of those holes, it disappears. So basically, it's going down from nine, eight, seven, until there's only like two left that people are fighting for, which as a concept is fun. It's just, it's just one tone. Like, it's over in about three minutes normally. And I've mainly only played a game. against AI and they're not the smartest AI in the world to put it lightly. And as far as I can tell, unless I'm missing something really obvious, there's no way to up the difficulty at all. They're all just the same. And like, there's no challenge to it. You can just face it. They follow

the same path. They'll always go for the center, middle one first. Then they'll go right. So I just went left every time and won. I know that's a boring way to play battle golf, but it works. I'm an effective person. You know, I don't waste it when it comes to the battle golf. You stumble upon something I think that is the hook to Mario Golf and what you'll find in it is that the game I think is designed you know, Super Rush

is designed to be a multiplayer game. Yeah. Like I think that, yeah, like the reason I keep going back to adventure mode, right, is because I want to max out my me. I want to see if there's a level cap because I want to keep playing with a kind of funny best friends. I want to play with Andy.

For real, when he gets leveled up and everybody's on a more even play for right. He wants to play with me either. No, of course, I don't want to play a Simon. I don't know what that in an hour. Simon texted me like 8.30 in the morning. Like, can we play? I'm like, no, dude, it's a work day.

Go to bed. You ask me first, and then he just blanks me. I don't know why I'm even here. I should have just blanked you for this. Oh, my God. I thought, you know what you say out of it. So the game, yeah, it, it, I think it succeeds the most when you're playing with other people. Because even playing with Jen, like when we were just, you know, doing one v1.

And again, I'm, you know, one v1, and, you know, one of you. in the way that like I'm just trying to have a good time and she's just trying to have a good time. It's not like we're trying to really beat each other. Like I liked that a lot. I played speed golf with Andre from Game Explain. And then I did a session with Treehouse where they did an online thing and I jumped in with multiple players. And all of those I thought were decidedly so much more fun than Adventure Mode by far. I think all the single player stuff I do in the game is training to get to go to play with other people.

And so battle golf for me, me and Andre had a great time with it against AI. and then when I did the tree house thing and there was four of us, four human beings all doing it, then it was I felt cranked up to a different level where I really do think like we're going to have fun on stream playing battle golf because yeah, it is this idea of what is, okay, Andy's going left, I'll go right. Okay, you're going to eventually have to come to a head on something. And the amount of times I'd be there, you know, feeling the going and I hit the putt and I get to the whole right as somebody else sinks it and the whole disappears. Like, God damn it. And like there's that, those, that momentum to it. But even that, there's two battle golf maps,

one that is completely flat, and then one that has the elevation changes where you actually have to like, you'd be screwed if you rolled off the side. And it's like, this is a really cool mode, I think, why aren't there more maps for this? Because even us, it's going to be like, how many battle golfs in a row

are we going to do on a stream before it's like, all let's go do something else. Like, this is fun and cool, but, you know, somebody's running away with it or we've all figured out each other's schemes or whatever. I think there's more juice to be had there. Greg, I have a question here. You being such a big Mario Golf fan

from like, the past iterations, especially, like being a Nintendo fan myself, being the type of Nintendo fan that I am, I have seen much disappointment in my life when it comes to a franchise is coming back and not quite being what I want them to be. When the Switch first came out in 2017, it really put Nintendo on a more positive track where our expectations all of a sudden were that if a new release in a franchise was coming out, it was going to be the best we've seen so far. And we kind of saw that with the Breath of Wilds, with the Mario Odyssey's, with the debatably the best we've seen so far, right?

Mario cart, et cetera, et cetera. But then we started getting a couple things like Mario tennis and Super Mario Party. And it was kind of like, oh, we're seeing this like lower level of switch games that the quality just isn't there, especially for what we expect from that IP, right? Like I've been there so many times with things like Star Fox where I'm so excited at new Star Fox games happening because there's a chance the new Starvox just will never happen. But then when it's bad, it's extra. disappointing because it's like fuck now we're going to have to wait even longer for one to maybe

come that's good do you have hope now after playing this that Mario golf is ever going to reach the highs that it it has in your heart from before yeah I have hope it might you know it's blind optimism but I do think that like obviously Nintendo cares about the franchises I think they're stewards of their IP and I do I would hope you know especially because again like to go back and watch my up at noon right to read Corey about a world tour right And like he was just this fountain of cool shit that got added to the game and what they were doing. And I was talking about how I had played so much, you know, since Pax when I got my copy and yada, yada. And he's like, and I was like, I'm, I forget.

I think I said the thing I'm 80 hours in and still have an unlocked X, Y, and Z. Like, I would like to think that they would take this. But then it's also this weird thing of you bring this up and I'm glad you did of. I wonder with them saying 83, making a point of there's going to be more content for Mario Golf. I wonder how much of this is not the, you know, super negative light of, you know, more a game coming out or more of a game coming out and making it more of a complete version. But something like, you know, Super Mario Party that didn't wow at the beginning,

but eventually add an online player, I think, did they eventually add more maps? I forget about that part. I'm getting that wrong now. I'm screwing it up with the new Mario Party. I feel like the narrative on that changed a bit or maybe just expectations came down a bit to where they were like, all right, cool, it's a fine thing.

I do wonder if they add a couple more courses, if they add a couple more characters, if they add a couple more battle golf courses, if a couple months from now or, you know, Nintendo years, you're looking at this as a more positive entry in it. I hold that hope that the next time they'd come around, they'd bring the thunder and do stuff,

but Nintendo's going to Nintendo, right? Weird Nintendo decisions. Andy? So I'm looking, I'm just kind of like, look at the Wikipedia and like, we know that Camelot, the developer, is capable of doing this. They've been making all the golf and tennis games

since the beginning of time, Mario-wise. And, like, tennis and golf on Game Boy Color were sort of my first entries into the franchise. And that's where it all started. And that's where the, that RPG, like Simon was mentioning earlier, of you are the kid who's going to go take on all these different people. And then you move past this course and you go to this new course you've never seen before. And people are like, oh, you must be that kid. I wonder if you're good enough to take on so and so.

And like the feeling of that was just unrivaled. That was just the coolest shit of all time. And like I got to assume it just comes down to budget restraints. I got to assume Nintendo's like, look, we want you to obviously make a really fun good multiplayer thing. We're sure you want to make a really awesome campaign and adventure mode. But is that worth it? Like is it worth putting that into the game and putting that much work into it where like we would love to like be that kid where fucking Who's the mom that you just said, Simon Cardi, when you wake up in the...

Burdo. Burdo. We want Burdo to be like, go out to Donkey, to D.K.'s course and go challenge D.K. And you maybe challenge other people in Dekays. Maybe they play Diddy Kong and then maybe like cranky Kong or whatever. But the course is like jungle themed and shit like that. Like that's the type of shit we want. We want to see Bowser's course and him be the final boss and the course just be bricks and fire and all this shit.

But it just seems like they're not. really doing as much as they can with the IP and I really just think that that is budget. I think it's Nintendo saying we're giving you this much money. Obviously it's not enough for this much. Kick ass on a multiplayer. Looking at tennis and now looking at golf, right? If I was a betting man of what it is, yeah, it's budget because of giving a budget, but I think it's more scope where I bet what they're saying is, hey, we have a mainstream success on

our hands at the Nintendo Switch, right? We have, you know, broken past just the mainstream, just the Nintendo fan. So we need to make our games more approachable. I would hazard a guess that, not literally what I'm about to say, but hazard it would be something like every game has three bullet points that are the mission statement, right? And what are those? And obviously I think every one of them would be approachability, ease of use. And because the switch is, you know, such a portable system, because the switch is a local

multiplayer system by popping off the things, multiplayer. And I think they're looking at a very specific multiplayer where it is cool. Like, again, like, you know, I talk about everybody's golf and why would I play this over that? Like Mario Golf is, I can't wait for when the world's back to full normal and we are going places again and we are going to paxes and or whatever. We're going to roost your teeth to film something and we're all at the airport and we're all playing this together, right? You want to get in a quick nine? Sure. Why not?

We, you know, I'm at a Pax and it is like, cool. Who wants everybody to bring your switch. We'll all play Mario Golf and we do these little pods of Mario Golf that are just four players, right? even they're online which again like i find it as it was what you're talking about andy is a hardcore video game person i am like why isn't there like online tournaments and world tour were so cool what a great way to get communities together and have people play and have the rankings and leaderboards like why not have that here but what they do have here is the ability that okay cool like two players locally can then enter into an online room together and play two other people and

So it's like, again, not what I would do, but it's clear that somebody sat there and thought through what the use case scenario for Super Rush is. And I just don't think it's exactly what we want it to be because we know it could be more. But it is this thing. And I think it is bare bones to an extent because it is like aces, right,

where they are very much like, this is who's going to, it's not even, this is who's going to use this game. This is who we're targeting with this game. I mean, like that, the idea of online lobbies just sounds like such an, amazing idea and obviously you dealt with it in the past with prior iterations of Mario

golf but just the idea of a hundred people can enter you don't see them right you're just playing the same course you're playing with the same conditions it's 14 mile an hour winds blowing that way it's it's raining a bit so that's gonna fuck up the fairway like the idea of everybody on the same playing field and just after every hole you see like oh damn gregg 16 plays fuck i'm down here at 24 i fucked up that last drive who's number one I don't even know who's that in our community. Like that sounds like such a blast and such a disappointment that it's not there. Sorry, bless.

I was going to ask, would you say this is a round on par, no pun intended, with Aces then? Aces was a game that I played for about maybe two weeks enjoyed, but definitely didn't have the longevity that I wanted to have. Would you say that it's right there as well? It reminds me a lot of Mario Tennis Ais, which again, I wanted to love. But yeah, I found disappointment. I think it's better than Mario Tennis Aces. I think there is more to it.

than that and I just find the fundamental mechanics of Mario Golf a lot more enjoyable than Mario Tennis. Like, I put in my review like, this is the first, Mario Golf is the first game I ever remember playing. Like in my video review, I've got a picture of me like as a one year old tangled in NES wise

like with Mario Golf on the TV. My dad was playing it. I wasn't, I was one. I'm not that good. Like, I have, exactly. But like back then I think, I was trying to remember like, I was just happy. I know I was probably like four

at the time, so I was happy just pressing buttons, but I was happy just chasing high scores in that game, and I don't know if this is me just getting older and what I'm used to games being now, which is I just want more, I want everything, like, I want tournaments, I want 15 courses, I want all this, but then I don't think that's too much to ask. Like, I basically want,

and I know Mario Car 8 is kind of the perfection of Mario Car, really. Like, I want that for Mario Golf. I want, like, 20 golf courses. I want, like, online tournaments. I just want the ultimate, like, just release Mario Golf as a platform like a war zone for Callagy and just keep adding stuff. Like, I know it's not that simple and money is a problem and time is an issue, but just please

give me the ultimate Mario Golf. What about motion controls? They're there. Who in the right mind would use them, but they're there. What? I'm sorry, Andy. I wanted to leave something for you to review. I wanted you to try something first before anyone else.

But no, real quick, like, I, for the, for the, for the, this isn't on par with aces or whatever. It's interesting the way you phrase the question, but I'm with Simon of, as somebody who was so stoked for Aces and then was disappointed by it, I think Mario Golf's better than Mario Aces, Mario Tennis Aces. However,

your phrasing of it, blessing, you know, you played it for a couple weeks and then put it down and never picked it back up. That could very well be the situation here. Because it is in Simon, then back to your point of like, you know,

what are you doing in this game? Well, you're playing your friends. And then if you want to, like, you know, every one of the characters has three sets of clubs. And so it's like if you want to go in and earn what is the character points, I think it is right?

Loyalty points or whatever. Loyalty coins or whatever. Yeah. Where you go in and you earn XP when you're playing as them. Character points. You earn XP as you play as Mario or whatever, whether it be online, whether it be locally or whatever.

And those points then unlock the other like clubs sets of clubs. And right now I didn't, I don't know if you did if you ever hit another tier of clubs. Simon. I did. Yeah. Basically just adds 20 yards. Is that, but so does it ever unlock the ability to shape your shot as those characters?

That's a very good question. I played a few holes and I can't remember. Yeah, that's the weird thing we said. Even like shaping your shots, the skimming across the water, which you literally never use once in the game. Only your me character can do that. Like no other character in the game can do that. It is quite bizarre that Mario, the ultimate.

golfer can't do these basic techniques. I'm just confused. And so yeah, that's what I don't know what that's going. But like again, it's this to, you know, you just wanted to play as a kid or whatever and do stuff like that's, you could do that here. Like you could be drawn in and you could go through and if you wanted to get every set of clubs for every player. There's that content to do. I just don't think that for me personally, that's not what's driving me. Me personally, I want to make my me the best character could possibly be, hit whatever that level cap is. And then yeah, play with my friends. And then obviously you play with them. You they'd unlock different things and abilities and whatnot.

But yeah, it's not a bad game by any stretch of the imagination. It's just not as good as you hoped Mario Golf on the Switch would be. Back to your point, Tim, right? We have these hopes for these Switch games to be the ultimate versions of it. Because we've seen it happen. We've seen some of these things hit their highest highs on the Switch. But I don't think that's what this is for Mario Golf Super Rush. Yeah.

Just to finish that point a little bit, too, is like it's not just the Mario Odyssey's Breath of Wild. It's like Luigi's Mansion 3, Links Awakening. Like there's this like solid tier that's like kind of in the middle that like you just hope that these sports games are going to hit and bless we're waiting for Mario strikers. I hope they don't fuck that one up whenever it comes back. Oh God, yes. We're never going to get it. We're never going to get it.

I want it so bad for Nintendo. Leave. They don't want Mario frown on a on a CD case. Like that's where they're at nowadays. CD case. I hope they remove off sides. Cartage case, whatever. Before we move on.

You can't remove off sides. Sorry. Let me tell you. That you can, Cardi. This podcast is brought to you by ExpressVPN. Ladies and gentlemen, did you know that Netflix and a bunch of the other digital services you could be using have different content in different regions. And if you're not in that region, like, I'm over here in the United States.

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Intermission is the DLC, the Ufi DLC. Integrate is the Final Fantasy 7 remake on PS5 as opposed to the PS4. If you own the PS4 game, you can upgrade to the PS5 game for free. You can only play the DLC on PS5, but if you got the PS Plus version of Final Fantasy 7 remake on PS4, you cannot upgrade. So hopefully you understood that. That was very clear.

Very understandable. I got all that. Extremely clear. Extremely clear. I am now officially five for five on PS4 to PS5 games where somehow I fucked up the save transfer system. And I've had to re-download it. Oh my God. It's a disaster.

Same. Same. I have beat it. I have many thoughts. Andy, where are you with it? I am at the last place I was the last time we spoke where I need the final boss. and I'm maybe 30 minutes to an hour from beating it.

So I've played about four and a half to five hours maybe. It rules. Music is amazing. I feel like the side quests are a lot more fun. Ufi's fighting style is really, really awesome. Lots of cool cameos. Again, this is very much, this is the Lanking 1.5, where you're seeing what other characters are doing

while the main Final Fantasy seven story is happening. It's awesome, man. I'm having a lot of fun with it. Again, her combat rules, the way that things change up where you have kind of just one companion and you are figuring out all these synergy moves, the stuff that they've added to combat is really, really fun.

I feel like the side quest stuff feels less bloaty, and it could be the fact that the game is just shorter. You know, it's about a four to six-hour experience. It could just be that, that, you know, it's shorter so you don't really get a chance to experience kind of missions that, you know, don't result in a whole lot. Fort, what's it called Tim? Condor. Fort Condor is the mini game that they've introduced, which is similar to everybody. He gets addicted to Gwent on The Witcher.

Fort Condor is like, I don't know what the hell this shit is. And then I immediately got hooked on it. And I am trying not to play it because I'm playing it on stream. and it's like, I don't want the whole stream just become Fort Condor mini-game stuff, but you end up running around a lot of the area of Midgar and talking to a lot of familiar faces, and they will challenge you to Game of Fort Condor. And it is so delightful, and you feel adorable, she's great, and all the characters rule and the big action set piece boss battles are there as well.

It fucking rules, man. I love this thing. I can't, I'm really excited to hear Imran talk to you about what, the implications are so that I could be like, oh, that's what that meant. Yeah. Greg Miller, you had a question? No, I said a comment before we're going to further. It's worth pointing out, of course.

We had a sponsorship with Final Fantasy 7 Intergrade as one of the sponsors of the podcast. I think it might be games daily this week. I found that out like two days ago. I was like, oh shit, that's cool. It's the same thing I told anybody. I mean, I want to acknowledge it for the record in case you didn't know or in case you did it.

You thought it was weird. We didn't disclose it. I wanted to disclose it. But of course, we gave Final Fantasy 7 remake our game of the year long before the sponsorship. So I wanted to make sure, like, clearly we thought it was going to be a good game but take it with a grain of salt if you want to you i'm sorry back to you yeah i'm right there with andy it's fantastic and i it is a lot more

substantial than i expected uh i probably put about seven hours into it so far uh and i want to put many more in because of things like fort condor which is such a fun little mini game it's like a tower defense uh type of thing and it does really feel like a card deck building type situation and it's super easy to wrap your head around it has the very simple rock paper scissors like you have a total understanding of the colors that's always on the screen. Everything you need to know is always just in the UI of Fort Condor which I really appreciate. And yeah,

going around and finding all these old friends you've had from Palm Scy 7 remake and playing this game, it's cool because the gameplay is rewarding and fun for the mini game, but on top of that, just having more time with some of these characters is like all I wanted. And I think that they really do a good job kind of playing with it where this doesn't feel so much like as the Lion King 1.5 in the bad

ways of like, oh, you're answering questions that we didn't really have. I feel like every single thing that they reference from the core game, I'm like, oh, this is actually an interesting take or that's where that character was. And I'm happy we know that. It wasn't so much a big question of like, where was she? It's more like, oh, her doing that makes a lot of sense. And I think that what this game does best is really tee up the remake part two. And it is such a good bridge of the gaps where I don't think this is required playing for

somebody, even if they really, really love Final Fantasy 7 remake, uh, I do think that I would recommend it to anybody that's even slightly interested. Like, Bless, you should definitely, uh, play through this because like Andy was saying, Ufi's awesome. Her game plays so much fun. It's just fun. It's fast-paced and, uh, you know, for Final Fantasy fans, this game really kind of reminds me of Final Fantasy 10 to Final Fantasy 102 where 102 totally different vibe, a lot more jazzy, a lot more girl power, obviously, fast-paced and like just this frenetic energy to the battle. And this game does that, I think, even better in some ways. And what Andy was talking about, about the way that the core battle combat system is different than the original remake.

In remake, you kind of had three members in your team and the two other people are AI, but you at any moment can transfer into them. And then you're controlling one of them and the other two become AI, right? In this one, you're not doing that. You're always playing as Ufi and you only have one other companion. And they're purely AI. It's more of Atreus and God of War type situation that you're leaning on. But you can switch using the L2 and R2 button switch between synergy, which is essentially he does anything you do.

If you're attacking, he's attacking. If you're doing more magic stuff, he's doing more magic stuff. But you synergize that way and that builds up a bar that you can then use the like kind of team special together. Or using R2, you're a little bit, it's a little more in the style of the original remake where you're kind of like giving instructions to them for using different spells or using different abilities. And it has that super fun. You're fighting this giant boss and the music is incredibly epic.

I don't know how they manage to somehow have even more remixes of the same battle theme and boss theme for Favncy 7, but make them unique and hype as hell again. But they definitely do. And I think it's really, really cool. You just get in this kind of rhythm with the combat where you're just like, okay, I'm doing. doing this, my partner's doing that, we're going to synergize here to attack the left arm, to take off the cannon. It's just like, it just keeps going and going. I got to switch to fire because this thing, let me assess. Oh, that's weak to ice. Let me switch to the little ice.

What's it called Tim, the little one of her magic spells. I forget the actual word for it, but you could just kind of scroll left or right. Yeah, it's just so much, it's so much fun, Tim. And then the, the idea of not only like how hype all those moments are, but I just love her fighting style and how fast it is. And it reminds me of my favorite parts of playing in 15 where Noctus has that ability where he would throw the sword and teleport to it. She has a similar thing where she throws a dagger

and doesn't teleport, but like we'll just sort of zip to it super fast and then can fight Ariel against whatever things she threw that dagger at. God damn, dude. It is just, the combat is just so much fun and it's what's keeping me going, along with a lot of other things. one of the more fun things I've played this year. Greg Miller. So obviously loved Final Fantasy 7 remake, as you know,

first Final Fantasy I've ever clicked with. For this one, where are we getting started with the story? And you said it sets up, or T's up, remake part two or whatever. Like, is it picking it right at the end? Like, I don't know this character, right? Nope. No, so I'm not going to spoil

anything here. I'm just talking about stuff. We've seen in the trailers already. That's it. That'll be the extent of my spoilers. But it takes plays simultaneously with Final Fantasy 7 remake and it's kind of over a couple different times that are very clear. They're always referencing key events that happened that you will definitely remember even if it's been a while since you play it. Like it's like the key big moments. Sure. And it's it's pretty smart. But what's cool about it too is so Final Fantasy 7 remake was 18 chapters, right? And each of the chapters kind of varied by length. Some of them

were way too long. But none of them were way too short. Like that I would say, that this one, it's two chapters and they're real chapters. Like, it feels these things could just straight up have been in Bomb Fantasy 7 remake. I think it would have been a little jarring with the gameplay. But like, in terms of content, it would have fit right in. So I think that that's pretty cool. And what Andy's talking about, about the Ufi, the system, what I really love about her combat is she is way more of a duality than the other

characters you've had with Barrett and Tifa and Aris and Cloud, where all of them were kind of like, okay, Barrett's definitely long range. Tifa's more close up really quick. Cloud's a little overall. And then we have Eris, who's more ranged magic and all that stuff. Areth, yeah.

And with this, what's really cool is they made the decision to have Ufi be physical and long range magic. But it depends on if you throw your little ninja blade into them like Andy was talking about. You can throw the blade. And if you do, then your attack button, you're just casting spells. and that wherever your blade is is kind of the target that it's hitting it.

Or you can then hit the triangle button again and then you zip to it like Andy was talking about and then all of a sudden it's physical and it's not using elemental magic. And that's the really fun balance of especially in this, I want to say demo, it's not a demo. In the DLC, they do a good job of giving you enemies that you need to switch between the physical and elemental battle systems in a way that feels organic and feels like you're never at a loss for what you're supposed to be doing. and it's satisfying and fun. And all of that's backed up with,

I was saying that this could fit in the main game, the exact same fantastic pacing of introducing story elements and every time you beat a boss, you feel like you're being rewarded with the story beat you're getting. Everything's making sense as you move forward, which I really enjoyed.

The one thing is it does get a little bit crazy where they introduce a whole bunch of new characters in this. And some of them are more interesting than others. All of them are extremely Japanese. and it's just one of those things where you just kind of need to go with it and just trust because by the end of it it all adds up and you're like okay I see how this fits in totally but Greg to answer your question it could be overwhelming for you but if you just go in knowing that it's going to be okay it's good hold me I think no no I think Greg will have enough fun with

the way the combat works and just kind of use that because like I don't I obviously I've encountered a lot of these characters already and I don't fully understand or know who they are or why they're doing what they're doing. And I remember them from, I remember some of them from remake and some, a lot of them definitely don't remember them at all. And I know that some of them have popped up in other Final Fantasy sort of franchises that weren't even seven, right? That's what gets interesting.

And again, this is all trailer stuff that you've seen. But there are characters from, so Ufi Greg, to answer your question, the main character that you're playing as, she is a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, main character from Final Fantasy 7, the original, but she's an optional character. So she never really has that much, like, sway on the main story, because you can play the entire game and never even get her. You know, like, she's a side quest to open up, but she's really cool and interesting. So this game's doing a really good job of kind of actually introducing her into the core cast

so that when remake part two comes out, she's going to feel like she belongs with the rest of the You already know who she is. You're ready to have a connection to her. Great, okay. And she's lovely. She's fun. She's awesome. So great. So great. Super Sailor Moon. Fantastic stuff.

But some of the characters in this game are based on Durge of Saribis, which is one of the compilation of Final Fantasy 7 games that back in like 2007 when they made Advent Children in the movie, they decided to do a whole bunch of Fallen Fantasy 7 stuff, including Crisis Core, which was the PSP game that is awesome that is starring Zach. And then Durge of Saribis was a third person shooter game on the PS2 starring Vincent, a character from the original as well. And it wasn't that good. It really, it really wasn't. That was probably one of the lower points of the entire compilation. But these characters were kind of interesting in a weird ass way. So them getting another chance, and I really, a first chance in a way that's tied to the core story to be introduced, I'm really interested in what this means for remake part two and the direction they're going.

And what Andy was talking about, you can't wait to talk to Imran, the moment I beat it, I called him. He's like, I've been fucking waiting for this call. And like the breakdown, like the crazy theories and shit that they set up with like the end of this. I'm like, this is really fucking cool. I don't know when we're going to see it. But they're doing this right. And let me tell you this. You can walk up to where Cloud lived in that little room.

You can also walk into or you can walk up to the, you can't walk into the bar. I'm sorry. But the door textures look real good. Real good. Oh, yeah. Door textures have been updated. It looks like wood. Although I will say, Tim, I went back to play Intergrade,

which is just the core Final Fantasy 7 remake game. Because again, intermission is the side quest. But in Intergrade, I went back to one of the old missions after my whole downloading, re-downloading fiasco to try to get my save. And I walked into Tifa's bar. And the texture on the wall? Not that great.

Not that great. But the door looks great. Fantastic. So Game of the hip yourself. see it. We've been glowing in our review and I stand by that. But the one key thing I do want to point out is there is a lot of what just kind of feels like filler fluff in it that isn't that fun.

There's a couple box breaking mini games that at moments are kind of interesting. But when it's introduced to you where you actually have to do it to progress through the story, I kind of feel like it's a little lacking. It just doesn't feel. It just doesn't feel fun. I had fun. Okay. I don't know.

It's mindless. Yeah. Yeah, it's mindless in a way where it's like, especially after having just played Ratchet, I would be fine to do that type of stuff if it felt fun to do. It kind of just felt like, all right, I'm just hitting buttons. And I don't ever want to be reminded I'm just hitting buttons when I'm playing a video game. I want to feel like I'm making cool shit happen. Yeah, Ufi's thing is that she can break boxes at long range to loot from them or whatever.

And similar way, you would just break crates or whatever as Cloud. She can throw her little shurikins or whatever at a long range and break them. And there is a moment, a long moment, a sequence where you're just kind of like, how much can I collect sort of thing? And I had fun with it, but it's definitely not the most interesting thing the game offers. Yeah, definitely. Also, I think there's just been a lot of games that I've been playing that are so reliant on Dodge and Dash mechanics. And it just does not feel great here. It doesn't feel great here.

There's so many attacks. I'm like, do I have invincibility frames? I guess this other weapon offers invincibility frames, but it just feels like an animation. It doesn't really feel like I'm actually trying to dodge an attack in a tactful way, you know. So I'm not super stoked about that, but I've just kind of learned to, let me just block attacks. I've got to kind of retrain my mind to use this sort of Final Fantasy. You can block stuff, and it isn't just let me block and still get completely obliterated.

it does a decent job of protecting you from damage. Yeah, and the other kind of criticism I have is the, some of the level design is a little maze-like, and they make reference to it in the dialogue. They're like, oh, we're in a maze. And I'm like, oh, this is about to not be fun. And there are some moments where it's just kind of like, oh, crap, like I'm looking across this giant room,

and I know exactly where I got to get. And I see all the fences. I'm going to have to climb to get there. And I'm just like, I don't want to do this. But, again, once you get to the other side, the cutscenes are the reward. I would say always worth it. So a lot of really cool stuff there,

and I would definitely recommend it. Before we move off of Final Fantasy, though, Andy, you've been playing a little bit of that Strangers in Paradise. I killed chaos, baby. You killed chaos. Tell me all about it. I killed chaos. It games fun.

Stranger in Paradise, Final Fantasy origin is fun. Mechanically, it feels good to play. It looks god-awful. It looks bad. Like, this game looks like it's running at maybe 720P. I think digital founds you confirmed that it's running at 1080, but it looks like 720. It is messy. It is like the lighting is really bad.

You often hear that this looks like a PS3 game or something, but like it really looks like a really nice PS3 game. Obviously, you get closer in it on the face and the, you know, the animations look way more current or whatever. But overall, like, it is not a good looking game. the um again it's it's team ninja and they worked on neo and a lot of the same core mechanics are there um you have your dodge mechanic you have your parry mechanic and all that sort of makes the combat flow um my problem with it is that you have one of my main problems with it is that you have companions with you that can maybe take away the attention from certain enemies or whatever um but when you eventually get to the boss fight of chaos,

where you're going to fight chaos. Also, it definitely has... It still makes me laugh every time to the way. Chaos. I just can't. You have to go chaos. It also has the sort of soulsborn... Oh, God, what's the word I'm looking for?

It has that soulsborn shortcut sort of stuff, where you do this sort of long winding trip, and you're like, oh, that's the ladder from the beginning of the level. Cool, that's really neat. And I could just sort of save here at this bonfire, but it's not a bonfire. When you eventually get to chaos, the problem, one of the main problems that I was having, it's pretty tough. Like, it's challenging.

It took me about 90 minutes to beat. I died several times, however, to my companions are in there slashing away, and there's VFX all over the place. And I'm missing the key visual cues to know when I'm going to be attacked and what to prepare for. And, like, you just, you can't have that. when you're when you're one v1 against a boss and you sort of know exactly what to do when this attack is coming i got to dodge this but if it was the other attack i would have parry that attack or whatever there were several moments where my companions are in there just slashing away and their vFX are kind of like flashing all over the place and then i get fucking attacked by the boss it's like god damn it i couldn't see what fucking attack was coming because you dumbasses are in the way and they're they're pretty useless like your friends are are useless. They're awful. The voice acting isn't great. It feels just very forced to have

companions there just to say that this makes it more of a Final Fantasy game to have companions. It feels kind of useless. And a yeah, I don't know. It was fun fighting the boss. It was a fun challenge. It was definitely like

Souls level type. Like I'm paring everything and it feels really, really damn good. Then you get to the second phase and holy shit, it really kicks up. It took me so long because I was so hesitant to use magic because I just hate playing Souls games using magic and it just seems like you kind of have to do that like this is still a different game this isn't trying to be exactly like a Souls game you have to use your magic wheel the magic wheel is kind of not great the way that you're a lot going on yeah you you you switch to you switch from

melee to magic and then you hold R2 and then use the wheel to select fire fire a Fira and And what the fuck do they call it in? They have like all their funny names or their magic. That's always just the thing and then Agua, Aga. Yeah. So like once you switch to the magic, you then have to use your wheel to select the actual magic thing you want to use. And then you charge up that attack. It feels very clunky and not super well thought out. And I hope they improve upon that.

because if it seems like magic is kind of going to be necessary for a lot of these enemies and if it's as clunky as it is now, people are going to have a pretty big headache with it. But again, I think the game was fun. I really hope that they have some massive, like I hope it's way far out. I hope this game has come out for another like two and a half years because it looks not great and it could use a lot of improvements. But it's not the meme that we all thought it was going to be. Like I still think it's fun and it feels good to play.

It definitely is good. To close out a games cast here, Andy, you want to talk a little bit about your experience with Amazon Luna? Oh, yeah. Which is another thing that we were sponsored from, but we were sponsored by that. It was supposed to be a Greg thing, but Greg couldn't do it, so I filled in. But I still want to talk about it anyway. Because I, if you remember, I subscribed to Luna Day 1 long before any sponsorship because I like streaming shit. And I really like Lonsi, but I mean, what do I get if I sponsor you?

I mean, well, I mean, you'll get, we'll do the job for you, but we'll be able to say afterwards if we hated it or liked it. I'm Cardi. I might, I might play Overwatch with the crossplay. Wow. Keep that in mind. Well, proved that one was yesterday, didn't that, I think. Ooh, we sure did, sure did. Exciting. Still don't have played wars then.

Oh, damn. We'll see about that, Cardi. I'm kind of busy. The, um, so Luna, again, it's, it's something, I'm not the streaming cloud service dude. I, I, I, anytime I have tried it out, I always feel. like the input lag is just kind of too much. And that was the case from the first day I tried Stadia. Even the other day trying Xbox GamePass, their beta through the browser or whatever,

still a lot of input lag doesn't feel great. And I felt like that quite a bit. But Luna does not like, I had to go back and like, this feels way too good. And then I tried out, I went back to Xbox Game Pass in the cloud. And it is night and day the difference with how. responsive Amazon Luna feels. And again, I am playing on my PC and I'm hardwired in gigabit internet. So maybe that has a lot to do with it as well.

But playing GamePass in the cloud with those same sort of conditions feels like so much worse than how Luna feels. I was so impressed with it. I played Ghost Runner for two hours. I was supposed to switch off from playing Ghost Runner, but I just wanted to keep playing because it felt amazing and I play, I was playing on their controller. And their controller has some built-in thing where if you hook it up to your Wi-Fi, it will apparently get you better, like a response time because of their whole cloud infrastructure. Interesting.

So I thought maybe that's what makes it better. But then I switched off still using Luna with my Xbox Elite controller, and it felt the exact same. So, like, Luna just feels fucking fantastic. And you should try it out if you do that weak trial thing. If you're looking to do any sort of cloud gaming, I would say they are the ones to go with right now. Because again, I had to test it. I was like, shit, maybe Xbox has improved since the last time I tried it. And I tried out Doom in the cloud and it did not.

It was like I hit the button, character moves. I hit the button character moves. And with Luna, it felt like playing on a TV or something like that. And that's huge for me, especially as somebody who plays a lot of PC games on the lowest latency possible, like a really good monitor with one millisecond response time. I'm kind of a stickler for response time. And yeah, Amazon Luna feels great. Again, they sponsored it,

but I don't really give a shit about cloud gaming, but it feels really, really good. So try it out if you want a solution. Go ahead, Greg. While we're here talking about cloud gaming, something I do care a lot about. Today we played Steve Thieves, and I won't talk about the game of that or whatever.

But Kevin, me and Mike convince Kevin to get in. And Kevin was initially like, oh, man, I don't have the Xbox set up or whatever. And we were like, what about X cloud? Kevin, how was X cloud today for Sea of Thebes? It went really, really well. It's insane how quickly, like, it's just, it almost seems like magic when you pull out the, like, took me a minute to, like, figure out which app to use. But once I had it going, I click on the game and it's just like play.

There's no install, nothing. And I know this is like not new news, but like, yeah, it felt, yeah, but it felt wild to do on the fly. When it's like, I've had, talking about this too, Kevin. Yeah. I'm like, so new to this. I've had situations with like, I want to play Fortnite with the guys, but I need to update the, like, PlayStation 4 that I have here. And it's like, all right, well, it's going to take, like, my internet's super fast,

but it's still going to take 20 minutes to install. Sorry, Cardiating. That's right. That's right. That's right. I know it's a source subject. Oh, man. Yeah, well.

So that's Kevin's experience with that, Kevin. Now, I urge you try out Luna and just see if there's a, see if you feel the different in like the, I hit the button, the character moves. Can I get on my phone? I don't know, actually. That being said, actually, there were a couple times where it would kind of, not hitch, but like there would be like a little, no, yeah, hitch is right. Where like it would just, like, I'd get stuck on a couple frames and then it'll click back.

That happened to me every once in a while. I don't, I didn't notice if there was anything triggering it. It just was kind of felt like random, but it wasn't excessive. Like for the most part, I had no problem playing on my phone connected with a Bluetooth controller, which is also a really cool option. I was almost going to do one of those comparison videos. Y'all remember when Stadia was first coming out and they were showing you like, like, here's the way the controller looks and like let me hit the button,

then you see the character move on screen and they were kind of just showing you the amount of distance between the two. I almost wanted to do that because I was just so fucking impressed by how good Luna felt. Luna sounds like a dog name. Luna. I know a lot of lunas. Simon, thank you so much for joining us. Where can people find you? You can find me at IGN.com or on Twitter at Cardi Simon

or every Friday, the IGN UK podcast. Why not check it out? I've heard they have some good trivia games that people like to steal every now and then. Wow. Wow. He got you. Wow. Oh, man.

Get him for the post show. If you want some of those stolen games, stay tuned on patreon.com slash kind of funny games because we're about to do a little bit of what blessing? We're about to play some messy mashup and bless who. That's what we're about to do. Portman to Overwatch. I mean, that's what you know that as. You put a new name on it. Jesus. Just change it. It's crazy.