Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Onimusha: Way of the Sword Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: August 31, 2026

Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 is available now on PC, Xbox and PlayStation! Think you have what it takes to take down the threat? https://tinyurl.com/465r45t9 Thank you for the support! Run of Show - 00:00:00 - Start00:02:13 - Onimusha: Way of the Sword Review00:13:03 - Tim’s Review00:24:22 - The Combat00:34:01 - Ads00:34:47 - Difficulty00:49:37 - The Story00:53:47 - SuperChats Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Aliens Fire Team Elite 2, the ultimate co-op aliens experience, is available now on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation. If you want to get our shows ad-free and our exclusive shows, go to patreon.com slash Kind of Funny. What is up, everybody, and welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for August 31st, 2026. One of your hosts today, Roger Percorni, and today I'm joined by an amazing crew of people. We got blessing Eddie O. Ye Jr. Good day, Roger. We have Jordan Midler from VGC. How are you doing, babe?

It's the first time we've ever done content. It's the first time we've ever going to be in the studio. It's because I keep taking these and not paying for them. Yeah, exactly. You have to leave $5 on Mike's desk. He buys them all. And then Tim Getty's, the father, the faja. The father.

I love the babe drop. That was a nice little casual bit. Come on. I'm finished work for the weekend. I'm going home today. I'm free and loose. I saw all this man at the Giants game on Friday. Baseball, let me tell you, one of the world's most boring sports.

Gotta hate you. No, shut up. Stop it. Incomprehensible, like, Jesus. You shouldn't have gone then. Good hot dogs. They had Pokemon there. Great hot dogs.

Yeah, you got to go there. You guys weren't going to have enough Pokemon that entire week, so you guys had to go to a baseball game to get your Pokemon. They had a drone show. Yeah. Good time. Let me tell you, I've had a mandatory schedule of Pokemon for about five days, 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. If they said six more months, I would do it right now. Just stay right here

But of course Today we are going to be talking about Animusha Way of the Sword But before we do that Let me tell you a little bit About some stuff Watching live be a part of the show

By super chatting on YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games Ask us your questions And we'll probably answer them Remember we couldn't do this Without our producers On patreon.com Slash Kind of Funny

So thank you Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster Delaney the Somme twining and lacks no man For now, let's begin with topic of the show. It's the Animusha, way of the sword review, baby. The first game in the franchise in 20 flipping years. Wild.

I want to shout out Spartan 2842 inch who says, boo, pre-recorded. Oh, Sparta. Fuck you. Yeah, Spartan. Take that. Is this pre-recorded? Can I say that? Yeah, exactly.

This is, yeah, the first game in 20 years. Also, I didn't realize it was a Netflix show. Oh, yeah. Was it good? I didn't really like it that much. It was okay. You watched it, though? I did.

Is it better or worse than the Splitter Sill show that you watched? Oh, you didn't watch the Splitter Sill show? No. Don't make me cry I watched. Oh, wow. That's all the same. Because I saw what Roger was doing with there. He's just trying to get people to watch this fucking Splitter Selt show.

Yeah, I mean, you know, everyone's talking about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It had one season. It's getting another one. It won't get a third. Oh, is there actually, I thought this was like a running bet. There was a Splinter Cell show.

Yeah, there is an actual splinter show on Netflix. It's pretty good. They have Ray Donovan playing Sam Fisher. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. His name is Rained Dobbin. You're a rainbow six seed show. The fuck are you saying?

They're just breaking walls the whole time. It's home improvement. I'm breaking different walls. The game is out this Thursday, September 3rd on PS5 Xbox, Switch 2, and PC. Let me read you the little steam description

before we get into our actual review. Fight through bloodstained battlefields of intense sword play action. Explore the historic Japanese capital

of Ido period Kyoto, twisted by malevolent clouds of malice. With every stage cloaked in mystery, danger, and intrigue, battle against

monstrosities from the underworld known as Genma and a tale of dark fantasy. Followed the tale of a samurai who wields the only gauntlet, a mystical artifact

that grants its bearer the power to slay Genma. Through gritty, blood-soaked brawls, he searches for his reason to fight what fate awaits at the end of his path. It's getting real emotional. It's really emotional, Tim.

Where do we want to start? Who wants to start here? I want to kind of keep you last, right? Because you're the, you're the Ane Musha boy. I mean, I'll take that. Okay, cool. Let's do, let's start, let's go in order, actually. because bless you quite literally just beat this

I literally beat this game today like this morning right before we recorded I really enjoyed on a musha wave of the sword had a really good time with this game if I'm gonna give it a score I would say an eight out of ten I think this game is great great I played it over the course of about

21 22 hours maybe I mainline the hell out of this game which I don't think is the way that this game wants you to play it but it's the way I played it anyway because I sort of realized early on that I was enjoying my experience. I wasn't enjoying it enough to be like, I want to do everything in this game. I was enjoying it enough to go, I want to play through this, I want to see through this. I like the combat a lot.

I like the world in the setting that we're in. I'm not in love with the story, even though I think in the last fourth of this game, the story events pick up in such a strong way that it actually made me really wish that the rest of the story had that. kind of energy to it because by the time I was getting toward those last few cutscenes, I was like, man, Capcom really has the stuff. I don't know what's in the water over there, but whatever they're drinking over there at Capcom, it's like, man, I don't know how they're doing it on this level so consistently between three big releases just this year between

Resident Evil Pragmat and now this. Like, there's a level of production on the AAA side that they're able to bring at a level that I think is really well done for a publisher like them. I really like the main character Musashi. He has a personality that I feel like you really get from a, how do I describe this genre? An L1 to Perry ass game. You know what I mean? Like a dude with sword ass game.

He brings a level of like, I don't even want to say goofiness because I don't know if that's the right word for it. But you see it in his face. He has personality. He's kind of an asshole. But also he's kind of, he's enjoyable to follow in this story.

So I like him. A lot of the events in this game is very much like, hey, we're in this village and these genma, aka these demons from hell essentially have taken over and people are getting burnt. We've got to save different people. Structurally, the game is not really what I expected.

At some points, it is this linear game, right? You're going level by level. At other points, you're in this big hub area where you're taking on side quests. You are saving people in the street Spider-Man style where randomly there will be demons attacking an innocent human and it's, oh, I got to step in and save these people. I think structurally, I didn't necessarily love that.

And I think I, I wish they focused in on one or the other. There's a bit of balance here that didn't really work for me in terms of making me even want to do the side stuff. I was very much like, okay, well, I don't know. There's not, there's not something here that's really pulling me into wanting to take my time and go, all right, let me stop.

Let me do XYZ thing. And I'm curious because I think Tim probably did way more the side stuff than I did. So I'm really curious to hear from him. But bringing it back, though, One of the things I do want to compliment this game on is the combat. We play so many of these L1 to Perry ass games. This is one of my favorite parries in a video game.

It is a very satisfying parry. This game has so many different kinds of parries as well. You have your Perry, and then your Perry has a pet parry. You know what I mean? Like you press L1 to do your regular. You press L1 and X to do it deflect, which is a bit more of an aggressive parry. And then your attack is a parry. Yeah. Your Dodge is also a parry sometimes, right?

Like, this game is made up of so many different layers of pairing and reaction timing-based combat mechanics, and I love the layers that it brings. We can dig more into the combat later on, but I just want to say I really, really like the combat of this game, and I think for me that's the shining factor here. Overall, I'd say at a great time. I love that. Jordan, your review is up on VGC. Sure. You want to give that score, and then also maybe you're kind of funny variant of it,

talk about it. Yes, a lot of people have said that VGC gave it a six, which would be amazing considering we have a five-star scale. So it's a have to be a real bang. It has to be a six-star game. I think this

is a flat seven for me. It's a good game and it's a difficult one to talk about because when we talk about the combat, you'll be thinking I gave this thing a 10 or 5 out of 5, because that part of it is just

sweet as a nut. It is basically exactly what I want from a game like this. However, all of the detritus around it, all of the mid-2010s open world nonsense around it, all the stuff that isn't you versus another guy, mano-o-mano, like hardcore fighting.

I don't want any of that. I would honestly have taken this as like a mission-based. Like these are just more and more complex bosses because when you get to big bosses and when you get to like remixed versions of those specific big bosses, I think that's great. I think the game has a real problem

with artificially inflating its length where you are fighting the same sub-bosses so many times. And I know they do that as a means to be like, look how far you've come. You can do this just doing the Ishen or Isan, whatever they say. Yeah. Just do that. Don't take a hit. Fly right through it.

But by like the fifth one of those, I was like, okay, I need to, I'd rather this just be gone because I know I can defeat you. I've already done this checklist in my head of, here's your attack and here's how it's in it. So yeah, I think combat is fantastic. stuff around it doesn't work for me. I like the voice acting from the villains.

It's very pantomime dame. It's very camp. It's very like over the top. That stuff works for me. I don't love the main performances. I think they're a little bit goofy for my taste. I think maybe a more of a straight man performance versus that's like, ooh,

that all the villains are would maybe work for me. I think when I'm walking down the street in these putties from Nightmoor from Power Rangers are like chasing the merchants and the nurses are going, oh no, please help me. by about the third one, I was like, you're dead. I'm not, I'm not, I don't want the spice cake. Yeah, I've got places to be. You offer me nothing.

The health is growing out of the ground. Like, I don't, I can just rob you what you're dead. No, I didn't feel, but when I'm looking at stuff like this, I was like, yeah, yeah, this is one of the fights I really enjoyed in this little field. That fight changes in a way that it tests a lot of the stuff you've learned up until then. But, yeah, it's a seven for me. They could do another version of this game with the same Lego blocks. just rearranged and probably get me up

to the eights or nines. Yeah, I agree with it. Yes. Hell, amazing combat, but the rest of it, not for me. Yeah. For me, I haven't beaten the game yet. I'm probably talking to Bless and Tim, about three, four hours away from, depending how good I am. Yeah. So, I'm right there, but

I, this is one of those weird reviews, by the way, just talking about the history of it. I have zero history with Onimusha. I don't think I saw gameplay of Anymusha until, like, the original ones until, like, this year. Like, within the last 12 months. I did not know this franchise even existed. So this was one of like the first like reviews of the September period that was like, oh, this is a game that I know. Let me put it up. And I fell in love with a lot of this game. I think I'm closer to you, Jordan. I would give this a

7.5 so far. This is a really good video game. I mean, the combat is just so fucking good that like I I want every game that has a sword or any type of sharp object that you're fighting with to have this type of feeling. I mean, the animations in the parries alone and just are like got here. It almost feels like cheating because they put so much work into having the momentum of you parrying actually feel and continue with the parry and move and change in different ways. It is so fluid that, yeah, when we talk about the open world, I talk about like I have small issues like the camera kind of gets weird at some points. I think the healing is a little strange at my moment. The difficulty spikes is the biggest thing for me that I had a lot of struggles with where it's so

easy in moments and then you get to a boss you're like dude this is fucking unbelievable of course those are things that are going to change when it comes to updates a sequel expansions whatever but in the version that we played right now I think the tutorialization the difficulty spikes are rough but other than

that like when you just talk about the actual moment to moment gameplay I can't fault it like I agree with you like when I'm talking about the gameplay it feels like I'm talking like about a 10 out of 10 because it is that good it is just everything around it that I think brings it down to that 7-5 where when I talk about I don't say great.

I say it's a really good game. Like, you should definitely play it. You should definitely try it out. And at least try out the demo because I know it just got expanded. So, yeah. But Tim, leaving you last because you are the Animusha person. I am, man. I always have it.

Animusha is one of the longest running franchises in my heart where my best friend Curran, like a lot of our best friendship came from him lending me, Onimusha Warlords, the first game and us just bonding over how much we loved that game. And at the end of the day, I think especially as time goes on, I feel like all of the Onomusia games are not that great. You know what I mean? But at the time, it was different. Like, just things have changed.

But I've replayed all of them in the last couple of years because of the remasters. And I still love them. And, like, they're so near and dear to me. But in terms of quality or what I recommend them, like, I wouldn't recommend any of you guys go back and play those. The novelty of what they were and, like, the interesting kind of tidbits and comparisons to Resident Evil and Devil May Cry. Like, there's a lot of history. there and a lot of things that are that are cool. But to me, this game is a shining example of how you reboot a classic video game

franchise and bring something back that you might have heard of or you might have like me absolutely been obsessed with as a kid. How do we actually make that something worthwhile in 2026? And I think that they did a stellar job at that. Maybe not perfect job at that. But when I look at Capcom and we've said it many times and I've specifically said it so many times. I cannot believe that, in my opinion, they are three for three in 2026 of releasing high quality video games on every single platform imaginable. And they run great on everything from

the switch to all the way up to a PC. Like that is so commendable when we see the industry falling apart around us. Like they are doing the damn thing. And for one of them to be a new IP, one of them to be a sequel in a very established franchise and one to be a for all intents and purposes reboot and be the successful. I am so, so, so just hats off to y'all. That is incredible. This remains a franchise I ride or die for.

Like I have been annoying about it in the past. I'm going to continue to be. I put this up there with the Canas and the seafoods and the devil may cries of like, this is so my shit. I cannot wait for a sequel. I think there will be one. I think that they pulled something off here. I think it's going to really resonate with a large swath of gamers out

there that are going to play this. And people that are Capcom people now, because I do feel like Capcom has, you know, kind of had moments where you're a Capcom guy or maybe not or whatever. They have that moment right now where I think a lot of people, um, based on the success of some of the other franchises, we'll give this one a shot just because it's made by Capcom. And I think that they're going to find a lot of love there. As all of us do, I take notes as I'm playing through the games, right? Like, uh, moments a moment, like, if I like a boss fight, I'll write that down or little things I notice. Towards the end of this game, like the last fourth,

like Bles is saying, I'd even argue maybe the last third. Things just ratchet up and just get so goddamn good. I loved the entire game, but I do think that towards the end, it is just incredible. I wrote a note down that says, Tim, you can't give this anything less than a night. Like, that's just how I was feeling at that point. And I was sitting with that because that's not always how I felt with the game. I feel like I kind of started as a man, like I love this because of what it is, but it's a Like there's there's just too many little things getting in my way.

But to get to that moment where I'm literally telling my future self, Tim, you cannot give this anything less than a nine. I sit here and I have to be realistic of taking all that experience together. And I'm selling an 8.5. I think that this is a great game that I fight myself to not give a higher score just because I love this game. I literally love this game. And I think more important than numbers because numbers are just a way to kind of quantify and relate to the other things that I've thought before about other games. I think more important is the fact that I'm going to recommend this game to every single one of my friends. My friends that play games, that play the Spider-Man's and the Last of Uses and the God of Wars and all of that, Expedition 33, and they all loved it.

I'm going to recommend all of them play this game, and I think that they are all going to adore it. And I think that a lot of that has to do with the fact that they don't play every single game coming out. So a lot of the more middling stuff going on with some of the open world sections are not that bad. It's just they're not that great, right? and for me, I essentially 100% of this game. I did every single side quest. I got every single ability fully powered up. And I had a great time doing that.

I totally agree. A lot of it does feel like padding. I think this game could shave off 10 hours and not have that stuff and be a lot stronger to a lot more people. Having said that, I enjoyed saving these people and I enjoyed the Insomniac Spider-Man style kind of open world where it wasn't overwhelming to me,

but it had a purpose. I'm not good at these games. This game is very, very, very difficult in the boss fights. And even just the normal kind of enemies, like they start off so simple. People play the demo. We all know. It's like, why are these so easy? Towards the end of the game, that's not true.

Like there's a lot of enemies that are a bit more challenging. But the best thing for me is I love holding that L2 and sucking in the souls. It's been a mechanic that I just have been enamored with since the early on Emusha games of you fight the combat's there, but then the souls all pop up and you need to have this balance of, am I going to keep attacking or am I going to suck the souls into get more health, get more experience,

get more mana or whatever you want to call it? And I think this game has that balance and puts it into the gameplay at the forefront in such an incredible way of I'm constantly wanting to suck the goddamn souls. And I want more and I want to be able to enhance my abilities because I don't want to say that the abilities make the boss fights easier,

but they make them less. hard. And like that's, it's a weird specific thing where it's just like, oh, I now, I'm able to survive longer. And that's all I needed is I just needed a little bit more health to be able to allow me to lock in for just a little bit longer because I need that extra boost. And that's why I went out of my way to get so many of the side things to power myself up because it enables me to face these bosses and take them down. And again, I'm not that type of gamer. I beat this game though. I fucking did it. You know, I locked in. And some of these fights. took me a long time, but like,

I never didn't have fun with it. I always, when I messed up, I knew it was my bad. And I think that the Perry system is one of the most, you said it blast, like, it's one of my favorite parries ever. But I think the thing that I take away the most from this game is I think about all the things it does right more than I think about the things I don't love about it. And those things are art direction. And I cannot believe the level to which Capcom succeeded with this.

the animations are on another level. The fact that you watch this character and he's moving his sword and blocking, it seems like limitless animations. Like when you play Hades and it feels like there's limitless dialogue in that game, in this, I can't believe how many different unique ways to block and parry there are

and just the motion and movement and how fluid it all looks. The enemy design is incredibly varied, but all of it feels like it fits this amazing, like design Bible where the creature design is brilliant. It's simply brilliant. The boss designs are off the charts. I cannot give high enough praise to so many of those elements and they can just come together so well

tied with performances that I absolutely love for how over the top they are. It's so my shit. It is so just next level goofy. As Power Rangers villains? They're Power Rangers villains. Hey, that's my stuff. I love that. So I think that all of that kind of like it's just There's lines where you're fighting these dudes and they go, this was a good fight and you are a bad dude.

That's literally what they say. And when you look at this game and you think of that dialogue, it's like what? It works so well for me. The counter to that though is I feel like the music is good, but I really feel like it needed guitars. It needed to be cheesy power ranger shit because that is the tone that the rest of the game gives off. And they kind of stick with a lot of traditional instruments.

and that has hype moments, but I really think it could have been taken like to the next level if it was if the music was over the top and hype in the way that so much of this game is presented, specifically the boss fights. The story of this game, I would not give any props at all,

but the characters and the little stories between them, the stories of each of the bad guys, I do think is incredible. I am so locked in. I want a sequel. It's as much stories I needed from this. But yeah, I, I love it. It's clear that I love this game and I unabashedly love it, but I got to be real.

Like there are a lot of things that I think people are not going to love about the game. And I think a lot of that is the padding of the open worlds, the side quest not being that interesting. They're just kind of just more reasons and examples of times you can use the combat. Yeah. But guess what? The combat's so damn good that I'm not going to complain about. Yeah, that is that is one of the things I fell down on as well. Like the idea that sure, the actual things. that you're asked to do

and the reasons why you're asked to do them can often be pretty boring but then you'll just land in an area it's like okay fighting time again but it's an actual fight not like one of the grunts where you're just like you don't even get into it but like the you were just watching the trailer here and you're thinking back of

these boss fights for me the best time I had was when I died to the boss like seven or eight times and I'm just sat there at my desk being like okay like what's the what we're going for next time like I feel like I've dialed in the first quarter of the fight and that kind of That progression, that personal progression of getting better and better at it,

felt fantastic. In complete opposite to when the sub-bosses happen and you know them so intimately, unlike the big bosses that you only get one. So I think there's like methods that you can maybe refight them, but I don't know. But the sub-bosses happen so often. They are just like, yeah, like, yeah. There's one specific guy who I know that we see like six or seven times, but I'm like you again, all right?

I loved it though, man, because then you can just do the easton on him and then you get hell of souls from it. And it's just like, yeah, we're facing off again. against him so many times, but like, I like, I eventually stopped seeing him as a sub boss and just more as like, he's just an enemy. Yeah. Because he's surrounded with so many other enemies. They do use him a lot, but he's cool as shit. Yeah, it's a cool design.

Like, and the, but when he would pop up, I would think, you're not making me better at this game anymore. Like, I just want to fight things that are so much harder than I can do with at this point. So I was like, really trying to push towards the, the bigger bosses. But yeah, we talked about it, like, when I played a bit more than you and you're like, yeah, I'm like, I'm really liking it. But for me, it's like a nine, and I think that's where it's going to fall down for a lot of people that have kind of your view on things. Everything we're saying about the combat,

it's almost an inverse to the Don Walker review earlier, where we're like, we love this game, and then just complained about it for like an hour. And this is like, we're giving it kind of, what some would say, middling scores. You're obviously on the higher end. But the key thing, the thing you're playing this game for, the combat is so good that even me,

who apparently gave it the worst score in the world, I'd be like, yeah, I absolutely recommend you play this. Like, maybe wait because there's 40,000 other games, but there's no part of me that thinks this is a bad game by any stretch of the imagination. It's just a much better game hidden within a game that I don't love. It definitely is. I mean, let's talk about the combat while we're here, right?

Like, I love the, of course, we're talking about the Perry's, but I really appreciated as you got through it and you continued to expand your repertoire with the R1, which is that secondary weapon, then you can then have multiple versions of it, the depth that continues to grow throughout it. Because in the very beginning, I was like, this is really simple.

And I think that's my biggest issue with like the tutorialization of it because they very much are like stopping you to do this tutorial. I'm like, guys, it's like four buttons here. It's like not that deep. And then it gets deeper. Real quick, I really want to,

I want to keep talking about combat, but I want to talk about the tutorial because I do think it is by far the weakest part of this game. And it is why when I started it, I was like a little, I was a lot lower than where I am now. I don't think it's a good tutorial. I actually think it's actively bad.

It, like you're saying, kind of keeps stopping you to teach you new things that I feel like we already were naturally doing. And I think the bigger problem is the button prompts and what they're asking you to do. They introduce a new thing in the tutorial where they're like, hey, you know, essentially hit circle to dodge, roll, or whatever. And in other games, the moment that prompt comes up and there's an enemy right after you hit X, the prompt will go down, the enemy comes at you, and then you need to do something to dodge. In this game, it doesn't really

do that. It just kind of feels like it's haphazardly introducing things. It feels like glitch about us. Like you're just waiting around for someone to do something. And it's like the characters not, or the NPCs aren't doing the thing to test you being able to confirm you could do it. So you're kind of just like waiting for that opportunity to come up and then it's like

cool you did that. You're waiting for the whole thing to slow down and it would only continue if you press the circle. It's like that's exactly when you should do it and then it would teach you how to exactly do that you send. It doesn't do it. It just doesn't do it that way. And then on top of that, I feel like a lot of the on-screen button prompts that'll pop up of like, you know, the L1 or the circle or whatever, the timing at which they pop up is distracting and off.

Yeah, it's also weird because they double back throughout the entire game. You can turn this off, but by default they have like in the corner, if you're getting mollywop by a boss, it'll tell you like, hey, make sure you, you know, you do the Dodge next time, like giving you the hint, hint. So it's like, I feel like that's more than enough for a lot of players to be like, oh, fuck, oh, yeah, I should be using this mechanics. So having such a slow start to the game is very interesting when you have it by default, always telling you, hey, these are the mechanics you should be using.

And I don't think they're that, like, heady that someone can't understand that and figure that out if you're playing this type of game. Yeah, I think for me, early on, it was one of those things where I, as I played the game more, I got more into it early on because of the tutorialization, I thought that this was going to be more of a action game for people who might not be playing as many, like, Sekiro or Where Winsmeat or whatever Wuchong Fall and Feathers type games but surprisingly this one I think stands above quite a few of its other contemporaries in the way of like yeah the tutorialization is kind of

basic and bad but once you get far enough into it and realize all the things that they're throwing into this pot it gets kind of crazy because every fight for me later on in the game felt like a dance of every fight having the variety of all right, you got square for your attack, you know, a triangle for your heavy attack. But then sometimes you'll do like a sword clash

where you and the enemy are pushing back and forth and now you're tapping square. Or sometimes you'll get into like a sword dance where it is like, all right, depending on if the enemy is holding the sword with two hands or one hand, you're going to have to press square or triangle to then get the upper hand on them.

I fucked that up every single time. Every single time I just panicked and I was like, just default to your party. And like you can default to your paddy. But that can. this stuff was great, especially because it came, it wasn't quite clear to me of what triggered that. I don't know if it's just like a... I couldn't figure out either. Sometimes it felt like when I parried, but then other times it felt like if I hit them at the same time. I think that's what

it, I think it's the hit at the same time. But also it's like, there's so many things going on, because if you hit at the same time, is that like a couple of frames too late to have done the east end. Like everything is happening in such tight windows that I liked when that stuff popped up because I, because I didn't really understand what was triggering it. It felt very natural, especially in boss fights, because it would happen at random parts. Yeah. It's like,

this is going different. It feels like a story's being told to every fight. Even though it's a lot of the same things happening, put that on a variety there. But really, though, I think that is such a strength of the game, and I think that a lot of that goes back

to what I was talking about of how many unique animations are in this and why the Perry feels so satisfying. Like, a lot of games have great parries. I think Perrys are a mechanic that games these days need to nail as much as jumping, right? Like, that's part of game design and especially action game design.

and yes, the sounds great, yes, it's satisfying, yes, all of that. But I think what takes this to the next level is if you're facing off against a little dude with a sword, like you're not a little dude, your same equal-sized guy with a sword, or this giant lion or this, it doesn't matter what the creature is, the peri animations all feel unique and you feel the weight and momentum shift of when you get into a sword clash with like a much bigger sword, you see him kind of have to like writhe around it. And move the weight and momentum of these giant things.

And it's believable. There's weight to it all. And that to me is like the perfect mix of like gameplay and just cinematic direction and choreography that I think makes the bosses feel so much more like, oh, this is a dance. This is a Kurosawa film type samurai thing, especially with the one-handed and two-handed and all those different variations. Like it's not just animations for animation's sake. It's not just like gameplay prompts for gameplay sake. it all works together. It makes the game feel better.

Like, there was one post I saw on social where, I believe the devs are talking about how many different animations they have for parries in the game. And it was getting shared around, people being like, damn, why y'all do all this? This seems like a lot of work. And when you play it, it really does make it feel better when you get a parry and the parry is from behind you, right? Like, he fucking put the sword behind his neck.

And it's like, wow. It's like the wind of the lightsaber like behind. They're like, that kind of stuff is so, so great. Let alone when you get a perfect parry and then your sword glows, blue and then all of a sudden you're in a super powered mode. Like this is, it's the perfect balance between trying to make something that's difficult and does feel a little bit like a Sekiro,

a little bit like these other games I'm talking about, a woolong or whatever, but then also does feel arcady because of all the different things are happening in the moment that you want to take advantage of. And I love it because there's also choice baked in there as far as like, okay, do I want to go for Harry? Do I want to go for this? Do I want to go for this? Do I want to go for the Dodge?

And one of the things I really like about the combat system is when you are fighting a bigger enemy of boss, you can stagger them by getting their stagger meter all the way up that you can do by pairing them, right, or attacking them. And oftentimes when you get that meter down, you are met with a choice. Do I want to do the red thing or the purple thing? The red thing will take more damage from them. The purple thing will get you more orbs, right? And later on in the game, that becomes more and more of a strategy because sometimes,

like, you might be law on health. Guess what? Orange or yellow orbs, whatever they are, will come out. And it's, okay, that will heal me. Or sometimes I have my super. If I can get enough orbs to power that up, that's going to let me do even more damage. And I love the, I love how in late game

on Amusha Way of the Sword, it really does all come together as far as the full breadth of strategy you have. And I think early on I didn't have that. And I think that kind of brings me down a bit in the first half of the game is that I think we're still in those building blocks of getting you to that place

where it's firing on all cylinders. But once it gets there, it's so fun. there is that like obviously it's a bit of a trope to be like oh play 10 hours and it gets good and it's like well it's it's it's fine to good at the start but if you're willing to stick with it to get to the part where like you get your you know what and like everything kind of kicks off into like uh the scale of the bosses and the difficulty of the bosses everything just ramps there's like the before this section and after this section part of the game to be as like an eight nine kind of thing it's just that first half that really drags it for me. The side

kind of shite is still in the second half, but by that point I was so over it, I just crafted my own version of the game where I was only doing the big headline stuff and all that stuff is super good. I will point out, though, I hate fighting anything that's like a quadruped, like anything four-legged, I just cannot get the timing down. Much like in Souls games, like my favourite fights are when it's me versus another like sword-wielder or sword-wielder adjacent kind of

character and there's some absolute banger fights like this, like that in this game. Let me tell you about one of my, one of my action game pet peeves is when I get to a boss fight, the boss is two different bosses that are fighting me separately at the same time. I didn't mind that as much in this game. I wanted to hate it in this game and I didn't love it. But like, I didn't hate it as much as I usually hate it in this game. I think the things they do in that fight specifically to compensate for the fact that you're fighting two bosses.

Yeah. Very clever. Very clever. very not like the genre to in that portray that you are stronger because that's a fight that you're referring to that won't get specific in is easier

than either of the singular fights and that's like a... I felt like that was a storytelling moment of these guys again, let me just... And as Tim mentioned, those are some of the really campy, like Balkan skull type characters are like talking shit the entire time. And when you eventually defeat them, they're like, I'll see you next time, buddy.

And it's like, okay, this is this is some pretty good stuff. But yeah, it's it's a really, really weird game to talk about it, and it's a horrible game to put a score on. Oh, yeah. Well, we have a lot more to talk about this game when it comes to combat, the difficulty, the story, but we'll tell you all about that after a word from our sponsors.

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I think a criticism of the game that I still have but one that I kind of understood the reasoning behind the difficulty spikes a little bit more as I went on I think there is a lot of boss difficulty spikes as we've talked about and we've alluded to but for me the biggest thing is in the beginning of the game the first half that we're talking about the NPCs that fighting the regular, you know, grunts or whatever, just felt so easy to the point where, like, I literally went to the menu and tried to find a hard mode, which I never do, because I love baby-ass baby games. But, like, I was like, man, this is, like, not doing it for me.

But then I realized and had that moment of, like, oh, there is, like, there's a reason why they are easier. It's because you want to dispense them faster, right? It's like, that's, like, the whole thing here is to figure out the fastest way to get the spinny guys and then they're like, oh, actually, I could just do this. And you're mowing these people down. How did you guys feel about, I guess, the difficulty? when it comes to the non-boss characters?

Honestly, trivial? Like, I think that they are essentially, like, they are sentient pickups at that point. It's like, okay, that group of guys, I don't even have to worry about them, because a lot of the time they don't engage if you're fighting something bigger. So it would be, okay, I'm getting mask kicked here,

go over there, knock all those guys out, suck them souls, and then I'll feel better to pick off the kind of bigger thing. I also feel like the game deploys them quite a lot when the sub-bosses come in to make the, battlefield feel a bit more chaotic like it's like oh okay now we're facing like seven of these guys and some of them are archers and some of them are behind like the shields and stuff like that but even when they started introducing those other kind of variants of the grunt as like i'm i've got no

interest in fighting these guys they're not challenging they are just like worth it for the pickups and and not much more but i agree i think the the difficulty spikes i think are actually great like i'm not someone that usually loves when a game is artificially massed massively more difficult from time to time, but it felt like the bigger bosses towards the end especially, and they showed some in the trailer. They would just introduce, like, a new mechanic that would change the way you had to fight it

or change the way that you previously used one of your, like, bread and butter mechanics to, like, not platform, but, like, dodge certain projectiles and stuff like that. You're like, oh, I never really thought about that. Or you're getting, like, sucked into this big vortex and you have to shoot the arrow to stop this big attack happening. Loved all that stuff, because it was a learning process,

I never felt like I was learning anything, just fighting the kind of lower level enemies. Difficulty was really interesting for me. Early on, I thought the game was pretty easy. And then, like I mentioned, when I first started talking, right? Like, I was mainlining the hell out of this game. And I think I mentioned, I don't think the game wants you to play it that way. Because when I tell you, the difficulty got so insane because I wasn't doing all the side stuff. And I ended up doing something that I never do, something that I don't think I've done since I, since, um,

I played Wolfenstein to the new Colossus, which is I went from the standard normal difficulty mode and brought it over to like the easy story mode. Oh. And I was surprised by a few things. And let me rewind it and say, usually I don't do that. Not because of any superiority thing. I have this weird thing where I'm like, I want to play the game the way the developer intended. Yeah.

So I do that in all games. Or I'm like, all right, whatever your standard difficulty is, this is why I imagine your game design is based around. So that's why I usually never change. I did it for this game. Just because I was like, I'm either going to do this and beat the game or I'm just not going to beat the game because I don't want to do all the side stuff. The game was one, really fun on easy. I was surprised by how good the easy mode is. Two, the game was also pretty hard on easy.

Yeah. Like, I was surprised by how well they kept the difficulty of the game there. But then I'm sure part of that is because I didn't get the experience and leveling up from all the side stuff. But then three, they do something on the easy mode that I thought was really interesting. they give you, like, the button prompts that you should pretty much be pressing when the enemies are attacking. And so, like, if the enemy is about to attack you with a pariable attack, you'll see, like, a small L1 icon on the enemy. Or if they're doing, like, something that you need to dodge, they'll pop over the circle button. And it turns more into a rhythm game than just a pure action combat game, which I, again, as somebody who never really plays on this difficulty, I've never seen that before.

of them just telling you, hey, press this button at this time, go, boom. But I thought that was a really neat thing, especially for people who might not be as into action games to kind of teach you, this is the way we want you to play. Like, this is how you parry. This is how you dodge. Like, I think giving people that visualization to know exactly what they need to do with the timing they need to do. It was really neat. Yeah, that's a great call out because I turned it on for one boss that I was just getting my ass hit. I could not figure out what the timing was on anything.

And yeah, you're right. I was still dying in that easy mode to that boss. but it's a great way for anybody who is just not understanding the rhythm or the specific mechanics that they should be doing for a boss. I think it's actually like a good tip over there. If you're just throwing your head against the wall,

you're like, what the fuck am I doing? Am I not just good enough? Turn on the easy mode or I think you can actually stay when you're on the normal mode. You can just turn on that feature just to see it to, just to see like, oh, fuck, I could just be dodging that. I didn't think about that.

I'm trying to parry that entire time. It's a really good way. Because they show the golden pack. Because it's not like, hey, you have to dodge. You can still parry certain things. But like it shows you kind of, kind of like, hey, this is what the developers think you should be doing. And there were one or two mechanics, yeah, because I play this game 80% of the way through

before I turned it down easy. And there are certain things they're showing me where I'm like, ah, I didn't think about that. Yeah. Didn't realize that that mechanic works exactly that way. And so it's a good way to learn if you're somebody who's struggling or if you're like me and you're like, I don't know, I want to mainline this thing. I think it's worth doing or at least worth trying out. How was difficulty for you, Timmy? This game was really hard, guys.

Like, I mean, again, I am not good at these type of games. And like, people listening to the show, they know that about me. I do tend to like them though. You know, I do tend to try. And I feel like for me, it's all about is the reward worth it. And I think that seeing the choreography and cinematography in this game is always worth it. So the lock-in get good mentality. Like, I wouldn't so much call them difficulty spikes in this game as much as just the bosses are difficult.

Like, all of them. And that's why I do look at all the kind of other stuff is more just like, yeah, this is just, I really like to you said about sentient pickups. Like, that's like, that is a great way. to put it, but it's kind of just like giving you combat encounters that are essentially just picking up a chest. But instead of that, it is you're putting you through the paces of learning the different timing and all that. And I had enough fun doing all that stuff and able to, you know, level up my character and all the different abilities. And I think this goes back to the original Onimusha games. And I think a reason why I was so excited to do all the side stuff in this game is

those games worked very differently than this, but the DNA is the same. Those games, those features different weapons. So instead of having the only ornaments, that would be like a special skill that are such as one-off moves that you're using, you'd have four elemental weapons where it's like, you know how in this one there's the big spinny tornado thing?

Like there was a weapon that was like storm powered and that's what you had. Then you had like a big, I forget what elements line up, but like a big fire hammer or some shit like that. And you'd be able to switch between the different weapons, but each weapon had like a, you have to get enough, of the, I think it was blue souls or experienced souls,

and then that levels up that weapon, and you kind of switch between them that way. Because of that, I always, in the only musha games, feel the need to, like, fight every enemy I can to upgrade those weapons, because that very much feels like the loop of the game. Like, that is what they want you to do, is make sure that the weapons are better

because they're going to throw enemies at you, that unless you're doing the perfect easing, like, that's the thing. It's like, hearing you talk about this game, you're clearly much better. You know what I mean? And I feel like that's, that means you're gonna have a different experience.

For better, worse, in different ways. Because I can't even imagine, like, one-shoting some of the bosses the way you're talking about. Like, the risk of that, the risk for that Eason move, I'm like, oh, my God, like, I can never. Weirdly enough, are we, are we allowed to talk about the thing you get? They show it in the trailer. Right. So I'm gonna say, and also, it's an only move. Yeah.

I think it's okay to talk about it. When you get, like, your super power, like, your mad power up, like, when you're going, like, super sane mode, it makes the ESN super easy because they widen the window for it that completely broke my timing for it because I'd be dialed so in on the original base version of it that when you could do it,

whatever, it was, it kind of broke it for me, but yeah, I think that it is a really hard game. I like really hard games, like I love that kind of thing. The ESN, as soon as I realized how effective it was

and a few of these bosses are clearly designed to be ESN because they jump in there for 45 years. and you have all the time in the world. And the actual window depends on the boss and things like that. As soon as I realized how good that was, I was like, okay, if I focus on this,

I can do whatever I want in this game. And when I dialed that in, I was like, okay, this is, the power fantasy was like off the chain, kind of tying into why I didn't bother fighting any of the small guys and why I was bored of fighting the subbosses because I was just like, just give me the bigger and bigger bosses.

Is Is Is Eason when you parry an attack with an attack, you press attack at the same time if they're about to land? I don't think I've ever done this. But it happened to be, it's that split-second one, and it's where you do the super epic dash-through, you get the screen effect. And, like, it's one hit kill. I think I only did that on accident.

Because I was focused on the deflects. Like, no one and X. I don't think I've ever done that the entire thing. You must have. Like, there's a lot of times, even accidentally, you will, like, it's, you get them everyone's all. It's more about going up against the bosses trying to pull one off. That's where I'm like, that risk for war.

I want to test that out. Yeah, now I'm like, there's a few bosses. I'm like, I feel like I'm, it's ingrained. Like, when you see that, trailer like I feel the game like I understand the time I remember it all I want to try that the thing that it does though if you you can't spam it it's like you have to really it's a very specific input because if you hit it and it doesn't happen and you just instinctively go and start hitting the square it won't work you have to be like I he's coming down he's

coming down square zoom and that's that like and so a couple of things is like the super say in there is the coolest thing I've ever seen it's what it is but it's so damn games are so good these days introducing that thing like was it is it in Yote as well when they have like a similar moment where they introduce them and you're like, oh, come on. That's what we're here for. But with the, uh, doing the side quest to get the abilities and unlocking everything, by the later in the game, the Easton becomes a thing where it's like, cool.

If you get it right one time, this is like, I think a lot of the fun I had fighting the general enemies just on the side quest, you can chain Eastons. Yeah. So all of a sudden, if there's a group of like six people and you get that one Easton, that one grants you six instant kills and you're going, and I'm like, fuck yeah. This is awesome. This is one of those reviews that talking about it makes me like higher on it.

I'm like, I'm happy I didn't finish it because I'm actually like, man, I have more to get into it. But the last thing I want to say with the difficulty for me because like I really, like this game pushed me. But I ended up doing it. I'm very proud of myself for pulling it off.

But so many times with these bosses that are so difficult to Jordan's point, they're not. The game gives you everything you need to do to just fucking fuck these guys up. And sometimes one hit kill if you pull it off correctly. But it is that risk reward. And the game wants you to play it a certain way. It wants you suck in the souls. It wants you waiting for the gauge to go up for the armaments and using those and all of that.

But really what the game wants you to do is just focus and parry. And anytime I was losing to a boss, it's because I was getting too cute. I was trying to use too many different moves. I was trying to like wait for this thing to fill up again. It's like, or just hit L1 at the right time. You know? And any time I did that, I would beat the boss within two tries after. And that's the thing.

Tim, you're talking about the rhythm of like a boss. of like a boss fight, learning a boss's move set, parrying at the perfect time. What if I told you that there was a video game called Sekaro Shadows Die Twice that you should fucking play to him? So playing this, playing this has got me the most interested in

Sechro that I've ever been. I have tried Sechro before, by the way, I want it to zone, but I do think that my skills are slightly leveling up here and there. Hey, we'll see me. If you beat this, you're golden. Yeah. You're golden. You got to act three of Hollow Night's Silk Song. That's true. Yeah, you're a dreamer. I am. I am.

but the point around that, though, I will make about the Sekro thing and like memes aside, jokes aside of all of it. Like, I don't know and maybe Sechero has this stuff. But the Oni Musha of it all that this game has really is part of that reward for me of like, it's not just the gameplay of the thing. It is the animations, the choreography,

the hype and all of that stuff, which maybe Sekiro has. I'm not saying it doesn't. In fact, I imagine it does. But as a lifelong onymusha player, I'm telling anyone that's played those games before, if you ever cared about the gauntlet and the souls and the story of all that stuff this game does not relate to the other games this is a straight up new telling but my god

it rewards long time fans the the aura moments the hype shit going on all of the the the we see early in this game that there are multiple gauntlets at play that's so god damn cool for oomusha and the things that they do i i have had fan fiction in my head about dope oning stuff in the past. And it's because of how they presented. Bless, I've shown you this like four times. The opening of Oni Musha 3 is one of the sickest CG things I've ever seen because it's the

returning lead from the first game. He wasn't in the second game. He comes back and it's a big reveal. You're on this giant airship, a living airship in the sky. There's Genma everywhere. And he gets on there and he's like ninja robed out like face covered. Does a flip and his face is revealed. Oh my God.

It's the guy from the first game. He has all the weapons fully powered up from the first game, and the CG is just him switching between all those weapons, killing thousands of people as the airship crashes down. He fucking turns Oni mode, lands on the ground, and then sucks in all the thousands of

souls that he just faced to power up and fight this guy. And that's the opening of Omisha 3. This game just delivers that feeling constantly, but it's playable, and it's like the boss fights and like, oh my God. If you love Oni Musha guy, strap it. There's boss fights

that are in the trailer that they shouldn't have put in the trailer. Amen. They're like, dude, Blood Walker, Don Walker had the same problem. Like,

what was with these, I know we, we only know this because we play these games before they're out, but the epidemic of putting, like, the last cut scene and these

launch trailers is crazy to me. When I tell you, during the game, during Gamescom opening night live, I'm 80% of the way Rana Musha and they show a trailer and I'm like, I've not seen 90% of this.

Yeah. It was going on. Yeah. I don't know why they did that. So when people get the game in the first half of it, like a little bit mid. They're like,

hmm, the second half's a real hell of the game. Let's wrap up the main podcast and talk about the story, I guess. Is there anything you want to talk about? Any highlights, any low lights about the overall story? I'll probably recuse myself from this part. The story was fine, but it washed right over me. Yeah, I mean, same.

I did not care about much at all. Like, I like the characters. I think Tim nailed it earlier on, right? Like, I think the characters of the story are so strong, and there are things between them that are really cool. And I like, even looking at the characters, I love the animation of Musashi. I love the characters that you surround themselves with.

Right. Like there's one specific subcharacter that I won't get into the details of, but I'm like, oh, I love this. There's a relationship here that I think really works. But the overall story, I very much boiled it down in my head of like, all right, cool. The Genma have taken over. We've got to fight against them. There's a malice.

You got to defeat the malice. And that's literally the story of this game. It's like, guys, it is what it is. Hell's taking over. We have to stop it. Cool. We've been there. We've done that, right?

But, like, again, I already said it. And just to repeat myself, it is not about the plot of this game, but I think it is, the story is the characters. And I really am impressed. Like, I think that the, the way that each of the kind of sub-bad guys that you fade, like, all the main boss villains throughout the game, all of them have their own fucked up stories. I think this game is a very interesting version of horror where it's not the Resident Evil zombie B-movie horror thing. Like, this is, it's a lot more like psychological and really, really fucked up stuff of like, experiments with humans and animals. And it's like the concept of monkey paw wishes of if somebody can grant your greatest desire,

but you know there's going to be one fatal flaw to it. It's like, would you do it? Is it worth it? All of that being backed up with the concept of the way of the sword. I think that to me that is really what makes this shine is we keep talking about Musashi, the character and the facial animations. He makes, like there are parts of his face animating that I don't think have ever animated in a video game.

He is making genuine faces and stuff and it just makes it feel so much more important. And his character is he lives and dies by the way of the sword. He's looking for the next fight. That's all he cares about. And the main plot of this game is him trying to defeat the malice, but more so it's about him trying to find more and more things to defeat, but fighting with the fact that he now has this gauntlet

that he looks at as a hindrance because he's like, it's cheating. Having this gauntlet is cheating. I want to fight these things without this. I think that's such an interesting place to start and the places that they end with it. I'm actually really damn impressed with. I think that they use such goofy-ass ideas to have some pretty meaningful concepts of dealing with the themes of letting evil take over you, what it means to be human, what it means to like care about others. Like, I don't know. There's so much stuff, especially with like the rival character that I think Bles might be alluding to.

It's like it's just top tier stuff. It's basic. It's, you know, very simple, but I think it's incredibly effective. Yeah, my one gripe with that is I love Musashi's intro in the beginning of the game of like the way, how goofy it is. Like, I do think it is goofy.

It is over the top. It's like alluding to like some Jackie Chan stuff, right? Where it's like, it is very funny and it's like he is a goofyish character. And then towards the middle, we just kind of lose that a little bit, right? Like he just becomes his more serious character because he's going through a lot of shit, right? But then the moments where they do kind of bring back his goofiness, it just feels like, Oh, I missed that. You know what I mean?

I wanted a little bit more. I'm not saying he needs to be, you know, over the top the entire time, but I like that comedy of it. And I do wish that his, that characterization stuck with him a little bit more throughout it, but that's a minor complaint about it. No, I get that.

I think that they, there's enough moments of that. I think that the beginning of the game, especially given the fact that where he starts at the beginning game, he's very different later in the game. It kind of makes sense. But the character that I compare him to the most is Aladdin.

Yeah, you're in the opening scenes of the Aladdin movie, where the one jump ahead of the like all that stuff but he's like kind of parkouring around and stealing things and giving it to the kids and like he's fighting while like it's very funny

and like goofy and stuff that's what this character feels like to me and I that is a very very high compliment hell yeah let's get into some super chats before we wrap up the podcast this is from Resolut to Super Chat and saying played my first

Anemusha Dawn of Dreams in July 2024 and this became my most anticipated game of 2026 the second it was announced I can't wait hell yeah Damn. Very different game than Donna Dreams, but I think that, I mean, I actually, I know, if you love Donna Dreams, you're going to love this even more.

Okay. I think this is easily the best ony Musha. Is Donna of Dreams the latest one? That's the fourth game. Yeah. Which is, I guess, the latest game. Wow. That's crazy. Christopher, Superchatan and say, did other Ani Musha have a British accent? That's a great question. Everybody's British in this. It's kind of great. Yeah, it's weird, I will say. I switched back and forth for a little bit, trying to see if I'd rather the Japanese VO, which I do think the Japanese VO is, quote-unquote, better. Like, I think that most people will prefer that. If you've ever not, if you ever uttered the words,

I don't like dubs. Yeah, this one's not going to convince you. The British is going to get in your way. I loved the English side of it. I stuck with English the whole time. I think it added a bit to the goofiness over the top stuff that I really wanted. I thought was good. Bean's got games says even the,

detail on the rice was crazy. Yeah. Some of these cutscenes go kind of crazy. Mike like music says dub or sub with this. Is the English VA passable? I think it's definitely more than possible. I think it's pretty good. Resolute also SuperChance says, Tim, how long did it take for you to 100%?

So to be clear, I didn't 100%. I didn't platinum the game. I did look, I wanted to. I was like looking at the trophies and there's a couple that I'm like, I'm just not doing that. I think you need to beat it on like levels of difficulty that I'm like, no, I'm not capable. But I 100%ed the quests and upgrading all the weapons.

And that took me, I want to say, 34 hours. Yeah. Also, they say, is there a survival horde area, like in Arena, like in Dawn of Dreams? You know what? There's not. It's a little weird because that is a very big tent pole of the only musha franchise is these kind of like towers where it might not be endless, but it's like, you know, there's 10 levels of different hordes of enemies coming through. And you get big weapons for that. and there wasn't anything quite like that.

There are things similar, but they're more story-based, I would say. Capcom loves a post-game update, so that's true. That's true. A nice little one. And there is a, like, you can rematch any boss, and there's, like, different, like, augments you can put on that,

which is really, really cool. And I think that they present that really well. I don't think that the upgrades are, like, what you get from it is really worthwhile. And that's upsetting because another game that I love, loved this year was Pragmatic from Capcom. And I think that their kind of VR side mission things were so worthwhile

because they were fun. They pushed the gameplay even further. And the rewards were your core main abilities that are worthwhile. And this kind of feels like a major letdown to me in terms of like I didn't feel compelled to want to do them. Billy 2 also

Super Shetton says, Ani Mushir, Don Walker. Pick one. I guess that's on you, Jordan. Oh, Don Walker. Absolutely. Wow. It's Melissa, it's Melissa with all. why saying Tim, I've got another difficult action RPG I think you'll love. It's a little indie game called Ellen Ring. You should give it a shot.

Hell of a game. Yeah. Hell of a game. I'll give it another shot one day. Tundra 22 is the last super chat. They want to do a little pizza bet. Will Ani Mushir or Control sell better this year? I think that's a follow up on an old pizza bet. I think me and Tim went back and forth on this.

I think Control will sell better. I think Tim said. And I mean, I remain that Oni Musha is going to sell demonstrably better than control. If it was up to me, control would. sell 55 billion units. Yeah. I think there's not a chance control sells more than this. How about this? I think

control will sell better than Animusha, but Ani Musha will be more of success for Capcom than it will be for... And control will be for remedies? Yeah, exactly. I feel like remedies always behind the ball. They're always like, man, our games need to get more money out of these. We need to figure this out because they're so indie and they're always like, man, I wish our game sold better. That's the best kind of bit because it's impossible to verify.

I think we can verify because I think they'll do they'll do a thing where they were like ah we didn't sell as well and wanted three big Capcom games this year Res Evil Pragata in this I think I see this doing less than Pragata in Resident Evil

maybe this does more than Pregmatia No I think this will do more than Parmata I guess because this is more actually I don't know I really don't know anyone buying games this month though apart from Wolverine like I think that when this all comes out in the wash people have probably decided where their $70

are going at this point. So I feel like games like Onimusha and Don Walker and even my beloved control resident it's going to be difficult for them. And all of the financial reports would be like, yeah, we dropped just after a big Marvel PlayStation game and just before

GTA 6. What are you going to do about it? I mean, I do think that this is dropping early enough and it being on all platforms and it being a Capcom game on this run and it getting really good reviews. And the demos too. And the demos. Yeah. I think there's a lot going for it. But one thing that I forgot to bring up that I,

that is a big con for me of this game is the items. There are so many items in this game. And I don't understand why 80% of them are in the game. Like there's a lot of items that allow you to, you know, get, get this boost or the crafty stuff I'm okay with because that all like was serving to upgrade abilities. It's more your actual consumables, like the usable items that they really put a lot of focus on. And I don't know why anyone would. would ever use one that's not just health,

like not just like regain your health or, or at least your manner or whatever. I've only used the other ones when I'm desperate. I have nothing. I'm just like, I don't know. What it may, but give me something.

There's ones that it's like, you know, you'll be in areas with malice. And it's just like, it halves the damage you take in the malice. I'm like, no, you don't need to do that.

Like, it's not hurting you enough for that to matter. And, um, the items take so long to use. That's my thing. So the risk reward of using an item. I'm like,

I just don't understand why there's like, I would say 20 different items that get in the way in this game just get rid of them. We don't need it. It's just stuff to have stuff. Yeah, I mean the upgrading with the items sorry, the crafting stuff was also kind of annoying to me because it was just more of like

guys, we can simplify this. We don't need a million different things that all go on. It's just like, it was also annoying because like when I, the one time where I was like, hey, I actually want to upgrade my sword. Oh, I need this iron. Okay, well now let me go to all the side quest. Okay, this iron is what I forgot the name because there's just a superior iron and I mixed it up and it's just a,

little bit annoying. It's just like, guys, let's just fucking streamline it. Yeah. Yeah, that's my thing. Everything that's in service of open world slash side activities in this game just did not work for me. I, like, for me, I'm just chop it out. Yeah. Like, make this game a 12 level linear game, give it a solid story, and I think

I would have a perfect video game out of that. Yeah, I mean, I think we'd all agree that the Animusha sequel is going to be fucking peak. Yeah, dude. And also, I think it's going to get one. Yeah. Oh, I've been pretty hesitant throughout this year, like even after my first previews and stuff. I was like, I don't know if this is going to hit with people, mainly because of the boss fights. I didn't know if it was going to be enough, but like it is clearly the combat stuff. It's like for everybody. They all agree. It's like, yo, there is a

amazing game here. There is a lot of stuff that might bring that, that will bring that experience down, I think for most people, but I do think that maybe not most, a lot of people, but I do think that there is a huge audience for this game. Before we wrap up, I just want to say thank you to Jordan Midler for coming through, hanging out with us for a very long time. You've done amazing work. You want to talk about where we can find you? Talk about VGC. I'll talk about these peaches. No, thank you for having me.

I'm a best friend before best friends was a thing. I've been following that monster out there since like 2009 or whatever. I thought you're pointing at Barrett for a second. No, no, no, no. Barrett's not a monster, good man. Gave me a little present earlier. I was very touched. But yes, patreon.com

slash video games chronicle. If you want to support you see VGC on every game's podcast, you listen to we are the news people and if you'd like to let us continue to be able to do that look at that lovely website orange um if you would like to go ad free it's only five dollars a month at higher tiers you can get extra podcasts extra videos and kind of bonus vlog content you may you might notice from my constant pictures of me on edipelines that i've been around the world about 10 times this year so lots of vlogs lots of that kind of stuff and honestly just um if you feel a little twinge in

your heart every time one of these outlets dies on its arse because of corporate ownership, then support a website that is owned by Andy Robinson, the ultimate demon, but it's going to keep me and Chris Gulling around and that's the main thing. And thank you to you guys for all your support because

VGC is always on games daily and if it's not we get angry because we don't do the story quick enough that is the thing. Just to echo what everyone's saying and what you are saying, like go support BGC. These people work so damn hard and I'm specifically in the talk about Jordan here. I love,

I love Andy, love Chris, for sure, but I know you on a different level now and I've seen you work. This motherfucker works. You know, we say,

oh, busiest lady in the business videos that whatever, it's like, Jordan Midler is putting in the damn work and I see it in person and then I see it in the reviews when you come on the amount of games you're playing.

You did Don Walker and Onimusha. And guess what? If there was other games coming out, you'd have them done too. You've got to play all the games. That's the job. You play all the games. You're crazy.

I don't know how you do it. And you do it so well and you're so well spoken and you break the news, you cover it. It's like, shout out to VGC. Shout to Jordan Midler. Support them if you can. It is absolutely. Every morning when I wake up,

one of the first things I do I go to VGC. Yeah, shout out to them. And you're like that lots of Pokemon stuff on here. Not a lot of news about anything else. I mean, I saw the roller coaster tycoon preview. I need to read that. But that is it for the kind of funny games cast.

It's been your review for Ani Musha Way of the Sword. Kind of funny games cast where each and every weekday we get together to talk all about the best. Vegas reviews, previews and topics in video games live on YouTube, Twitch and podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, support us with a kind of funny membership on Patreon, YouTube, Apple, or Spotify to get all of our shows ad-free and get a daily exclusive show. And the next show after this is the finale.

Oh, oh, yeah. Now that is pre-recorded, so sorry, Spartan. Until the next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you. Bye.