Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Ori and the Will of the Wisps Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 10

Episode Date: March 12, 2020

Snowbike Mike joins Tim, Blessing, and Imran to give their full review of the latest Xbox exclusive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up guys, welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast. I'm Tim Getty's joined by the new face of video games. Blessing at Ae Aeoia, Junior. How's it going, Tim? It's going real well. That's awesome. We got the former and former Imran Khan. Hi, hi, hi, hi.

And rounded out the group today with his first kind of funny game cast appearance, if I remember correctly, Snowbike Mike himself. Mr. Xbox. Got to bring the hype if we're doing the first major Xbox exclusive of the year. It's a big deal. And I'm happy you guys brought me out here. Shout out to the games cast crew, but of course I've got to bring the hype for some Xbox love right now. How you've been doing?

Oh, so well. Playing on Xbox every single day and super excited about this release. And sometime this year, you and Gary Wood are going to do the pilot for an Xbox podcast. You know, Gary's excited. I'm excited. We want to bring some green into this studio. But we're waiting on the word. We want that green light.

Yeah. Oh. Do you guys have a name for that yet? What's up? Do you guys have a name for that show yet? We have 10 names selected. I'm still taking names if you want to send me some, but I have 10 hot names that Tim and Greg have to approve.

Can I throw what suggestion in? Heck yeah? You had me at Halo. Holy shit. Oh, whoa. You're all right today. That was good. That was damn good.

You know what else is damn good? Ori and the Will of the Whist. We'll be talking about that all episode today because this is the Kind of Funny Games cast each and every week right here on YouTube. com slash Kind of Funny Games. We get together, talk about video games, all the things that we love about them.

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Or you can search your favorite podcast service for Kind of Funny Games Cast. Please leave some nice reviews. That shit really helps us, pushes things, algorithms. I don't know, all this stuff. Only good stuff, though. I don't want bad stuff. None of that bad stuff. Today, like I said, we are reviewing Ori and the Will of the Wists.

What we're going to do is we're going to talk about it in more of a general sense, what we thought about the whole game. And then later, we're going to do spoiler stuff. But we'll make it very clear when we're getting the spoilers. Not that there's much to spoil. You know what I mean? There is a story. You can watch the trailers and you're kind of like,

I get this. But there are moments that I do think hit that I don't want to take away from it. So we will let you know very clearly when we're getting into that spoiler section. But without further ado, I want to go around the table and see how far are we in Ori and the Will of the Whips?

Snowbike Mike. Snowbike Mike made it six hours without wanting to whip my Xbox controller through a window, but I had a great six hours. with it. So feeling pretty good about that and still more to go for me. Yeah. So if I understand correctly based on where you're at, I'd say you're about

maybe like 50%. Yeah, I would say about 50%, about halfway through Act 2, we'll call it. There's a couple acts that you could really pick up on and I was talking to Blessing earlier. There's a little bit more for me to see and do. Amron. I beat the game and I got I finished all the town stuff

and I think the only thing left for me is just like life upgrades and energy cells. Yeah. Awesome. plus. I beat the game. I want to say I'm at 70% overall because when you open the game it'll show you the percentage of the way through you are. And so I think about 70% I didn't really do much of the town stuff. Well, actually I probably did like a quarter of the town stuff I'd say because that's when you're

collecting the oars and you're yeah. Yeah. So I've done probably a quarter of the town stuff. And I've explored quite a bit but yeah I've beaten the core game. Yeah. I beat it maybe 30 minutes ago. So it's fresh and hot in my mind. Yeah. I definitely want to go back to it. I can't stop thinking about it. I want to 100% it. Like, this is one of those games and I'm just like, oh, man. And I feel like it's attainable.

Like, I feel like this game kind of pushes you to do a lot of the side quest kind of organically, and I really appreciate that for this type of game. And the town stuff, I was like, oh, this is fun. Like, I actually give a shit about these little critters. You know what I mean? I want to talk about that. I mean, when we get into it, because I didn't really understand much of it.

Oh, okay. Yeah, what, like that. You're building structures, right? With like the ore? Yeah. I didn't really get it. You're getting the stuff to pay the guy to build the house, for the little creatures. Is it just for the little creatures? Like, is there no really, like... I'm trying to build their own,

because their home got off off of them. Do I get anything? Yeah, like, basically when you do stuff, like... You can go into their houses, you can take stuff from them, which is like... But it's not like the yellow currency, right? Yes. Is that it?

And also, like, building houses tends to expand the town out a bit, so you can get around places more easily and there's, like, upgrades hidden around the town. Okay. I was going to say, I don't really care about these kids. Why am I building a house? Yeah.

Going back before we get to this one, What was your guys history with Ori and The Blind Forest, the first game? I had been playing The Blind Forest all month long on Project XCloud and on my Xbox, so I've been very familiar with it, and it felt like just jumping into the same game with some extra add-ons in the second one, which was great for me. I played a decent pit of Ori-1. I never finished it. I think I maybe got two or three dungeons in, and I liked it enough.

I thought the game was very nice-looking, but, like, one, it was about the time my eye started going bad so a game that zoomed out was a very difficult to play but also the game was just really really hard for me yeah so I never like really got that far into it and when Will the Whispers was shown I was like okay that one looks like something I would be really into so I decided

to wait granted that was like three years ago so waiting took a long time but I like this game better than the old one yeah plus I've not played Ori in the Blind Forest I own it but it was one of those things where if first of all it came out before I had an Xbox and then once I did get an Xbox.

It actually came with my Xbox. And it's one of those things where I'd see the icon for the game all the time whenever I turn on my system. And I'd be like, one day. I really want to play this game one day because it looked beautiful. I knew it was Medriubania. And I heard it was difficult. And so I was like, okay, maybe I'll get to this one day. And I just didn't.

And from what I saw and understood of Ori, it didn't seem like I would need to play this game for sure to get into Will the Whist. And so I was like, I'll just try Willow Whist. They do a semi-decent job in this one of like kind of like getting you up to speed as much as you need to know for the dramatic moments to hit right. But there are also like a lot of direct callbacks. Yeah, totally, totally. And I feel like, but it's the type of thing that just, it adds to the experience. It doesn't take away if you, if you haven't seen it.

And also, it's the type of thing if you want, you could just watch like a five-minute YouTube video and get caught up on all those. What I did. There you go. I wish I did out, honestly. Yeah. Yeah. Because I feel like certain parts.

I mean, I feel like even now if you were to watch it, you'd be like, oh, okay, I get it. It's like, yeah, I could have, yeah, I could have extracted that information from what I played in Will the Whist. But even still, there's certain story moments where I was like, I feel like I should, I feel like if I, maybe if I played the first one, these would have hit harder, even though like there's some story moments that still hit hard regardless. Yeah. Yeah. I beat Blind Forest a couple years ago.

Not right when it came out. Like I played it a lot then, but I took a break. And then I went back and restarted it and I ended up beating it. And I loved it. But I definitely think it had a lot of issues. And the difficulty to me was one of them where it was hard and not fun hard. It was just like, oh, like, this is, I'm getting like crab hands right now. Like, you know, like trying to like maneuver the way that they're trying to make me do it.

And the combat just didn't ever feel good in that game. And this game totally fixes all those problems. Like I feel like this game is never difficult. It can be frustrating at times, but that's always, it's usually an exploration thing, not a like combat or maneuvering thing. Did you not have any bosses where you're like, this is a bitch? None of the bosses were like that for me. Really? Some of the normal enemies were like, this is just not fun.

Yeah, some of the normal enemies I was like, man, these guys suck to have to fight. And I don't know if it was like a specking thing where maybe I should have put more points into my damage because there are ways in which you can mess around with, like, oh, I can do 15% more damage, but I'll take 15% more damage from enemies. You have those kinds of things that you can mess around with. But there are certain enemies where I was like, man, these guys have a lot of health. For, like, enemies that aren't that big or, like, don't communicate as, like, super powerful or anything. I don't think the combat in this game is perfect.

I think it's actually far from it. But I think compared to the first game, it is like night and day. It is so much better. The first game is more difficult. Well, the first game is more difficult. And also the combat, just it, it, it, you don't really have as many options. Yeah, it's not very heavy in the combat. You just have a couple of options, nothing like you're experiencing in this game.

Okay. Gotcha. Okay. But in terms of maneuverability, I feel like this game nails it. Like, I always feel in control. It's floaterer than I like my platformers, but I feel like that's just the type of game that this is because there is, you're in the air 90% of the time, right? Yeah. By the end of the game, I was basically part of the game.

hardcoreing around to Yeah, and it's fun. It's fun to move. It reminds me a lot of Spider-Man, where there was many times where you get fast travel pretty early on, and it's actually super helpful. And a pro tip to people that might be obvious, you can warp from anywhere.

From anywhere. I figured that out very late game. You don't need to go to the same points to warp. Because they don't, one, they don't tell you that. And then you just assume, like, you look, you open the map, and you see the points, like the fast travel points, and you're like, oh, I need to get there to fast travel to the different thing. And it was like halfway, past half we did the game where I like, I saw the text the very bottom that was like, oh yeah, just warp.

And I was like, wait, really? And I did it. I was like, could have saved me like a hour of playtime? I figured out pretty easily because like I was able to warp from safe points, but I was pretty on safe points before I went to the village. Then when the first village upgrade was also safe points, like this has to be different somehow. Like they had just have given me the same thing again. So it was like, okay, then it must be that I can just do it from anywhere. Yeah, interesting.

Very, very interesting. I enjoyed the journey. I like to run around. That was half the fun, you know what I mean? I like warping, and for certain areas, I need to do that. But, you know, I just enjoyed running around, seeing the different areas. Always a treat for me. Yeah.

And that's my thing, what I was comparing it to Spider-Man, where it's like, we have fast travel, and we can just warp from one place or another. Pretty easily there's enough warp zones that, like, make it, like, it doesn't feel like you're ever too far from your destination. Like the world's big, but it's like, oh, this is so far away. But actually, it's like a minute of running. Yeah, that's a thing. But in Spider-Man, where it's like, you're like, oh, you don't. what I could just take the subway, but I'd rather just swing through the city because

A, it's fun, and B, like, there's enough things going on to, like, pull you and distract you from the main quest. I feel like this is a 2D version of that, where it's, like, it's fun to maneuver through the map, and there's constantly something, like, it's a Metroidvania, so it's like, yeah, there's the secrets and, yeah, there's the obvious, like, oh, well, there's this collectible up there that I want to get, but also just, like, talking to random people. Something I was really surprised in this game was how much it felt like Breath of the Wild. Yeah, oh, yeah.

Yeah, they're definitely direct mechanical references where you could tell that they played Breath of the Wild and they're like, we could do that, or we could take that and put that in our game. So I was actually like, Breath of the Wild wasn't the comparison in my mind, and I know mathematically this makes no sense because they would have not played this game by the time they started designing Ori. But it reminds me so fucking much of Hollow Night. Like there are so many direct examples of this exact same thing

was in Holo Night, and maybe they just took the both ideas in the same place. but like the base building, the town building, some of the dungeon design, even like the weird bug areas. It just all seemed very, very similar. And I know, like, I've played a demo of this game before they, like, I ever played Hollow Night, so I'm sure that they did not. But I bet they were, like, looking at the game like, hmm, this is really similar. Yeah, interesting. I actually loved seeing all of the different creatures, all of the friends and family members you can make, especially coming hot off of the Blind Force, the first one.

It felt very lonely in that game. You didn't really have many friends, family members, around. It was just you isolated. And so to see the different characters, what they were doing, it felt like Fast and the Furious to me. I was like, this is my family. And this is who I want to be with. And right off the jump with the story, too, it's like, this is where I want to be. And I love that the world feels more lived in with all of those creatures. Yeah. Definitely, man. Yeah, I feel like I really, really, really enjoyed this game. And it's like a lot of the reviews are giving it, like, nine's, I feel like it's just shy of a nine. Like, it's, that's kind of where I'm at. I think this game is,

I think it's an incredible game, but at no point did it feel like a very special experience to me. I know that's like a weird, it's like this weird, I don't know, like dynamic thing of, this game is super, it's one of the most beautiful 2D platformers ever played, or 2D games I've played, right? It's a very competent Betroydvania,

and by the time you are approaching like the later half of the game or like the, by the time you're towards the end of the game, you have so many different abilities in the ways in which those abilities kind of build, on top of each other and the ways in which they've they've built the world to take advantage of all the different mechanics that you have at your disposal. I think that stuff is done very expertly well, along with some of the moments that occur in the game. There are certain story moments where I was like, dang, like, that's real, or that's cool. I was wowed probably a couple times while playing

this game. That said, like, Andy came up to me today and was like, yeah, man, I'm thinking about playing over in the will of the wist, but there are a few games that are coming out. And I'm like, dude, if there's a game that you're really looking forward to this month, then maybe just come back to Oregon and Will the Whistle later, because there was no point while playing this game where I was like, like, you know. Oh shit, get hype. This is fucking video game. There was no point where I was like, this is different.

Like, this is something I'm not seen before. Like, it's probably one of the best 2D Metroidvania's of the generation. That said, there have been so many Metroidvanias this generation that makes me, I feel like I've played this before to some extent. Granted, this game does do a few new things mechanically and structurally in the ways that it designs this world and the ways that it does emulate stuff like Breath of the Wild. And I heard you reference Pixar and I think earlier games daily, right? It has those elements to it that does make it stand out a bit. But at no point was I like, oh, shoot, like this is new.

Like this is fresh. It reminds me actually a lot of onward, the new Pixar movie, where in the beginning I didn't like it that much. but then by the end it absolutely won me over and I was just like fuck this thing has heart and it backs it up with like real genuine content like real like real exciting things that are happening in characters and all that stuff and onward at the end of the day is not my favorite Pixar movie

it's far from it but it's still magic it's still great and I feel the same about this game where it's like yeah it's not going to be on one of my favorite games of all time list but I just think that it's really like everything everything it does it does super well I do have like a few issues with it. I feel like it being such a Metroidvania, it also carries some of the issues of Metroidvania's

where I feel like the ways in which it points you to certain directions can be done a bit better. I think I was talking to you a few days ago and you were saying like, oh yeah, I think this game might be too beautiful for its own good. Yeah. Where like there are certain places where I got stuck

and I had like hit up Enron or hit up you and be like, hey, have you guys beat this area? Like how in the world? I've been stuck in this area for an hour. And there was one screen. that Imron sent me of like, oh yeah, there's a specific thing that I needed to hit in order to activate the store. And I saw the screenshot. I was like, there's no way I would figure that out. Because everything just blends in with the world because the world is so beautiful

and everything's so colorful and everything shines, but that then makes it harder to make certain specific points in the world shine so that you know that they're interactable. Absolutely, man. And I will say that I have a feeling that this is going to be ironed out in the next couple weeks. But as this game stands now and the version of the game, I played. This was bugger than Jedi fall in order. Yeah, performance was real bad. It was very, very bad. I had issues from characters just disappearing and not being there, me freezing in a place where I had to restart the game, chugging in parts that I'm just like, bro, I am in a fight right now. You need to stop this. And the biggest problem for me is you need to pull your map up constantly. A lot. Yeah.

I would say every like 15 seconds max, you're pulling up that map to try to figure out where you're going. Especially when you're in exploration mode, you're like, say I need to get to somewhere across the map. There are so many different branching paths that every time you would come through like a crossroad, you pull up your map and you're like, okay, which way do I go this way? Every time you pull up the map, though, it has the same issue that control had where you pull up your map and it stutters, like the map stutters to open up to like so long. So pretty much what happens is the map starts coming up and it's semi-transparent and you see the world behind you. And then the world like starts to go away, but it's not clean. and it kind of just feels like, Jut,

jump, boom, and then it just gets in there and I'm like, when you're doing that every 15 seconds, it's like, oh man, it's the problem.

I don't know if you guys had this, but when I would unpause, it would then take like a second and then, and then stutter and then get back. Because for me, that was every single time I unpause the map.

Especially annoying when, like, I just want to do a thing with the badge, real quick. I just need to change this badge out or find out what this is, but those share the same menu. Yeah.

So it was on map last, so it goes to map by default. It's like, I need to put, just let me press this button and go there. There's a couple of UI things that I feel like they definitely could have improved on. Like, I feel like it would have been really helpful to have a mini map of some sort on the main gameplay screen. Yeah. I get they didn't want to do that because they like, it's too beautiful.

Yeah, you can't do that. Yeah. Combring of quality. But it's, it's one of those things where it's fashion over function. You know what I mean? It's like I really would have appreciated having that as an option. Halfway through my playthrough, they put out the patch, which was not fun for me because in the middle of a boss fight, it actually forced the out. I'm going to do that.

And it forced the update. I was like, well, that sucks. And I couldn't find any YouTube videos of this, but I only looked on my phone for a second, because I'm sure they're out there. But the patch drastically changed the look at the game. Like, it looks totally different than, like, the coloring is different. And it's just like, and it looks beautiful before. It looks beautiful now.

It just looks different. So it's like, can you try to find an example I'm talking about, like, Orii Will the Whisp, pre-pat, like, before and after with the patch? because I've never experienced anything like it. It was a weird thing. I wish I had time to play after the patch I got yesterday because there was a, like, we were texting back and forth last night because you were trying to get past a certain part. And I try to open my game so that I could check out, like, okay, what's he talking about?

Where is these? Let me see if I can figure out. And my game, my game updated and so I couldn't get into it. But then like, yeah, I didn't play much after, because I'd already beaten the game by the time I got the patch. And so I don't know if like some of the issues I had were fixed. A lot of them were fixed. Are they fixed? Yeah, but a lot of them still exist.

Because there was one issue I had where I got to the end of a chase sequence that took me maybe 10 tries because I kept dying and dying over again. It's one of those secrets things where you had to get it pixel perfect, like you have to get it right. And I finally got it right, got to the very end of it, and then my game froze. And I was like, oh, okay, it's done this from time to time. It'll recover.

And then no, like for 30 seconds, I just sat there, and my game was just frozen. And I was like, come on, man. Like, this game looks so good. It's, like, like, when you're playing it, it's so polished. But, yeah, it just has those technical issues that kind of didn't ruin the experience for me because, like, the game is still, like, very good. Yeah.

But it did take away from the experience. It sounds like it came into real hot. Yeah. Definitely. And what's weird, too, for me, is this is a game that has such brilliant colors, right? Like, it's definitely, like, such a beautiful, like, just, it looks like a rave. You know what I mean? Like, everything's always glowing.

Everything's glowing. The HDR is not great. And it's actually probably some of the worst HDR I've seen on a game, especially on the Xbox OneX. And I'm like, this is prime time for this. Like, I don't understand. Everything looks blown out. And that's another thing that, like, they totally could fix.

But it's a weird thing where it still looks so good. But it's just like, I know what it could look like. And it's just like, like, when I boot up Horizon, right? Or even Spider-Man. I'm like, seeing the way that, like, the sun reflects and stuff. I'm like, why doesn't already have this? Like, it's kind of bizarre. You got this real quick?

Let's see. So this is the pre-patch version. Or no, this is one point of retail. So this is how it looks. Yeah. Okay, yeah, that's different. Huh. Right?

Reasably different. Dramatically different. Huh. Okay. Okay. But even like, look what I'm talking about with the HGR. You can see it on the right side. Like with the light coming through the tree.

It just looks blown out. Maybe it is my TV because I don't have, actually I don't know if I have an HDR TV. I just got this new TV. I have no idea what it is. It's like 1080p, though it's not 4K. But I, I don't, maybe it's my TV that didn't, uh, maybe that's the reason I didn't see a difference. But yeah, this is crazy.

It doesn't look like a little watch. Go back for a second, pause it. It looks a little washed out in the original, like the virtually playing. Yeah. Look at the difference of detail in the bush. Right? Yeah. It's like a Kennedy assassination thing like right over here.

Yeah. That's crazy. But yeah, dude. And again, beautiful on the left. But then you have the right one. You're like, what the fuck? Yeah. It's such a weird thing that they just forced to...

Yeah, like, how do you... How does that... How's that a patch? Yeah. That's crazy. So I'm gonna point out, like, that... See how close the camera is to Ori there? I wish the entire game was played that way.

Mm. Like, because there are times where it just zooms out so far, and Ori is like... A tiny little... A tiny little Sprite and non-descript white sprite that is so difficult to see, not only him, but, like, the various things coming at him and then give him second.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I die, bro just like... Dude, yeah, the last boss fight, I lost Ori so much, because I was just like, There's so much happening on screen. I have no idea where we're either.

I had issues with challenge rooms where there would be so much happening. I couldn't find myself. Even when I would dash one way, it would just get lost in the confusion. And like you said, so beautiful, there's so much color popping out at me. I'm like, where's the little white speck? I have no idea where I'm at. Yeah, totally. Hey, Barrett, can you pull up the picture that I sent you?

And then I want to pull up the video as well. So this is an example of just weird tech shit. There's supposed to be a giant bear there. No way. The face of a bear. And always supposed to be on it. And like things are just not be there. He just, he's, I'm not jumping there.

He's holding off the wall. That's so weird, you guys talk about these issues you had. I had very minimal issues and it was a lot of just the menu hitching. I went through two patches during my time with it since we had it. And it ran very smooth for me. I didn't have any enemies or objects like this pop in and out. It was just the menu hitching for me. Everything ran really smooth.

And we all played on Xbox 1X by the way. Yeah, Xbox 1X. Yeah. Now here's the biggest issue as I want to show this video. real quick. This is during one of the the chase scenes. Sorry, it was hard for me to play and film. But, like, this is a video right now

of me playing. And the video's not hitching. This is the game. This is the game. And I'm just like, trying, and this was, like, not the first phase of this boss. So I didn't want to just restart or whatever. Wow. Yeah. This is pretty deep into it. And I was just like, how am I supposed to do this? And I had to just keep pushing the room. And this is actually the same boss that

where my game froze forever. You can turn it off. And so I don't know if this boss specifically that has issues, but that stuff is a bummer granted that stuff will probably be fixed through patches very soon totally and all of the issues that I'm having all of them can be fixed it's just a bummer that I played through a version that that had

these issues because I feel like it really did take this game for me from being something special to being something that's like really good yeah interesting that said overall like the game is super fun Barry were you going to say something I was just say props to Tim for filming the worst filmed video ever dude

it's so hard I had I put it on my dick The phone's just like up And I'm just like trying to Because it's also hard Can you not do screen capture? You not do like gameplay capture Oh I don't know how to do all that shit

Plus it's like Re-embarko I'm sure there was probably a restriction That's great stuff Yeah I don't know But something else I want to give a shout out to Is the amount of different like biomes That this game has Oh yes

I love how varied it is because when you're first playing It's kind of just like Okay cool this is very similar to the first game a lot of swamps, a lot of blue colors and stuff. But then as the world starts expanding and, like, it definitely has like a breath of the wild moment. Yeah. And you start to realize, like, what this game actually is.

There's genuine, like, surprise that I had when, like, I would go into different areas where, like, there's, like, a water area. And it's like, okay, cool. We've seen water in video games a million times. There was something just about the look of, like, ORI's look with that type of environment where I was like, this is fucking gorgeous. Like, I want to live here forever. You know, and it reminded me of a Pixar movie, like that, that world specifically.

But then there's a, you go down, like, underground. Yeah. That's what I'm talking about. Like, do you're talking about, like, the darker buggy area? That's probably very hollow night area. Yeah, the hollow night area. Yeah. Like, that whole, there was probably an hour of this game that I was legit more scared

than playing Resident Evil 2 last year. Really? Like, it was just something about it, man. Like, the way, like, the darkness is just consuming you. And, like, just the way that it's all laid out in these fucking spiders, I was also listening to Dolby Al. most, which probably added a lot to it. Like all these fucking little spider sounds like around you.

I was just like, fuck this shit. I mean, that's something that I want to commend them on because every single area in this game has multiple mechanics that they, that they flush out just for that area. And they all play together so well, right? And I don't want to get into the specifics, really, because some of them are, I guess it's all kind of spoilers. But the ways in which it feels mechanically that they've really, like,

gone in depth and they kind of did like the Mario thing or the Nintendo thing of like hey okay we have one mechanic how do we how do we kind of take this and run with it for a while all right now let's add this one new element okay how do we take that and combine the last two elements together yeah and now how do these things play together in order to create like this final sequence like they really did that super well and each of the areas I felt like were just long enough like they were the perfect length each not too long not too long not too short like I felt like I got my money's worth out of each of the areas and there's quite a few areas you explore in the game and you really kind of exhaust in the game, right? And the, the puzzles,

I felt like for the most part were clever, you know, before I was complaining that some of them are, some of them were obtuse, yeah, and I still hold that complaint. That said, like quite a few of the solutions. I was like, oh, shoot, like, okay, that's like, oh, good job, guys. Yeah, like, that stuff I thought was really well done. Like, game design wise, for the most part, I think this game was, like, it's like a strong nine out of ten, like, you know, they did it. Like, they, like, they, they, They did a great job. My favorite thing about the puzzles is like the second half the game is non-linear. You can go whatever area you want to go to.

You can break that game wide open. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Like, there's a, there's one skill you get that if you just take them to every other area, you're like, well, I don't need to worry about ever having enough height. Totally. For the rest of the game.

Yeah. It's really crazy. And this goes back to what you were talking about signposting a bit where the game opens up and it gives you a really clear directive of essentially, without spoiling things. It's like, there's three places. you need to go. But the thing is, there's like five places you can go. Yeah. And me and Mike both

had an issue where we chose the wrong path to go down and I ended up at the end game stuff. Yes, I did that too. It's the equivalent of ending up in Hyrule Castle when you're on the way to one of the Divine Beasts. They mentioned this area so I assume I need to go here. Yeah, it is like, you need

all these things to be coincide. I'm like, oh, this wasn't there. I put to do the whole thing and I'm like, this shit is hard, and I racked up hell of money. That's the difference, though. The difference between this and, like, Breath of the Wild when they say, like, hey, go wherever you want, is, you know Hyrule Castle is, like, the final place, right?

Like, they point to Hyrule Castle and be, like, that's where you're going to end up. It's being surrounded by ghosts. Like, you know that place is bad. Where in this game, it's like, like, Hey, man, you can go to the water place, you can go into the ground, you can go to the snow or you can go to the desert.

And it's like, oh, if I go to the desert, that's the end? What? Yeah, like, go northeast or west. And I'm like, okay, cool. I'll go west. You end up in west. And if you go to the wrong west, you're like, oh, shoot. That said, if you did go there first, you get a skill that lets you, like, find cool stuff in the other areas.

Yeah. And that was something that was constantly wowing me, is that when you learn these skills, the map is, that's the Metroidvania, like, magic, right? It's, like, having an ability that makes you want to go back to old areas to, like, find things. And what I really liked about it is it was rare that it was one of those moments that I'm like, oh, there's a thing up there. I can't get there yet, but I will eventually all come back. it was always a, oh, now I know what that type of ground looks like. I know what I can do with that. And it felt like a fresh thing as opposed to a let's go back thing.

The big one for me was like avoiding the fast travel, getting all those skills and then going back, finding those locations and stuff. And then also reading the map correctly is a big one here, right? Like you're going to see the different ways to go, the different splinters off and you've got to read it correctly or else you're going to be stuck in the desert way too early and banging your head against them. I have such a love, hate, probably mostly hate, honestly, in relationship with the map. Because I feel like for a Metroidvania, where you have so many different paths you can go down. There are so many times where I was looking at the map and, or there's so many times where while exploring trying to figure out what's the next thing to do, I would keep arriving at the same blockade or the same thing that I couldn't pass. And it'd be one of those things where it's like, man, I wish, I wish there was some way where either I could populate the map myself and be like, okay, this is a blockade, I have an X icon that I can place here,

so I know not to come back down this direction. Or if it auto-populated and was like, because I think it was, it was, Jennifer Fallen Order that may have done this, where if you go to a place where you don't have the ability that works there, it'll just mark it red. And you'll know not to return there and not waste your time because I wasted so much time going to the wrong ways

or re-arriving at certain blockades because the map didn't really help you at all, because the map just shows that stuff as, like, paths that you haven't, like, further progressed through. I both say they do a good job, showing you what a breakable floor or where that is, but also I had no idea how to break floors. And I was like, I assume it's the skill at some point. It's not.

The floor breaking is a oversight, for sure, because it's like you do feel like you're going to get an ability at some point. And then it's like, I feel like the game does such a good job of teaching you how to deal with the different obstacles. And like, it does the Nintendo thing of like, here's a challenge, now we're going to up the challenge or whatever, like, iterate and all that. The three-act play. Exactly.

And it's like, it does that so well. The breakable floors is the one time that it just, it just totally drops the ball. Like you never really learn how to deal with them because there's no real consistency. It's like, okay, cool. Usually it's a projectile. Normally you have to like reflect the projectile somehow. But it's like, there's a ton of times. I'm like, there's no projectiles here. Yeah. It's like, do I break this differently? And that's, it's such a weird thing because that's exactly what I'm talking about. Market is a breakable floor. Cool. Why do you do that for breakable floors and not do that for doors that need levers? Yeah. Like what's, why did you make that

choice. Why didn't you guys go all the way with that? And really like it was probably for sure a playtesting thing. A playtesters just didn't realize that floors were breakable and that's why they had that's what they had to market. But it felt kind of inconsistent. I wish they kind of went all the went further with it and were like hey

yeah, here's the door that you can't open without a lever. Here's a place that you're going to have to have an ability to jump high enough to get to so you can stop trying. Like I wish they had a little bit more of that stuff because at a certain point like I love games. I love that really make you explore and really make you think. I love that. I hate games that make me waste my time.

Yeah, and oh man, did I waste my time in this game? Yeah. I don't know how you beat this game without anyone helping you. Is that the case? Yeah. Me and blessed. No, yeah. There was probably three times each that we were just banging our head against the wall. That's how good of a gamer he is. No, I get it, man. Like, that's like some real freaking shit.

I mean, a lot of it was like, I want, so Rebecca Valentine was also playing the same game at the same time I was. We played the games entirely differently. That she was going through and just like, oh, I'm just going to have, like, I'm sure I will get things that will show me how to do all this stuff later. Meanwhile, I would go through every nook and cranny and just like, if I couldn't figure out a way through a puzzle, I would find a way to break it. Or just find my way to get that thing regardless of what skills I have now unless I absolutely

had to give up. So I put like 20 hours in that game. She put like 10. Oh, you put 20 hours in? Yes. Holy crap. And that was by the end game timer, which is probably not accurate because I don't think it is, honestly.

but by the time I started getting to the puzzles that were confusing, it made it easier because it's like, well, I know how every mechanic of this game works. I can break it open if I need to. So I think there's like two or three puzzles that really stumped me. Like one was in that snowy area. I was like, oh, I just need to do this twice. I just thought it was insane. It's so funny to talk, like, it's been so funny talking to you guys as we've been playing

to figure out where we're stuck or like how to get past a certain thing. Because I was stuck in the area. that Imron's talking about here, but like I didn't get stuck on the specific, the specific, specific puzzle he's talking about. Where I, like, I got there and I was like, oh, I know exactly what I got to do. But it was, like, figuring out how to get that first piece of the puzzle, like, the first, like, mechanic. Yeah, the first thing in motion. Yeah, the first thing in motion. That's the thing that, like, sparks it.

And so, yeah, like, it's weird how I feel like different parts of this game can just stump, stump you. Yeah. And just stop you. My game clock was, like, 13 hours. What about? Mine was, like, 12. Yeah. Yeah.

Which sounds about right if you're just like just going through it. If you're just doing the main. Because I did some of the side quests and some of the stuff. Yeah. Because yeah, there was definitely like three different times where I hit up less with like a screenshot. I'm like, what the fuck do I do? Like there's a part I was in the Luma, the ocean, the water area. And I straight, I knew that I needed an ability.

It was clear that I wasn't equipped with like there's the thing that you're underwater and you got to move fast. And I'm like, I'm not moving fast enough. So like there needs to be something here. And I just couldn't. not fucking find, like that ability. I know it's here somewhere. And I was like, I guess it's not because I looked everywhere. And then I was like, well, maybe that ability somewhere else.

That doesn't make sense. So I ended up going all throughout the entire bat trying to find this water ability. And lo and behold, it's in the fucking water place. And plus eventually like helped me figure it out. But it was just like when he told me he's like, oh, that's what we need to do. I was like, oh, no shit. Like that's so fucking obvious. I will say there's one of those that really annoyed me was that to get through Luma

pools, you do not need the ability. to breathe underwater, it just helps a lot. For some reason, that ability is the monkey that teaches you how to... Yeah. You can breathe underwater. Yeah, there's an ability. You were telling me that there's a boss fight where part of it's underwater, and you were just like, you can just breathe underwater, and you're totally good.

Oh, my God. They should put that in the pools area somewhere. Wait, where did you get that? From the guy who teaches you techniques. Yeah. See, it's interesting, like Emron said, you can, like, break some of these, right? Like, I had issues in the desert where if I knew what I learned in the Luma pools, I could have applied that to the desert,

but there I was just stubborn as can be, and I still broke that puzzle, got through it without even needing it, and I was telling blessing, like, I did this hundreds of times trying to get this thing. And if I learned that, it would never have taken me

three hours to got that. I got to the part of the game where it's like, okay, you need all the things that you collected in order to get through this door. And I finally got there because I had done all the things. And I remember getting there and being like,

how in the world did Tim get here? Because, like, there are certain abilities that I couldn't imagine, I don't know how you got all the way here without having It was a struggle, man. Get it through that desert area. But I was like, you just said it was like you had fun doing it.

Like that's what I enjoy about this game is even when it's like really hard, I don't think this game's ever that difficult. Like it's like it's challenging and you're going through it. And you're like, there's some enemies where I'm like, all right, you have way too much HP. Like this is just annoying. Yes. But it's like you're even in the difficult part when I, I mean,

I didn't realize it was the end game thing until I got to the door and it was like, hey, bro, you got a lot of shit to do. But like, go. Going through it all, I was just like, this is challenging, but this is really fucking good. I was like, I could probably stop and go somewhere else and like just get more abilities. But I was like, nah, I want to do this. I want to break this. Until it's a hard stop where the game says, no, you can't do this.

I want to keep going to see this. Because that's what happened in the desert basically is like, I could get through it. But it's that one door that says, no, you need all your shit before you come in here. There was a, there was a boss fight that killed me. Maybe it was because, like, I didn't have the ability to breathe underwater. But that, that boss fight had me for like maybe an hour and a half. because there's like a certain phase where you kind of lose the ability to heal yourself because of circumstances. And I legit, like, it was one of those cases where the first try for that boss,

I got them down to almost like all the way down on their health. And I lost and I was like, I'll get this the second try. Cut to like maybe 20 tries later. I was just like, yo, I am about to just quit and just call it a day because this boss is really hard. The boss fights are interesting. There's a couple of them in the game. They're all epic as fun. They're all great.

They're animated beautifully. Yeah. The animations, the music, the look, the arenas, like, all of it is just like, whoa. They're really going all out for this. This is fucking awesome. Some of the actual gameplay of it, it's just kind of like, I'm just mashing. I am just praying and mashing right now and I get through this. But I feel like it is frustrating when it's like I'm on my 15th try with this goddamn spider.

But then on the other side, it's just like they do a good job with having phases that are checkpoints. Yeah, except for the boss where I. got stuck that didn't have those checkpoints. Yes. And so I can't get it. It always starts the very beginning. The one I got to the phase bosses, that's where I was like, oh, thank God. Because I thought I thought it was going to be the case the whole time.

I feel like it's one of those situations where unlike Breath of the Wilde where all the Divine Beast are equal difficulty. With this one, it really, you do get better and get more abilities that in order of bosses, I feel like they get easier, no matter what direction you go. No, that's the thing is I think the first boss might always be the hardest boss for you in this game. I don't know if that was the case for you guys. Definitely.

Yeah. That wasn't when I died on it. Yeah. I just enjoyed suffering. You know, coming from Blood-Born and Dark Souls, I love, you know, getting them down to 10% health dying, then taking 20 more tries, not even getting to halfway. And the beauty of the game, the mechanics of the movement and the attacking now with that added combat feature is so much fun. That's why I wanted to keep coming back to it every single time.

And I wouldn't get too frustrated because I'm like, all right, I'll beat this eventually. I'm going to break this game if I need to. And sure enough, once I did, it felt so. so good. And that's what I really kept coming back to with this one. Yeah, I was playing this and Neo at the same time. So it was like, this is easier. I'm used to playing a boss 50 times to beat him. How did you guys speak about combat in the game overall? Like I said a second ago, it's very mashy. Like you're kind of just like, boom, boom, boom, trying to get through it. Something I didn't like, and this is a very particular Tim thing, but someone out there's probably

going to relate. I don't like when vibrations in the controller don't speak a language. where I want to know, like, am I getting damaged or am I doing damage? When it's the same type of vibration for both, I'm just like, this doesn't feel right. And this game, really, there's a ton of times where I'm like, I don't know what's happening. There's an option in the menu that you can turn on that shows damage. So it'll, like, show the numbers of how much damage you're doing. Yeah, I saw that. And I turned that on and it helped me.

I should have done that because I had that same issue where I was like, am I getting hurt right now or am I hurting or am I hurting the enemy? And I wouldn't figure out until like I would see my help go down or I, and I'd be like, oh, shoot, I guess I should have stopped attacking. Yeah. But you don't really have that back and forth language. When you turn the numbers on, it essentially, it looks like, you know, just numbers, like divisions. Yeah, like M.O type of.

Yeah, exactly. Just popping out. But they're white if you're hurting them, they're right if they're hurting you. I think my problem with combat was that I didn't, sometimes you would stagger the enemy with the hit and sometimes you wouldn't. So, like, those guys that just rush at you, those little lizard guys, the first time you hit them, they'll back off the first time you hit them. But after that, they won't. So it was always Until I learned that

It's such a confusing thing It's like do I go up there Just like combo them to death Or do I like hit them once Back off then go back Like do I play it like Dark Souls basically And there are times the game Wanted to and there's times

They want you to go in Yeah I love the combat for me I mean like we talked about Coming off a Blind Forest Into this The combat was such a big upgrade And being able to choose Like I had the wist behind me

That would do damage as well I had the bow I should have that one It was really cool of like Here's six different aspects That you could apply to this and we haven't even talked about some of that cool stuff. But the combat itself,

I was Tim sometimes where I was stubborn and hard-headed and just smashing X. And then there was moments where I was like, all right, do two X's, maybe bash through him, get up on the high ground, and you can down downward smash. It's like wigs down. Oh, yeah, dude, the down attack is great. And I really thought the combat was a great elevation to add on to what they already had on the blueprint of game number one.

So I loved the combat. And there was moments, of course, where there's too many things in the challenge room. And I'm like, get away from me, give me some space to breathe. But then, like you said, I'd figure out one enemy of, like, I found out the crab people somehow couldn't go in water. So I'd rush that guy, push him off the bridge. He'd die instantly. I'd move to the next guy, and I loved it.

But the wasps, they killed me off the guy. I think the wasps. Oh, I hate the wasps. I hated the wasps. Before we move on real quick, I do on top of the abilities and keep going on about the combat. I want to tell you about our sponsors. This episode of Kind of Funny Games cast is brought to you by Hems. 66% of men start to lose their hair by age 35,

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What are you going to say, boss? What was I going to say? The wasps. Oh, I hated the wafts. I love how many options that you have available. Like, this is speaking on what I don't want, still by mics is also saying. Like, the fact that you have, like, the little wheel you can pull up to, like, to assign your abilities.

And it feels like you can dynamically, dynamically kind of change the way you play and approach different situations. I think that's awesome. And a lot of the abilities, maybe not every ability, but I feel like maybe even most of the abilities can affect how you fight. Like, at a certain point you get a dodge roll, and I was like, thank God. And, you know, that made fights feel more fluid. and it felt like it gave me an extra option to,

I guess it's literally a Dodge Rule, but the Dodge Rule can be used in fights like Dodge, but then also Introversal in general, which I feel like it's how you're going to use it for the most. It feels so good introversal. It feels great introversal. But yeah, like there's that. There's like the,

I guess I'm not going to break down a reliability because you want to learn that for yourself. But I will say buy everything you can for the monkey. Yep. As soon as you possibly can because like... Get the triple jump right away. Oh, yeah. I love that.

Game changer. I saved up for that thing. I was like, I'm not buying a single thing until I get that damn triple jump. And it helps you break the game. There were so many moments where I'm like, I'm fucking getting up there. I know the game doesn't want me to yet. I'm doing it.

Like logically I should not be able to do this, but the like... The game lets you. Yeah, the game really... I feel like it's designed that way where it's like this is going to be a speedrunner's dream. And like, I think that they did that on purpose. Like they definitely like give you early on areas where you're like, I could get up there. It reminds me of spending hours in front of a Peach's Castle trying to get on top of it. You're not supposed to.

but you can, you know? And I feel like they gamified that in a way that like, that really works. Yeah. And I'm surprised about how often, like, that works. I mean, me seeing like a sideways platform that I should be or that I'm like, I could probably climb up to that if I get up to it. And if I, like, stand over here and then jump and then do my, my, my, my dodge roll and then do the triple jump, I might be able to get up there.

And, like, I feel like 80% of the time I'm usually able to. And there's a point pretty early on where you get enough life that you can kind of take hits. Yeah. You'll bounce back, but that resets your jump. And so it's just like, okay, cool, there's spikes up there. I'm going to bounce into it. I'm just like kind of fucking ping pong. At a certain point, I felt like it was maybe too much of that

because at a certain point, I was like, I'm not even going to try anymore. I'm just going to see if I can dodge into the spikes and then go from the spikes into this next thing because I guess that's like, that's going to be my path forward now because I don't want to think too hard about what the solution to the thing is. There was a switch and some spikes

that could not hit the switch. So I just like jumped into the spikes and just shot it from there. Yeah, yeah. I kept, if this is the same switch I'm thinking about, I kept jumping into those spikes over and over and over again because I was supposed to get into the spikes when you were supposed to actually arrow the spike.

Yeah. Yeah. I love how quickly you got a lot of these traits and the passive abilities. Like to get sticky hands on the stick walls right off the bat. That was a big complaint I had. And the first one was I was so bad at climbing where I just keep pressing A and to keep going up a little bit to have sticky hands and to get on that. And that's in like the first 15, 20 minutes of the game.

It's like that changes so much, especially when you're coming hot off at number one into that. And to have the different traits like you said of like, Take less damage, take more damage, what am I going to do here? How am I going to play this? They really opened it up not only with the combat, but those traits to add on to traversal or how big your character could be. Yeah, and they add up fast.

It's like they give you the right traits early on, and then you can kind of like just keep going, and I feel like you get them at a really nice clip. My thing is, starting this game, you feel so useless. Like, I can just jump, I can kind of move. And it's just like, granted, it took 15 minutes until it started getting more interesting. But that 15 minutes, I was like, fuck, I don't, I want to be powered up. Yeah, I actually dislike the game, like, when I was first doing the battling of like,

this guy's just destroying me. Yeah, I was like, I don't like this. And then an hour in, I'm like, all right, here we go. And I would say maybe, maybe like 40% through the game, you have, like, all of your abilities that you need. And it's just like, let's fucking go. And I kind of wish that there was more to the game that, like, used all of your abilities. You know what I mean? Like the B sides of Celeste, like that type of thing.

You feel like that'd be too much, though. Definitely. Because I feel like at a certain point, I lost track of what I could do. But I mean as a, like, an extra. Yeah, yeah. Like, the B-Sides of Seles is a good- Yeah, I know it's not part of the core game, but like, something that's going to push you. Just pure fucking challenge.

Like, let's not worry about the map or whatever. It's just like, get through this obstacle course, you know? That game uses every single button. And there's like, points was like, did I hit the right button? Yeah. Like, especially the races. At points where, I was like, man, I wish I could assign like two more things. Like, I wish it's like they brought back the Xbox black and white.

buttons. Because I don't have enough buttons on my controller to do all the things I want to for this one boss fight. I love it as you say

like there's so much going on. It's like I'm clicking different bumpers. I don't know what they're doing anymore. I'm just in the heat of it. I kept

either like pressing like the wrong bumper or trigger because there's so many things assigned to all the buttons and you need them all. Like you need literally like your whole arsenal of buttons. Which is cool man.

A big helpful one for me was the series X or the new elite controller of having the paddles and not taking my thumb off of this and knowing like I can do all of this underneath and not have to panic because I was requesting so many buttons.

I was like, throw up the hook, please God, need to be diving down. I'm like, oh, you're killing me. I feel like you're in control of this game a lot more than the first one. Like I had a big issue with the first one where it was hard in a bad way because you're doing a lot of the diagonal jumps and stuff like through the lanterns or whatever and like you're doing Messenger a lot. And it just hit a point where I'm like, this isn't fun because I know what I need to do.

Doing it is difficult. And that's because of the buttons. It's not because it's, you know, presented in a challenging way. This game, it's a breeze. And in a way where it's like you feel like you're in control. You know what you got to do. And you're zip zapping around. And it's super awesome, both in traversal but also in combat.

I love how there's so many varied abilities that you can button map. You get to choose what's on X, what's on Y, what's on A or B. And like, that's such a simple thing. But I love it. Like, there was times when based on the ability, I'm like, all right, I want my, like, like Fireball to be B because that just feels right. But then later when I get another ability for Gemma, I definitely want that to be my top one, right?

And it's just like, I can switch them over time as the game, how I'm playing the game changes. And then add that on top of the left trigger, you hold it. And then there's like a... The spin wheel. The wheel of all the different abilities that you can just switch between at any time. So it's like you have access to all of the abilities. And like that's, I think, really, really wise of them.

and incentivized me to switch things up and like every area before I would like start exploring walk around the first couple rooms and see like what enemies are coming at me and then be like how should I be facing off against these guys? And I kind of have loadouts for each of the different areas and like usually Metroidvania's don't incentivize me to do that. Yeah.

How do you guys feel like this game ranks along other Metroidvania games? I was thinking about that. I personally very much love Hollow Night is one of my favorite games of all times. at this point. I think this ranks definitely below Holnight for me, but I would put it honestly higher than you would think in Metrovenia, like, rankings. Yeah. I'm trying

to think of, like, one of the great Metroidianas the last probably couple generations, like, the newer Metroidians. Like, since Super Metroid or since Cassavania? Like, yeah, like the generations after that. So, like, 360. Like, yeah, Messenger. Guacamaleigh. Like, Axiomers. Like, Axiomers. Like,

because I don't really flock to Metrovenias that often, at least like the 2D Metrovanias, because I don't love the feeling of getting lost that much. And I feel like Metroveniles are all about, like, kind of getting lost in the world and exploring and sometimes coming back to things and getting abilities and doing all that stuff.

And I'd say this for sure, like, one of the better Metroidvanias. But I don't know, like, and I haven't played HoloNipe. I don't know where I would put this on, like, the ranking. Or there's not really even like a shared ranking at this point. Yeah, definitely not. How we think of the great Metroidvania is the life? I would put it above, like, the DS Castlevanias. Okay, yeah.

I also feel that, like, it is a Metroidvania, but it's also kind of its own thing in a way where, like, it has such a parkour, it has an energy to it that, like, at least Metroid and Castlevania don't have. Like, I haven't played Hollow Night, so I don't know if it is, it looks a bit more, but faster pace. It's a bit soulsy, but yeah, I can get, like, once you, like this game, once you start getting a lot more abilities,

then it becomes more faster pace. Yeah, and it's like, it's, I feel like this game, so Kriuki writes in to Patreon.com slash kind of funny. He says, What's up Gamescast? I'm stoked about Ori and the Will of the Wisp's visuals, gameplay, and music were so great in the first one. What does the sequel do to stand out compared to the original in games like Celeste or Hollow Night? To me, it really is the map being full of characters that you're talking to and giving you quests and giving you things.

It makes it feel more like a less like a Metroidvania and more like its own thing. Right, because Metroid set that tone of this is an isolation thing. Like you're alone in this planet except for all the enemies. And like, that's it. this is a world with a village and people who are asking you for help and they need things for you. I don't know if I haven't played the first one so I can't really compare it to Oring the Blind Forest, but in terms of how it separates itself from others within its genre, I think it's just like a really good one.

I kind of said this at the beginning, but I don't know if this game really did anything for me that was, it felt very new and very fresh. It does have that moment halfway through where it is like, okay, now go whatever direction you want. And that, I think, is special. But it wasn't a thing where I was like, oh, shoot, like they did it. Like, oh, man, they, they redefined the genre or anything like that.

Like, I think it just, I think the ways in which it steps up and the ways in which it feels distinct is by just how quality it is. Like, the mechanics are great. The world design is great. The visuals are beautiful, all that stuff. that said like I like this isn't a game where I'm like you need to rush out and play it right now it's a game where I'm like you should like if you have game pass

if you have game pass 100% play this but also like if you if Metroidvanias are your thing then 100% yeah play play Oriane in the Will of the West I feel like even if they aren't your thing like this is definitely a good entry point to pop in oh yeah if you want entry point even if you don't have game pass it's $30 man honestly I think it's also a good game to play with their kids It's like there's parts of it that, well, they will cry. Oh, dude.

This game goes there, man. I like that. We'll say that for later. But like that's the thing is like on top of all these elements you're talking about. It has like an engaging story. It's all it needs to be. You know what I mean? It's like it doesn't give you too much.

But like there are moments I'm just like, oh, motherfuckers went there. And they, oh, they're, oh, man, they're really going there. Damn. Yeah. So that's pretty cool. Yeah, I think incredible boss battles, the combat, the passive traits that we've talked about really elevate from number. one into number two. And I think this is a great one. Like you said, lived in world. I feel like this is my family now. Like it's so moving right off the bat. And to see that lived in world,

like you said, the side quest that you're going to encounter of like, am I really going to help this guy? Well, all of a sudden I walked right back into him. I guess I'm going to help him again because I'm having fun, you know. I think it is a big elevation from number one, right? It's here's the groundwork. Here's what we have. And here's the small touchstones that we're elevating it on. And it's not huge. It's not massive. It's not a distant, um, change in color or anything, but those small things they've added from the boss battles of combats,

I really love that. I think it's a huge elevation for me. One thing that I didn't... Let me think about how to say this. I did love, but I wish I loved more, was the chase scenes. Yes.

They were a lot harder in the first game. There was only maybe one or two of them that I had, like the one that we watched a video if I had a lot of issues with that one. That was very challenging. I like that one felt like, by the time you beat it,

you're like, I killed it. You felt like a boss. Yeah, but that's my thing is I wanted that feeling more. Like I wanted like, because the music of this game is so freaking good. And like obviously the visuals and all that stuff, they work together so well that there's these epic chase scenes where like there's beautifully animated giant creatures coming after you. Sometimes it's just like, yo, you're my homie. What's you doing? Like there's like a lot of emotions that it's pulling out of you.

But I just, I feel like I was always at like an eight of heartbeat. And I wanted my heart to be busted out of my. So, like, that's actually one of the things I remember about already won there, like, like, the lot was that, like, when a chase scene happened as you were escaping a dungeon, I remember, like, trying over and over, like, I want to get all this stuff from this chase scene and, like, I want to do this perfectly, like, an arcade-style thing. Yeah. And this one was, like, this is a bit more uncharted. Yeah. Yeah. Of, like, it's more designed for you to, like, immediately react to things.

But you're not aiming to it perfectly. You're aiming to have a cinematic moment. Yeah. And in that sense, I think it mostly succeeded. But, like you said, that last one was the only one that I really felt in danger. Yeah. And I get the cinematic moment's a good point where it's like I just wanted, I want it. Okay.

It's Furious 7, right? They're in the fucking car. They go from one skyscraper to the other. I wanted them to go to that second skyscraper. You know what you mean? And I just feel like they never did. It's like every chase scene is just kind of like. It wasn't like, it didn't feel tame, but it felt like you wanted that extra.

You kind of want the uncharted clock, uncharted four clock tower falling down. And like you're playing the game and you're jumping from thing to thing. You're like, wow, I can't believe I did that. Yeah. You want that feeling of, wow, I can't believe, like, I did that. And then this new thing happened and then up the ante. It felt like it went from zero to eight. It never went to zero from zero to ten.

Yeah. That makes sense. Another big one before we move on was the checkpoints as well that we touched on a little bit. But like, that's a huge change from number one and number two, where it was on you to make your own checkpoint. Essentially, there's like a lot of like, hey, here's the checkpoint for you. Don't worry about it because you essentially can't save by yourself like a number one was. They're good checkpoints. They just revert you back to where you were, which is sometimes a little annoying because I'm like, did I get that thing there?

No, dude, that's a huge, huge problem that I hope that somehow they fix because it's very unclear what saves and what doesn't. There's save points. You save there, you're good. But there's also an auto save, but it's unclear when that happens and what that gives you. Because I would often have to look at my money number. Yes, you have to be mindful of that. And I'd be like, okay, wait, do I keep the ones that I just got or not? And I feel like it was very inconsistent.

Sometimes you did save things, even though you reverted back to an older auto save. Like, I kept my orb, but I didn't keep the, like, spirit wisp, whatever. So it was very, especially Luma Pools was so weird about that because you did not in any point or stand on ground. And standing on ground is what causes the auto save. So you would lose like three to four minutes if you died. Yeah, yeah. That one beat me up a lot in the pools, is right.

But I like that. And yeah, I had some moments, like you said, Tim, was like, do I have to do that again? Okay, clearly I have to do it again. I don't see the key fragment. Then one moment's like, oh, I did it, but now I'm back at the same spot and I have it now. But I love the save points. I love the checkpoint.

Such a huge elevation, especially for me of like the energy is what got you that save point in number one, right? So it's like you'd save, you'd run out of energy, but you'd complete that small mission. You're like, yes, but I couldn't save and now I'm back to it. That sucks, you know? This release was more forgiving with the checkpoint. It's a huge elevation. Forgiving as well with just the amount of energy and health you have. Oh, yeah.

I love how powered I was by the end of this game without really going to. too much off the beaten path where I was just like, oh my God, like, I can just fuck people up. Yeah, I got to the point where it was like, you can't upgrade anymore. And I was like, wait, what? I found, I'm finding more fragments and they're like, no, you're done. And I was like, all right, I guess. I had that shard that took off like a third of your health or third of damage for you. It was like, okay, this is, I've never taken this off because there's no point.

Yeah. This helps are you even platform too. Because like, when I took it off for a brief bit because I wanted something else in, I died to like every spike platform section. And after that, I was like, okay, yeah, this is, this is necessary for me. Yeah. The final boss, I want to talk about him for a second, without spoilers, just as a character, I really enjoyed. I feel like they, not the boss fight, now whatever, just him, the way that he comes throughout the game, I was just like, I, I'm scared of you.

And like you and fuck you. They did a great job fleshing out their story, right? Like, midway through the story, like, when you start kind of seeing them more and more, every time they showed up, I was like, oh, shoot, like, you know, this is about to be a situation. And then, like, there's a moment that really, like, kind of amps things up. And I'm like, oh, shoot, all right, this is a character to really be scared of. Yeah. And so by the time, like, the final moments of the game popped up, I feel like the whole story of the game,

I mean, I'm going to talk about the boss specifically, but the whole story of the game, I feel like, has a satisfying resolution by the time it finishes. and like great moments. I wish they kind of had more moments, but with what they had there, with the ways in which they kind of used the sparse important cutscenes in the game,

I think that stuff punctuated well. That stuff really felt resonant with the whole experience. I want to move into some little spoiler conversation real quick, so if you guys care about that, again, not much you can spoil here, but there's definitely some moments

that we're talking about. You might want to leave come back later. So yeah, that's your chance. Adios. To you spoiler scared people. And now welcome to you people that aren't scared. Keanu Reeves, man.

That shit was crazy, man. No, dude. When your homie dies, I was like, oh, no, you motherfuckers did that. I was kind of expecting it because they had, like, they started already won with that tragedy of, like, mother dying. Yeah.

And, like, I knew they were wanting to hit that same beat somewhere. I just didn't expect it to be that. that early and for a character that's on the box. You know what I mean? And a character that's like a baby. Yeah. For real. And it's like it's also like I feel we just didn't get that much gameplay with her.

Where it's like when you feel that tandem gameplay like this is awesome. Like we're gonna do this all game. Yeah. Yeah. I was kind of hoping that would be like oh is just gonna like a switch back and forth throughout the game kind of situation because I can dig that. See my thing is I think they did a good job with like teasing us with it but then giving us the feathers. So we had the abilities.

Yeah. Yes. But we didn't need to deal with like the like that whole dumb baby. But like dying, I was like, oh, what, holy crap, they're fucking doing it. And, like, I had a feeling that she was going to come back. Yeah. And the fact that they came, like, she came back in the end, right? I didn't just read that.

Yeah. Yeah. But then, like, do you pretty much give your life for the owl? I mean, I don't think you give it for the owl specifically. It's just, like, things are decaying. You give it for the force. It's a soul for a soul. Totally.

But, dude, like, my thing is. I can get behind. Like, usually I hate that. Usually I hate when characters come back. Absolutely. And the, and I feel like that character didn't necessarily. certainly need to come back in this game. Like, I would have been fine.

Actually, I probably would have preferred if it didn't come back. Just because it's like, I feel like it would have meant more. But Ori, like, the final moments, like, when you're facing that boss, which like, first off, that final boss fight was fucking insane. And the last phase was total bullshit. Where it's like, oh, we just had to fly in the air? It wasn't fun. And it was so unclear.

Bullshit. I guarantee not a single person beats that on their first try. I did not. There's no way. It's because it's just like, so essentially you're fighting this, the short. The giant, like... It's a giant owl? The grove thing.

Owl was the first game. This was... No idea, it's like an owl, but it's not now. It's a weird bird thing. Is it just... Was that just a species, or was it, like, crippled? Or, like, this figure... There was a cutscene that implied it was crippled.

Okay. Is that what you took that? I don't know. I can tell that was a species, or it was just like... Who knows? I don't know. I was like, this is a scary bird thing. It's a scary fucking birthday.

I should be afraid of this thing at all times. Pretty fun. The fight's great. I think it did a good job of having faces with checkpoints that I was like, all right, that's acceptable and like, I'm cool with this. But then the final phase, the ground falls out from underneath you, and you're just flying in the air, and the entire time there's just a shit ton of projectiles, and you need to be like, bash, I'm bashing, yeah.

All of them. When you say flying, right, you're not literally fly. Well, you are using the bash to stay elevated in the air. So it's like to do that over and over and over. So it's just like, you just like, play. I'm like, this isn't far. And then you still have to apply damage to the boss. It's ridiculous.

It's weird, and it's very uncons. clear what's going on. That said, the way the, the way the resolution goes, where after you beat the boss and then, like, it's the name of Shriek? Yeah. Where Shriek goes and lays in the arms of, like, is dead parents? Dead parents, yeah.

I would guess so, yeah. That's dark. It's really dark. There's those two other out things. Yeah, he like curls up there. And he dies. And it's just like, holy shit. But even before the boss fight, when there's the, um, you have the, the will of the or whatever the fuck it was.

The gold ball. Yeah. Right. The forest comes back alive and there's the tree that looks like a deer. And it's like talking to Ori, it's just like, yo, I can't do this anymore. I need you to be the new freaking like God, essentially. Life forest. And Ori's about to take this thing.

And they're like, you're giving up your life. Like you will no longer be Ori. You are going to be God. And it's like, this is fucking cool as hell. And then they're about to give it. And then Shriek comes in and grabs it. And it's just like, oh. Comes and grabs it.

And then like. crushes it a little bit. It's crazy, man. Then you have the boss fight. I actually didn't really understand what, like, why does Shriek want to stop you? It's mean. Yeah, that's kind of, I had that thought too. Their whole story just seems to be like the owl from Ori 1.

Then I didn't finish that game, but like, it just seems to be, except the Al got a redemption and Shreak did not. And that's, that confused me because I felt like Shriek was built up as a character that kind of needed a redemption, given that, like, Shreeks liked this because y'all... Bullied him, man. Yeah, bullied him and made him feel like an outcast and, like, you know, kind of created Shriek. And so for a Shriek's story to end, with him dying in the arms of his dead parents, I'm like, bro, that's dark.

That's fucking. That's messed up. It's dark. But then, but then Ori kind of, like, takes the thing and becomes this god or whatever, and, like, becomes a seed and a new tree is born or whatever.

And so then the whole family comes, the owl comes back and the little owl. And, like, they're all just, like, hanging out by, by Ori's tree. And, like, or he's, like, the deep booming voice that's been talking. I'm like, this is hype as fuck, man.

I thought it was Collock for, long time. By the way, Quolok, it's funny to me, they did not revive him with the forest power at the end. Yeah. Two, why did he even come to Luma Pools? He didn't help at all. He didn't do shit. No, no, that was weird. But, dude,

I really enjoyed the final moments of this game, like, the way that the story all came together, it's like, it just hit, man. Like, they just did it really well. And I loved the final shot where it's like the tree coming up and then the little ory-colored feathers popping off. It's like, we get in the sequel, baby.

let's go. I love that shit. I loved a lot of the moments. I think of the water sawmill and that chasing like you talked about and seeing that first moment of like that awesome encounter with that enemy and then having the chasing that thing following you

and now it's flying off in the distance as you get out and the water finally goes through. That was a cool moment for me. I really enjoyed that one. That's early in the game as well. So the water mill was weird because it's mechanically and like aesthetically exactly the same as the tree from Ori 1.

like the first dungeon. That's true. And like even when you thought like there's almost every big scene in this game begins with or he wakes up on a little thing by himself. But like this was exactly the same scene. So like I had heard Thomas Maylor say before

like this game is sort of bring it into axe. So there's a part of me going like I wonder if there's like a fucked up thought twist going on here where like maybe we're just supposed to think it's similar and it turned out just be similar. That's it. But I'm so confusing of why that was exactly the same in so many ways.

Interesting. Yeah. I didn't think about that, but that's right. Another moment I loved from the end is that they had a Metal Gear Solid 4 microwave scene of Ori. Just slowly going, getting flashbacks of all those friends and stuff. I'm like, damn, y'all didn't need to do this. They really pushed the emotional, like, they really try to make that thing. I liked it.

Which is like it works. When they showed the Ori tree at the end, like after the credit sequence, or after the sequence with like everyone hanging out around the tree, like you could see and the bark was the faces of like his mom like it's cool man just little things like that's the thing that we keep talking about Pixar and stuff it's like what a compliment you know and I feel like

they did nail it and yes they were trying and yes it was obvious they were trying to but they didn't they did not succeed like they they nailed a lot of them a lot of the emotional moments in the game and I do wish I do kind of wanted there to be or I did kind of wanted there to be more story because I don't know

I and maybe this is me not playing the first game and so maybe I missed out on like a lot of this setup and all this stuff, but I was like, man, I could use, like, a lot more, uh, like, character and heart. And I know, like, they're also speaking a different language, which then kind of, you know, which I wish I let me skip dialogue a little bit because like, okay, I've read this, but now you have to say the entire, and now you have to finish saying the thing. Were they speaking in a real language or is that like a made up or e, or a language?

The spiders talk in spider sounds. Yes. And I didn't like that at all. Um, um, also the background to that level? Fuck no. Dude. seriously man like little maz

like I said earlier it was the scary like bear you go down underground all right you're in the dirt yeah

there's darkness that surrounds you and if the darkness consumes you you die instant death I don't like that so it's just like

you need to constantly like keep things lit it's not as annoying as it sounds but you're in this like it's like honey I shrunk the kids essentially

like you're down in the dam in the ground in the dirt there's spider webs everywhere there's dead like skeletons everywhere. But then there's a shit ton of like mosquitoes.

You know when you see a mosquito in a spider web and it's like twitching and shit? That's the entire background of this. Yeah, that's like a twitchy-ass dead thing. I hate that. It's horrible, man. It's like a, what was the game before Inside? Limbo. Limbo.

Yeah. I don't like that. It's like the end degree, man. I forgot to ask guys before the spoiler section about the building stuff. So like, what was the point? You're just like building houses, right? Yeah. It gets you, like, some upgrades in the town. That's it. Is that it? That's trying to watch it.

And also, I think you need it for the delivery quest. Like, you need to do some of those for that. I gotcha. For some reason, I thought that was going to be like a more important. Well, I mean, delivery-wise, it's important because their home was ruined and you're giving them new homes. There's one where, like, it has no resolution. I loved it. Like, there's one where a Mogee was like, hey, can you go find my family in, like, this area? So I do, and they're petrified.

And I go back and tell him, he's like, oh, I got to go back there. That's it. That's the last part of that story. Like, what the fuck happened? Like, did he go back there? Is he dead too? Who knows, man? I loved, yeah, I loved all the side quests.

And then in the Luma Pool, like you said, all of a sudden I walk up on a Moki that's fishing and he's like, well, calm down. I'm like splashing in the water for fun. That's great, it's good. The end of that delivery quest is worth doing, though, if you want to, like 100% that game. Because it literally just shows every stick it on the map.

Oh. That's dope. It's real dope. It feels on PlayStation and I'd do it because I could get the platinum. I look at all. the achievement and like most of them are doable but like the two I think I'll have problems with are play the game on hard and beat the game in under four hours oh wait beat the game in under four hours yes yes I need to check that if if so then yes play more how is that even possible

Metroid videos man people speak yeah you can I guess when you already know what the solution everything is that then speeds up dynamically but still yeah four hours any closing thoughts on ory and the will of the whips I really fucking enjoyed this game I don't know that I'm going to be like singing it's pretty like again the Holland example that I'm going to go back and say like this is one of my top 10 games ever I'm going to prosely

it to everyone I see but it's a real it's a solid 8.5 out of whatever out of 10 game that I think is very worth anyone who's if you about Metrovenias or really wants a pretty game will enjoy this game it's just not quite as

if already one didn't exist this game would be fucking ballers yeah I'm with it I it's my favorite game of the year so far now that that's saying much um but I yeah exactly um I don't think this is going to end up being in my top five at the end of the year but I think it will top 10 and that's a pretty high compliment for the year that we have ahead of us hopefully things don't get delayed even more yeah I think this game is great look at blessings I don't I don't know if I don't know if it'll be my top 10 if I'm being honest but I think the game is

awesome if you have Xbox game pass I think it's definitely worth playing and like for 30 bucks like The game is worth that. Like, the game is a, I think, you said 30? Okay. Yeah, the game is a quality game. Like, it is a full-fledged, like, you know, 13-hour long. Like, like, they put in work in this game. The game is, the game is probably worth $60.

This game deserves support, man. Like, I feel like it really tried to do something different. They did a great job. And, like, I loved a lot of the elements in this game. I think the thing that I kind of came out of this game thinking is that maybe I don't love Metroidvania's as much. and maybe I just don't get excited over like 2D Metroidvania specifically

maybe I'm kind of I'm getting tired of them at this point but even so like even still I still really enjoyed my experience with this game and I recommend this game to anybody who who thinks this game looks cool or thinks it's up their alley or likes Metroidvania or like 2D game like this is a great fantastic game yeah on this week's game pass or play

your boy Snowbike Mike says this is a must play over on the Xbox side no doubt about it especially coming from someone who like Blessing just said right? I'm not into Metroidvania's at all. I didn't really like big platforming games and over the past couple of years I've played some different ones. This is my favorite one by far so far.

I mean, it's beautiful, it's fun. It's got a cool story that really hit me in the heart and I think all of the gameplay mechanics that they add in, there's no excuse for you not to smash that install button on your Xbox Game Pass and go out there and play it for sure. God damn, I love you. I love you so. Let's go.

Ladies and gentlemen, this has been the kind of winning games cast. Stay tuned for the post show. if you are at patreon.com slash kind of funny games supporter. Mike, thank you very much for joining us today. Where can people find you? Well, first off, thank you, Gamescast Squad, to bring me down here. But, of course, you can find me at Snowbike Mike on all your favorite social medias. And, of course, Twitch.tv slash Snowbike Mike, five nights a week. I'm bringing you that high-energy game play, play, play, play, play.

See you there. Bobby. You know it is right. Oh, yeah. Until next week. I love you.