Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Sifu Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: February 6, 2022

Go to http://chime.com/kfgames to get started! Visit http://expressvpn.com/kindafunny to get 3 months free! Tam joins us to review Sifu. Epic Creator Code: KindaFunny Follow The Gamescast Team On Twitter: Tim Gettys: https://twitter.com/TimGettys Andy Cortez: https://twitter.com/TheAndyCortez Blessing Adeoye: https://twitter.com/BlessingJr Tamoor Hussain: https://twitter.com/TamoorH Barrett Courtney: https://twitter.com/SadBoyBarrett Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up and welcome back to the kind of funny games cast. Of course, I'm Tim Geddes and I'm joined by one of the new faces of video games. Blessing at Aeoia Jr. What's up, Tim? The nitro rifle, Andy Cortez. Great afternoon to talk about Sifu. And if we're playing a hard-ass game, of course we need Tumor Hussein. Welcome, everyone.

From the best website on the internet. The number one, two, three, four, and five. Yeah. Wait a game website. Has it reached six? Yeah. Has it gotten to six? We can see

We're not ready to claim six, but yeah We'll see what happens in Q3 Yeah, yeah It's like Jet Lee's the one You've got to wait until one of the other ones Are more powerful before you subsume them So that you gain that power I saw that in theaters

Good movie Wow Now the bodies hit the floor Exactly Never forget What was the bad name? Drowning pool Yeah

Drowning pool There you go There you go We're not talking about that today Today we're talking about video games because this is the Kind of Funny Games cast where each and every week we get together to talk about video games,

all the things we love about them. You can get it on YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games or Roosterteeth.com. You can get it as a podcast, if that's more your thing, go to your favorite podcast service. Search for Kind of Funny Gamescast.

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use our creator code. Kind of funny and that will help us without any extra cost to you, which is money that comes to us. We get to use that money to do more cool, dope stuff like that amazing custom intro that Carter Herald and guess who? Barrett Courtney helped make killing the game, everybody.

You'll love to see it. Today we're brought to you by ExpressVPN and Shine, but we're going to talk about that later because I can't wait to talk about this video game with this group of gentlemen. It's been so hard. It's been a while since I've been playing a game and I was under embargo that I've just been itching to talk about it,

where I'm just like, it's bullshit that we can't tell the masses how much I am loving this video game. But that's where I'm at with it. Before we give our thoughts on the game, I want to go around and ask everybody how far they are in their seafood process. Blessing. I beat seafood. I actually beat it a while ago.

We've had our codes for what, like a week and a half, two weeks just about. And I got my code in. I beat it two days later. And since beating it, I've been going back playing it again so that I can get the platinum. Hell yeah. Yeah. Andy Cortez, where are you at? I beat seafood as well.

I don't know what I'm doing to 100%. I'm playing on on PC on the Epic store so I don't really know how exactly how the achievements work but the achievements pop and they're loud when they pop and the funny thing blessing when we recorded the gameplay video that audio wasn't being recorded so we look like a couple of crazies going what the hell is that noise oh that's so funny that was it actually being recorded by whatever the software whatever is the icon get recorded because I saw the pop-up and the pop-icon did not record either no oh that's so funny is so funny actually speaking of that we got to a whole bunch of cool things out there right now if you're watching this that means that we also have a one hour live or not live gameplay video that Andy and bless made you can check that out on the channel as well and if you want something shorter to share with your friends we also have the short one minute version of this review that you're seeing right now that blessing did that you can share on tic talk and instagram and twitter and all the social medias and all that stuff so definitely go

support all that stuff like buttons like comment subscribe all that stuff you know i'm talking about Tam, where are you at in C-4? I'm just over halfway through, I think. I spent a lot of time in that first level. I do this thing where I get, and when I get an action game, I'll spend, like, far too much time just poking at the mechanics in one area

just to get, like, really under the hood and figure out what's what, and that usually means that I spend a lot, a lot of time, more than anyone should in, like, the first area, the tutorial where people, game developers expect you just to speed, through, I'm in there for like seven hours and they're like, what the hell is going on with this guy? So I played a bunch of it, but I played a bunch of it for understanding more than progress.

But I expect to finish it very soon, hopefully. Actually, going back around, how long have you put into this game? Bless. I put in, so for my original play-through, I think I beat it in about eight hours, which for the game that Sifu is, it's kind of misleading for how long the game is. because I'd say to play from front to back of Sifu, he was probably like a couple hours long if you're just going through the levels,

but because of the nature of the Sifu, you're going to die a lot and you're going to replay levels a lot because it is you trying to get your best run. And so in doing that, yeah, I put in about eight-ish hours. And since then, I probably put in maybe, I want to say three or four more hours

going back and replaying levels. Andy? Yeah, I beat the game around, I'd say, 11 hours. and a lot of that is just like what Blessy was mentioning, trying to go back and clear levels at a better age, and you all will hear more about that mechanic soon. And I am currently at around 16 hours doing more of that stuff, just going back and trying to, you know,

I died of one stupid enemy. I'm like, God, damn it, I've got to go back and do it again because I really want to get through this level at age. 22 instead of 23, that sort of thing. Yeah, Tam. I think I'm at about five or six hours. And I'm like halfway through the game, as I mentioned earlier. But yeah, that has been a lot of in the lab work.

Yeah, getting them the moves down. Got to appreciate that. The Tam process. Yeah, I am like almost 20 hours into this game. And I regret to inform everyone that not only have I not beat it, I am also like Tam a little over halfway through. I would actually at this point with where I'm at, I think that I'm closer to like a 65% through.

because of the way this game works, there's things that you unlock. And because I'm so bad at it, I have now unlocked pretty much everything. I think I only have like three more things that I haven't permanently unlocked, which is absolutely insane. And just a testament to me not being great at this game,

but it being good enough that I want to keep my, getting my teeth kicked in to try to keep getting better. And I have been having an absolute blast with it. Just starting off with our thoughts on it, I'll go, I absolutely love this game. It is definitely one of the most challenging games. It is out of my comfort zone for sure in terms of video games. And you know, you guys, I'm joined on a panel right now with people that love Sekiro,

love Bloodborn. I am not that guy. And we've talked about everybody that knows kind of funny knows. I did be cupped, but that's a very different type of game, right? 2D platformers, 2D shoot them ups. Those are way more kind of in my lineage of interest. Whereas this, the kind of like old school 2D brawler games, I was always into, I would never say I was particularly good at them.

Fighting games, I'm not particularly good at. Rogue likes, I'm not necessarily the best at or like really even that like much of an expert in at all. This kind of combines all those things and kicks my ass over and over and over, but kind of teaches me and like I know that I'm doing it wrong. And I think it does a good job for the most part of incentivizing me to, okay, I'm just going to do it one more time, but this time I'm going to do this different. And when you do it different, it does open up the gameplay so much more. And I have had more aha moments in this game than I think I've ever had playing a video game.

And maybe that's just because I haven't played these types of games that much. And to even say these types of games, like, I don't think that this is, it's not sacro. You know what I mean? Like this isn't a soul's like. It's not all of that. But I do think that they do a good job of having moments where I was really stuck. And then I called bless. I'm like, dude, I'm having a hard time.

Is this game as hard as I think it is? And he was like, it is that hard. But here's what I do, whatever. And I was like, oh, my God, I wasn't playing that way. And then all of a sudden I got to go back. And I'm kicking ass. And it feels good because it doesn't feel like the game was getting my way. It feels like I just wasn't learning the way that I should have been.

And then to be able to go back in the sense of achievement that I have, being able to go back to the first level and just absolutely destroy things that were such a challenge to me that I never thought I'd be able to beat. Like, I remember a moment about a week ago being like, I don't think I'll ever be. beat this first boss. Like, it's just impossible. And now I can beat it without dying once, you know, and I can apply that to the second level as well. Have I played the first and second level legitimately 50 times each? Yeah. Do I still have one doing it? Yeah. Bless, what do you think? Yeah, I think that what you just mentioned there really nails it. Playing this game in terms of the replayability of the levels and trying to go back for the best run reminds me of playing an arcade game

where it is, all right, let's go. Oh, damn, I died on the first level. All right, let's try to you get to level two and then you get to level three and then with each run you get further and further because you're continually learning the levels you're learning the enemy placement you're learning the combos you're learning exactly how things work that is the type of game that I love you know you mentioned not you not necessarily being the roguelight person or the fighting game person or the soul's game person and all those things really appeal to me specifically like specifically the rogu light and the fighting game portions where you know tecken is probably my favorite fighting game franchise if i take smash out the loop because

match is kind of a cheat code. But like Tekken, I fucking love, right? Moral Combat, like those types of fighting games are my jam. Sekiro, when I played it around this time last year, became one of my favorite action games of all time just for the gameplay of it and how much you got to be in it with the counters, how much you got to learn the enemies, how much, how fast and swift the game is. That really, that is something that I really enjoy and love. And then there's also returnal in terms of the roguelite nature of this game. And it's like definitively not a roguelight, right? It's not randomized. You're not starting from scratch each time, but there is that replayability aspect and trying to get as far as you can aspect to it. That does play similarly

to a roguel. And with all that said, I would say that this game is the most fun I've had with a game since playing Returnal, which I mean, isn't like the longest time, right? That came out last year, but I think that sets it up for where it's at in my how much I love this game. If this game came out last year, I think it would be my top two games of the year in that list. And that is for just how well made, I'd say the game is, both from a gameplay standpoint, which, you know, the setup of the game is really interesting where it is. There's a certain number of levels. You, as the main character, are going on a revenge quest to take out all the big bosses. And to do that, you go through each of the levels. Each time you die, you age up. And if you age up all the way, you then

die, right? And you have to start from scratch. Or you don't have to start from scratch, but you don't make it to the end of that level. And each level is kind of a checkpoint where if you finish level one at age 27, you go into level two at age 27. If you finish level two at age 50, you go into level three at age 50. And the goal is to try and get through all the levels without aging up. That loop, I think, is so smart and so satisfying in the way that it gives you the freedom to choose how you want to play and choose how much risk you want to take. But at the same time, it gives you the encouragement to go, I think I can do this, right? I think I can go back and get down to age 22 by the end of level one. Or I think I can take level three while being at age 45.

and unlock the shortcuts there so I can go through the level faster. I think that loop is super satisfying and super fun. The combat is super satisfying and super fun as well. The animation is good. The fighting, like what you've seen in the trailer is the game is just as good, if not better than what you've seen in the trailer in terms of actual combat feel and how fun it is to play on that level. But then there's the presentation, which I think is incredible as well.

You know, when you're talking about the music, you know, how good each of the levels' music or tracks are. And then also just how good visually the game is from the art style, but then also presentation, like the scenery, how scenes are set up, how the club looks versus how another level looks. You know, even the fidelity, right, like the reflections you'll see in the water or in reflective services. All that stuff looks good. And yeah, I do not have enough good things to say. And so I'll shut up here and let somebody else go. But I love this game.

Yeah, I mean, so then going in a completely opposite direction that I want to hear from Tam, who doesn't sound as hot on it. Yeah, I'm in a weird place with this game where it's a game that is designed and made for specifically my kind of play style. And I think it's a good game. I think it's mechanically sound. I think that it's, it just, there's parts of it that just don't work for me. And I feel like it's missing a lot of things that need, that I want to be there to elevate it into something that I can love in the same way that blessing loves. There's a lot about it that just feels off and wrong. to me. And like, maybe it's because I've been playing too much other similar games, but the way I see it is like, you know how other games exist? You know how from Software makes a Souls game and another bunch of people make a Souls like games. And they always feel slightly off. Just as something about them that's slightly off. From Software made Securo and this is the slightly off version of Securo for me. There are aspects, like, I think I just, I just

disagree with pretty much everything Blessing said, other than the fact that I think it's a mechanically good game. I love, I think it's an interesting game more than an amazing game for me. I think the set-up is really cool. I think the idea of, you know, playing the age system where if you die, you age up and you want to try and complete a level at a certain age is really good. I think the combat is, again, mechanically sound. I don't think that it's satisfying. Every from the every punch feels flat to me. It feels like you're punching a pillow. And that comes partly because Pakmei as the,

the kung fu style isn't flashy in it's like, and it's in the way that it's executed in real life. So it's not about big swings and crunchy blows and that kind of stuff. And also because it's kind of inspired by the, you know, the kung fu movies that aren't Hollywood eyes. They're like, it's not a crunch that you,

it's like a, almost like a whiffing sound. It's speedy and that kind of stuff. But regardless of that, and regardless of the fact that I can appreciate it, every time I land a punch, it just doesn't feel good to me. Like it feels empty and it doesn't feel satisfying. And the only ones that do feel satisfying are the kind of finisher moves. I think the audio is pretty bad. Like I feel like a lot of it sounds quite muted. It sounds, I think the mixing is bad for me. Like I can't hear. I can't I can't hear a lot of it. Like, I hear the music and it's great and it sounds like I'm, you know, some of the music is

genuinely fantastic. But like, I can't hear the punches. I can't hear the movements. Even when characters speak, it sounds like they're in a room over. Like, they're mumbling and the actual delivery isn't very good at all. And, like, that's fine because the story is threadbare. It's basically the set up and that's it. You don't really get to invest in your main character.

It's just you killed my father. and now I'm here to kill you. And similarly, like, you've got the bosses, but you never spend any time with them other than the opening where you get a bit of set up for them. In terms of mechanically, I feel like it feels quite spongy at times. The readability of the game is not great. There's, like, things that, again, I hate to, like, go to Sekiro,

but, like, the way that I look at it is it has the posture system from Sekiro, right? And there's two ways to implement that. You can just implement that as a mechanic and have it be like, once this bar fills up, your posture is broken or what is it called in this game? It's got a different name, structure. Your structure is broken in your own. Yeah, foundation.

You're open. And like, it's implementation in this game is very workman-like. It's implementation, that same mechanic in Securo, is a, it feels like a narrative system where there's a tension in the back and forth. There's a ballet in the way you approach that posture system. It's not just enemies are going to unleash this move set and then this moveset and then this moveset and then this moveset or you're going to do the same thing and then your posture breaks. There's a back and forth.

There's a fluidity. There's like a story being told by the posture system in Securo. This doesn't have that. It's just whale, whale, whale, whale, wayle, defensive, defensive. defensive, whale, whale, whale, well, whale, defensive, defensive. And it doesn't feel good to me. I find myself disengaging a lot of the time. Even when I find like the mechanics can be like, I'm enjoying it. Like I'm enjoying dodging. I find myself just kind of like my brain just trails off because it doesn't have that sense of like cinematic quality to the defensive side of it. I feel like a lot of

the enemies and bosses can be pretty cheap at times. And I think that's where a lot of the, the, um, the difficulty comes from. And one of the things that really sticks out to me, one of my main problems is there's a lot of like moves that you need to react to in a certain way. Like suddenly a fist will be superpowered or a leg will be like superpowered or armored or something like that. But the tells for those can be super quick to the point where, and that's fine in most cases. But they have this thing which I really dislike in combat games with overlapping animations.

where one animation can lead you down three different paths. So you'll have like a punch that can go into an uppercut. But that punch, that initial punch, also looks like a punch that can go into another move. So there's a different kind of, you need to create these kind of animation sets that I distinct so that once you learn them, you understand that, oh, it's going to go this way or that way.

Whereas in this game, I found myself going, looking at the game or looking at characters and being like, this is a guessing scenario, not an actual like I know what's going to happen I know how to react and I've learned the move set so you're not really you're not really I didn't find myself growing as a player I found myself getting lucky a lot

and that's part of it and that has its own charm but that doesn't work for me at all like I want to be like once I learn the fundamentals I want to be able to apply myself to that apply those to the game and feel like I get a long way whereas this game is all about knocking you on your ass and never letting you feel like you've learned anything at all in a lot of ways.

I feel like you can get pretty far by using the counter system or the dodge system. I'm just the kind of player where I'm like, I don't want to be running away constantly. Like if you watch the way I play Sechero, I stand my ground and I fight constantly and I use my understanding and mastery of the mechanics to deal with the challenges as they come up. Whereas in this game, I find myself going, all right, I just got clocked with three different moves that just came out of nowhere that looked like other moves. I need to run away now and just wait for it to kind of build. And because of that, the pacing and the momentum of it just feels like getting sapped constantly.

I could like go on to other things. Like, I feel like the camera is absolutely abysmal, like at times. I can't believe we're talking about the same video game here. Like, the camera is genuinely like, I'm so confused by it. Like, sometimes you get into a corner and you can't see your own character, but you, And the other characters, like, their faces in the camera and they're throwing punches at you. And I'm like, okay, you have this system where like, this game, if any game shows that is proof that it's not a good idea to have multiple enemies attacking at the same time. That's a criticism that has always been leveled at the Batman games where everyone's like, oh, everyone just gathers in a circle and they wait, they turn.

I don't like that system. But this is in the opposite end where you can have four enemies trying to punch you at the same time. and they're all doing a different type of move. And your only option is really just dodge, like, and hope that you can clear them very quickly. And, like, I find that the amount of times I've been hit by someone throwing a projectile from off screen is, like, ridiculous. Like, just a bottle from nowhere.

And there's no indicator, like, unless you have, you can get the move, which lets you press the counter button and throw the thing back, which is great. But chances are you won't see that bottle coming, because the character's not on screen, because you're not, the character, the fight isn't framed properly. And that's like

one of the other concerns, but like it's such a tricky place because I really like it. Like I want to like it more though, if you get what I mean. There's just enough things that, ding it for me that I'm like, this was almost exceptional, but as it stands, it's just a good game for me.

Andy Cortez, where do you fall? I love this game. This is a game of your material for me. I I don't disagree with with a whole lot of what Tam is saying. I do think that the game doesn't communicate super well what moves are coming to you.

When you know that you have to, when you know that a thrust is coming at you in Sekiro, you know what button to hit. And it's communicated really well visually. When you know that there is an attack that you need to jump to avoid, that's communicated really well. And I feel like this game can be a little unfair with moves like that.

I don't think the camera is perfect either, but I found myself just getting myself in situations to avoid that problem completely. Getting hit by bottles off screen, I know going into fights, who the fuck has a bottle? And I go target them first. So like, I've come up with a lot of like solutions just based on the problems that the game present. and I know to go deal with those problems immediately. If somebody has a weapon, I want to deal with them first. I don't want them to clock me out of nowhere from behind or whatever. And if there's five people surrounding me, I will run away and resituate myself and try to take on one person one by one. So, like, there's a lot of solutions to the problems that Tam is bringing up, but he's not completely wrong and what the game does, the faults of the game has.

I do think that the progression of the game is pretty confusing and not super well thought out. I don't love that the only things that I'm able to keep are these skills that I'm buying. I wish that there was some sort of level of I don't even know what the word I'm looking is for. I wish those a way that when you, if I upgrade the ability to have more damage from my weapons right here exactly Barrett crushing it right there. If I want to be able to upgrade my structure regain or my focus regain, I don't like that I lose those if I go back. And I think that if you were able to keep them, that's probably going to make the game way too easy. But there's got to be an in-between. To jump in there, because I agree and see where you're getting at with that.

Because this is to explain this. It's a bit messy. It's a bit messy. It's a bit messy. And then you learn it and you're like, oh, I get it. It's just a thing that they don't really communicate that well of. In the levels, there are these totems that they can come across. And this is the one that Bear has brought up here. And in the totems, you have different upgrades that you can get.

Per totem, you can only pick one upgrade. And they're based on, you can get upgrades based on your age. So if you're under 25, 40, or 60, you can choose one of these upgrades. If you are in that level and you have a score that is above 1,000, 2,000, or 4,000, you can pick one of those upgrades. And if you have enough XP in a level 2, you can pick one of those upgrades as well that are the XP upgrades. And each of them do different things. Some of them are for weapon durability. Some of them are for your finishers, which are kind of like the Spider-Man finishers, but when you execute them, they get you a little bit of health, right?

And each of them kind of have a different thing to them. and when you finish a level and go into the next level, you keep these rewards, but if you replay that level that you just did, you then have to kind of like regain those totems. But if you hop into, if you say you don't finish that level, right? Like say you lost on a level or you,

let's just say you didn't finish it, right? If you hop into that next level, your totems from like your previous play through still carry through. Like it's all about how you start and not how you end necessarily. And it's really weird. It's not. Because they don't explain that. Yeah.

I was so confused at the, and even the way that they show the upgrades you have, Barrett, if you can bring it back up. It's like, is that one selected or is it not? It's weird. You can't really tell here because none of these have two. But like the, if you look under the 60, under the 40, under the 25 under the thousand, you see there's like one diamond on the left. Like when you get it, one of them turns black and then it adds an extra diamond next to it. But it just isn't really clear. because this kind of looks like you have all.

You have level ones everywhere. And so that gets confusing. But then because of what Bless just explained of it's not extremely clear, like when you keep him, when you don't keep them. There's a lot of systems at play in like different words they use for the shrine upgrades versus the unlocked forever upgrades and even how that works, where I was so confused that I would take pictures on my phone just to like try to come up with the pattern myself. And I had to like, they didn't explain it to me.

I had to look at it and compare pictures to be like, oh, okay. When I restart, I keep this, but when I finish, I don't, like, whatever. That's not good. Yeah, it's not the best concepted system. And that's kind of like a big issue that I have with it. Because when you are trying to progress and get better scores or exit these stages at a lower age, I think a brilliant part of it is the shortcut system. So good.

It lets you fast travel through the area, but because you're fast traveling, you're not getting XP, you're not fighting people and getting a high score. And that result in you not being able to level up those things that we just looked at. You can't level them up because this thing that you're leveling up requires a thousand score, but you only have 120 because you've only fought two people to get to the shortcut, to get to the final boss. So like, there's got to be a better way to balance all of that. It sucks that if you go through the checkpoints to skip to the boss,

then that means that you're not going to be able to level up those points and you're going to be weaker against that final boss. I like that. But hold on, but if you, but if you do decide to take that risk, then you might die and get older anyway. And it, it, I understand a game wanting you to pick a risk of reward, but it just doesn't seem, it doesn't seem worth it and like

there's got to be a better way to do this. There's got to be a smarter way as opposed to having to replay the level all over again. Not that you have to play it all over again. There's always a point for people that don't, that obviously haven't played it yet. You don't just

go to the checkpoint and go to the final boss and skip through everything. There are different exit points that you can choose which I do really like and I do think it's really smart. But you do sort of risk losing to some bullshit big enemy who's going to grab you three times

in a row. It's like, what the fuck? You've never done that before. And like, that's what the frustration sets in. I think I've become more frustrated with the game the more that I've played it and tried to master it. Where when I beat you the first time, I was like, brilliant game. This is a game of the year for me. And then I, the more that I've

tried to play it, the more that I've gotten frustrated with it. And it reminds me of like how you these big these big Fortnite streamers have all sorts of issues with the game because they play it

eight hours a day and they see all the faults and it's like the normal players like oh that's a fun game it's cool or whatever like I've gotten to that point where I've played it so much that I've started to see more and more faults with it. You are exactly where I am except I haven't finished it like that time I spent in the lab at the earlier was basically

me finding and poking the holes where they exist and I found so many that it's resorted in me feeling the way I feel about the game currently. I want to go back to the kind of like not understanding and not explaining a lot of the thing. I think that is a major part of the game that is a let down for me. Like I talked about readability, but like passing the mechanics, none of it is make sense. I had a moment the other day where I exited the kind of map choice and a like a pop-up

came up and I was the young version of myself. And then I went in and I spawned into the. the level as the old version of myself. And I was like, I don't understand what's happened here. Like, how have I gone from two? And then I backed out and like went back in a few times to figure it out. And I was like, oh, okay, this is what's happening. But the game never tells you that.

It never tells you, hey, if you want to come into this next level as a young version, replay the older one and do better at it. And that is how you get better at that kind of stuff. It's just there's so much about it that is like needlessly obfuscated. And I think that compounds. The difficult part of that is when you don't understand a game that's also difficult and constantly is knocking you on your ass, like that is you are alienating a lot of people. Like the people are going to stick around are people like me who are like, this is a kind of game that I love.

So I'm very accustomed to like grinning and bearing this kind of experience because it's what makes me horny. Like, and that is what happened here. Like I stuck with it and I understood it all. But at the same time, I saw the holes. I saw where everything kind of, I see where it falls apart for me. And other people can have amazing experiences. Like blessing is a perfect example of it. But for me, yeah, there's like any number of things that I just wish was done a bit.

But like the whole structure thing, like it's on the enemy above their head. And the enemies are constantly moving. They're constantly attacking you. You are always moving. How are you supposed to read that in a moment to moment? How are you supposed to make judgments based on that? In Sekirite's at the top of the screen and you know, oh shit, this enemy's posture is almost done. I'm going to get aggressive now.

And that's a strategic decision you can make or you can see your own posture and be like, oh, mine's super low. But like their health needs taking away over. And you can make decisions on that. And this is like it moves in a way where like it's a tiny little yellow thing. I can't make any smart decisions or I'm not factoring it. in at all. I'm not factoring in at all. It's not unlike this. I have not thought about the structure thing once. Anytime there's a structure upgrade anyway, like I do not take it in me. That's why I'm not going to do. Also, the thing that I miss, I think is really missing is there's a symbiotic

relationship between health and posture in Securo. I can't tell you if that's the case here. In Securo, if you take down health of an enemy, their posture is slower to recover. So it's in your interest to occasionally not deflect and go for a risky strike. Whereas in this game, that doesn't seem to be the case. Like, they've got health and they've got posture. And I'm like, why do you need both then? It's just, it feels like unnecessary. I mean, I think the tradeoff there is going for the finishers, right? Yeah, the finishers. You bump up their postures. You get the finishers and then you get health back. Whereas if we just go for the regular knockdown, you just knock them down easier and you want to the next. Yeah, but like that doesn't come across until you've, you've actually like

looked in a bunch of different mechanics and put the two, put all it, put all of those pieces together and been like, oh, this is why I'm doing this. And then when you do the finishes, you also risk making the game harder for yourself. Because if you do the finishes, you can like accidentally buff the other enemy, at which point they're stronger and they have a new move set and their readability becomes even trickier. But then you get the death counter thing back. You get your death counter back. So there is a risk reward to it, but like, I'm always like, was that worth it? See, I was so shocked. I was. Let me tell you about our sponsors.

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a friend but with everything going on the world governments have increased surveillance they're using your devices to track your location movements and in a lot of places your internet activity express vpm rerout your internet connection through a secure encrypted server so you can surf the web anonymously newsflash incognito mode is a sham your isp can still see every single site you visit but with one click of a button express VPN keeps others from seeing all the freaky stuff you've been looking at yeah talking about you nick scarpino we've been using express VPN for a long time it's been keeping me safe keeping me secure i just feel better being out on the internet knowing that express VPN has my back protect your privacy today and get three months of express VPN for free visit expressVPN dot com slash kind of funny that's eXPR ESSvvp P.com slash kind of funny for three months free with a one year package. Visit expressvpn.com slash kind of funny to learn more. Plus. I'm so shocked because every single thing I feel like you're describing are things that I really

liked. You know, like we're talking about these systems. You're talking about the obfuscation of it. And I agree. They're going to come with you, Tam, with the dark souls. You know it. They're going to be like a hard game that's obtuse. That's the thing is like you're describing things that I like about souls games

in terms of the obfuscation. And you know, I like those things. as well. You know, but like, and I know you like those things. This is what I'm saying. There is an elegance to doing that stuff that very few developers can nail.

And that's why I describe it as this is one of those off-branded games because, again, I don't want to sound like I'm kissing from Software's awesome. I think other developers can definitely do it. But there is a, there's more to it than just making a game hard and having these obfuscated systems. There's a breadcrumb trail or they need to,

they need to be designed in a way that's intuitively, understood. This system, this game has those systems and they're obfuscated and they're confusing, but they're also not intuitively understood in a securo or in a blood, I, I disagree that like the secular and blood borne are intuitively understood. I guess, more than this game at least. I feel like this game is way more understood. Maybe blood borne not because that's part of the whole like, you know, insight and all that kind of stuff. But I think the fundamentals you will understand in, in all those games, whereas even the fundamentals in this game are confusing. Like the multiple combos where you're trying to parry.

Like, when an enemy does multiple, you generally just need to parry the final hit. You don't need to worry about the others. So it doesn't tell you that. So people, I spent a lot of time being like, I'm a parry, God, I can do this. So I'm parrying, I'm parrying, paring, and I'll finish it.

And I'm like, and then one time I held the block button, I was like, I just need to parry the last move. I don't need to worry about any of the rest of this. Why am I bothering? It's like, okay, that was not intuitively understood. And then at that point, I'm like, why am I even bothering to parry when I can dodge? And it's like the window on it is so forgiving that it's just,

it renders the parry pointless for a lot of the time. I'd rather put in the actual. As somebody that doesn't play these games that much, like I do think that it's a little bit, first off, I appreciate you could remap the buttons. I always like that in the game and I like to this lets you remap everything. Having said that, I do think that there are potentially a couple,

too many controls that aren't actually necessary. And it gets a little bit convoluted. like there's this focus move where you kind of go into slow-mo for a second, and then as you upgrade, you choose different attacks using a wheel, and then you can attack, and it's like a more powerful thing. Your focus bar raises again. You can do it more, and they're super helpful. But they're really hard to pull off, not because they're difficult to time or anything,

but because there's just too many button presses necessary where you have to hit a button to activate focus, then choose the focus thing you want to do and hit a different button to, make it happen. But the problem is the slow mo isn't quite slow enough where the enemies are still kind of attacking you. Like if I could have just mapped the button to just R2, done.

You know what I mean? It would have been a lot just simpler. I feel like it's a little needlessly and let me know if I'm off about this, but I feel like that is one of the few button press situations where I'm like, because of how complicated focuses, there are three buttons on my controller that need

to do one thing that are now not able to do other things that would make those things a lot easier, like throws or the finishers. See, my issue with the focus was more so it was inconsistent in activating it, where I would be in the middle of a combo or I'd be fighting an enemy and I'd be, let's say, recovering or standing up and I'd be pressing L2 to activate focus because I know, like at a certain point, I think you do it so much that you know exactly which move you want to go to. Like for me, it was the focus sweep because that sweep will take down any enemy. And I would always try to go for that if I'm feeling overwhelmed or if I just need to knock down

an enemy to get their stagger up. And so as I'm standing up or as I'm recovering from a combo or whatever, I'd be hitting L2 to try and get into the focus. It'd never be clear when I could activate it or when I can't activate it. Like it felt very inconsistent. I would often get hit trying to activate it. Yeah. The frustration would mount. And I'm like, fuck, man.

I was like doing a perfect run. For me that was amazing. And now I'm like super low, you know. See, that kind of speaks to, I texted blessing this. And it kind of, I realized how to overcome that in my own mind. mind. There's a responsiveness to everything that feels slightly off to me. Like the counters feel like I'm pressing them and they're coming out just a bit later than when I press them. And there's the same with the punches, like the combos, for example. They dial the combos instead of like

super, super accurate as soon as you press it, the move comes out. And in my mind, I reframed how I think of it by thinking of it as Tekken and not a Marvel versus Capcom or a street fighter type game whereas if you're familiar with those games and blessing can speak to this as well they they feel very very distinct despite looking like fighting games that are very similar if you get what i mean there's like a dial a combo system in teck and it's like you press a bunch of buttons you can press them quickly together and the animation for that entire combo comes out on screen and you're good in the street fighter style or the cap mall versus capcom style it's you need to input every punch at the right frame at the right time.

And if you stop, the whole thing's stopping. It's not like queuing up moves for you. And that's how I expect, that's how a Sekiro feels to me. Like the moment you stop, it stops. And whereas this game is like, no, this is like Tekken where you can like press punch, punch, punch kick and let go for a few seconds and it will come out. And I feel like that doesn't work for me at all because it creates this disconnect where I'm between what I'm seeing on screen and what my hands want to be doing.

I wait for the punch to land before I hit another punch and it doesn't work like that in this game you can just go bam bam bam you're done and I feel like that is a big big thing that changed in my mind that helped me kind of understand it because I do play a lot of Tekken as well so it got me to a place where it started to click a bit more for me I also want to bring up

I think I immediately just went for all the negative stuff I do think the combat feels really fluid and fun for me. And that's a reason why I have continued to play it. Like, I would have, I think it's a testament to my enjoyment of the game that I would have stopped playing it once I beat it. But I have gone back to try to master it even more and to try to get better. And it's, I'm having a lot of fun with it.

I do think the, I love, I love the engaging combat. I love the contextual animations of when an enemy is against a bar table, a different animation will play as opposed to when they're against a wall. I do agree with Tam and Tim when it comes to the structure system slash the posture system that we know from Sekiro. I don't really take it into account unless I'm fighting a boss. But I haven't really been playing this game in the way that I would play Sekiro, where I am much like Tam was mentioning,

you're waiting there and you are trying to deflect anything that's coming at you. With me, it's like, it's a mixed bag. I'm playing this more like I'm on the street fighting with somebody. And if I see this, if I see this attack is coming and I know that I have this one ability that I fucking love, that when you parry at the right time, you can just, you can after that hold right trip for me was right trigger. Because I set mine up to the soul's button system. I can hold right trigger and then I sweep them on the ground. Then I would go to the ground to like continue to bash on them. And that's going to lower down their health even more.

I didn't really play this a certain way. It was more of like what situation does this call for? Am I going to try to, I know these types of enemies, and I know their attacks, and I know their combos and their animations, I can dodge through this because I have the ability that the more that I dodge, the more focus I have that will raise faster than I can use my focus moves faster. So it was always like I'm going to, it was almost like

Doom in a way. When you play Doom and it's like I do this attack to get the ammo. I do this attack to get the whatever for my fire. You know like it's always a sort of rock paper scissors thing and with this game I was constantly doing things to help fuel my next attacks. And to echo what Blessie was mentioning what feels like an hour ago now because this has been

such a good engaging podcast. Blessing was mentioning the presentation And I think, I think this game is absolutely flawless when it comes to art and presentation. It keeps on ratching it up. It keeps getting better. Tam is, I still, I don't know if Tam beat the second boss yet, but once you, like, the second boss, I've just loved the lead-up to it. And I love the shots and the one perfect shot moments. And it's just like every frame of painting type shit.

And I do want to shout out while you're there, right, the dual sense. I know you're playing on PC, but like in that second level, there are moments where you're going through a hallway. and the hallways lead up a certain way and you're feeling that in the dual sense and it feels so cool. Incredibly cool. Yeah. I play on the elite too

because I need that back paddle for the Dodge. We all know that. But yeah, the lead up to the boss number three, the league up to boss number four, it just keeps ratcheting up in the coolest, most stylistic ways. In the same ways that I loved

when Gosa Sushima would have those really cool kind of movie-like moments. But in here it's like, this is an indie art. title with fighting and it's beautiful. This game to me is the cup head for me this year, right? Like the cup head is the returnal of like a game that is so dialed in and like how good it feels to play and how difficult and brutal it is. But a game that is so beautiful and stunning to look at where in talking about presentation, right, like each level looks distinctively different

and they just keep looking better and better. Like you start up with level one and you're like, okay, yeah, no, this is a game. And then you can start to get to level two and you're like, oh damn, this looks good. You get to level three. And somehow level three looks better. level two and the same happens as level four. It's crazy. It's crazy how much it ratches things up. And then you talk about the way characters will get thrown into walls or get kicked into surfaces,

right? I think the animation is so dynamic with so many different things where, you know, I'll do a finisher on somebody and if my finisher hits them into a table, like if I throw them and they get thrown into a table, they'll get thrown into that table. The way that they bend and the way that they bounce off it.

And it looks impressive for me every single time. And then there are moments where, you know, you'll be getting into a combo. And for me, I was all about the dodges. I know we're talking about playing this game like Sekiro versus playing this game like other games. I found myself not countering that much. I was not focusing on countering at all.

I was all in on the dodges and dodging every move because I think you can kind of escape by a lot easier that way. And there are moments where you'll walk into a room, you'll see an enemy with a bottle, you see another enemy with a bat. And I'll get into the fight sequence with them, right? And somebody will come at me with a bat and I'll duck. And then that bat hits another character and knocks them down.

And those are the moments where the game shines for me. And it makes them in their finisher mode. Yeah. It puts them in, like, let me finish them to get health back and like, yeah, this is cool shit, dude. So presentation-wise, I love it. And bless you brought up Cuphead, I think it reminds me a lot of Cup in the sense that it's brutally difficult to all that. But it's so rewarding in the sense that you want to continue because you want to see what the next stage is. You want to see what the next phase of this boss looks like or what cool thing they're doing.

Because so far, I'm three out of five levels in. and it every single time I'm wowed by multiple things in the stage like even the first level which admittedly is the most kind of just basic level that you're going through nothing nothing too special there are multiple cinematic moments in that where the camera kind of shifts to being a side scroller for a little bit or like you jump through a roof and the synth music kicks in like they knew what they were doing for moments that I have now done 17 times and they still hit for me where I'm like this is fucking cool this feels like John Wick I'm so into it and then that And as you get to level two, I don't want to spoil what they do that Andy's been hinting at of like the lead into the boss. It's fucking cool as all hell. And that's for a level that already is a neon filled club scene. Of course we're going to like that. But it's not, that wasn't enough. Like they wanted to ratchet up.

They wanted it to be even cooler. And then level three, which is as far as I've gotten so far, I am so impressed with that area. Every single room is something I want to look at. And that's the type of design you need if you're going to replay it area. over and over and over and over again and you had your hand raised yeah I was just I was just gonna echo those what you were just mentioning like I I think this game already interested a lot of us just based on those first couple of previews the concept of the aging thing I was like oh that's a weird kind of mystical add on to this just normal brawler that looks like a normal brawler with really awesome animations and we know it's from slow clap so we know the fighting is going to look good and feel good but it was

the it was the X factor of having this S-tier art presentation stuff that I wasn't expecting that totally knocked it up several echelons. This is like Game of the Year type stuff for me that I

and I didn't know that's what it needed. I wasn't really expecting it. I was expecting much of what we're seeing on screen here. Finding in normal looking environments and this game gets really kind of crazy with the places you start to fight and the things it starts to show you in really dope-ass ways.

Like, just stuff that I don't even want to spoil yet, but really, I couldn't even spoil it if I tried. Just visually, the stuff that it throws at you are really fucking cool. It's like Anna Perna presents, like, kind of like, uh, fighting it. And the way I think of this game, like, I know I said a lot of negative stuff, but I, I said it at the beginning and I want to reiterate it. Like, I still think this is a good game. Like, the things that I'm saying are because my brain is broken.

and I've been playing fighting games since I was a child. Like the first games that I ever played were a street fighter. And I've always been like super focused on combat design and that kind of stuff. So there's a good, very high chance that the things that I've mentioned will not impact most people and you'll have a great time. But like, again, I think this is a good game and it's a fun game. And the way I think of it now is it's hotline Miami. Like you roll up into a room. It looks amazing.

it's got this banging soundtrack. You look around and you're like, okay, I know, just like in Hotline, Miami, I'm going to kick this door in, I'm going to kill that enemy, he's going to drop a shotgun, I'm going to pick up that shotgun, fire it through this wall,

it's going to kill three enemies. I'm going to move into her next room. And then you basically learn through dying repeatedly how to systematically carve a path through that room. That's exactly what this game is. Like you roll into a room, you know, there's a bottle there,

picking up that bottle, throwing it at that person, running over there, going to dodge this, grab that bat, hit this, person, use the take down, get some health back, and then I'm out of that room. And that is incredibly satisfying. Like, once you've gone through, taking your knocks and, you know, fought through all that

stuff, and then when you're able to pull it off, it's very, very satisfying, I think. And that is, that is impressive thing. And it's elevated by a lot of what Blessing and Tim and Andy have said, like, there's parts of this game that I was like, I want a print of that. I want a print of that. Dude, if you go into photo mode in any moment of this game, you will find a good photo. I can press the photo mode button in any moment and find something that I'll make my wallpaper. Oh yeah.

It's down on the D-pad, I think. Like, use the photo mode and press it at any moment. You're going to find a one perfect shot type looking shot. That is incredible. And to bounce off of like everything we're saying right now, too, specifically where we're talking about how each room in any level, right, you walk room to room and there's something there that is fascinating and cool to look at. I also think that the design is so that like that is the same with gameplay as well where and how Tam is talking about being able to play the game like Hotline Miami where you walk in and you know exactly like, okay, I'm going to go here, pick up the bottle throw at this guy.

Like I can recite to you my path to the club right now, right, in level two where I walk in, I know the guy standing there. I know I'm going to trip them. I know I'm going to knock him out on the ground. I know I'm going to walk in the club. Look to the left. Two dudes. There's a bat on the table.

Pick up the bat. Fuck up the two dudes. Go in. A bunch of other people, right? Oh, I tell you that. I save the bat for the next room. Because what I do less is good to save the bat. There's the woman and the dude standing straight in front of you.

One swing. One swing. Get them both into final hit combo. Like, yeah, it's so cool. It's the ghost runner for me of this year of like, I know how these rooms are set up. And the way I'm going to take them out is going to make me feel like the coolest person on the planet, dude.

Yeah. Yeah, I think when the preview first came out, I described the game as Catana Zero meets fighting force, right? And like, you're seeing a lot of, a lot of the same kind of things here echoed in terms of like Katana Zero, Hallam, Miami, Ghostrunner. These are all the same kind of game where you're talking about, like, the run base, go through them, memorize the run, take him out. But, like, you bring in the fighting force aspect in there, too, where it is this game has a beat him up and you are picking up weapons and you are actually engaging in combat and doing it and going through those motions that feel incredible. But, like, you know, when we're talking about the room to room thing, this game feels designed, at least for me, in a way where every room has thought put into it in terms of giving. giving the player certain challenges and giving them options for how to approach those challenges.

And it feels so well married with the aesthetic and with what the design of the, of everything looks visually, where in level three, there's a certain room that you walk into that has a lot of shit hanging from the ceilings. It's like, think light bulbs, right? Like you walk into this room and there's a bunch of light bulbs and it looks really cool. But what's really practical about that room, too, is the fact that there's two people in that room that are very strong and are going to have to fight them both at the same time. But every light bulb is hanging down from the ceiling.

You can grab any one of them. And so that room is basically an excuse to go, all right, here's a bunch of throwable shit and just throw all the shit at them. And it's so, like, I find that shit so cool and so well done in terms of looking at it from a level design standpoint. And I think there are so many moments in this game. I'll say that every single room in this game has at least some level of thought put in terms of how you're going to play that level. But then you just have those varying levels of like, oh, they really put thought into into this one in particular. That for me is so cool. Dude, it reminds me a lot of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater where, sure, there's these levels and you can

go about them in any way you want, but there are lines that are designed in it, right? Where it's like they want you to grind on this, then jump over this ramp to do this trick. Here's a big air opportunity, all of that. Like, they're kind of built in. And I heard Andy saying that in the club level, like, there's the moment you get the bat and you go in. There's the woman and the man. You hit them and you finish both of them. Like, that's a design.

Like, because like that's the exact same thing I've been doing and bless bringing up those light bulb things. I do think that every room has a designed path of just optimal. dopedness to like really make it as cinematic and and cool as possible, but it's not the only way to do it. And there were equally dope things to do if you just went a different direction and said and didn't do that. I think that's kind of the surprise I've had with this game is the flow state that you

get in because it is the levels are designed in a way to kind of move you from one enemy to another seamlessly, whether you have a weapon, whether you're getting hit or whatever. It's like I'm in this, there's a momentum to it. I think the, to go back and bitch and whine more about the progression, I think the game is difficult enough in that I wish that they figured out a way for you to take back the skills that you've earned over this time. You weren't given these skills. You earned them with your high score or with your XP. And I wish you had a way to kind of not just keep the,

the moves that you're unlocking, but keep the, hey, I get more focus regeneration if I, if I dodge more. Or I have more like I was able to play. I got such a high score on one of them that I was able to do the the 4,000 point here one, but it was like 5 or 6K or whatever for whatever level I was in where you hurt the enemy's structure or their posture whenever you parry them. And that adds like a lot more to their posture bar. and I was able to unlock that finally and use it along the way and it's what helped me beat the game ultimately but I would love to be able to take that back and use that

and you can tell that in my opinion you can tell that they know this system isn't the best thought out because of the links that they go to explain to you what's happening when you try to go back and exit a level you read like three sentences of like you keep your this thing but you don't keep your that thing but you might keep you this thing it's like oh my god yes if you leave this level

you don't get to keep this skills but this and this stays with you although however like yeah they're just they explain to you a lot of shit because I think they know that isn't it isn't the best thought out way to do this it reminds me of like before we got our hands on death loop and they're trying to describe what the flow death was. Yeah. The one question I have, because I, like, yeah, I really love the game. I totally see and agree with a lot of what Tam says as well. And talking about the game not explaining things as well, like Andy and I have talked about, like, yeah, the, it not visually, like, teaching you, like, what you're doing right and wrong with pairing and, um, dodging

and stuff like that. The one thing I still don't understand is how to get the death count down, I feel like it's so inconsistent in how that happens. When it happens, it's always a surprise bag. Oh, cool. Honestly, I say, I think it's at the end of big combat encounters and when you beat certain big enemies. But I don't know there's a consistency. So if you over, based on what my experimentation,

if you overuse your takedown, basically. Like if you're full health and you keep using your takedown, an enemy has a chance of basically negating your takedown. and they will like push you away. And if they do that, it buffs them. So you'll see them get this like yellow aura around them. If you defeat that enemy, that will take a year off your life. But I think there's, or you're talking about the death counter, right?

I don't think it takes a year off your life. Oh, no, wait. Are you talking about the year or the death counter? It'll bring your... The skull. So we should probably explain this to the audience, right? You have your age and your death counter. So every single time you die, one gets added to your death counter,

which means that when you get back up, you go up by that age. So if you're 20 and you die, your death counter goes up by one, then you wake up in your 21. If you're 21 and you die, your death counter goes up, it's not two,

and then you wake up and you're 23 because two got added. And your death counter specifically can go down in certain points in the game. And yeah, I think what Tam was explaining, right? When you beat a powered up enemy, I think in those moments your death counter will go down,

but I do think there are more moments where your death counter will go down as well because I've just had it happen randomly. But this is what I'm saying. That's random right there where like that guy was... These are powered up. These are mini-boss characters, though.

That's the difference. So it's either powered up normal enemies or there are these mini-boss characters that give you it. Because that's an optional room, Barrett. And there are optional rooms in the game where you can fight these sort of mini-bosses and maybe you want to risk going in there to get your rage down one more time. Like, that's what those rooms are designed for. But I totally agree with you that it is very confusing. Because sometimes it'll happen where I clear out a room of,

regular people and none of them like had the, because you can kind of tell which characters will get buffed because they have like, they have like the yellow flame, but it's like grayed out a little bit. So you can kind of. It's like above their like health bar almost kind of. It's kind of around like their aura. It's like around their shoulders is where I noticed it.

And so you can kind of tell that. But again, I don't think that's explained very well, all that stuff. And then sometimes I'll clear out a room that isn't filled with anybody like that and it's just a normal group and sometimes that will take my skull count down and stuff like that. I just think it's really like,

I don't think that was like consistently done enough. My assumption was always that if you go, if you beat enough enemies in a row without dying, then like you'll get it down. Yeah, because that's one of the things where like we've been talking to you blessing about the game because you know, you beat it in two days. You're, you're an expert gamer, pro gamer over here.

And we've been asking you for advice and stuff of like, oh, what do we need to do? We need to get our age down for certain levels. Like, and you keep doing the advice of like, all right, well, as long as you keep your, your death count low, like, that has more like a weight. Yeah, death counter, I would say is more vital than age. Yeah, like a death counter is like more vital. And so it's like, all right, cool, how do I get that down?

So that's like that's the thing I've been struggling with. I think there are two ways to go about it because, but Barrett, you're right, that there are groups that already have that yellow or. a person in there that will lower your age down. But the fact that you over risk the finishers and you overdo the finishers, sometimes that will randomly spawn a yellow or a dude and lower your death count down. So like there might be already a room that you clear out and every time that's going to have like a higher powered person, whatever, but sometimes a normal person will turn into

a higher powered person. The club room three always has a normal person that will turn. into one. Yeah. Yeah. This room sometimes, this room that we're watching right now will sometimes do it, sometimes not. I've cleared it without and without experiencing that. See, my assumption there is that you might have knocked out the guy that would have done it without doing the finisher. Because like any, when I'm like, when I'm going through and I'm finishering everybody in this room, for sure, like 90% of the time, this will have somebody. And, and I've gotten to that point where if I'm high enough health, I don't want to risk it. I don't want to fight a dude with

who's going to have these really tough combos that I know are tough. to dodge and stuff like that. I did want to talk about the boss fights. No spoilers, however. We're not going to go into spoilers. But I do think that when Blessing and I recorded that video, I was able to beat the first boss. I beat the second boss my first try,

without getting a full die reset. You know what I mean? You're insane. How are you this good? Like, here's the thing, though. No, no, no, I'm not. I'm still dying, but I'm not getting a full reset to like. You're not aging up.

So all the way. Like all the way. I'm not aging up all the way to like age 70, whatever, to the point where you run out to your pieces on your medallion. I'm just blown away by that, man. I fucking, like, this guy kicked my ass so many times before I did. So I got a text. Sorry, this is a sidebar, right?

Because like, reviewing this game has been an experience and it's been like, I think, a fun bonding experience of getting texts from everybody being like, yeah, am I doing this right? Am I doing good? Like, I beat this thing at age, whatever. Janet texted me earlier yesterday and was like, hey, I'm finally about to start seafood. And I was like, hey, just so you're.

know the game is hard. Everybody's been text me and telling me that like they've been getting their asses kicked and I don't know anybody else who's beating the game yet except for Andy. Just so you know Janet. When I tell you that hours later Janet texted me and she was like hey I just came out of level one. I just beat the boss and I'm age 27.

Is that good? I was like, Janet, you don't understand. I didn't get a boss age 27 my first time. Like that's fucking crazy. But sorry, go on. So, I only I never really struggled with the bosses. This wasn't a

a souls or Sekiro type situation for me where it took a long time to beat many of the bosses. Boss three, however, the one that Tim is about to get to, I do not, I still don't even really know the right way to fight that person. And let me explain really quick. That was a process. I love that fight.

But I'm with you. The second stage of that fight, incredible. Love it because it's all very clear and very calculated of what you need to do. Stage one is just like you're doing guesswork and it's like there's a flow to it but I think it is like a lot. It's a lot master. It's really difficult because what this game does, this game has pretty deep fighting and defense where you can dodge a low attack and your character will kind of like jump up in the air to dodge a lower attack or you could dodge a high attack and your character will kind of duck down. or do like one of these sort of boxing type moves like a weave a little weave yeah it's the from godhand which shout out to them for point that in a game because that hasn't been seen for a

while and it's really cool when done well um there are tight there are times where in that third boss fight where i know this thing is going to swing on the bottom and i know to jump over it and it's gonna like i know the patterns at this point it's going to be low high high low high and i know to like Dodge up, dodge down, dodge down, dodge down, dodge up, dodge down. And you kind of like get the flow of that. But there are other attacks that she does that I'm like at a loss for it. I'm like, I don't know what the game wants for me here. Am I supposed to just run away from these attacks?

Sometimes I get lucky where I do the side-to-side dodgers or whatever. But for the most part, I feel just completely lost. And it's like I'm in a desperate rush to just get through it as quickly as possible. Like I'm brute forcing it in a way and that really really annoys me. I'm brute forcing it to get to the second stage of the fight. And the second stage happens, it's like this rules. I love this sort of fight. I love this kind of like mechanically,

uh, quick fast twitch sort of response stuff that I just fucking love when games present you with that challenge. But the first part, the first stage really, really bothers them. And then I got to the final boss. And Blessing told me he beat the game first try. And I was like, oh, cool.

Okay. I got to the final boss. and I thought, oh, this is scripted. I'm not supposed to be able to beat this. I'm supposed to die here, and then it's going to cut scene, and then something's going to, and I was like, oh, that's just how,

that was just the fight. How the fuck? What am I supposed to do here? And it was, and that's when I realized, I haven't been parrying much this whole time, except for this strategic, I'm going to parry this attack

and do the sweet move. You know, I haven't really been doing the second. I think, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, that we're all kind of used to when we play Sekiro. The final boss, I realized I have to do that. And that's interesting because I really changed the whole fucking game for me. Like, I still was dodging with that fight.

Granted, that fight took me. It felt like a fight of endurance for me because it was me dodging their moves, like, dod, dodge, and then hitting back. And, like, realizing that, like, it was going up a little bit minimally. And so I knew it was going to be like, okay, I'm going to be here for a while kind of thing. But that ended up working for me, right? But I got through phase two on my first trial on that one. And like, I wasn't, like, I didn't have to change the way I play for that boss.

But I do think, I think you're spot on in terms of like the different bosses kind of demanding something different from you each time. Because with that level three boss that you're talking about, that first phase, I got to that phase and I had that moment that you're talking about with the final boss where I was like, certainly this is a mistake. I have that with the first boss and the second boss This is what I'm saying And this is where I get hung up Like that firstly Having those kinds of experiences

And then also not having complete clarity On the rules of the Of like upgrading progression That kind of stuff It's a compounding thing Where that's where it feels like It's like It feels like it's

It feels like it's stripping you Of the sense of empowerment That you generally need To kind of keep going in these And I think like also those boss scenarios, the reason I've felt that almost with every bus as well, and the reason that frustrates me is because that lack of clarity doesn't, it shows that you don't really, a mastery of the mechanics isn't what it wants you to understand. Like in Securo,

you go into a fight and you're not sure what a boss is capable of, but you are sure of what you're capable of. And that is usually enough for you to stuff out what you need to do. Yeah, exactly, because you know what you can do, right? You have, whether it's your prosthetics or your timing, I feel confident going into a blind. They could release a boss fight for Sekiro today, and I'd feel good about going into it, because I know my timing for parries is down, and I just need to carefully figure out what it is. In this game, it doesn't matter if you have a mastery of dodging, parrying, and escaping, because you're just not able to understand what the boss is doing for a really long time,

how you're supposed to read that and what the game asks of you and how do you react to that and for me that's the mark of a bad boss fight design like I'm not I'm not gaining confidence in myself I'm understanding how

you know the specific things that these bosses want from me and again it's like I talked about the kind of the back and forth the tension and the ballet of boss fights that Sekiro has this doesn't feel like that this feels like it's a it's a kind of like turn based game

where sometimes they will apply their own. Busses often also feel like they have their own rule set which doesn't apply to you. Like I've had bosses that they're in like enemies that will, bosses and enemies actually, that I'll attack them and they will just super armor it even

though they have nothing indicating that they can do that. And like I'm hitting you with a heavy kick and you're ignoring it to punch me or an enemy with a weapon who like if you get hit while you're holding a weapon, you'll drop it. But if you hit a boss with it, the boss will not drop that weapon. It's like,

but that's a different rule set for me and you. Why is that, that's weird. And like some bosses will drop the weapon. Like, it's, it's so strange. Like, there's no, like, clarity. But I think that the fact that you go in there and it's like, Andy had that experience where it's like, I have no idea. This doesn't feel like it's capable.

And like, some people will say, well, that's how Genichiro was. But it's like, no, that's not how Genichiro was. Because you knew you could do something. I just agree. I just agree. I do want to clarify all this by saying that, like one phase, one phase of one boss is the only problem I have in this in the game. Boss one completely easy to download.

Boss two, completely is download phase two of Boss three, Boss four, like, Boss five, like everything else is completely easy for me. And I'll say, I only saw Boss four one time. Like Boss four, I did go in and didn't even need to download. I was able to go through it. I'm applying that thinking towards a design, like holistic design thing for a design ethos throughout of it. because I found that, like, I'm okay with it. Like, I can do that very easily. Like, I can go into a fight and be like, okay, this is what I need.

I need to take my beatings here and play defensively for a bit until they played all their hands. They played all their cards. And now I know what I need to do. But for most people, they're not going to be able to sit there and be like, okay, I need to dodge this while this enemy lays out every move set they've got. They're going to have an incredibly frustrating experience. I see, I found Sekiro more frustrating than this game in terms of that, right?

Like in terms of trying to figure out, like, how do bosses work? How the fuck do I beat Gini Tiro? How the fuck do I beat? Like, I found myself for beating bosses over. This caterpillar man, I'm supposed to fucking just parry everything and then you get out tired. My biggest example for me was probably Guardian Ape, where I got to Guardian Ape in Secreau. And I was just like, I don't, this guy, it plays differently than anything else in this game.

And took the 16 tries, no big deal. I mean, he's a big game over here. Like, I had to figure out like, oh, okay, I guess I had to just run around until, like, in order to dodge the moves and then learn the moveset. Whereas in this game, there wasn't a moment where, except for maybe the final boss in the first stage where I was like, I am stumped. I don't know how to beat this guy. But then I just had to lean into, okay, no, it is what it is. I got to dodge all of his moves and learn that.

And for me, that did work of using the mechanics that I already had. And then applying you here just in a way where I just had to read more than I had to read before. And so, like, I, and to go back to the obfuscation things, I think that's an interesting conversation as well. because like, I don't hate the obfuscation stuff as much. I think there are things here and there in terms of, like, what Andy's talking about, like wanting to bring in certain upgrades from the shrines over. I think that would be a smart thing, even if he did it like in an inscription type way where it is, choose the upgrade you want to carry over.

Like, I think something like that would have been cool. But I did like, for me, how much I had to figure out. Like, that did, it does remind me of playing a bite-sized soul's experience. in terms of a, all right, I'm getting into this thing. All right, how does this work? I got to level two and I died. Wait, I start at that age every single time. Like, I liked that process of figuring that out, figuring out the skill tree,

and then having to understand exactly what the game demands of me. It reminded me to do it. It reminded me of playing Death Loop, honestly, where Death Loop is a game where it's like, hey, we want you to go through the levels, play however you want, but you have to line up in the way they had to do it perfectly. Except for in Death Loop, I felt like that was handheld where, you know, they lay out the wall for you. They lay out, like, when you get there, how to do all the assassinations for you, right?

And, like, the game gives the presentation of wanting you to figure it out, but in actuality, you're not necessarily figuring out as a player. It's more so cult figuring it out. Whereas in this game, I felt like I had to figure shit out. Like, I felt like I really had to sit and go, all right, in level one, do I want to take the shortcut and skip a totem or two so I can get to the boss quicker and hopefully beat it with the lower age or do I want to go through the full thing, take the risk and try and get the perfect run going through the full length of the level, right? It almost feels like playing Mario

where it is, do you want to take the extra or do you want to take the secret pipe, right, to go to the skip three levels, but then not have extra lives that you can get? It felt like that, it feels like that kind of choice. But within a game that feels concise enough and tight enough in its design to where that choice for me actually mattered because level to level, when you have the shortcuts unlocked and you have that full range of choice, you go, all right, I know level one's going to have these many totems that I can hit if I take the shortcut, these many if I don't. I know level two is going to have three if I do this, three, four if I do this. And you get, you get such a familiarity with each of the levels that like the more you learn, the more, I guess the

more valuable that knowledge feels in the way that you play. And it reminds me a lot of how I felt like playing when I was playing Bloodborn and when I was playing Sekiro, except in a way that feels way more, I guess, contained and tight, not in a way that I would say this game is tighter than a second row or a bloodbore game, but tight in a way that is shorter. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say this game is like up there with a Souls game for me, but I wouldn't say it's far off in terms of how I felt coming out of Sekaro. Like, Sekiro was a game that I beat and I wanted to replay it over again.

And this is a game that I had that exact same thing where I beat it. I was like, that was a fucking phenomenal time. I want to play it over again. And I'm still, and like, I, I foresee myself coming back to this game to replay it for a very long time in the way that I felt when I beat Sekiro. It's really interesting the way the game can kind of where you can kind of break the sequence

in a way that doesn't really feel natural or a way that the game doesn't really want you to do. Not that it's like discouraging you in any way but with the shortcut system I found my way I found the way I was playing levels two and three I was doing like the weirdest things to get to the extra totems that I knew I could get to without having to maybe fight a couple of extra rooms. And in level three, there's like I would beat the first two dudes and I would fight the first

couple of rooms because I know I can handle those rooms and there isn't this onslaught of a bunch of enemies that I'm going to have to like, well, I'm fighting these two guys and then the giant guy is going to come take me down. Like I knew that I could I knew that I could fare well in those first couple of rooms and then I would with the amount of paths that open I think it is pretty brilliantly laid out and designed to where I could take the staircase up Get that totem take the staircase back down fight that lady to take that other room go up this staircase get the other totem and I was like Doing the weirdest shit that I don't really it's obviously designed to do that But it didn't really feel natural in a way.

It felt like I was kind of like breaking the sequence in a way to go backwards to find that one totem that I wouldn't have been able to access unless I went through this other room. And like, there's a couple of rooms that I haven't unlocked and I don't know what I'm doing in order to get them unlocked. And I'm still kind of really interested to find those and what those secrets are. Because there are a couple of rooms that I've walked up to, especially in level three at the top of the elevator. There's like a room that it's like an office type looking door thing, like double door

that it's locked. It's like, I don't know what's in there. I don't know what the hell is in there and I'm interested to find out. But I've already beat the game and I'm wondering, does this game have the sort of Hades thing to it where you beat it 10 times and you get the true ending? Like, I'm sure there's something like that because the game ended in a way that didn't really feel like there was. Oh, you're playing on PC. Yeah. Text me after this because like the PlayStation has trophies. And so when I beat the game, I went and checked the trophies to see like, all right, how do I platinum this thing? there are certain trophies that are like, all right, now do this.

And I was like, oh, okay. Do the upside down cost of it. All right. I mean, there's basically, yeah, there's more to it, Andy, that you, and like, this isn't spilling anything. The game is like, this isn't a spoiler, trust me. But, like, yeah, there's more you can do after you finish the game. And, like, it's very evident as you're playing the game.

I figured, I've just been replaying the levels after I beat the game to try to get lower and lower age. And that's kind of all I've really been doing, but I don't really know exactly the right path. And there's been rooms after the fact. And I'm like, oh, shit, I never walked into that room. That's cool. me go walk in there.

Tim Getty's. I have two questions for you guys about some stuff. One is, Barrett, can you bring up the screen with all of the skills unlocking with the, yeah, thank you very much. So we have this here.

And the way that it works is there's the, whatever, 20 or so of these little white dots that you're seeing. Each one represents a different skill. And can you go back to it? I'm letting it play so I can die and so I can show it. Gotcha, gotcha.

Yeah. So the way it works is you go. in each one requires a certain level of XP to unlock and then if unlock it five times, you get it as a permanent unlock. There's two things I want to bring up about this in particular. One, I really don't like that first step of it. Having to unlock it each run before you are adding to your permanent unlock system just seems excessive and it just seems like it's not really like it's annoying as opposed to being

designed. Well, like, had they just up to the level of experience you need or whatever, I think it would have been better. This feels a little confusing. So essentially, if you're replaying the levels over and over and over to try to unlock one of the abilities, if you start the level and it's 500 XP, you need to spend 500 XP to unlock it once and then 500 times five to unlock it permanently. So if you die, if you do 500 to unlock it, then another 500 to that counts as one. If you die, the next time you come back, you need to do the 500 again to do 500 again to get that second unlock. And that's fine when we're talking about 500. And to be clear, the 5x will go down and that

will stay through other run-throughs. So like even if you die and give up and start another run-through, this will stay. If you did one permanent unlock, it will stay at four times instead of going back up to five times. So that I didn't like and I thought that that was just like adding that to the confusing death counter to the confusing upgrades. There's a lot of things where I'm like, that felt like one thing too far from me. I'm like, why is it like, I think the game's tough enough, Tim, too. Exactly. And I'm like, help me, guys, please, I need help.

Yeah, I want to beat this. My question for you guys, like on top of that is I'm not thrilled with those abilities overall. Like, I remember starting the game up and looking at all of them and I'm like, okay, I want this and I want this. But there's 20 options. And I don't really care. I don't think that these things are going to help me in my gameplay.

Did you guys have a different take? Okay. They helped me a lot. Like, which ones do you find yourself using? They greatly helped to me. Kicking the bags, environmental mastery is huge. Environmental mastery essentially allows you to kick any footstools or bags of money on the ground or little benches or whatever. You can get them towards an enemy.

They'll trip and they'll fall and you can go and like punish them and get a couple of hits in. That's the first thing. Blessing told me to unlock. And that's the first thing I unlocked in the Let's Play That's Up. right now. It basically turns into a Jackie Chan scene where it's just like kicking shit all over the place. I took down one of the first big enemies just kicking all the money bags at him and it was

hilarious. It was great. That one's massive for me. The other one that's massive for me, shoot, I'm just open up the game. There's one that's sprint and triangle that will get you like a slide, like swipe move with your leg. That'll knock down most enemies. That one was super useful for me because I use that.

If I'm walking in, the first person I see is getting that. move because that ambi lead then allows me to get on top of them. I open Fortnite. The strong sweep is also good. There's one, wait, which one's that? Strong sweep, which is, which yeah, focus sweep, which is, which yeah, focus sweep, which just plants them on the ground and you can then run up and do the, uh, mount and punch. Yeah, focus sweep very, very big.

I also used, uh, well, for me, it was, it's, uh, forward forward heavy attack. Oh, yeah, like the stand back. And yeah, and that's like, if I had a bat, that's what I would use to take out. the first two people and it's kind of like a wide attack that it'll usually hit two people if they're next to each other um i also use the one that i mentioned earlier which was really really huge for me especially when i knew that i was going to methodically take out just individual people one by one um that when they let me close fortnight real quick when they uh when they punch me or are are going to attack me.

If I parry them at the right time for that counter, they are now opened up to allowing me to trip them immediately, getting them on the ground. And it was a really, really good combo. Because sometimes if you parry them, they, you could try to wail on them and they might start blocking immediately, but getting them on the ground was like huge

because that allows you to get in a couple more hits without being punished. You're talking on the ground counter or a different one? Well, ground counter is massive. Because ground counter was massive, Especially on boss fights and like bigger enemies that were if you're on the ground and enemy attacks you. If you counter at the right moment, you'll then trip them. Yeah, that really helped me with the second boss fight. Like I was saying, I have like 17 out of 20 of them a lot.

I think three of them are ones that you guys have named. So I need to figure that out and get that. Maybe those will help me because I do not have that ground counter. Oh, ground counter is huge, Tim. Yeah, the amount of times that you get knocked on the ground by somebody sweeping you and you get tripped up when they're going for their next attack, you hit just counter once and then you knock them to the ground and then you're at times I used it as a fallback move I use it as a move of like I kind of want you to do this to me because I can exactly I can withstand these attacks yeah I can withstand these attacks and just keep ground countering you as you keep knocking me to the ground and I have more health than you so I'm gonna I'm gonna win this battle of attrition right here yeah it really helps with like the there's like the the the girls with like the really heavy boots who like you like just kick do really like uh heavy kicks and stuff like that like it really helps with um there's like a couple like mini bosses that like um there's one right before the second boss that has like the

the stick like the really long pole that they use it's really helpful with characters like that um yeah that was like really intense i'm not talking the weapons yeah go but finish up here i i want yeah just like that really helped me with that second boss fight because there was like the first couple times that i i finished the second level i was at like at like at least age 60 or whatever. And I think it was like, that was around the same time that I permanently unlocked the, uh, the ground counter. And once I got there, I was able to beat the second level at like age 36. Um, so. Yeah, ground counter was instrumental in me, uh, finishing the second level for the first time. Like that I, I, a lot of a, I'm with Tim in terms of like, like,

I think after I unlocked about 10 of the moves, I stopped carrying as much, uh, because I look through the rest of the, the skill tree. And I was like, okay, I think I'm done. done here. But I do think, yeah, there's a certain number of them that are useful. But to talk about the weapons, right? Like the, I big shout out to the weapons for me. I think they're very essential for the game, right? It is that, it's part of that balance of trying to figure out how to do the most damage to your enemies. And the game does a good job of doing out weapons. And it introduces the machete and you're like, oh, this is very OP. Yeah. And you're like, oh, shit, I need. Well, actually, I still like the bat more than machete. I like the bat more, yeah. At first I like

the machete, but the bat is helpful for staggering enemies. Uh, yeah. and like the machete will just, they'll just attack through it. But like, yeah, once you get a machete, once you start using weapons, that really, well, once I started using weapons, that really turned the tie for me where I went from being like, oh, this is difficult to me being like,

okay, no, this has become manageable, because it is about trying to have a weapon at all times. And when we showed that upgrade screen, right, like one of them is to make it so that your weapons are more durable. And for me, in the way that I played, I focused all in on that, making my weapons powerful and making them durable. Because for me, weapons were the thing

that were, like, helping me with big enemies, helping with pretty much any single type of enemy and getting me through. And I think the selection of weapons in the game is pretty good because like Bear was saying earlier, right? Like there's pole type weapons. There's like a hacky type weapons. There's bat type weapons. And I think each of them play slightly differently, mainly the slicey stuff from the blunt weapons. But like it's meaningful enough to where it does feel like a choice, where I am like, all right, I got a machete and I got a bat on the ground. I'm going to go bat because I find that just more useful for keeping enemies busy. But I really like those mechanics.

Sorry, I was just going to say, like, if I turn my brain off and turn the snobby critic in me off, like, I have such a good time playing this game. And I, again, want to emphasize it. I think it's such a fun game, not fun game, but like such an interesting game. And it is well worth checking out. And I think I've reached a point now where I'm like, I'm able to turn that all off because I've done my due diligence on it and I'm falling into it a bit more. And when it works, there's, I can see how it becomes game of the air material for a lot of people.

And stuff like the weapons and stuff like when you do get the ability to just kick furniture at people is so amazing because I want to give a shout out to the developer's dog clap. Because like the whole like using classic kind of kung fu cinema as a motifs and like using kind of like the archetypes of that you go through as this character where you're the young brash kind of like. Kung Fu Disciple student and then over the years you you like age up into the different archetypes that you've seen in Kung Fu movies and end as the wise, the kind of like infebled but insanely powerful old man. Like I love that. And like it's such a unique thing that I like almost forgive pretty much everything that is happening in it otherwise that I'm like annoyed by just to play it.

And yeah, I just wanted to make sure that people know that I definitely have problems with it, but I also think it's a really cool game. To shout out, Slow Clap, too. I want to give a shout out because, like, I was somebody who played Observer, and I liked Obsolver fine, but I could never get super into it, even though I really wanted to. One, because that game came out in 2017, which is busy, but also, that game just didn't, all the elements didn't come together the way that I felt like they needed to. And that game was doing a lot in terms of being a multiplayer game that wanted to have a

soul-like kind of, you know, combat system, but also it wanted to be an ongoing live service game. That game did try to do a lot. And I think it didn't succeed on many of those things. But I think the things that did work for that game were the combat system, which is very similar to the combat system in this game, right? It's third person fighting mechanics, right? And I think they called it a fighting game. And like, I think that echoes in this game too, because I'll say that this game's fighting system for me makes it feel like I'm playing a fighting game, which is the best thing I can say about an action brawler. But they went from that to making this game, right? And for everything that Tam just described, I think that is a huge blowup. And I think that is

going to put this put slow clap on another level and put them on people's radar in the way that like this is a different different comparison but like it reminds me of how mattie makes games went from tower fall to celest not that absolver is comparable to to um what's called uh not titan fall wasn't even about her game tower fall in my mind it switched from tower to titan and i was like no that's that what it is souls titan fall yeah i don't think tower fall is comparable to to absolver and i don't know people are going to put c4 on the level of celest but it is that similar level of like that's interesting though kind of game i was going to bring this up earlier when andy was uh saying that he wishes he can bring his skills and stuff from the later levels to the

first that was one of my my only issues with celeste is that when you go back and play the older levels you don't have your new abilities and obviously that would kind of break the game in a way and i think that's the same reason they didn't do it here is that they know that the levels are designed with enemies being a certain skill level and and with certain abilities that they don't want you to have more focus or whatever. Is that a great choice? I'm not sure, but I do think it at least makes a little bit of sense. I do want to wrap this up before we get to the post show.

So I do just kind of want to go around and give final thoughts on this. Bless, let's start with you. Yeah, I mean, I think it's clear that I absolutely love this game. I would go as far as say that Seafood is the best beat-em-up game I've ever played. Like, that is how much I enjoy this game and that's how much I think I'm going to return to it. Yeah, like, it is such a, it's such, I think. it's good on all levels when you're talking about game design, you're talking about art design,

you're talking about sound, you're talking about all these things. And like, I definitely, like, I mean, to hear Tam, right, I definitely understand a lot of the criticisms and where Tam's coming from, especially when you're talking about the obfuscation of the systems and, like, how some of that stuff conflicts a little bit. And I can see clearly ways that this game can't improve. And I think that's there, right? And I can't wait for the next game to see if they try to level up from this one or if they do something completely different. That said, it's a, see if it was a game that I cannot recommend enough. And yeah, like, you should go play it. Like, don't, don't miss out on this because it's a busy February.

You say February? I did say February. To dispute what Tam was mentioning earlier with the combo mechanics. Everyone's coming off to me today. We got to. You came after, you came after C. What did you expect? You were mentioning how, like, just you could just input it all at once and it'll just

do the whole thing. That doesn't seem to be the case for everything, because, like, there's one of these combo moves that you unlocked him. Or it's actually just a combo. moves yeah yeah there's just i think it's just a normal combo whatever but it's for me it's heavy heavy then you wait a while then you go heavy again some delay in put yeah you have you have to wait to delay some of these things so they're not just all like you know tap it all in then it'll just finish the animation for you um and then tim what you want what you need to do the normal sweep man

up down heavy like the amount of times you finish like a cool combo and you get them stunned and you You can up down heavy normal sweep, not like even the cool focus sweep. You just normally even get them back on the ground, punish them again. I think you can do both. I think you can do both because I do down up. And then the person who reviewed it for us wrote in the script up down and I was like, that doesn't seem right. I think in the game menus, it's specifically up or down up.

I think up down is technically something else. We're going to end the post show. We're going to get into more specific side. Anyway, this is game of the year material for me. I do agree with blessing that this is my favorite like beat them up brawler game I think that's ever been made

it it's what I I never this is like totally gonna sound like wild and out of left field but like I never played Shenmu but this is what I thought

Shenmu was gonna be back in the day bro you should play Zenmu if you just so you understand how wild plays the shock that you're gonna have playing Shenmu

like when they were when Shenmu first was first being previewed, I imagined it to be like this, or like the bouncer back in the day. Like, I thought it was going to be this cool kind of kinetic type of combat going from scenario to scenario. And I know that they are very much not those games, not this game. This game is like what I've been kind of yearning for in a 3D space for a long time. I know that we've had 2D versions up with them.

I know that people absolutely loved Streets of Rage 4. That's like a lot of people's game of the year two years ago. was that last year, two years ago? Two years ago, you got it. This is like the game that I've been missing. This is the game that I've been wanting for a long time. Just like this sort of kung fu type game and it feeling really, really good and fluid

and it nails everything that I wanted, yeah. If that was Seafood, Rio would have got his ass warped like eight times during that run. It would have been laid out about eight times on that one run. Audio lists, Barrett, was showing Shenmu. Yeah. I also think this is a game of the year contender for me. And I am a little surprised to say that based on the type of game that it is.

But the biggest reason for me is the fact that I'm currently at a point that I'm like an hour ago. I was like, I don't know that I'm going to be able to progress past where I'm at. Like I just don't. And then I hit a point on my, I am going to be able to. I know I'm going to be able to. And I've had that moment at least 10 times over 20 hours of playing this game. And I think that that to me is great. I want to keep going back.

They keep giving me good reasons to want to go back and push a little harder. But even with that, I feel like every time I start to hit a point that I'm like, oh, man, I've hit a wall and I'm not progressing at all. I'm just wasting my time doing runs because this experience isn't even getting anywhere. I always have some breakthrough of mechanics. And I'm like, oh, shit, okay, I got this down. And it really is additive where going back, I'm like, I can clear the first level with my eyes closed. Like, I got this shit down.

It's getting the point that with the second level, I'm like, I can beat at least two thirds of this with my eyes closed. I like that because I can't imagine feeling that about level three, but I bet you in a couple days, maybe weeks, I'm going to. And I'm going to stick with this game. Like that's the thing for me that puts it as the game with your contender is I want to beat this game. I want to see it. That's one thing I want to bring up really quick of like with all of the games that we kind of like got bombarded with like Pokemon and all. Allie Allie World and like Seafood and like all of the stuff of like the second I started playing Seafood.

I was like, oh, this is all I want to play. I don't give like I really don't give a fuck about anything else I have now. I delayed other games that I was reviewing just so I could stick with Seafood and see it through. Yeah. I was how much I was enjoying it. I needed to be playing. I need to be playing Horizon and I've just been replaying Seafood.

That's not an indictment on Horizon. I just like I've been really just into wanting to master this experience. And yeah, that's where I'm at with it. Closing words, Tam. Yeah, I'm also, I want to be playing this game constantly. And I know I talked a lot about the things I don't like about it. But as I think I've mentioned enough times now that I have a very specific kind of take on these kind of games. And that's what I've surfaced to everyone.

So I'm sure there's people going to be that disagree with me or agree with me, whatever it may be. Fundamentally, though, I think this is a really cool game. I think this is a really interesting game. I think it's a really, for the most part, well-made game. And I can completely understand it being the people's games, game of the year. I love that this game exists. Like that space, as Andy said, has been in need of something big. And that space, that genre, the beat-em-up genre, is one of my favorite genres of all time.

I've spent, I cannot tell you how many hours playing Final Fight and Streets of Rage and those kinds of games. and the fact that they've taken that and like turned it into something their own is is like admirable and I respect slow cap for doing it. Sure, some things don't vibe with me, but I still understand what they were going for, even if they don't hit the mark for me. But I respect it and I think that it's a good game and I would recommend it as well. You never know how you're going to feel like if Tim can play this game and like be super into it as much as he is like anyone can. And at the very least, you'll get to experience one of the most unique games that has been released in a really, long time for sure yeah so there you go uh we're gonna talk more about it some nitty gritty stuff in the post show but tam thank you so much for joining us where could people find you you can find

me on twitter at tomore h and then i stream on twitch at twitch dot tv 4 slash tomoh h and then i'm around here and there as well love to see it till next time remember stay tuned here youtube dot com slash kind of funny games a ton more reviews coming why bless because it's review season yes it is everyone Let us know in the comments below what reviews you're most excited for. And until next time, I love you all. Goodbye.