Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 247

Episode Date: November 15, 2019

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What's up guys? Welcome to the first ever episode 247 of the Kind of Funny Games cast. As always, I'm Tim Geddes. He's joined by one of the coolest dudes of video games, Greg. Yepcha! Yeah, you're definitely in a EWalk mood today, Greg. I appreciate that a lot. We got Andy Cortez the number one games journalist joining us. What's up guys? How's it going, man?

Got a lot of scoops about this game. So many scoops. Wow. Happy we have you here. The best hair in the business, Fran. Mirabella, the third. FM3 underscore on Twitch. Thanks, man.

Wow. Good afternoon to y'all. Yeah? Epic creator code FM3 underscore as well. No, it's not. It's Fran Merebell. See, people use it. It's messed up.

It's now they'll remember. Now they'll remember. We also have Game Explains Ash Paulson on the shock mic over there. Woo! And throughout this show, we're doing the Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order review today.

And in one of the rare instances, that kind of funny, Pretty much everyone in the office is playing this game. Yeah, we're like the Jedi Council right now. Including Barrett, we are like the Jedi Council, including Kevin. It's fantastic stuff. And Ash has played a bit as well. So we're going to go around, we're going to give everyone's impressions,

and we're going to go giving our full review. But first, let me tell you that this is the Kind of Funny Gapest, each and every week right here on YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games. We get together, talk about video games, all the things that we love about them. You can get the show early by going to Patreon.com slash Kind of Funny. If you don't want to do that, it's cool. You can wait, watch it later on YouTube, roost your teeth, podcast services around the globe.

So many options for you. Shout out to our Patreon producers, Angel Gutierrez, and James Hastings for helping make this show. We're also sponsored by Movement, Felix Gray, and Quip, but we will get to all of that later. I want to get right into it. I want to talk Star Wars Jedi Fall in Order. Greg Miller.

Hi. What are your thoughts for this game? Biggest Star Wars fan. Before we even start, I do like Star Wars. I'm not like crazy about it. and you all over here are popping boners all the time. You know what I mean? I mean, I'm right.

Oh, Mandelorians got a flower in it that I saw in the back Clone Wars episode. Shut up, dude. Before we go, we're not, what's our spoiler take on this? We haven't talked about this in the talk. No spoilers, right? At any point, like, if we do get to spoilers, we'll make it extremely clear that it'll be the back half of the show. And I'm thinking we're not doing like, there are no story spoilers I would assume. No, no, no.

This is like the amount of spoilers you'd see in a review. Okay, so like we mentioned planet names. Yeah. Okay, cool. And like, you know, be careful. There's like, there's some that are. With Star Wars lore, it's a good point. It's pretty touchy, but I would expect like not any major spoilers.

Sure. I remember Death Stranding. There was a lot of questions when we posted. It'll be the level of Death Stranding, I would say. Okay, perfect. Yeah, we didn't spoil anything in there. Yeah, exactly. So then what's your question?

And, uh, but before you back, I really quickly just want to go around and see how far everyone is in the game. Ash, how far are you? Uh, I've been like five hours in. I only got it like Monday night. So I'm just between work and stuff. Yep. Yeah. Okay, cool.

So we got five hours in, Fran. I think we established up 25, 30% in, played for about 10, 11 hours on Jedi Master. So, you know, some setbacks, but fun ones. Mm-hmm. Andy? I beat it last night, or like at 4 in the morning. So I don't know how long it took me, maybe, like, 20-ish, around there. I beat it as well.

20, I think, is about accurate. Kevin, what about you? I'm probably, like, 10 hours in, but I also was playing, Jedi Master. And like, so I was, I think I'm a little bit. Is that the top difficulty? No, no, no. That's the one right below it. That's right before. Yeah. That's what I played on to. That's what I was trying to

Google it at the very beginning because I know I didn't go to the craziest one, but the one right below it. Yeah, there's like story, normal. Hard, very hard. Jedi Knight, Jedi Master, and then Grandmaster. Oh, there you go. Yeah, I was a touch of Grandmaster. Nick, Nick as well as I think around 10 hours in. Okay. So, so that's where I'm

then Greg. I'm The lightsaberers are making sense 20 hours I beat the game in 20 hours On Jedi Master? Yeah Wow man

And then Well I turned it down for one fight Yeah but that's no I was like alright And this is a spoiler The people know the characters in the game Right All right ninth

Ninth sister I was like you fucking suck Yeah I beat the story in 20 hours And I've probably put in an additional 15 since then That makes more sense Maybe 20 more

Yeah Yeah. So Greg Miller. What do you think? What do I think of Star Wars? Jedi fall in order, Tim. It's a great question. I've thought about this a lot and tried to figure out where I would start, right?

Because there's so much to criticize about the game. Like, from you're running and having a great time and it's beautiful and you stop, and the Cal's doing that thing where he's like a foot and half off the ground where his feet aren't lined up with the geometry of the floor. You're like, the weird choices of having to use L2 when you jump and grab something to then really confirm you want to grab onto it. Why would you do that, right? What I have a bunch of other stuff in here that is just...

Play out PS4, obviously. Playing out on PS4 Pro, thank you, for you, another... PC. Good point. Xbox 1X. Xbox 1X as well. I didn't have this geometry. PlayStation 4 Pro. The Xbox Series 2 Elite Controller.

It means nothing for this review. The fact that the response takes too long when you die in combat. You die in the geometry of the level, you fall off the thing, right? Boom, right back there. Thing fucking kills you. All right.

Load it up. Load it up. There I am. Sometimes the checkpoints are so bad. It's like, all right, cool. This boss is kicking my ass. I'm going to have to keep respawning at my meditation point and then running through this crevice,

running past enemies to get to him to keep doing it, right? All that. You can talk about all that. That's where you want to start? Sure. I adore this game. This game is not perfect by a long shot. It is probably the most fun I've had playing a game in 2019.

Like I love, love, love this game in a way that I wasn't expecting, even for the joke about me being a Star Wars fan at the front, right? I like the movie's fine, but like when you guys are doing interview, I was like, I don't feel like spending seven or nine or whatever, like more than nine, right? Like 12 Sundays watching Star Wars, not where I want to do right now. But I love Star Wars as a concept. I love the games.

I love watching everything the first time through. Like, I thought from the beginning, this game was awesome. I thought it kept it going. I think dips in the middle. There's a slowdown. The one planet, Dothmere, right? Dothmere, I thought, was like, Okay, this is where it's like, cool.

This camera was not designed to be in closed spaces. There's a bunch of issues here, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it ends so fucking well. It begins so well. It kept me going the entire way with the story, with the combat, with the evolution of Cal, with me getting my powers. And to get to the end and be like, this is a rare for me, I think, where I go, I want to platinum this game, and I'm not going to move on to the next thing. I'm going to keep working on it while I wait for a guide.

Because this is a game of a map that takes them getting used to. But once you get used to it, I do feel like, okay, cool, I got this, and this is actually helpful. It shows you how many chests you have left, how many secrets you have left to find. I think... It's a Metroid map. Exactly. In a lot of different games, I would see that. And I'm like, oh, I want to platinum this.

I'll let a guide get made and come back to it. This was very much where I love this character. I love the journey I've been on with BD1. I love my lightsaber. I love my outfit. I love what I'm doing that. I want to exist in this world longer and longer and longer as long as I can. So I'm still right now, just every night coming home and I have time popping it on and going it.

And to the point that, you know, Poe's visiting right now, I had him play it last night because he's a huge Star Wars fan. You didn't sign the NDA? No, no, no, no. He's good. Don't worry. Nobody follows him. You called Shoe.

Exactly. But, like, getting to watch the opening again and just watch it, like a Star Wars movie. I was like, God, this is good. I absolutely love this game, despite its many, many flaws. Yeah. Where I feel like even at its worst, though, the flaws bring it down to eight level, not below that. Like, maybe sometimes some sevens-ish. But I feel like this is such a genuinely Star Wars game.

It, I think, rivals Star Wars, any star story I've ever heard or seen or consumed in any media. The story. The story, the characters, and it's really about the characters. Like, to me, especially now that we are watching Star Wars for Star Wars and Review, that the Mandalorian's out, that the hype for episode 9 is coming like, we're in like just peak Star Wars right now. And it's really making me realize, like, what is it that makes Star Wars special? And I think that it always comes back to the characters and the Blondeau. believability of the team and the dynamics that are going on. I think that every single character introduced in this game,

whether it's in the very beginning or towards the end, has purpose. The dialogue is fantastic. The reasons and the things that they're having you do, I think are all meaningful. And every single step of the way, I feel like, is impacting this story. Doesn't need to be the Star Wars saga as a whole.

But I feel like where this one fits is so smart. And I think that it's debatably my game of the year. I still need to like really kind of play a couple more things and like figure that out. But it is in the running right now where up until now, I'd say Resident Evil 2 remake was my easy game of the year. I think now that it's between the two of them and it's real close. I think right now I'd probably give the edge to this because I feel that it succeeds as a Star Wars game so, so hard and so well, where I was having fun and all the little things you're talking about about the lightsaber and about the droid. BD1 is one of the best droids in Star Wars, hard stop.

That's crazy. Yeah, I agree, too. Playing with him reminded me of seeing BBA8 in Force Awakens, where it's like, damn, how do they capture the magic of R2D2 again, but with a different personality? And they really did that. Cute bot noises. The amount of customization options, like, it makes you feel like this is your character.

And your, the lightsaber stuff, like, I've never been able to do. Like, we just did the lightsaber building thing in Disneyland, and it's like, that was such a personal experience. I feel like this game mimics that. What are a few of those things, right? It's just for the people who don't know. You can, you essentially, like, there's a lot of stuff that's all cosmetic, but there's a bunch of different parts of the lightsaber,

and you get to, like, you collect them as you go around the world, and you can craft and, like, change the color, change the blade, change the, like, all this stuff. And it's like, you're emitter, change your switch, change your handle, change your material. You do it right out of the gate. And that's the thing is, like, you know, so many games, I think, make collectibles and cosmetic collectibles, too. Garbo, why do I care?

Yeah. Every chest you're opening in this game is giving you. you something that I did immediately want to inspect. That's what it is. It's more than that, too, there's, like, there's lore elements to it. For people that do care about the Star Wars mythology. Duty and resolve. Like, that type of stuff is just,

it's cool, and it's like, it makes it feel so much more real than just collecting a bunch of shit for no reason. Some of the bugs, though, of which there are many, I got caught four or five times in situations where I had to hard reset the console. And it was always things where it was not

to the game broke or anything, or a game bug. a spot. The game is not well designed for a lot of its puzzles and for exploration. I think that there's one way that they want to do things. And it's so open that I feel like sometimes the signposting can be so poor that you don't know what the critical path is. So you'll end up going down a different path because it's there and you're not ready to explore that yet.

But it's hard to know. In Metroid, it's like, oh, that's a red door. I don't have those missiles yet. You know what I mean? Like I know I'm going to need to get that, but there's no way to get through it right now. Like I'm going to have to get the missile at some point. With this, I feel like there's things where it's like, oh, I feel like I might be able to figure this out. I'm supposed to have my droid go over and open that door so I can go through here and then call him back.

No, you're not supposed to do that because if you do, you get locked in a hallway that you just can't get out of. Yeah, that's what the example I was looking for, because like it is like Metroid inspired where you're intended to go down a hallway and find a red thing that you're like, I can't do this. That's the magic of what they've brought to the table with this game and referencing all these games of the past. But I haven't run into this yet where you make a choice and you get stuck. That's a huge problem. That wasn't the only time. There was a time where there's an elevator, like a story beat elevator. And like you plug it in to turn the elevator on.

And I walked and I activated the elevator and it started going up. And then the camera, like I just moved a little bit. And I fell off the elevator. saw the elevator go up and I'm like, huh. You just... Great. Unplugged it, plugged it back in. Elevator's still up there. It's not responding. And you can't go back to a previous checkpoint.

There's no way you can just go to like, you know, respond the situation. And I was just like, oh, man, I had to restart the game. You had to restart the whole game? There's four different points of this game that I had to restart because I got stuck in a hallway. The entire game, you had to restart. No, like reload. Oh, yeah, oh, sorry. You had to restart the instance. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no.

It's not like... To be fair, you just... You did say you had to restart the game. Yeah. You meant that save. Reset it. So you couldn't, yeah, you couldn't just like die. And that's exactly it.

Well, there was, when I got caught in the hallway, or even there, there was nowhere to die. Right. But even if you could, sometimes, it still puts you in the spot you're stuck on. I ran into that where I went one way to find a collectible on these, like, ropes you swing on or whatever. I was like, cool. And then I get over there. And I'm, like, trying to swing back. And it was very unintuitive of how to get back.

And then I was just like, I couldn't figure it out for the longest time. and it wasn't really a puzzle. It was just awkward. And I almost got to that, where I'm like, I'm stuck. Like, I don't even know how to get out of here. I almost ran out of my life, you know, getting out of there.

So it certainly has stuff. So that stuff's very interesting that it's there. And I feel like the game really works in its combat and really works in a lot of its traversal. But then there's a ton of traversal elements that I just feel like it falls flat. Anytime that you're sliding, it never feels good. You never feel like you're in control of the character.

And it happens throughout this entire game. When you come around giant banking corners, you're going to fly off. You're going to fly off. Anytime that you're swinging on ropes or whatever, you don't know where the hell you're going to jump off the rope. Like, even though you know, I'm looking where I need to go, why is he jump this way? It's like the wall running. It's like, oh, it auto locks so often, but then sometimes it doesn't.

Yeah. And what you're talking about having to hold L2 when you jump to climb, it's just like. And not even hold it, tap it. Yeah. You go, he grabs whatever grade he wants to. And then he hangs off one and you have to tap LT. I'm like, you grabbed it. You didn't have to hold it the whole time?

No. No. I hate that. I didn't understand. First, speaking to your point earlier, Tim, one little detail I do like is, I agree that the signposting isn't great,

but I have noticed that when you go down an optional path for a collectible, you know, the droid will say something to Cal. He'll be like, oh, you know, I want to go explore over here, thereby kind of giving you the player an idea

that this is not story, you know, where you're not supposed to go. So I did at least appreciate that, but I agree, in general, the signposting is pretty cool. There's a bit of that contextual sort of back and forth.

I agree, but there was a moment where, I was having to backtrack and good Lord I fucking was so annoyed in this moment of backtracking and then I get called by Sear who is back on the ship and she's like

hey you're gonna get back to the mission and I opened up my mouth I was like fuck I'm so far off where I was supposed to go because I just it was like ultimate frustration but keep going Tim because this is you right now I just realized you haven't finished your fault I'm pretty much there it's like

as negative is that all sound. The combat is so fantastic. And, you know, a lot of people compare this to Souls games. I've never really played Souls games. And I get it from what I've seen. And very secure. Yeah. And I enjoy it a lot. But fuck, this game kicks my ass. It's very difficult. I do very much appreciate that you can change the difficulty at any time. And it's like literally midfight. You can change difficulty. Oh, I didn't realize that. Yeah. It would like you back to the metadata. No, it's real cool. And I like that. And I don't think I've ever used that functionality this much where I try. tried playing on Jedi Master, which is hard, for the majority of it.

I feel like, majority of the game I did. Yeah, I think it's the right spot. But there were a ton of times where I dropped to medium. There are a ton of times I dropped to easy, the story mode, where I'm just like, I am getting my ass gift. And it's been 45 minutes of me fighting this boss. And I just can't wrap my head around it. And it's not like the box. That is dark sales insecure.

Yeah. And it was that thing of like when it was happening to me where it would be 45 minutes of me going over and over. Fuck, in cursing, it's screaming. And I remember distinctly at breakfast one day, Jen's like, so what do you think of the game? I'm like, I love it. She's like, you scream at it a lot. I'm like, I know, but it's like it is that soul's part of it where it is like, you know what you should be doing. Exactly.

It's not that I'm frustrated because the boss is, in my opinion, cheap or doing something stupid. It's me fucking it up. So when I finally get it and the amount of times I would win these battles with one sliver of health. And it would be that thing of like heart in my chest, holding the saber. And then we turn it off and like that. I was like, oh my God, does this feel good? I feel like throughout the game, there are, anytime you're fighting bigger enemies,

it doesn't feel as good as when you're fighting somebody that is like. Sure, you want to be able to parry and go with that. Yeah, it's like the big spiders or like the big toads. Like early on, there's an optional toad like boss fight that kicks your ass. To a point where it's like, it's everybody. Yeah, this is one damn to go back to not fight in the beginning.

And but the thing is that you want to push through. I persisted. I persisted and I eventually Sometimes you cheese him Just hit him from the doorway You know what I mean? But it's like Back by in particular

A true Jedi It's such a spiking difficulty That I feel is just way too early That it doesn't give me the sense of like Oh I'll come back to this It gives me the sense of like This is poorly designed where it's true Oh man I got the total eye come back to it

That's my thing You were supposed to come back to that My thing with it in general And I know talking to everybody They have different takes on the combat And how it is And like how you unlock powers But going through

The ride of Cal in the journey of being him in this game, it's frustrating the beginning of there are these enemies that I can't fight or I'm not powerful enough and I'm going to keep moving. And it's rare I feel that I play a game where by the time I actually go through and I feel underpowered and then I'm slowly getting more powers and I'm getting stronger and I'm getting stronger. And there's a definitive moment which I will not spoil where it's like, no, I'm, I fucking got this. I am a Jedi, right? And I come out and start fucking going at everything. And it's like the game, like, I, this is, oh, stuff.

Stick with me. This is something that's already been spoiled by a trailer today during XO 19. Very good, very good. So this is something

got it spoiled already, but if you're blackout maybe you don't want to know it, right? Sorry, or do you want to know it or whatever? Yeah, make it sound like it's going to be a bummer.

I'll stop, I'll stop. What I'm going to say is there's a moment you probably saw on the XO-19 thing that's weird. That would have been a cool moment to have, right?

When that happened in the game, I was like, fuck, they didn't earn this. It's very much you're at a crafting bench and then it just happens. And it was like, oh, what a lame reveal. I thought that that would be like,

oh, that's going to be the tenor of the reveals in this game. It wasn't. The stuff you don't know and the stuff that happens later and when I am a Jedi and you go, like, the game fucking builds to a point where I think if you're early on and you're playing at different times, you can be like, this sucks, I'm underpowered, I'm going to push around, blah, blah.

But like, even getting pushed around in battle, it is like the, it's the weirdest thing of role playing as him and role playing as a Jedi and the game being not the Force Unleashed. Where it's like literally like, no, think through these fights. Don't, you're fucking it up. Dodge, weave, do this, you know what I mean? Wait for them to make the mistake.

But the amount of these fights, when I would get cheaply hit, I'd fuck up, and they'd hit me. And I'd be like, fucking, gah, gah! And I'm slamming the saber into them, like, yelling. And I'm like, man, it's the dark side. I'm being Kylo Red right now. I'm just fucking slashing the station. They make you feel that role-playing is a really good way to put it. Like, that's so accurate.

Something that's really cool, Greg, I was talking to Barrett a lot about this. The moment that we're not spoiling here. Me and him had a totally different planets, totally different points of the game. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I think that it's cool where like the more that I'm talking to people here, I'm like, things are happening in different places. And like, it's pretty cool based on like how you play the game. Yeah, really quick, I just want to jump in.

Like the thing that we're not going to spoil, that moment that I got to it, I feel like they absolutely did earn because of the way that I got it. The way that Tim described how he got it was probably how you got it. The way I learned through that. I was like, oh, yeah, that's really a weird way. My stuff to the workbench, yeah, tweak it and then boom. No, the way I. found it was just like, holy shit, this is really cool how they're presenting it. So yeah, I think it's weird that there's several ways to get to that moment,

which I don't know if it's a benefit or a detriment to the game. It's like getting an alternate ending in a game and you're like, oh, well, that was like, it's cool. I have this, but that's like shitty and that's well done. Yeah, so I beat it last night. I like the game. I don't love it. I think that it, there's a lot of moments in combat that are frustrating.

not difficulty-wise, but I feel like this game has some pretty big problems with a lot of the enemy AI. There's a lot of moments where some AI is just standing there looking at me, and that could just go towards the bugs. That could just go towards some broken issues with the game. Yeah, I haven't crap out a few times.

Not often, but a couple times they just didn't even do anything. Yeah, it happened to me about at least five or more times where some spons are just kind of looking at me. I do feel like the combat through the majority of the game, I played on night for about 30% of it, and then I dropped down to the normal difficulty or whatever. But I feel like a majority of the game's combat,

based on the path that I took, sets you up for more of a hack and slash experience and doesn't really necessarily reward... You don't feel like you necessarily need to be parrying a lot of these attacks, at least from what I felt. I can't imagine that. And until the final final... fights,

a couple fights down the line that felt, oh, this is how the game wanted you to play, and that just wasn't super obvious to me. It felt like a different, like we were playing different video games for me. Like the final fights and the majority of the rest of the game. I thought the game started off incredibly

strong. A lot of the middle just kind of took a dip for me to where I thought, man, I don't really know if I am really digging this game, and I thought it ended incredibly strongly. I don't see this being a game of the year for me, maybe since it's a bit of a weaker year we don't have kind of these giant big exclusives

that we're kind of used to I thought it ended incredibly I really there's that moment towards the end where you're like fuck yeah man now I'm Cal and I'm really really digging

sort of this you know this back and forth between you and your shipmates or whatever Yeah They do a couple They do a couple things with the the shipmates that feels like a half-assed version of what Mass Effect did with Chipmates.

Sure. Like, very, very half-assed. Yeah. Maybe like a quarter-assed. Yeah. And I felt like that was kind of not fully formed. Yeah, there's not much dialogue-choice stuff, right? It comes up.

Do we know if it has any impact whatsoever? I don't have any effect. It's just sort of your, whatever, you want to hear. You can fill in the coloring book page. Yeah, it was like Anthem did the same thing, where it was like you can get a response, it'll be different, but it doesn't affect anything. This is how they talk to you.

to you. Yeah. And speaking to this point, that's actually one of the things I didn't like about the game early on is now again, I've only gotten several hours in, but all of Cal's shipmates,

shipmates are great. Cal himself bores me so much. He is the most vanilla, most bland. Now again, only several hours in. It sounds like, from what you're guys saying, it gets better. He gets better.

And that's, I think the greatest compliment to the story of this game is I entirely agree with you where Cal is just like, I feel like almost set up to just be like, a lame ass dude.

And as you go through, there's so many story beats of growth for him that feel backed up by gameplay that by the time, it's not even just the end. Like, I feel like there are multiple, uh,

relationships that happen with him and every single member of the, the crew and just people you meet where it's just like, oh, I believe in him being a better person, being a Jedi now. And it's just like, I feel like it's a story that we haven't seen before in Star Wars of, that they,

without spoilt and stuff, but he goes down of like where he starts and where he ends is not the traditional kind of Jedi tale. Yeah. And that's, I mean, another comment to it. I agree with you. Yeah. And I totally understand where you're coming from, right? Because I think that's part of Cal when you meet him in the game and start playing as him.

He has somebody who has not cut himself off from the force, but like he's had to not be himself. He's had to be in this box. And I think getting BD and the conversations they have and even when the contextual ones start happening, right? There's a important, or many important ones, but a specific, you start. going through this thing and you and you're talking to BD and BD's talking to you and you don't understand BD obviously but Cal's voice changes and these things go on and it's like awesome and the way they do his backstory and all these different things I do feel from it I do understand why he's the way he is and I am excited for where he gets to I do want to call

it the uncharted effect though where when you're playing a third person game and you're running around and you're jumping and you're climbing stuff I want creative funny witty stuff and there's really none of that for me I would say there's none there's definitely not very little that again watching poe play the opening there's a couple in the opening where I was like oh that was close oh crap crap he does he does a very much

Drake like oh yeah exactly and I was like oh man I'll be more of that and eventually that does taper off especially when you're just exploring yeah when you're out there like it's just quiet yeah exactly yeah it's much different but if we're talking about sound here the fucking soundtrack oh my god the sound track is so

so good and I feel like right off the bat there's a song choice that they have that I thought was so inspired and so different and again, I feel like... In the opening cinematic? Yeah. It's like right when you start the game. Like something happens where I'm just like...

This is so uniquely Star Wars. This is what is going to make this game stand out in the canon of Star Wars where I'm like, this is different. It's like, it's similar to you can't imagine a cantina without the canteena theme. This is like, oh, if there's can'tina music, there's probably other types of music that are Star Wars. Wars as well. And I love it. I bought it so hard and I feel like the way that they use musical

elements in this game is very smart. Yeah, the sound cues are very on point with the series as well. What do you think? You haven't chimed me. What do you think? Everybody's got to get through their side of it. Yeah, I'm going to back up again to like what is the game for me. And actually, it's funny to hear because, yeah, I think I agree with most of what everybody said. I haven't encountered nearly as many of these bug issues. There's definitely like little geometry issues and things like that. But like so far it's just sort of a little stiff at times or like the camera doesn't do exact what you'd want to do.

It's funny because the game looks so polished, but it lacks the ultimate polish on all these elements that it uses and all this inspiration. And that's where I'd bring it back to is that it's like fascinating to me is when I look at the game, I'm like, holy cow, the team literally. and I'm trying to choose my words carefully was strongly inspired from so many games of the past and they try to bring all these things together into one game that you hopefully love in the Star Wars universe

and when I go to play it literally the game does this it opens up with an uncharted E3 demo and you do that and then it teaches you the basics of secure of combat which of course was born out of souls so after you learn the basics of that and how that skill tree works you move on to learn your Metroid Prime map which was of course inspired from all the classic 2D maps and the world is basically a mashup of Tomb Raider

and Metroid Prime that you sort of explore with that dose of Securo and sure, God of War now, the new one, but almost more I'd say on the other side because it's not as open. You know, it's very pathed. You know, not that God of War's not. I just mean that God of War feels more connected throughout.

I don't know what it was about the planets, but it's very, like you said, in God of War you don't get on like a slide that you awkwardly jump off of and have to do it over again. It's very much the roller coaster ride that you, well, that's the uncharted. I mean, I think the God of War stuff for me really hits with the planets and the realms.

Yeah, and actually, that is true. So you're right, God of War. That is, so literally go through the list. You know, Uncharted, Sequeiro, Souls, Combat, Metroid, Prime, Tomb Raider. Then they bring in Breath of the Wild physics puzzles that they learned from a little bit at times. And they bring all this together. There's God of War. And it's really awesome for those reasons.

It took a little while for me to warm up to that, I was like, I honestly didn't want that, like, uncharted E3 demo. And I appreciate it in the beginning, but I'm like, what's the gameplay? You know, when you hop in, you definitely start to realize that you got to be a fan of action, sword combat, you know, the saber combat. And so hopefully if you like Securo, you don't have to make it that hard, but hopefully you like those basic mechanics. Because a lot of the action that I've seen, it's like 100% like getting into fights in Seciro. Even with the big enemies, you get the same exact effect. But again, same thing.

doesn't have the ultimate polish that that team is able to bring to that combat. It's good, and it's darn good, but it's still not... Like a Jack of All Trade, it's kind of massive. I forgot to say this earlier, but, like, my succinct review of this game is Jack of All Trade's Master of Star Wars. Like, it really nailed... Master of Jedi. The Star Wars...

Let's call IG if that as the strapline. I'm going to tweet that in Vargo. But, yeah, it's like, to me, it is definitely Jack of All Trades, and it does all the things very well, but not as good as any of those things. but not bad. Right, and exactly that's it. That is okay for me. I really like this game.

It is growing on me more and more because, again, it does so many things so well, even if not perfectly. And it brings all of these favorite pieces of games together. And I'm like, wow, this is so, yeah, times. I'm like, wow, this is so Metroid Prime. This is so Breath of the Wild. This is so Tomb Raider.

And like, in these moments, I'm like, it's great. And so it's weird to say that I've kept in the back of my mind. I'm like, this is going to sound stupid to some people. It's a gamer's game and it's old school. it's new school. And what I mean by that is, there's nothing wholly original and brand new about this game in any way, shape, or form. But it brings together all these favorite things, whether from your favorite 2D games or favorite 3D games, I feel like. And it's got some of that old school design philosophy, like you're saying. You literally do, you go down a path and you're going to

die. Even uncharted does this at times. And it's like, well, we couldn't really find a good way to avoid that. So you're just going to die a lot until you avoid that curve next time or whatever it is. I'll say what it does do new, though, is the, I think. think us having a really good Star Wars game. We've had 13, 13 canceled. We haven't had this in a wild. We had Amy Hendx game canceled. I was extremely disappointed with the campaign in Battlefront, too.

And I think an hour into this, I'm like, God, they did it. We got a game that I could absolutely recommend to any video game player or Star Wars fan. It's well done, and there was a lot of care put into it. And going back to the whole crafting your lightsaber, I saw this up on your screen when you were playing it. I guess the first day we got the codes. And that's kind of when I got the first hint of, oh, they didn't have to do this. No.

We could have, they didn't have to be a whole lot of, there couldn't have been a whole lot of a customization put into this game, and they could have put all the care into the story and stuff. But they gave us these little extra things that I think matter a lot to. That make it yours. Yeah.

This is my Cal. It is so personal, and I think, and this is hard to do without spoiling stuff, but it's as the story progresses, obviously. The lightsaber customization is such a big part of it. And the entire time, I was like, I'll do this and I'll do that.

And I'll do this. And I want to try this. I want to unlock more colors and blah. And I'm changing it left and right and left and right. And there comes a story moment in there, right? That's tied into his backstory and everything else in your lightsaber where it was like, oh. Like all of a sudden it went from being like, oh, I'm fucking on being a toy to be like, oh, shit. And like I made my lightsaber and stopped. That was my, that's my lightsaber from that moment on, right?

Where I twisted it around and did what I wanted because like there's now, for me, playing a narrative adventure, suddenly there's a story to my saber, which sounds weird to say. And they didn't force it on me. I have a story to my saber. Ah. No, what I love about that and going back to what you're saying about, like, doesn't do anything like absolutely new. I think this is the new thing that I've never experienced in a game where there are choices that you end up making and you care so much about these random things that honestly don't matter. They don't affect gameplay. It's all just for looks. And there's a story beat where a thing happens. And the decision you make does not matter because immediately, I after the cinematic, you can go into the menu and change your option to whatever you want to be. It doesn't matter. But they make that moment matter. Matter. The choice that I had to make there, I was like, I knew that I was going to be able to change it. And I still was like, I need to make the right choice.

I didn't. I made sure to save. And then I chose and I was like, oh, a close application restarted. Dude, I love it, though. This game accomplished that, though. This game accomplished that that that made you feel like this is so authentic. Star Wars that I care about this character and his

lightsaber. I'm so happy to like watching this discussion is fascinating for me because I'm again like six hours in or so and I was kind of feeling kind of lukewarm on it like oh exactly what you guys are saying this feels like an amalgamation of different games like oh Uncharted oh Metroid Prime I just feel like it doesn't have its own identity

but again that seems to be the early game and I know that that's always such a cop-out right where I oh well you got to keep playing further you got to do this thing I don't think at any point it's bad but for sure on Dothman was where I was like, all right. Like, I'm fighting these guys around blind corners. They're fucking with me.

The camera's winging to the wall. I can't see, ugh. And some elements got a little too destiny. Like, some of the enemies got a little too destiny for me. I thought, like, this doesn't feel like Star Wars. Oh, okay. I didn't veer off a little bit at times. Uh, what?

I was just saying you thought some of the characters veered off from feeling like a Star Wars game. Yeah, I think I think to put this in way that it's, like, not spoilery at all, because we've seen this in the first demo they showed, but it's like, oh, fighting bugs. And it's like, no, that's not Star Wars, but then it's like,

when you think about it, it's like, it is. Star Wars could be anything, you know? Yeah. No, but I'm just talking later on.

There are some enemies that are introduced where I'm with you. This feels like a different. Maybe it's more Metroid even, right? It's like a different world. The,

yeah, I thought the game did a great job with its, I never felt, um, I guess I always felt it compelled to keep exploring. And that's my thing. When I saw an extra path, I,

I immediately thought, like, I could keep going to the story route, but that way, there's probably going to be another suit that I could wear. There's probably going to be another... Which, by the way, I only ever unlocked two suits. Yeah, the suit game... Suit? Real bad. Ponchos and stuff? No, no, no, no, underneath the ponchos.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I never wore the poncho. Me neither. As soon as I got to take out the poncho, I was like, I took off the poncho and I started rocking in the other thing. There's only four of those you can unlock that are just like normal outfits that the ponchos go over. And I, because in the problem, here's my thing. Ponchos look hideous. I think when you on the customization screen, once you're playing

and you put them on, it's like, all right, because I, but I held off for hours. I held off for like 15 hours. And I was like bitching about it to Lucy one night before she went to bed. And the next morning she came out and I was all blurry eye playing. I'm like, I broke down and put on a poncho. It's weird though, but why is there only one option that's not poncho? There's one jacket option, and then there's like 19 ponchos.

So that's it's it. Yeah, I don't know. There's not a lot of like. You're just re-skinned the non-pancho out. I only ever unlocked one of them, though. That's my problem with it. Like, I unlocked a hell of ponchos. look, the ship that you fly in, your squad mates, you know, there's different color options for that. There's different colors for BD1, which is really cool. And I always like, you know. Yeah, I'm matching them with the poncho or the other.

Or if there's too much red on this, do I make BD blue? Yeah, I love all sorts of stuff like that. So, Ash, I want to let you go for a little bit. Like what are your thoughts on the game six hours in? Like I said, I was feeling kind of lukewarm on it. And hearing you guys talk about how much better it gets later. And I want to make it clear. I don't think it's bad.

And that's my thing, sorry, just to interrupt where I was going originally, is it's never bad. No. It's just like playing it, it does feel like, all right, cool, it's a Star Wars game at some, a certain point. Yeah, like it just feels at least to start sometimes like a bog standard 3D action game with combo-based combat and, you know, uncharted climbing, as we've all said. But I'm still having a good time. Like, I'm not, you know, I may be lukewarm on it at five, six hours in, but I'm not disliking it. And I certainly, like, hearing you guys say all this, I actually want to go right home and play more,

because it sounds really exciting. And yeah, now I will say I'm also a casual Star Wars fan. I like it, but I'm not going to notice every single reference. And so I'm sure that, you know, there are little nods and references that are lost on me that would be for a Star Wars fan, oh my God, this is the coolest thing ever. So that stuff is lost on me. I'm still a little down on Cal, but I totally believe all what you're all saying. So I think that where I'm at in the game, I'm not necessarily, you know, I can't really give

an overarching, fully informed, you know, verdict. But it does seem to be the kind of thing where you need to get over that initial slight hump to get to the really good stuff. And that's where I'm at right now. Early on, I'd say Cal reminds me a lot of when I played Horizon Zero Don where I thought ALE was pretty boring as well. Like, she just wasn't like a super fun character. It was more of the interactions you're making with other people that were kind of entertaining.

but yeah I kind of agree with you there I do think Cal does get better but I don't think he like jumps off the screen and to become like this super compelling character but you know what's great is that he's around his art is cool though yeah well and he's surrounded by all these characters

who do stand out and that's what's cool it's like that's like BD1 is maybe my favorite droid so far like in movies and the whole like it's a cool little droid and the characters in the ship that you meet and he's surrounded by people who help make him more interesting. Yeah. But I am

incredibly excited to hear what you guys said about, or see what you guys said about not only the story arc backing up what happens to them, but the get working in a gameplay context. I love stuff like that. So, yeah, so far, it feels like an amalgamation of a bunch of different games I've played. It's an amalgamation of some of the best games of all time.

But that's true. That's what's so interesting about it. Yeah. Keth. What are your thoughts? So for the first six hours or so, I was really down on the game where like all the bugs felt like Real bugs or

Star Wars bugs or like Game bugs or like game bugs? No no no actually game bugs Code bugs like the jumping around landing and you not being quite on the floor or you jumping off something and trying to grab a rope

and it just having to take do that like 10 times because I didn't get it Yeah it's hard to tell was really frustrating And also I think that playing The Jedi Master Also made it so hard

where like anyone was taking me down and it was one of those things where it's like this doesn't feel like it doesn't feel like I'm hitting them with a lightsaber it feels like I'm hitting them with a stick. That's a great point I felt the same way. And like that got so frustrating

but I kept playing and now I've hit the point where I when I go against stormtroopers I take them out fairly easily and like I'm starting to feel that like oh shit I am a Jedi you're growing You're starting to learn their patterns and stuff.

Feeling that growth is really satisfying. It took a lot longer than I wanted to, though, to get there. That's great. There are a couple of enemies towards the end that have patterns that aren't super distinguishable from what their moves are going to be, what the next thing is going to be. I feel like there's a lot of...

I feel like there's a lot of games where, you know, an animation is about to start. Like, God of War, I think, when you're fighting some of the enemies there, you know, oh, when they do this move, this attack is coming, I know what to do. And towards the end, some of them get kind of muddy where it's like you hear the noise cue and it sounds

similar to that other noise cue but then it ends up being a different attack and you should have jumped instead of dodging and it is very very frustrating yeah that's where it doesn't quite have I think the polish of like Securo and Dark Souls they have learned so much about how to do that again it's not bad it's great in this but it's missing at times

one of my biggest frustrations is the lock on because I would always charge in there's a there's a dash forward move that you fly forward several feet like 10 feet and you go and you throw your life and it's really really cool looking and it feels good especially when they're far away but there are some enemies that are not dodging it

you just even though you're locked on you your body just like slides next to them and yeah when you're in really really sweaty fights oh and you're low on force and when you're low on force charge you're using a lot of your force for that and when it doesn't hit it is fucking infuriating man I I, like, if I'm going to die, it's going to be because I fuck up. But when something like that happens, it's like, oh, this fights are ready kind of punishing and little things like that are annoying. One thing I do want to throw out before you kick it over there, sorry, is that in an email today, they gave us the reviewers an update on what's going on with some stuff we can do preview-wise, but also this. Additionally, please note that a pre-launch patch went live yesterday for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the game,

which will fix some bugs and help stabilize loading from saves and respawns. There's another patch in development that will help the performance and be available after launch. Loads are real bad. Yeah, those respawn loads are long as how. And also elevators take forever. Oh, my God. It was like Mass Effect time. And there was one I loved because you can see on a map.

And so I was like, oh, it's so far between it, they're trying to justify the load. I get it. And there was one today when I was playing in there where it did it. And I was like, man, this elevator's going on even longer than I thought. And I opened the map. I was at the destination, but the elevator is still making the movement noise as if I was like, I want to get back to the elevator stuff. So everyone at the table, remind me elevator.

I don't make a point later. Nick, I want to hear your thoughts on this game so far. I'm really liking it a lot. How far are you? I just got past. I don't know when it's triggered, but. Spoilers. Hours wise.

Oh, hours wise. Geez, probably like six hours in. Cool. Seven hours in maybe. Maybe a little bit more. but I'm really liking it. I mean, I agree there are some technical hiccups with it. But overall, I'm really enjoying the environments.

And I know Andy had a couple criticisms of needing to backtrack and stuff like that, but that's not bothering me so much because I think it encourages exploration, which is cool. I do agree the combat system is like a bit harder than I want it to be. And I do think that's because it's a little clunkier than I want it to be. But I'm also not crazy into the hard horror, like soul type play. But I'm enjoying it. There you go. Awesome.

Yeah, so speaking to that, that's the elevator. Elevators. That's kind of where I wanted to go is with this idea of backtracking, of which there is a lot in this game. And I can see it totally being a pro or a con for you, depending on what you like to do. But this game unapologetically made the decision to be like, you're following Cal throughout this adventure,

and you need to do every single thing that he does. There's no like, oh, he goes to sleep and he wakes up and he's there. No fast travel. If you're going to go somewhere and if you land, ship on this planet and you go somewhere. As far as you go. The ship stays there. You gotta come back to the ship.

And it's Metroid, but Metro doesn't really like go from planet to planet too much. Just go from, you get very, to be fair, you know, you get super deep in the Metro. You want to go all the way back to your ship. That's just how it is. Yeah. But I feel like with this game, like with Metroid I feel. I'm not saying it's necessarily right for the game. It's just... But I feel like it works better with the Traversal where the traversal is not frustrating in Metroid, whereas here, there is a lot of times going back means

sliding down four slides and jumping off ropes and all the stuff that is the more frustrating bits. See, that's the old school stuff I was talking about. But that's also, though, with the elevators. Where it's like, they make you, the elevators are that long, because when you look at the map, the elevator takes you all the way there. It takes you all the way across. So they're making it, it's like, it's real time. And I'm like, I get that. And there are moments that I feel it really pays off.

Like there are some surprise things that I really don't want to spoil because they're freaking awesome in this game that are only possible because of the backtracking. Yeah. Sure. I don't know that at the end of the day, that makes it worth it, though. See, I think it does, and I think you use the word that I think is apt to many things in this game, unapologetic, right? Where, from our preview, right, when I was bitching about the ropes and grabbing undivines and shit, right? And you're like, why is this so hard? Why do it?

It doesn't make me feel powerful. It makes me feel like I'm a fumbling idiot, right? And then you get force pull. And so the first time you jump off and you grab the thing, you for, and I was like, ah. Like, it's like, I get it. Like, that's, you made a choice here. and you're like, we're going to make them do this and make Cal get to that point.

Got you grappling here. I mean, I don't know. Like, I get that, but the punishingly, like, small hitbox for grabbing those ropes is so annoying. Oh, I know. Also, whoever decided the ice skating was a good idea needs to quit and go over. You never learned force ice skating. True. And not only that, but like, you'll get halfway through,

we're like, okay, I did this. And then you won't grab the rope. And you're like, why would the Jedi not be able to grab the rope? Did they not learn rope grabbing in Jedi school? Yeah, there's a lot of moments where after kind of a big story beat happens, I expect to go into, or you know, you end a big fight or you do something kind of cool in the game that's bigger than other moments. And then I expect to go into Cupsine running towards the ship, like, we got to go, we got to go. But it's like, oh, I have to run all the way back. I hope I'm going the right way.

Is this to, nope, I should have gone up this ladder. If there would have been a way to bring on a mini map of some kind, I would have been down for that. Not necessarily drop a pin and have it traced out in the world, but it wasn't the amount of times where it was like, all right, I'm running, wait, am I, hold on, fucking stop, open the thing. I'm getting hit, I'm being chased by something. I'm like, fuck, am I going on the right way?

Well, that's my thing, too. Like, the map is not great for me. I know, it's difficult for me to, like, figure out what the heck's going on. But I will say, like, as far as the backtracking, I think they do a decent enough job when you unlock the shortcuts so that you feel like if you take the right route, you're not wasting a lot of time,

except I didn't three times. So I ended up playing the entire level, like, three times. So I got there, I was like, oh, I could have just skid down the stupid ice thing. And then I was like, glad I didn't because I hate that ice thing. You see, and again, that's what I meant, but I know it sounds weird, but that's why I feel like it's this gamer's game and it has all this stuff of the past. Like, that's just how it's, it's not evolved, but like, that's how those games used to

be played and you're still going to get that experience. Like, meaning it's, I'm not saying it's a good thing, but like some of our most beloved games, like, that's just how they still work. And, but we have God of War now. Of course. But this is not even close to bringing all those things together, like that does. And that's why I said what I think it is close. It's just, but I feel like it's close to.

Not the polish on all those pieces. Definitely not the polish. That's what I mean, though. I feel like it's close to being at a level where it could then be comparable to it. But, and I feel like that's the kind of what I'm most upset about this game is like, it could have been that. And it should be that. Let me fast travel to every meditation point.

Yeah. Let those be fast travel. All sorts of evolution. And that's where I was going with it. It's like, it's, I at least wanted to land on saying, this is a great game. I think it's a great game, and it's got a growing you too. Yeah, don't let the first few hours. And I know you hear this a lot, but hell, even Zelda did this too.

That's weird, but I loved it at the beginning. I love the, I love the environment, some of the, the, what do we call them? Like these sort of big, gigantic set pieces, you know, where they show you kind of where you're at. Yeah, where you need to get to. Yeah. Like, you're literally just platform. Visuals are awesome. Oh, another problem.

But it's a slow burn is my. point meaning until you start to get your powers. Let's hear a word from our sponsors. This episode of Kind of Funny Gamescast is brought to you by Felix Gray. You may not realize it, but the average American blast their eyes with bright screens for 11 hours every day. Kevin, that sounds about right for both of us. Kevin's eyes are burning because he's doing this all wrong.

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If you go to getquip.com slash KF right now, you can get your first refill pack. free. It's true. What's your problem, Mandy? Performance mode versus 4K mode. I've been wondering this for years. What is your problem?

Performance mode versus 4K mode. I think, you know, after playing, I was talking to Barrett, La Wago, playing 73 hours of Death Stranding, which is in Native 4K, and it's sharp as hell, and it's gorgeous.

30 frames, though. It is. Death Stranding's 30? Yeah. Fuck. It feels like 60. Anyway. Smooth.

It never stutters. After playing the game for that long, without any bugs and I had like maybe two frame drops or whatever but you know I started off playing this game in 4k mode and when I switched to performance mode which then limits it to 1080p when you're in your menu I immediately notice that Cal looks like really blurry and kind of like you got a way for the textures to load I'm not kidding there's multiple times where like you load your you load skins and stuff and it takes like a solid 15 20 seconds before it actually like renders but no but he's been sitting on the screen forever

I don't mean that the textures don't load. He just looks kind of not sharp. Yeah. So, you know what? I'm going to play this game in 4K. I'm going to play this game in 4K because I'm playing on 1X. Why not? I prefer that sharper look.

And then I started having the frames drop in here and there. And I understood, okay, you know what? Let me go back to performance mode. Even on performance mode, a lot of frame drops. A lot of frame drops, especially on the first planet that you visit, which isn't super visually appealing also. I think that first planet you land on. With all the crooks and crannies.

Yeah, like, I'm looking at this, I'm like, this looks kind of, like, gross. The Thomas's English muffin planet, Greg. Man, it looks good on PC. It's amazing. No, no, no, no, no. I don't mean graphics-wise. I mean the design of this planet. It's not super visually appealing, but...

No, it's a green island. The polygonal detail, it's not like... But I'm on performance mode, which should, you know, I would think always be 60 frames per second, but I just don't think it's super optimized, and I'm getting a lot of frame drops in these areas, especially in combat where I'm fighting these stupid fucking slugs. And I just want to keep advancing.

And I notice a lot of frame jobs there. So that's kind of my, one of my big problems with performance mode is, even though it is 60, you will drop to, I would love to see what Digital Foundry does in their breakdown because I'm pretty sure it drops down like 30 or 30. I'm with you where I normally play games performance mode. And with this one, I had similar experiences where my, this doesn't feel like it's adding much.

So I switched over to high-res mode. Okay. It's too bad, yeah, because God of War was able to pull off, even though they said that it has the drop. Like overall, Goddor felt much better for me. Same. Performance. It was Nick about it.

I was just going to say, I don't know how much long you guys going to talk about this, but I really like the game. I think a lot of my criticisms are very, very minor. Like, going back to Andy's point where it's like, I wish we could fast travel to the save points, I don't, because I think that it really, really encourages. I think the level of exploration in this is just enough to keep me wanting to find some of the secrets and some of the chests that I can't get to.

And that's perfect for me. If there were more to do, I'd be like, I need to get back here. but the fact that I occasionally will literally be backtracked, like traveling backward and see something that I didn't see before. Yeah, you just find this chance. I'm coming at it from a different angle. I'm like, oh, that's really, really cool. It's smart level design. Yeah, I like that.

I'm at first, I mean, in our preview session, right, when we came out of it, I talked a lot about this of like, how the fuck do I get back to the mantis? I want to, I want to wrap this demo. They're telling us it's almost over. No, having that experience and learning like a little bit of what they're trying to go, but then getting into it. I'm happy. There's not a fast travel because, yeah, I love the exploration of it. I love living in that world. I love taking it from point A, point B.

The amount of, I haven't done it in a game in a long time, I feel like, of literally being in a room and being like, I got to get up there. How the fuck do I get up there? Then you look at the map and you try a million different things to make it work. And you, all right, well, how am I going to do this? But going back to what I was originally saying is like, I agree with that about the fast travel stuff would definitely change the game. In some ways, I think for the better, in some ways for the worst.

But I just feel like the exploration. Like, I feel like I was punished for exploring more often than not. Like going back to getting caught in hallways, getting cotton elevators. those things were. It's like, there was no avoiding that at certain points where I was just like, I went down a path that the game let me go down. And then I just, I got screwed.

The dark side pulled you in. Yeah, at a point where it's like, it stopped making me want to explore. I tend to come down always in the side of player convenience, and that's, I think, one of the still points. Oh, no, no, no, just get close to them. I was like, oh, man. Oh, okay, cool.

So I think you guys distilled one of my main issues with it was that it's not always convenient to play, and I always come down on the side of player convenience. Now, of course, this is a completely different genre, but I'm playing Dragon Quest 11 right now, right? And it just goes out of its way to meet you where you are. So stuff like fast traveling between checkpoints. I wish you could do that,

but I also understand how and why it would change the game. But also things like, I think, Greg, you mentioned earlier when you die against a boss, you have to retrverse everything. That's like PS1 Zenogear style. Watch this cut scene over and over. Yeah, it should be. Kingdom Hearts one level. where you're just like,

this boss is way too hard, I'm gonna have to trial and error. Like enough times that there shouldn't be a 30 second respond loan. And then having to like, you never, go all the way back to the path. You barely respond at the boss. Yeah,

you respond like inconveniently far back. It's not the worst thing. There's only one boss with multiple phases I remember dying at and starting on the second phase again. And I was like, oh my God, thank you, because I was about to lose my fucking mind. I didn't like that boss at all. Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's where I have like, accepted this old school design that I don't prefer it that way I'm just like that's just how this game's going to be the whole time so you got to put yourself in it you can't expect like to go back to God of War God of War just did it had the fast trial it has dialogue while you're in the boat and like

so many improvements that this game doesn't but again I mean it's fun it did work in my benefit once though where there was a boss fight near the end and you spawned in between three enemies and I was so close to having this next upgrade on my skill tree

and I was at the meditation spot and I farmed it for at least like 10 minutes I found it, killed them all, went back to the meditation thing because every time you meditate you, you... It's like Bloodborn where you go back and you go back and bring all your enemies back. You get your stimulants back but also the enemies respond.

I was talking to Tim about this. I don't like that they tell you the enemies respond I wish it just happened because it telling you kind of just takes me out of like the world. I thought the same exact... It's a very gamified thing, yeah. Huh. Like if you come to the meditation spot,

your health will respawn, it could, you know, your force will be, what, but also the bad guys come back. Like, it was just a very weird thing. Anyway, but there, there is that spot where I just used that to farm. There's a spot in this game that I swear to God they put in just to let you farm. Oh, please tell me what it is when we're off air. Okay. I'm six points away from having all my powers. I think it's story based.

I don't think you do anymore. You suck and I hate you. But, man, like, it was such a moment. I'm like, God, this game knows what it is so freaking hard. I love it. It's funny to hear because any spot that's, there was a meditation spot next to like five or six enemies, I farmed until like it felt like I'd been there for, frankly, I'd be there 15 minutes getting one or two skill points. So I think that's

where I'm playing it a little differently too. I'm like, I don't even want to move forward until I get this next skill I want, which by the way, hopefully is a big segue into something I've been trying to get to, which is since I'm only, you know, 25, 30 percent through, and I think it's a great game that's warming up. One of the best parts of a game like this, obviously beyond all this inspiration is the progression of your skills. And so it was so cool to get the force push, but I don't have a pull. And without spoiling, like, how long does that last? Does it feel, you know, like God,

war, Zelda, or does it have a skill tree that really starts to develop and you feel like, because I haven't gotten into a fight and been like, like, I just feel so far away from that. Definitely will. I feel, I feel like all of the story-based skills that you get are all fantastic and all, every single time you get it, it comes at the right time and it makes you feel like I can now do something that I've been wanting to do that I haven't been able. Yeah.

These are memories that you get, that upgrade, right? This goes back to the gameplay, the story backing up the story backing up the gameplay. I think they do a really good job with that. Some of them... The skill tree stuff. Some of them aren't super great, though. Powers?

I think maybe... No, no, not the powers. The way they are presented in the story. Well, the whole thing in general is a weird one, right? Of, like, he's remembering things he forgot on, like, how to use the force? When he was... He suppressed it because he got... Okay, okay, okay.

The Force getting, like, or Jedi's getting, like, perched. Sure, yeah, yeah. He's been in hiding. Like I said, he can. kind of cut himself off. He didn't cut himself. He repressed. It's literally, these are repressed memories. I get it, but I feel like if I knew how to run on a wall and I got to a wall,

I'm like, I didn't run on the wall. I'd be like, can't I run on the wall? Exactly. Yeah, after that. I know how to use this a little bit. That's the main part of that. I'd say maybe that's probably the only one where I did kind of like roll my eyes or like, oh, I remember back of my Jedi training. Now I know how to run on the wall. I was like, yeah, or you played Tiger Fall. That stuff didn't bother me too much. It didn't bother me. It was totally like that's the world. Okay.

But like in terms of the skills. itself. I enjoyed that. Now, what I didn't like is the skill tree. I feel early on you unlock a couple abilities that are like, oh, this is awesome. I feel like all of the later game stuff is not awesome at all. Really? It's a wider area of effect. Now you can throw your lightsaber further. But even then, like the throwing lightsaber stuff,

it's like, I feel like the game's just not built around it. Like, it's not. I never used it. And it's unfortunate because that's cool. When you first look at the grid and you're like kind of imagining what you're going to be at the end of the game, it's not. It's not. not that cool. You don't really learn interesting moves. And it's so rarely, the lightsaber so rarely

hits people on the way back. Every once in while it happens, but there are a couple times where you see, you know, boom, and it hits them, pooh, they get damage, and it flies, and it comes back, and it clips through their body, and no damage is administered, and it's like, oh, fuck, man. I need a little bit more polish there. I used so much force power for nothing.

Yeah, you know. So, and that's drawing it straight to a comparison with God of War then. Like, there's so many different ways to play, and then you get multiple weapons, you know, and got away, like, it's so satisfying. It sounds to me like this kind of like is inspired by, you know, but it doesn't get it almost gets there. Is that accurate?

Does it get almost there? Because the way you're describing it's like doesn't get close to what God of War is. Oh, no, no. Well, again, going back to what I'm saying is it. It's almost getting close to. I'm going to say it's like 50% out of 100 on that maybe. But yeah, I mean, it's like, it's a weird, it's a weird thing.

And it's not bad, right? It's not bad. It's just like. You just don't use a lot of them. I'm not. Right now, you know, I've been working on this platinum and getting all these skill points and doing these things. I'm just buying it random now. Like I've gotten everything I want out of the skill tree.

All the other shit of like, oh, now it's another button combination. Now it's just that I'm like, I don't mean. I think you found, I think, you know, maybe halfway through the game you find your rhythm and you find what your weapons are going to be. Weapons meaning like kind of, all right. I'm always going to do this, followed by this thing. And that usually does a decent amount of damage. But yeah, one thing I was mentioning earlier. about the combat is I feel like the

when an attack is coming and you're breaking their... The parry? No, but you're breaking. They have a block. Oh, yeah. They have a block shield or... Their focus meter, I feel like that isn't really harped on a lot early game, and it really doesn't feel like it's super important. Their focus bars isn't super important

until kind of towards the end. Yeah. It's from my opinion. In my opinion. I also feel like in addition to the moves that they give you and the later skill tree stuff aren't that cool. There's also a ton of things that, like, I can't believe we didn't get by the end of it. Like, even just more advanced combos. Like, even just more kind of, like, combinations of X and Y.

See, that's why I asked, because that's what I'm hoping for. So I'm a little concerned that it's mostly just about the... So for clarity, again, right, there's a skill tree, which you use the force to do stuff, force power, a meter. But then you have these, what, memories that were repressed that you get actual force powers. Is that accurate? You don't really...

upgrade your skill tree. No, those are like your passive moves. Exactly. Meaning you don't upgrade your skill tree to get a force push. You remember that. So there's a big difference between those two things.

So in other words, the stuff I remember, do you get some pretty cool stuff? Or is it? It's what you expect. There is one skill tree thing that is like a new move, I would say.

Well, yeah, what we were saying the moves kind of suck. I know, but I was just for progression. Okay, well, I'm curious to see on that from because, yeah,

I think what you're talking about, the passive things, story elements, aside, whatever, I think that all the abilities are awesome. And what's you to expect? No crazy surprises, but it's like, it's even, it's little things that like, oh, I can't split myself up into 15 little me's.

Yeah, no. It's not that. But they're satisfying and I feel like they all come at the right, at the right time. I've enjoyed this whole time. Barrett. We have you now. I want to give you the floor. What do you think? Be force! The floor is yours. Big B force. He's about to

What's up? Everybody's B force. Coming at you. Coming at you from Twitch.tv. Slash, kind of funny games. I don't know. I don't have my own Twitch. You're hammered right now. This is a five.

Jesus is five. What's up, boys? It's a Thursday afternoon. We're in it now. Jedi Fallen Order is by far and away. My favorite game this year. It's my game of the year. But also, to give context,

this has been a weird year for me for games. Like, Andy and I did the Katana Zero comic book club back in May or whatever and back then that was like my game of the year and that was still my game of the year until now yeah and that's like I just had a weird relationship with games this year so it hasn't been a highlight but this game

blew me away in in so many ways like the highest compliment I can give I don't think I've said and I told you this I'm early like last Friday I don't think I've said holy shit this many times in the first hour of a game since the first time I played

Arkham City and if you know how big of a Batman fan I am and like how big of a Star Wars fan I am like that is like that was a lot like taking in Arkham City for the first time and like how many references and like how many points of the main story where I'm like I can't believe they're doing this that hit the same note for me for the the first couple hours of this game this game is hype there are hype moments left and right all the way through all the way to the fucking credits that's the thing where I was that's what I was stressing to people when I was talking about it not the midpoint did job for me That's, again, Dothier.

But even then, it has moments. Like, even Dothir which I think you agree. And there's moments there. There's moments there. Constant story beats and moments. Yeah. Yeah. And like, besides, like, I understand the bugs and I feel like I was on the lesser side of

bugs, which I feel bad about. Like, I definitely ran into a couple. There's a point on Dothamere, like, in the story where you pull a, um, a bridge down and you, people are shooting at you and you have to, like, turn left and go down a mudslide. And this is the only time I've ever had a problem with the sliding mechanic. where there's a jump that you have to get over. And at this point, my health bar was pretty long, and I had like five stim packs that I could use.

And I've straight up died three times. And I had to go through that entire sequence three times. And it was just like, it was because I didn't come at it from the correct angle where I was jumping from that gap in the middle of the mudslide. And it was because I needed to be all the way it's to the right, but the game didn't tell me to do that. So with bugs like that, I felt like that was like one of the first. of two maybe that I had.

But it's actually here from like y'all's experience of like, oh yeah, like we're dealing with a lot. And it's like it's one of those things where I like, yeah, I get it. And it's not a bug though, to be clear, right? I mean, I know you're just using the word like that, but it's funny, it's not a bug. It's just a bad design. No, I don't think it was a bug because

when I finally got over it. But you knew how to do it, it works fine. There's a moment. There was a moment the other night where I text Greg a photo of my screen, I'm like, I'm fucking so pissed and annoyed right now. What do I do here? And I, and I screenshot it back and drew on it. I'm like, do this. And you're like, I never spawned. This didn't happen.

Like, I'm so annoyed. About this is that that same exact moment, 12 hours prior, I had called Barrett. I'm like, what the fuck? I was on the bus. I felt so weird. I was like, I hate talking on the bus. And it was like, hey, I need help right now. I'm like, I'll try to help you as best as I can. To be clear here, though, this moment, it's not like. It wasn't a broken moment. I only needed help. No, for me, it was.

There's a thing you need to jump and grab onto a ledge. I clearly saw that, knew what I had to do. And the game just wasn't. It would not let me jump and grab the ledge. And when you do something a couple times in a game that you have learned, if you jump, you grab the ledge, like, or you don't. And when you jump and you don't grab the ledge, even though it's clear that that looks like where it's driving you, you stop trying it. Because you're like, oh, there must be something else that I'm missing. And then you sent me a picture.

And I was like, no, yeah, you got to jump and grab that ledge. And I was like, I was like, there's no way. See, it's different for me. because it wasn't broken for me. From my point of view, I was like, that doesn't look different from anything else

that I cannot grab on. Like, that looks exactly like all the other things in this world that I cannot. Yeah, there are a lot of moments like that where like, you know, the game does a really,

and I don't want to harp on that because the game does do a lot of great things around the world with level design and we always see these things. Have your eyes heard of Blocktober? Blocktober is where level designers in video games

showcase their level design and past work and shit like that. It's like on Twitter. It's like an ink tober where people draw shit. So the game does a great job of doing what kind of, I remember watching a lot of videos, essays about how uncharted leads your eye with lighting. You know, you don't know where to go, but there's a red light coming out of that hallway. You know you've got to go through there.

Or there's always a colored edge to make sure you grab on that thing. Tomb Raider does a lot of that word. Signposting. Yeah, yeah. And, but there are, but, you know, on the opposite side of it, there are so moments where that doesn't look any different than anything else in the fucking world. And that's the problem where there's so many moments where I wanted to go explore. And then I would turn a corner and be like, all right, I think I'm going off the beaten path.

And then it just be the next story moment. And I'm like, ah, well, I'm already at this moment. I might as well, like, continue forward. And that is another, like, main issue with me. But to go back, like, story-wise for me, like, I agree with you. Like, if this was put in a movie that was accessible to the mainstream, like, not video game audience, I think this could rival against some of the best Star Wars stories told so far. I think this is so cool of how they build Cal, how they build some of the lore,

especially what's going on right now five years after Order 66 and stuff like that. Like I think this game just so much that's great story-wise. And I feel like there's a lot of love and reverence for the pre-group trilogy and original trilogy. If you're a fan of the original trilogy storytelling type, like there's a story here for. you. If you're a fan of the pre-cels, there's something here for you. If you're a fucking fan of the Clone Wars TV show, there's something here for you. What if I like Sola? No. No, sorry. Nobody likes Sola. They just wanted so much love and it never feels ham-fisted and like shoved in into a way.

Like you texted, you texted me an early moment where like, oh my God, I'm in. I'm like, yes, exactly, because it's just enough that they understand where the galaxy is right now in this moment and they know how do you care tell that story. And they tell their own story, which I love so much. You know what I mean? I think one of the big things about Battlefront two people hated, right, was the shoehorning in of people of like, wait, I thought this was like, I didn't story, right? Like, why is this happening? Why is that going on? And here it's very much like, we're telling our story. This is our story. You know Star Wars is happening around it or whatever. I am glad that the, for some reason, upon watching the early versions of the trailers, I don't know why the point didn't get across me that Cal is in hiding. I for some reason thought that based on the trailer where, uh,

his friend in the beginning is falling and he uses the force to sort of... For me, I always assumed that this was a story of Cal being a Jedi or having force powers but not really knowing that he was. And then so once it is uncovered that, oh, you were fully trained and now you were kind of pushed out and... Yeah, you were in training. You were a survivor. Yeah, that made me just absolutely love the story a lot more. Yeah, absolutely. And there's just, there's so many moments.

There's an entire sequence, like a four. hour sequence almost in this game where I decided like, yeah, this is my game of the year because of just the moments that I could not believe that they were reaching to with the story of hand where we are in the galaxy. Like I just did not think that they would go to these places. And I think of like a of a Star Wars story, quote unquote, like quality story, like they just did so many things that blew me away. As far as gameplay goes, I absolutely love it.

I've always respected and appreciated Dark Souls games. those worlds like Dark Souls and Bloodbourne like they've never really grabs me. I'm never into the art style. I'm not into like weird night stuff and with Bloodborn just whatever the fuck that is. But this is finally a world where I can actually like go in and appreciate it. So like some of the

frustrations I would talk with I think with Kevin and stuff like that where it's like every time like I don't like the enemies come back and stuff like that like or I don't like going all the way back to the ship. Like I really appreciate that and I'm finally get a game where I can appreciate that because it's a world that I care about and it's

cool to have that Dark Souls moment where I'm fighting a fucking space frog for 30 minutes and it's bullshit and I hate it but once I beat him probably a little earlier than I should have it feels so fucking good and there's a boss fight way late in the game where it took me like an hour and a half and I refused to bring the

difficulty down because I just wanted to do it because I knew like when he does this that means he's going to do this attack and I know when I fuck up like that's on me and it's 3.30 and I'm going fuck and I'm hitting my bed and like There's a moment where I'm on that boss fight,

and I'm playing it for an hour and a half, and Alyssa's next to me playing Sardu Valley, having the chillest time. And she's looking over at me, and she's like, do you like this game? I'm like, yes, absolutely. And she's like, are you sure? I was like, yes, when I'm screaming,

it's not because I'm mad at the game. I'm mad at myself. It's challenging me. Yeah, and it's so gratifying. That being said, there are some boss fights or harder enemies that I think are designed well in the fight themselves, but they're placed in weird spots

that don't fit their exact design. Like I will say not spoiling it whatsoever. I think the last boss fight, like, I really like enjoy that boss fight, but the kind of arena that you're in sucks for like those animations and what are you are doing against that boss. I'll also tell you why that sucks a lot for me.

Whenever an enemy is preparing a move that you cannot block or parry, they turn red and all of that area is red. And it's hard to tell when that character is about to perform a move that is unblockable. And sometimes you hear the sound cue, but it's, this world is red and it's,

it's, it's, it's not to sit or whatever, but it's the empire and it's all dark and scary looking. And in every, in every other environment, you know, no matter how it's lit, you know, you see the red, you're like, okay, I can't, I cannot parry that.

I need to get the fuck out of the way. But with that encounter, it was a little bit hard to decipher. Yeah, but besides that, there were, like, there were moments that were, like, I feel like, oh, yeah, this is okay. There are dumb moments of, like,

being buggy and stuff like that, but then there are honestly heights of this game in story beats and gameplay beats that like hit God of war for me of just the spectacle and what you're doing in the moment. I was like, geez. No spoilers, but I mean getting way outside of where we thought we would be doing things

on a scale, I never thought I'd be doing this game. Because there are some planets where I'm like, okay, this is kind of overstaying it's welcome. Like I want to move on and the story and stuff. Oh, we're going back here? Yeah, and it's like one of those moments like, the experience I had at least, like, when I felt tired of a place, 20 minutes later, it'd be like, all right, we're changing this up, and this is

what the story is about now. It's like, holy shit, I can't believe we're doing this right now. Also, Forrest Whitaker is a voice. Yeah. Yeah, straight. They brought up for, they brought Forrest whatever. It actually was him. Yeah, I was so distracted by how horrible fucking wookies look in this game. Yeah. It's weird. It's really, I was going to know at what point.

I don't know at what point they're like, guys, we can't animate Wookies and somebody else is like, well, we have a whole fucking planet. Let's go to their planet there. They're so Tall and skinny, it's really bizarre because on the opposite side... And they all have the chewy boys. All of them have chewy. On the opposite side, Cal's hair, when up close looks fantastic.

All the character artists who worked on hair look great. Awful. Oh, well, there's some lighting of hailing. No, no, but I think a lot of that is BD1's light shining on his hair. That happened to me a lot where I was like, why is his hair fucking shining? It's like, oh, Bidi Light's eyes or whatever.

But Yeah, the fur on a wookie on the opposite side of it, it just not It's always glossy. And like they all have just Chewy's voice. None of them sound different. It's really weird. But again, there's references even to the wookies. This is a wookie character where like if you know like lore and characters, there's going to be one that you're like, oh my God, I can't believe they're bringing this character. Star Wars Christmas specials in the game. There we go. We spoiled it. But Greg, going off something you were saying about Battlefront 2 of why that campaign didn't work for, I think, any of us really. Like, there might be the one exception. No, Balford 2 is bad story back here. I don't know if it was meant to.

I mean, Battlefront 2 campaign to me always just seemed like, let's use our existing multiplayer maps and build a story in them. But, I mean, it was promoted as if it was going to be. We listened in there. So whatever.

Where I feel this game succeeds so, so successfully is that it doesn't rely purely on we got to have every single character that you know, make an appearance, and they show restraint that pays off. Anytime you get whether it's an obscure wookie character or a character that you're a bit more familiar with,

it always feels like, oh, I'm so happy, this is the one we're getting, and it's not like Luke shows up and is then with you the entire time or whatever the hell. It's like such smart choices made, whether it's just ship designs that you see. And when you see them, it's like, this is cool.

Like that's, you took a thing that I wanted me in the beginning. One of the like, you know, Darkside ships flies by. I was like, oh, let's go. That's awesome. It was minor, but I had that moment right in the beginning. I was like, it was a reference that just was so cool. There's story beats, too, where the game shows that it's aware of that. And, like, there'll be lines where it's just like, you know who I am.

And it reveals it, and you're like, huh, not who I thought you were going to be. And, like, they could have easily made that a cheesy moment, and it ended up being fantastic. What's that bad? I have a nitpick for a second. Yes. Going back to the, like, the little visual jank, you know, kind of the lack of polish we sometimes see in the game. am I the only one who hates Cal's running animation?

He looks so goofy. Running and jumping looks so silly. I guess I've never really He had to be better again like it. It's exaggerated. And he's like his arms are flailing, he's got the lightsaber, and I'm like, dude, you look like a cosplayer who's trying to.

I don't know, I totally disagree. Yeah, like I actually thought that mainly the jumping stuff, the running stuff it didn't bother me for sure, but I thought the, I was very impressed with the jumping, especially as you go through the game and you get other abilities, I was like, this jump looks perfect.

It's exactly... I'm just talking about the normal jump. Yeah. But there's like, you get a jump later. It's really, really, really good. Sometimes he put his arm behind his number. Man, you look goofy. I'm glad to get a exaggerated style. I mean, the game is a super vivid

you know, sci-fi game. So I feel like it actually... I see what you're saying, but I think it overall fits, it works. I think there are a couple of aliens that are introduced that don't look great to me. They didn't feel like they belonged in the world.

Interesting. You know, I want to... You should do a spoiler. I'd love to do a spoiler gas. Actually, though, in this vein, and I'm wondering if it's just like me and my setup, but the lip syncing is not great.

Yeah, I have scenes that were really bad. And it's not the entire time. It's just like, for me, it was like five or six ones where I'm like, this is awful. I actually just think it wasn't good across the board. I think there's a lot of... bugs with going into

cutscenes. There's so many issues. I'd say like maybe 60 to 70% of my cutscenes for a second of the scene, the characters aren't there, and lighting is weird, and then everything pops into place. I really hope that's so jarring. These patches fix a lot of this. Or you can get a PC, everybody. But they won't fix

all of them. Like, so many of them are design flaws. Yeah, the sliding and the ropes and all that jazz. That's not going to get fixed shit. Yeah, I mean, it is. Yeah, I have one red door I was texting Barrett about of like you when you look at your map there's inaccessible things that are red that are blocked right and it's a literal like you know red force feel that you shut down a million to you turn them on turn them off but it's like I look at this and I'm like is this a bug I can't tell because there's no way for me to turn it on from where I am and clearly I've had it off before so is it that I went through and turned it on locked it from the other side yeah

and then I went down and I'm gonna try to do it tonight because I felt bad when you you want to see it I can show it to you yeah yeah I want to try to fuck with it on my own save tonight. But the last thing I'll say is that I do there was a Games Daily story the other day that Fran knows of where it was there was no EA early access for this game and it was just announced this week and it was like very

like you guys should have announced this maybe a little earlier. Apparently it was in an investor call weeks ago I heard now I didn't verify but nonetheless they came out and the reason that they give is because of spoilers and I have believe that because there are a lot of major moments again if you're caught up on like all of Star Wars stuff this game special if you're a casual Starves fan,

or if you're, like, heavy into, like, fucking all the shows, like I am and stuff. Like, there are cool moments that you, if I knew EA access people had early access to this game, and I didn't, I would shut off the internet because... I urge you to beat it. That part of it. Yeah.

We urge you to beat this game. Fast as possible and don't look at anything. Exactly, because there are just so many great moments. But I also think that, like, EA early access probably wasn't granted because I think of how buggy this game was. Just to go back to that point. I mean, I think it's the same reason we talked about this in the game. games daily today, why the review embargoes right now.

It's because they have nothing to gain by having the reviews out early. Guess what? It's Star Wars. It's going to sell. Putting it out early either as a review or letting people play it early does nothing. But, yeah, weaponize it in terms of spoilers, weaponize it in terms of looking at these bugs, weaponize it in terms of here's a reason to be cool on this game. They're not like it. I think the fact that it's Star Wars means it's going to sell, and now the fact that I would imagine, if we're so positive, I imagine most other reviews.

This game is going to be in Game of the Year conversations. Is it going to be game of the year for any outlet? We'll see, but it's going to be in the conversation. The last question I have for you, you might want to save this until the very end of the episode. I don't know. I feel like we're robbing up now. So, Metacritics score, like we did with Death Stranding, do we want to guess? Because I think I'm pretty confident in what my guess would be.

Yes, you do. Before we get to that, though, I want to do one question from a crazed monkey. How monetize slash monetizable is it? He's outside little and let them in. There's no monetization. There are a bullshit. If they wanted to, they could, but I don't think they wanted to. will because of messaging on it. And I pray, like my thing,

somebody who's playing right now, platinuming it, and wants more. I hope respawn does New Game Plus. I hope that they do DLC for it in terms of like another side story, something else for me to do, a new planet.

This game ends and I'm like, I want more. And that's the thing is that not only do I want more, I'm now 15 hours past wanting more, and I still want more. Like I more pachos. Oh, I love some of the ponchos. You have to get the ponches,

it's true, though. You want more of that stuff. I want like a white, suit and then like a black suit. Sure. Yeah. Totally. I'm okay that there's so many

ponchos. I just wish there was so many other types of... There's none. It's infuriating how few options there are. There's literally right two outfits and then a lot of... There's four normal outfits and then a million ponchos.

Okay. I think it's... Well, I only have a poncho in his normal outfits. I guess there's no other... So you're just, wait, just for clarity, there's the poncho and then what's underneath. You can tab the poncho off or what's underneath. You're saying there's two additional options beyond those?

The what's underneath is just different colors. I know that, but you said there's four, four of one. There are four versions. Oh, the underneath thing, four colors. I mean, no. But that's it. That's what I'm saying. There's only that in the poncha.

I had like the Navy and the analog's like a tan one. Yeah, meanwhile. Then you get another one. I remember finally unlocking it. I was like, yeah, I jumped in. I'm like, I had to go back and forth between the Navy. I'm like, what the fuck is the difference? But yeah, so wait, are we going to guess metacritic score?

Yes. Hold on. Before you think there's one more question that I wanted to read. Granted, ours goes up while it's happening. So what was the last question? Sorry. it's already over to work the monetized thing

I honestly think Vincent Pelham I remember he oh yeah he absolutely said and clarity says we will not be putting it in ahead of time nor after he clarified it's not gonna show up after

so it's confidently not it's not gonna be there coink writes in and says there's two questions do you think this game will be enough for Disney to allow EA to create a sequel and is there an end game aspect to this game

will there be a sequel yes absolutely hundred percent thank God I hope so you know what I mean especially when we talk about like learning from this thing, right?

Of seeing what the feedback is and figuring out how to make the ice luge fun. Or the mud luge or whatever you want it to be. And like, make your rope hitbox bigger and all these different things. I can't wait for the sequel. I mean, I honestly think this was an easy yes before the game even came out before we even had in our hands. They specifically named it Star Wars Jedi colon, fall in order. They created the series and they branded it as this, specifically with sequels in mind.

They wouldn't call it Star Wars Jedi colon. without having ideas. We're gonna have a Star Wars Jedi series. But if the game was bad, I don't know that they would have done. Which there was a big chance. We got a battlefront too, Tim. Yeah, I mean, that's like, Battlefront wasn't bad.

Battlefront was good. We were all like, we want more. It was called the Forced on Leash. That didn't mean we're getting in. Is there an end game aspect to this game? And collecting and going through, I mean, that's what I'm doing. There's more chests to get and more secrets to see. And, you know, I'm going through in finding areas I didn't have before, but.

So my thing is, it seems like it's like no end game. Yeah, it's not really like, uh, it's not. That's why we want new game plus. However, Barrett was telling me about some stuff. There's a, and again, it's, I don't know, should I say exactly what I told you without spoiling story aspects? There is a frustrating story aspect that you and I were talking about. Once the campaign is over with, and there's like a little blip on the screen of like, what's the situation now? There's like a frustrating situation there.

I wish that they had gone a different, wow. That's back to me and Fran being like, that's just how old video games are. I know, but we're in a game. again, to give us little context as I can without spoiling it, we're in an era past Zelda Breath of the Wild, and they handled that differently, you know,

and that's where I wish that they handled that the same. I think this is a conversation, and honestly, I think you can say this without spoiling it, if you don't mind. Really? I don't, if this isn't a big deal. When you beat the game, the game drops you back into the game when you hit continue, and it's like,

cool, congratulations on beating the game. The thing you just did to end the game, you can't again, we've set you back before the events of that. Yeah, so you can go collect all your stuff. Exactly. But what you want is Zelda Breath of Wild where it's like, hey, cool, you've cleaned up the kingdom and now you're running around and like, here's new dialogue and here's new stuff. But if you want to go back to the end of the game, you can.

And that's the frustrating thing where it's like, the frustrating thing for the game for me is they tell you, oh, you're set before the events of the end of the game, but you can't go back to it. I'd rather just tell them, all right, you beat the game, now go collect everything. Don't word it that way. It was just like a weird wording where I was like, Well, now I want to, like, go and do everything and specifically only play the end with all these collectibles and all these, like, more power-ups and stuff like that. Yeah, it is.

It's just, like, the way they wanted it. That's not what I was hinting at earlier. Like, there's experiences and kind of scenarios that... The cool stuff. There's cool stuff that you've been facing that is, like, I would call end game, because it's like, it is going back to places and having different... Yeah, there's a certain... ...that I didn't see it all. There's a certain enemy type that I think might be time-based of how,

often you run into them where I've backtracked to a couple of like one, the very first planet and a little bit of the second planet and I've run into the certain enemy type like several times where you've only run into them like once or twice. Yeah, and so like that's a really cool aspect. Right on your thing, let me see. It's a thing that

reminds me a lot of Taskmaster in Spider-Man. Okay. I mean, I think I know you're talking about, but I saw them before the end of the game. I was dubbing them like mini-bosses and I just felt like those encounters. But like how many have you encountered? I mean, I've popped the trophy. I've Done them all. I don't know.

You popped the trophy of facing every type. You haven't popped the... Like there isn't a trophy of facing more of them. Because I popped the trophy of facing each type. But then there were more of them that I still faced afterwards. They still came coming at me. Yeah. But that's funny is I've only had two.

Y'all suck. I'm awesome. Mike drop. No, no, no, not you. Oh, okay. I'm fighting these things. I'm like, you have, you have different experiences with the game. It's cool that there are things that kind of feel like it's living a bit more. I feel like it's living a bit more than you'd expect.

But there's no end game, really. No. You can go collect all the stuff. And there's no new game plus. Correct. And it sounds like out of both of those, we want a new game plus more than anything. And the last observation I want to make is the title screen.

Does it remind you guys exactly of Halo 2? The music sounds the same. It's the ship just there. Yeah, sure. Every time we move the game up and like, I see that. There you go. Yet another inspiration that is made its way.

Into the game, in a good way. Yeah. It's not a bad thing. Meta-critic guesses. Greg Miller. God, that's a tough one. That's a really, really tough one. Because I feel like...

I have a number in mind. You've fallen to such an interesting point where I... If I was objectively reviewing it, even though I love it so much, how many points do I dock it for all the trouble we've run into? You know what I mean? You know what we should do from that? We should scribble on, like, our phone, and then reveal it. Yeah, honestly. I mean, I feel if anyone has a number, you can call it.

Whoever says it first... 86. 84. I'm gonna say 81. BB, 81. Now you get... See, this is why, because now I second guess might. Don't go.

Just go! It was 89, actually, believe or not. That's the overall. There's a lot of Star Wars fans out. You got me some... Did you get me? Yeah, I got... I got 81, I got 89.

Yeah, we're playing Price is right. Sorry, sorry, sorry, yeah. Prices right. $86, 84. Closed without going over. Caves is right. Nobody's going with 66. Yes.

You can't say no. That's how we did it last time. That's how we did it this time. As your fucking boss. Andy knows, man. I was going to say 84, but someone's already got that. These boomers, you know what I mean, Andy? 88.

Interesting. What is up with the prices rules? I don't understand. I would probably... See, because the thing is, like, to try to win or whatever, I'd go low just to, like, be under that, I don't think it's going to get lower than 81. Price's right rules are such gotcha nonsense. They're for game shows.

They're not for, like, actually guessing. Is this? show about games. Make the madness stop. If it's a 90 and I guess 89, boom, you win, that's it. Thank you, Kevin. Thank you very the voice of reason.

I'm kind of in line with you, Greg. I'm thinking like 81, 82. I think it's not going to go 802. 81.5, you heard that. But I'm thinking 81. It's just, it's that thing where I do think we're all high and we all love it, but being at IGN

is such a different story. Because to go back to if I can have the floor for one second, my fellow Jedi. It's the idea right of like, I adore this game. This is the most fun I think I've had playing games this year that obviously should make it pretty high on my game of the year rankings

if not my game over the year and it might be and it probably would be but it so takes me back to the argument in the room at IGN between Journey and the Walking Dead where it was hey what are you shaking at it? Yeah that was a nod of the dock that I'm looking at my running show and in

like 150 font he just wrote you a bitch Yeah got it! All right Kevin you got him Kevin's really tight. I was like, this better be good. And it was great.

No, it goes back to the IGN room of like, I remember the office arguing between Journey and the Walking Dead. And I was like, hey, Walking Dead, I adore. I think that game was awesome. I don't think we can put it as Game of the Year because of all the technical hurdles it had. I think Walking Dead had more problems than the Jedi does. But it was that argument of like,

how do you define Game of the Year, and how do you vote for Game of Year kind of thing? And I think when you're trying to be a critic and you're trying to write a review and you're trying to take it all in. Like, how much do the hype moments and the great story and the cool stuff outweigh? And not to mention, for us bringing in this, the amount of people who are going to play this game and review it in Metacritic authority,

and maybe they weren't, they are Star Wars fans, they were never Dark Souls fans, that the idea of pairing and not being able to force away, uh, Force Unleashed it is going to be there. I think there's a, yeah, I mean,

I feel like the difficulty mode, though. Like, when you go to easy, it kind of turns it into Force Unleashed. Sure. I don't, I don't get me wrong. I hope it. It's nine. I hope it does all this stuff. I think, you know, that there's clear problems with it, but I fucking love this game, and it's probably going to be my game. I think this is, like, the Spider-Man of this year where, like, but I don't think it's any, I don't think it's close to being as good as Spider-Man. Like, I just thought Spider-Man is so much of a better game.

That's an interesting conversation. And I'm with that because one of the things I loved about Spider-Man so much was it was such a good, unique Spider-Man story, and I feel like this is such a good Star Wars story. But I don't think anything in... I don't think anything in Force in Jedi Fallen Order felt as good as, like, swinging Spider-Man. Get your drunk ass out of here. Oh, wait, Barry. Go watch G-Force. He's making a scary face.

I'm just saying. He's not making a scary face. He's got a white claw shoved in his arm-pacing. He's got his phone out. I'm doing a lot of things. I'm getting drunk. I'm talking about Star Wars. I'm texting.

This is like his favorite day ever. He's super excited. He didn't like Spider-Man story. No, I, I, I, I'm doing. I did, but I think it was a basic Spider-Man story. You know what I'm saying? I didn't think it did all... Get the fuck out.

When it came to Gary, character development, it was great, but I think, like, beat-for-beat. We see Doc A lot. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's a very basic... What goes to Star Wars, though, one thing I wanted to say is, uh, there was a moment, like, when I was playing in Gio, like, watched me play a little bit, and she rarely does this, but she was, like, watching it, and she goes, holy shit.

Like, things happened that she was like, this is fucking cool, and it's not. like one of the major moments. It was just like little Star Wars things they do that you're like, wow, they really, really nailed this. Yeah, it is worth like spelling out. We never quite said it. This game is packed with blockbuster epic moments. And like,

we reference all the games that do that, but I don't know if we clearly said this game constantly is doing these amazing camera shots. Really cool moments that surprise you, right? Yeah, absolutely. Really quick, Spider-Man had a fantastic story and I will hear no lies. Thank you, Ash. We got Ash, right?

We got Ash Paulson from Game Explan. Thank you very much for joining us. Thank you everybody here on the panel for this episode. And thank you audience for watching along. And I hope you enjoy it. Star Wars Jedi. Can't wait to hear what you all think. Let's do it.

Until next week. Love you. The highest compliment I have is, which is? Too late. We're cut. Ah. We haven't cut.

I'll bring the life bag up. Highest comment I can say is that I woke up this morning and I was texting with Anthony Carbony about something else. And then I was also like, I think I'm falling. love with Star Wars. I love it. And it's definitely fucking go baby. It's a huge part of this

like I can't like when we beat beating this game and playing more of this game like I'm like I just go back to Disneyland and make another lightsaber because I need to make the closest version of my lightsaber. I will I there's a whole thing on the subreddit of how to do it. I want to it. It looks like a goddamn puzzle.