Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - We Played Mario & Luigi: Brothership - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: October 10, 2024

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What's up and welcome back to the Kind of Funny Gamescast live for Thursday, October 10th, 2024. Of course, I am your host Tim Gettys. I'm joined today by Greg Miller. Hello, Tim. Our kind of funny up-and-comer, Madeline Stanley. Hey, Tim. And rounding out our group today.

She's back from New York, everybody. I am. Joey Noel. Hello. How you doing? I'm good. You weren't, I mean, you've been here. Yeah.

But like you went to New York last week to play this game. I did. And now we're going to talk about it. Hell yeah. I'm happy that you're back. I know. I am too. A fun little little.

jaunts to the East Coast. How was that? Let's talk about New York for a second. It was so fun. It was the best. It was like the perfect couple days in New York weather-wise. It was like low to mid-70s, just walked around. No jacket. Perfect. Got to stay in like an awesome part of town and just wander around. And it's like, these are the kinds of trips that people spend in New York that are like, I want to move to New York. Like I could have a cool life in New York. But then I know, then I went on the subway and it was like real hot and sweaty. I was like maybe I'm not built for this. But yeah, it was so fun. It was excellent and had a really fun time playing this game. Well, I can't wait to hear all about that because remember everybody, this is the Kind of Funny Games cast. We each and every weekday we get together to talk about the biggest reviews, previews, and topics in video games live on YouTube, and podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, please support us with the Kind of Funny membership on Patreon or YouTube to get all of our shows ad free.

Watch us record them live and you get a daily exclusive show that we like to call. Greg Way, everybody. Greg, what's today's about? Madeline, what's today's about? I answered a ton of questions. I think like 20 minutes of questions that y'all submitted. That's awesome. It's about everything that you guys asked me.

What's it like being an up-and-comer here? Kind of funny. Did anyone ask you about your shirt? No, and I don't think they saw the shirt. Now that I am. I just want you to know that. I think it's amazing. Thank you so much.

What is the shirt, Tim, for those who are in audio listeners? It's a Dominic Torretto shirts, styled in one of those old retro just amazing. I've never seen one of these shirts I don't like. They're so good, right? Even if I don't respect the person. I'm like, they're still cool. You have the Topanga one, right?

Now that's blessed us. Bless has a different tappanga shirt. I got it from Target. There are so many tapanga shirts available. Hey, man. I saw Funko Papa for yesterday Barnes and Noble. Cultural relevance, man.

Oh yeah. I mean, dude, dude, dude, Sabrina Carpenter was from the new era. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Never forget. I think she has way more cultural pull than Topanga currently. For right now.

Yeah, but it's, you know, Topanga was there for her. She helped raise her. You know what I mean? It's true. It's very fair. Plus, we got Adam Brody coming back into cultural relevance. Maybe Danielle Fischel's next. Oh, could be.

Maybe she gets a research. She's never laughed. Okay. I know, but maybe she gets put in front of a new audience with a new project. You know how into WWE she is? Very. Oh, really? Very.

I didn't know that about her. Yeah, she's going to go through a table one day. That's her goal. Oh, okay. And I love that. It's not like a threat. It was like, whoa, Tim. Polly raves over on busted open radio.

I'm going to put her through a table. For a chance to be part of the show, submit your thoughts and opinions as YouTube Super Chat as we go. If you've been playing any fun games, Super Chat, and let us know what your experience has been with them. I would love to hear a little housekeeping for you. You already got news of Nintendo Switch's new mystery feature on Kind of Funny Games Daily. and then the stream after this is the continuation of the Until Dawn full play.

Greg, I missed all this. I didn't get to watch games daily today. I saw Nintendo's going to have a whole playtest. I don't need you to tell me everything. But like, do we know what's going on? We don't know what's going on. I think they said 10,000 people is what they're looking for. You know, a variety of countries, including the United States and Canada.

You need 2.2 gigs of free space, which makes us go, okay, what could this be? I was guessing on a system voice chat is what they're trying out. I use it with your headphones and stuff. I think that's too that sounds 2.2 that sounds like too much for that. Yeah. The rumors are mevers and by rumors I just mean like people willing things. We were trying to

Will Street pass back. Yeah. Well, I'm interested everyone. If you're kind of funny member you can get the Gregway that is Madeline Stanley answering your question. So definitely highly recommend that. Thank you to our Patreon producers, Carl Jacobs, and Delaney Twining. Today we're brought to you by New

World Eternum, but we'll tell you all about that later. It's time to get the topic of the show. Tots, Tots, Tots, Tots, Tots, Tots, Tots, Tos. Joey Noelle went to New York City to play. New York City.

Mario and Luigi Brothership. I did. It was really fun. I had a great time. I've never played a Mario and Luigi game, so they gave us a little primer at the top being like,

this is what the series is like. So this is the first game to be made for console, because apparently it's only been handheld so far. which I didn't know. And I was like, oh, wow. This is, that's a crazy jump, I guess, to go from, like, DS and stuff like that to console. And then it's the first one that's,

there's been other ones that have come out more recently, but this is the first one that's like a brand new, like lineage title and not like a follow up to a previous one. And also, like, I mean, so the franchise started, I mean, let me, let me just be a Nintendo Timner for just one second here. I was totally going to do this. But, you know, Super Mario RPG came out on the Super Nintendo. that was a collaboration between Nintendo and Square

Unix Square back in the day and then the success of that led to them being like, oh, we can do this without Square. So then they made Paper Mario and that turned into a franchise that we now know as well. You know, probably five, six sequels to Paper Mario over the years. And then they started the Mario and Luigi series on the Game Boy Advance.

A lot of lineage between the three sub-franchises but all of them have a comedic tone to them and a very similar battle system, which is very active, very rhythm-based, a lot of, like, prompts to, like... A lot of timing. Timing to quick time and all that stuff.

And I like the jacket. Yeah, that's cool. I keep going from Chile to hot to hot shit. Yeah. And the Mario and Luigi franchise kind of became the, like, I would say, flagship of it because the paper Mario kind of fell off the cliff a little bit

in terms of quality. Do you want a sticker star? Yeah, yeah. But there was one paper jam. that jammed them up. It was Mario Luigi mixed with Paper Mario. So that was a whole thing. I love a crossover.

But the Mario Luigi franchise started, like you were saying, getting into a bit more of remakes and like, like, up-res ports or whatever from the, like, the GBA to the 3DS or anything in between. So it's been quite a while since we've had a Mario and Luigi game. But we have been getting a lot of Mario RPGs. We got Mario RPG remake in November last year. I think that's right. And then we got Paper Mario 1,000,000,

Your Door earlier this year remake. So great stuff, great stuff. But this is going to be the first new Mario RPG period in a long time, specifically Mario Luigi Brothership and first console game, all that stuff. So all that out of the way. I love that. Thank you, Tim. Joey.

What did you think of playing Mario Luigi Brothership? It was fun. I get really stressed out by preview events in general. This goes back to E3, all of these things. It is really stressful to play games and have people watch. watch you. Sit behind you over your shoulder. Yeah, and be like, oh, can I, what if we did?

And I'm just like, oh, I'm just like so stressed out by this environment. But this preview event was really great. They had like groups of six of us come for the appointment. And then you sat down on TV with a Nintendo representative that kind of walked you through everything, which I really appreciated because there's nothing worse than just struggling through, trying to figure out where you go when you only have such a short amount of time with these games. So this one's really fun.

You are on this ship. as Barrett showed earlier, and you're going around trying to reconnect all the worlds. Kind of the overarching thing is like everybody has like a little face, like an outlet. And then you like plug all of these worlds and these lighthouses together to reconnect everything

and you get shot between these islands. Man, you know, the strange genre is going to have to stiff competition. But yeah, you are around on the ship and you're going around to reconnect all of these different islands. And then every island kind of has like a little different kind of, theme to it.

Yes, theme, exactly. And then every time you connect a new island, it kind of has a ripple effect throughout the whole world. So it really encourages you to go back. Different things get unlocked depending on what gets interconnected. So this is not necessarily like a one play-through.

You see everything. You definitely have to go back. Interesting. Okay. Let's see. What else do I have written down on my notes? It has an ability called Luigi Logic, which, Tim, is this like a thing from before? Not that I remember.

I haven't played all the Mario in Luigi games. But I know that Luigi is a very, like, a lot of like the character of Luigi comes from these games. Oh, really? His characterization. It's kind of like, um,

like if you remember it was like Final Smash in, um, smash brawl. Like before, before they gave him the vacuum like they, they should have in the beginning because that makes a lot of sense. Um, he was just kind of fucking weird. He did this like weird like drug induced like, little dance thing. Like you know how it was like taunts?

Like he's just really weird. Luigi being weird comes from these games. That checks out. Yeah, so definitely you have Luigi logic. It's a couple different things. He can go pick up items for you. He can give you hints and stuff about what you need to do. But then there's also ways that he gets weird.

It's like, oh, we have to get from this side to this side and the bridge is broken. We're going to turn into like a UFO alien and fly over it. And you're like, I don't really understand. but I like that you're thinking weird and out of the box. So I'm excited to see what kind of like weird random things happen with that. That'll be fun. So originally when we talked about me going to this, I kind of was not interested in going because I'm like,

platformer is not my thing. And you were like, Joe, this is not platformer. I was like, oh, count me in. I'm in. So yeah, it's turn-based. Interesting, though, that you use, you always have the controls for both characters at the same time. It's not like you're passing back and forth.

The A button is when you control. Mario and the B button is when you control Luigi and then X and Y are paired to it as well. So this is kind of what Tim was talking about with the timing of it of the battle systems. You go back and forth with each other, obviously. But you have to, the audio cues, I think, for this make it really easy to figure out the timing. Once I had like a little bit more volume, I felt like it was easier to figure out all of that. But you're going back and forth between the characters and then obviously the enemies are throwing stuff at you. There's a lot of these abilities where you're kicking things back and forth to

power them up to hit the enemies and then you have like a more super move. So yeah, so that's kind of the battle as you run through these maps. I like the art style. I don't know what necessarily you would call it because it's cell shaded. It's esk. It very much is trying to emulate the that's the wrong word, but create what the concept art of the original Mario and Luigi games looked like. Yeah. Because those games first were, Game Boy Advance, so

what the box art looked like was like this, whereas like you see it on the GBA and it was a little very different, right? So this being not only the first console one, but the first real Mario Luigi game in a while, like you can tell that they're like, all right, we're trying to like create a new standard of this is what these games look like. Yeah.

This game has like a fun comedic tone to it. Classic for the RPGs, right? I feel like that's always been the thing for Mario RPGs. And it's a fun thing. Like I did find myself laughing out loud. To parts of this was her

it wasn't necessarily expecting. So that was really fun. And then it has a fun mechanic called battle plugs. So these are different. Oh, Nintendo. They're committed to the plugs and outlets.

You need a theme. Everyone needs a theme. So these are different. craftable, consumable abilities. You use them for about like five rounds, I think were the couple that I tried out. And they have just different modifiers, depending on what kind of enemies you have.

If you have like a wind enemy, you can have one that combats that. You have electric, all that kind of stuff. And you plug those in. I started with two slots for those. And then as you play, you unlock more slots and you unlock more abilities that you can slot in. So it's a lot of, as you get into a battle,

oh this one doesn't work here we have to swap them out all that kind of stuff it could um i think it was really fun in terms of trying to figure out what the right matchups are for everything and how each enemy works um but it is also overwhelming trying to figure this all at the same time i just want to also give a shout out i have to figure out oh snoutlet this is that cute little flying thing that's like your little buddy and he's insistent or she or they are insistent the entire time that they're not a pig. Because everyone keeps saying

that they're a pig and they get so upset about it and it's so funny. So yeah, anti-spike. If you are ending up with enemies that are

really pokey and all these different ones, the syrup jar, I don't remember if I used that one. I feel like I mostly was using

the spike in the flying specialist ones because those were a lot of the enemies that we are encountering. But it was a

fun way to kind of just augment the battle style and figuring out how to take down enemies faster because they are just kind of all over the place and you have encounters like pretty often.

But I do also appreciate that they showed me how to run away from them because I don't always want to I don't always want to fight. Sometimes you should want you to get to the next objective. Joey, my question for you is this. I am woefully underprepared for Mario RPGs. My sole one is Super Paper Mario on Wii. That was the only one I ever played through. I enjoyed it. I had a lot of fun with it. But I don't remember it well outside of the humor. So even looking at the gameplay here, my question for you becomes like when I think of an RPG when I think of role playing I think of making choices

and making characters my own but Mario and Luigi are so well defined and then even what you're saying oh you need anti-spike because you're fighting these spike people like did you feel like it was not but did it feel like it was on rails like you're doing these you have to do a certain thing or did you feel like there's any ownership over what was happening

so obviously with the character stuff you're pretty locked in and like there's not a ton of agency there the way that it feels off rails is that there's no like specific path that they're pushing you to. There's a bunch of islands you can choose from and you can kind of choose how you navigate the world that way. Obviously like you can you don't have to use those. Sorry, what are they called the battle plugs? Like you, I mean you do have to use them.

That's the thing. But like it's not you can't do it or you can successfully win fights without having like the optimal thing. it's not like you're always I have to use this one I have to use this one It is about the like I like these combinations of moves and abilities

and stuff like that So I don't think you're locked in super hard But there aren't as many Story choices at least the I experienced We only played for an hour and a half Sure That would really You're kind of going through the main golden path

Yeah I would say like The RPG elements do come more Into play in the combat As opposed to like Story choices But the story These games are very right focus. And I feel like that's where the games,

the people either look at them fondly or kind of like, oh, those ones miss the mark. It's really based on how funny it is, like how invested you actually get in the characters. Because each one, each of these games has a really, like, awesome ensemble cast of obviously Mario and Luigi

who have very different characterization than they do in like some of the core games. So it's like they do, it's a little bit more unique to this world. But the like, the cast of friends that you make and the enemies, like, each one, like, that's really what makes these games special, you know? Yeah. And like, you're playing it, you're less role-playing, and you're more just kind of like along for the story of it all. Did you like what you got from the story?

Yeah, it's fun. It is funny, like, one of the islands that we were on is, like, their whole thing was like, we got to get back to dancing. And you're like, oh, man, they foot loose. So there's, like, really fun mini-games on the couple islands. that I played that did have like a specific vibe to it. And I think that's where those power-ups come on more often is because the obviously the enemies on every island are going to have something a little bit different and use those to kind of battle around and hit them differently. How many characters that you're seeing are like new to just this game or like classic

and Mario characters? Oh, there's quite a few. I feel like every island you meet like a new original character. it's usually like, I think one of them was like, oh, you have to go find this woman's daughter. And she's stuck at the top of this island. And so I think Mario and Luigi are like, oh yeah, this is the dancing guy. Look how cool he looks. That's a cool guy.

I was kind of upset that like his little dancing mini game, like wasn't everywhere because I was like, oh, this is kind of fun. So maybe I would go back and spend a lot of time on this island. Guru master, you're back. So yeah, each island has definitely a bunch of these different ones and different people and stuff like that. So they each, they feel very different. And even the mechanics of each island, like one was definitely like more of like a maze puzzle kind of thing. And this was a little bit more platforming, just navigating around the island. They have like a bunch of vendors that will give you powerups and stuff to buy.

We didn't spend a ton of time with the vendor. So I don't know exactly what everybody does. But there was a lot of, I'm excited to dive in because I feel like I only kind of scratched the surface and I want to get into it. I didn't necessarily think this was going to end up on a list of games that I wanted to play this year, but I had a lot of fun and I wanted to play more and I was like kind of bummed win the demo. That's good.

Do you think you're going to want to see this through to the end when we get review codes? I think so. I think I'm going to play this similarly and this might not work for review codes and stuff like that to how I play Astrobat where like I jump in and I do a couple of islands and then I jump off for the night and stuff like that. I had a great, I had a lot of fun, which I was truly not expecting because this was so out of my wheelhouse in terms of, like, I don't play a ton of Mario games because I don't like platforming. And even, so I feel like I kind of just segment a lot of Mario titles in that. And so this was not on my radar at our radar at all.

But I had a lot of fun. J.G. in the chat says, I like the Nintendo's comfortable letting them the RPGs make original characters and races again instead of just naming a few toads and shit. Because that was a big issue in some of the last couple games is it just got like really like, all right, here's just a new gumba. And back in the day, like what made these games so special was just how weird they would get. And like, they introduced cast of characters that are like, I mean, plugs. You know what are we doing that?

But it could be, it could be fun. CJ splits on rights in on a YouTube super chat saying, does it feel like a console game? It does. I played on the TV so I didn't even play handheld, so I feel like that definitely added to it. But it looked really good. It felt really good. It felt like a full-blown game.

I don't think this is going to be a short game by any means either. I honestly would not have known that this was their first console game. If they hadn't told me that, it felt like a full-fledged game. It is really interesting that this game is coming out. So it's coming on on November 7th. So we're about a month away from this. So at the end of the Switch life cycle, like for them to,

I mean, this isn't a new franchise, but this definitely is, it might as well be. Like, this feels like a fresh start for the Mario and Luigi series. And I, I hope that it hits for people because,

like, this, it could be big for Nintendo to kind of revitalize this arm of the, the Mario RPG world. Yeah. But do you, do you think that this has the sauce? Like,

do you think when you look at the, the Nintendo games in recent years, like, Switch really has kind of been known for taking franchises and having the definitive version or having like, oh, we've retooled this franchise to be more modern in a way that, like, this is really going to hit. They've had a couple of misses here and there, but like, do you think that this is going to be on that level of like, oh, they did it for Mario and Luigi? I think so. Playing it, it did, it didn't feel like I was behind on anything because I hadn't played all the other ones. It did feel like a really good jumping in point. for people that don't have any experience with it,

and it didn't make you feel like, oh, I'm catching up on things. And it felt really good. I really hope that people like it because I'm excited about it, and I hope that we get more. It's just like a fun, different kind of, like the humor is fun. And it's a different combat cell.

I will say that it took me a while to get my brain wrapped around controlling both players at the same time. Way with Mario and B with Luigi. Like, but I think that's a me brain. thing, like not being able to, or trying to do multiple things at once, my brain was just like, what do you mean? What do you mean you can do, but all move both of these characters at the same time?

So that's kind of out of my realm of RPG stuff. But I think so. It's hard because I haven't played any of the other ones. So it's a little bit like, uh, it seemed good, but I don't have a ton of context for it. But I hope that everybody really likes it. And I hope that these previews get people more excited about it because I would hate for it to get like glossed over.

Yeah. I feel like it's a game, and I'm not the Nintendo guy, obviously, but it's a game that has been so under the radar where I haven't heard much about it. I mean, in classic Nintendo fashion, they just announced it. Like, this is the first beat that it's had, and then it comes out next month. Like, it's pretty wild to just think of how Nintendo does things these days where there always will be the tiers of the kingdom type things,

where it's like, yeah, we're looking forward to that from unknown Breath of the Wild sequel for years to it actually coming out. But, I mean, Zelda, if I remember correctly, this and Zelda Echoes of Wisdom were both announced at the same Nintendo direct just a couple months ago. So I was like, and now that game just came out as well. So now

we're waiting for Donkey Kong Country Returns HD or at least I am. January, baby. And maybe that's like a better marketing thing than to announce it years ahead of time if it's a smaller title that it's going to be hard to sustain interest in it over a long period of time. It's like, oh cool, we announce it

with a shorter window so that way it'll stay in people's minds longer. Yeah. Speaking of that, too, though, one thing that is a little weird is we don't know who's making this game. What is up with Nintendo doing that? We just don't know. And like, for people, we've had this conversation a couple times now. But for people that don't know in modern times, Nintendo just doesn't say who's working on the games until you see the credits at the end of the game. Like, it's been pretty common that for the last couple of Nintendo releases, like, when you boot the game up, like, some of them don't even have any splash screen. Like, not even like a Nintendo splash screen.

It just goes straight into the menu or straight into a cutscene or something. And there's no like copyright or whatever at the bottom. What's up, Barry? I've been wondering about this a lot lately, especially with like we kind of knew. We assumed that Grezo made a Zelda Echoes of Wisdom. I think they were a little bit more open about that one. I don't know that they were. I think that it was just so obvious.

Yeah. You know, this one's more complicated though, because... Do we think this pattern started since Metroid Dread? Where I feel like a lot of Hullabaloo. came out with Metroid Dred because I think we did know who made that beforehand, but then there was a lot of people that weren't credited in the making of that game

and the credits and stuff like that. You're talking about Prime Remastered. No, Dredd had a lot of controversies as well, oh yeah. I don't remember that. Oh, yeah. Interesting, because I remember Prime Remastered, the problem was the entire original people didn't get credited. Yeah, no, there were people who actually worked on Dred

that did not get credited. Yeah. Yeah, so somewhere around there, which again, wasn't that long ago, and Nintendo releases, they made the shift. But Alpha Dream, who made the original Mario and Luigi games, doesn't exist anymore. So there is the question of, like, who is working on this? And all the signs are pointing to ICLA, I think it is, who are the team that made the Pokemon, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl remakes, which not necessarily a great sign,

in my opinion, but we'll see. Yeah. And we won't know until the credit, so. Missing link in the chat says, has Nintendo ever really been forward-facing about would teams work on games? I feel like, and this could just be a blind spot for me, I don't feel like I'm as aware of Nintendo Studios as much as I am for Xbox and PlayStation. Yeah.

Is that a thing? I mean, it's kind of just because of how they do or don't talk about them, you know? And a lot of the Nintendo teams are like similar to how PlayStation used to be with Insomniac. Like they're not actually owned by Nintendo. There's more second party, whatever that looks like. So, yeah, it's just gotten more and more vague over the years. It is weird that we just have no idea officially about this. Brother ship, what's up with the name?

You liking the ships in this? Yeah, the ship is how you navigate the map and how you get to these islands. It's funny you get to like cannonball yourself off the ship into the islands. We didn't send a ton of time on the ship, so I don't know how much, like, what the, if there's anything else to them other than navigating around them, for us we just use them as navigating. There is like a fast travel, which isn't really like a, you just, go a little bit faster. I don't think,

I think using fast travel to describe it as like a little generous. I was like, oh, the toads just like fan you there faster. It's not. You don't get there that much quicker. But yeah, two brothers on a ship, you know? Anything it's like a playoff friendship, you know? I'm saying it. Yeah. I understand it's friendship. I understand

the brothers. I understand they're on a ship. I was just talking, I was rants about this on games either. I don't like it. I don't like a one. I mean, hey, great. I'm going to take the hater rate a little further. I don't like the look at the game. Oh, really? I said no to this preview. I'm like, first off,

I'm Mario RPGed out. There's just been a lot of them. I mean, literally back to back, my two favorite Mario RPGs ever, Super Mario RPG and a thousand year, Paper Mario, a thousand year door. I just played them. Definitely a weird strategy.

Yeah. Three of these come out in one year. Within like 365 days, essentially. It's like, what are we talking about? But this being the first new one is, is exciting. But yeah, I look at this and something about it, I don't like it.

But I seem to be. in the minority by far. Everyone loves the way this game looks. I don't at first glance love it, but the more I watched them, I'm like, okay. Yeah, I will say the music. Yeah, as if Nintendo ever doesn't have great music,

but I did really appreciate the music in particular. Yeah, I don't, the name, I feel like the name is hard because it can get misconstrued. Like, it's one of those names that's like, is a brother ship, is it, you know, like, it's not one that sticks with me. me particularly and I have to think about it. It is confusing. I didn't realize there was an actual ship so that makes me feel better. I thought it was just a play on friendship and I was like,

that's a little clunky. But if there's a literal ship, I'll accept it a bit more. Yeah. It works. I think once you get into it maybe, it'll make a little bit more sense. Are any of you planning on playing this or checking it out or anything? I want to check it out. Yeah. I wanted to check out a Super Mario RPG and they just went by and I never got it. So a more modern one, a new story on it, I think of jumping in this. there would be a fun one for me, especially because I like what you're talking about. Everything you're saying about it, Joe, sounds great. Madeline, any interest?

Probably not. I think it's cute. I don't have a lot of, the only Mario game I've ever played is Odyssey. So I don't have a lot of connection to Mario. Yeah. It does look really cute. It might be something I would give a try. It could be a fun, like, travel with the Switch game.

But since it is, like, console and you're, like, playing it on the TV. I'm like, I feel like that kind of defeats the purpose of having the console part of it. I'm sure it's going to be very, I mean like most Switch games are very handheld focused and like this, the lineage of this franchise is very simple and very not mission based

but like designed around shorter play periods to be able to save wherever you want like that type of thing. So I think this is going to work portably very, very well. And I will also say I imagine that the visual style is going to hold up a lot better handheld for me than

on the screen because of just blowing up the assets and all that, whereas the Switcherlitt screens, like, one of my favorite screens of all time. It makes games look so much better. We've got to do a ranking list of Tim's favorite screens of all time. You would be surprised at how in depth I could get on a top 10 of that. We're going to talk about some other games. Thank you, Joey, so much for your preview of Martin Luigi Brothership. But we're going to talk about others right after a word from our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by New World Eternum. New World Eternum is a thrilling Action RPG experience for console and PC players with a vibrant world,

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Greg played this at Summer Game Fest on PlayStation 5 and was caught off guard by how much he enjoyed it and how many hours he said he could see himself sinking into the final product. There's boss fights, cool enemies, crossplay, resource gathering, and crafting. So yeah, this sounds like a Greg game. Pre-order New World Eternalim now on PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X or S to get the Azoth stalker Wolfmount and prepare for launch on October 15. And we're back. Madeline, you've been talking about a game called Fears to Fathom.

Yeah. I've never heard of it. What is it? It is, well, Tim, I just got my very first PC. So I've been... Boom! I'm so sorry, Greg. I'm so sorry, Greg. So I've been delving into Steam, and which I had a PC a long time ago, but pretty much only used it to play the Sims.

As one does. Yes, exactly. So I've been getting into the indie games, some of these smaller titles, and I stumbled across someone on Twitch, or on TikTok actually playing Fears to Fathom, and it looked really interesting. It's kind of like retro-looking little chunk-sized horror games. They're like each only an hour or so. Some of them, I think, might be like two hours, but they're little fun experiences where you're kind of this child. They're usually like a teenager or something experiencing like a spooky experience. And they're each kind of a different theme.

So the very first episode is like you're a teenage boy and you're at home alone and someone's like trying to break into your house. And there's no like combat or anything, but you can talk to people. You can hide. You can move things around. And it's just a very fun like atmospheric horror game. It's a really fun game to stream to like play with other people and kind of. get advice. This one I just played and it was really scary. This lady was trying to break into

your house and kill you. Um, and- Is it all people just trying to break in the houses? That was two of them. The other one, you were a girl who was like on a cross-country drive. Her car breaks down in Missouri. Yeah. Scary right off the bat. Um, she like goes to this motel and there's some weird things going on at that motel. Um, so it's really fun. Like, there's a lot, they kind of introduce different mechanics in every single episode. So in the in the one where you can look at all of the cameras, there's kind of like that five nights at Freddy's things. We're like looking in the different rooms using the infrared, but also like there's like a noise mechanic. So if you're hiding from the person like it's checking your mic levels and everything. Oh wow. Which is extra

fun when you're trying to like stream a game. Yeah. Good point. But the art styles are really cool. I think the atmosphere is really fun. The music is really like unsettling. And because you don't really have that comeback, you know, the survival horror type of aspect, but it's kind of like survival horror light, which I think is a really fun introductory. Like I would definitely recommend these these games to people who are maybe like, you know, Resident Evil's a little intense for me. Silent Hill is a little intense for me. Like what could I try? And I would say this is a really great introduction into like a survival horror type game that is not, it's still scary. It's still scary. I think it gets me, but it's not

the most gory or extremely jump scary. Big gumps in the chat says that they think that most of the stories are based on supposedly true stories from Reddit. Yeah, they start each thing like basically as if someone is

typing into a forum. So they're like one night, I was doing this and this is what happened. And they're kind of narrating it to you as you're playing. Like as if you're reading the story in a forum. And and seeing it as it's happening. That's cool.

What's up with the 7-Eleven looking situation? So in one of the games, you have to go get groceries for this house that you're sitting. And you can talk to the people there. You can get an achievement if you help this woman get the mustard off the top shelf. Terrifying. But mostly it's like you're riding a bike by yourself in the dark to the 7-Eleven. And there's some creepy people standing out there. And they're like, oh, that's weird.

you're at that weird house. Didn't you hear people got murdered there? And you're like, shoot, well, I got to get that mustard for that old lady. So what's the situation? Someone was saying these are free to play? So I think the first episode's free. Yeah, I'm on Steam right now. Yeah, it's the first episode is in fact free to play

and then the rest range in prices as they go. I think most of them are $5 and then the most recent one is 10 because I think the fifth episode just came out in the last month or so. Yeah, Home Alone is free to play. play. Norwood community. It's straight up called home alone. That seems. Norwood hitchhike is $4.99. Ironbark lookout is $999.

Woodbury Getaway is $9.99. Oh yeah. So there you go. There's a bundle though for $24. Yeah. It's really, I mean, like I said, they are like an hour to two hours each, but I honestly feel like really, really reasonably priced for how much fun I've had with them, like a really fun time. They also like, there is a lot of choice-based things. So it's not exactly 100% on rails. Like if you choose to do this, then something different happens. So there are a lot of opportunities for you to die.

And the only frustrating thing with that is that there is no saving in the game. So if you die, you just have to start the whole thing over. But they are short. So it's not like you're putting in four hours and then dying and then having to start over. But I think that does ratchet up the tension a little bit because you're like, okay, if I die, I'm going to have to start at the very beginning. I'm to put a little bit more thought into this. Yeah. Yeah.

It sounds fun. It feels, so I, I like horror stuff. Horror games in like any horror experience where like, like Hollywood Horror Nights or Not Scary Farm, that in games I don't do. It's too much. It's too real. I don't like having to participate into it. I like being a viewer. I like watching, but I don't want to be in it.

So this feels like my perfect way to play a horror game because I usually kind of stay away from them. I will never forget the one. extra life where we were trying to play some horror game and I was just like inching forward and they were like we can't do this anymore it's going to take you six hours to play this scene so this sounds like a fun spooky way to spend October I always love a little a shorter experience too yeah exactly yeah that's that's what's super appealing to me right there's so much to play right now but having these little anthologies for like an hour and stuff for horror games I'm totally in yeah I love the idea of anthology horror and I think um I know you like them as well Greg like

Dark Pictures, anthologies are also anthologies, but they are quite a bit longer. They're a lot different. This is something that's so nice. It's kind of like an episode of TV that you can play where you're like, oh, this is like an episode of American Horror Story or, you know, like maybe a less, a more grounded show than that. So are they supernatural or are they all like intruders, man's inhumanity to a man? They're more, they are grounded, but there are some aspects.

Elements. Yeah, I don't want to. Don't spoil. I don't want to spoil. I don't want to say too much, but they're not all just like home invasions, even though I made it seem like that's what it was. That's really funny. Greg, I want to talk to you a little bit about horror games with where you're at these days.

Like, what, what, I know you've changed. Exactly. Changed and grown a lot in terms of like, I mean, your appreciation for Resident Evil and those type of games. Also, horror games have evolved and changed. Yeah, exactly. There's a lot. God, ah, what, I hate you. So much.

6.5 compared to a 6. Jesus Christ. Maybe a 6 compared to a 5.5. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. At least give it a 7. Village? Yes.

No, we won't be doing that. We won't be doing that. Good Lord. Anyway, where are you at with horror games? Like what? Because there's more than ever from big, small, everything in between. Like, what to you are you like, okay, I'm interested in this?

And are there things that are like the red flags of horror games? If you're just like, oh, I'm not going to like whatever this is. That's a great question. Tim. I'm still not like the Five Nights at Freddy's. I'm still not the there's a killer in the house. I like, I want it to be ghosts. You know what I find? Especially in the spooky season right now, I want that kind of thing.

If we can get a good vampire in there, what's he up to, Joey? You know what I mean? I want that level of supernatural We do. We do need more vampire games. We do. We do. A werewolf. Sure. Why not? Something like to that effect. Which again, like this creepy, unsolved mysteries vibe, anthology. Mainly it's honestly it's the anthology.

right? Like, what an impressive thing for, it looks like a solo developer. I was over on Twitter trying to find out, right? It looks like it's this one person Ray 2 is what their Twitter account is or whatever,

making fears of fathom in my bedroom. Like, how awesome, impressive is it to have that one idea to go to? Yeah. So, no, I want to be creepy and I think, again, the problem with most horror games and most horror is that

once you see a threat, it gets less scary, right? In terms of a supernaturally weird horror, right? And so brevity is so helpful to all of this, right? Brevity. So the idea that these are an hour, maybe two hours or whatever, I love that idea of like get in, get out, be spooky, be scared, then it's over, what kind of thing?

I'm all about that. Well, I also think that's one of the things that, you know, even though these are generally more grounded experiences, they are short, but they also really, I think the developer plays really well with tension and not knowing what the threat is because I think that's one of the things that you go and, playing, you're not really sure actually what is going to be the threat. And so you are going

shopping and you're like, well, wait, what is it something going to be here? Is it going to be back at the house? Is it going to be a different location? Um, so I think like they throw in a lot of different things that maybe could happen. And as you're playing, you're kind of like trying to unravel, like, okay, what's going to scare me? And that kind of keeps you tense, right? Because you're like, I don't actually know exactly what this story is about. They keep it very vague, I think, throughout the beginning so that you are kind of like looking around every corner like is the old lady with the mustard maybe she's a vampire we don't know this is the classic my pull to gone home right where it was like wow this house is haunted or what's happening like going around corners trying

to trigger whatever is going to get you or whatever yeah i love that part joey what about you i think this is a great game that we make andy play and maybe i watch um yeah yeah like i said horror game's not really my thing but like like what could do you think that how would you enjoy horror games? Watching someone play it? Is that enough for you? Yeah, I mean, I like obviously all of the like dark pictures and those kind of span the gamut of what the threat actually is.

They are a little bit long. I think that's my biggest issue is like you're trying to save people or you want to see, you want to make different choices and stuff like that. I don't know that I'm committed to sinking in another like four to six hours to see all the different outcomes. It's one of those where, again, to jump in, fear the spotlight from Blumhouse games, you know, talking to that about SGF. And they're like, I forget if they said they were an hour or two hours or three hours.

But it's like that, oh, great, that's perfect. And I think in the conversation about Until Dawn, maybe the start of the stream or maybe when we talked about one of the shows, there was a conversation of like, supermassive is great. And these are awesome experiences. They're just a bit too long because if you want to sit there with your friends, you need something that's two hours or three hours to play all in one night. Even for you guys coming back today to jump back until dawn, which is kind of the game that kicked it all off in terms of super massive and not even kind of.

it is. That's great, but such a long experience, whereas I feel like for me, the last one, House of Ashes, right, was the one that was the Iraq War or whatever. Yeah, exactly. I think Devil and Me was after that one. Thank you. Yeah. I loved that one, and it was short enough that me and Jen finished in like four hours and

was like, okay, we're getting there to a really manageable, I think you could do all this and go. I want to talk about until dawn a little bit. Have you guys, I mean, started the stream a couple days ago. We're going to continue it after this. Did you guys talk about your thoughts about this? We have not. A little bit throughout.

Yeah. But in one place in distill format now. No. Yeah, there are some interesting updates. We definitely saw some cut scenes, especially at the beginning that we hadn't seen before. And then the new totem stuff. It's very weird. The thing that we talked about the most because we did not really like that mechanic.

What is it? Normally, if you find totems in the world, you're just picking them up and they show you like a flashback or a premonition of things that could happen. This one, you pick it up and you have to like, we'll. weirdly rotate it in the right space to get it to trigger. And I just don't think it's a mechanic that you need. No, it's definitely adding time where you don't need to add time to the game. Because it used to be like you would just move your trigger like all the way to the right. It would turn it your hand and then you would look at it.

And now you're like having to move it up and down with one of the sticks and then right and left with one of the sticks. And then it will zero in. And like the screen will get darker when you're kind of in the same direction. But it's very specific. in where it wants you to be. So we were maybe spending like actually a full minute or two minutes trying to activate.

Instead of like three seconds to flip it over. Yeah. We were all very grateful that Madeline and Nick were doing it. Yeah. And not the rest of us. It's very touchy. And it's like that's not, I understand like making it a little bit more interactive.

But that I don't find that to be like a good way. I know that more interactive. I haven't played the new version. I haven't even really seen much. But I have seen a lot. the scuttle butt on Twitter, people being really upset with, like, the changes of, like, visually and it not necessarily, you know, the conversation more being, like, was this needed?

Yeah. But there also are a lot of people seeing that say that they prefer the old one. Do you think, with your experience so far, would you recommend to first timers, the new version or the classic? So I would, it's tough because I feel really mixed about the way that the new one looks. because I think a lot of it looks really good. Like, Andy and I were talking about this. Like, some of the character models are, like, beautiful in a way that they weren't before.

But some of them look worse. So, like, the character, Jessica, I think they made her look objectively worse in the new one. But there's another character played by, what's that guy's name, Joey? Oh, Brett Dalton. The dancing guy. Oh, Jordan Fisher. Jordan Fisher. Matt?

Yeah, Matt. He looks beautiful. He looks so good. He looked kind of, he looked whatever. That's just Jordan Fisher. and the other one and this one, like his character model is gorgeous, but also everyone's teeth look horrible.

Everyone got veneers. Everyone's teeth are really large, so every time they talk, they have like, the choppers are wilds. Yes. So as far as we've played, I don't think I,

especially with it not being like an upgrade price, like I think if it was, you pay $10 or $20 if you own the original until dawn and you get the PS5 version, I could maybe feel, okay about recommending that because it is a like the lighting is kind of pretty although they did some weird stuff with the color and the lighting as well where they made it really bright in some times and it's supposed to be at night so they kind of weird like I think about um the matrix and I how is

that green and then when they did some of those remasters they like pulled that away as like to correct for it and it's like no that's what it's supposed to look like like that's a conscious decision twilight isn't twilight if it doesn't have that blue tinge way exactly And pulling away some of the darkness in the blue from Until Dawn, I think, is messing with the creativeness, not with the quality of the actual game itself. So if it was a less expensive 10 or $20 upgrade, I could say, yeah, if you really like your 4K and like you really want to see those nice visuals, it might be worth it. But for most people, I would say it's not. Like, I would just play the PS4 version. They also devastatingly, Greg, changed the theme song.

Yes, they did. I don't like the new one. No. No. And they added a lot more like contemporary, like, licensed music. Licensed music that's very strange. Interesting.

It changes the mood a lot of, of. Sounded like when George Lucas went back and put Jabba the Hut. You know what I mean? Blink. Yeah. Yeah. It'll be interesting. There are definitely things that they've added that we haven't even gotten to of, like,

the different, is it the colors of the totems or something? And there's one that's, like, green that's, like, on the sign, it's, like, covered. so it seems like something that you don't unlock until you've played through it. And there are some things that are interesting, but I don't think they're interesting enough to pay full price for it again, especially if you've already bought it and played it. Yeah. And they added a new section at the beginning that kind of gives you a little bit more

of characterization of the three siblings. So Rami Malik and his two sisters, you don't really get a lot of time with them in the original game. They give you a little, not a significant amount, maybe like five extra minutes with them. Okay. Does it work? Does it set the stage better for?

who they were? I think it does give you a better idea of like their relationship with each other. But I don't, like I said, I don't think it's like worth it. Like it doesn't, it doesn't make it like, oh yeah, I finally like care about these two girls that start off the game in kind of a perilous situation. Like it doesn't do that much more to make me care about them. Gotcha. Yeah. You guys have played through the game a couple times or at least once. Yeah. Are you enjoying this play through with the squad? It's fun because it's been a while since I've played. played it. So there's a lot of stuff that I don't remember and it is the fun game of like, was this in the original one or is this new? How does this work out?

So, and it's an opportunity to, especially today as we continue to play through. I feel like I've lost a lot of people in my playthru. So I am excited hopefully to see what it looks like maybe if I don't accidentally kill everyone, you know? That's awesome. Any final thoughts on until done? I've just been having fun. It's been fun. It's been fun. to play with such a big group of people. I feel like normally I've only played, I've either played by myself or watch somebody play,

but getting to like talk with everybody and make the group decisions. It's very interesting to see, because I feel like it's rare that we're all aligned. We're only really aligned on not liking Ashley. That's really the only thing. But it's been fun to see what kind of decisions everybody wants to make.

I do feel like we're about to hit a lot of chaos. Yeah, 100%. We're at the chaos spot, I think. This is where it goes crazy? This is where it's going to go off the rails. Stay tuned, everybody, for the chaos after this episode of Gamescast. But moving on from until dawn, I want to talk a little bit about Fields of Mystria, because you were saying, you're diving into that. Played that by recommendation of Andy and Joey and Sen Nuggies, who I think is also here in the chat.

I've never played Stardue. Oh, wow. And so this is my first, like, everyone is saying this is very Stardue, like. Yes. This is my first thing. My only experience with this type of game would be Animal. crossing new horizons. Nice.

Yeah. Which this feels a bit different than that. Like a way more... This is way more involved. Yes. And it's fun. It's so cute. I do feel like a little overwhelmed.

As like that, um, honor student kid that like wants to do everything correct. This game is not good for that type of mentality because there's just literally no way to do even a quarter of everything that you could do in a day. Yeah. And there's something about the way that the season. go in the way that they tick that feels extra pressure.

I only have so many days to grow all these crops, but then I have to go to the mines, and then what about who's going to feed my chickens? And what about the dugs? The mines are so fun. I love them. That was the first thing I, like, maxed out.

I'm like, well, now I'm at the bottom of at least the early access, but I want to keep going. Give me all the things. Did you play this at all great? I started it, but it was the same thing. I started it one night. That's great.

And the next day X came in to review and it was that I never got back. Did Stardew ever grab you? No, we grabbed Jen. It was the same thing where I started Stardew, but it was too much of the farming, and I was like, I'm not about that part of this. Yeah, this one I think is,

it's been interesting to kind of do the comparison between the two, obviously. But I think that this game, the villagers, are so much more dynamic than they are in Stardew. I agree with that 100%. We're starting this one, even for the surface I scratched. I was like, oh, you're cool, and you're cool,

and I'd like to see that. Yeah. There's so many different personality types and like definitely people I find myself like gravitating towards, which I think is really smart because you, you can't really be friends with everyone or, you know, be maximum friendship. So it is cool that there's so many different types of people.

You can kind of pick your favorites. But I don't feel like I haven't really been farming at all in this game. So I don't know if you have to do it. Because that's not something I really ever do. I think I only still have four little plots of land. And I've been playing it for like, I've already done a full season. So if you don't like farming,

I don't know if you have to do it. I've been getting by without it. Yeah. I mean, there's definitely ways around it that fields of mystery I have that I feel like Star Dude doesn't or at least I think it's a little bit smoother in this

where it's like you need crops to make like the recipes and stuff like that, but you can also buy them from like the little cart like it rotates every day. It's just the thing where the farming sim life is, I remember when Harvest Moon, not wasn't a big deal. I remember hearing what Harvest Moon in the day.

And then getting Harvest Moon and be like, oh, I actually don't like this. Like, you know what I mean? We talk about. video games being that fantasy fulfillment. I'm like, I do not fantasize about being in a farmer in a small farming town. Do you want to be a beekeeper in the middle of nowhere?

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I get that. Somebody in the chat was asking if there was one of these without dating. I just want to know, I played the entirety of Star New Valley without doing any of the relationship stuff because I did not personally feel compelled to like, I didn't really like any of the characters that much. So I was like, no, the children yearn for the minds. I'm going to the minds.

I'm going to do all of my farming. I'm going to get my farm all set. Like, you can just, you don't have to, just because it's there doesn't mean you have to do it. Yeah, exactly. Clearly with the farming on that set. But if you're an honor student. Yeah.

You have to do everything. I do need to just, once again, say, we need Ulrich to be fatable. Yeah, he's so cute. He's just like the little hymbo who just wants to like chop trees down and stuff or like, and I guess it's not chopping trees. He's part of the mining and stuff like that. But he has the jerk.

little brother that everybody's also kind of into because I guess it's like oh I guess we'll settle for you but just let me date the hymbo he's so cute. Is he undaatable? They don't let you date him. Not as of yet. Not yet. Apparently you're not allowed to decide between brothers which is not what every rom-com

has told me. But yeah, it's fun. Staying with you Joey to close out the show your Astrobot. You're still playing through. I'm making my way through Astrobot. Astrobot is one of those games that I will suffer through because I'm having such a good time, even though I'm so bad at it. Something about platforming.

I just didn't grow up playing platformers or anything like that, and my brain just can't really wrap my, it's itself around any of it. But I will say that astronaut is making it way easier than any other platformer I've attempted to play. I think it's just so charming. It has so much personality. I love all the abilities and the gimmicks and stuff like that. It's so beautiful.

The music is incredible. I'm having so much fun, even though I feel. feel like I have to like fight through myself to play it, which I is a huge credit to Tima Sovi. Yeah. Because a lot of lesser games have made me stop way quicker. And I always look forward to it. I just have to like play it in chunks or small chunks like over the course of a lot of days. It's not like a bingeable game for me.

And I, I want to be better at it. And maybe if I just force myself to play it more, I will be. But maybe my brain is just broken. I'm glad you're hanging in there and taking it at your pace, though. It is, that is the, the push and pull of this job of being able to, what do I have to like play through really quickly and what do I have like the flexibility of being able to. So very grateful that a lot of you are much better at this game and can talk about it. Oh yeah, I love AsthmaBot so much. You bring it up the music.

They put the soundtrack on Spotify. Oh, is that a game changer for you now? Oh, I've been listening to it so much. There was like a hundred songs. So good. And it's like one composer. I don't understand. And they're so good.

Kenny's the goat. The goat, man. We got a super chat from John Fick saying, just wanted to shout out, Madeline, you're doing such a killer job this week. You're kind of funny Facebook admin family. It's super proud of you.

Thanks, John. So, yeah. So, Madeline, you're playing Astrobot as well. What are you thinking about it? I love it. I only, I've completed all of the worlds. I only have like the last boss world, I guess, to do.

So I'm excited to do that. I really loved it. It's honestly so good that I'm considering, doing the challenge levels, which is not something I would ever do. I've done a couple of them. I've powered through. But they're so frustrating some of them, having to restart at the beginning every single time.

I'm just like, why? Why are you doing this to me? But I would say similar to Joey, like, that's such a testament to how much love and care is put into this and how much fun it is, even when it's frustrating, that, like, someone who notoriously doesn't like repeating the same things over and over again, I'm like, I'm doing it. I'm doing some of them. And I'm like, am I going to platinum this game?

Maybe. Yes, yes, you are. Let's go. James Burke, I was hanging out with him last night. Platinum this game in like four sittings. And I'm like, I love him. Just so much. Just the idea of him just stayed up all night playing Asterovite.

I don't know why. I can't go teach in the morning, but I got to get this done. God, he's like, platinum him Bloodborn. Yeah, I know that. Sonic Frontiers. He's plotted him like every Sonic game. We got. Play more Kingdom Hearts games.

Still, still hasn't played Kingdom Hearts too, which is why I told him. I was like. Snowbike Mike is playing Kingdom Hearts 2 before you. Jesus Christ. Well, everybody, this has been a super fun episode of the kind of funny games cast. If you're watching on Twitch, you can stay right where you are. But if you're on YouTube, you're going to need to make the jump.

And you're going to want to see the continuation of the until dawn stream. We're going to get everybody out here playing together. The chaos is about to ensue. So you're going to want to check that out. Madeline, thank you so much for joining us. Where could people find you? You can find me at Matt Exposure Everywhere. I'm on Twitch, Twitter, Instagram,

TikTok sometimes, maybe once every couple months. But check me out any of those places. Mad Exposure. And Joey, shout out to you for an excellent preview of my own Luigi Brothership. You guys, this is hard to do. The previews, it's like, it's much easier when multiple people play the game

and it's more of a conversation, but it's just like, oh, there's a lot of pressure. There's a lot of things to remember. You crushed it. Shout out to Joe. Amazing, as always, Joey. Thank you. Let us know,

the comments below. If you are interested in Mario and Luigi Brothership and also if you're interested in Fears to Fathom, which sounds super super cool. I'm interested in Fier's to Fathom. I'm going to go to comment and say it. Until next time. I love you all. Goodbye.