Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - We Played Star Wars Zero Company! - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: August 11, 2026

Kinetic Publishing’s first-ever Showcase is happening Wednesday, August 12th at 12 PM Pacific on Twitch. We’re talking first looks at their indie games, devs walking you through what they’re building and, yes, there’s even a cool surprise at the end. Make sure to tune in with us or twitch.tv/kineticpublishingHead to http://kindafunny.com/porty to grab the limited edition Portillo plushie! 00:00:00 - Start00:01:52 - Topic of the Show: We Played Star Wars Zero Company!00:05:45 - Gameplay!00:33:25 - tactics genre00:37:44 - Ads00:50:00 - PermaDeath! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kinetic Publishing's first ever showcases happening Wednesday, August 12th at 12 p.m. Pacific on Twitch. We're talking first looks at their indie games, devs walking you through what they're building, and, yes, there's even a cool surprise at the end. Make sure to tune in with us or on Twitch.tv.tv.tv slash kinetic publishing. Pre-order your porty plushy right now at Kindof-Funny.com slash Portillo. If you want to get our shows ad-free and our exclusive shows, go to patreon.com slash Kind of Funny. Hello everyone. Welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Tuesday. Tuesday, August 11th. I'm one of your host, Lucy James. joined by Snowbike Mike, Mike Howard.

Nailed it, Lucy James. Hello and good morning. I was panicking about it. I was out there reading. I'm like, do I remember it? Do I remember it? Fantastic to have you in the office. It's great to see you in person as well. How are you? How are you? How are you? I'm wonderful, Lucy. I'm pretty excited to get to share the show with you today. Yes. We're having a back-to-back start of the week of non-stop. Mike on Gamescast, so that's exciting.

And today I get to talk about a game that I've been previewing for quite some time and now I'm really pumped to talk about it. Yes, I am very excited to hear about it too. It is Star Wars Zero Company. But before we get into all that, of course, if you're watching live, be a part of the show by Superchassing

on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. I remember we couldn't do this without our producers on patreon.com slash Kind of Funny. So thank you. Carl Jacobs, Omega Buster, Delaney, the Somtwining, and Lacks Nomad.

Thank you. But for now, let's begin with topic of the show. Tots, dots, dots, dots, dots, dots, dots, dots, dots, dots, Star Wars, Zero Company.

Rocks. Yeah? Jump right to it. Yeah, rules. Let's pop the top off of this. This was a really fun time. Okay, so hang on. Talk me through.

So I, um, my, I knew about this game obviously last year. It was at Star Wars celebration with the team. Uh, did the panel where they announced it.

What did you get to play? Wait, let's go with what is it? What is it? What is Starz? What is Starz? Thank you so much for asking, Lucy James. Star Wars Zero Company is an X-com-like tactical game

set in the Star Wars universe. And I think when I say ex-com to a lot of people out there, you immediately see it in your mind, right? You see the chessboard grid drop. You see your units versus the opponent's units. You're going to go behind cover. You're going to see fog of war. You're going to start to play the chess game of where

Should I move my units in preparation for the next battle? How do I run away from certain situations? And so, yes, it is an X-com like Star Wars tactical game made by Bit Reactor. This is going to be their debut game. A new team built up of a bunch of former pharaxis devs and EA respawn devs from the Jedi team. So you're kind of getting this perfect marriage of tactical strategy games and, of course, the Jedi universe coming together for an awesome marriage of Star Wars meets tactical video games. And it's

really awesome that they came together and made this a really fun story. Now you said, you helped debut this. I hosted the panel. I just hosted the panel. So you learned a lot about it from then. But a very cool opening of it was Vince Sampella called

the head of the team over at BitReactor and said, hey, tell me what you're working on. And they started talking about their tactical game. And then Vince was like, what if you made it Star Wars? And That's how this began, which is pretty freaking awesome. That kind of overtakes the Square Enix and Disney sharing an elevator. It's just like, imagine getting a call from Vince Amperl to be like,

what if you'd use Star Wars for this? Which era of Star Wars? So this is going to be set in the Clone Wars era of Star Wars. I'm not the biggest Star Wars timeline guy. Of course, I quickly recognize all the fun droids that I love from the prequel trilogy when I was a young kid going, oh my God. I'd look at Mace Window just slashing through all these joints. So, yeah, I immediately understand where I am in the timeline.

I'm not the biggest timeline guy, but I think it's a really fun setting. They kind of bring it up. It's the war within the war is what they're going to talk a lot about. And that is the Republic and the separatists and what's going on with the droid army and the Republican where they are. I think about to head into the empire, right, if you're a superstar war's nerd. But it's really fun because, yeah, you are zero company led by. by your playable character, Hawks, which we'll dive into all of that

in just a little bit, but like, yeah, it's pretty cool of like, you're at the ground level. And you're doing, like, these missions that clearly aren't affecting the massive war, but you're moving and shaking things at the lower levels, where you're going to see some, like,

you know, really slimy underground characters that maybe you'll know from movies that you love. And then you'll, like, do things that are, like, affecting the Republic and what they're doing and, like, helping them or not helping them, which I really, really like. And so, yeah, the timeline and the story feels right because of course

you'll see Jedi out there. We saw, of course, a Jedi in the trailer there. That's one of your team members. We have a Mandalorian, a bounty hunter that I love anyone that looks like, of course, Boba Fett, I immediately go, oh, I know that guy, that's pretty awesome. That's a boba fat. That's got to start

Boba Fett. And so, yeah, Lucy, they let us jump into the preview. I have 10 plus hours in this. Great. A good sizable chunk, right? Yeah. They break it into cycles is what your kind of day by day looks like. And so we got to play, I don't know, like anywhere between 15 to 18 cycles.

I think I played a solid 10 hours. I was at about 11 to 12. And it was pretty cool to see how they flow from a tactical RPG game, but also share a little bit of fun with the RPG and storytelling in this game. Yeah, because I was going to say, like the mix of Forexas Devs

and Aaron, who's the narrative director, like he was on Jedi. and so it's fun to see these worlds kind of come together because when you think of a tactics game, especially X-com, it was less about the overarching story for me. It was about the story that I was telling with my units that I had customized

and named after all my friends. I'd be like, oh my God, Hannah died. Of course. I can't believe it. Hannah died. But now, like, you have these authored characters. What kind of stories are we telling with those characters? And like, what is Hawks' background?

Let's start with Hawks. Yeah, it's a cool. the rest of Zero Company. It's a cool when they bring that up, Lucy, because, yeah, there are authored characters that you're going to meet along the way that are built up of Zero Company, but Zero Company is also the characters you recruit,

the stories that you build with them. So it's this beautiful blend of, like, presentation is at the forefront for this game. I think everyone, when you think of an X-com game, you think of rich, deep gameplay on the tactic side of things. But, like, yeah, you sometimes don't scratch really beyond the surface of the story,

the look and presentation of it all. And so what I would, I was really impressed with right off the bat that you get hit with. It's like great cinematics, awesome character design, a story that is like really at the forefront in Star Wars. That's going to be fun to play out, to listen to, and be a part of. And so yeah, it all starts with your character Hawks, who is a former, former Republic officer, now leading Zero Company, which is an outfit for hire that complete different odd jobs. But Hawks is completely customizable. So I chose their preset hawks.

They have, of course, you can go any species, any gender, whatever class you want for hawks, whatever you want to dress hawks up like you can do, which is very cool. I think they have a trailer out there that shows you all the different hawks that they create, which is just, it looks like the Sims, where you just create every single different-looking person ever, right? And so I did the generic one because they only have two voices. And so when I heard the voice, I was like, oh, it's clearly the whole. hawks that they have that like I really identified with. He's kind of like rough, almost Han Solo like he's been through it before.

And so I made him a gun slinger as the class. And I wanted him to kind of be my Han Solo outlaw leading this band of misfits. It fits the Goonies slash Star Wars vibe that I wanted to really make my Zero company. And so I found it really cool of like there's a deep character creator. Every single character is customizable. Even the authored ones, you can change their outfits. which I thought was really, really cool. And so, yeah, every single one of them,

you can dress however you want. Dress them up like a clone trooper if you want. They can look real. Yeah, it's like a whole group of clones. You know, you can have four clone troopers if you want. Eventually, you'll recruit clone troopers. You also have droids in this, which is pretty cool. So there's a lot of awesome, like, role playing in this.

But they have these authored characters that you're going to get to know and love. So when you first kick off the game, of course, you're introduced two hawks and zero company. And you're going to went out to the day. Den, which is their cool little hideout out there. The ring of Kaffre, or Kaffrean, which you've seen in Rogue One, I believe, at the beginning. So that's where your hideout is. And you're going to start to meet your crew, right, which is going to be built up of a clone trooper himself trick.

And I love clone troopers. Yeah. You know, I think I fell in love with the stormtroopers back in the day in the original trilogy, Lucy. And I always wanted to be a stormtrooper because I love that. all white outfit. I like the ones riding the lizards with the one orange shoulder pad. I loved that guy. You know what I mean? He had no name, but I love that guy. I love that guy. I love that guy. And so you automatically have trick in your group who is a former clone trooper. He's been taken out of the

army thanks to Hawks. He was on medical leave. He got discharged because of that. And they've been through the thick of it together, right? And he is voiced by B.D. Something. If you're a Bradley Baker. There it is. Thank you. Yes. If you're a Star Wars super fan, you will know his voice right away.

And I think that's a big one. All the voice acting in this game sounds awesome, right? It fits the role for each ones that you meet. They all sound in universe. And having someone like that who's well known in the Star Wars universe, I think a long way. Because they had a Comic-Con panel, and I was looking at that.

And it's like their voice cast, a lot of them have done stuff in Clone Wars, like the animation, the animated series and stuff. So that's very... And then alongside Trick, when you first start, you'll have Cab uppercut, Cabney

Upercut, which is like this giant blue guy. He's actually, if I have this right, I believe they made their own Star Wars species, first ever species to be entered in there through this video game. It's like their own unique one. New Cab? Yeah, yeah, Cab this crazy blue guy. And so he's a veteran crook.

He also was a prize fighter that lost his arm. And so you'll hear him a lot. He's your melee guy. He's going to go out in uppercut people. And it's a really fun. Upika. You know what he's going to do. And so, yeah, Cab was kind of my tank of, like, when I knew we were in the thick of it

and we were getting kind of pushed in on, I would send Cab out to uppercut someone. And, like, the animation's awesome. Along with you can kind of balance where you wanted to send the uppercut so you can get that extra damage if you bounce them off a wall or a piece of, or a different object, which was like great. And so I did fall in love with Cab. You're going to fall in love with the original core four of your zero company as you start because it's like your crew, but then you'll start to add on your own.

And it's like, then I really, I had a tough time. Because you're going to meet a lot of cool people, right? On top of that, I brought up the Mandalorian Cly, which super cool looking, right? The bounty hunter armor looks great. It's like, oh, I love that. And it's like, they got the cool jetpack. They got the flame thrower. They're doing all the cool moves that you want on the battlefield.

But I had fallen in love with these players that I recruited. I started to tell my own story. Interesting. Okay, so how are you balancing these characters that, you know, have the stories and everything with the recruitment characters? Who are you making, by the way? Are you making, like, a Greg? A Tim. No, no, I'm not making anyone.

I'm going off the recruitment tab. So we'll dive into how you recruit people, but you'll recruit your own characters. And I believe they have, what I found really cool is there's no, like, giant narrative to them. But there's no set back story, but they're given rich personalities. Okay. And I felt that because I really. recruited a sniper and she's kind of like a badass gal. She's like real sharp with it.

She has a couple of one-liners, but like she's my sniper out there. And so she did take the role of Cab Uppercutt, unfortunately. He's been bounced. Well, if anything, not that he's bounced, he's just kept safe. Exactly. He has a family, Lucy, and like I want him to see that family. I want him to go home. And I know we're jumping around all over the place, but this is a game that encourages

you to play with Permadeath. Now, it's completely toggle on and off. You can set the difficulty of the game. So if you're a novice into tactics games, you don't have to play with permadeath. But they really do encourage you to play with permadeath because they want choices to matter. They want your story to be at the forefront. And they have a really fun one in the den, which is your hideout that you're going to have fully explorable little area, your player hub, and it has a big memorial wall.

So when you lose someone, Hawks will go up and be like, ah, that was a good guy right there. And they'll say their name and like a little blurb about them. And I'm like, oh, like, that's really cool. They have, like, a little plaque on, like, when he died, what the story was. And so I made the rules, like, no one's going up on the wall. Oh. And I got to protect the wall. Did anyone go up in the wall?

One person did, but I felt like it was a forced one. Oh, just be like, hey, gang. Yeah, yeah, they teach you about it. And so, yeah, it's cool because perma death is a big deal. Besides, Hawks can't die. You'll restart the level of Hawks dies. And then if there's certain characters that are important to the mission, they will make you restart. but your zero company characters can fully die.

After their introduction mission, they're up for grabs as well for permadeath, which is cool. Do you have to have Hawks in the party? Yeah, Hawks is on most of the main missions. You can, if there's like side missions that you'll do, Hawks doesn't have to be selectable, but I would say for most of the story missions, Hawks will be at the forefront for sure.

Gotcha. So get used to Hawks. A couple more quick characters that are led to highlight. Runa Blask. Runa rocks. So you're going to have these support characters inside the hideout that don't go on missions with you, but are like really there for the narrative.

They're going to like give fun character moments with hawks of like their backstory, what the world's going with, what they feel like is going on with the Republican, the separatist, where they want zero company to go. And so Runa is going to be your head of operation. She's always there. She, her character design looks fantastic. She's beautiful, so well done.

Shout to the artist team that worked on all the characters. But she's always there. and she's giving fun back stories. She's talking about Hawks in their previous stories, how she feels. I really liked her. Niche Nesh is the kind of black market arms dealer that you're going to go to and buy weapon mods,

buy new weapons. And he's kind of like the big, you know, ape-looking guy that you've seen in Star Wars. I don't know what his other name is. The chat note. The one-quarter portion. Yes, the one-case. And he was in Mando and Grogoo.

I don't watch that. Man, that was a good time. Was it? Lucy. Lucy, I'm telling you, I'm on a Star Wars kick right now. Zeb. Zab. Everyone loves Zab.

So he looks like Zab, which is cool. And then M3VO, which is your medic droid, who's at the Med Bay, which is awesome. So a lot of great characters that build up Zero Company, but they're also complimented by the characters you're recruits. And you're just walking around the den? Yeah. So let's talk about the den, which is really cool. I like this.

So, like I brought up presentations really at the forefront, I think, which is the nice, like, add on to a great tactics game, which is you're going to have these moments where between cycles and between missions, you go back to out to your hideout, aka the den, and you go into an interesting third person view. It almost looks like you're playing Jedi or Star Wars Outlaws, where you'll become Hawks and you're going to run around the big little den. It's not huge by any means, but it's a great moment to like look around at the scenery, soak in the immersion and talk to your team members, right? And so I'll walk up to trick and he'll talk about, you know, the crazy card game that he was just playing Sabak

and how he was running the table. And Hawks would be like, yeah, I taught you how to do that so you do that, but I'll never play with you. And they have these fun moments. And so you'll run around talking with your team members, deepening your bonds, which are going to further your player progression, which is really cool. We'll talk about that. And then as you go, you'll

build out the hideout as well. So I upgraded my med bay. There's a memorial wall. There's an arms dealer there. You're going to build a droid, which is very cool. You're going to upgrade the dens you can have more players that you can recruit. So you'll start off with like, let's say seven.

You'll be able to upgrade to have eight, nine, 10 different outlaws in the zero company side. You'll have new people come in and they're all there. And they all tell different stories, just hanging out. There's a couple real fun, smileable moments, which I like. The recruitment stuff there, I think. And so, yeah, you'll see it all right there. You have the recruitment table where you'll walk up.

You'll be able to recruit certain new zero member outlaws if you'd like. And then as well, you'll have the upgrade table right. next to it, which is really cool. So, yeah, I really enjoyed the immersion of it all, which I think you'll see a lot of from the storytelling. The music is fantastic. I mean, and I think Star Wars music is right. It's going to hit, right?

And so, yeah, there's just like this push of immersion that I really enjoyed. And I think a lot of it is being spent at the den, just kind of slowing down, talking with each one. Once you start, you're going to want to talk with them every single time. It feels like when I was playing Fire Emblem, Three Houses. And it was like, hey, we got class time. I got to do my rounds.

Yeah, I just want to go back to the battles. It's like, no, no, take your time. Talk with all the students. Walk around the cool campus. And like, you're going to figure out a flow, which then will deepen the bonds. And so, yeah, every time you talk to them, you'll learn a little bit more. Some of them will have choices, right? So the cool one about this is each one has a different feeling about what's going on in the universe.

And some of them will hit you with a, hey, my buddy called on the radio. He's trapped out at whatever planet. that we've got to figure out a way to get to them, Hawks. And then you'll be like, do I want to waste a cycle on that big dog? I don't know who your homie is, you know. Is he cool? Exactly. Is he cool?

And so you'll step up to the hollow table, which is your big mission map. And you have two pieces on the hollow table every time you step up to it before you start a mission, right? And that is the intel gathering phase, which is really cool. You're going to be faced with this opportunity to look at the hollow table and this giant galaxy map. And you're going to be able to click on different. pre-missions that will gain you Intel, credits, and weapon mods. They're not actual missions. It's like a choose-your-own adventure.

It's a choose-your-adventure opportunity there. And that will give you the opportunity of like, hey, man, I really need some credits right now because you're a company in debt. They need that money, right? And so you'll have the opportunity of like, let's get some credits so I can buy new guns. I can upgrade the den. Or, hey, I want to grab reputation for certain star systems in this gigantic map because that'll earn me new special rewards for gaining reputation around the map, which is really cool. And so

there's a moment to kind of like role play a little bit, choose your own adventure. They'll have in further missions opportunities that will be like, hey, if you choose this option, trick over here, not going to like you anymore. If you choose this option, Cab and

Runa, they're going to be really pleased. And so now you're kind of weighing the options because you're building these bonds throughout the missions that will then allow you to be better together and cross-trained together, which is awesome. So, like, every decision I was making was, like, who's on the battlefield with who,

who's important to me now, or in the future, and how do I make sure that I'm deepening the bonds with Hawks and trick the clone trooper who I like and make sure that we can cross-train for better grenade damage or close-range damage. Yeah, so cross-training, when you upgrade certain bond levels with each character, you'll go over to the upgrade department over inside the hideout,

and you have a couple options. You have your skill tree, which you'll earn attribute points for the skill tree. That's each player or each character has a specific skill tree. It'll be like their overall specialization. So I was a gunslinger.

I was upgrading my gun slinger moves there, which is really cool. And then there's like leadership. There's, you know, your certain abilities, you'll put points into each one of those. And then there's the bonds tab, which is, hey,

I've been playing a lot of missions with hawks and trick together. Their bond has been growing. Their best buds. right. They're my two dudes, is right. And then plus the sniper. I don't know the sniper lady's name. You know what I mean? Forgot about that, but she's there. She's there. She's important to me? She's very important to me. Forgot her name, okay? So she's my favorite. So I would make sure that I'm deepening those bonds, whether it be choices or playing together, fight near each other.

So when they gain a level in the bonds, then I can say, hey, let's cross train together. They give you three options. It becomes you choose your own adventure game again. It's like, hey, plus one or plus 10% to grenade damage. any close range abilities plus two attack damage. Or, hey, chance for critical hit is now 5% raised. And so I'd be, I'd be way into it of like, well, Hawks is a gunslinger. He's like medium range. So I definitely want more attack power.

I don't think I need melee damage with him. So I'd choose whatever my characters wanted. But I thought it was really cool because it affects both of them. So you're kind of choosing how these two will play together slash what do they both need or maybe just one needs if you're selfish. Sorry, some, Gav Atari said, can't remember the sniper lady's name. It's a long distance relationship, which is very good. She's in the galaxy far, far away.

And so, yeah, the bonds and the attributes are all very cool on that. And so, yeah, that's your pre-mission setup. You'll always have the opportunity to do about three to four. They give you 150 intel points, and each little pre-briefing mission costs 40 intel, 50 intel, 100 intel. So you're weighing. And I thought what the cool one was about this is you're never going to be able to do it all. It felt like Dead Rising One Lucy.

Oh, you just thought you at all. I was like, ooh, I'm never going to be able to accomplish everything. And I am a completionist at heart. But it was cool to be like, okay, these three I'll do. Those two I'm not going to do. Because then when you flip it and you go to the actual missions, you will be faced with the choice of like four missions on the galaxy map. And each one kind of has a cycle count.

But you only have a certain amount of cycles. This mission is going to end in four. cycles. And I'm like, all right, so that means four missions from now this will be done. Two missions from now, this one will be done. And so you're weighing out like, do I just go straight to the story mission? Do I do a side mission that will gain me

reputation, that will gain me credits, that maybe will deepen a bond? But also runs the risk. Everybody could die. Yeah. And anybody could get hurt. And so, yeah, you're weighing all this and you're measuring out the cycles. And so you'll have your main stories of like, hey, no matter what you have to do this, but you have four cycles

until then. So do this. Or this is going to happen in two cycles, don't stress about the other ones, you'll get to them afterwards. And so I helped Cab Uppercut. We picked up one of his friends. He had a comms communication piece because he's always listening in to the Republic and the Separatists. And so he's like, hey, we got to better our comms. Let's go do this mission. I was like, you know what? You're right. You're right. Let's go do it. And so, yeah, when you do those missions, that's when you will jump back into the chessboard and you will be faced with over a dozen planets, all unique, all looking very Star Wars, and you will play the chess game,

which is the tactics, X-com strategy game that I love. So from what it sounds like so far, there are all of these micro choices that you have to, you are constantly thinking about, constantly making, and that's even before you get onto the battlefield. So many choices. So many choices. And then Lucy, I can only bring four operators, most of the missions, right? So you'll, they talked about it, like the sweet spot for a tactics game is like four to maybe

six. You don't want to go too many because then you've got to stretch out the map and the view and look at it all. But there are missions where you'll go rescue somebody or you'll pick some, you'll, you'll like save someone. Maybe you'll bring somebody out with you and maybe you go five or six. But at the core, it's always going to be four. So as my zero company grew, I started to make decisions of like, I really like you cab uppercup, but you're out because you're not fitting my play style right now, which is maybe medium to long range, right? I am someone who likes to hunker down. I like to definitely use my Overwatch ability.

Of course, if you haven't played X-Con before, Overwatch is one of my favorite abilities and tactics games. That's where you put a sniper or any character behind some sort of cover or just out in the open, but they have this giant kind of funnel that they pull out in front of them and they say any movement in front of me, I'm going to shoot when I see them on site. And I love that.

And so I'm definitely a medium to far range. character kind of play style of I'm going to use Overwatch, I'm going to make you come to me and you're going to fall into my spider web trap and we're going to blast you. Did you find yourself thinking multiple turns ahead? Always. Yeah, Lucy, I don't know what it was.

You know me, I'm a ball and gun gamers what people like to tease me, but there was something back in the day. I don't remember what it was, but maybe it was X-com. There was games like this Mario and Rabbits I really loved and I fell in love with the genre and I really enjoy kind of staring

at the chessboard and going, okay, here's these battle droids coming at me. And I know that the smaller battle droids, I can kill him one shot, right? And so the fun one with my gunslinger ability with Hawks is he has an ability that if he kills someone with the one shot, he gains back the attribute points. Oh, okay. Or the action points. So you get three attribute point or action points for each character for each turn, right? And so you'll do your team and then their team. And so you're weighing out of like, hey, who's the important thing? that I have to attack on the battlefield, what is the objective? Are we sabotaging an outposts where I need to go to a computer

terminal and mess around for a mission? Am I rescuing a droid? We have to run to them, turn them on so they're on my team and run away with them. Are we just eliminating everyone on the battlefield, right? And so I'll start to weigh out, what am I going to do? I'm thinking a couple steps ahead. And with Hawks as the gunslinger, I would think, all right, I have three points here, but there's four battle droids in front of me that are all, low level and low health.

So if I do my gun slinger ability, I can go one, gain back to point, two gain back to point, three gain back to point, and really never use any points for action points, which is awesome. And so, yeah, I'm always thinking about where I want to go. How do I want to shift the battle? I love when the enemy units maybe don't do what I wants, right?

There's been a couple of moments where they won't come to me or they'll run off to a different direction. And I'm like, oh, I had the perfect setup here. I wanted you to come. or you get the big battle droid who has the arm gun and he makes a rocket launcher and he's like he preps a rocket and you can see it you're like all right that means I have one more move

and then shoot this rocket up in the air and like it does an AOE effect and so when I'm holed up like I usually like to do that means he's going to blast for my team members and so I got to get out of there and so yeah I love the tactic genre Lucy of you can fly by the seat of your pants and learn and grow as a beginner and kind of just live, or you can set up different battle stations, battlefields that you want and go from there, which I love the tactics of it all.

Yeah, I mean, I was going to ask, there was sort of a follow-up. Do you think it does a good job of making you move around the battlefield? You mentioned that guy, the droid, who would sort of flush you out of cover with the rocket. You find that most of the units tend to do that, or they let you just hole up in? No, I think a fair amount of the units definitely make you move, right?

Especially because we haven't talked about the ultimate baddie in the story, which is the infinite coil, right? I think that's the coolest part. We haven't even got to the main, you know, meat and potatoes of this is you are, you are in debt as zero company. Hawks is in debt. They're barely getting by. You're working for one of the huts.

He's like, you owe me a lot of credits, make it happen. And the Republic calls you and says, hey, we'd love for you to go on a deep undercover mission for us. One last job. We can't get involved in, but we're going to pay you well. and Hawks goes to Roona and says, hey, like, we got to take this job. And she's not happy about it. She doesn't want to work for the Republic. I think she might be a former separatist, but she's got thoughts about this.

But it's like, yo, we got to get out of debt so I can pay you and pay the team we can live. And so you join the Republic in this super deep undercover mission that not many people know about. And you learn and uncover this new secret organization that is super evil called the Infinite Coil, who is led by an absolute baddie. She's so mean and she's the baddest over here. Her name is, hold up. Coondry Fathom, aka Fathom. The Fathom Menace.

The Fathom Menace. Oh my gosh. And so she leads the Infinite Coil. And the Infinite Coil is this very interesting shadow group underneath the war that's going on between the separatists and the Republic that the moment you see him, they're instantly recognized.

they have this giant circle all over their head and body, and it's a disease that fathom gives to all of the people that accept to join her, and they get bit by this scorpion, and you will either die immediately, or if you're strong enough, you'll accept the coil's shadow plague and become even stronger than you ever were.

And so now you add in the infinite coil to these battle droids of the separatists, republics sometimes, any sort of enemies out there, but the infinite coil are stronger than the other random. them Gibronies. Oh, yeah. And they have this ability, which is super cool, Lucy, is they're all unique.

Some of melee, some are shooters, some are snipers. But when you kill them, they pass the shadow plague onto the nearest infinite coil member on the battlefield, which then makes them stronger the next turn. So you basically like going from one, it follows. Exactly. It follows. It follows. And so when you kill one infinite coil member, the next one becomes stronger because they

absorb their power and they go up to like three tiers where then at the final tier if they've if three have died around them and they've sucked up all their power they now become rampades and go berserk mode and so each one of them have different power so cool i love that shit because um uh what was it chronos did the same thing where it was like you have to do management of the thing where it's like if if it gets up to another one it sucks it up and it becomes more powerful and so it changes how you and how you approach the battle because otherwise i would just do like this. So now you've got to think Lucy. Got a zig and then they're that. Am I working

all the infinite coil members in front of me? Let's say there's four of them. Am I getting them all down to middle to low health so we can take them out in like one kind of move? But that leads me open to them shooting me extra turns and getting my players' health down. Am I taking one out at a time

that will then pass the shadow plague around and make them stronger? You essentially give yourself a boss fight. Or if they're far enough away, thankfully, if you get them far enough away from each other, they won't pass it. So they got to be within a certain radius to pass. But like that's very difficult. The battlefields aren't that big. So they're going to be close enough. And so yeah, they'll go from dying once, passing the plague. And so they'll get different, they'll get different new abilities.

Sometimes they go invisible. Like the melee, melee character went invisible. All of a sudden, I don't see them on the battlefield anymore, showed up right behind me, gave me a big melee baton right to the back. That didn't help me. The other one will get enraged. And if you hit them, then they'll instantly start their turn, right? Which was really interesting of like, well, it's my turn. You're not supposed to go. But if I hit them, they'll immediately do their turn and they'll get closer to me. They'll shoot me making it even more difficult where if I'm hiding in cover.

And then finally, like berserk mode, there was heels, a bunch of cool abilities. So you have to be really mindful of the infinite coil, which is the ultimate batty of this story. You're going to follow around the coil. What is fathom up to? What is she doing? Is she working with the separatists in the droid army? is she doing something for the Republic? You're going to chase her and her crew around

and you will be faced with the coil at a lot of these battles and they're tough as nails. I love that that sounds like they're doing like a mix of something new and then something that we've come to expect from Star Wars. Yeah, it's really cool because it fits the universe so well, Lucy. Like all of this is not the movies or the comics or anything. It's their own story.

But I assume there are cameos. Yeah, there might be cameos. And so it's really cool of like, oh, wow, like this fits so well into the Star Wars. Wars. The moment you see it, you're like, yeah, I'm in. I'm in on this. So how does it stack up as a tactics game if we're talking about, you know, the devs and their previous. Yeah, I think they... X-com. What does this game do that's different? What does it do that's the same, but, you know, like their own spin on it? Yeah, I think, you know, they really nail the tactics genre, right? I think

we're talking about team, former team members from Farraxas, right, at Xcom, Marvel, Midnight's Sons, of course, Siv as well. with Faraxis. And so when you talk about just the tactic genre and the gameplay of that and how deep and rich that can be with different character classes, the turns, the abilities that you want to see on the battlefield, they really nailed that, especially on the enemy side when you see the droids and the separatists and the infinite coil. I think that's really fun because you kind of picture in your mind, oh, well, I know what the sniper's going to do. I know what their abilities will be. I kind of know what a gunslinger will do. They have, of course, added maybe a Jedi as well. bounty hunter. So those are really fun. But at the core, it is a really rich, deep tactics game that I really, really enjoy. And I think if you've played X-com, you're going to feel right at home on this. I think the big one is for beginners who are maybe not tactics fans. The Star Wars story, the presentation that I've talked about, I think is what's going to draw you in and should give you a good opportunity to maybe try a new genre that you've never tried or open your heart up

to something that might be a little more difficult and not your play style. This is a great one. because presentation has been great. And when we talked about when sometimes you'll go, or when you're at the den, you go into this third-person view, and you'll get a fun moment to run around and talk with your crew members. They have a really interesting moment when you think X-Com, it's just, I go to the chess board, I go to the chess board, I go to the chess board. Yeah, I talk to you.

I do this. Yes. But then in Midnight Suns, I liked the feeling of going around and just talking to everyone and finding out about like Blades Book Club or whatever. And the immersion is there, right? I thought what was really interesting is not every mission, but some missions you will actually start in this third person view

and you'll kind of navigate this linear corridor where you and Hawks and the crew will run around with the camera behind and it feels like you're playing outlaws or Jedi Survivor and you'll have this moment where you'll run around a certain backwater planet and they'll talk about it you have moments where you'll gain intel and he'll blow out his little binocular

and you're looking at the team you're looking at your opponents and he'll have a story it's nothing crazy right it's not like you're going to pull out a blast and start shooting but it is just like a fun moment of like, hey, the immersion is building here that in other tactics games you don't really get, which I appreciated that.

Yeah, it was just fun. I had a lot of fun. I think my biggest compliment to this game is when it ended, I just wanted to keep playing. And I think in a sea of so many video games out right now and a genre, or I should say, an IP that has so many games, especially Star Wars,

it is really impressive that I left this going, all I want to do is play more Star Wars Zero Company, a tactic Star Wars game that might not be like the biggest mass mover here, but somehow this team really nailed it. And I'm excited to play more. Yeah. And we don't have long to wait. It's coming out 50 bucks on August 27th, getting in before that September rush.

I know, right? It's right around the corner from that. Yeah, price tag on PC, $50. Xbox and PS560 Don't know what's up with that It looks like when I saw that It was like $10 more on that So I'll have to look into that

But really enjoyed that one Lucy And so I'm excited to play I can't wait to play more of this That's the biggest positive I can give it I'm excited to see what my zero company Looks like I'm not a big Customizer I wish I was Lucy

I customized my droid Which I enjoyed right They got the R2D2s out there With the circular heads They got the fun weird droids That you saw with the Empire but like I'll customize a droid and I'll change the color way anytime

but when it came to my characters I had a hard time I was like good enough fully putting them in clone outfits changing up there you know putting a bandalier on them I didn't do that I never do that either

like the most I would do in XCOM is literally just changed the name to be my friend like this these are all of my roommates at the time I was in London at the time so I was like he's not my roommates I hope you don't die

but it's really good to leave the fridge door um what else do I got for you Lucy. You know what? Let's take a quick word from our sponsors. I was going to say, should we do a quick word from our sponsors? Because I'll just keep yapping about it. I got more questions. Remember the Kind of Funny membership on Patreon.com slash it Kind of Funny or YouTube.com slash Kind of Funny Games gets you the show

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And Guy Pearce. Arm up! The Dog Stars, directed by Ridley Scott. In theaters, August 28th. Get tickets now. And we're back. I see a chatter out there that says, I don't dislike customization options.

but I care about them when they're more if they just adjust stats and stuff. Do they adjust stats? You have weapon mods to adjust your stats. The visuals do not. Yes, so your visuals are just purely for your visuals. Don't worry, you can enjoy whatever armor you want to put on hawks in the squad. But each character does have a weapon that they'll bring into battle,

which is cool. You can change their weapons throughout. So if you want hawks to have a repeater instead of a blaster like Hans Solo, you can do that, right? You can give them a sniper rifle. you can put your medic with an LNG, whatever you want, right? And so it's really cool.

They have different weapons and each one has a mod, maybe a couple more mods that you'll unlock throughout that when you go to the black market seller over there, you can buy new mods that will go 20% whatever damage, 15% critical damage. And so you'll get to choose what you want

and that will affect, you know, your character statwise if that's what you're into. And so you mentioned earlier that you kind of like, do you level up, you're gaining experience, you level up? How does those, You'll take that to the skill tree over there, which is, yeah, each character has their own skill tree. They're all an unique one.

They're all earning XP as you go. So whatever characters you like, they're earning XP. And so, yeah, you will choose from different abilities. Everybody has their own specialization ability at the top. So Hawks is your leader. And so he has like a leadership trait above there that you can choose. Anyone in his radius, if you do the team up ability, they'll gain whatever extra points, right? And then I chose Gunslinger.

And so I was making it so I can. can earn more AP points when I get a kill. Hey, his revolver, he can do two shots right away on one of the abilities. And so I was making that stronger. And so yeah, each character, you'll kind of level up your own way and make them kind of play and make them stronger as you go. And are you able to change those specializations? I believe you can later on, right? I don't know. You kind of recruit them. They already are a medic with a sniper rifle. But I believe later on you can change them if you want. So you can kind of morph them into whatever you like, which is cool.

Did you get the Jedi? I did unlock a Jedi. I was going to say, it feels like guns and melee is a bit of a known quantity when it comes to tactics games. Yes. And so, yeah, we've kind of talked about, of course, our Mandalorian

and bounty hunter, but we have Tell Rea, who is a Jedi apprentice that you will stumble upon and help. And Tell Rea, of course, is hot on the trail of the coil. And so maybe she will help you in certain missions. Maybe she'll join Zero Company.

And the cool part about that is she has the melee abilities, right? I'm like, she will do the lightsaber slash. She will do the pull and push. And so it's really, it shook up my play style as a hide in the hole with my blasters. Now it was like, oh, I have someone that would compliment Cab uppercut of, we're going to go out in the front. she has a kind of a run ability that her movement circle is larger

than others so she can close the gap she'll lightsaber slash she can push and pull which I started to play into my advantage right if I wanted to get a shadow coil member that was maybe farther away and closer to their coil friends I would pull them over to me and my squad

kill them without causing the shadow plague to kind of pass along so yeah you will see Jedi along the way and so yeah tell Ray is a really fun interesting character and when we talk about like Jedi and the balance of the force and then Hawks who was my gun

slinging Banny you know it was fun to have cool moments in the den between the two of them and how different they were right of Hawks has been through it he's kind of a sage kind of wide advisor now and this is a young Jedi Padawan who is learning and growing and Hawks take

stuff from her and also gives her some lessons which I really enjoyed with those interactions with the characters do you find their old black and white or are there shades of gray between. Yeah, I think there's some shades of gray, right? We talk about the choices. And I think it's really interesting with Zero Company.

It isn't black and white. We're not on the good guys or the bad guys team. There's a lot of gray here. And each one kind of has their own feelings, right? Trick is conflicted. He misses his clone trooper friends. He's now in a better place with Hawks where he's not part of the army on the front lines. And he's really blessed for that, right?

Cab uppercut comes from, you know, a place where he was a bad guy. he was doing prize fights for money to help his family survive. Runa, you know, she doesn't want to be a part of the Republic. She's not really viving with them. And so each one brings their own flavor to the conversations. I really like it. There's some characters that are just like background of like, this is clearly my ship operator and my person at my mechanic.

And then a guy who oversees the den. And the two of them have a really fun back and forth, like office style discourse where they're doing something. because they don't like each other, but clearly they're friends. And it's really, it brings a smile every time I get to see those two interact. I enjoy that a lot. So it feels like a lived in. Yeah, it feels like, it's like, it's like, it's a little family that Hawks is created.

And like, Hawks is trying to get away from his demons, right? He's a former Republic commander that's maybe been disgraced and he wants to get back in like the good like he once was. And that's tough to kind of get out of your shadow. Wow. I mean, so I did see a ratchet fellow ask if it. It's a contender. You know what?

I think for me personally, I walked out of this going, wow, this game rocks. The deep tactics gameplay that I want is there. The presentation really rocks. The story, the music, the character design, the look of all the levels, right? Like the frame rate is a big one.

It's something that when we talk about these X-com like games, it's just, here's the gameplay, everything else is kind of secondary. I'm surprised that this team, put so much love and care into that. I think you have to have to come Star Wars, right? And so for me, I walked away going, man, this is going to be a really good special game that I know the diehards will really enjoy and love.

I just hope that more people are willing to give this a try, especially with the Star Wars IP on it, right? I think of games like Gears Tactics, which I love Gears. And when they made a tactics game, I was, of course, excited to try that. And I wanted more people to see it. I think of Marvel Midnight Suns. And that was kind of a little twist on the tactic games with the deck building aspect to it. But that was Marvel right there at the height of the MCU. I hope people would try that.

And so there's a lot of cool opportunities here. But this will be a contender for me. And I think the tactics diehards, I hope that the general audience tries this because it's really good. Bam. Also, that hoax looks a little bit like Charlie Hunnam. That's my hawks right there. That's your generic male hawks right there. And his voice matches that.

You can imagine his voice now, and he's got all the fun one-liners. He's my guy, for sure. And so I had a tough time changing him and his outfit. I did change his top because I noticed, of course, I'm playing on a beta early build, and he's got the long trench coat. And sometimes we'd step up to the hollow table

and the trench coat would be all over his face and stuff. I'm like, all right, no more trench coat. And so I switched him out of the trench coat to something cooler, which I liked. You know, Blessing always asks us the rose bud of our previews. The rose bud. The rose, something you really liked. Oh.

The thorn, something that you didn't like. And then, of course, the bud, something that you hope will grow. We do high-low buffalo. Stop it. What's a high-low buffalo? So for Max and Jen's kid, Camilla, we say, what's your high-low buffalo of the day, which is your high, high, you're low, low, and then your buffalo is the unexpected thing.

Oh, I like that. I like Rosebudge. Okay, well, we'll go with High Low Buffalo since you're here today, okay? My high is the presentation. I knew coming into this that the deep gameplay was going to be there, but I think the presentation from the den to everything mixed involved with just a look and feel of the game was awesome. And like a step above what I could ever imagine.

And so that's my high. My low, Lucy, is something that I hope maybe it happens in the later part of the game or maybe they take in some feedback and maybe they add new missions later on or they do something. But I noticed there was really cool moments that you'll see in XCOM where there's an ambush or you get to drop on someone.

And there's these cool moments when I talk about the immersion and going into that third person view where me and Hawks and the crew are going down this alley and we're talking about the cool planet that we're on and he's giving back story and he's getting intel and I'm like slowly walking up and then we'll arrive at a point where like it's going to clearly switch into mission mode.

and we have the advantage. They don't see us. We're going to jump on them. And they even say, oh, they don't know that we're here. But then no matter what the mission starts, and we go right into clash. Everybody knows where each other's are. Everybody is gained into cover. And it's like, oh, I wanted to have the drop on them.

So I hope that my, you know, my thorn would be, I hope that I see maybe some sort of ambush or reaction style game, game opening, mission opening. Right. Because I didn't get any of them. And then my, my bud, more than I want to see, just cool characters in the Star Wars universe. I think that's everyone who loves Star Wars or appreciate Star Wars. There's just so much rich storytelling characters out there that you know and love. And like to have one of the Hut's call, I'm a big job of the Hut guy.

I love Jabba the Hut. I love Jabba the Hut. And so, of course, coming off of Mando and Grogoo, right, where having. The hot hut. I'm not seeing it. I'm just going on over the internet. Okay. You know what? He's a hot hut. So it was fun to see a hut, right? And so at the beginning of this, you will start with one of the huts. And I always have a soft spot for that. And yeah, Jedi, Mandelorians, the clone troopers, the droids.

It's all cool, right? When you see the roly droid, who doesn't love a good roly droid? I love that roly droid. He's scary. He's intimidating. He's got the force field. he rolls. It's pretty awesome. And so that's my High Low Buffalo. Lovely. Anything else that we forgot to mention, any Super Chats or anything? Yeah, I think just like, you know,

the one thing I forgot to mention was the way that your players get downed and then they get injured and then they die, right? And I think they did a really fun and kind of forgiving, easy way to learn and like give you a good opportunity to save and salvage something.

So they really push death on it, the permadeath. They really want you to do permadeath, but you don't have to. You don't have to. Each player will get three downs so they can go down once, they'll go down a second time, and then they'll die during the mission. Oh, that's quite. And so you get a lot of, you get a lot of rope here.

Yeah. But, of course, you'll be balancing moments, right? I did lose one guy. I failed the mission, so I never technically lost them, but I did lose somebody. But, like, you'll have these moments where cab will go down. And now your whole battlefield has to adjust your tactics of, when do I pick up cab, he's down, I need to also address the opponents in front of me,

how do I play this out? And so you'll go over your revive somebody. You'll come back, if they go down the second time, you're like, oh, this is it. Like, I got to protect you, right? And so on the third one, they'll go down and die, which will be that permadeth aspect. But if they go down once or twice,

you'll come back to the den, which has your med bay. And so you'll have two options, which I thought were really cool. There's the normal just med bay beds, which will take extra time, maybe one or two cycles to heal up either your one down or your two down, or you put them in the crazy tank. Oh, yes. The back to... Back to tank. Nice job, Lucy James.

And so you put them in the tank and that will... Put him in the tank. Put him in the tank. And that will quickly heal them right away. And so I really appreciated that. I like the permadeth. It's something I will play with. I will probably die

if one of my zero company members does go down to that. Does it like you save scum? You can't save scum. Can't? You can. But like they, you know, the devs, of course,

want you to live with some like some challenge, some consequence. And I want to play that way for sure. And so, yeah, I appreciated the three downs in your out. I appreciate the med bay

and what that brings to it. I will not, I think it was really fun. You can have four clone troopers eventually later on. You'll recruit clone troopers. if you like clone troopers. You can play with four of them.

You also have these droids, these battle mecas. Somebody had it in there. That was the right name for it. Yeah. And so those guys are very interesting because they're not running around with blasters.

They don't have a lightsaber. They're very, you're equipment-based. So they have like a fun shock that they can do. Each one's very unique on how you build it, but you'll get one to start.

And so he had like a shock that he could do was like shock people around him, not like force, push him, but with the shock, we'll push him away. He also has a bunch of tactical equipment, which are grenades, so they can be health grenades if you want them to be a support droid, or they could have, like, grenade, grenades

and, like, blow people up. And so they were saying, you could have four droids out there if you wanted to as your whole team, but that would be the super hard run if you were to do that, which I don't think I'm doing that. I actually, I think I put the droid on the bench pretty quick, so I will avoid that

completely, but I thought that was a fun way of, like, you get to play this however you want. whether Hawks is involved or not, whether it be the main characters or not, it's your game. You get to choose, which is cool. Well, Mike, thank you so much. Thanks, Lucy James, for letting me just gush about a really fun preview that I had. 10 hours, I wish I could have spent more.

I want to spend more. Don't have long to wait. End of the month. End of the month, August 27th. Thank you all for joining us. This has been the kind of funny games cast. Each and every weekday, we get together to talk about the biggest reviews, previews and topics in video games live

on YouTube, Twitch, and podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, you can tell that I'm like a real Ron Burgundy here, because I'm saying we I don't work here, I'm just helping out. If we love what they do, please support Kind of funny with a Kind of Funny membership on

Patreon, YouTube, Apple or Spotify to get all the shows ad free and get a daily exclusive show. What's up next? After that, we have a screencast with Nick and Joey. They're going to be talking about what they've been watching Let me tell you what, I live with Joey, and I know she's watching a lot of cool things all the time. Yeah, Joey, I have to thank eternally for introducing us to Mandapump Rules.

Oh, nice. We finally finished it. We've got one more episode, I think. Okay. So you'll get that, and then after that you'll have an afternoon stream, which will be Mike, Nick, and Kevin continuing and shrouded. These two boys have fallen in love with the enshroud. Oh, I've not played it, but I heard a lot of good things. Lucia, I know you like Lord of the Rings.

This has a really killer medieval fantasy aesthetic and vibe to it. You might want to check this one out because it is rich with content. Rich. Like, you know, we play a lot of survival crafting games here with the boys. And, of course, there are a lot of early access ones. This is nearing 1.0. And to see Kevin and Nick 200 hours in between the two of them and, like, they're still scratching the service. There's a lot of awesome stuff going on in this one.

Lord of the Rings, they should make one of these. I know. Well, who knows what they make one of these. Anyway, thank you so much. Until next time, it's been a pleasure to save you.