Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Will The Sequels Be Better Or WORSE? - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Episode Date: March 8, 2023

Will Zelda Tears of the Kingdom be better than Breath of the Wild? Will Starfield be better than Fallout 4? Will Spider-Man 2 be better than Spider-Man 2018 or Miles Morales? THE WORLD NEEDS TO KNOW!!! Time Stamps - 00:00:00 - Start 00:00:58 - Housekeeping 00:03:00 - Tam is great 00:06:26 - Tam’s Trip to Super Nintendo World 00:23:19 - Ads 00:25:25 - Will The Sequel Be Better or WORSE? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up and welcome back to the Kind of Funny Games cast. Of course, I'm Tim Gettys, and I'm joined by the new face of video games blessing at Ayoe, Jr. Do you think Michael B. Jordan watches his anime and subbed or dubbed? Oh, don't start that. Do not start that because I fucking guarantee he's a dub boy. You know what I'm talking about? 100% of rifle, Andy Cortez. Hey, nothing wrong with it.

What's wrong with dub, man? I hear a kick-the-ass in dub. Let me tell you about you, Hockishel. One of the dopest dubs you can watch. How do you feel about that? I mean, I'm subs for life, but I don't begrudge a dub. If that's what you need to watch it, I don't mind it. I don't begrud the dub, everybody.

It's great for the mouth. More Hussein, thank you so much for joining us today. Tim, I'm really excited that you're here for a bunch of reasons that we're going to get to in just a little bit. Let me get through the rigmarole. Of course, this is kind of funny gamescast. We each and every week we get together to talk about video games and all the things that we love about them. You can get it on YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. or roosterteeth.com,

you could also get it as a podcast by searching your favorite podcast service for Kind of Funny Gamescast and we'll be right there for you. If you want to get the show, ad free, and watch it live as it's being recorded, just like Futon,

Fieshock, and A. Wain-07, then you gotta go to patreon.com slash kind of funny games, just like our Patreon producers to Lady Twining and Tripod Plus. We appreciate all of you, so very, very much. If you don't have a buck to toss our way,

that's cool. If you're on the Epic Game Store, please use our Epic Creator Code. Kind of funny, and at no extra cost to you, we get money. In the chat, Jeremy Donn says, no Andy intro. I did a quick one. I threw it in there, but just in case anyone's unclear. I'm Tim, this is blessing, that's Tam, and that's Andy.

Okay, we have Barrett on the ones of me. You're not going to call him the nitre rifle, rooting, tootin, shooting three. Hold on, hold on. Let's try. Let's treat Latino heat. Give him the whole thing from the start. I don't know. I don't know.

The Texas Street, Latino, Heat, clicking heads and rip it. them to shreds. The three-point shooting, the globe-trodden, the gob-stopping, the head-shotting, the head-shot-n, the root-and-tutton, shooting. Three-point shooting. Three-point shooting. And that verse, I have to clarify, that verse didn't even exist until Nick just kept shoehorning in Routin-Tooten.

Him and Greg kept shoe-horning in Routin-Tooten. And I said, well, it's just all alone. Rhyme with three-point shooting. Yeah, I love it. Makes sense, damn, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you know I'm such a sniper from out of the game. You know, exactly.

The games industry, best shooter in the games industry. I'll shoot in the games industry, everybody. The big claims. Andy Cortez, the Nitro Rifle. Today we're brought to you by Shady Raisin Honey, but I'll tell you all about that later. Now that the rigmar is over, I want to personally thank Timo Hussein

for being the greatest person I have ever met in my life. Wow. He's been so good to me for many, many years. Wow. But last week, he gifted me something very special. He came up to my desk, and he gave me a two-scale diorama of the Toretto-household.

from Fast and Furious that is now next to my... That's what that was from. I mean, I know what it is, but I didn't know where it came from. Yeah, that was me. So we were in L.A. with... It was me, Lucy, James, and Elise Williams.

Friends of the show. And Elise was telling me that she saw, like, a range of incredibly boring, like, miniature, like, scale figures and stuff like that. And one of them was the Torretto household. And I saw it, and I was like, this is the most plain thing I have ever. It's just a replica.

There's no, like, cool colors. It's not like special cars in there. It's just the backyard. And that's all the front yard, one of them. And I was like, I have to get there for Tim. I need to get that for Tim. Appreciate the hell out of it. But that was only the second nicest thing you did for what? Because you told me something very special. You're like, you know what? I'm going to super Nintendo world. Yeah. And I was infinitely jealous of you immediately. But then you're like, and I'm going to interview me at Motto. Yeah. Whoa. And I was like, dude, that is the coolest thing I've ever heard.

And I was like, I got to do the most selfish thing I've ever done. I need to ask you to get my copy of Super Mario All-Stars signed. My very first video game I ever owned. And Tam came through. No way. Let's go. No way. Super Mario All-Stars signed by Miyamoto.

He even did a little Mario. Oh, my God. A Mario in the signature. This is my very first video game I ever owned. Some would say it's the greatest video game cartridge of all time, and they wouldn't be wrong. Includes every 2D Mario from that era. Fantastic stuff. And now it's emblazied with Mia Motors autograph.

So thank you so much for that. Wow. That is truly incredible. That is amazing, dude. It's really cool. It's freaking cool. That's so badass. I got there and I went before my interview and found the person who was like handling everything and immediately was like, before we talk about this interview,

I need to clarify that I need to get something signed. Like, please can I get something signed? Can you check if it's okay? Like, I don't want to upset him, but I want to make sure that we can get something signed. And he was like, all right, I'll go and have a look. And he was like, he's probably only going to, they came back eventually and they were like,

all right, he'll sign stuff. He probably only signed one thing. And I was like, that's fine. Your thing is what I was there for. I was like, I'll get that signed. And we went in and like did the whole interview. And at the end, I was like, please can he sign this. And I told him the story. I was like, this is for my friend Tim.

This is the first cartridge he bought. This is his actual cartridge from childhood. And he, Mimar was very impressed. And he was like, he did say, I'm honored. And then he, and he wrote it down. Yeah. And then afterwards, I was like, you want to sign my switch? And then he signed my white switch controller. So I've just like got that as well. But yeah, he was, he also stole your Sharpie. So, Tim, I love it. The next vehicle you get, that's the hood ornament. Oh, yeah. Just exactly right on the front there. You just put that in the front.

Also, how dope is this little like awesome? That's really cool. Yeah, I don't know where I got it. I just Google it. It's cool. Very cool. Yeah, he was very nice as well. I mean, so I would have started the show there.

Like, you got to hang out with Miyamoto in Super Nintendo World. Give me the highlights of the Miyamoto side and then also Nintendo World. It was, yeah. So we went there. So I got a call from them and they were like, hey, would you like to come to Nintendo World and interview Miyamoto. And I was like, damn, I really want to,

but also I was incredibly busy at that time. And I was like, it hurts to do this, but I think I'm going to have to send someone else instead. We had someone who was already in L.A. and also going to Nintendo World

that day to be there. And I was like, okay, I appreciate it. Can we have this person interview him instead? And they were like, Mr. Miyamoto has requested your presence. And I was like, I don't,

I don't, I think that is like the PR saying, like, you know, you have to do this, but also there is a chance now that somehow Myanmar knows who I was before I met him.

I love that. When you told me that, it like broke my brain where I'm like, you were the single coolest person on the planet. It is terrifying because he doesn't have an online presence that we know of.

That we know of. Which means that Myanmar is on Twitter. He's one or planning kind of funny. is like, fuck the Vita, bro. We use words at. Was he Nibelian? Will we ever know?

Maybe he was Nibel. But like, and that means like, there's a good chance he knows me through my work on games football here, whatever it may be. Also could be Twitter. And if it's Twitter, that is terrifying because I am just on, I am whiling out on Twitter. I'm just wishing happy birthday every other day. Yeah. I'm just doing bullshit on Twitter.

Mr. Miyamoto wishes you a happy birthday again. Yeah, it's like the wrong day again. I just like that our fucking L from Miamoto there. But yeah, so I was like, okay, I can't turn this down. And also, like, I was in a bunch of deadlines as well at that time. I was like, okay. I didn't get out of the app, sorry. That was like a scary, like, right around the thing moment.

So I was like, okay, cool. It was like an overnight trip, basically. I went down there. They had like a opening night event And I didn't go to that Because I was too tired and had stuff to do Next day, woke up, went over

And basically had the perfect experience That you can have in In Nintendo World. So I went to Universal a year Like last year after game awards. It was like me, Lucy, Skillup and a few Jake Baldino

and Gerard, the completionist And we went and we had basically a guy that one of Girard's friends kind of take us around. So I went back this time and he was the first person I saw. And he was like, hey, what's going on? So I was like, oh shit, I know someone here already who's going to help me through this stuff. Went to Nintendo World and it was incredible. Like, Nintendo World is, I'm not one of those theme park freaks that gets really into theme parks. Like, I love going to Disneyland because I like Dole Whip.

That's why I go to Disneyland. I don't give a shit about any of the rest of it. it. I love being there with my friends, getting doll with. I'll ride some of the rides, awesome, whatever. So I went to Universal. That was my first time going to Universal. No, that was second time, sorry. I went to, well, last time I went, it was like, I went to on a few things that I was there for the mummy, mainly. Of course. They didn't have a lot of the mummy. They had a lot of Tom Cruise era mummy stuff. I was like, all right, whatever. Dark universe never forget. I was impressed by like, even I was like, oh my God,

this is awesome. And I was talking to, who was that, what was it? I was talking to Barrett earlier. And Universal is like, whatever for me. Like, it's a bunch of, like, you know, themed areas. Weird IP that are mushed together, but, like, you go into Simpsons World and, you know, Springfield or whatever it's called. And you've got a bunch of, like, buildings that are like, oh, Moist Heaven or this kind of thing. You go in there and it's all very Simpsons. Like, you come out and you're just on a street.

Like, you're on a street on planet Earth, in America, whatever. That's Hollywood. And exactly. And it's the same with, like, Harry Potter Land, Land. whatever it's called. Hogwarts? I don't know where it's called. Yeah.

I forget the exact. Yeah. You go there and it's like, oh, this is, you know, gringots or whatever. And like some of the streets look good. But ultimately, like, you turn around and you can still see, like,

Joe Schmo trying to eat a pretzel over there and it's like whatever. And you can see other rides and stuff like that. The difference with Mario Land is, it basically is built in a fish bowl. And once you, so, like, you walk in and you walk through a pipe. And there's clearly some sort of, like,

laser. across the pipe that you can't see because when I was walking, when you walk through, it like trips the laser and it plays the sound of you going down the pipe to like signify you are now going into the mushroom kingdom. You walk through there and you walk like, and you basically walk through the castle. So like you're walking through the castle. Is Peaches Castle music playing? Yes.

There's, there's very, it was like cycling through a bunch of music. I can't remember if Peaches, but it was definitely playing music from Mario 64 or that era. and it's got like the mural of peach up top it's got the paintings Mario 64 paintings and it's doing the like Are the LED screen? They're ripple affecting And they're like going between areas and characters

And that kind of stuff So you're like, okay this is sick I'm going in guys I'm gonna make the jump Can you not like Can you shut the fuck up? No okay Is it super hard to not get emotional

Because like when I go to theme parks And I see everybody super happy It's like we're all here for one reason because we love this thing, and I always get teary-ed. Like, this is, like, the one place where there is, like, just 100% happiness. You're like, you're made a little kid shit on the ground. You're like, I'm fucking care why you're shit on the ground, though.

Yeah, you're right. That's exactly how I felt. Like, it was weirdly emotional for me because, I mean, I imagine it would be exact the same for you guys. And anyone who, like, has loved Mario, Mario in their lifetime, Nintendo. There's little Nintendo things there. Like, it's primarily in Nintendo world, but if you look close enough,

you will see a pigment, like just somewhere. Lakers head. Get stoked. Yeah. But, yeah, it was quite emotional because when I walked out of the castle and was like there, it's like, like I said, it's in a fishbowl. So you kind of like how they build the Star Wars land. Yeah, like it's everywhere.

You feel like you're there. If you look around, it's just Mario stuff. You can't see Harry Potter World or Mummy ride or like, you know, the toilets are over there. You are in like the Mushroom Kingdom. and it's quite, I really loved about it, it's very manageable. Like it's not, it's, I did pretty much everything in a day, but obviously I had an ideal experience where it's a very small group of people and there was no other like public people there, but it was just like very doable.

Like it felt like a hub area where you walk that way, you're in something, you walk that way, you walk that way, something, something, something, something. The whole thing about it is like, it's got one ride, which is the Mario Car ride. It's like an AR thing where you jump in, you're sitting in a car, you've got a steering wheel, you don't actually steer. It's on a, I believe it's called a dark ride where you're basically on rails, but they put an AR headset on you,

and when you look around, you will see the other races. Like, other people are also in cards, but you're not playing against them. You look around and you might see, like, you know, a Cooper or, like, Daisy or whoever, just, like, coming by. And then you've got buttons on your steering wheel,

which, when you press it, will fire a shell. And the point of the game is you try and hit as many, of the other races as you can because they drop coins and you collect the coins and at the end it will tell you whether you on Team Mario collectively

have got enough coins to beat Team Bowser. Very simple, fun I did like twice in a row and it was like the mask gets dirty? No, it was fine. It was like okay

it didn't, it felt fit really snugly as well so it was comfortable and it's got like it's basically like a tour through all of the most iconic like Mario car levels and ends on Rainbow Road

and that kind of stuff. So it was really cool. But that's just like, it's got one ride, which is like, cool. You get that done. And then you're just basically left to explore the world. And it's got a very game design-esque,

kind of set up to it, where there's loads of things in the park that you can kind of like discover and find. And one of the things that they kind of nickel and damn you on is you get this like strap, like a watch thing, which you buy. It's like $30. And I got a total one, I think it was.

You get different themed ones. And it basically, you connect it to your app, and it keeps track of everything you do. You take it away with you. You come back again and you add onto it. And it's got stuff like if you find the yellow blocks, you hit it with your arm with the actual watch on, and it will make the coin noise

and add those coins to your actual watch. So you're racking up coins. It's got like in the app there's stickers, which are unlocked by doing achievements. Classic dent. Which will be like, oh, yeah. The stickers are, it's exactly like the stickers in the games. Like that kind of stuff.

Like the online sucks. Like the on-off activities there and they're terrible. Wi-Fi's terrible. You see people glitching around as they walk around. But yeah, you do like these little challenges and stuff like that.

And over time, you like, if you do a challenge here, you complete this one challenge. You can like, there's four actual activities and they range from like, oh, press the, flip the colors

and make them all match. And you've got to hit loads of buttons. And if you do all of them and complete them, you unlock four coins, at which point you can go to, I think it's one of the Cooper's castles and like challenge them.

Cooper Kids castles and challenge them. That's like fun. But then there's stuff like, oh, the sticker might be, oh, look for the airship. And you go upstairs,

you find the like the telescope thing, periscope and look around. And it's not always there. So like you've got to like really look for it and come back and hope that you see it. And when you do it, it kind of logs that you've done it and it'll add that sticker as an achievement.

This is really cool. things which we found right at the end where just around they're like these weird like emblems on the wall and we were like what the hell is this and then the guy who we've who who like a friend of ours was like touch your watch to it so we touch our watch to it and then this looks like a normal wall like just a straight up stone wall touch our watch to it and then like an eight bit Mario appeared above it and like it played like an odyssey it was so weird I was like because you can't tell there something there once you know it's there you can see the faint outline of whatever

tool they're using to make it come in there, bulbs or whatever. But that's everywhere as well. So then I was like oh shit, now I've got to walk everywhere again and find these damn things so I can like rack them up. That was really cool. The gift shop has got some like exclusive stuff in there. I really love

the cafe. They clearly put in a lot of work into making the food good and also making it Mario themed. And I had the perfect experience where it was like, because we were there as like a preview thing, everything was free and we could just basically line up, get the food over and over again. So I got to taste, not taste, but like I had limited selection because I can't eat everything

on it. But like the people I was with basically got one of everything, photographed it and tried it. And everything they said they ate was, they were like, this is really good. Everything I ate was really good. So like it's, it was fun just sitting down and like they got these little mushroom plates and you take their thing off and you eat out of it. And it was really cute. But yeah, top to bottom. I highly recommend going to Nintendo World. I think probably wait until it's calmed down a bit because right now the lines are probably crazy

and there's probably so many people that you won't get to do anything. But even if you go there and just look around, it's impressive. And the thing that I interviewed me a model after this and we talked a lot about the interviews up on Gamspot.com, we talked a lot about, you know, his achievements and that kind of stuff.

And like I wrote the interview up and the one thing I, like the angle that I went for is, like Mario Miyamoto is one of the most perhaps the most influential iconic legendary creators of our time right and he's achieved so many different things

to the point where it's kind of impressive that he can find new ways to you know new frontiers to conquer and like theme parks is one of them like it's wild that he's got he's completed so many like achievements in games that he now is in theme parks

and movies like that kind of stuff and we always talk about how influential Mario is to us and like we some people have been lucky enough to tell him to his face this is probably the first time he can stand in a place enveloped by his creation and see the impact it has on people around him like i was like walking around and and seeing people like joyously playing with things and like being just like euphoric at what they were seeing like they'd hear a sound

and just be like overwhelmed with happiness or they spot a goomba like walking on a on like somewhere on a on a castle rampart and they would like like overwhelmed them and they'll be like so excited in the way that we were and I was like I'm feeling like quite emotional seeing that happen imagine being the person that created it yeah and like standing there and being like I can visibly and tangibly see the impact I've had on people's lives because the things that I've made have inspired this love and warmth towards that and it's like I think it must be like crazy for him right now and like it's going to get even wilder because movie's going to come out and then that's going to happen and it was just like fascinating to talk to him about it

and he was very humble about the whole thing. And he was like, yeah, I'm very happy. And he was like, I love the people at Universal. They put in the work. And it was really cool. And yeah, it's just, I think it, I think it's one of the few times that I imagine he's been humbled by something, like, the impact of something. I definitely was. And I was like, it's weird because you also have like a sense of pride.

Yeah. Because you're like, you're like, you're like, you're like, you're like, you're like, this is ours, man. Yeah, this is an hour's, his face. Get fucked, Mickey. Yeah, exactly. And that's exactly what it's like, right? It's like you look around and you see some people who are just like, you can tell that they probably aren't invested in the same level that you are,

but there's like a bond that you have. You don't know. Yeah, you don't know. You don't know how many times. You don't play the real Mario game. Yeah, exactly. He's never played Mario Maker. But yeah, it's just like one of those moments.

And they're so rare, like we, they're so rare outside of the games we play, where, you know, you play a game and a really good game will reinforce how good it feels to be into video games, right? Like, I play games like the from games. or street fighters or Mario games. And I finish playing them or like I'm playing them. The thing I come away with is always like, yeah, I love being a gamer. Or I love that games exist and they're constantly wowing me.

It's so rare to be able to go outside of that, those, that sphere and just be like, I described it as you remember when you were a kid and you were in love with something, like be it Mario, Ninja Turtles, Power Rangers. The first time you saw like a Mario T-shirt or, and you were like, this exists outside the TV. like that kind of feeling because I remember being like that with I think it was like Dragon Ball stuff

where when I saw my first like Dragon Ball T-shirt it became my priority to have it because I never knew that existed outside of like the the TV cartoons that I watched. I mean when I saw the Mario movie at Blockbuss yeah

like me and Kevin lost our minds like there is a movie and we were kids loved it we were stupid but like that it was that moment of like are you there's more of this is not just video games games like i felt with the sonic cartoon to all of what the fuck how it was amazing yeah and that's that's exactly how it feels where like you go there and you're like this is crazy like if i felt like that again

like i remember being like i'm all about this i'm all about getting that power rangers or whatever it may be so like that it kind of overwhelms you and it kind of and it sounds quite like um saccharine and it was to a large degree like i kind of you have to let it envelop you and whisk you away and not be cynical and it's difficult to do that in this day and age and I'm quite a cynical person anyway just because years of being in this industry and reviewing games and you know the turnover all that kind of stuff but I was like I'm just going to let myself get swept away by this and it was it was like really really enjoyable and really really heartwarming and kind of affirming in a lot of ways so just going to take some shrooms and see yeah exactly see what happened

but yeah that was the whole lintanelan is great and then we spoke to me a mo and i won't like layout what we talked about or anything, but he was just really charming and really humble and like the main standout of the interview was like you've always been compared to like the Disney of games and now you have a theme park. How do you feel about it?

And he was like, yeah, people call me the Spielberg people call me like Disney, I don't like it. I'm Miyamoto. Hell yeah, you are. You're Miyamoto, don't you forget. That's so cool. I love that, Tam. Well, thank you again for this. That is absolutely incredible. I can't wait to go to Super Nintendo World myself.

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These are five star rated by over 200,000 people. Again, that's Shadyrays.com. Use the code kind of funny. Shout out to Honey for sponsoring this episode. Honey is the easy way to save when shopping on your iPhone or computer. And thanks to Honey, manually searching for coupon codes is a thing of the past. And we all know there's nothing better than the feeling of saving money. Honey is the free shopping tool that scours the internet for promo codes and applies the best one it finds to your cart.

When you check out, the Honey button appears and all you have to do is click Apply coupons. You'll wait a few seconds. You see the fun little dancing guy. Honey searches for coupons and it finds you the best ones. And then you just watch the prices drop. We hear it kind of funny have been using Honey for years and it's helped us save thousands on tech, costumes, food, you name it. Honestly, I just love how easy it is to just set and forget and forget. Save. That's the best part. Honey doesn't just work on desktops. It works on your phone, too. You just activate it on Safari on your phone. You save on the go. If you don't already have honey, you could be straight up missing out. You can get PayPal Honey for free at joinhoney.com slash kind of funny. That's joinhoney.com slash kind of funny. So here is the topic of the show, everybody. On Kind of Funny Games Daily, you can write in with your topics by going at Kind of Funny.com slash KFGD.

Of course. Your questions, your comments, your concerns, all of that. And every once in a while, we get some really good reader mail. So good that we're like, we're going to turn this into a games cast topic. And that's exactly what's happening here.

So Jake Bakes Ks Ks, is one of the more iconic KFGD question writer-inners, right? Correct. They always give us some good topics. We end up going on for a while. Do you think they've got a rivalry with Manny Beagle Boy Sanchez? Potentially, you know, the cakes. Bakes in the Sanchez.

Yeah, you never know. They don't like each other. Big rivalry. but Jake's Bakeske's inspired others like J-MAS to write in with similar questions to get us going and conversating.

This question is inspired by some of Jake Bakes' cakes' questions, I thought we could play a game. Since it's not only review season but also kind of prediction season, I was wondering how you think the next non-DLC installment or game from different PlayStation studios will review compared to the last game. Better, worse,

or the same. And then he gave a list of some of the upcoming Sony titles we know about and being blessed it in our games daily. I want to take that idea and expand it to not just PlayStation things and not even necessarily talk about will it review better, more of just the gut. Will it be better? Will it be worse?

What do we think? What do we want to add to that? What do we kind of expect some of these things? You know what I mean? We don't need to get as detailed or not detailed as we want to about all these things. But I have a list here of all the big sequels and some of these aren't even sequels. They might just be follow-ups from a studio. So

it won't always be, is number two going be better than number one. Sometimes it might be, will Starfields be better than Elder Scrolls or Fallen or something like that. So, could be kind of fun, but I want to start off with the ones coming this year, specifically the ones that have confirmed release dates. So going kind of in that order, the next big one, Star Wars Jedi Survivor.

It's got to be better. Then Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order. So you're confident coming out swing and it's got to be better. When you say God, it do you mean, oh, it's going to be, or it has to be or else it's going to be a problem? I think a little bit of both, but I do, I believe that it's going to be. Jedi Fallen Order, I think it was a very good game. I really enjoyed that game, but I think that is the, it feels like such a, let's set the template for what this franchise could be going forward, right?

Like, you have the good souls inspired design, right? But it's Sekiro inspired design, even though I think it came out, it came out the same year of Sekiro. You have that, you have some of the Metroidvania-ish type level design, but then you also just have this really good, really solid story, right? This really good, really solid single-player Star Wars experience. I think there's so much that they lay out in Jedi Fall in Order, pretty much most of which can be improved upon, right? Like, I remember playing this game at launch and really enjoying it, but having things like, oh man, this game doesn't run that great.

Like, this game is a little bit buggy for a AAA game coming out at launch. And I know that stuff has gotten better as we've gotten new gen ports and all that stuff. But, you know, they delayed the game recently. And I think that's a good sign toward, hey, we don't want to have that happen again. like let's try and get this right the first time as opposed to having to update over time. I think you have that. I think you have the things that they've talked about in terms of some of the design of the levels being a bit more open and explorable and a bit more like, hey, no, you are, you are exploring this level more, right?

We have more space to work with. I think some of that is probably improved by the power of next gen, right? Like we're on the PS5 and Xbox Series X versus the PS4 and Xbox one. And even just looking at the trailer, man, like for me, the thing that really sold me was the game awards trailer of seeing what this game looks like in action let alone hearing a reading through the IGN first stuff and then hearing uh barrett talk about it because he's been watching the gameplay videos everything about it just seems better on every single level and it's hard for me to imagine that this comes out any lesser than the than the then um july fall in order one hundred percent

agree yeah this is gameplay wise i think it's going to be uh extremely similar to the changes we saw going from horizon one to two going from god of war one to ragnarine and it's it's all about it's hashtag lessons learned him all right like you already had a very very solid formula and now how do we remove the stuff that maybe wasn't so great and how do we add and implement on the stuff that was really a big hit and immediately we're seeing in that trailer that we just saw grapple sort of movement like mid-air dashes i don't think there was i remember there being a whole lot of mid-air dashes uh which you add that and you got you got a game of the year contender on your hands with him.

But also just everything with like, I think so much of what Fallen Order was is like getting the combat to feel good enough while also trying to tell a really meaningful story. And now it's like, I feel like the combat team is like, now let's go, now all the ideas we had that we couldn't really fully implement in Fallen Order, let's all put that shit in order right in order right here.

We saw the dude slowing down time, grabbing the Storm Trooper and putting the Storm Trooper's body into the floating lasers, like all of that stuff just looks so sick and yeah, I think this is going to be like 100% a better experience and a better

like metacritic rated game as well. Yeah, I think like echoing what they said, I think that laying the foundations was great for them because they had a solid game and it was very obvious from a design technical perspective what needed to be improved

or added or tweaked to make it a better gameplay experience. I think from a gameplay side, I think respawn is smart enough as creators and developers to plug those holes for a bit of a phrase, but I think because of that, there's going to be way more of a focus on the narrative and characterization. And if there's anything that perhaps lets it down,

I think it will come from there more than gameplay. I think there's going to be greater scrutiny on it because one, that will be kind of the thing that is most new from a kind of immediate perspective, because obviously it's built on the foundations of an older game, so it's going to feel quite similar in a lot of ways. It will have tweaks and stuff, but more of the focus is going to be on the new stuff,

which is the story, the characters, the world, the environments. And that stuff needs to be kind of top tier for it to kind of not catch a bit of heat for that. On top of that, Star Wars, I'm about to catch some heat myself. Star Wars has been a bit up and down lately And I think that Obviously, what was not? Mandalorians back.

Andor was the one of the thing that people kind of really said was amazing. So we're in a situation now where people are really need Star Wars to be good and hit that level now Because Andor has like pushed it higher and Mandalorian excitement is way higher. But also there's a there's more questionable Star Wars content than there is good right now. So I think people are going to be quite on edge to get something that's closer to Andoran Mandalorian. And if it isn't, they're going to be way more vocal about it, even if it is like a vocal minority. I think they're going to be way louder about it because Star Wars fans are vocal. And also they're in a point right now where they're like, it's hitting.

If something comes along that makes it not hit, you're letting the team down. So I think there's going to be, like I said, great amount of scrutiny on the story and characters and that kind of stuff. But from a gameplay perspective, I'm confident in it. Even not comparing it to the other mediums, right, that have been shaky. I think something for me personally, like, I really love the story for Fallen Order. God, I have to pause because I get Jedi Survivor and Fallen Order mixed up now. And it's such a personal story. And I just, my fear is that they're going to do the thing that they always do with Star Wars is let's get super big now.

And like, let's expand and do this whole, like, universe building. and my fear is that they kind of lose that smaller, more heartfelt story that they had in the first one. So, yeah, I agree. Technically, I think it's going to be definitely a bigger improvement and probably like a more fun game because of that. But story-wise, I'm still a little worried about where we're going. Yeah, I think that my gut tells me it's going to be better overall. And I think that we will review it higher overall. And I think when I look back to Star Wars Jedi Fall in Order, which was our kind of funny's game of the year,

that year, I adored that game a lot, was far from perfect. And I think that some of the things I loved most about that game were how well it nailed the Jedi side of Star Wars and was fun combat, but it had elements I love from Metroid Prime, elements I love from Uncharted, elements I love from so many different games kind of put together into one thing. It also had elements I don't love about Metroid Prime and Uncharted, like the sliding or the map and things like that. So I feel like they're definitely going to fix those. I don't expect to get as many. sliding sections in this game. I think that even in what we saw in the trailer,

some of the grappling looks a lot more fun to control and controllable than it was in the first game of kind of like trying to force grab the vines or whatever the hell. That stuff just wasn't fun and it looks fun here. But my two biggest concerns for the new one are it being too open

from a gameplay perspective where I liked the smaller levels that when they got bigger in Fallen Order, I kind of felt like we were getting lost a lot traveling from one place to another was a lot more difficult. They said they're adding fast travel mounts and all that. I don't know that that's the solution to the problem I have with it. So I'm a little hesitant there.

And then, yeah, story-wise, the first one was so great, and the surprise moments it had were impactful. And in order to do that, you've got to raise the stakes and go higher and more, more, more. And that's kind of where Star Wars starts to fall apart, I think. So we'll see. I'm hopeful, but I do think at the end of the day,

it's going to be a real good time. Plus, I think the first one was punching above its weight with visuals and everything they wanted to try to get the game to do at launch, and that's why we dealt with... I dealt with a shitload of bugs and just bad performance problems. And obviously, whenever a new game comes out, you always have an updated engine and new updated lighting models and everything starts to look better,

but we just have more capable hardware now. God, damn, oh shit. Even with the next-gen patch for Fallen Order, Wookie still looks so fucking bad. Damn, that looks... a little too much. Like PS2. I really thought this was

Knights of the Old Republic or something. Yeah, like sweater or something. I don't like that. It also looks like, man. I'm not a fan of that. I hope we get a greasy money, baby. As long as we get greasy money. Yeah, we get that big greasy money,

yeah. Next up, The Legend of Zelda, Tears of the Kingdom. Will it be better, worse, or the same as Breath of the Wild? Tam, start us off. So I'm using precedent. for this and i'm gonna probably put it i think it's gonna be like quite poetic in a way it's gonna be quite reflective of ocarina and majora i think that's gonna be where we're at where i think

ocarina was a revolutionary game right and it was like a monumental moment in game design and and nintendo's history and i think uh breath of the world one is equivalent to that in a lot of ways like it's breath of wild definitely has this issues but in terms of impact and popularity, it was on par with what O'Korena did in its time. Majora obviously followed up and it was a very different, very divisive kind of game. I think it was a considerably more interesting experience, but it definitely had its detractors as well because of the whole time loop system and the kind of like the complexities of playing that game was very different from O'Koreen of Time, which felt more easy to jump into,

if you know what I mean. I think that it's going to be very similar. I think it's going to review well. I think around the same, the same being it got a lot of tens and nines. I think it'll probably be more nines and eights because it is kind of reusing a lot of the foundation of breath of the world.

I think it's going to be interesting to see whether the rest of the stuff is as divisive as Majora. I think that's going to be something that people talk about a lot, the kind of world, the story, that kind of stuff. And I don't know, maybe I'm about to say something stupid,

but like, the story wasn't a major thing for me of Breath of Wild. Like, I could take it or leave it. Like, I barely engage with it. It was more the gameplay for me. I think this time there's going to be a more concerned effort to have a story and tell a story, and it definitely feels like that here. Obviously, there was a narrative in the original game, but it was also kind of loose in a lot of ways.

I think this is going to be a more directed and driven story. And again, just like with Jedi Fall and Order, order and kind of how it's received depends on the strength of that story. I think it's going to be pretty good because they've got a lot of interesting things that they're setting up here and I'm excited to see where that goes. So I think it's going to review not as high as Breath of Wild because that was a revolutionary breath of fresh air kind of moment, but still very high. Nines and eights, I'd say.

Yeah, I tend to agree for the most part, right? I'll still even think nines and tens, but maybe more nines than even a breathful Wild got compared to the amount of tens. I think it's that tough thing of trying to follow up something that was revolutionary and something that felt so fresh. Going from Skyward Sword, which is a game that a lot of people are, a lot of people didn't love as much as when you think of Prime Zelda, right? Like I would say Skyward probably falls a bit lower on people's Zelda's list.

Following that up with Breath of the Wild, which again, is ground up, has a different, I'd say more fleshed out art style, has even like narrative stuff where, you know, I agree that the narrative in Breath of the Wilde is a bit more thin. right now I was there more so for the gameplay but I'll even say like upon starting breath of the wild and playing through it I was a bit more engaged than my time playing Skyward's sword and then you get into the gameplay and yeah the gameplay felt like just say hey let's kick the door open on what Zalda can be and really expand on even how we define puzzles and dungeons and like the way we look at that and I think that worked so well and I think that

hit so hard because we weren't expecting them to go to go that hard with it coming off of Breath of Wild we are expecting we know what to expect right we We have this expectation of, all right, we know what shrines are. We know what an open world looks like in this structure. Like, we know that this is the sequel to Breath of the Wild. So, like, they're kind of teeing us up for something that is way more of a direct follow-up. Like, we know that's what that's going to be. How do you surprise and wow people with something that is laid out on what is going to be, right?

I think that's the biggest challenge. And on the review side, I don't think that's as big of a deal just because, like, you know, I don't think reviewers are going to knock it because it's not something fucking crazy and different. But I do think from the way that we receive it as an audience in terms of how we look at groundbreaking or how we look at something that defines the medium, it's almost impossible for it to have that same level of impact. So I think with that, right, like there's a big chance for me that it lives in Breffville Wild's shadow. And that said, for me, that doesn't do anything in terms of removing my excitement. I'm still all the way over the moon in terms of how excited I am for tears of the kingdom. I think Nintendo probably wants that.

Yeah. They're probably like, yeah, if we can get it as close to breath of the world as we can and people are like, oh, it's great, but it's not as good as breath of the world. I think they're probably like, all right, cool. Like, we changed the game with breath of the world. So it's like if we're close to that again, sweet. Yeah. I think reviews wise in terms of Metacritic, I see it hitting either the same or maybe like a point or like a point or two below on Metacritic. I don't think it's going to be a drastic gap.

It's interesting because having just done God of War and then Ragnarok and having that conversation of like, can it was God of War. 2018 was such a revolution for the franchise. How can the sequel live up to that? Can it? Whatever. And for a lot of people, myself included, it did. You know, and I do think that that is a little bit different where it's on any day I can pick one or the other and make arguments for why it's better. And that's a place I want to be. And then I kind of think that's where we'll end up here with Tears of the Kingdom, where

it'll be fairly split. I don't think there'll be a unanimous decision on which one's better. So I tend to say same, I guess, for this. But I do think that Breath of the Wild different than, God of War has the chance to be more similar to a portal and Portal 2 situation where Portal is this revolutionary thing that no one's seen

before and then Portal 2 just took everything that was great about it, added things that were missing and were just like, hey, here's just like the definitive version of that and to me a lot of that is just the story and the hype connecting in Breath of Wild. Like Breath of Wild had really hype moments but I don't think it had to

set up for those hype moments. And like at the end of the game scaling the castle with the music playing it was fucking great. When you eventually get the master sword. Like all that stuff was awesome. But I think that because the way that it was more lore-based as opposed to plot-based, I think that some of those moments didn't hit as hard as they could. And I think that they can do that in what we've seen in tears the kingdom.

If it's, if the flow of it is what I expected to be, and unlike Breath of Wild, which was mainly focused on flashbacks in the past for the story, if it's more dealing with the presence, I think that it could be, it could be portal two to portal one level. Yeah.

And I think to that point, too, you know, Tam mentioned that there are things that Breath of Law could do better, and I think those that goes back to the Jedi Fallen Order conversation a little bit of, yeah, like, I do think that you could maybe tackle dungeons better in tears of the kingdom. You know, like I enjoy the shrines a lot,

but from the Divine Beast, I still felt like there was something lacking at the end of the day when you take those and you compare them to even more of the classic Zelda Dungeons. Like, I still look at Twilight Princesses, the collection of my favorite Zelda dungeons. And I think you can, what is it? You're a man of taste.

Oh, thank you. I appreciate it. I mean, the fucking winter dungeon in Twilight Princess is special. And I think you might be able to capture something like that into the kingdom, if that's something that they're looking at, right? How do we take what we did with the shrines? And take that, put some of that effort and put that into making these full-fledged longer, maybe more unique, inspired dungeons. What if instead of having four divine beasts, we had a snow dungeon or we had a dungeon that is themed after these crazy concepts like you've had in previous Zelda, I think that's a place where maybe you can look at. There are small things and divisive things like weapon degradation that people are very split on, right?

Like, I don't mind it, but I could see them maybe tuning that a little bit to make it a bit more tolerable for people that didn't like it, right? Maybe that does help out a bit. On the opposite side of something that might work against it is we now live in a post-Elden Ring world. And I talk about how Breath of Wild is my favorite game of all time, probably between that Mario 64 and Persona 4. Eldon Ring, in terms of open world game innovation, like for me, there are monumental games that come through and for me change my perception of that genre. And like I look at things like GTA. I look at things like Fallout or Skyrim and those games, right? For me, Breath of the Wild is one of those. And then the one after Breath of Wilde is Eldon Ring. Like

Eldon Ring playing through that game felt like a, hey, we learned a lot from Breath of Wild, now let's make it better. Like, how do we inject fucking cool ass lore and dope out as boss fights and dope as details and like all the dope like explorable environments and like have it be like an overall under roll kind of thing like elder ring really goes for it and a lot of the similar ways that breath the wild went for it and I think takes that shit further and I think now that we have that game out looking at Tears of the Kingdom you got to compare it directly a little bit and I think I

could see that if Tears the Kingdom doesn't bring the stuff I could see that being a way in which maybe it falls on the review scale. Andy Cortez. Everything you all said. Yeah. Like I think it's about the same if they don't add dungeons. If they, if what this ends up being is just

the death strangling sort of collector's edition or whatever they're, what do they call, directors cut? Where in the director's cut, you get more options for traversing the world. Like if all we're getting in this game is,

Breath of the Wild plus your ability to build machines that help you fly and drive on the ground, I don't think that's enough. And I don't think big story moments are important, are going to hit for the wider audience, like me or Tam, who didn't really care a whole lot about the stories, kind of give or take. Like, what made this a 10 out of 10 for me was the world and how you interact with it. And where Eldon Ring killed it with open world design, Zelda's open world was insanely special because of how, all of the elements and physics systems kind of interplayed with each other. So I think if you keep, I don't want to see this, obviously we know there's like probably

going to be shrines and stuff. Keep the shrines one thing, make dungeons another thing, make them sprawling and give us a couple of checkpoints here and there and a couple of mini bosses and the big boss that you fight at the very, very end. I found the Divine Beast to be pretty lacking in those experiences, like compared to other Zelda experiences. Still pretty neat overall, but I just don't think it was anywhere near as special as, like,

fighting through a grueling two-hour session of going through a dungeon and getting lost and getting frustrated here and there, but then having big breakthroughs, like, that's the type of shit I want in this game. And, like, enemy variety is. Yeah. Like, like, I played a little bit. Yeah, like, fighting, like, four different versions of Gannon over again.

It's like, those were cool in the moment in figuring out, like, again, like, the physics-based stuff and how to fight them. But then, like, visually, it's just like, I don't know, it doesn't give me the, you know, the bongo-bongo moment from Ocarina of Time and stuff like that. Yeah. When you get really cool and weird with enemy variety, which we've seen with the recent trailer, right, like, not boss moments, but just, like, how they might be shaking things up with enemies. Like, hopefully that's a tease of. of maybe what's to come? I want to move on to Street Fighter 6, baby. I mean, the only place to go is up.

It's only up, right? The only thing holding me back is how much the single player stuff is going to stink. And if that's going to affect the review. I think it's going to be good. You think so? I think that single player is going to be good. And compare it to the single players that Street Fighter has had, it's definitely going to be more. Like, it's...

But more doesn't mean better, and that's my concern. If you think about it, like Street Fighter 4 single player was not great. Street Fighter 5s was definitely not great. Like, it was very thin. This feels like they've at least, if they just create a world where they string together these fights, that's automatically better than what it was before. But I think they're going one step further. I don't know for sure, but like I feel like they're hiding a lot of things about this single player

that we aren't aware of yet. Like we've seen Metro City and plenty of that. And I think it might be a bit bigger than we realized. I'm waiting for them to be like, also we've got these other cities. Because that's what Streetfire is, right? Your world warriors. You're traveling the world. You're going different places.

Like, how do you reconcile going from Metro City to like Blanca stage in Brazil or something like that? I think there might be something else going on there. But fundamentally, like it looks like it's going to be a little more. engaging at the very least then has a crappy cutscene or a crappy storyboard that they've thrown together

to string these matches together. So at the very least, I think that will be good. Yeah. And also make sure that it's judged against the way Street Fighter 5 was judged at launch in 2016. Seven years ago that Street Fighter 5

came out and again, as somebody who just loosely followed the FGC who has friends that really, really into the FGC, I know that everybody's reception was like, what the, what? This was what? This is what we waited for. Like, after all the hype with Street Fighter 4,

this is what released, right? I know that it took seven years to get Street Fighter 5 to where it is now, to where it actually became a really popular fighting game. And it took a long... It took a long time for people to feel the same way about it in the way that they kind of immediately felt about 4. we have to judge it against the Street Fighter of how that launched Street Fighter 5 as opposed to like how it took how long it took a game to actually get good after seven years you know what I mean I've played a lot of this game already obviously because I've been at events where it is and I play when I played Street Fighter 5 I felt I could feel something was off and when I played Street Fighter 6 I could feel that thing was back and that is game mode on the TV.

you guys. The moment I started playing that game, I was like, yes, they got it. They figured it out whatever it was. They found the source again. And it feels good to play at the very least. Whatever it has longevity remains to be seen. But like, just system-wise, system-wise, I was like sitting there experimenting, figuring out how they interact, you know, peeling back the layers of it.

I remember I was like one of the first people to play Street Fighter 6. And people were tweeting at me being like, can you see if this works? doing it and replying to them. Like the community was like fired up about this and that is something that I haven't seen since Free Fighter 4 came back, which was following a long like absence of

Street Fighter. But when that came back, people were like wild about it. And now it feels similar. We've had Street Fighter for a while, but it's been kind of like a thing that has been, you know, reforged into something that's okay. And console exclusive on PlayStation, like locked in a way that it shouldn't have been.

Yeah, this is immediately like I don't want to say any definitively, but I am confident in the Streetfire 6. I am confident that this will be better than 5, that it will all enjoy it more and all of that. I'm questioning the single players. It seems like just based off of all of these tests

that it's already more loved than Street Fighter 5 ever once. That's the thing is like, you know, when they announced Street Fighter 6, I immediately started picking up and playing a lot of Street Fighter 5 and then I played the beta at Summer Game Fest and then they've done them a couple of closed beta since then and I've hopped into those closed betas and I don't want to go back to Street Fighter 5.

after playing those betas, I'm like, I'll just wait until Street Fighter's kids get here because it's so fun. And I'm, I, over the time I've become less and less of an arcade mode person when it comes to fighting games. Like, I think part of that is Mortal Kombat figured out of story mode so well. And with the story mode that they're adding for Street Fighter 6, I think for me what matters is that they're giving me the content to interact with, right? Give me an interesting way to interact with the world and engage in fights,

and that's all I need. I think the core fight gameplay is so fun that, yeah, like, I don't need. the open world city thing to be perfect, just as long as it ushers me into like a progression system that is fun to chase after and like, you know. Hype about the next fight. Yeah, me being like, oh yeah, okay, I'm going to go fight Chun Li now.

All right, I got to do whatever weird objectives they give me to do it. That's my problem. And again, I don't want to harp on too long about this, but like, I'm not seeing anything that leads me to believe that it's going to be more fun than just hitting down on a menu and hitting X for the next fight. Because like, I think you're going to be just like, in a very like PS3 era way,

running down linear corridors and, hey, I lost five chickens. Can you go collect them? And then you have to just like haphazardly run around to get it before you could face Chunley. I just hope it's not that. And it kind of looks like it's going to be that. Yeah. I can get, I can understand that. Shoot five hoops of basketball.

I'm like, all right. If it's like going one on one shorn from street fire three at Bosnia, I'd be like, hell yeah. Let's do that. I think honestly, like, I think where's going to be at, though, in terms of how people receive it are going to be more so in the fighting mechanics, though. Of course. Of course, like, Metacritic is Metacritic, and I'm sure that can ship up and down. But I think in terms of wide reception, how people are really going to judge it by,

like it's going to be in how the PVP plays. And already, I think they've already surpassed SF5. Diablo 4. I don't have shit to say about this, do you? It's another one that I've played. And it was the same where, like, I played Diablo 3. I liked a lot of Diablo 3, and I was like, yeah, I get it. It's Diablo.

I played the preview. of, or a beta, I think it was, or a little bit of Diablo. I think I did, anyway. I can't remember what phase it is, but like, it was, there have been a lot of, like, Alphas and that kind of stuff closed beta, and I was like, okay, this feels like Diablo too.

And that is, as much as, that's the best thing you can say about it right now. It's got, like, the polish of Diablo 3 and, like, some of the systems of Diablo 3 that they added to it many, you know, over the many years. But in terms of, like, the darkness and the feeling of it, it felt good.

Yeah, I think it's kind of review better. Yeah, I think hype is through the roof of this, and I think it's going to live up to it just based on hashtag lessons learned, Tim. You know, like, I think Diablo 3 came out, and still a lot of people loved it. A lot of people fucking throughout Diablo 3, but the hardest of hardcore of that audience was missing the sort of, like Tam mentioned the darkness of it, the evilness of it all.

And I think that this is kind of like doubling down on all that, just to help with environments and stuff, but I do think that this game just seems to be like, at any time that there is any sort of Twitter thing happening with it, every one of our peers is just popping off about Diablo 4 and wanting to get in and wanting to play this new beta, wanting to get into this new testing, I think this will definitely rate higher than Diablo 3.

It's interesting how it can kind of compare to Street Fighter 6, where 5 was kind of exclusive to PlayStation and not limited it, whereas 4 was, I think, a much bigger success for Street Fighter. And it was very much a, like, reentry points for Street Fighter as a franchise and fighting games, honestly. Like, it really kind of brought them back there into, like, the mainstream appeal of genres and video games. But with Diablo, it's interesting because Diablo 2 was such a mega hit on PC, but didn't really have any console presence. And then Diablo 3, even though it wasn't the fan favorite game, it's definitely like the widest appeal game because of, of how many people, the Greg Millers of the world,

playing it on console for the first time. So I think Diablo 4 is kind of like best of both worlds altogether where it's like the Diablo 2 fans being like, oh, no, no, no, you thought three was good, wait for this, but then also the Greg Miller's that played three are going to play four. Yeah, yeah. So they just need to deliver, which it seems like they're going to. They really figured out Diablo on consoles.

Like the Reaper of Souls, like it's still available. Like that, they made that work and it was like, oh, this is genuinely awesome on consoles, which is many, many years ago, if you had told me pre-Diablo 3, there's going to be a console version of it, I'd say there's no way that works. But it does. And like, if they're taking all those lessons learned into four, it's going to be a big deal. Yeah. The only Diablo game I played a lot of was Diablo 1 on PlayStation 1. That's why I don't

play Diablo anymore. Oh, yeah, that's bad one. I just never want, every time I would walk by the box set at Sam's Club, I'd say Diablo 2, or maybe it was Diablo 1. No, it was more of like, I didn't want my mom to think the games are like demonic. This is on video game. Yeah. Like, they heard me listen to a system of a down song where it said what angels deserve to die. And my dad was like, Nicole, you can't be listening

to them. That's bad. You're the angels alone. That was my parents with Yu-Yo. They were not like the Yu-Yo cars. That's so fucking funny. When they saw their monsters, they're like, no, we're not doing that. Why does this magician got titties? Oh, yeah.

We got Final Fantasy 16. That is gonna... Better than 15? Absolutely gonna pop off. Yeah. I think that's gonna be huge. And like we had our preview, got every,

like you had high I'm on this. Everything I've heard is like, it's great. It is so good. I'm so excited. Like, the only thing that, like,

how the story comes together is going to be interesting. I think it's gonna have a good story. See, the thing is though. The story is a huge thing. I mean, that's my,

the thing I want to be. be good the most and I'm hopeful for and whatever and little trepidations on right now from talking to Michael. However, there's no way it's not at least as good as 15 story. Yeah, even 15 story. Like 15 isn't my favorite final fantasy. Story is still interesting though. It's like the thing about I love the story. I hate how they do it. Like the execution is I yeah, D tier, I think. I played that game and I thought the story was whatever and then I reluctantly watch Kingsglave. The story in that is absolutely popping off. It's. is really good. I was like, why don't you do this?

Do this in the fucking game. Crazy good. Like, in comparison to the 15th story, I was like, this is way better. But I think, like, the team behind this is, I mean, the MMO has got the best Final Fantasy storyline in many, many years. So if it's that same team, and it is, like, I think

that it's fair to raise your expectations for the story. And the setup already is pretty interesting. You know, these Guardian Forces summons icons as, like, basically allegories for nuclear weapons. in this like political struggle between. It's like very, very clever and very, very cool.

And it's like, oh, they want to do like a Game of Thrones style thing. I'm, yeah, I'm like, I think it's going to definitely be better than 15. But will it hit the high bar of Final Fantasy stories, which is, you know, the peak is obviously 10? I love you. I love you so much. Let's go, baby. The only thing that worries me is, like, is the theme going to be as good as a stand by me by, was it Florence the Machine? Yeah.

Like, I never played Final Fantasy 15, but I did listen to that a lot. That was fire. To this day, a lot. I love that. I don't know if there's a game I'm looking forward to more this year. Yeah. It's definitely. I mean, dude, I'm so hyped on it.

I think just technically it's going to be a goddamn masterpiece when you have it on your TV and it's looking gorgeous and all the, maybe this is the one I buy an OLED for y'all. Maybe this is the one I finally buy an OLED TV for. Final Fantasy 7 remake won our game of the year 2020. Do you think Final Fantasy 16 gets it in 2020? I think it's very unlikely. But I mean, there's a A lot of us are going to play it And if it's as good as we expect it's

What's the game that everybody's going to play the most It's kind of funny, Breath of the Wild. There's going to be a whole bunch of Spider-Man 2, Breath of the Wild. There's a lot of games. Let me tell you about Starfield, right? Oh, my God. Yeah, I think that this will definitely rate higher than Final Fantasy 15.

And I'm just so excited for the darker, more sinister evil shit. Like, I understand Final Fantasy games needs some whimsy, and that's what Michael Hyam was like, give us to whimsy. I enjoy a whimsy every once in a while I really really want like this little kid getting blood in his face

from the dude getting slashed in front of him give me more of that shit dude The only thing that annoys me about Final Fantasy 16 Of everything I've seen so far is this motherfucker's name is Clyde I fucking can't deal with it I cannot deal with that shit man You really can't man I hate so I always think

As I stand up for you out there for every Clive listening to this podcast I'm with you It reminds me of when I was like in school and I was doing acting classes and drama and that kind of stuff. And we'd come up with this elaborate story and everyone would be assigned a role and actors and that kind of stuff. And then the character names would come out and it would be like, your name is John. And I'm like, what the, do I look like a John here? Give me something bad.

I don't know if anybody looks like Clive, though, you know. I mean, like give this guy a... Whatever this guy looks like, I don't like. It's not Clive. Yeah. It's like, oh, come on. Like, Ramsa is a name from Final Fantasy's history. Peter, squall, cloud,

Orin, you know what I mean? Even a Leon. Just give you a fucking Leon. Yeah, we got a buddy clive. All right, man. This is a cool name, man. This is a great, dude. You know Lesca.

Come on. Come on. Come on. All right. Anyways, moving on. Marvel Spider-Man 2. It's tough, right? Because, like, what do you do?

Like, they did Spider-Man, and it was great, and we loved so much about it. You take away the Mary Jane sneaking parts. That's the thing. You take those things out. You make the open-world stuff. off less tedious

less lame I'd say like when I talk about the open world like yeah the open world side quest like

not going to shut down satellites and having to stay beneath the ceiling of whatever like there was just

there was a lot of really lame ass side quest man like and I just kind of really enjoyed swimming around

the world and the rest of fighting any sort of baddies that were around the buildings felt

started to get very samey for me. I think there are definite ways to improve upon that, and I have full comments that they will improve upon that. You do. Yeah. I think it's going to be interesting because I think insomniac are in incredible studio,

obviously, like between the first Spider-Man game and then Miles, they've like, I disagree. Between those two games is great. But also, which insomniac are we getting? Because they're also making Wolverine. Like, I'm not sure which team is on this. Not to say, like, everyone isn't there super, you know, kind of like amazing. but like I feel like they need to do more with this

and I don't know if where that kind of like division of labor is can they really go hard on this one? I think from a gameplay standpoint it's going to be solid like even if you replicate the first Spider-Man that show was so fun that like you're just doing that again

is going to be amazing but like I wonder where they're going with I think there's going to be a much darker story and I think it's going to be a lot of risk in that and I feel like if you go darker and you have this story. It's got to live up to at least the story

of the last game which is beloved by a lot of people. But like, there's some points of failure in the narrative that could be there. I think it's similar

to what we did with, we said with Jedi, it's like mechanically. I think they know exactly what they need to improve in design-wise. I think they know the things that were kind of

like letting it the original down or like hampering it and then it always going to rest on the story and character and that kind of stuff again. I was going to say

that I think, think that a, I think they only have some points to lose because we've already seen an amazingly rendered New York. Yeah. And we've already swung around an amazingly rendered New York. At least twice. Twice, yeah. And there's not like, I think because of how great those games looked and because those games came out on PC and looked even better and we saw them in higher fidelity at higher frame rates that I don't know how much room there is for improvement there that the general audience will be able to notice it. Of course, I'm going to watch a digital foundry breakdown on it

and tell me where all of the shadows and traders started getting improvements at. Yeah, puddle improvements in the volumetric fog. But I think because those older games looked as incredible as they did, that wow factor might be gone now. And now how do you wow in the other area? and that's going to be a tough task. What a War Warcraft? I think the fidelity factor of how good it looks

and how good it can look, I don't think that's where you really go home and like separating Spider-Man 2 from Spider-Man 1 and Miles Morales. Just because both of those games have PS5 versions as well. Yeah. So like how are you going to push that further? I'm sure this game will look marginally better, right?

But I think really is going to come down to a lot of design. You know, you make the Jedi Survivor versus Jedi Fallen Order comparison, right? And I think you even, push that further from even like the gameplay of it because i do think the gameplay sparta man feels as spider man the spider man can feel in these games like you can't i don't think you can make the swinging feel any better like i don't think you can make the punching feel any better i think it will come down to like maybe world design and mission design like annie was talking about and then

taking out like taking out all the flaws that people saw in spirement one like the mary jane missions and like the weird puzzle science shit that you would do and then even in miles morales making the story feel bigger and more fleshed out, right? Like, I think there are story improvements you can make. Spider-Man 1 had the weird last act where the, I don't know, I won't spell it. But like, the last third of that game gets wild in a way that I don't think is great. Yeah, yeah. And I think if you hone that in, if you figure out pacing of the story better,

and like you have characters like Venom in the trailer. Yeah, sit with your villains more. Yeah, sit with your villains more and evolve more because you have, what, Venom and then Hunter guy, Craven. Craven. Those are dope-ass villains to have. Craven Moorhead. Raven Warhead, yeah

Tim Are you sure you want to say Whatever you're about to say? No, I'm gonna say like I think the combat is great But I definitely feel like there's Room for Improvement And I think

Here's my prediction Shit talking, just shit. No, no, here's my prediction I like the combat in the original Here's my prediction You play us to Spider-Man at the same time That's the other thing I was gonna mention At the same time

I think remember when Batman Arkham games Where you had the whole You play as Batman You kick enemy into the air And then Oh, it's like God of War style. It jumps in, and, yeah, God of War style.

I feel like you play as Peter and Miles. I would love to press circle and then, like, Miles does a... Because you're not switching between characters and God of War. I don't think you'd switch between... I think it will be similar where it's like you, you know, you set up a combo with Miles and Miles will jump in, or if you're playing as Miles, maybe you switch the character at some point. Or he's... Or Miles is swinging up, hidden dudes as well, but then you have that one ability that then utilizes Miles

to like freeze the dude and then you hit him or whatever. Because it feels like two villains, Craven and Venom, like, and they're both kind of like top tier villains for Spider-Man. Like I guess like Craven's not as big, but like I don't think you don't get bigger. Yeah, you don't get bigger than Venom. And also I don't think you dispose of Craven in the same way that you do like rhino or whatever in previous games. So I feel like having that duality of like two villains versus two superhero, you know,

heroes. I think that's kind of our clue that you're going to be controlling two characters at the same time. Also, like, from a development perspective, it makes sense because, like, they have that kind of knowledge with God of War as well. Like, I wouldn't be surprised that they were like, hey, how did you do this atreya stuff? I mind telling us? Like, we've got a whole Spider-Man set up that we want to work on with that. I know it's cheesy also, but like the game is called Spider-Man too, right? Like, I think there's something you can do with that in terms of, hey, Spider-Man one was Peter Parker's team. T-O-O-O-O-O-O. Oh, God-Diam. Spiderman also.

But yeah, like, we had... Better Man as well. We had the Peter Parker game. We had the Miles Morales game. In the debut trailer for Spider-Man 2. We saw them both, right? Side by side. We saw the two masks.

And I think that says something. I think that could be what you're talking about in terms of, yeah, what if we are controlling both at the same time? Or what if we're switching between characters? If you're swinging alongside Miles and you press a button and then you could, like, leap into the air and, like, grab Miles and throw him further

and, like, have each other. Like, he can use his web to swing you around. Literally describing no way home. Yeah, exactly. That kind of stuff. Like that would be so good. That would be awesome. And yeah,

that's my thing. Even if they added all that, I think that at the end of the day, this is probably going to be the same. I think it's going to be an eight out of ten. And I say that with Spider-Man being one of my most replayed and one of my most loved favorite games of all time. It's just fun.

Like to this day, I'll boot it up and just swing around New York because it's fun to swing around New York. I love that even after I've 100% of it, there's still random fucking goons that'll just pop up. And you hear the cop car go by and you're like, I guess I'm going to take you, motherfuckers out and I fuck them up because I'm powered up but I love that and I

as long as they just deliver more I think it'll be good I just really struggle to think it's going to be better like I think that they because to me the better would be the story in Utah about the last third and like some of the villains they kind of blew their load I think a little bit um and I don't have full faith that they're going to totally

nail all those things in a way that I'm I can say it's better but I do think it's going to be just as good and I think the story in Spider-Man is one of the best Spider-Man stories ever and I say that as somebody who thinks Spider-Man is the best superhero there is. I've read thousands of Spider-Man comics and watched almost all the shows. Like, I fucking love this character

and they really did it right. The most exciting part of it is I reckon, I mean, this is a very obvious thing. Wolverine will be in that game. I think this is the start of them setting up their universe. I think you will have some connective tissue to the Wolverine game

there. It makes too much sense. I think you see Daredevil. I would be pretty good. I'll pop for daredevil. Yeah. I think Wolverine will be in a newspaper. I think you'll read a thing about like a guy in Canada and he has claws. Yeah, maybe. Do we know of Wolverines in modern day also? Is he in the same time period?

I think in that trailer it was kind of, I think it was like a 70s or 80s thing. I know that doesn't really matter for Wolverine because I may just be living. Yeah. He just lives. He just lives forever. World War II doing stuff. It makes too much sense for them to not do it. Like, it has to happen.

I'm high, baby, let's go. Andy, Hollow Night Silk Song. Oh, man. I'm going to say that this is going to... No, there's no way it could rate higher than Silk Song, than the original. Because I think the original was such a kind of cool eye-opening experience

for a lot of people who wanted to try out a brand-new Metroidvania that gave you sort of the same, level of difficulties that you'd expect in a soul's like. I don't think it rates higher than the original. I think that the original was so... I think this is going to suffer like what I was just mentioning, Spider-Man's going to suffer from, where it's like, we've already seen this already.

Like, essentially, you're getting a new playable character. I think this is going to be a, I've said it before, a much better version of what we saw with playing as the King Knight expansion or the Plague Night expansion for Shovel Night. You're getting a lot of similar worlds, but new mechanics and new ways of moving around the world because you're playing as a completely different character. I don't think it rates as high, but I think it's still going to be kind of like Breath of the Wild, where Breath of the Wild was nines and a lot of tens. I think this will be eights and a lot of nines. I mean, I feel like you've...

get a lot of extra mileage out of having a improved like map system out of it and even if for me I'm like the one thing I didn't like about Holland was that map system it really pissed me off like I it's also why I dropped it like I've never finished that game

despite enjoying it just because I was like it's a map system is tedious it was very tedious yeah annoying and I feel like if they just even if it has like the same kind of gameplay on that level and then a better map system and little more discovery that kind of more quality of life sort of improved it's I I feel like that pushes it a bit higher even, but I reckon on par with currently.

Also, at a certain point now, we're expecting some sort of twist in that gameplay, right? Like, it's been in development for so long that it feels like they had something extra beyond what we, an equivalent of like an upside down castle or like you play as another character on top of this or something major that will be like, wow, this is why it took so long. I don't know. I think that it just was the need to keep on growing

what the product was because I think its initial idea was that Silicon was going to be a smaller sort of expansion and then it just kind of outgrew similar to what we had with what Corey Barlagas talked about with Ragnarok, how that was supposed to be

a sort of small thing and then it kind of expanded and it was like way bigger than they thought it was going to be. I think that's why Silk Song is taking so long. I would love that. I think there's something more to it. Obviously, it's taking long because it's a small development team.

Yeah. Like, yeah, they changed how it is and, like, development is not easy. And, but I think there's, there's a certain, I think there's a magic trick they're going to pull with that that we're not aware of yet. I think it's going to end up more like cup head DLC. Yeah. Where it's like, it was DLC, but like, it was half a game. But it was like more than people expected, but not enough to be like a full on thing. Is All the Night Sok-Song been pitched as a full game or as like a DLC expansion?

It's a full game. It's a full sequel. But I think at one point it was going to be... Yeah, it started off as a kind of like expansion almost. Which is why people have been talking about it for so long. Hold on PC, by the way, 87 on Metacritic and 90 on Switch. I mean, I do see your case though, Dan, that making those smaller quality of life improvements to make the experience a bit easier

and less, like, worry more about the difficult bosses and difficult enemies and don't worry so much about the toughness in getting around this world. Because I got lost plenty. That's a hard game to stream. God damn. Like, I would get lost and I'd be like... I streamed it as well, and I was like, I can't do that. I was a mistake.

This is hard for me. Like, it was a blast in the boss fights because they're so intense and they're just so beautifully designed. Not only just the enemy look and everything, but at what the game is asking of you mechanics-wise, but it is tough to kind of... It's easy to get lost, and especially with me

and just getting distracted all the time. It's really right. I made the same mistake with Metroid Prime where my first time playing this new version I streamed it and I was like, oh, this is a mistake. I got 50 minutes into the stream and after getting stuck for like the eighth time,

I'm like, no. That would be with Destiny because I'm just doing the Fran Mirabella thing, bless. I'm just in my menus and I love it. Like it's not even like a bad thing. I love tuning things and it's just really tough to do.

I want to close out the show with one more kind of taking all of 2023 into consideration Starfield Will it be better Than Now here's the thing But that's this last game

Fallout 4 I'm not gonna count 70s Also 70s Okay But in terms of like What this is the follow up too I would say Fallout 4

Is it gonna be better than fall off 4? I think it's in like Too Big to Fail territory Like they cannot have this games Let me tell you about CyroPunt 276 That's a good point Those are two very good points

But I think like I feel like Even based on what we've seen so far It's gonna be a better game Like Fallout 4 was more divisive than Three I think in a lot of people Yeah 100% more devices Because yeah

I like that game too A lot of people Yeah a lot of people I think it was the fact that like it came out And it was great But it wasn't like I think three I would say was Some extent revolutionary

At least one franchise It felt the problem was it felt quite plain Off in New Vegas as well Like because people always forget New Vegas, but that is secretly the best Fallout of the new era. And after playing that, going into 4, it was a little more like,

expectations were super high, and it for some parts of it, it hit, for others it didn't. But I think, like, the divisive nature of Fallout 4 means that a good game has a very strong chance of being, like, you know, performing way better. I think this is already

like, it's clear, like, it's more ambitious than Fallout ever was. It's clear that they have worked on the tech which is going to go a long, long way. Wall out for, like, despite being a better looking game than the previous fallouts, still very much felt dated in a way, in a bunch of ways, in that classically Bethes the Game Studios way. That is like both charming and annoying.

But this feels like it's kind of like built on new technology. They clearly have more ambition to it. I feel like it's going to perform way better. I think it's going to be received better as well. Lessons learned. Lessons learned. This is the game. I'm most anticipating this year

that I'm also the most scared about. Me too. Oh, yeah. I'm so excited and I'm so, like, curious and I want to play this game so bad, but I'm also, I think this has the biggest, it has the biggest chance to not be great at the end of the day, and that is for a number of reasons, right?

And I think the thing I keep coming back to is the big three when I think of, that I think of when I think of Western RPGs, which would be CD Project Red, Bethesda and Mass Effect Anthem, bioware. Yeah. They've all had big failures with, like, their latest projects.

And the further we go, the more I have the thought of, is it just impossible at this point? To put out a big, AAA expansive Western RPG, because whether it's expectation or whether it's budgets or whether it's technology is hard to keep up with because of the power of what we have and, like, trying to live up to all that. I don't know what the answer is, but it's been a while since we've gotten. a fucking banger one of these. Like, you know, I played Fallout 4. I really enjoyed Fallout 4. I played Outer Worlds.

Outer Worlds, you know, less with scope and whatever. But I enjoyed that game a lot too. I'm hoping to get at least that level of enjoyment out of this, right? I played CyroPunk and I enjoyed Cyropunk. But like none of these are the next big step for like Western RPGs. And I don't think Starfew even has to be that. It just has to live up to what a Bethesda RPG is, right? It has to be solid.

It has to be expansive. It has to have a story that is fire. It has to have a faction system that we fuck with. right and like you know they're i think they're going for that with a new IP that looks interesting has this weird different NASA uh kind of style to it and i think has like a lot of promising things to it but then also has other things where you know look at the gameplay and they get into some of the no man sky breaking out materials like scanning type stuff and i'm like oh interesting okay that's different you look at the combat and it's first person first person shooter stuff and it's

like okay like this looks this looks like a bethazda game right like this looks like something but none of it so far has blown me away where I'm like oh let's freaking go I can't wait for this there have been like the sit downs that they've had talking with each other where Todd Howard and the crew was talking about like things like factions and things like story where I'm like oh okay this does sound interesting but I don't know I'm so scared like I've not been completely sold on it yet but I'm like I'm looking forward to it because it's Bethesda I know what to expect with that I think the immersive nature of getting caught up in really awesome side quest is kind of what

I need the most from Starfield. I feel like the main story taker, leave it for me. Like, I may or may not care about the, the grander scale of what's happening in the main story. I just love in those moments, like in games, like Outer Worlds or

any other RPGs where you just come across a really interesting NPC who has something from you, and then you continue down that mission, and you're getting like the most intense dialogue or just really, like, you're discovering, I'll never forget this one MPC in Outer Worlds, um, asked me for something and then it ended up, uh, I ended up finding out that this dude had, uh, abandoned all of his crewmates that he was telling

me that they were like his family. And this dude left them because he needed to leave the planet but without them. And he felt really, really awful about it. But he's also a shitty person. And And it's those moments of like, which side of humanity are you going to side with? Are you going to try to kill him because you know that he did wrong? Are you going to talk shit to him because you know he did wrong? Or are you going to sympathize with this broken person in front of you? Like, it's that sort of shit that I need from Starfield. And I really hope that they deliver on that front.

How do you think this launches in terms of how it runs? Because Bethesda notorious for putting out big games that have a lot of bugs to them. Lessons will not be learned. I it kind of depends on this I feel like we're finally at this stage where they get in they have something to prove and they want to prove it but like creation engine too I feel like they've probably done a lot of work to be like let's get this as rock till as we can so we can finally stop hearing about how busted our games are but also I'm not 100% clear on the scale of this game completely lately

because like you know there's exploration and planets and that kind of stuff but like how big is it and the big it is the more chance that it's going to start falling over and falling over itself. So like we've got like planet stuff here and moving around. So it kind of really depends on that and then the systems that are in place. I think it's going to be a better experience overall. But I also feel like it's going to have some of that classic jank. Here's thing, right?

Look at this massive X scanning planets. From TechRadar, according to the Starfield official gameplay reveal trailer, there are over 100 systems with over 1,000 planets, which are all open. games busted. It's never working. They're all open for you to explore. And you've got to imagine that a good amount of those are procedurally generated.

Yeah. But then we get back into the No Man Sky thing of like, is that going to be good content? Like, what does that look like? Am I going to those planets to mine material so I can upgrade certain weapons and then go to the actual, what do they call unicorn planets or like, I forget the name. There's a name for planet. Yeah. The ones that are like...

I think it is a unicorn planet. Unicorn planet? Yeah. Like I, what I'm hoping is, well, what I'm expecting, like you just mentioned is that a lot of these are procedural, but I would love for some of these, even procedural ones, the ones that aren't extremely designed to at least have an important outposts that we need to visit with an important NPC, where the rest of the world may not be extremely handcrafted, but it still has some level of importance, and it isn't just running around looking for materials

and scanning for a rare, unobtainium or whatever. I typed in Unicorn Planet on Google. Is that a band? What are you watching? And I will brought up fucking trolly the unicorn shit. Planet unicorn came up. Yeah, it is this fucking animated internet

video. Goldilocks planets. Thank you all. That's what it is. Michael says round robin. That's what it is. I love it. Use his terms,

man. It's great. It's great. I'm close. You know what I've been. What is that? Uniform planet. Well, that's 2023, y'all.

Tim, thank you for joining us. Where can people find you? Thank you for having me. You can find me at GameSpot and Giant Bomb. I'm on Twitter. Twitch. Twitch. Twitch.tvu4-flash-TamoreH.

You see it in a valent. Oh, let's go. Let's go. I'm always in there. Cannesract too. Yeah. I'm down. I'm at Tomorhach on Twitter and Instagram as well.

So come and follow me. Yeah, go. Follow them, everybody. And then let us know in the comments below what lessons you've learned. Okay? Or maybe not. Whatever you prefer. I'm not your dad.

I love you all. Goodbye.