Retronauts - 734: Shadow Labyrinth

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

Diamond Feit and Christa Lee chow down on the recent Bandai Namco star-studded lore-laden Metroidvania Shadow Labyrinth (featuring Pac-Man). Retronauts is made possible by listener support through Patreon! Support the show to enjoy ad-free early access, better audio quality, and great exclusive content. Learn more at http://www.patreon.com/retronauts 

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I find it hard to take. When people run in circles, it's a very, very... Pac-Man! Pac-Man! Hello, welcome back to Retronauts. Welcome back to this very somber episode, as you can tell. I'm sure the emotions I committed to that song got you on the hook for this episode all about Shadow Labyrinth. Now wait, whoa, whoa, whoa.

I know what you're saying. I hear you. I hear you. comments. That's a game that came out mere months ago. That's not retro. You're wrong. You're wrong because this game has retro blood. It has retro soul. And it is steeped in the deepest of arcade lore that we couldn't not talk about it. I'm your host, by the way, Diamond Fight. My eyes are definitely bigger than my stomach. And I'm joined here today by a returning guest. please introduce yourself to everybody back at home.

Hi, everyone. I'm Krista Lee. I've been on here before. I'm probably the loudest shadow labyrinth defender in the world. So they made this game for me. Yes, thank you for joining us, Krista, because, yeah, exactly. This game came out this summer, and I should actually say up front, Namco Bandai or their promotional team, whatever. They sent us a code at Retronauts, and I accepted that code. Thank you very much for the code. And then I played this game, a good chunk of my summer,

spent playing this game. And when I was done, I was kind of amazed at how little I heard about it, how little I could read about it. You know, I went online looking for, you know, guides, maybe some tips on how to beat certain bosses or how to find certain, you know, hard to recover items. And I just, I really couldn't find any of that stuff. And I feel like this game came out.

and immediately was met with silence, or people just moved on to another game or something. So the fact that you've been out here talking about it told me, well, if I get Kristen on the horn, the two of us can find out what there is to say about Shadow Labyrinth that people haven't spoken about publicly. Hopefully we can get to the bottom of it. There's quite a lot. So to talk about Shadow Labyrinth, I guess we need to talk about first about Pac-Man. Now, I trust our listeners know Pac-Man pretty well. I'd like to think he's one of the more iconic video game characters that have ever existed.

Krista, I know you are a young person, but I trust... I trust you have grown up and you've lived a life rich in Pac-Man. Yeah, I got Pac-Man World when it was new. Okay. I was a child when Pac-Man World came out, so I'm not that old. I mean, I'm not that young. You know, I definitely missed the boat on like Pac-Man, Pac-Land. I love Pac-Land and Pac-Mania.

Those are tremendous games. But, yeah, the Pac-Man world was kind of the first one I played when it was new. Yeah, well, for me, you know, I go way back to the arcade Pac-Man, which, you know, was a thrill. And I've seen many packs come and go over the years. And one thing that kind of struck out to me is that, you know, Pac-Man is that, you know, Pac-Man is there a laugh-us, but as far as game characters from the era go, like, Pac-Man is just, he's not Mario, you know, like, Mario went from one little game to another little game to a big game, and now, like, Mario is in almost every game, and, you know, Nintendo, like, puts out so much Mario stuff every year, and Pac-Man just isn't, that's not Pac-Man's bag, you know? Yeah. When Pac-Man comes out, he has these games, he has cartoons, he has games that tie into the cartoons, but so many of Pac-Man's games just kind of look like the Pac-Man game that everyone recognizes, you know?

Like, I'm thinking back to Pac-Man 256, which is actually more Crossy Road, which is actually more Frogger, but, you know, it's the thing that people look at, like, oh, I recognize this Pac-Man from when I was a child or a teenager. Like everyone, so many Pac-Man experiences seem to flow directly into that. It's like, oh, here's something you remember, right? Here it is. Right, right. Here's Pac-Man. Here's the ghosts. Even though, as you've already noted, like, there's been plenty of Pac-Man games that don't

look anything like that. Do you have a favorite of Pac-Man games that do not look like Pac-Man games? Well, I mean, I think Pac-Land. I think the importance of Pac-Land is, like, really massively overlooked. Like, that game came out before Makai Mutha or Super Marti. Brothers and like is essentially laying the groundwork for like the entire like obviously pitfall predates it I think I'm getting my dates right but like the sort of modern the late 80s mid 80s conception of the like side scrolling platformer I mean packland is right there it's just laying

down the groundwork for the whole thing I that one's really phenomenal I pack mania I have a soft spot for I think it's this really the graphics really cool I really like the isometric viewpoint but pack land probably is the one that I would that I would most go to bat for. As, like, I think that should, that game should be, like, spoken of in the same terms as Pac-Man. Like, I think it's a really, really big deal game. So, yeah, Bandai Namcoe, it was Namcoe, but now it's Bandai Namcoe. They do their part, you know, they release Pac-Games periodically, they release compilations

periodically where they put all the Pac-Man games together. They don't like to put Miss Pac-Man in there because of, you know, issues. But generally speaking, many, many, many Pac-Man games remain available to people. to play. But you got to figure somewhere in those offices in Tokyo, I think, they're having conversations maybe every day about what can we do with Pac-Man? What can Pac-Man do that Pac-Man hasn't done before? And on that angle, we have a quote from producer Seigo-Aizawa. This was given last year. He said, Pac-Man has historically been a family game. And we wanted to reach a new fan that has never played

Pac-Man before. When we thought about that, we went back to the origin of Pac-Man, which is the maze. And when we thought about the maze, we thought that the 2D action platformer might be the best genre. And that's where we thought, maybe

a dark Pac-Man might fit perfectly well. It might. Now, I'm not going to argue with Sega's math there. I just feel like some incredible leaps have occurred in those three sentences? I'm glad they occurred. I mean, we're here to talk about a game that we both find fascinating to very degree. So I'm glad we got

this. But yeah, I really don't know how you think about, oh, it's a maze. You know what else is a maze? Those two D-action platformers people like. And also from Aizawa, he says the idea started four years ago, and he gave this quote last year. So we're talking about 2020 when they were brainstorming it. Now, to me, I had to look this up, just to make sure, Hollow Knight, I feel like it's safe to say there's a lot of Hollow Night in Shadow Labyrinth and Hollow Night 2017. So they definitely saw Hollow Night before they, when they were brainstorming this. I also think about Ender Lillies. To me, this game has some Ender Lillies energy. And that game wasn't out in 2020, but it was announced. So they definitely would have seen some footage of it.

and I'm pretty sure that's a Japanese game as well. So, like, that, that definitely would have been in their ecosystem if they were making any kind of 2D action platform or they would have noticed this, you know, somewhat dark, somewhat moody game where a character runs around and has, you know, has these abilities and explores a map and all these things. Yeah. Oh, just as a side note, Inder Lillies was developed in part by LiveWire, which is the company that, um, all the cave developers when they kind of jump ship. LiveWire's been doing the like Mushi Hemi-Sama ports and everything. So he also did Harvestela. So an ad globe,

whoever that is, and LiveWire did inter-release. So yeah, Japanese. Yeah. And like, so yeah, their cave. I bet I bet cave people and Bandai Namco people like, they must meet up. They must meet up and have, you know, have some beers every once in a while. It's got to happen.

Absolutely. But in brainstorming, they thought up this idea and they thought up a title, Shadow Labyrinth. and people ask them like, well, why don't call it Pac-Man shadow labyrinth? And Izo had answered for that, too. I was talking to Rolling Stone last year, maybe this year. I always said, Pac-Man has historically been a family game, and we wanted to brand this game in a different way.

So they thought about Pac-Man, they thought about the maze, and that connected them to the Metrovania idea, but they didn't want to call the game Pac-Man because they didn't want to give the idea of, I guess, classic Pac-Man. So they went with something different. I don't know. I'm kind of a two minds of this. I feel like on the one hand, if you call a game Pac-Man colon something, you get a lot more attention because everyone knows what Pac-Man is. But on the other hand, this game is obviously not a traditional Pac-Man game.

And as you were explaining me before we started recording, it really ties into more other games from their catalog to the point that calling it Pac-Man Shadow Labyrinth might be doing it a disservice. Yeah, yeah, I think it sets expectations in the wrong place if you do that, if you call it Pac-Man, colon. In any case, they did not use the colon, the colon, there's no colon there. It's just called Shadow Labyrinth, you know, it's like 2001 new TV show called Enterprise. It could be any Enterprise. We don't know which one it is. There is a little Pac-Man in the logo, like the Arrow that's in the UPS logo.

Oh, you know, I don't think I noticed the little tiny Shepard. Caddo Labyrinth Pac-Man logo. Oh, my goodness. I'll look for that one carefully. Once you see it, it'll be very obvious. It's a no-oh. It's like the FedEx arrow. Oh, yeah? Yeah, yeah. For FedEx, not UBS. You're right, FedEx. How could I forget? Well, speaking in 2024, that's when everything sort of comes to light. So let's go back almost an entire year to the heyday of December, 24, where we're all just feeling so great about life and the world and our future. Yeah, it was great. And in the span of one week, two incredible things occur.

Number one, secret level premieres in Amazon Prime. Secret level is like an anthology show. Each little short, animated short, is based on some popular video game thing. So a bunch of companies, these are all officially licensed. There are all the companies on board. And episode seven of this anthology series is just called Pac-Man colon circle. And for viewers are tuned in, what do they see? they see a guy

A guy wakes up in a slimy sci-fi lab, everything's ruined meets Talking Orb convincing this guy he's got to fight some monsters Talking Orb calls the guy The Chosen because he's the one

who's going to escape the maze The orb and the guy They team up And eventually they physically merge To make a giant black Sort of like gooey mouth Pac-Man

Like not a sharp edge mouth like a gooey mouth, you know? Yeah. It kind of gross. But the guy rejects the orb. The guy dies. And the orb has no arms, but the orb shrugs and says, oh, well, time to wake up the next guy and starts all over. You know, the loop's complete.

IGN called this the single worst episode of Screw Level. Huh. Which, you know, I think they're being a little harsh. But still, definitely compared to the other episodes, which looked like. the game it resembled. Pac-Man Circle obviously did not resemble anything Pac-Man that we kind of associate with. Yeah. I didn't watch Secret Level when it premiered.

No, I only watched it because we're recording this. So it was like, I need to make sure I go back and gather every piece of public available data on Shadow Labyrinth. Right. Yeah, I love like nassie, gory, like gross anime and stuff and like horror. Like, I don't have a problem with that. but I found the like the gore and the violence in that short just really unpleasant. Like just the framing of it just was really, really upsetting. But very important, the cape that the swordsman is wearing says UGSF on it.

Oh. So, you know, it did its job, I guess. Everything's there. Everything's there for the signs are all there for us to see. If we only have to open our eyes and look. Oh, fun fact, though, when I was analyzing this. So the orb in the secret level episode was voiced by Emily Swallow, and she's not a name I recognize until I looked at her credits. And Emily Swallow voiced Lisa in the Castlevania anime.

Huh. So when Dracula screams, you know, what did you do to my wife? He's talking about Emily Swallow. Huh. I, yeah, I like, I was on Twitter and somebody was like, so it turns out that that secret level episode is like a big Zevius lore dump. And I, like, saw that tweet and I was like, oh, God, I'm going to have to watch this thing. But it all worked out. Indeed.

For two days later, we had the 2024 game awards. Somehow they keep making those. I don't know why. But it happened again last year. It's going to happen again this year. And during the show, as they're want to do, they premiered a brand new trailer for this game called Shadow Labyrinth. And the trailer they show, while not resent. assembling, like, you know, there's not really the same level of, you know, slime or goop in the game as in the short, but still, the trailer very much uses the same language and some icon, some iconography that clearly ties it to the short.

So everyone's like, wait, wait, wait, that thing that just came out a few days ago, that's a real game now? And Bandai Namco said, yes, that's a real game. The tagline is Consumed Darkness. It's a game called Shadow Labyrinth, and we're releasing it next year. And I have a quote here from Tim Miller, who is the creator of Secret Level. And I just want you to listeners out there, please remember that when Tim Miller said these words to another human being, he was already 60 years old. So just keep that in mind. I'm going to try to capture the energy here.

Excuse me. Good luck, yeah. When we talk to the developers, they said, you can do whatever you want for Pac-Man. but can we show you what we're doing for the next game? He told them to tip weekly. What they showed us was so effed up and off the hook. It was a swordsman, wandering the apocalypse wasteland, Pac-Man was a mobile gun platform,

and the ghosts were these mutant things. It was so effed up. If you gave me a million dollars to guess where the next Pac-Man game would be, I wouldn't have got there. My apologies to Tim Miller and his family. I really enjoyed Terminator Dark Fate, just for the record. Yeah, I'm sorry.

Sorry for that. So, yeah, according to everyone involved, all these ideas for the dark Pac-Man thing had been brewing in the background for, you know, at least four years. And then someone from Amazon reaches out to Bandanamco, and they said, oh, you want a Pac-Man story? Well, working on this kind of Pac-Man idea, and the two mesh together, and that's how we get the animated short

and the new game directly connecting, because as we as we see in the short a swordsman you know the swordsman is there the swordsman dies the orb's like okay time to get new swordsman so in the game the swordsman is is identified as number eight which is just like suggesting that they have tried this seven times before and things didn't work out and one of those attempts was clearly in the secret level short have you beaten the game I have not, and we'll talk about exactly why I've not beaten the game. Okay, I was just curious about it for plot stuff. Okay.

Yeah, I feel we're probably going to spoil some stuff, but I don't know. I'm going to lead up to you to what might be determined to spoiler or not. I feel like this game, this game actually has a lot of story elements to it, but it's also primarily an action game. And I feel like if you just sit down and enjoy it, I don't know that anything we say in this episode might spoil it. that for you. Yeah, I'll be careful. There's some things I won't want to want to volunteer, but also I think that like this game is most interesting if you kind of know all of the things that's gesturing at. And so that kind of involves things that people might call spoilers. So, but I won't, I won't spoil the whole ending or anything. Wonderful. Thank. We appreciate that.

I don't know what I'm going to be able to be. I'm going to be. You know, I'm trying to So let's talk about Sorsman number eight, because that's who you control in this game. Swordsman Little Eight, it's a little guy doesn't talk, or at least I don't remember seeing them talk at all. Interesting, we call them a swordsman, but they don't. actually carry a sword.

Early in the game, you wake up and you, you know, in the game, the guy wakes up and is already wearing this sort of tattered poncho or whatever. And the orb's like, hey, well, welcome back. Let's go. We got business to take care of. And the swordsman

tries to pick up the sword that's just laid out for him and can't do it. But they get a piece of, I believe it's called active. Active tech or just active. Active. Which becomes like a makeshift. arm. And so the swordsman wearing this cloak thing has kind of a floating arm. And the floating arm is what carries the sword. Interestingly, when you start the game up, it shows a little boy

playing a Nintendo Switch looking console in like in what I assume is supposed to be like Tokyo or something. And the music when you enter this game is like a, it's like a riff on John Coltrane's a love supreme. I don't mean that hyperbolicly at all. Like, it really has the same sort of texture and, like, character as that, which is just an incredible scene setting for a video game about Pac-Man nominally. And then your soul comes out of a, like, what appears to be Solvolo from Zevius. Like, you're like, it opens, the cockpit of, like, what appears to be Solvolo opens, and

then the swordsman comes out of it, implying that, like, the swordsman is, like, the soul of a person from another world, from our world, nominally. And this is sort of, this isn't spoilers, it's like the first thing that happens. But very interesting framing for this character, who then, like you said, can't pick up a sword. But with your sort of prosthetic arm and your sword in the permanently in your hand, combat-wise, it's actually very simple at first.

Like, you only have one attack button, you swing the sword. Eventually, you get sort of a special attack, which consumes meter. You have an ESP. It's called, I think it's ESP of the acronym not, like, Esper, anything, right? It's ESP, I think ESP, right?

Yeah. You have an ESP meter. You've got a special attack that drains the meter. The first one you get is just like a bigger slash, which you can combo into from your regular slashes.

But as the game goes on, you can unlock and activate different ESP techniques. I found one that was probably the most useless one for me was the grenades because not like can you throw them in a game that's mostly about sword fighting,

but you can, you can remote detonate them, which really helps out when you're trying to stink up as enemies who can't see you, and you can just throw the grenade over there and press the button and just blow it up and it does a huge amount of damage to most things. It's like, okay, lovely. I love this. I love throwing grenades in melee games. Also, you get Dodge Roll. Dodge Roll also uses your ESP meter. Eventually, you get the Air Dodge, and you can unlock a special thing, which we'll get to later, where your air dodge is actually an attack, which I loved personally, because again, once you turn the dodge roll into an actual offensive move, then I'm like fighting people and slashing people and then jumping and air dodging into their body and dealing damage and then slicing their back. So while this combat starts off very simple, it didn't take me that long to figure out, oh boy, you can really get into this and do some fun stuff.

And just sort of baffle enemies if you're, if you're fast enough and nimble. Yeah. When this game came out, it got a lot of flack from, from reviewers for being like, I don't, like, two. You only have a three hit combo. It was a complaint that happened a lot. But like, it's rigidity, I think is a, like, it's nice to have a game that's just like, this is the attack. You do the attack string.

There's one attack that you can, there's one ESP that is like a cancel for that, that does another attack, like kind of a short distance attack. Like, there's a lot of, like, nuance in the way you can deploy these inputs, even though they're not, you know, you don't have, like, big Devil May Cry combos or anything like that. Like, it's really satisfying once you get into the groove with it. Hmm. Oh, Devil May Cry, you mean the freestyle action game. Yeah.

Yeah. That's what we're calling him now. Yes, thank you. And that's, you get more abilities that the game goes on. Eventually, your little prosthetic arm turns into, like, basically a grappling hook, which I always appreciate games of grappling hooks, especially because the grappling hook can latch on to enemies as well as certain surfaces. So then again, I'm like, jump, grapple an enemy, slash, roll through them, slash again.

And then I think I can grapple them one more time and maybe do one more hit. Like, you can do a lot in the air once you get the grapple hook, which I loved. I love that part. And there's also upgrades that give you a parry, because of course it's a parry. Of course, but I, for one, I don't know. I'm not a big parry person, but I found the parry in this game to work out pretty well. I liked it. Yeah, I'm sick to death of parries in every video game, but I found the parry in this really satisfying.

Like, I'm going to say this, and it's going to sound like a bad thing, but I, I, the, the hitboxes and the timings and such can often be a little bit kind of loosey-goosey. It's a little bit, like, you really have to feel it out, take a couple hits to really understand where the hipbox is and when it's out. And, like, a lot of the bosses, like, figuring out the Perry timings is, like, really interesting in a way that, like, it has, like, a lot of games to Perry, you know, in Dark Souls or something, like, the Perry's happening when the sword is, like, within my, like, vicinity. Like, it's, there's no, there's no ambiguity to it unless they're doing, like, a really fast strike or one of those silly Eldon Ring strikes where they, like, hold the sword back for, like, 20 minutes before they attack. But this one, like, yeah, I found a lot of nuance and, like, interesting stuff to, chew on in the parry and like yeah it's it's really cool and we should have mentioned that bandan emco publishes those dark souls games and i think elden ring as well so these are they definitely know about the dark souls phenomenon at bandan emco they are they love every minute of it they are

cash in those checks every day yeah there's an area in the game that that feels like it's it's nodding to them i even found a shield at one point which i personally never used because it basically burns all your ESP while you put up a shield. But that's another option for people to use in certain situations. I bet there are boss battles where it's like, if you use the shield it's just the right time, you can completely destroy the boss. I bet that's a thing that someone figured out, but I didn't figure it out. Yeah, I imagine so. I don't think I ever used it really either. Oh, that's right. For me, the best thing with the parry is eventually you can unlock an ability that reflects projectiles. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there are some boss battles where it's

like, oh, if you can reflect the protectors back of them, they are like, shit out of luck. Like, I'm, I guess I'll die, you know, just. Right. Or in some cases, the parry will just cancel something. Like, there's some bosses that launch attacks that essentially linger. And you can dodge it, but then the attack still, like, hits the ground and creates, like, a dust cloud or some kind of like fire or whatever. Whereas if you parry it, it just cancels the attack entirely. Right.

So it's really to your advantage to, A, learn the time of the parry, and, B, learn what the parry does in different situations, because it's not always about dealing damage. Sometimes it's about preserving sort of real estate for you to navigate during the fight. Yeah. And there are even, there are some boss fights where doing parries and things like that are like you can control the behavior of the boss to some extent. Yes, absolutely, absolutely. Orb. The orb is here. We got the swordsman. The orb is there, just like in the cartoon, but the orb here is called Puck. Now, again, I think listeners of this podcast have probably seen the movie Scott Pilgrim versus the world. So you know the Puckman story. We all know the Puckman story. I've been to, not to humble brag here, but I've been to Band Dynamco headquarters. I've seen the Puckman machine in the lobby. I know what they've got. They've got the Puckman machine. I know what the Puckman. So we got your little orb guy And in the case of this game

The orb puck They do all the talking They talk to us They talk to other characters They get an argument with other characters And sometimes they can go on a bit of an expedition dump But in general They're there to help you

Or at least you think they're to help you Because they're the one telling you Hey pick up this sword Oh hey let's open this door Oh, let's move on to the next level, and we got to get out of here. Oh, that person's dangerous. We better fight them. So it's like, you know, the classic, you know, girl in the ear phenomenon.

But instead of a girl, it's an orb and it's floating right in front of your face. So it's not in your ear. However, the swordsman and puck do have certain symbiotic elements. For example, pretty early in the game, you'll stumble onto what looks like something from like Tron. and you'll discover it's called a derail and when you stand on a derail you and Puck sort of become just Puck

and Puck basically takes over and then you're kind of playing like a Pac-Man platformer almost in that you ride the rail and you can go any direction of the rail goes in you can just run up straight walls upside down

you just run the rail and the rail has dots on it in this game the dots are currency they're called ORA so you eat the aura and you spend the aura to get upgrades later on and then you have this little

you'll have sort of scenes where you're bringing around jumping and then you'll have scenes where you're basically in Puck form and you have to navigate those areas differently because Puck doesn't move the same way as the swordsman moves

although you can tap the attack button and do like a sword slash like spinny attack which is very satisfying when it hits. I like that move. Yeah.

Because it's also kind of mobility-related which is also a big thing for me, it's like, yeah, oh, this is a mobility move, and it slashes people as you move, so win-win. And then there's Gaia. How would you explain Gaia to listeners? What is Gaia? Because Gaia is actually the thing you control at the very, very start of the game. You play as Gaia before any swordsman or orbs appear.

Yeah, Gaia is a UGSF, Meccaroid, something or other, that I think was deployed in Operation Ragnarok in the canceled Arcade RTS New Space Order, that you control, I don't know, I guess it was left on the planet after that war that we didn't see because that game was not made. But it is crucial. So, yeah, it's like a, it's like a big robot. It's like a, it runs on all fours. I can't quite figure out how to describe it.

But it's a big robot with like an orb for a stomach that is clearly like a Pac-Man shaped. And you can eat things by pressing the R3, which is kind of an awkward input. Was it R3 or L3? I believe it's R3. R3. And then pressing L3 and R3 together like, like, God of war basically gives you, you like become Gaia as like kind of a longer term thing. When you do the eating, you just kind of pop into Gaia really quick to eat something.

When you turn into Gaia, you have like a meter that you've built up over time. And like you can basically, basically invulnerable. You can eat things without the kind of penalty to mobility that using the pop out Gaia eating thing does. You can, there's like a, there's some traversal. elements that Gaia can withstand like high heat and such. When you eat monsters, one of the big things here is eating monsters

gives you materials. Materials are used to buy resources, upgrades, and things like that from various vendors. I think that's pretty much it with Gaia without going into like super lore dump territory. But yeah, that's basically it. So most of the game you're the swordsman,

sometimes you're puck, and then at very select times when your meter is full, you can basically go full Gaia. But otherwise, Gaia is almost like a stand in that you sort of summon it to grab a monster corpse and just devour it. Sorry, I was mistaken. I'm pretty sure Gaia is from either Operation Cheyenne or Operation Panzer. So I apologize for that, for being wrong about that. All right. Well, we all get one strike. That's your one strike for the episode. Thank you. I'll never misrepresented UGSF lore again. I'll keep track of that on this very important piece of paper. There we go.

Thank you. But yeah, the Gaia thing to me is funny because it's tied to a meter and because the meter basically only refills as you eat stuff, I definitely wanted to eat things because I wanted to get the materials. But also, when you summon Gaia to eat something when you're in the swordsman form, it's a very slow deliberate act like guy emerges the claw comes out you can sort of guide the claw like it's it's interesting that the claw has a very large hitbox and you can guide it somewhat like I definitely enjoyed like jumping over someone and clawing downward it just looks stylish

to me like I'm in midair I'm snacking and snacking as I fly but all of this requires multiple seconds of commitment. So, like, if you're in the middle of fighting stuff, you cannot just stop the fight to snack because you're, you're going to get hit by something. Something that's going to walk up to you and punch you in the mouth. But the advantage of that is, if you go ahead and finish the fight really quickly, you can just single grab and devour any number of things that are, like, stacked on top each other, which is very convenient. So, so Guy has no limit to the amount of things that can eat at once, but because each activate, uses some of the

uses the S meter when you're in swordsment form. So it's like, if you use it too much, you can suddenly be, you've got nothing left to do. You can't dodge or you can't do anything. So the game is constantly basically telling you here are lots of things you can do. But for God's sakes,

you can't do everything at once because your meter will run out and then you'll be helpless. Which is interesting, I feel like, because it's a game that gives you a lot of tools, but it really does make you think about how to, use those tools at the right time. Yeah, it's really focused on the opportunity cost of that.

There are some materials that you can only get from like respawning subbosses. Yes. And in order to get them, like if you kill them, they'll just die and you can't eat them. But if you get their stagger meter all the way up, which usually involves a discrete interaction, like parrying them or hitting them with a specific active, like the grenade or if you do that enough times, Like, if you figure out what the thing is that their stagger is responding to, then if you get their stagger all the way up, then you can eat them. It doesn't actually kill them. Like, you're just consuming a portion of them, I guess.

I don't, the justification for that is a little unclear to me. But, like, it's an interesting, like, it forces you to also learn more about these other enemies and then the timing to have, like, you have to, because using active, it costs ESP meter. and then but also using Gaia costs ESP meter, the amount of meter you have left when you stagger them is important to keep tabs on because if you do not have it, like if you have to wait for your ESP meter to refill,

the boss might get up from the stagger, at which point you squandered that opportunity, which might have taken a while to get to. So there's all these little things going on that you're kind of managing and thinking about in parallel. It's really nuanced and interesting. And also, we're talking about bosses and exploring, which also mentioned that the game actually has a day-night cycle, which, for the most part, doesn't matter except in certain areas. Because there are certain monsters that will come out at night, and you definitely want to eat that monster for the juicy monster parts to get some upgrade later.

And then there's a whole area where I believe it's the nighttime is just poisonous. Yeah. Like you immediately get infected with poison, and you immediately get infected with poison, and you, you're, you're, you immediately get infected with poison. and your life drains, like, super fast. Like, not even, it's not even a slow burn. It's like, no, you're dying right now. You must leave. Yeah, that's the Dark Souls area.

Yeah, which becomes the whole thing where you have to manage. So, like, that, it's funny how that only in that area area do you get a, like, an on-screen visual of here's what time it is. Because for most of the game, it's just kind of like a bonus. But in this area, it's like, no, no, no. You need to know what time it is because when it gets to poison a clock, you better be inside or else it's over and of course the whole boss's the boss's whole thing is poison-based attacks which completely ruin your life if you get stuck so yeah it's it's a whole thing

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So we've said the M word a couple of times, Metroidvania. What do you think? In your gut, Krista, in your guts inside you, what, is this a Metroidvania? I guess so. I'm not a big Metroidvania fan and I liked it a lot. So take from that what you will. I mean, I think so. You know, you're exploring the map and you're, you're, You're filling it out and you get items that let you go to places you couldn't go before. I don't really know by what logic you would assert that it isn't a Metroidvania, I guess.

Like, it kind of all roads lead to Metroidvania, I think, here. It's a very popular word, and it's a very popular genre for sure. We do have a quote from brand marketing manager, Noah Piasik. P-I-A-S-E-K. I'm guessing how to pronounce their name. They spoke to Rolling Stone, and they said, we are not calling an amateur rating ourselves, although we do acknowledge that people would absolutely categorize it like that.

We're being a little ton of cheek and also calling it a pack and slash. Yeah, that's the marketing savvy that made this game a hit. That's it. That's the juice. That's the juice that Noah brings to the conversation. I'm sure Noah's fine, but pack and slash is an atrocity. Terrible. No offense to our friends at the brand marketing managers of game companies.

But just, yeah, I'm not going on Pagoslash. Sorry, we're not calling that. No, no. Well, one thing that I noticed is that unlike a lot of other Metroidvanias, there is no experience point system and there is no leveling. So, you gain, everything you gain upgrade-wise, you either find something or you buy something. Or you beat a boss, and the boss gives you a new power, which is another Pact moment, actually. When you beat a big boss, your swordsman and Pek fuse together, and that creates the giant Black Pac-Man that was in the cartoon, and it sort of not goryly, just comically, eats the boss. Just a big old chomp.

And like, oh, I eat the boss now. And that gives you some kind of new power. Although some of the new power is just like, yeah, here's a shield attack. Oh, thanks. I don't need one. It's a little arbitrary, yes. Also important when you're playing the game, there are no health refills from enemies. Enemies just do not – I think – I don't think enemies drop anything real.

Like, it's just like you kill them and if you eat them, you get materials. I think that's it, right. They don't really refill anything. I think they drop aura. Oh, yes. That's right. Orra. I'm sorry.

They do drop the currency. But if you want to heal yourself, you have to use these HP tanks, which are basically – it's basically an s-is-flask. It's a real. We know what it is. is. You start the game with one. You can get more later on. You refill them at save points, but only sometimes. We'll talk about that in a second. I also believe that deep in the volcano areas, you can find hot springs that heal you, but those are very rare. But it's a cute touch. That was a cute touch. See a little hot spring. Oh, yeah. Hot spring, of course.

Japanese video game is not going to not have an own sin. Let's get real. Yeah. I'm sure it's a kid at Gris reference. Also important is that in Shadow Lebrinth, we have perks. And yes, they are called perks. It's an all capital word. So I guess it's either a proper noun or an acronym. I'm not sure. But the perks are almost identical to the badges in Hollow Night in that you find

different ones and each perk has its own value. And the swordsman has a set, like almost like material slots from Final Fantasy. Like, you can only equip so many perks at once that fit this value. But, of course, as the game goes along, you can unlock more slots. And, you know, by the end of the game, I think I had at least, like, eight or nine slots so I could fill with perks. Because some of the more powerful perks, of course, take up, like, two or even three slots, you know, like the ones that give you, like, more health. Or, I know there's one that just gives you an extra HP tank, just a permanent extra tank. Yeah.

The adding an attack to your dodge roll, that's a perk. Reflecting projectiles with parries, that's a perk. There's a lot of perks. I never found them all. I think most people didn't find them all, honestly. I think if you look at the Steve achievements, but... Yeah, there's a couple I didn't go after, because that involved, like, I think the ones I really avoided were the ones where you have to farm a specific resource from, like, a sub-boss. I didn't want to do that.

And some of the perks are even disposable. Like, some of the perks say you will lose this perk if you die. Yeah. Yeah, there's a couple of, like, Dark Souls kind of thing, yeah. Right. And for me, considering how, you know, it's not always easy to get the materials. So I'm like, I'm not about to put these materials into a thing that's just going to go away. Yeah.

Because, spoiler alert, this, I died a lot playing this game, like, way more than I expected to be dying in a Pac-Man video game. Yeah. I'll say it up front. Say that up front. I died a lot. It's hard. It's hard, yeah. Yes.

Let's talk about the save points. So the safe points have a name because, of course, to do. The save points are called Mikusol? Mekusol, yeah. I don't know if Bandanemco published... No, that's Sega, isn't it? That's Sega, no. Yeah, okay.

I'm sure it's words in the Zevi language, but I don't know what it... Right. I don't know how to translate Zevi, so... Oh, you don't... You don't flake the fool with Zevi? What do you talk about you? I know. I'm working on it. What are you doing this podcast, Krista? Come on.

I know. I'm a fraud. But anyway, yeah, Miko Souls are your bonfires, your save points. You know, you stop there. rest up, they heal you, they refill your HP tanks. That's also the place where you can equip and unequip and manage your perks. Also, your Miko Souls double as fast travel points, which I am a firm believer of in a video game. If you have save points and you have fast travel points, those two should be the same thing because otherwise, whenever I find a fast travel point, I'm going to travel back to the one that's close to a save point and save. So I appreciate

any of your game, just says, no, no, look, they're the same. Just use them. It's fine. That's my, that's where I live at. However, in Shadow Labyrinth, there are some Mekusol points that are not full save points. They're only checkpoints. They're like smaller. Yeah, they have a name, but I can't remember what it is. Yeah.

But Puck also calls them like, you can call it a checkpoint. Like, yeah, I will call it a checkpoint. Thank you, Puck. Simple Mekusols. And when you save there, it. refills your health, but it doesn't refill your HP tanks. And you can only fast travel from a checkpoint to a proper save point, not the other way around. So these checkpoints, while important, when you're exploring, you can get stuck somewhere where it's like, oh boy, I really want to

refill my HP tanks, but I don't have that here. All I've got is a checkpoint. And I think that will contribute to something we'd talk about later on, where the game frustrated some players. Because especially early on, I felt save points were a little bit few and far between. And so if you found a checkpoint point on a save point, it's kind of like a, oh, oh, you, that's not what I wanted. I'll take it, but that's not what I wanted or what I needed right now. Oh, the game also has, I think they're called, like, escape patches or whatever that lets you warp back to the last save point. but you have to buy them and they're consumable

so you can't just use them whatever you want also the map markers the game actually sells you map markers which I feel like come on we don't need to I don't want to spend resources

on a map marker I feel like you should just give me enough map markers it's my hot take on map markers I only barely used them I only use like two or three

I definitely needed them whenever I found places where I was like okay clearly there's something out of reach here and I just can't jump high enough like, okay, let's mark that, or certain boss areas where it's like, I, um, because especially in the late game, like, there are bosses that, like, travel to different areas, and I use

the map markers to keep track of where to find them again, you know? Yeah, the different areas where they could spawn, yeah. Um, because the game does not do a great job of communicating where something might spawn again if you, you know, like the traveling bosses, like, there's a special perk you can equip when hunting a special boss that roams around the map. But all the perk does is it lights up the region where the boss is, but not the room. You've got to learn where the boss might be and just like make a habit of checking those spots over and over again with the perk equipped. It's it can be a lot.

Yeah. Yeah, it gets a lot to manage. So let's talk for the game world, because this is where Shadow Labyrinth gets weird in, like, the good way, like in the sicko way. Like, yes, yes. Because Shadow Labyrinth is, in fact, deep, deeply soaked, imbrewed with Namco history, like, just throughout, you know, they could have gotten away with calling this game Namco Land, although that would have been a worst title. And it's not just a floating Pac-Man, like head that comes with you and eats things sometimes. Like, it's so much. Like, you and I started talking about this before the recording, and you instantly hit me up with stuff, like, I.

even didn't notice before. So I'm going to leave you, I'm going to let you, you know, fly your flag right now. Just look, go ahead. Tell us about the lore here. Okay. So in, I think it was 1990, Namcoe opened a theme park in Japan called Wonder Eggs. The short version, they had an amusement ride there. It was a laser disc game that had full 3D rendering on top of it with a giant pillar

with a hydraulic center with, uh, was it, 16 seats, and you basically shot kind of like laser guns at the outer ring of the room, and it was called Galaxian 3. Galaxian 3, I believe, is the first video game designed for an amusement park, designed as an amusement park attraction, and it is the game for which they conceived the United Galaxy Space Force, the UGSF. when they made Galaxian 3 they sort of backported a lot of

the games that they made previously Burning Force Galilee obviously Galaxian Bosconian all of these games are sort of placed into a timeline and DigDug and Mr. Diller are part of the

UGSF but the point the thing that's interesting is that like the UGSF you could make a case and I might that Galaxian 3 is like kind of the first AAA video game, that it's like the first time that like presentation and like the grandeur of it is like front and center and kind of the raison d'erture of the project.

It's like the most important video game that you just can't play at all in its proper. There's one in New Hampshire that's out of commission kind of right now, and then there's one in Japan at Gehaku. And so Galaxian 3 happens and they made a big deal out of it. eventually Wonder Egg shuts down. But they have over the years continue to add little bits and bobs onto the UGSF series

that Ace Combat 3 places the Ace Combat series in the UGSF. There's a DS game called Mizuiro Blood that I really can't get my head around. Very strange game. They were going to make a sequel to Starblade that they canceled.

And because it is a crucial part of the UGSF timeline, there's a video on Bandan Amko's YouTube showing the, they like did a couple tests, like a location test for it. Apparently it was amazing. But you can find full video of the game on the Bandanamco YouTube because it is important to the UGSF story that you know about this game. And also New Space Force. New Space Force is actually super crucial to the plot of Shadow Labyrinth and you cannot play it because it was never released. Fast forward, a long time.

In 2014, there was a game called Shin' Goon Destroy Girls' Tank Battalion. And in the strictest sense, Shadow Labyrinth is a sequel to Shin' Goon Destroy, Girls' Tank Battalion, a mobile game that was available for two years only in Japan. And so, was it 2012 or 2014? Anyway, so that, a lot of the characters in Shadow Labyrinth are either related to or are characters from Shin' Goon Destroy, Girls Tank Battalion, again, there are no remaining traces of. The thing that is interesting about Shadow Labyrinth, and without getting into spoiler

territory, I just want to, you know, Namco released Pac-Man, and in the West, I would say that is kind of the most, like, the banner game, you know, that's when people here think of Namco, they think of Pac-Man. I don't know that I'd say that this game overshadows Pac-Man in Japan, but I think Zavius is sort of like the marquee game for a lot of people for Namco. Zavius, you know, it has, I'm sure this podcast people have talked at length about this, but like, you can make the case that it's the game with the first real, like, discrete narrative that's like pointing at things in the world, like NASCAR lines,

and you can deduce things from the way, like the invisible towers indicate that, like, things were buried in the earth and stuff. Like, it's the first game to have this kind of, uh, world view, like world, uh, sensation to it, you know, by some accounts. And the interesting thing about the UGSF and about shadow labyrinth, and about Zavius, is that if you go to the UGSF series official site, which is maintained and was updated when Shadow Labyrinth came out, which details every single game that is part of the UGSF timeline and you control F for Zavius, you will not find it.

And you start this game and you're kind of on rails and you're going to a tower. And I'm going to spoil this because, like, people have complained about this on rail segment at the beginning where you're just kind of marching towards something because it's not Metroidvania E. And it is kind of constricting and unpleasant, but, like, you are going to a tower and you get to the top of the tower and GAMP shows up from Zevius. The antagonist of Zevius shows up. And Zevius is not part of the UGSF series.

And this entire game is basically blowing the doors on, like, the relationship between, like, everything relating to Zevius, relating to UGSF, like, they're, they're mixing these two things in really interesting and weird ways. and, like, they come up with a justification for the fact that Zevius isn't in the UGSF series. But it is now. And just, like, all of this weird texture that is, like, embedded in this thing for, like, 20 people in the world. Maybe 20 people care about this. Like, to know Xingun destroyed Girls Tank Battalion, which was an unsuccessful mobile game,

to know about new space order, which is an RTS for the arcades that did not release. It's wild. It does not feel like it should exist. It feels like a weird, like mistake that this got out. It's full of so much like attention to detail. Matsunobu Indo, who developed Zevius. There's a whole language. The Zevi language is like it's kind of like syllabically derived from Japanese,

but you can translate. There's Zevian text in this game, and you can translate it. if you are fluent in Japanese and also understand how Japanese might kind of transmogify into English, kind of, like, it's weird, and I'm sure somebody out there's done it, but there's another language because, like, Bosconian is involved here, and so then there's Bosconian language, but I don't, I don't know if that can be deciphered at all. But so there's all this stuff. The core of it is that, like, there's all this, like, attention and care paid to the world and its presentation. And I think that, like, in so much as, like, it's a Metroidvania,

the exploration, the learning what's going on and piecing together how these things fit together feels as much as a part of the like the Metroidvania aspect of it of like, oh, okay, so this is this character kind of is taught. There's two items that you have to get that are key items from Gallagher 88 and Galaxian 3, which, you know, you really got to know, like really weird specific details about this game that you can't play anymore to be able to figure that out, right? And it's amazing that it came out. I really am in awe of the attention to detail and care. And, again, maybe servicing 20 people in the world

who care about the UGSF enough to know what a spark bit is. Yeah, one of the things that is kind of wild about the game is that there is voice acting in this game. Most of the text is just written out, like, you know, for you to read with your own eyes. There is voice acting in the game, but none of the voice actors speak English or Japanese. They just grunt or they say words in a language that doesn't really exist. Yeah, some weird gibberish language. but it's like you can kind of start to feel out like repeated phrases in it. It's really wild.

Yeah, yeah. Like the merchants, the merchants definitely have like something they say it. Like, it's got to be like the Japanese, you know, the Bosconian equivalent of like, you know, Okini or something like, you know, thanks for coming. Yeah, yeah. And Teba has like a couple of phrases. She says that like you can kind of figure out what UGSF is like in the language that it's wild. Also, yes, retro listeners at home. you can officially recount, reset the counter, the Zevius counter.

We've mentioned it again. So, zero episodes as we've talked about Zevius on the podcast. It's kind of a Zevius game more than it is a Pac-Man game. That's the kind of part of my bug bear about this game. I will definitely drop a link to this timeline because it's so fascinating to read this timeline because you learn so much. You learn that DigDug is actually taking place way in the future. There are separate entries for Meza Ublood, The Game.

and Mesero Blood, the blog, because of course, of course you need separate points in the timeline for those two things. Of course. According to these numbers, Shadow Labyrinth takes place in the year 3,33, so please write that down. That's going to be important at some point. But it is not the most far-out point in the timeline. The most far-out point is actually Thunderceptor and 3D Thunderceptor 2, which takes place in the year 7,650. Because it's Namco. Oh, oh my God.

Namuko. Oh, geez, you're right. Wow. One thing I do want to point out about the UGSF timeline that's, like, really important, and like it really holds the whole thing together, is that Taiso Hoare, the DigDug Man, was married to Kissy from Baraduke, and they are divorced. Yes. Whenever we talk about DigDug games, we have to mention that factoid.

Yes, absolutely. DigDug is divorced from the character in Baraduke. I actually didn't know this. I knew about Taizzo Hori because in the actual order, Hori Taizzo, like, I'm going to dig. I didn't realize that his wife, Mr. Joe's mother, Masio Toby, A.k.a. Toby Masio, like, I'm going to go. I'm going. I'm jumping. Oh, you're right.

Yeah. So both of their names in the original Japanese are puns for what they do. That's awesome. Also, Baraduke, really, really underrated game. really, really cool. Yes, that's on the timeline, and so is Baradook, too. I've never played Baradig, too. Well, it takes place in 2388, so you've got, you got about 300 years to catch up.

That's 11 years before Mr. Driller. See, this is really important and interesting stuff that, like, when you're playing Shadow Lab, and you're like, okay, well, how many years away from Starluster is this? And then that's, that's, that's the joy of it. But that's it. Like this game, it's full of this stuff. And it's not just things you find in like, you know, log dumps or whatever. There are enemies in this game that are straight up from other games.

Like you mentioned that boss. There is an entire network of caves where you basically fight the monsters from DigDug, except they're larger and way freakier. Like they've got extra mouths. Like it's, oh, no, no, no, I don't like that. Pooka's eyes are really creepy. They still can warp through solid walls. Your sword doesn't hit them.

The sword doesn't work. You have to use the active, like the grappling hook thing as if it's the air pump. So you have to like lock onto them and tap the button and make them explode. But of course, while you're doing that, another one can sneak up on you. And of course they lock you in a room at some point where like four or five of them attack at once. So you've got to like navigate around the room and take them out one at a time but not getting hit. It's, it's, I mean, I think it's great. Honestly, I think before the game came out, they had like a pre-release demo that they gave

to some people, and I saw a friend of the show, Maddie Kopp was streaming it, and they put those creatures in the demo. And I was like, oh, wow, look at those things. I love them. They're hideous, but I love them. And in the real game, I don't think I found them to like, I don't know, like 10, 12 hours in. And then what I did was like, oh, hey, excellent.

Oh, you dropped a link to... I dropped a link to a person posting that the... The Bosconian mother and daughter, the daughter is a clone created from the mother's jeans. Just not something you can determine from the game. Oh, right. That definitely goes to the note. Yeah, this is a Twitter user called Tagotch. Yeah, their account is crazy in general.

It's really cool. Yeah, they call themselves a UGSF bancho, like a, like a, like a, banjo is basically like Hancho. Like, you know, we know Hancho. Hancho is an English word because it comes from Japanese. It's like, you know, big shot, big shot, UGSF big shot, UGSF big shot, I'll put a link to that. But yeah, there's all sorts of stuff. There are these, one of the sticking points for me for a while, there are these three rooms that are like challenge-based because once you go in there, you can't change into Gaiaform.

And in one of the three, it's always on derails, which means you can't basically use sword fighter form, which means you can't heal yourself. and these rooms are constantly morphing. It's almost like the danger room from X-Men. Like, they keep morphing and, like, bringing in walls and pushing back walls and bringing in spikes. And most of the enemies that attack you are just Gallagena enemies, like, with the sound effects and everything. Like, they're just Galagas. I found that area really frustrating as well.

Also, I was very, very upset. It's a three-digit code that you're trying to unlock a door with. And I was like, it's got to be 765. It's got to be 765. It's in Zevi. but the numerals are not 765, I believe they're one, one, two, three. I can't remember what it was, but it's not 765. It's, yeah, I think it was like one, one, one.

I can't remember what I think it was, one, two, three. But it wasn't 765, and I was like, this is like the worst. You have a three-digit code. It has to be 765. Oh, the betrayal. All right, it's time to talk about the mazes. Let's talk with the mazes. Now, obviously, the game itself is a maze of sorts.

But throughout the world, you find these little, like, consoles. and once they're active, you have to find a special thing to activate them, once they're active, you can walk up to them and you basically travel into their dimension or whatever, and you're sort of playing a kind of version of Pac-Man Championship Edition with Puck, in that you've got these, you know, everything's on the rails, you've got ghosts, you've got fruit, you've got dots, you know, you eat the dots to get more dots, but it's still operating. on the same rules of the regular game in that you're jumping and you have to navigate these spaces very carefully and there's a timer and you have to do all the stuff

to get to a boss before the timer runs out or else you have to start over. And at the end, you get evaluated on your score and if you do like, you know, if you get a basic score, you might get a basic item.

If you get a perfect score, you get a very special item, but that's not easy. And indeed, from speaking personally, I quickly found myself struggling to even get, like, to the boss, because it's, it's very specific how you have to navigate these, these things. It's not, like, it plays, like, the puck areas of the regular game, but puck doesn't move like the sword fighter. So it's, like, it's kind of its own game that looks like Pac-Man, but it's not Pac-Man.

Yeah. It doesn't make any sense? You jump in, like, a parabola. Yeah. And so you have to, like, learn, like, there are times when, like, pressing forward to jump is not as efficient as doing the parabolic jump because like the arc of the jump is such that you'll like collide with a platform to you know to get up higher it's it's very specific and weird um i i came around to really liking it but it was frustrating for a long time for me as well it is definitely something you have to learn

because at first they seem like fun little bonus things because you know you play them you get extra things but again it's it's just like it's extra stuff you know like it's you know some fun, the extra materials for a thing you might want later, but, like, I started skipping them, because I found them very irritating. But when you get to the end of the game, before you can fight any final boss or anything, you have to go through four of these mazes to get to the bosses to get to the final boss. Like, that's just a thing that exists. So if you've been skipping the mazes and you get to the last area, like I did, you have

this moment, you're like, oh, I have to do the mazes because, or at least, at least these four mazes, but I should probably go back and practice the other mazes to learn how the mazes work, because I'm terrible at the mazes. And that is definitely one of the sticking points that people didn't like, and they complain about on Reddit and Steam forums, and like those, the maze sections are, yeah, as you said, like, you have to learn how they work, and if you don't learn how they work, you're an A, you're not going to beat them, and B, you're not going to enjoy them. those are basically the same point

because you're playing a video game to enjoy the video game I hope and yeah the mazes to me became an irritant and yeah definitely I think definitely some of the loudest screams

I've ever had this summer you know short of actual pain were when I was playing this game and I played a maze and I just couldn't get to the end of the maze because I kept bouncing off of a wall or I kept clipping into some sort of

like you know jump boot or a ghost got me. I'm like, oh. Did you try to get any of the secondary items? I tried to get as much as I could in this game. Like, honestly, I, my game file says I have 40 hours, more than 40 hours this point. And according to a quote on here, where's that quote? From, from Isawa and Rolling Stone, he said, we wanted to make the game quite difficult to complete.

it's about a 30-hour game in eyes i was opinion but i went way beyond that and i didn't even finish i didn't even finish so maybe i'm bad at it that that's that could be possible that i'm just really bad at this game but i definitely had moments this summer in particular where i was like i need to take a break because this game is making me crazy yeah no i got i got really frustrated at the mazes until my brain broke and i learned how to how to deal with them but i my save has like a hundred and twenty-eight hours, I think, because something about how the switch two sleeps, maybe it doesn't, I didn't play it, I did not play it for a hundred and twenty-eight hours. I probably played it for about 70 hours, probably.

But yeah, it's quite long. And I did, so you get, um, for the mazes, there's like a, there's a primary reward, which is like the thing you need to get to the end of the game. And then there's a secondary reward, which is called new space order. After the video game, new space order, which does not exist. and you get those and you get all of them and then you can get an auto-perry perk. And of course, by the time that you've gotten

all of the new space orders by perfect, like perfect scoring the mazes, you have to get every single fruit. You have to beat the maze with enough time that you can grab enough fruit in the... After you finish the boss in each maze, there's like an area where fruit are just like flinging around arbitrarily.

And you have to learn how to cope with that and pick up a hundred fruit to be able to get the new space order. And by the time you've done that and you've destroyed your sanity such that you can do this, I'm guessing you don't need

an auto-perry item. But, you know, it's nice of them, I guess. Yes, thank you for reminding me. That was the one item on the list where, you know, early in the game was like, oh, that'd be useful. And then you look at what you need for it's like, oh, I need to clear all the mazes

with a perfect score. Yeah. I don't think getting there. I don't think I'm making it. But if we're talking about mazes and things people don't like, I think we're going to segue to everyone's favorite segment of every podcast, which is video game difficulty discourse. Oh, God. As we said, they viewed this game as a difficult game when they made it.

I certainly spent a lot of time playing it. I died a lot. I think for me, the hardest parts were definitely early on. I think this game is definitely a tough nut to crack in the beginning because you only get one HP tank. You know, there's lots of enemies. The only way to refill your stuff is to go back to the save point. And as I said, some of the save points can be far apart from each other. So I definitely had days where I would be exploring somewhere and I get really deep underground and I couldn't save and then I got caught and then I died.

I lost all the stuff and I don't know where I was. Also, the way things are sort of divvied out to you, like what kind of upgrades you get as you play the game early on, I think can be a little stingy because you might go through like a lot of trouble and do some crazy platforming challenge where you're like, you know, bouncing off. enemies over spike walls or dodging at like navigating acid pits or something and then you go through all this stuff to get a special item and you open the item and it's like a mat marker or some lore and you're just like I I wanted more HP I wanted a you know next some more meter for this I wanted something you know valuable like I don't remember how long it took me to get to the boss that gives you double jump like it took me a long time to get to that boss yeah and It wasn't an easy fight either.

I mean, I think in the end, it was cool that I managed to figure it out. But it took me a long time to get to that guy and finally beat him. But then, of course, you know, you have that moment where you beat the, you know, is a giant frog, too. It's a giant frog that double jumps, like double jumps during the fight. Very comically so, I think. Yes. So when you beat it and you get the double jumps, you're like, oh, oh, no, I'm the frog. Yes.

But yeah, all those things add up to make for a game that I think, frustrated a lot of people and those people were very vocal about it. I know it's only one metric and it's not a real metric, but I just had to look it up. So on Steam, as of this recording, 7.8% of Steam users have the mission accomplished achievement

for beating the game. And that's not the most rare achievement. The most rare achievement is like, you know, getting all the achievements, which is extremely rare. But in my experience, for most Steam games that have a broad release like that with a lot of players

like this one did, only 7.8% being in the game is pretty, that's pretty exceptional. Yeah. You know, like a Dark Souls game certainly gets a lot more than that. And obviously other platforms, other people, you know, contributed, you know, it's not a, it's completely

unsatisfactory, but I just thought, I thought that was a fun number to look at and say, oh, a lot of people really did not get that far in this game. Even you look at, oh, you look higher up at, like, there's an achievement for getting to the Black Tower, which is like, not an early section, but it's not, it's maybe like halfway, maybe, maybe not even halfway?

I'd say like 30%. The Black Tower is like when it starts to open up. Everything before that is like, I think, a little more fructive than I would have liked. And that's also a very low number, considering how early on the game that it's. Like, it's, there clearly was a huge drop off of players who started this game, played it for, I'm going to guess, three or four hours, and just stopped because they didn't, they couldn't put up with it. And I know you've spoken a lot about difficulty stuff. I know you're, you know, we're recorded this in the year of a new Ninja Guiden game, and you have expressed your thoughts.

But I don't want to go out of Tanship Ninja Guiden. Sure, sure. You certainly have very specific ideas about what hard means in games. So how did Shadow Labyrinth rub you in that way? Well, so I thought it was, I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the experience of it. and I enjoyed the experience of coming to grips with it. I really like that it is a rigid, firm, like, three attacks and a dodge.

You have your actives, but, like, in general, like, really, really rigid system that you have to come to grips with in the way that one would, like, I don't know, final fight or, you know, something that doesn't have the kind of, like, you know, there's an eye frame dodge, but it doesn't, it's not as loosey-goosey as, like, a lot of games are now. But the other side of that is that obviously it's very firm. and that's a very strict thing and coming to grips with that along with like the eccentricities

of its hip boxes and its animations and stuff like that it you know there was definitely in the early game I would say that I probably like fell in love with this thing pretty much

oh god about when I got to the dig dog stuff so like you know you start the game and it's super on rails and you don't really know what's going on and you're going to the black tower and you get to the black tower and then Gamp shows up

and he's like wahaha you're on planet Zevius, and I'm like, what the hell? That doesn't make any sense. And so, and then you're like, okay. And then the game opens up from there. And I would say, if there's one thing I could like caution people who maybe you want to play this game from listening to this, you got

to give it until you get to the Black Tower because that is really when it becomes a Metroidvania. Like before that, it really is like just you're going to go to the right, you're going to keep going this way. And because it's so straightforward in that, and because you don't have like

passive upgrades you're getting, that can be really difficult. It can feel not great to like, I can only go this one way. I can only do this one thing. And that one thing keeps killing me. You know, obviously people like Dark Souls and such, like people are okay with that more now. And, you know, I think it rewards the patience. Like I think the Metroidvania side of it is actually really, really interesting exploration is really fun and interesting. But yeah, I, you know, I like a game that doesn't behave the way I expect it to. You know, in 2025, there's kind of a lot of like, you know, games have eye frame dodges. They have parries.

They have, you know, this and that. And I thought that, like, learning how to, like, converse with Shadow Labyrinth was its own challenge and its own unique reward. And it's not something I get much these days. That said, you do have to sort of, like, put your thinking in that headspace. because if you're just like, oh, I'm just going to attack, attack, okay, why I keep dying, what's going on. Like, you really got to, like, slow down and, like, think about what all's going on and what's impacting you. Same for, like, the Meku Souls and Traversal.

You know, it didn't bother me as much that, like, the simple Meku Souls don't teleport you. But, you know, I can see it. Like, it doesn't have to, like, strain my imagination to see why that was frustrating for people. And it definitely does require, like, you know, just a kind of different way of thinking about it. And if that doesn't gel with, you know, it's totally fair if that's not, like, what you want to do. But it feels, it feels like a relic of, like, the 360 in a lot of ways, that era of, like, this game's hard and that's it. And there you go, right? And it's not that, not that stringent about it, but, like, it felt very much, it felt nostalgic in that way for me.

But as it turns out, but as it turns out, that's not it. At some point in October, they made a huge announcement, and they said, you know what? We give in. We're putting a new update, and this update is basically changing almost every aspect of the game. The normal game is still there. They're calling it veteran mode, and then they're adding this new Explorer mode, and the Explorer mode, in addition to a bunch of sliders and stuff that will let you, you know, choose difficulty, like damage output or whatever.

The Explorer mode removes almost all contact damage. image. The guy energy auto-recharges. If you die three times on any platforming challenge, you can just skip past it. There's a new thing called tenacity boost, that every time you die, your character gets stronger. And some changes they're

applying to even, like, the broadest strokes, I guess they're applying to the regular game too, in that, especially the maze stuff, the mazes now have different kinds of jumps you can do with different inputs, which are like they didn't exist before. and all the endgame mazes to get to the last boss are now optional.

So if you play them and you die, you just say, I don't want to do this maze anymore, and just go on. And while I'm, you know, I'm not a great video game player, and I've certainly experienced my share of games where it's like, this game is too hard and I don't want to play it anymore. But that's happened to me, especially in some Mediterranean. It's like I am, I'm the one person who backed bloodstained and was very excited for bloodstained. And every time I play bloodstained, I can't get past Zengitsu, and I just, I just stop. So I just can't do it. So as much as I enjoy this notion of we did put in an easier mode, people who get upset, I feel like this level of change really strikes me as an overcorrection.

Like, I feel like if this wasn't the game you wanted to make, why change this much? Yeah, but the contact damage thing, I think. because, like, I really can't get behind that. I, yeah, I liked, I mean, I love Shadow Labyrinth. It's until three hours from now, it's my favorite game of the year. I don't know about this new post-patch. I'll, I'm going to check it out. But, like, the new maze controls, like, you know, they made decisions.

Like, it's a little, I don't, I don't love the idea of, like, remaking decisions, like, you know, I admire when developers get to stick to their guns. And, like, if this game didn't do what they wanted to sales-wise, which is it hard for me to imagine, like, I understand. And I would rather see more UGSF stuff than, then this game be, I guess, punishing to what people would perceive as a fault. But, like, I, yeah, it feels like an overcorrection to me, too. Like, increasing your strength as you die, like, I just can't really get, like, I don't know. I don't know. I definitely, I know I, like, fall on the side of the difficulty conversation that, like, you know, I was.

a virtuoso pianist. I like when things are hard and rigid and don't give, like, and I want to, like, find my way through the wall. And some people don't want that. And that's, that's totally cool. But this level of, like, changing that up, I don't know. It's not, it's a bummer to me. It seemed extreme, especially given that this is the same, again, this is the same publisher that stands by all those Dark Souls games where it's like, no, we're not making an easy mode. That's the game we're making. So, I guess. Yeah, and they make Code Vane, too, which is like, you know.

Yes, actually, that's a good point. Code Vane is also, yeah, that's like, it's internal. It's basically the Dark Souls with some anime aspects to it that probably reaches more people who didn't play Dark Souls. And then, yeah, people like me who played Code Vane for, like, many hours, and they're like, I don't know what to do anymore. I can't, I don't know what to do anymore. Sorry. Yeah, I didn't really like CodeVo. The beginning was Sure, Cool, though.

Hey, I'm, I'm interested in CodeVane, too. I'll say that right now. You know, we're recording this between CodeVane 2 announcing and I think actually having a date. So I don't know what's happened with that game, but I played enough of CodeVane 1 to want to play Codevain 2. So. Yeah, I like the character designs. They're cool. Absolutely.

Yeah, with the masks. Yeah, it's cool. Geez, what happens if codevane becomes part of the UGSF timeline? Oh, God. What planet is that? Yeah, I hope Gamp shows. Where's Mappie? Is Mappie on there?

Yeah, yeah. we got to get Mabby in there. Well, I think you touched upon it because, yeah, if they're going to go through a game like this, months after release, and overhaul it to this, for this degree, and as we record this, the patch is out on some platforms, but not all platforms, but by the time you hear this, it may or not be on your platform a choice, I don't know, but it's certainly already out on some platforms when we record this. So it's coming. It's coming to you wherever you are. You can't escape it. Try as you might. But you have to assume, yeah, this game just did not perform the way they wanted it to. And someone pressed the panic button and said, no, we need to get more players for this game. We can't just move on and, you know, try again with Chattel Labyrinth, or whatever.

Like, we got to make this one get to a certain point. Because whatever the sales numbers are, we don't have the sale numbers, we can look at the critic reaction. And the critic reaction, not great. Like, not scathing, you know, but certainly a lot of people react to this game and said, I don't want this. And that probably helped with the player reaction. I know you looked up some of the numbers earlier, and what, IGN gave it a five out of ten, which is, that's pretty harsh for a game that, you know, I think is doing some interesting things, you know. But on the other hand, I just linked you in the chat.

There's a Banda Namcoe put out an accolades trailer for this game that, like, has seven out of ten destined to be a new cult classic. Like, you kind of wonder if they, like, had those expectations of, like, people will kind of come around to this or like, yeah, I don't know. But, yeah, the critical reception was quite. There were some sites, I think Nintendo Life, I want to say, gave it a pretty good score. Some people clearly, the more you were sort of primed to be like, this is like Tower of Draga, this is like Zavius. I think the more you were sort of inclined to give it kind of the benefit of the doubt. And if you are like, oh, I like Pac-Man, Pac-Man World, you know, I just don't, I don't think it's that game. And I think that that marketing focus, when they announced the new patch, they had, like, Tebbe, who's, like, a really important character, they have her narrating it and they have her on screen.

And, like, that felt like a shift to me in, like, how they were positioning this, like, not just going Pac-Man all the time. It's Pac-Man. There's ghosts, like, in Pac-Man. Oh, you can ride on the rails, like in Pac-Man, like, putting these things that are actually in the game that, like, point out to other parts of, like, Namco, UGSF history. That feels like maybe a shift that they could take, because the Pac-Man thing certainly didn't do it. Because, I mean, you just look at it, and you're like, well, that's not really Pac-Man. Like, it's weird and, yeah. So I personally, I think I've put enough time in this game in its current state that I'm not going to try to get those mazes done.

I might try again to see what the patch does to the mazes just out of curiosity, but I'm still like, even me who's not great at the game and got really frustrated, I don't know. For me, this is not like this kind of moment. Like, really? Yeah. This is how far you've gone? That just doesn't sit right with me. Though I will say, if you're at the very end of the game and you just have to do the mazes, the ending is really wild. Like, it's really, really wild.

So, you know, you might want to see it. I guess you could just watch it on YouTube. I could, but yeah, I try to do that unless I'm really like, there's just no way. You know, like, what comes to mind, I recently played Shutein Order, which is a new game this year. Oh, yeah, yeah. And I really enjoyed Shooten Order, but Shoe 10 Order basically auto saves, and during the last part of the game, you can't, you can't manual save at all. And you make a choice, and it basically leads to one of two endings. And the only way to get back and try the other ending would be to, like, replay a section of the game.

that takes, like, at least four hours of, like, rapid button pressing. I'm like, I don't. I'm not going to go back and do that, so I might watch that one a video, but I want to try to, I want to see the end, you know, I want to escape the maze, you know? This is a game that told me to escape the maze. I want to try to escape the maze by beating the mazes. Yeah. Did you get to the last area where there's, like, the four mazes you got to do to fight the...

That's where I'm, yeah, that's exactly where I got to, yes. I think I've cleared almost everything else. You know, I've been in the, I've been to the arena where you fight old bosses. I went to some, some hard areas that were very challenging, and I managed to get through them. I, I beat the Gallagher thing. I feel like I've cleared almost all this game. Some areas have the medal indicate, like, I beat everything.

Some areas don't, but I feel like it's because I'm missing one little thing in a corner somewhere, you know? Yeah, it could even be an aura. I had to go back and, like, find one aura. Some parts of the game are like, oh, you didn't find this hidden aura cache? Well, then you didn't finish the stage. I got all the items. But yes, on that note, we are going to escape this podcast because we've said, I feel like everything we can say about Shadow Labyrinth.

I hope our competition convinced some of you, if you didn't play it already, to give it another look. You know, this is going to go out at the end of the year. We all know that video game companies love to put things on sale at the end of the year. Maybe give Shadow Leprith a second look. Maybe you like the patch. Maybe you don't want the patch and you want to sit with veteran mode, which is still somewhat closer to what the original version was. Maybe you, like me, didn't really know that there was a UGSF timeline until you started playing this game and you realized that, no, all these games are connected. And yes, Digda got divorced, but it's also important because that's part of the Gallagher and Galaxian and, you know, Bosconian legends.

Well, I feel like I know your answer, Krista, but please elaborate as much as you'd like. Is this, like, do you want more from this universe, for lack of a word for it? Like, where do you stand after playing Shadow Labyrinth? So they put out a consumer survey that was like, did you play Shadow Labyrinth? What do you think? And one of the, like, why did you get Shadow Labyrinth? One of the questions was, because I'm a fan of the UGSF series, which is a ridiculous thing to call oneself. I love the breadcrumbs

and blast off for the PC engine but Shadow Labyrinth gives to me the impression of like I don't think this is strictly true the director worked on Kirby and the Amazing Mirror but it gives the impression of like a bunch of old devs like right about retirement age who want to just take one more crack at this thing who just want to like one more time go like

well if we dress it up like Pac-Man maybe maybe this UGSF thing has legs and you know I assume the sales weren't weren't amazing, but it is just such a captivating, like, it's, like, suggestive. It's not, because all this stuff is kind of broad strokes, like, they're, you can't really pin down, like, this is that. This is, like, it's not lower dumpy so much as it is, like, kind of gestural. It's like this world kind of exists in, like, broad strokes.

And it's such an interesting way to do, like, narrative. And, like, some of these games are really true. I think Galaxy in 3, again, it's like a really important game. And I just, I would kill to see more, more UGSF stuff, especially with the way it ends. But I'm not, I'm not confident that there will be. Yeah, I definitely am on board to learn more about this timeline that I just, I, it's flat out news to me. You know, I'm excited by this kind of stuff. I mean, you know, I'm a big K-OF fan.

And, you know, that obviously is a whole series where the game company said, hey, what if we put all of our stuff? together and we decide it's all they all like each other or they hate each other enough to fight each other you know so I'm excited to see them explore this angle more I don't know that I need another game like this per se no but absolutely you know galga galaxy and even even you know drilling digging stuff I'm I'd love to see more I'd love to learn more about this I mean the next time in New Hampshire I'm definitely going to try to see if that galaxy and three thing is working I don't know if it is Yeah, I think one of the CRT projectors was down.

I can't remember. There's a blog about it. They're trying. I know we talked about this on our community podcast. They made an announcement, and they spent many hours, and volunteers came in to try it getting running again. So I'm confident that somewhere out there, there's a person in New Hampshire who, you know, when they're not, you know, drinking on the weekend, they're like, I've got to get this Galaxian thing. I've got to get it working. I've got to do it.

Yeah. And I also have hope that, like, in 2021, I think it was the CEO of Hamster, Hamster Corporation, who does a lot of the arcade or do they do the arcade archive series. They have recently been putting out Namco System 22 machines like Ace Combat 22, Ridge Racer, Tokyo Wars, a bunch of those games. And the chip set that's used in that is derived from Galaxion 3. And in 2021, they did a press conference with a bunch of, with a big, you know, a banner behind them that had a bunch of game logos on it. And it had

um, Galaxion 3 Solvolo and Starblade, the three laser disc, uh, rail shooters that, that Namco made. So I have a hunch that all of this system 22 stuff is maybe moving towards a galaxy in three port. The, um, the lead developer of Galaxian 3 headed up the, for the Wii in Japan. There's a, um, virtual console arcade that has, um, um, the, um, the, um, the lead developer of has 60 FPS ports of Starblade and Solvolo, and they are incredible. They are so, so cool. It's a really phenomenal thing to experience if you have a Wii, because the games didn't run at 60 FPS on hardware.

They're so much fun. Solvolo is a really cool real shooter, but, you know, I guess they were wanting to do Galaxyn't 3 there, and they didn't, so maybe they'll get around to it now. Well, I wish we had had this conversation earlier because I was interviewing Sessoshi Hamada of Hamster mere months ago at TGS. So listeners, you can go back and listen to that episode was for our TGS episode this year. So I spoke to him about many things, and I could have asked him about this, instead of telling him that I, you know, wanted to see some more Western games show up in our arcade archives, like NARC. NARC, yeah.

Sorry, it's a sickness, and I'm dealing with it. Carn evil. Let's get some car and evil in there. Oh, Lord. On that note, we are wrapping up the conversation. Thank you so much for being here, Krista. I'm going to forgive you for the mistakes and not speaking all the languages that are using the game. Thank you.

But you definitely brought the sauce to this podcast, and I really appreciate that. If you want people to find you on the Internet, where should they go? Yeah, I'm on Blue Sky. I think it's O-Porpup. It's usually O-Porpup in various places. And I did want to highlight the stuff I've been doing. I was running a shop, Sound RetroCo for a while. And the workload and with Twitter collapsing,

it kind of became hard to sustain itself. So in the last year or so, I've been working with 100 Yen Life, who's a vendor that supplies like turnkey, large-scale arcade installations for conventions, gatherings, that kind of thing. We were at Evo. We were at San Diego Comic-Con doing

some work for Sega. We do events like Soccericon and Pax. And we run an arcade here in King County called Game Center, which is like a free play arcade. We'll be doing a Densha to Go tournament in December. But, uh, wow. Yeah, we have a, we have the only full-sized Densha to go cabinet in Washington State, I believe. Oh, nice. Yeah, those things are amazing. The 2019 Dentia go, yeah. Yeah. But yeah, so I've been working with, with 100 in life. Um, so if you're in King County, you know, come on down to Game Center. Uh, it's a game center. Gigi. you can find me on Blue Sky and various other places. I'm still doing video work with Tim Rogers for Action Button.

I think that's a one day I'll have a website of my own. Well, I'm going to embarrass you and mention your band camp again because I still love Welcome to the Fantasy Zone and I love that album. Well, thank you so much. My whole means goes into that. As for us, this is Retronauts. Thank you very much for listening to Retronauts. If you're listening to this episode for free and you didn't pay for it, thank you for listening to Retronauts. However, we are fan-supported.

So if you considered going to patreon.com slash retronauts for $3 a month, you can get episodes one week early, like this episode, higher audio quality. For $5 a month, though, which is just $2 more than $3, do the math, you get the episodes early. You get exclusive episodes, two, sometimes three a month. You get weekly columns from me. They're also mini podcasts. You get access to our Discord. Our people in our Discord are always talking about all sorts of stuff. I never know what's going to win that Discord, but it's always a positive thing.

Believe me, never have I ever logged on the Retroids Discord and found something ugly or hateful. It's always been just a weird thing that someone found. And wow, isn't that amazing? So I hope people will join us and support us into the future because we're coming up. We are coming up on 20 years of Retronauts. Oh, my God. Wow. I hope you'll join us and make 20 more years.

retronauts because I'd be honest, I haven't been here for all 20 years, and I want to get 20 years on this train. Go ahead. I deserve it. Who am I again? I'm Diamond Fight. You can find me around the internet by looking for Fight Club. F-E-I-T. That's my last name. C-L-U-B. That's not unlike the phantom appendage that our swordsman uses in this game, except has a point on it. Have website, fightclub.me, where I just keep track of all the stuff I'm writing. Otherwise, social media, blue sky, letterboxed, backlogged, you know, look up Fight Club, you'll find me on there. And yeah, on that note, we look for the sky and hope the UGSF out there and we say, good night.

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