The Ringer-Verse - February Games Blowout, Plus State of Play Reactions | Button Mash

Episode Date: February 13, 2026

Ben Lindbergh, Matt James, and Steve Ahlman speedrun the month's major gaming news and releases. In Patch Notes, they break down HBO's 'Baldur's Gate' adaptation, layoffs for developers of struggling free-to-play games 'Highguard' and '2XKO,' Sony's latest bid for live-service success with 'Horizon Hunters Gathering,' and the highlights of February's PS5 State of Play. Then, in the Minigames section, they share spoiler-free impressions of six recently released games: 'Nioh 3,' Dragon Quest VII Reimagined,' 'Romeo is a Dead Man,' 'Mewgenics,' 'Mario Tennis Fever,' and 'Reanimal,' featuring thoughts on the state of Switch 2 and the debut of a new segment, Only in Video Games.Email us at [e-mail]!Intro (0:00)Patch Notes (2:00)'Baldur’s Gate' Adaptation (2:22)Layoffs (14:25)'Horizon Hunters Gathering' (26:32)State of Play (34:10)Minigames (44:41)'Nioh 3' (45:38)'Dragon Quest 7' (49:34)'Romeo Is a Dead Man' (53:31)'Mewgenics' (59:31)'Mario Tennis Fever' (1:05:21)'Reanimal' (1:18:44)Outro (1:26:16)Host: Ben LindberghGuests: Matt James and Steve AhlmanProducer: Devon RenaldoAdditional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're a fan of the inner workings of Hollywood, then check out my podcast, The Town, on the Ringer Podcast Network. My name's Matt Bellany. I'm founding partner at Puck and the writer of the What I'm Hearing newsletter. And with my show, The Town, I bring you the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. Every week, we've got three short episodes featuring real Hollywood insiders to tell you what people in town are actually talking about. We'll cover everything from why your favorite show was canceled overnight. Which streamer is on the brink of collapse? And which executive is on the hot seat? Disney, Netflix.

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Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. And welcome into the Ringerverse, your Nexus feed for all things fandom. I am Ben Lindberg, senior editor at The Ringer and your host here at Button Mash, where unlike the Steam Machine, we do have a release date. It's today because we don't need RAM to run. Well, aside from the RAM and whatever device you're using to listen to this, mind that. We've got a good show for you today. And as many podcast participants as Jason

Mamoa will have video game movies on his resume once Helldivers comes out next year, watch out Jack Black. Mamoa is coming for the crown. With me today is the ringer's deputy art lead Matt James. Hello, Matt. Hello, Ben. And also joining us senior audio producer and Midnight Boy, Steve Allman. Hello, Steve. Hello, Ben. Thank you. for matching my energy today. I don't even have fancy pun nicknames for you two today because we just have that much to talk about. Some episodes, we have one big topic. Some episodes, we have a smattering of smaller topics. And today, it's the latter. So we have several news items, four bits of news, six new games that we have been playing and that we want to talk about briefly.

So we've got 10 total items here. And we're just going to speed run every. on our agenda, get into it all, and we will begin, as we often do, with our patch notes, which is our newish name for our news section. And I think there is really only one bit of news that we could lead this episode with because it engendered some internet debate. What doesn't these days? But Baldersgate is getting a TV adaptation fellas, and people are pissed about it. At least some people are pissed. I'm sure there are plenty of people who are pleased about it and just are not nearly as vocal online, you know, the silent majority who are just saying, this is great, I'm so happy that this is being adapted and that the people adapting it

are doing the adapting. But we don't hear from them. This is an HBO series, and it will be steered by Craig Mason. Yes, Craig Mason of Chernobyl and also of The Last of Us. Larion is not involved in any formal official capacity, which might sound strange to you, but that's because this is the D&D license. This is not owned by Larian. That's maybe why Larian is making divinity next and not Baldur's Gate 4. And Mazen, the big gamer, the head honcho at TLO, who is sort of solo running season three, is now taking on Baldersgate. And you know what? People are pretty concerned about this. What was your reaction to the news, Steve? Well, my reaction was Last of Us is for sure ending after season three. Yes, that seems increasingly certain. And I got to

hand it to Craig Mason. He's gotten really good at becoming the guy that is going to adapt the game that has very irrational fans on the internet that regardless of what he does, it is going to be a problem. I think it's a, you know, it's a good match. He seems to like games and he's a, he's very much in tune with at least at a baser level what it takes to make a decent adaptation of these properties as much as I had a lot of problems with the last of us season two he kind of gets it and I think I'm just more kind of curious as to what tone that he wants to strike with a Baldersgate adaptation really only because it's very much based on a player's experience and this is very much in tune with what D&D lore is malleable to be.

And I think Craig is, you know, it's a good playground for that. And there's kind of like less opportunities to get something, I guess, wrong when it comes to the lore and adaptations. Like, you know what? I'm going to take that back. Anything could happen. Anything could happen. But I'm kind of excited, but also very, very, very pessimistic. Don't take it back.

Stand on your corner. You're out here. just shouting down everyone who is shouting down Craig Mason and saying, you know what, I think Craig knows what he's doing. In Craig, I trust, quote, Steve Allman. Only when he does an Expedition 33 adaptation, will I say that? Well, we know one of those is coming, but as far as I know, he's not doing it. Matt, what did you think of this news? I mean, Craig Mason is probably one of the names that gives it the best chance of being good. It's wait and see for me, obviously, but he does give me some optimism. He has adapted

very important games with very vocal fan bases before, at least for one season. So, yeah, I'm just not ready to judge this yet. I think it could be a train wreck and it could be a great, success. And

regardless, it's not going to change my experience with the game. I think it is a little bit of a different thing than The Last of Us though, because... Very much so, yeah. The Last of Us is one to storyline that works and works really well. And Baldersgate 3 is several hundred potential storylines that mostly work really well.

But I just think there's so much more of an unknown factor of what this is than when you adapt the last of us. So we will see. I'm not ready to make a big call on this until we actually see something, some casting. notes. Yeah, I mean, if the characters, if he is using characters from the game and they don't hit, it's going to be an uphill battle from there. We'll see. Yeah, he is talking about casting some of the same voice actors as happened in some cases in The Last of Us. But in taking a wait and see approach and declining to prejudge something that we probably will not see for years, you are out of step with the internet at large. So I commend you. I commend you.

you on that. So we adopt a more measured tone here at ButtonMash. We like to see what we're talking about before we leap to conclusions. And it is funny how fast people sour on certain creators. Because, of course, Craig Mason coming off of the critically acclaimed Chernobyl and the Last of Us season one, which was immensely popular, critically acclaimed and rewarded, and also generally found favor with game players, too, primarily because it was so faithful. to the game and because it was just so clearly mapped out by The Last of Us, the first game, what an HBO series of that would look like. It was essentially an HBO series, but a video game. So it was kind of, you know, not a ton of decisions to make. And the ones that they did make,

I think were largely good when they strayed from that script. Now, season two was still popular, but less popular, a little less popular. It didn't build on its success. There was much more of a backlash, which was inevitable. But I guess this would be the reason for maybe some concern is that as soon as he actually had to make some real creative decisions about how to adapt something, it went south, at least in a lot of people's minds and sometimes in mine as well. I don't want to overstate the case. I think, yes, you should probably be more confident in him than in a lot of people.

It's just coming off of the taste that The Last of Us Season 2 left in some people's mouths. but it is striking. You know, I saw this with Dave Faloni, who's kind of the co-head of Lucasfilm now. Several years ago, Dave Faloni was the savior of Star Wars. He understands Star Wars. We love the Clone Wars. We love rebels. I was right there with them.

And now it's Dave Faloni. He didn't even like Andor. He's going to run Star Wars into the ground if it isn't there already. So I think that we do ping pong back and forth a little too quickly. And maybe we are a little too confident about whether things will be good or bad. But you are right. The deadline piece about this says the series draws deeply from the source material of Baldur's Gate 3, how it begins and how the game ends. And not so much from the first two games, which are not official source material.

There are some commonalities across those games that are connected to Dungeons and Dragons lore, which mason plants a drop on under the agreement with Wizards of the Coast. The TV series will feature both existing characters from Balders Gate 3 and new ones. it is expected to keep the D&D tradition of taking new characters who are not that powerful and follow their journey through adventures that make them powerful. The new protagonists are bound to run into beloved characters from Balders Gate 3, some of them heroes, some of them villains, some of them literally devils who occupy the same world. So it really couldn't be much more different from The Last of Us as an adaptation because there it was very much taking your cues from the game as it existed.

And here it is not doing that because Baldur's Gate 3 is not a linear game like the Last of us. It has many different hundreds of possible paths through that game. And so it's not quite as clearly mapped out here, which could be good or bad. And this is less of a direct adaptation than it is kind of picking up after whatever that means, right? But even what after looks like depends on how you played Baldur's Gate 3. And so people might be upset that their playthrough is not reflected in the adaptation. Yeah, it's kind of setting up for a difficult path with the endings being so different, but good luck. And that's really the ultimate test for Mason.

Like, if he can build a world and if he can make something that feels ultimately familiar to the people that love this game, then he succeeds. And he mostly succeeds in every adaptation of that, you know, as much as I would have loved the Chernobyl IP. Chernobyl, it's an actual disaster that happened. Can we call it IP? I don't know, but maybe everything is IP. The last observation I had about this, I guess, is that Mazin, he sounds a very different note than people used to when they made game adaptations without knowing anything about the original properties.

And I think this is certainly a positive change, even if Larian is not involved in this, the way that Nottie Dog was in The Last of Us. It's good to have someone who knows and loves these games at the helm. But he almost takes that too far for me. He is such an enthusiast about the games that I'm kind of. of like, relax. Like with The Last of Us, where he comes out and he says, it's an open and shut case. This is the greatest story that has ever been told in video games. Right. Okay.

Look, I like The Last of Us too. You know, it's certainly in the conversation. But hold your horses a little bit there. You know, there are other, it's not open and shut. It's open. And this time, you know, he's talking about his bona fides in the game and all of his achievements in the game. He said he's put nearly a thousand hours into the incredible world of Baldersgate 3.

That's a lot of hours. I mean, it's a big game. But even a completest play-through, that's a lot. It's an overcorrection. It's kind of, we've gone too far in the other direction. It's almost pandering to gamers. Like, I see you. I'm one of you, you know?

I'd much rather take a guy who is too lost in the sauce than a guy who is going to adapt, like, the most popular game of the last 10, 15 years and be like, I don't know. it is. Let's just try it. Yes. I don't know how hard it is. This is definitely preferable. Yes, it's true. It's just a question of, I guess, whether your love for a thing means that you love it for the same reasons that other people do, which was kind of a common complaint about the last of us season two. Like, clearly, this guy has played the games. He understands them. He knows them. He loves them. But also the interpretations of these characters and the decisions. It's not at all why I liked this but you know people take different things from these experiences so and also let's not forget

the things that him and his team like pretty much invented whole cloth for the last of us the show were kind of great like we had joey pants in season two and his entire story arc was actually quite moving and compelling and there were other iterations of that story that he invented that people really really liked and i can give him that credit as well that like if he can make something else in this world that is of his own creation that can also add to it, I support that as well. I'm not looking for a one-to-one. If there's anything we can take to the bank, it's that a game that is as revered and as successful as Balders Gate 3 is going to get an adaptation one way or another.

So despite people's reservations, this might be one of the better scenarios. And with HBO, you know you're going to get a quality production and budget. And also, you know that you're going to get nerd culture because we have just completely annexed HBO. Just the things that we like now are just HBO. HBO is the Batman and Game of Thrones and Dune and The Last of Us and Lanterns and Harry Potter Network. That's what HBO is. More for the better than for worse. Yeah. I mean, basically, it's not TV. It's nerd culture now. And some of these things were meant to be Mac shows. And there's all sorts of stuff going on with Warner Brothers discovery that has led to them wanting to pump up their IP. But it is,

quite a change. And I guess it reflects the status of nerd culture in the world writ large, even as some famous franchises sort of swoon. All right, our next patch note here, But Mesh is free to play, and always will be, as far as I know. And we have no negative news to report. But there's some bad news to report about some other high-profile free-to-play games. 2X-KO and Highguard hit with layoffs already. Now, Highguard, we discussed on our most recent non-fallout pod, and Riot's new fighting game is 2XCO. And already, major layoffs on these teams, Wild Light, which makes the hero shooter high guard has laid off most of its team, which is even worse news than the news about riots 2XCO, which came out in early access

in October, got a full release, including on consoles on January 20th, and it's laying off about half of its team, 80 employees. This is negative news. This is not new news, though. It is about these particular games, but we've seen this sort of cycle over and over, just the death throws of a free-to-play live service game. And these appear to be the two latest examples.

The games are not actually dead. They are supposedly still supporting them and trying to make the most of them, but this obviously doesn't bode well. And there was a quote from, The director and studio head who told Polygon last week, this is the maker of Highguard, whether it gets 1,000 people or 100 million people, it doesn't matter. What matters most is that the game is loved by the people who played it.

And sure, I know what he means, but unfortunately how many people play it and how much they love it matters very much to the bottom line and to the continued support of the game. Same thing for Riot, the EP of 2XCO said the game has resonated with a passionate core audience, but overall momentum hasn't reached the level needed to support a team of this size long term. Matt, I guess we can't call it a surprise after the number of times that we have seen stories like this. And we can't even say that this is faster than it's ever happened before because, of course, Concord set the speed record in that area. But are you at all surprised that High Guard and 2XCO appear to have come to this decision point so soon? No, I'm not I'll take a stance on this one

No, I'm not surprised I just think it's insane that we are in 2026 now and there are still so many game companies who want to bet big on a live service game and we just see time and time again

how much of an uphill battle that is, how hard it is to make a live service game that gets a big audience and keeps a big audience. And the budgets on these games are real big. And the expectations are pretty big. And again, with High Guard, you know, we've had that whole scenario that happened where it was announced at the Game Awards has the very last thing. And there was some blowback from the gamer community.

about Highguard being in that spot that probably set it off on the wrong foot. But I just, man, it's really hard to see all of these layoffs continue to happen. And game companies continue to force things down this very difficult road that leads to employees being laid off, like time after time. And I wonder how many people working at these companies, that are doing the big live service game are just clenching the entire time throughout the production, knowing that this is not likely to succeed.

We can do great work here. I can do the best I can at my job. And we can all be impressed with each other's work. And at the end, it just might not be what people want. And I think that's kind of happened in both of these cases with 2XCO and with, with High Guard, these are not bad games by any measure. Neither of these games is outright bad.

It's simply not what people really want. And the big budget is not helping. If it's not what people want out of the gate, there's very little chance to correct that first impression or to win people over because it's such a competitive space. If it's free to play, people will check it out, but they have no investment in it, and they will immediately move on to something.

And will they come back to it? probably not when all the stories about the game are that it's a dead game and the concurrent player accounts are decreasing and everyone's sort of rubbernecking, oh, here we go again. And yeah, you feel bad because a game like this is in development for four years or so. And then it comes out and it's just almost DOA, you know, not dead or alive. That's a different fighting franchise. But it's just it's such a quick comeuppance. And since we talked about High Guard last time,

The game has been patched and updated, and they added a temporary five-on-five mode, which then became a permanent five-on-five mode in addition to the three-on-three standard. But that's not enough. And the concurrence fall down to two to three thousand. And suddenly you're on life support. It's just the leash in life service is so short, you know. And how can you, you're lucky if you can convince people to check it out once, let alone to say, hey, no, we've changed. We're different. come back and give us a second chance.

I'm very curious to consider like the business aspects of the fallout of what Concord brought us because when Concord happened, it really did feel like a reckoning for the live service model. Not so much

in that it was a wild miscalculation on Sony's part, but it was kind of a, it genuinely felt like an indictment of that model for games that would have scared away most developers and most investors to go to this model anyway.

And obviously High Guard was probably still very much in the works when Concord came out. I understand that things like this happen and the breaks aren't immediately pumped on projects like this because the buy-in is too big anyway. But it starts to make me think that for the amount of returns that

have actually happened, where games actually cheat death past a year, let alone a month or a couple of weeks at this point. There have only been like five. Like we're only talking about Overwatch 10 years later

and Marvel Rivals is probably suited to last for a couple more years, but we have very few examples in this attention economy of games that have the free to play model that don't do this. And obviously layoffs suck. But I think if I were an

employee at some of these things, knowing that I'm working on a free to play thing, that has to be kind of a, all right, once released, happens, polish that LinkedIn and resume because things are not looking good. And obviously it's terrible to see people lose their jobs and everything. But like, I'm very curious to win the people in the big suits that pay all this money for these things are going to learn that this is not sustainable. And but it's also like indicative of a lot of economic models that aren't sustainable

and not profitable. And only there's like one or two examples of when it is. So very disappointing. And the industry doesn't just turn on a dime. these things take so long to make, as you noted. So the industry, the landscape just shifts under your feet, and you can't necessarily pivot or start over. So you just have to hope for the best. And I think that we will see a shift more toward double A-style games and smaller teams. And maybe it's more sustainable. Who knows? Because the live service graveyard is just getting crowded. It's conquered. It's ex-defiant. It's so many litany of games that you don't even remember because you never knew they were out in the first place. Right. And, That's why these games are different. High Guard was such a big story. And I don't think that this is about the announcement at the Game Awards and that strategy.

I don't think that's what killed it. Perhaps it didn't help. But at least it made it known. It led to some name recognition. It's just such a crowded market. And if you don't have a distinctive enough game, then people say, well, why should I switch? Because I have a whole history with this other game. and I have people who play it with me,

and you've got to give me something completely new to get me to break into this list of Apex Legends, which the developers of High Guard, many of them made Apex Legends, and they thought, here we go again, we'll just do it again. But that came out in what, 2019, and that's a different landscape. And so before the big game awards opportunity or curse came up, they were planning to just surprise drop it like they did with Apex. I don't know that that would have worked any better, though,

because again, it's just, you know, an early mover, you kind of got that first mover advantage. And now they're just perennial favorites that people don't drop. And we see the top five games played on certain platforms are exactly the same one year after the next. And you can try to shut a game down and re-release it, like Splitgate 2 or multiverses. And that didn't work. You could do what Overwatch is doing now and rebrand and say,

actually, forget that we were ever overwatched. to roll back. We're just the old Overwatch. You've known and loved. And that's kind of working for now because the game improved, but also because of its built-in audience and name recognition. And you're not going to have that. So I see the allure for companies because you look at Marvel Rivals.

Now, Marvel Rivals had the huge name recognition and the license. So without that, would it have stood out? But you look at, say, arc Raiders and you think we could be the next arc Raiders. And that's selling like gangbusters. and maybe that has entered the rotation of those perennial hits. I think the only note that I'd have for High Guard other than, well, maybe the game could have been better or could have been differentiated more in some way, is that one way that you can build Buzz, like Arc Raiders did, or course correct before you release, like Bungee's Marathon is trying to, is to let people play at first, do some sort of public play testing. And there was really nothing, no beta for High Guard. It was just the closer at the game awards.

And then there was radio silence. And then it came out. And then suddenly they're like, oh, maybe people want this to be five on five instead of three on three. These are things that you perhaps could have figured out before you do the make or big drop. Yeah. The lesson to learn here is community feedback. When you're making a live service game, it lives and dies based on what the community

who plays it think about it. And the path to success for one of these is to release it as not a finished product, release it in early access or beta testing, and present yourself as a company who wants to listen to the community about changes that can be made in the game. The most unappealing thing for this market is to have a game come out, and for the company to be like, listen, we know what you want, we got it, here it is.

And gamers hate that. They don't want to be told what they like. It definitely doesn't work and free to play online shooters. No, in this particular genre, like open those lines of communication and take feedback and just present yourself as being really responsive to the community. And that is your best shot at creating a live service game in 2026. Yeah. Well, Steve, you asked when will companies stop trying this?

Sony is not stopping yet because Sony just announced a new game coming from Gorilla, also Horizon Hunter's Gathering. So the next Horizon game will be a live service game. Sony, of course, notoriously has struggled to find any live service successes or many or even release the live service games that they set out to make. God of War, live service game canceled. The last of us live service game canceled, we could go on. But they're trying again to make it happen with Horizon.

Hunter's Gathering is going to be a three-person co-op action game, very Fortnite-inspired, visual aesthetic, more cartoon-y than the base games. You play as hunters, you work together to take down robot dinosaurs, monster hunter style. There are different modes, different combat classes, a social hub, some in-game shop,

presumably some sort of narrative coming for PS5 and PC. And there will be a public beta, so that at least they have taken to heart. But Steve, you are already scoffing and shaking your head. So I take it that you are not

hugely hyped for Horizon Hunter's gathering. I say this is somebody who genuinely really loves Horizon. Stop trying to make Horizon happen. happen. Well, it's Subjanaic Horizon spinoffs happen, is what I would say.

It's not because I tell you what, this IP is generationally cursed with a great, great, great, great set of gameplay mechanics and ideas and gorgeous art direction and incredible controls.

And nobody plays it until three years later. And everybody appreciates it. And nobody in this space is going to be like, I'm going to play a Horizon game right away, and I'm going to play a Horizon game that looks like that right away. Not only is it this like Monster Hunter-esque type of thing where, like, yes, we kind of already had this in the original two games,

but now it's this free-to-play horrendously downgraded, if you ask me, art style that is, albeit it's seemingly quicker to render and, you know, establish as a sort of like, easy and accessible poppy flashy type of zone. This franchise isn't built for that. This is the type of stuff that you do with established things and things that people are knowingly loving. And I'm not saying that Horizon's not established

because obviously it sells quite well. But we're not constantly singing the praises of Horizon 10 years later. As much as it deserves it, it's just not there. Matt, am I crazy to think that like this is the industry plant of IPs right now that we're like, we're really, really forced to consume Horizon. And I think we should, but they're giving it

to us in all of the wrong ways. Well, I don't know if A.Loy is an EPO baby personally. I don't have those facts. She feels like an industry plant, though. She kind of does. But I will say, A. Loy is not really featured in this game. She makes an appearance in the trailer, but she's not going to be

one of the playable main characters here. And so I can't help but recall a previous live service game set in the Batman universe without Batman that did not go over particularly well. Now, that being said, I do think it's a little questionable to take the star out of your game and create a bunch of new characters and expect that people are going to be into that. But part of me is a little bit optimistic about this game. And again, I'm not someone who plays these types of games, but I do see enough monster hunter in this for there to be something interesting about the gameplay.

And as much as we can take a look at the facts of this and like what I just mentioned and just the state of the live service game landscape right now being really dark, we can look at those things but I looked at the trailer and I think if the game plays good people are going to play it

and there's a chance that the game plays good I don't know I don't love the art style I really don't but you know more and more I'm realizing that there are plenty of games that are good that aren't for me and yeah I kind of like am more excited by

this idea than per se high guard or so I'm like Monster Hunter is fun when you play with other people it just is and the Horizon games have been of a certain level of quality and well I want to play it I want to play it but yeah I wouldn't I wouldn't feel confident in this idea if someone pitched it to me and I had to make a decision about it I would be like like, that's probably not a good idea. It might not be for me. It might be for someone. I'm a Horizon head, so I will defend Horizon at every turn. And yeah, it has sold well. It has been well received, despite poor timing with the releases of the base games vis-a-vis other blockbusters released around the same time. But I think the question is, does the franchise have the juice sort of to sustain

spin-offs and supplementary projects. And as much as I love Horizon, I just haven't had much time for, say, Horizon Call of the Mountain, the VR game, Lego Horizon Adventures. There's an upcoming Horizon MMO, Horizon Steel Frontiers. Of course, there was supposed to be a Horizon TV show. Now it's a Horizon movie. I talked to John Gonzalez of the crafter of the Horizon lore and Aloy on last week's fallout finale. I think a lot of the universe and the characters and the design and everything. I love Zero Don. I love Forbidden West. I love their expansions. Can't wait for the third game in that trilogy. Give that to me now, but it sounds like they won't be giving that to us anytime soon because there's just sort of this horizon creep. And I don't know if the franchise needs or supports this. If it's a good game, I'm sure people will check it out. But I would like them to focus on the core horizon.

experience because I love it so much. And it's genuinely so odd because if I feel like there's an IP that deserves this level of treatment, it is Horizon, but at the same time, I'm like, it's not ready. Like, you're going to make people hate it. Let us miss it before you make it overstay. It's welcome. And at every turn, I'm like, no, just like, stick with what you've got. It's very, very good.

Why is this like trying to creep outwards? And I get it. It's IP, it's brand recognition. It's the only thing that you have to go on now. a day's. But it's really, really frustrating when I get to see things that are really kind of against the soul of what makes these games and this IP really good, just made for something that is clearly cashed in. And Matt, I didn't forget what you said. Did you just invoke Gotham City Impostors in front of me? I mean, I was really talking about Suicide Squad,

but. Oh, Suicide Squad. Okay. Because Gotham City Impostas is amazing. And that game did not feature Batman or the Joker, and that game was so goddamn fun. Okay, well, that sure. Okay, well, we may have been hard on Horizon Hunter's Gathering, but we've got to give it up to Sony. We do, in fact, have to hand it to them. We are actually recording this episode right after the PlayStation State of Play on Thursday, which was a tort of force, a meaty, substantial showcase of upcoming games,

including a number of games we knew about that looked excellent, but also some games we didn't know about some exciting announcements. And I want to hear each of you what your biggest thing that we learned about here was. And Matt, I think I can kind of answer for you because your life's dream has been fulfilled. All you have ever wanted in life is a new 2D Castlevania, a new Castlevania period. And what an upset. Castlevania, Belmont's curse coming soon. I can't believe it. Yeah, I know. We got like a little Konami direct in the middle. I was like, why is this over and out? or half of it was Konami games, I guess. Yeah.

Yeah, New Castlevania 2D. It's by the people who made dead cells and the people who made the rogue prince of Persia, those two studios coming together. And those two studios know how to make a game like that. And I could not be much more excited about that. They said that it stars Trevor Belmont, who's the star of the recent Castlevania series on Netflix.

but it looks more like Sonia Belmont to me in the game, so we'll see what that's about. But yeah, could not really be more hype. That was like my number one pipe dream in our like 2026, like expectations pod. I can't believe it came true for you. I'm so happy. I know. I'm in a state of disbelief.

I know. And a state of play. Well, this is great. Steve, talk to me about first person, Silent Hill, in Silent Hill Townfall. They said it couldn't be done, Ben, and I didn't even know if it should have been, but good golly, it's here, and it looks great. This is Silent Hill Townfall. Looks amazing.

Being developed by an indie studio, Screenburn, I believe it's called, and this is another kind of continuation of the weird generational run that Silent Hill has been on for a revival of this IP, and Konami has been wildly smart about the teams that it has chosen to take on this franchise. And the impression that I get from this is that it's giving a lot of found footage and something new and different and off about what Silent Hill is

because we don't actually see the town Silent Hill. It's a different place. It's a brand new character, Simon. And this is something that I'm wildly excited about because this is kind of giving me the idea of when Resident Evil, person and we didn't know what that was going to mean because it was in the Mississippi Delta and it was in the dirty South and all of these like grungy types of things. This looks like a bit more of a send up to a classic type of Silent Hill scenario, but this is first person and very exploring and very, very well designed.

I'm so excited for this. This looks great. And you're not going to guess what my second favorite thing, Kathleen came out of this direct was. You can guess, but it's not going to be, it's not going to be what you think. Tell us, tell us. Rayman 30th anniversary collection. No, baby, pod racing.

I'm into pot racing right now. Well, yeah. I mean, I was already at the highest possible hype for Star Wars Galactic racer, but it looks great. Looks beautiful. That should look just like burnout to me, and I need burnout again. I need that coming back.

This looks wonderful for what I would love to see out of a pod racing game. It's about crashes, and it's about dirty tactics. And this is exactly what pod racing is. I'm over the mood about this. I'm going to jump in and correct Steve before you do. It's not a pod racing game. It's a racing game that has pod racers in it.

Yes. Shut up. It's pod racing. There is pod racing in it, which was a question. People wondered whether there was any pod racing. No, there's no podcasting. That's what we do. But at first, it seemed like there might be no pod racing.

It is not all pod racing. It is a happy medium. It's right in the sweet spot. There's some pod racing, but also other means of conveyance. Yeah, I'm excited for that too. I will shout out God of War, which was kind of the closer here. And not only the remake of the original trilogy, a 3D remake, which is kind of interesting because God of War has changed so dramatically since those early years when Cretus was more problematic than he is today,

now that he's grown up and he's a dad. So now we'll see what this looks like 20 years after the original God of War. Of course, it will take longer for it to actually come out. But also, shout out to Sons of Sparta, which as we record, we have not played because it was literally just released. But Shades of when God of War Ragnarok was released, the free DLC that came out at the Game Awards in 2023. We have another surprise shadow drop here. it's a 2D action platformer set in Cretos's youth.

So can't tell you whether it's good or not, but I'm into experimenting with the pre-established franchises and characters other than Horizon Network. Looks good to me. I don't play that tonight. That is right up my alley. Here's what I'll say. This does not look like my particular cup of tea,

but I do love the fact that it's a surprise drop and it's a brand new fully fledged game. And we need more of that. Because those usually tend up being pleasant surprises anyway. So I respect this. Yep. And just some others to quickly shout out, there's a new John Wick game in development so far out that it's still called the untitled John Wick game. But it looks like what you might actually want out of a John Wick game. So that's sort of exciting. And other games that look great, Saros looks great. I mean, we were already excited for

Saros. But now that we've seen more of it in the showcase, I think our hype has only increased. It gets bigger. Yeah. Yes. Sarah Zooks insane. Yes. Anything else that we need to mention here that we did not know about before? There's kind of a cool co-op sort of like a ninja game called Yako Shinobi ops.

That looks kind of cool to me. Sort of like a tactical ninja-flavored stealth game co-op strategy RPG. I'm just naming genres. But I'm curious as to how that's going to look next to say like that, Shadow Realms game or that stealth pirate game that escapes me right now, which was quite good. This is interesting to take on from a team that has done the Shinobi games. And I very much dig those isometric stealth puzzlers

because I consider them more of a puzzle game rather than a tactics or action franchise. That intrigues me. I'm very much in tune with the two-player co-op Knights game. It's basically what I called Army of Two, but Sword and Board. Oh, was that Crimson Moon? Is that what Crimson Moon was? That is something that I'm actually quite into because I love mandatory co-op

and I love mandatory co-op when it's from an action perspective because, again, Army of 2 scratched an itch that I haven't quite been able to scratch since and I think this might be doing it. Were you reaching for Shadow Gambit the cursed crew, the Pirates?

No. Yes, I am, yes. Shadow Gendbit. Great game, great game. That I can't remember the name of it. Also, shout out to Cana Scars of Cosmora, which is the sequel to Cana Bridge of Spirits. If you want something with sort of Aloi Horizon vibes that is more single player oriented, then maybe check out Cana. I liked that first one back in 2021.

That was fun. And I had kind of forgotten about it. And now I remembered because there's a sequel coming. And maybe it'll be bigger and better. Certainly looks sort of horizon coded. All right. anything else, it really was quite an impressive little

sister real, just something for everyone. You know, Metal Gear, right? Like, there's just everything old, new again, and also everything new again. I was going to request a tiny vibe check on Marathon, because I truly don't know how to feel, especially when it came back after its development

phase of like, oh, hey, we might have stolen a bunch of artwork and we're going to completely retool the game now. And it looks better. Compelling and better. and like a lot more story elements than I ever considered were possible. How do we feel about this?

Yeah, it's looking up, right? And it seems that they have taken some of the criticisms about the gameplay and the aesthetics and everything else to heart. I imagine we will be covering it when it comes out next month, but my hopes are higher than they were. But we just talked about all the difficulties

of breaking into this service space. So good luck. We were ready to learn again. They were saying, like, we've been listening to the community, And listen, that's the exact thing that we demand these people do anyway. Like when they go back into the lab because we shouted at them and Sonic's weird eyeballs are fixed for the first movie, we are happy now. Yeah, we're right now to hundreds of millions of dollars, you know?

Yeah, exactly. The fans aren't always right about everything, but sometimes it's good that they get their way. And that was one of those times. All right. Well done, Sony. Real quick, we got the Yote Legends. Oh, yeah. The state of March 10th, which is right around the corner.

Yes, more multiplayer, though this is an expansion, not a standalone project. Yeah, that's very exciting. And then the MENA, the hollowware, we didn't get a date, but we did get confirmation that it'll be spring. And a demo coming soon. We've had a demo on PC. I think there's a PS5 exclusive demo coming. PlayStation demo, yeah. And we don't know if that is going to be the same demo or a new demo or what.

But sure, check it out. The demo that I played on PC was incredible. So that Octopus game that Konami was tossing out, Darwin's paradox. I know people were like a little bit busy, like laughing that it wasn't a Metal Gear game when they came out and like the octopus was under a box. But I don't know if you guys watch that trailer.

It looks really good. It looks pretty cute. I don't really know what it's about. I just thought it was like, of like, Octodad. I thought that was a spinoff of Octodan. I don't know. We'll see. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows Winter is the MVP and making a mess.

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save at Whole Foods Market. Okay, so that's what's coming soon or coming not so soon. Let's talk about some games that are already in our hands and on our hard drives. This will be our mini-games section of the pod, where we share less than full reviews, more of our impressions of several recently released games that we have been playing together or separately. This will just be sort of a show and tell. Well, just tell for now, maybe show when we move to video, which we're planning to do. some point soon. But let's go, let's talk about some games that came out last week and then we'll

get to some big releases of this week. And we can begin with Neo3, which came out on February 6, developed by Team Ninja and published by Coe Tecmo. You'll never believe this, but it is the third installment in the Neo series of action RPGs and the follow-up to 2020s, Neo2. And Steve, you are the Neo-enthusiast on this episode and you've been putting some time into Neo3. so give us your quick impressions. Neo3 is a lot, man. Somebody who pretty much skipped over Neo 2. I came into this being like,

whoa, this is a lot more than I remember some garral looking dude swinging two swords around and playing the Dark Souls like. This is a lot more akin to a team ninja, like kind of magnum opus, if I were to say something like that. It's a very in-depth, very complicated, and very rewarding and enriching action RPG

that has really come into its own. It's probably, I mean, clearly, in my opinion, the best of the franchise, having not played to take that for what you will. But the combat is incredible. You now have two styles to juggle from where it used to have like stances with your main selected weapon.

Now you have two styles, which is a ninja style with a completely different weapon and a completely different moveset that you can switch to on the fly. incredibly well-directed actions and sequences, very tough bosses, a lot of things that you can do with your character

along with this, wildly impressed by this. Difficult? Yes. Will I finish it? Probably, but this is a lot. This is a lot for me. Yeah. Yeah. On the heels of all the Team Ninja that we have played recently Rise of the Ronin and the year

of Ninja Gaiden last year, I don't know what my appetite for Neo3 is right now. It's a lot. be too much for me, but I knew this was up your alley, so I'm glad to get your take. So you have to be a neo-enthusiast. It sounds like this is for a specific sort of player. You kind of do, only because to a non-neo enthusiast, I can imagine this game being completely weird. Yeah. And now it'd be like, okay, so it's a Solzal game. Uh, yeah, but you also got like a ghost Tomogachi that you take care of, and you're kind of like fighting these like generic only and also you make these, oh man,

You have, it's like a custom create a character now. So I made like the whitest man in all of Japan with like glasses and he looks like me. You made yourself. Yeah. A total weep. And I was like, this feels right. This feels right. I am the chosen one.

I played the demo of this to kind of gauge my interest in it. And it's just here's one of those games. It's not for me. Right. The combat feels great. No doubt about that. And I loved Ninja Guide in. last year, which I did not particularly expect to love, and I loved it. And the ninja stance in

Neo3 feels very similar to that, and it feels great, but there are elements of this game that I personally just can't get into. It's cool that you can switch between the samurai and ninja stances, but at the same time, you have different armor sets for each of those. And every time you kill an enemy, it explodes into like three different armor pieces. And each of those armor pieces has like three different modifier stats on it that do 1.5% for this stat or that stat. And it's just like way too much. Like for me personally, I don't want to keep managing my gear and my inventory. It's very much Final Fantasy Stranger of Paradise. I think it's the same devil. even, and that had a similar thing.

I just don't like playing games where you equip things, and it gives you a minimal percentage boost to a stat that I perhaps don't have a full grasp of what it even does. Yeah, well, if it sounds like that's for you, you can pick it up on PS5 and PC now. It's a good example of the kind of game it is. It is. It's a generous way to put it, I think.

Really? So, yeah, worth checking out, well-received. in its genre, in its space. It's found its community. Okay. Another game that's also a lot and also came out last week, we have discussed Final Fantasy 7 rebirth. Can I interest you in another 7 RPG developed and published by Square Enix?

Or as some people say, Enix. This is Dragon Quest 7, Reimagined, which came out on February 5th for everything, PC, Switch, Switch 2, PS5 Xbox series, a ground-up remake. of the 2000 original. And Matt, you did not play the 2000 original, right? But you have played... No, nor did I play the Nintendo DS remake several years later. Right.

So this is your first introduction. This is not Dragon Quest 7 reimagined for you. This is just imagined for the first time. Just imagining it. How has it aged? How has it aged? Well, I've just gotten into the Dragon Quest series in the past few years with these remakes

that they've been putting out Dragon Quest 3 remakes. and Dragon Quest 1 plus 2 remake, which have been the HD2D art style remakes of these Nintendo games. But as you mentioned, Dragon Quest 7 came out in 2000 at a time when the graphics were already beyond Sprite 2D graphics.

So they decided to reimagine it in 3D. And I have been enjoying this game tremendously. I am right at the end of it. I'm very close to be. it. And I have just loved this. It is a hot cup of tea. It is a cozy RPG that is not that difficult. A lot of people are saying it's like super easy. Yeah, it's it's easy, I guess. But it doesn't make you feel like you're breezing through every boss fight. You do have to think about things. You don't die a lot. That's for sure. So by that metric, it's very easy, sure. But I just think that Dragon Quest 7 Reimagined

is really kind of what it's trying to do, I think, is introduce a new generation to what these games mean. What an RPG in the old traditional sense of turn-based RPGs, what that is. And Dragon Quest is so much responsible for that entire genre. And this just presents as the most center lane turn-based RPG experience. It is charming. It is super charming. The music is great. I just think it's really palatable.

And if you're someone who needs a challenge, then this probably isn't for you, even though there are difficulty settings, a lot of them that you could scale up. I just don't think that every game needs to be super difficult. I think it's okay to have a breezy experience within a genre. And that's what this is. And it's just been a real high point for me to go through this game. And as someone who's near the end of it feels like the right length.

Yeah, I love this. Roughly. Roughly, I'm almost at the 60-hour mark. Okay. And it's been a real breezy 60 hours. All right. So House of the Dragon Quest. Matt has signed up.

You are all in on the 40th anniversary. By the way, there's a demo out. This franchise. If you think you might be interested, play the demo. You'll know within the, it's about a four-hour demo, three to four hours. If you like it, you're going to love the game. If it's not your thing, don't bother. And you can continue from the end of the demo, right?

you play the full game, which is crucial. I hate playing a demo when I then have to restart and replay the whole thing. But the NEO3 demo works the same, actually. Yeah. Yeah, demos have improved in that respect. Okay, well, let me tell you about a game that I have been playing that you two haven't had a chance to check out yet. It says Romeo is a Dead Man, which is developed and published by Grasshopper Manufacture, Inc.

This came out this week, February 11th for PS5, Xbox Series, Windows. And probably all I have to tell you, and this will either make you interested or make you decide never to play it, is it's the latest game from Suda 51, who is the Atoor best known for Killer 7 in the New More Heroes trilogy. I guess that's really more than a trilogy, but there are three main games in the No More Heroes series. And if you've played, yes, let's call it a saga. If you've played any Suda 51 game, you have some sense of what to expect for. from Romeo as a dead man, which is an ultra-violent, I guess I would say, sci-fi action shooter. And it very much has that suit of 51 aesthetic vibe character.

You either love it or it's not for you, probably. And usually it's for me. So you play as Romeo Stargazer who is in a relationship sort of with a woman named Juliet go figure. And he's kind of Travis touchdown from the No More Heroes games in that he has a sword that he likes to swing around and cause arterial sprays of blood spatter everywhere. And it's just a very postmodern mix of all kinds of culture and anime and sci-fi and manga and comics. And it's all just sort of put into this Suda 51 stew. And it's, it's just sort of put into this Suda 51 stew. And it would be very difficult to summarize the story. I don't know that I could provide a plot synopsis. It's

just there's a spacetime rift. There are sort of splinter universes. You play as sort of an FBI space time investigator, but also you're sort of not alive anymore. You're kind of reincarnated, and you have this like helmet on your head. So you are Romeo Stargazer, but you're also dead man, which there's a dead man. and death stranding. And there is kind of a Kojima-esque quality to Suda 51, but more playful, like similarly incoherent sometimes,

but just more playful and kind of just, you know, not so cinematic. And I like these games and I like, has either of you played, no more heroes or any of these suit of 51 games? I have played Killer 7 is great. Killer is dead and a couple of others.

Yeah. This game looks just, Right up their alley, like absolute madcap, Looney Tunes level of, like, animation and art style. It really does feel that, like, Suda 51 and that Team Grasshopper is like, these guys are true originals. Whether you like these games or not, like you cannot say you've seen anything like this before. Yes, yeah.

Well, except for their own previous games, I guess. It's like their true originals except that each of their games bears a lot of resemblance to their previous games. But yeah, it's just there's nothing conventional about any of it. It's just, you know, when you're selecting the difficulty level of the game at the beginning, it's not easy, medium hard or something. It's orange chocolate, milk chocolate, and white chocolate. And it's hard even to tell what the difference is.

And it's just, it's super meta and self-referential and breaking the fourth wall and just mini-games. And some stuff is kind of half-baked. but everything is just bonkers. If there's one, not downfall, because I like these games, but pitfall, I suppose, to the suit of 51 games, is that the gameplay itself tends to be pretty conventional, just like everything around the gameplay, the presentation, the storytelling, the characters is wild.

But the gameplay itself tends to be pretty standard hack and slash ultra-violence. You've got a light attack. You've got a heavy attack. you just sort of string them together. There's a ranged attack, you know? So there is a lot of repeatedly pressing the same button. And from a gameplay perspective, it's definitely not as distinctive it is in every other respect. But all those other respects really elevate the gameplay.

And it's sort of, you know, satisfying in a simple way. And I think it's well-paced because sometimes the No More Heroes game is as much as I like them. You know, there could be a lot of slow stuff and kind of grunt and grinding and fetch quests and stuff. this one, it moves. It moves along. Doesn't overstay its welcome. And I won't while talking about it either. But I think if you've never tried a suit of 51 game before, or if you have and you have liked them, then I think this is a good place to begin because this is as suit of 51 as any suit of 51 game, if not more so. That's probably the best way I can summarize it. It seems like the gameplay is kind of a throwback to the exact time that a lot of these references and tributes are from. I don't know if that's intentional. Is it intentional or is it just like that's their wheelhouse? Right.

I think it's more the latter. Yeah, it might be nostalgia and sentiment, but I don't know if it's sort of a self-conscious homage as much as just this is what they like and this is what they're good at. And there is a lot of pixel art and you kind of, there's almost like an S-N-E-S-style sequence when you're on your ship. And it's, it doesn't ever look the same for more than a minute at a time in the story. It would be very difficult to explain what exactly is happening and yet it is compelling in a weird way. So I would give it that kind of qualified recommendation. I'm enjoying it. I'm liking it.

All right. Let's talk about another game that you've sunk some time. into Matt that also came out this week. And that is Mugenics. Mugenics. Which is the latest steam sensation came out February 10th and immediately has left the gate with, oh, 80,000 or so concurrent players. And I have a feeling that it will hang on to those player counts a little longer than

Highguard has. This is developed and published by Edmund McMillan and Tyler Glale. McMillan is best known for Super Meat Boy and the binding of Isaac. So there's certainly some interesting. D-Cred here. And this game was originally announced in 2012 and has actually been an active development for seven years or more. And it is finally out for Windows. It's a tactical, role-playing, rogue-like life simulation game. Feel free to interject some other genres if you think they apply, Matt. Also, cats, those always do well on the internet. So tell us about why this has seized so many

people's playtime. Mugenics. Yeah, it's, it seized my playtime, too. And I have to say, this game does not look appealing to me whatsoever. I personally just, like, don't like this visual aesthetic that is, like, early 2000s flesh aesthetic, I guess. And some of the humor is, like, kind of of that era, too.

So, like, and there was a lot of that in binding of Isaac as well. obviously, but that's a great game. And you know what? This is also a great game, despite the fact that I don't like looking at it. The reason that this and that I click through almost all of the dialogue boxes as fast as possible. But the gameplay here is fantastic. It is, as you said, it is like a tactical roguelike and it's excellent. You take out four cats at a time and you go out and you quest in each cat, you kind of of give a little tag to that says like this is the tank, this is the mage, and there's a bunch of different classes to unlock. And they each have, you know, unique abilities based on the cat itself and also the class modifier that you give to it. And at the end of a successful run, the cats come back to the house and they will breed. And you are sort of trying to breed the cats together to inherit specific abilities, maybe combine two things.

So you're breeding in a way to get the kind of builds that you want for the cats. And I've just found that the build diversity is crazy. And it is a massive, massive game, it turns out. Despite having this very humble art style, this game in scale is potentially hundreds of hours. Yes, and they have not been shy about that. You know, you tend to hear, I think, a little less these days from developers and publishers

who just tell you how huge and long their game is because that can be a turnoff now. Because we're all just trying to find time. And there are so many games and how do we fit it into our adult lives? And so when McMillan came out and described this as one of the largest tactical RPGs of all time and said that it will take an average player about 200 plus hours to beat the game and 500 plus hours 200% that is not an incentive for me yeah I don't want that's right but you know what like you get three runs deep into this thing and its hooks are already it's claws perhaps are already in you it is very much that one more run sensation yeah you unlock a bunch of

bunch of new stuff that constantly sort of re-energizes the experience. And it's got the sauce. That's it. Like, nothing about this appeals to me, and yet I love it. That's maybe the best endorsement you could ask for, really. Just everything is telling me that I wouldn't like this, but actually I love it. Yeah, I'm kind of interested, too. I'm less, I think interested in the breeding part of it than in the actual runs. I think it's very much not, I feel like it's much more,

like the balance of it to me, so far at least, is good. It's not like a 50-50 split there. It really is just like, you know, you spend a few minutes when after a run like reconfiguring and setting up your new cats and breeding.

It doesn't, so far, far for me yet like slow down the meat of the game yeah that's the one complaint i've seen from some people that the the actual core gameplay is compelling but other things feel like busy work or this is delaying me from getting back to the part of the game that i like but like ball ex pit a lot of people had that complaint about the town building in ball ex pit and i enjoyed it but i can see like in that game the town building element took a considerable amount of time and between runs. And here, I don't feel like that's as much the case.

Okay. I don't think this is the last time that we will be discussing Mugenics this year. Seems like it has some staying power. Sometimes you can't always tell based on just how hot games launch and how many people are playing them. But sometimes there's an arc raiders, there's a Mugenics, and you just sort of feel like, yeah, this is going to stick around. People are going to be talking about this for a bit. This won't be a flash in the pan, especially if it takes them 200 plus hours to beat the game. All right, let me tell you about a little game called Mario Tennis Fever. Yes, please. Which came out this week. Please tell me this is good.

February 12th. So this was developed, as are many of the Mario Tennis games, by Camelot Software Planning, published by Nintendo for Switch 2. This is the successor to 2018's Mario Tennis Aces for Switch. So on one level, you know what you're going to get from a Mario Tennis game, you know, 26 years into this franchise or however long we are. And this franchise has given us so much, mostly Walloichi, and that alone is enough, but also many happy hours of multiplayer gameplay.

And the core Mario Tennis gameplay is here. It's preserved. It's pick up and play. There's some depth. It's arcadey, obviously. You know, it's not the most robust tennis simulator. I do think that tennis is one of the sports that translates to video games best.

And I've spent many a happy hour, not only with Mario Tennis games, but with Virtua Tennis. That series back in the day on Dreamcasts doesn't get better than that. But yeah, the core appeal, if you just want to pick up and play this with someone or, you know, locally online, whatever it is, you will have a very good time playing Mario Tennis Fever. It's hard, I think, to spoil that aspect of things. They kind of have that down. So the question then becomes, is this sufficient? different or new or innovative, that it is not just familiar in a good way. I mean, you know, yes, it's what we've played before. That's good, I guess. And it's been eight years since the last

Mario Tennis. I guess it's time. But does it advance the formula? And I guess in some ways it does. So the fever refers to these special rackets. This is the gimmick of this game. Every Mario Tennis game has to have some sort of gimmick. And they're really leaning into the smash Brothers, Mario Kart-esque kind of arcadey element to this, power-ups, you have special rackets that all have certain abilities. And when you do them, they produce some sort of effect on the court. You know, they set the court on fire. They turn the court into ice. They make mud on the court to slow people down. And you can deploy those kind of tactically. And if you're playing doubles, you can have rackets that complement each other. And you can also counter them. If someone uses their

special racket and you hit the ball back on the fly, then you can kind of counter its attack and it will go back on the person who tried to use it. So there's a good amount of depth there in addition to the usual. You can do drop shots. You can do lobs. You can do a power shot. You can do your standard slice. You can do, you know, three shots, varieties, mapped to three buttons, that kind of thing that we all know and perhaps love. I guess the disappointment is that for a certain generation and I'm in it, all of these Mario Tennis games will be overshadowed by the legacy of the Game Boy games, which it's just never gotten better than the Camelot Mario Sports RPGs essentially.

Yeah. You know, going back to the originals and Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance. Those games were so good just on the core gameplay level, but also had these compelling single player modes where you could craft your own character and, you could. you were trying to take down the pros and it was super challenging and there was an interesting story. And so every time a new Mario Golf or Tennis game comes out, I think maybe this will be the time when they realized that this was the peak.

They never should have gone away from this. And this is what at least some people have been clamoring for. And so I saw an adventure mode in Mario Tennis Fever and I thought, oh, this is it. Finally, we're getting the full-fledged single player experience. No, no, it's not the same. There's a very easy and interminable tennis academy training section. And then there is a single player campaign, which is, you know, like it has an overworld and you're going to different stages. And they're kind of trying to tell a traditional Mario's story.

It's like, you know, Mario and Luigi have been transformed into babies and you have to grow up again and power yourself up. but it's sort of shoehorned into that because ultimately all you do is play tennis, right? And so how do you incorporate tennis matches into a story? And so there always has to be some kind of contrived reason why you are solving whatever the problem is with your tennis racket. And, you know, challenges and kind of mini games. And it just, it kind of feels like half-assed in a disappointing way. And I will just always pine for those original modes. So one of these days, one of these years, one of these sequels,

they will just go back to that well and say, hey, it's never been better than those games. Why don't we just do that again? You can power up. Like you get points when you win stuff and it ostensibly like improves your stats, but you can't even tell. It's like an imperceptible difference, you know, and you're like level 35 or something.

and it's playing pretty much the same way as it was playing at this beginning. And you can't actually put those points into categories. You're just kind of generically leveling up and then attributes, you know, meters tick up, but it doesn't really feel much different and you can't customize it to your play style. So, yeah, that mode ultimately fell pretty flat for me.

But if you're in this for the multiplayer, then there's enough to sign up for yet another Mario Tennis. So it's like a glorified tutorial mode. Yeah, more or less. It doesn't feel like the main event. It's so disappointing, man. Because, like, golf story happened on Nintendo Switch and was a big deal. And, like, that GBA game was incredible, that, like, RPG mode.

Oh, my gosh, yeah. I wish we could have that. How, the Game Boy Color game was incredible. The Game Boy Color game, incredible. Yeah, yeah. I don't think I'm going to get this because it's, what, $70? Yeah, it's an indebtable. Nintendo. So, yeah, I don't know. I think there's, you know, if you've never played a Mario

tennis game, this is as good as any to pick up. And if you've just been waiting for several years for new Mario tennis, this will give you your fix. And there's a lot to like, you know, I like the, it's kind of gimmicky and arcadey, but I like it. I like the integration of the special rackets. And, you know, there's the tournament mode. There's a challenge mode. There's a mode that like mixes it up with unusual matchups. There's a, like, a skill testing mode. There are a ton of characters. There are a ton of rackets, a ton of courts.

You can play online to your heart's content. So there's a lot of replay value in theory here. You know, it's a certain kind of tennis game where there's only so much control over the actual tennis aspect of things. You can't actually hit the shot out in this game, right? I hit one ball out. I played this game for. hours and I hit one ball out and I don't even know why I was shocked I was out what do you

tell you I was about to go John McEnroe on them like why what are you way I didn't even know you could do that do they even have a character as a line judge in this game well is toad not on the sidelines is wait is toad not on the sidelines I mean you know now in actual tennis these days it's it's robots right it's cameras and computers in many cases replacing the line judges it's Hawkeye But yeah, and you only have so much control. It's like, you know, it's hard to even, if you're playing doubles, it's hard to even hit it in doubles territory.

It's like if you really want to hit it to the edge of the court, it kind of doesn't let you do that or it sometimes will, but sort of unpredictably. So, and the timing, of course, you don't have to be precise. Like there's all sorts of, you know, charging up and everything. So it's not exactly realistic tennis, but I don't think that's what anyone's looking for for Mario tennis. So it's fun, you know, but it is lacking that that single player experience that I still crave.

And I guess, I mean, the switch generation of Mario sports games, we had Mario Tennis Aces, we had Mario Golf Super Rush, we had Mario Strikers Battle League. And these games were all okay, you know? Yeah, they were all kind of in the 70 to 75 metacritic range. And this game is a bit better than that. And they all had the same issue, right? Yeah. Yeah. They're multiplayer focused.

and they just don't really want to give us a lengthy Yeah, and it's sort of more of the same with a fresh coat of paint I'm seeing that like a lot of these other like mainline either Mario or first party Nintendo games they're not developed in-house by Nintendo. They're typically developed by another team and not to say that that they that team didn't do great work but it seemed like they had one primary focus and it was to deliver a certain thing and short of those massive 10-pole games that we see on a switch to, like a Donkey Kong Bonanza or a Zelda,

or even maybe this latest Mario Kart world, like, it's been rather disappointing. And this is a broader question, but, like, has there been a quiet, like, down swing of first-party Nintendo games with, like, the Mario and major Nintendo IP that have been lacking in quality? There is a rising discontent there among Switch 2 owners, I would say. You know, the sports game stagnation, I think that applies not just to Mario sports games, but sports games in general. Just because there's been a consolidation and a monopolization, you know, each sport kind of has its flagship series. You have your iterative release.

It doesn't look much different. And the Metacritic scores decline because it's not doing much new, but people keep buying them. And the graphics gradually get better. And it doesn't change in, you know, it doesn't change by leaps and bounds. And that's sort of what we're stuck with. And maybe that's partly a product. of a lack of competition and rival franchises and partly a product of, well, maybe there's not that much to do. Maybe we've mastered the sports game. As for the Switch, yes, and, you know, we had

a Nintendo direct. We had sort of a partner showcase. It was kind of a dud, you know, it was largely ports and previously announced games. And that fanned the flames of people saying, hey, Nintendo, where are your flagship franchises? Because as much as we all love Donkey Kong Bonanza, and I do. And, you know, as much as people enjoyed Mario Kart Worlds, it wasn't quite what people were expecting, I think. You know, I give it credit for trying to innovate more than Mario Tennis does with each new release, but it fell short a little bit of the promise of open world Mario Kart. And so in the absence of new Zelda, new Animal Crossing, new Mario 3D, you know, there has been a sense that even though the switch is still outselling the original switch,

which 2 is still sold more through the same period. But there was a downtick in sales relative to the original switch, relative to other systems in the U.S. late last year. It's still selling well in Japan. But the pace has slowed, which was inevitable once you get the early adopters purchasing these things in droves. But at some point, yes, you need the exclusives.

And if all you have is a switch, then fine, you know, souped up ports. That's good, I guess. games that were popular that couldn't run on the original switch. Well, now you're finally getting them. But if you have other systems, well, that's not really moving the needle so much for you right now. And so given that there's kind of a dearth of first-party Nintendo switch exclusives, you know, and that some of the others like Pokemon, you know, legends and Z to A and Metroid Prime were cross-gen.

And also in Metroid Prime's case, kind of a disappointment. I think everyone's waiting for, okay, what do you got up your sleeve here? What's coming later this year? And we're not talking about upgraded versions of Switch 1 games that cost 80 bucks if you're buying them for the first time. This is not like the Wii U where there were some strong titles there that nobody played because people hadn't bought a Wii U. And so you could port them to switch and it was as if you were getting a new game.

Everyone had a switch. So these meager upgrades to Switch 1 games are not getting me to pay a premium for them. And maybe Pokemon Pocopia will be the stage of coming next month. Oh, boy. All the previews for that, people got their hands on it. And everyone who touched that game seems to be really excited for it. Yes. Yes.

It's the 30th anniversary of the franchise end of the month. And then Pocopia comes out early March. Yeah. So keep your eyes on that one. That might be the, and that is a Switch 2 exclusive. Yeah. And it appears to be a potent mix of Animal Crossing and Minecraft and Pokemon.

I mean, you can see the appeal of that, right? So maybe that'll be the system seller that people are waiting for. But right now, I think people are waiting for for Nintendo to bring out the big guns, which it will do at some point. But there is a bit of a switch malaise. And I can't say that Mario Tennis fever, as fun as it is, really changes that. All right. Last but not least, another new game out the same day as this podcast, February 13th, reanimal,

which is developed by Tarsier Studios and published by T.HQ Nordic for Switch 2, PS5, Xbox Series, and Windows. This is from the Swedish studio best known for the Little Nightmares games. And Matt, we played this one together and we beat it. This is the first co-op game we have played together online since Split Fiction. And so it's a little bit different from Split Fiction. Different vibe. Yeah, a little bit. A little bit.

Slightly different vibe. Good game. It is a good game. We had never played Little Nightmares, so we came into this not having some sense of what they were, but no firsthand experience. And it's dreamlike, it's nightmarish, little nightmarish, I guess. You know, you're controlling characters with Hotline Miami masks, essentially. It's among the grayest games you will ever play. It's dark.

It's very dark. literally dark and just yeah in terms of brightness and it is short we beat it in just a couple of play sessions i don't know five hours or so maybe and it looks kind of like limbo you know it's sort of like puzzly stealthy some combat kind of but very rudimentary how would you describe it in that yeah i think you i think you got it's a mix of those things the your basic control or you walk around, you have an interact button. That's kind of most of it. Once you get a weapon, there's an attack button.

And it's a lot of just like co-op puzzling for the most part and sort of set up experiences that you kind of walk or run through. There are a lot of parts of this game that are real standout memorable moments. And there are a lot of parts of this game that feel a little janky and a little unrefined. And there are a bunch of circumstances where you'll encounter something for the first time. And there's just like no way that you would know what to do before being killed in that circumstance. But I found that there was enough in this that was clever. There's a lot that's fairly routine feeling.

But I think the experience as a whole is like, all of the elements of it are good enough. It's pretty memorable. So if you are feeling like playing a co-op game, I think I can absolutely recommend this. But I don't think, you know, you should expect a world-beating, innovative experience here. I did think the narrative is interesting.

As difficult to summarize as Romeo, It is a dead man, if not more so. It is very difficult, and I think there are some metaphors in there that are intriguing. Yeah. Yeah. A lot less talking than split fiction, mercifully, I think. Yes. And yes, you know, it's a lot of sort of suggestions more so than spelling out what exactly is happening, lots of disturbing imagery.

So it's a co-op, but it's not split fiction. It's not orbitals. This is not going to be happy fun time exactly. but it might be fun time, at least if not happy. And there are some cool set pieces. It sort of starts small, but it builds up into some bigger memorable action sequences. And I think my favorite part is just the design of the world, but also the enemies. Very memorable, I think, animation, but also just the creepiness factor with some of the big bads that you are sneaking around and sometimes fighting.

There's sort of a body horror element to it. Not so much that I would have any trouble playing this, I think, even by myself. It helped to have you there, Matt. But even as a video game coward, I think I could stomach this one probably. But if you were to look at a transcript of our voice chat conversation while we were playing, there'd be a lot of, this is weird. And okay. I think I said a lot of times, was that supposed to happen? Yeah.

Yeah. So that's where you're going to get from reenable. but worth checking out and again, a bite-sized game. And the last thing I'll say about it or for this episode period, I think we should debut a new mini segment called Only in Video Games. You suggested this idea, Matt, because we were playing Reanimal and our colleagues over at the press box, they have only in journalism where they talk about words

that are only used in pieces and rarely in regular conversation. Only in video games is something you encounter in video game worlds that you rarely encounter in real life. And yeah, of course, we could talk about exploding barrels and such. But I'm talking about more mundane objects. And I guess you would call it an extension ladder, I think. Yeah. I remarked to you at the time because this is one of those games where, you know, one person,

there's a lot of hoisting, you know, and giving people a boost onto ledges and such. And also ladders that are like half extended and then one person, has to climb up and then you shake around on the ladder and then the bottom of the ladder falls down to the ground so that the other person can climb up it. I mean, we've all seen this in every video game ever, right? And in context that it's not like a fire escape on a building, which is completely understandable that that ladder is there. Yeah. Outside of that. Like it's not like at Home Depot where someone has to get something down for you from a high shelf. It's just out in the world, just extension ladders, the kind that like slide down. And, you know, it's just extension ladders, the kind that like slide down

and lengthen. And I was saying to you while we were playing this, like, I don't think I've ever used a ladder like this in real life. Now, maybe that says more about me and my lack of handiness and my lack of home improvement projects or living in an apartment. I don't have much cause to use a ladder. But just generally, walking around the world. I do not.

I mean, for you, you can be like driving in cars, only in video games, right? Who does that? Only in video games. Yeah. But extension ladders. It's not even just in games. co-op games. Sometimes it's like an NPC, you know, it's like a Last of a style thing. You know, you go up and you let the ladder down for someone. This, does this happen to people

in real life? Let us know. Write in. Ringiversegaming at gmail.com. If you are a user of extension ladders and you're like, what are you talking about? I use these things all the time. Yeah, but then please tell us. Or if other ideas occur to you for only in video games. Yeah. Other only in video games. Yes, please, we will read them on future episodes. Okay. Well, No spoilers. We just gave you a taste of all of these experiences. And, you know, we're building up to the big blockbusters coming later this year. And of course, Resident Evil Requiem coming later this month. But there is always a steady drumbeat of good games, games that are worth checking out. And we covered several of them that are out and some still to come. So, guys, thank you very much for speed running our itinerary today. Thanks so much for having us. It's good nice to not be in the beginning of January anymore where no games are. coming out. It is.

Although even then, we found our January gems. We found some stuff to talk about because the fire hose never completely turns off. And it certainly never turns off here at the Ringiverse and on ButtMash because things turning 40 this year, Castlevania, Metroid, Dragon Quest, me, and also the legend of Zelda. And so we will have a Legend of Zelda 40th anniversary draft for you next time, next week. That's when the anniversary is. So we will talk more Nintendo and our love for that franchise then, followed, of course, by our coverage of Resident Evil Requiem. And as always, I will remind you yet again to contact us at RingverseGaming at Gmail.com.

Thank you so much to Devin Romano for producing this podcast and to Arjuna, Ramgo Pell, for allowing us to live, as always. And we will be back with yet another button mesh next week. What's the difference between butter and butter made from real count? California dairy. It's the real California farm families behind it. Real people. Real care. Real intention.

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