The Ringer-Verse - Franchise Speed Dating: Playing Five Famous Series for the First Time | Button Mash

Episode Date: March 1, 2025

Ben and Matt discuss Matt’s spoiler-free impressions of ‘Avowed,’ the ‘Elden Ring Nightreign’ network test, and news about layoffs and closures affecting ‘Marvel Rivals’ and ‘Wonder Woman’ (10:00). Then Ben looks for love in the latest installments of long-running video game franchises that he’s never previously played—‘Dynasty Warriors,’ ‘Sniper Elite,’ ‘Civilization,’ ‘Like a Dragon,’ and ‘Monster Hunter’—by “speed-dating” each of their newly released sequels and deciding whether the series deserves a second digital date (30:30). Host: Ben Lindbergh Guest: Matt James Producer: Devon Renaldo Addition Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, everyone, it's Amy Poehler, and I'm launching a new podcast called Good Hang. In preparation for that, I asked some of my friends to send in some videos and give me some advice. Just be yourself, and the guests will come. Don't be the celebrity that this is their, like, sixth thing they're doing. I love true crime and cooking podcasts. Is there any way you could combine the two? Well, everyone has an opinion and a podcast. So, join me for Good Hang. It's rough out there. We're just trying to lighten it up a little. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters.

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Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Trimfairadio.com. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer, unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner. Or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips.

Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those WeatherTech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need WeatherTech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. Hello and welcome into the ringerverse, your nexus speed for all things fandom. I am Ben Lindbergh, the brains, the brawn, the beauty behind Button Mesh, if I do say so myself. And with me today is my buddy, my palico, my wingman for franchise speed dating. Ringer deputy art lead, Matt James. Hello, Matt.

I don't get any of the beauty. I mean, you contribute to the beauty too. Thank you. That's all I wanted. But Mesh is beautiful. everybody who appears on buttonmesh is beautiful. It's a beautiful thing that we have going here. And let me tell you what we have going here.

Because when Van Lathen was reading the programming teases on the last midnight boys, Pugh-Pew, he got to the entry for this episode and expressed some confusion. I believe he said something to the effect of what the fuck is franchise speed dating. Great question, Van. A question I would also ask myself if I had seen that on the calendar. trying new things is the theme of today's pod, a new format for the episode and also new games, but old franchises,

something old, something new, not sure if we'll have anything borrowed or blue, but this is new games in old franchises that I am playing at least for the first time. So here's something I think about with games compared to other media. It's kind of a paradox about video games. If you have an established series,

it's easier to jump in, I think, in a long-running video game series than, say, a long-running movie series. But it's very difficult to catch up on a video game series because it takes a lot of time, right? So I calculated this. You could do a James Bond movie marathon. You're like, okay, Jeff Bezos is running Bond. Let me get into this now, now that Bezos is running Bond. And if you wanted to watch all 27 James Bond movies, you could do that in less than the average playtime of, say, like a dragon, infinite wealth, which is just one of many games.

Of the past 20 years of Yakuza games. Yes. You could easily play that single game for longer than it would take to watch every MCU movie in order, right? So that's kind of complicated because once you fall behind, it's like, well, that ship has sailed, maybe literally, in terms of like a dragon pirate yakuza in Hawaii, which we will be discussing today. But it just feels like you miss the boat. It's too late to get on board. You know, if you were saying, like, I want to watch the new Captain America movie, let's say,

I've never seen an MCU film. Let me start here with Captain America, Brave New World. I would suggest that's not a great place to start or even continue. But if you did and you said, all right, I got to watch all the other MCU films before I get to Cap. You could do that again in less time than it would take to catch up on a single entry in a long-running series. So once you fall behind, I almost feel like, well, that's it for me. I'm just never going to play that thing, you know, because there are a lot of long-running series that I got in on the ground floor of. I started Super Mario Brothers when it was packaged with Duck Hunt. I got the gold cartridge of the legend of Zelda for my sixth or seventh birthday.

So I've grown along with those franchises. And so many other long running series with many iterations, Ratchet and Clank or God of War, which turns 20 this month, or Halo or countless others, I've been there every step of the way. But others, I have not played at all. I've been peripherally aware of. And I just feel like I can't possibly get on board at this point. And yet the premise of this podcast is, well, what if we could? What if it's never too late?

What if we tried? Yeah. What if it's not too late to make a connection? Even at our advanced ages, maybe it's not too late for us. So over the past month or so, I noticed, I look at the release calendar coming up. I think, what are we going to button mash about? I see Dynasty Warriors origins. I see sniper elite resistance.

I see Civilization 7. I see Like a Dragon, Pirate Yacazza in Hawaii, and coming out the day we're recording this, I see Monster Hunter Wilds. All of those franchises have something in common. I have never owned a single game in any of them, which I say somewhat to my shame, really? I call myself a gamer.

I call myself a video game podcast host, but gaming is such a broad umbrella that even if you're someone who've been playing your whole life, you can't play everything. You're not into every genre or every series. And so I thought, okay, this will be forced exposure. Exposure therapy to these games. I'm just going to take the plunge.

I'm going to try them all like a time demo. It'll be a speed dating format. And I'll see if I make a connection. If there's chemistry, if I want to invest in a long-term relationship with these series. So I know that you play every game in every series. So this might not be such an issue for you. But not accurate, but also not too far. Not that far from being accurate.

Monster Hunter, you're a monster hunter virgin like me. Yeah, this was my first monster hunter experience. Other than that, though. But have you had this issue with other series where it's like, oh, everyone says this is good, it's successful? I mean, yeah, I mean, anyone who's like entered the Yakuzza series at some point or another. Yeah. As to like, you know, there's a lot. There's a lot involved in just hopping on that.

And, you know, we'll talk about Pirate Yakuza. later and how I feel like it's a good jumping in point. But there is no great jumping in point on that series that has 20 years of heavy story, whereas Monster Hunter, what happened in Worlds or Rise isn't particularly important in a series where people famously skip all of the cutscenes to play the game. It's not always that hard to jump in, at least from a story perspective. And we'll get to Monster Hunter and the way that that game functions later,

there are challenges aside from plot and story in hopping into a series midstream. Yes, for sure. That's why I say games are maybe more accessible in this sense, though, just because it tends to be a little less story dependent than, say, a movie or some kind of interconnected cinematic TV universe where you jump into Brave New World and you're like, I have not seen the Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

I have not seen The Incredible Hulk. I have not seen Eternals. I have not seen so many other things that I need to understand what is happening here. Whereas with most games, you're probably good. You could maybe watch a YouTube recap or something if you're feeling up to it. But otherwise, it's largely gameplay dependent. And so you can kind of hop in and maybe you'll be a little loss, but a little less loss. But it's still daunting to tackle one of these things at this.

late date. So I thought, okay, not 50 first dates, but five first dates. That will be more manageable. And I played these five games for five hours apiece. This is speed dating when it comes to video games. In real life, speed dating might be five minutes, maybe less. But in video games, five hours, that's just dipping your toe in a lot of games, right? So that is what passes for speed dating here. And all of these series, by the way, the other thing they have in common, they will all be at least 20 years old at some point this year, and they have all had at least 10 installments. So that's the backstory, the context I'm missing. I'm not saying I'm completely ignorant. Like I have had zero exposure to these things. You know, maybe I've played them at someone's

house. A friend had them. I've watched videos. I'm kind of familiar with the culture and the genre and all of that, but I've never owned one. I've never really had a dedicated long-term relationship with one of these things. So five hours, I hoped, would be enough to get a good feel for a game, you know? And again, it's just the tip of the iceberg sometimes. But if you, if you don't like it after five hours, you're probably not going to like it. I guess there have been occasional games where something really grew on me over time. But that's enough, I think, where you can say, okay, I gave this a chance at least. So speed dating, franchise speed dating, van, that's what this is. I have never speed dated IRL. And unless my wife leaves me, I never

will. Have you ever speed dated? No, no, definitely have not. All right. You're also a married man. So this could be our one and only chance to speed date. So we will make the most of it. Before we get to these new installments in old franchises, just a bit of newsy banter, a bit of which will have to do with other recent releases that you've been playing and that I want to get your quick impressions of, namely about, which came out this month. It's been a busy month, even with the delay of Assassin's Creed, A lot of action RPG going on this month, and I have not had time for a vowed yet, but it has been quite well received. This is from Obsidian published by Xbox Game Studios for Xbox Series SX and Windows, and you have spent considerable time with this game. So is your review, your capsule brief impressions as positive as the consensus seems to be?

Well, I think that, first of all, I think the consensus is a little bit mixed. Yeah, yeah, not overwhelming. Yeah. Yeah, some people really aren't feeling it, and some people are feeling it. Generally favorable. Yes, generally favorable. I've been having a tremendous time with avowed,

and I can still see the criticisms that people have with avowed. I think an obsidian game has high expectations for it, because of the publisher's history, of course. And in the time since, you know, we've gotten some of the previous Obsidian bangers, a lot has changed in the gaming landscape, right? Like, Baldersgate 3 changed a lot of what we should expect from a role-playing game, right?

And I think everyone kind of looked to Obsidian and said, okay, well, you're going to put out a new fantasy RPG game. Clearly, we're expecting that you have all, learned everything that's happened since your last release, and we're going to expect you to adhere to this new gaming landscape of RPGs. And the game simply is not that. Avowed has incredible combat, incredible exploration, and it doesn't really try to do anything aside from that,

which is to some people disappointing. But in my opinion, I think this is an example of, a studio that realized that they had perhaps limited resources to make a game. They couldn't have a billion systems integrated into this game. So they said, let's focus on what we know we can do well, exploration and combat. And those are great. And people are giving it kind of, you know, some trouble about like, okay, well, you guys have like lockpicks. There's no lock picking mini game.

If you have enough lock picks, you can open a chest. Speaking of chest, there are just chests everywhere. It doesn't really make sense. And you go into someone's home and they're cooking and you just take the food off the table and they don't say anything. And these are things that Balders Gate three purists would say, oh my God, this is unacceptable, right?

That's completely breaking my role-playing experience. Yeah, it's very acceptable to me, highly acceptable to me. These are reasonable complaints, I think. But I think this is just about expectations. And sure, it's not what I expected from Obsidian. I think that they're studio capable of doing those things. I don't know if they had the budget and scope to do that. But what we ended up with avowed is that nothing is getting in the way of the best things about this game.

And I have so much fun with those great things that I don't wish that there was a lock-picking minigame in this. Yeah. Like, it's a video gamey video game. There's no reason for there to be chests everywhere that you can find in open. It doesn't make sense. But it's a video gamey video game, and I'm really enjoying that about it. We like video games. Video gaming is not a negative in my mind.

And Obsidian has kind of been carrying of all of Microsoft's acquisitions over the past several years, some of which have not yielded the crop of great games that were expected as of yet. Obsidian's still churning them out. I mean, Outer Worlds, Outer Worlds 2 coming later this year. Grounded, Pentiment, of course. Pentiment. You know, I love Pentiment. Yeah, Pentamine is great.

Pentamine is not what you would expect from Obsidian either. And yet it was a hit. It was beloved. And I applaud the experimentation. So I'm definitely going to check out Avowed at some point, hopefully not 20 years from now when the 10th installment in the Avowed series comes out and we do a second speed dating episode. But Nash is still around in a couple decades. Emergency podcast. There's a lock picking mechanic in Avowed, too.

The other game that I wanted to ask you about because you briefly got a look at it is Eldon Ring, Night Ring, which is coming out in May. but you got into the playtest and you got to see what it is exactly. We knew it was okay. It was Eldon Ring but rogue-like or Eldon-ring but Battle Royalee, kind of. So in practice, you told me, some aspects of it sort of surprised you,

but it sounds like it's something that probably will resonate with players, even if it's a little different from what we think of as Eldon Ring. So what was your experience? How much time did you get with your hands on this thing? Yeah, I got about, I want to say about five hours of playtime. Speed dating time, yeah.

Yeah, oh yeah, exactly. Speed dating. And boy, you sure do feel like ushered along during night rain. For those who don't know, you kind of drop off onto this island like Fortnite, right? And you have selected one of several classes to play as. You don't create your own character. You pick one of several classes with defined skills and abilities and stats. All of that. And you drop onto the island in a fortnight-esque manner, which is not what most people

think of when they think Eldon Ring. They don't think, oh, man, if only for more fortnighty. If only there were a shrinking circle of some sort. Yeah, if only, you know, you could be Peter Griffin and Eldon Ring, you know. But you're ushered in by this big wall of blue flames eventually throughout your each day of the three days of night rain. You're pushed by this wall of blue flames into a central point where you then fight the boss. And so over time, your area that you can exist in on the island is reduced. I found night rain to be very enjoyable. I think that they have structured the class as well.

But at the same time as someone who loves Eldon Ring deeply and played through the DLC and I've got, I don't know, 160 hours in this game or something, I don't know, something ridiculous like that. Night Rain, for some people, is going to be a dream come true. Fast combat, great co-op, playing with friends, a new challenge each time. For me personally, it's not what I love about Eldon Ring. I love the exploration of Eldon Ring. I love living in the world, feeling like I'm in this world,

taking time to appreciate everything that they've kind of laid out. And I really take my time with it, and I find great joy in that. In Night Rain, you're kind of forced to be urgently moving on. And I think that it's a little challenging, in addition to my personal preference to take my time, It is just inherently challenging to manage your weapons and inventory and skill upgrades and all of this stuff while there is an unrelenting urgency to what you're doing to the point where I think it's going to take a lot of playing Night Rain to really get a sense of the equipment that is good versus bad because you just don't have time to really assess anything. And that is my main concern about it, is that you might not be able to build something that's enjoyable to play until you're many, many, many hours deep in it.

Yeah, I'm excited for it. I think this might actually be my pathway into Eldon Ring more so than Eldon Ring proper. And I'm curious to see if it reaches the same audience that Eldon Ring has established or a new audience, or if it turns off the committed from software folks, but it will be big, I'm sure, and we will discuss it when the time comes a few months from now. The last little bit of news that we wanted to cover, well, it wouldn't be 2024, 2025,

if there weren't layoffs or closures to lament. And there's been a couple big news items in that genre over the past couple weeks. The first was the somewhat shocking news that the Seattle studio, of the studios that has handled development of Marvel Rivals has closed, and a lot of Marvel Rivals layoffs happened, which really took everyone by surprise, even in these uncertain times, because, of course, as we have covered on this podcast, Marvel Rivals has been and continues

to be a sensation. And one would think that that would make you immune to the vagaries of the censor street, but nope, apparently not, because that seems to be part of a wider pullback by NetEase, the second largest publisher in China. that handles the primary development of Marvel rivals. They invested in a lot of new studios, startups, acquisitions a few years ago, and not all of those acquisitions have panned out. What else is new in this industry? And so they have begun to cut back and close some studios or downsize some studios

or possibly spin-off some studios. And so some people who were working on Marvel rivals got cut in that shuffle. subsequently there was news about WB Games, Warner Brothers Games Arm, which is also closing studios, including an acclaimed one, Monolith, which has survived for decades and has even been under the WB umbrella for 20 years or more at this point. This is a studio that dates back to the 90s. You've almost certainly played some monolith games, whether it's no one lives forever in its sequel, great games, underrated, hard to play. these days, fear the matrix online, middle earth shadow of mortar and shadow of war. And they were also developing Wonder Woman, which is no more. Wonder Woman was troubled development and has now been canned.

And so there's been a lot of reporting around this by Jason Schreier at Bloomberg and Stephen Totillo at GameFile and others. And this is not the only closure. There were others as well alongside Monolith, but that was the most notable one. And basically, WB is just doubling down on the core franchises, on Harry Potter, on DC, on Game of Thrones, et cetera. And sadly, Wonder Woman will never see the light of day. So what did you make of this double-barreled bad news action? Yeah, it's just as hard to see as any brutal cancelization of games and shutdowns of studios.

and it's just so sad how common this is to hear that a promising project or an entire studio has been shut down after these teams are working on games ceaselessly for years and they don't get to come out and they have resumes where they're trying to get jobs and they haven't shipped a game in years through no fault of their own.

and it's just a really terrible, terrible industry to be a part of then. It's brutal. I was looking forward to this Wonder Woman game, and now it's just not going to happen. It's gone. It's hanging out with whatever Deus X-SQL got canceled in the great beyond of unpublished games. Yes, the what-ifs. There was a sense that it was sort of stuck in development. Hell, we hadn't heard about it for years really since its announcement.

And then there were reports that it was evolving and being rebooted. And so troubled development, although some of the developers, as is usually the case, have come out and said that it was going to be something special, that they were really building something great. And it seemed like it was going to be a big budget, pull out all the stops, give Wonder Woman the game she deserves, be comics accurate. So I'm saddened that we won't be able to play that thing. and by the broader layoffs here.

And the game was also going to incorporate the nemesis system from the Middle Earth games, which people really liked. It turned NPCs into meaningful enemies, which WB games patented. Unfortunately, that's kind of uncommon in gaming. Only 6% of filings for video game patents are granted. Namco had a patent on loading screen mini games for a while. There's one on the Mass Effect Dialogue wheel, the Eternal Darkness, sanity meter, crazy taxi,

just the idea of driving with an arrow above you. There are other examples, but they're fairly rare. And it stinks that Monoliths developed this cool concept and this cool mechanic. And now WB is just squatting on it until 2036 without actually using it in any of their games. I guess I had two takeaways. I mean, one is that even if your individual studio is doing well, even if you put out good games, that doesn't necessarily mean you're safe. Because if you're part of some massive conglomerate that,

perhaps has over-extended yourself. If you're Tango GameWorks, you know, which puts out Hi-Fi Rush, and it's a great success. And then you're just caught up in Microsoft and its huge portfolio and all these global trends. And you might find yourself on the cutting room floor. And hopefully you then get picked up by someone, but not necessarily. And so you really can't predict it. You can't control it.

You can maybe to some extent control your own output to the extent that any game development process is actually predictable or controllable, but even that does not mean that you will survive just the rockiness of the industry in general. Then the other takeaway is just how quickly things can change where it seems like a studio or a publisher is really riding high and then suddenly its cutbacks and its layoffs and it's downsizing. Look at WB, for instance. I mean, they were doing well up until fairly recently. Mortal Comptoms. Bat One was a success. Hogwarts Legacy was like the best-selling game of that year. You know, there were a string of successes, Lego Star Wars the Skywalker saga. And then it doesn't take much to just

totally sap that momentum. Suicide squad kill the Justice League bombs pretty predictably. Again, can't really blame Rocksteady for that. That's more of a WB strategic mistake. Then multiversis, which comes out of the gate hot, and then it goes away for a while. They retool it and it just doesn't catch on when it comes back and they close that down. And then there's a Harry Potter Quidditch game that doesn't do well. And suddenly your entire streets. Yeah. Like the sport of quidditch, as we all do.

Yes. Not a good sport. No. Some fatal flaws with that sports from a design perspective. But really, it doesn't take long for things to swing. Or you look at like Ubisoft going from this perennial powerhouse pumping out bestsellers on an annual basis to suddenly not releasing anything and everything they do release is disappointing and, you know, all the off-the-field scandals, so to speak, associated with that company,

things can change quickly. So, you know, in some cases, it's like, look, there was the boom time of everyone playing games during the pandemic because nobody could go outside and everyone was glued to their screens, which I still am post-pandemic, but other people apparently like fresh air at times. So, you know, the industry gets a little too bullish, gets a little too high on its supply, and maybe hires a bunch of people. And I get that, you know, we're wired to pay more attention to the bad news than the good news. And so it's bigger news when there are layoffs and closures than when there are hires and studios starting up. So maybe that's somewhat skewed our perspective, but it's, it's been a bloodbath over the last year plus. And it's sad to see. And I hope that it's

stabilizing, but there are still just continued casualties. And I just, I hope the bleeding stops at some point. And the thing that's so frustrating about the Wonder Woman cancelization is that they, like, in their statement of why this is all happening, they're just like talking about pivoting to their, they're like IPs that they know. And it's like, this is DC comics. Right. Exactly. Just because y'all designed a bad DC game in Justice League that nobody wanted, doesn't mean that all of DC Comics has no value as an IP. Like, it's so frustrating that they just, it's almost like they have no idea what video games are about.

And they're just like making guesses as non-gamers based on, like, I don't know, arguments in a boardroom over expensive salads that, I don't know. Yeah, there's a failure of leadership. It just feels so out of touch. There's trend chasing. Yeah. And it's kind of depressing that it's just like, well, all we can do is just double and triple

and quadruple down on franchises and we'll keep pumping out Thrones and DC and Harry Potter and Mortal Kombat. And you could say that maybe something like Thrones has been underserved from an interactive entertainment perspective. And I'm not saying don't keep making Mortal Kombat. And IP is not bad. We like a lot of IP. And if you're rock steady and you're making brilliant Batman games, great.

So it's more just trying to shoehorn what these studios do into whatever the trend du jour is, whatever. You know, let's make it live service, even if that's not the strength of a studio. And then you overextend and you spend. And then people pay the price for that. Let us move on to better news and happier subjects. And we'll get to our speed dating and perhaps we'll find franchise love here. programming teases on Sunday, many millions of people will tune into the Oscars. Personally, I'm not a big award show guy, but I do live by one rule, which is always

watch Conan O'Brien, so I will be tuning in. But on Monday, the most anticipated award show, at least in some circles, we'll be airing on the Ring ofverse feed as the Verses arrive. On Tuesday, the Midnight Boys, a Pew Pugh, will have their Daredevil born again two-part premiere reactions. Speaking of IP, we're excited about. Later next week, Button MASH will be back. Matt, you'll be back.

We're playing split fiction, not IP, original split fiction in the great lineage of co-op games from, yeah, now you're out. You thought this was Marvel or something? No. You're just going to make a video game based on a movie or a TV show? What? No. This is in the lineage of co-op games by Hayslite and Joseph Ferris and the makers of brothers, a tale of two sons, and a way out, and It Takes Two Game of the Year.

So you'll be back. Steve will be here, too, as will Joseph Ferris himself. I will be interviewing him, the visionary behind these co-op games. Also, the guy you probably remember saying fuck the Oscars at the Game Awards. Yeah, that was him. He's a colorful character. And over on House of Our Mal and Joe will have their Daredevil Deep dive as well. Lots of good stuff coming up on Buttonmash over the next couple months.

Split fiction next week. Assassin's Creed Shadows later this month. Will that be great stuff? I don't know. We haven't played it yet, but we will soon. The podcast will be great stuff, I'm confident. Switch 2 News, the Minecraft movie in South of Midnight early next month, and then it will be the last of us season two time. And we will be covering that on But Mesh.

We'll be covering that on pretty much every podcast that the Ringer publishes, as I understand it, including But Mesh. And you can contact us at Ringervverse Gaming at gmail.com. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business, Fast, Reliable Internet. means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum business. They keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum business.

So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. This episode is brought to you by Sweet Cream. The day doesn't ask for permission. Lunch window? Gone before you saw it coming. You deserve a break that actually satisfies.

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So again, the games in release order, Dynasty Warriors origin, sniper elite resistance, Civilization 7, like a dragon, pirate yakazza in Hawaii, a ridiculous title that I love saying, and Monster Hunter Wilds. And as we get to each of these, I'll give people just a quick capsule summary and history of these franchises if you're even newer to them than I was. But for me at least, this was actually fairly liberating, knowing that I was playing for only five hours. And I took that pretty seriously. Like if I took a bathroom break, if I put the controller down, I stopped my timer. I was going to get to five hours and maybe go a little over. If I was in the middle of a level or a boss fight or something, then I finished it. I didn't put my pencil down when the clock chimed. But that was the exercise. And I felt knowing that I was

getting into that only, it just felt really good. Like I didn't have that weight of knowing that what am I getting myself into here? How long is this thing? You know, what am I signing up for? It's going to be a hundred hours. Yeah, it's like, worst case, this is five hours and I'll move on. And, you know, we'll go our separate ways and we'll say we always had Paris and that'll be that for our relationship. And I felt like, you know, the FOMO that I had felt for all these years about all of these franchises, I felt like this was good for dissipating that. And also just for my cultural education. Just okay. I've been exposed to several other. long running series here.

But I did, again, feel out of my depth. I didn't have home field advantage here. And I apologize to all of the hardcore players of these franchises who've been there since the beginning. And here I am jumping on the bandwagon in 2025. Total noob, just dilettante, dabling. Not looking for any serious commitment. Yeah, right.

I'm sleeping around. I'm playing around. You know, I'm playing the field literally. So I get it. I get it. If this is near and dear to you, you might even know. resent, like, who does this guy think he is? You know, five hours. I've spent 500 hours. What do you know? What qualifies you to talk about these things? And that's partly why you're here,

because you have actually played some of these series more extensively. So you can supply some of the context that I may be missing, although, again, I've done a little research. So I guess, you know, for each of these, I have loosely some categories that I'm kind of grading them on, as one would in an actual speed dating exercise where as I understand it, because again, I've never partaken. But, you know, you go around, you say hello to several people. And then at the end, you express interest in who you would want to see again. And hopefully you match.

You know, it's like old school analog swiping, right? And matching on an app. And maybe you even jot down some notes so you can remember what did I like about this person. What kind of impression did they make? So that's what I'm going to do. here basically like are they my type is this franchise my type on paper like is this the type of thing that I would play I mean clearly not I guess because I hadn't until now but but like you never

know yeah right like maybe I meant to all these years and I just never got around to it or maybe I was like yeah never playing that you know sometimes the great ones have have just been there all along and exactly the best romcoms right like you know you don't get along at first it's like you've got mail, you know? It's like the big box bookstore and the indie bookstore. They're never going to get together. That would never work. And then this one game takes its glasses off and you just see them entirely differently. Makeover. Yeah. And so, yeah, I'll talk about, you know, how tough a cell to myself was this. Then I'll talk about the looks, you know. I mean, that's what you see first. It's a surface level. That's not all that matters. But just how do they look? You know, are these pretty games, good graphics?

and first impression looks is part of that, obviously, but not all of it, right? You know, was it tough to dive in or was it accessible? Was it easy to get in? And then just general compatibility, you know, controls like did I vibe with this game once I had spent some time with it? And did it grow on me, you know, did additional time deep in? We got to be careful with these metaphors, really honestly. Careful, Matt.

Did it grow on me in a pure. platonic way. Did it improve on that first impression or did it fail to sustain a positive first impression? And then I'll give my verdict. Do I want a second date with this franchise? Or do I at least want to extend the first date? You know, sometimes you go on a first date and you have your emergency call set up, right? Like if you have to get out of there, maybe I've never done that. But as I understand it, some people do. Or maybe it's, you know, you meet casually. It's like coffee shop or you get a drink or something. And then if it's going well, you propose a second location, hey, let's get a bite to eat, right? Like, that's my verdict on each of these. So I will start with Dynasty

Warriors origins. And I will say, by the way, if it feels fast and furious, that's the point of the speed dating exercise. But this is how most people play games. In fact, I mean, first of all, most people at this point don't even try new games. They're just playing Fortnite forever. They have their one game. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's increasingly difficult for any new game to break in because there are all these. I'm just too busy playing apex, man.

Exactly. It's Daurant. It's Apex. It's Fortnite. It's Pub. FIFA. It's whatever it is. Minecraft.

It's Roblox, right? And so you return to that. I hope it's not Roblox. You return to that happy place year after year. And most gaming time is devoted to games that are not new in that year. But also, there was just a survey that was put out some research that was done just this month that showed that on average console and PC gamers play about 10 hours per week. But that's the mean.

If you did the median, there are some outliers. There are some Matt Jameses in that sample who are dragging up the average. So two thirds of players spend fewer than 10 hours a week gaming and more than a third spend fewer than five hours a week gaming. They couldn't have even gotten through a single speed date in this exercise. So most people dabble. They do try it. And if you don't make a positive first impression in those five hours, you might not get that second chance. So Dynasty Warriors Origins, developed by Omega Force, published by Koa Tecmo, third person hack and slash.

But really, I guess, a subgenre of hack and slash games is the Muso game. And this is the definitive Muso game, Dynasty Warriors, Samurai Warriors. And this is hack and slash, but where you're hacking and you're slashing like a thousand dudes at the same time, basically. Just massive battlefields populated with NPCs who are fodder for your sword. And this franchise dates back to technically the original Dynasty Warriors, 1997, but that was a standard fighting game. So really, Dynasty Warriors 2 in 2000. This series has cumulatively sold more than 20 million units. This is the first new installment since Dynasty Warriors 9 in 2018, and it's on Windows,

PS5, Series SX. I played it for Series X. What is your experience with Dynasty Warriors? I started at Dynasty Warriors, too, Ben. Wow. OG. Okay. Well, the interesting thing is this genre feels like its origins are in the early 2000s,

because it's just not that deep, Ben. you're, as you stated, you're some powerful character, and you're just slashing down hundreds of enemies at a time on the battlefield. And that is just inherently going to feel pretty cool. Yeah. And it's like you swing your sword, and instead of one guy going flying, somehow it's like 50. Like physically, I'm not sure exactly how that works,

but it's a video gamey video game, as we said. Indeed. Yeah. And the formula hasn't changed too much in the past 20 years. So yeah, this feels to me like a franchise that I could have jumped in on at any time, basically. And it would have been equally accessible or inaccessible. Because as I understand it, I mean, the story is based on the Chinese epic romance of the Three Kingdoms. And it's essentially repurposing the lore over and over and over again in different permutations, right? So the story is not necessarily central to this in the first place. But it's not really like perfect continuity where like if I didn't get on board with Dynasty,

Warriors, too, I'm not going to know what's going on in Dynasty Warriors origins. You can pick up and play and hack and slash. Absolutely. Yeah. And it's inherently fun. Yeah. I haven't played a Dynasty Warriors game in at least a decade, I think. So it was nice to jump back in.

Yeah. Does it feel for you like, well, once you've played one, you've played them all? Or does it feel like, okay. But is it also like, hey, it's been a while? and I want my fix of that same thing that I've enjoyed in the past? Yeah, and they know they're not going to get in the way of the fun.

They know where the fun is here. And personally, I was pretty impressed by this one Origins. I thought, you know, they've modernized it in a pretty nice way. I feel like the game has a pretty great tutorialization at the beginning that really walks you through all the systems very smartly.

They have this cool overworld map. A lot of kind of different events to take on that are different things. Yep. Yeah, I just thought like, you know what? The formula might not have changed that much in the past 20 years, but they haven't gotten in the way of that, and they've refined it quite nicely. Yeah, so that first criterion is it my type? I would say yes, because I have actually been casting lingering looks at this franchise for years,

just smoldering gazes that I've been casting Dynasty Warriors way. I've always wanted to play Dynasty Warriors. And I just never have, maybe because it never felt like any individual Dynasty Warriors release was a must play. It's like, you know, this is a Goody candidate or something. It's just kind of, it's like they keep making par, basically. Like, I don't know that any of these games is going to be on the game of the year list, but it also, like, most of them are good. Like they're meeting that sort of same Dynasty Warriors baseline, except for the repetition. and it's like with an annual sports release or something.

It's like, okay, what is actually new here? Why am I getting a new one? And in this case, it's been several years since the last Dynasty Warriors, not that I played that, so it doesn't matter for me. But if you are someone who's been playing, this is the first one that's been developed from the ground up for this current console generation. And I think that does make a difference.

But in principle, I have always wanted to play this series because I love a game where there are a ton of enemies on the screen. and you're just waiting through a sea of NPCs, like Sirius Sam, for instance, where it's just wave after wave after wave, and it's just adrenaline pumping, and you look up, and it's like, oh, man, 20 minutes just passed, and it was just quick twitch, just guys are coming at me, and they're holding their heads that are bombs on their shoulders, and I just got to keep mowing them down.

That's what I wanted from this game, and that's what I got. So is it my type? Yes. It is my type. The looks, so look, it's not, you know, on a purely visual level. I wouldn't say it's a showcase, a spectacle in terms of like the highest resolution, beautiful landscapes. However, technically speaking, their goal was to get 10,000 people on the screen at the same

time. And it seems like maybe they came close to achieving that. And at least for me on Series X, no slowdown. whatsoever. Great performance. Yeah, they cut corners to make that possible, but that's okay, because it's just overwhelming numbers that they're throwing at you. And you have to remember, like, the origin of the series, like, it kind of came out at a time when it was a bit of a technical feat to put this many enemies on screen reacting to things in a 3D world at the time. So that was a big draw of it initially. It was like, hey, we've always wanted to do this.

Right. Now we kind of can. Yes. It's almost like, you know, Breath of the Wild was what the original Legend of Zelda was supposed to be, but you just had to imagine it being like that because it was on NES, not Switch, and now that vision can come to fruition. And so, yeah, we talk a lot about how the technological leaps between console generations are much more modest than they used to be. But this seems like a series where the extra horsepower helps because it's just about doing numbers, and it definitely does numbers. So the looks were impressive on that level. And as for like the first impression or the accessibility, you know, like breaking the ice, that should be a criterion here, you know? Like, do we have an awkward silence

at the start of our speed dating conversation or are we getting right into it as if we've known each other for years? I think this was a good place to start. Again, maybe any place is fine to start. But origins, it's right there in the title. So it's my origins with this franchise. And also, it's not the only game of these five that has essentially an amnesiac protagonist, which is really helpful for me, at least at first, because it's like the person I'm playing as doesn't know their backstory. And neither do I. So it's okay. We're equally ignorant and oblivious to everything that's happening here. And they're the proxy for me, introducing me to this world and this character and everyone's explaining everything to me. And as you said, like good tutorials where I never really felt overwhelmed.

Like I felt like I had a handle on the controls quite quickly. Yeah. From a speed dating metaphor angle, it's not the deepest choice. It's not one you're going to be, if you bring this home to your parents, you're going to be like, you might worry how this is going to go. Yeah. It's like there was a spark, there was chemistry, and then we realized, you know, maybe outside the bedroom, we don't have anything to talk about. And maybe that's okay early on. But long term, you know, when the spark dies down a bit, it's like, will we still,

will there be a deeper connection there? I don't know. But that's okay. Because if they put out one of these every several years, then we can have our superficial. We can be like franchise friends with benefits, basically, you know? We can hook up from time to time. And that's all I want from this relationship. I'm not looking for anything serious with Dynasty Wars.

I'm just looking for a good time. And that's what it gave me. And, you know, at first I was underwhelmed because, I mean, the fighting is so weightless and arcady. It's like you're just sending guys flying. And at first there wasn't that much of a challenge. And like, you know, there's this generic rock music during battles. And the early stages and settings just kind of look the same. They're just like, there's an overworld, which is interesting.

Like old school RPG, you know, you're going from place to place as this giant who's striding across the land and going to towns and such. But on the battlefield, like, every place is kind of looking the same. And I'm like, I love that they're throwing this many guys at me, but I'm not really feeling much of a challenge. There's no subtlety to this whatsoever. And that's not what Titus Lee Warriors is about. But the combat felt a little unsatisfying to me at first.

But then, by the time I got to that five hour mark, I was in because there starts to be a bit more strategy. It's still dynasty warriors, but there are like stages to the levels. And you're planning out, okay, like here's where the main army is going. And here's where my support force is going to go. We're going to come around the back and we're going to flank them. And there's this interesting thing where it starts to feel like you really are responsible for turning the tide of the battle. But also there's so much else going on.

And you're scurrying from place to place. And you're like, oh, no, this ally is dying. I got to get over there and kick some ass. And then I got to get over here. Yeah, you're just sprinting at full speed and then for like 30 seconds and you get there and then you just like in 10 seconds, there's like 500 people who've been murdered. Yeah, right. You're getting on your horse literally. And there was this one huge battle.

It was like I finished chapter one basically. That's as far as I got this yellow turbans campaign. You're going up against this rebellion that turned into the baddies, the yellow turbans. And at the end, there's some pretty epic stages. And the penultimate battle of that stage was just this big multi-part thing where I felt like I really learned the battlefield management. And I killed like 1,750 guys over the course of this battle. And I just felt super powerful. And what else do you want from video games?

It's a power fantasy. And I felt powerful. But I also felt like I wasn't just swinging willy-nilly. That's right. You are smart, too. I was smart. And I failed a few times. And I was like, okay, you can't actually fail.

Like, I'm not so O-P that I'm unstoppable here. I actually have to strategize and think about where I'm going. And at that point, it became really satisfying because it's like I felt like a face in the crowd, but I also felt like, you know, I'm playing ISO ball and I'm just like stunting on everyone. And I'm actually single-handedly, but not quite single-handedly, just turning the tide here And it just, it was very satisfying. Yeah, and the upgrade systems are pretty great, too, for the weapons and the different weapons that you can wield.

Like I said, it's all like they, they know this genre, they invented this genre, and they have spent the past 20 plus years for fighting it. And they've done a great job with origins. Yeah, yeah. So my first impression was, you know, so-so. But as time went on, I sensed that we were compatible. Again, maybe it's mostly a physical relationship. We're not connecting on a deeper, more profound level, but we are compatible. Like I took to the controls and I embraced this game more as time went on.

Did you finish this game? I have not finished this game. Okay. I've probably put in 15 hours or so. Yeah. So I'm going to get around to that at some point. It may not be at the top of my list. And again, this feels like something where I could just jump back.

back in at any point because it's not like, I forgot what was going on in the story here. This is like a 30-hour game minimum. I mean, that's like the average at how long to beat. So it's a big investment of time, and I worry that it might get a bit repetitive by the end of it, perhaps. But yes, it gets a second date for me or certainly a longer first date. And I would come back for more. I would take the plunge with additional dynasty warriors in my future. Now that you mention it, I don't think I've ever actually finished a dynasty.

Warriors game. As many of them as I've played, I don't, I don't know that if I've ever actually finished one. Right. So food for thought. The honeymoon phase, me and Dynasty Warriors, you know, maybe it'll peter out. You know, we won't ghost each other, but, you know, we'll just stop texting quite so often, perhaps.

But, but yes, I enjoyed my time with it. My fantasy, like my most wanted game, I don't know that there's ever been a game that has quite scratched this itch. is a game that would give me the scale of Dynasty Warriors, but not necessarily make me feel like a superhero, just make me feel like rank and file. Like, you know, I'm taking part in maybe major historical battles. And I'm not talking about a Sib-style game.

I'm talking about, you know, more like third-person action-adventure kind of game, but me just feeling like a cog in the machine, basically. Like maybe we'll lose the battle. And it's more about whether I survive, you know, like the feeling that I got maybe the first time you played some of those really good. You want to play as one of the people you're fighting against in Dynasty Warriors. Yeah, but I don't want to die. I want to survive somehow, which I don't know how I would do that in Dynasty Warriors,

just run away from the start maybe. But yeah, I want to be someone unremarkable. And, you know, I'll get my kill count, but I won't be a standout. I think that's actually a fun idea for a game. It is, right? It is a fun. Where you're entering some big battle, and the entire point of the game is just to be a coward and run away and blitz. Yeah.

Like throughout all of the great battles of history, just being a coward who has escaped. Discretion is the better part of valor, right? You know, just live to fight another day. That's what I'm saying. It's like the feeling you got in some of those early 3D representations of like D-Day, let's say, you know, where it was like, oh, wow. And I would pull my parents over and I'd be like, look at what games can do. And now I would look at it 20, 25 years later, and it would look like ass. But back then, it was mind-blowing.

And those games, they gave you the fiction, basically, of like, I'm just one of many men who's landing on the beach. Now, of course, the way those games are set up, it's like there's a scripted event that can't happen until you get to this checkpoint, right? So in a sense, it is all dependent on you. But I want the battle to be raging all around me, and no one's really counting on me. And I'm not doing anything amazing. You know, like, I'm doing my part.

But it's more about can I make it to the end of this battle? Like, can I survive this just roiling mass of humanity? But I want the scale. It sounds too much like real life to me, Ben. I don't know. It might not be fun because, again, the power fantasy. And real war is the antithesis of fun. So maybe a game that's more like that would actually be a bad idea.

But that's my fantasy. So Dynasty Warriors gave me the scale. but not the sense of being unremarkable. So, you know, halfway there. You are definitely remarkable in that game. There's no way around it. Yep. Okay. Dynasty Warriors' origins, successful first date.

Sniper Elite Resistance. Developed and published by Rebellion Developments. It is a third person, mostly third person, tactical stealth World War II shooter that dates back to the first sniper elite in 2005. This series, I'd say it's sort of, unsung. You know, it's sort of solid, dependable. It doesn't get a lot of height, doesn't get a lot of press, but it's sold more than 30 million units. And sniper elite resistance is technically a spin-off.

It's the follow-up to 2022 Sniper Elite 5. This is out for Windows, last-gen, and current-gen, PlayStation and Xbox. I played this one on PS-5. Any previous sniper-elite experience on your part? I played a good amount of Sniper Elite 5. That was my first entry into it. And I did not vibe with sniper elite five. Well, that's probably a bad sign for sniper elite resistance, because as I understand it, not so different. But you tell me, but on paper, again, returning to my first criterion, like, is this for me, does this sound like my type? Yes, because it's a World War II shooter. And I have a bottomless appetite for that.

You are a dad. I am a dad. But even it predated my dadhood. I was just, you know, I'm a World War II guy. dad. Yeah, I guess. I was, I was destined to be a dad for my early interest in World War II. But again, it was easy to get into in that sense. It was an easy sell for me. I like shooters. I like World War II. This is a World War II shooter. I'm in. Now, tactical shooters, stealth, not always as up my alley, but sniping, I like. And so I was in. I was looking forward to giving this thing a shot. And I played

about three levels, which doesn't sound like a lot, but these are lengthy, at least if you play it, I guess, the way that sniper elite is designed, which is slow, methodical, stealthy. So I got to the fourth level and my five hours were up. And as for, like, looks, you know, it's fine. I mean, it has the hallmarks of a cross-gen game still supporting last-gen consoles. But, you know, it looks all right. It didn't make much of an impression there either way. And I guess my first impression was sort of surprise about how little sniping there is in sniper elite. So I was sort of under the misimpression that this was all sniping. Like this was silent scope or something, you know, like that series you'd play at the arcade or home consoles where it's just you're a sniper and that's it. Sniper Elite is the title. I kind of thought there'd be more sniping. It starts with sniping. You know, it starts you, you're overlooking a bridge and you're sniping a bunch of Nazis, which, you know,

Always feels good, but it feels especially good these days. And so that was a great introduction, but then it was like, all right, time to pack up the sniper rifle and go into close quarters here, or closer quarters. And I would say the game is not quite as successful, the closer you get to your enemies. Yeah. So I actually ended up liking this game a lot more than Sniper Elite 5. Maybe it's just the level design. I'm not really sure. I thought it would do a worse job of all of the stuff you just talked about, of the non-sniping stuff, the close quarters self stuff. I think the level design allows for a decent amount of creativity and how you go about things. And, you know, sure, you're sniping, but also you have to take into account each weapon has, it tells you how loud it is and how far your weapon can be heard for. Right. And I thought it handled things pretty well.

well about like, okay, this guy is alerted. Is everyone alerted? It's just this guy. How long does it take the settle down again? All of these systems I thought were pretty good, and you could figure them out pretty comprehensively in a decent amount of time. And the sniping, pretty cool, how you adjust, you know, your distance for the range, the wind, and do you have different kinds of ammo for different situations?

I thought it was pretty well executed. Now, the one thing that I executed, yeah. The one thing I really have a problem with in this series is their gratuitous bullet camera. Yeah, the X-ray kill cam. The X-ray kill-cam. It looks like you're doing a modern mortal combat fatality. Yeah. My wife walked in.

My wife was very confused by this entire exercise because every time she walked into my office, I was playing a different game. You just wouldn't shut up about speed dating. Yeah, no. Yes. Yeah, she's like, what? Speed dating. But no, she saw me playing like pirate yakuza and then suddenly I'm playing sniper elite or so. She's like, is this the same game?

No, it is about as far from the same game as it possibly could be. But yeah, it is gruesome sniping. It's like, now you can turn that off or you can dial it down. I did. In fact, turn it off. It's, I found it satisfying it first, but then it becomes so just egregious. And it takes a long time. It's like slow motion replays of every kill.

And I'm just like, all right, let's skip this. There's like this weird cognitive dissonance going on, I think, when you have a war game that goes into such like, a war game based on like an actual war that happened with such gratuitous human violence. And I get it. Like, they're Nazis. It's fine. But also, like, it's just kind of distracting to go into that level of violence and not. really have any care in the world of like, you know, the repercussions of violence. It's not like there's any philosophizing going on in the series.

It's all very black and white. Yeah. You know. The rest of the game is fairly restrained. It's just, you know, French resistance story and not completely outlandish. And then the X-ray Kill Can, which is very video game. It's super video game. It was very distracting to me.

And like you said, it also slowed the gameplay down. So I just turned it off. Yeah. Yeah, you can skip it. But yeah, that was at first I was like, oh, okay, I was not familiar with your game. The fact that it was quite this bloody. Yeah. And again, like, I think in terms of first impression or like accessibility or breaking the ice,

this was good because new protagonists. So this is not the tradition. protagonist of this series, Carl Fairburn. This is Brit. This is Harry Walker and a new guy. So again, I'm meeting this guy at the same time as everyone else. And I understand the premise of shooting Nazis and World War II. So again, pretty easy to get into pretty natural controls.

I described it as a third person shooter. By the way, the sniping is first person because third person sniping would be an interesting experiment. But you're looking through the scope, to be clear. It's just in case anyone was confused by. that. And yet, there's a little freedom. So as I understand it, the series has evolved to be less linear than it was originally. I still felt a little restrained at times. You know, there are a lot of like invisible barriers and bushes and things like that. And it was like, if I could just sneak around this way, that would be better, but I can't for arbitrary reasons. So I found

that frustrating at times. But I agree that one of my big gripes with stealth, especially if it's like a shooter with stealth elements and it's not built around stealth necessarily is just how unclearly that tends to be telegraphed and not in this game. Yeah, I was pretty clear on like, okay, they spotted me. I deserve that. And that's just such a huge part of any successful stealth dynamic in a game is how well is this game communicating to me my level of like being hidden or how is it communicating to me like the suspicion of people around me and and all. all of those things are communicated pretty well. And if those things are not communicated well,

that's when people get frustrated at your stealth game. Yes, exactly. And so, you know, I already, by the time I got to the fourth level, was feeling like, have I seen all that this game and this series have to offer? Because, you know, I kind of felt like, all right, I get the sense of what this is. And I'm enjoying it. You know, it's not completely breaking the mold here. And I did feel like the non-sniper gunplay, again, you're not intended

to play this in a run-and-gun style, which is my natural inclination. So maybe that's on me. Maybe it's a skill issue. But yeah, like, you know, it's kind of tough. The cover mechanics, okay, but the aiming is kind of imprecise

when you're not sniping. And it's not meant to make you feel like Dynasty Warriors, dude. You know, you're very vulnerable. Any one guy can kill you. Yeah. If you're out of cover, you're going to get gunned down right quick.

So maybe that was a play style problem. But, yeah, I didn't feel like the non-snaping gunplay was the greatest, but it was fine. Yes, it's a serviceable. If you're in the mood for a game of this kind, it's free on Game Pass. And I think it's pretty good at what it wants to be. And it is very clearly one thing. Yes.

Much like Dynasty Warriors. This is as advertised. Right. And, you know, hats off to that, too, because we focus on not. and breaking the mold and reinventing yourself every time out. And yeah, that's laudable. But also, given how topsy-turvy this industry is, as we just said, if you've consistently made games that people like and people buy for decades

and kept your lights on and your studios running and your developers employed and you're just trucking along under the radar and you have your dedicated fan base that gets excited and turns out for each of these games, I salute you. Good for you. Yeah, there will be many more sniper elite. Dads are not going anywhere. No. Yeah.

So I enjoyed my time. You know, I was fairly compatible. Again, like, I think there's a ceiling on this relationship for me. I don't know that this is going to last. And look, I mean, I generally enjoyed my time with all of these games. Spoiler, but hot take, would I want more time is the question. You know, maybe I enjoyed the fling, but I just can't see myself sticking around. And sniper elite for me, if other plans fall through, you know, maybe it's like,

a you-up text at 3 in the morning kind of situation, as if I ever send those, me sending booty calls at this stage of my life or any stage. But I could see myself, you know, playing a little more, but it's not going to be toward the top of my list. This was, you know, serviceable, fun gameplay that, you know, had some attributes of a game that I like, but didn't overwhelm me. So that's my general take. You got me distracted with the metaphors again. Now I'm just Think about you typing like you up in like a T9 texting flip phone era. Yeah, with perfect punctuation because I'm pedantic about grammar. So I wouldn't do just the you.

You really spell it out. Yeah. I think my hookup partner would appreciate that probably. So yeah, that's where I am. You know, this is not a bad first date. This is not like I'm going to be telling people about my disastrous first date with Snap really. I liked it.

I didn't love it. I liked it. You know, you might end up watching a World War II doc. some late night and fire up sniper late again. Yeah, yeah. I could see that happen. All right. Next up, Sid Meyers Civilization 7.

Developed by For Axis Games published by 2K. This is one of the more storied long-running franchises in gaming going back to 1991. But it's the first SIV in quite some time since SIV 6 in 2016. So Siv fans have worked themselves up into a lather and a ferv. froth, and they were highly anticipating this game. And it's out for damn near everything. You can get Sib 7 on Windows, Mac, Linux, Switch, last gen and current gen, PlayStation, and Xbox.

I played it on Windows for the authentic SIV experience. I felt like I owed it to Siv, you know, just to play this on Steam. Yeah. This series has sold more than 73 million units over time. It's foundational in its genre. And it's not a genre that I, cotton two for the most part. So this was this was the most daunting, intimidating date for me. This was the least, is this my type game of the five. It is very much not. Like I've dabbled in

real-time strategy games, you know, some command and conquer back in the day, some Starcraft, some Star Wars games. But I've always been intimidated by 4x games for those not in the know, explore, expand, exploit, exterminate. This is beyond. just your standard RTS, where you're clicking around the map and you're sending units and you're building stuff. This is that, but also the broader ambition of, you know, building an empire and shaping the course of civilization over time. And aside from having a friend who was really into age of empires and kind of being in proximity to age of empires, like absorbing some age of empires by osmosis, I really have no hands on experience with a 4x game. Unless you count Star Wars

Rebellion, which I don't know if I would, but not well received in its day. But you know what? That was a good game. I enjoyed that game. Give me a Star Wars license. I'll probably give anything a try. But yeah, this was a tough sell for me. This game was developed from the ground up for consoles as well. And so I considered consoles, but I felt like, look, if I'm finally going to try Siv, I got to do it in its natural habitat. I got to give it every opportunity here. So even if they've streamlined the UI and made it more console accessible. I'm going with the original form of Civilization 7. What is your SIV experience?

I haven't owned a SIV game since they came on CD-ROM. Yeah. It's been a while. And the RTS genre in general, I enjoyed way back in the day. Like when you mentioned Command and Conquer, you know, I liked StarCraft a lot, although I eventually traded StarCraft. to a friend for Grim Fandango. Good choice.

I mean, which was right for me. Yeah, it was right for me. Yeah. So RTS is not something that I have dabbled in in a long time. I have a respect for it.

I know that I can enjoy it. And I wouldn't say that I didn't enjoy SIV 7. But I also feel like there are a lot of issues with SIV 7 that prevented me from enjoying it. For one, you have to put a lot of. lot of hours into this before you have a 90% understanding of what is going on. And then the remaining 10% of what's going on takes an even exponentially longer time to figure out. And all the while, this game doesn't really have a traditional campaign mode to get through. And I really missed that.

You know, back in the day, the RTS used to work like, there's a game. campaign. It's going to teach you everything. And then eventually you're unleashed to go do multiplayer stuff because the campaign has taught you everything you need to know. And now you're ready to go compete with people or whatever. And the lack of campaign mode here, they just kind of, they're like, okay, you're in a, you're in a sieve game now. You're doing it. Yep. And the leaders, the historical figure leaders, you can you can play with a, a completely different civilization from another time. Yes, you get.

And it all just kind of felt like it wasn't what I wanted, right? Like, it's just like, I just want to have the leader be in that time period. It felt like, do we really want like Superman hanging out with like Wolverine? We don't. We really don't. You know, like, I don't know. There are a lot of little decisions in the game. And there's some weird UI things going on as well with this game.

And like it's enjoyable. The game is enjoyable. There's cool things about it. But there are too many decisions that I didn't vibe with for this to be the game to get me back into the genre. Yeah. It's tough for me to judge the context because I lack the context. So I can't really compare except in a academic way how this game stacks up to previous games. is kind of my first introduction.

But that has been broadly the reaction. Again, the reviews are generally favorable, but there has been a bit of backlash to the UI. And maybe some of that is the streamlining that went into making this more accessible for console players, but there were downsides to that. The civilopedia is kind of weirdly organized or tough to access. They do really throw you into the deep end.

So the looks are good, you know. It looks nice. It looks good for a four. X game. The music is great. The music is great. Yes, absolutely. But the icebreaker part of things is the instant chemistry there. Not really. Now, I played it on my work computer because this was work. It was important podcast research. So my work laptops fan has never spun so fast. But it, it ran okay. And that was an impediment. It was more my inexperience with the genre and just not knowing where anything was and there are so many menus and so many tutorials. Really, five hours is not enough

with Siv. I mean, the way this game is structured, as you alluded to, it's like there are multiple ages, you know, there's like three ages. You start in the ancient age, you go up to modern times. And so I started all the way at the beginning. And my five hours got me 76% of the way through the first age. So I started at, what, 3,500 BCE or something. And I got up to 1100. BCE, 126 turns passed in my five hours. And I did go with a weird Superman meets Wolverine pairing. I went with Rome and Benjamin Franklin because I felt like, look, I don't know what I'm doing here. I'll go with what I know.

Rome is fairly familiar. I know Benjamin Franklin. So, sure, okay. Seems like an odd couple, but let's go with it. So I don't really know. I haven't played this game so many times with different civilizations and different heroes. that I really have a sense of how that affected my experience. It's just a weird choice.

You're like selling to people who have presumably some interest in history. Yeah. And then you're just like. It's an characteristic to say the least. Yeah. And it kind of cheapens the experience to see Benjamin Franklin leading Rome. Yeah. It's like the X-ray kill cam suddenly Kool-aid manning through the wall of Sniper Elite.

Yeah. This is striking a discordant. here, but I got into it by the end of my time where I felt like I had a decent command of what I was doing. I was never really sure, like, what the other civilizations were doing and whether someone was just going to conquer me at a moment's notice. I was going to have like a WB games downfall. But my science. Yeah, my science is so advanced.

Yes, I devoted a lot of resources to research and culture. And yeah, I don't know. By the end, I kind of got into. to the rhythm where I was like, maybe one more turn, right? Which is, I guess, how these games get you. I mean, that's the feeling that they're going for where you're five hours in and you're thinking, all right, that's enough. But maybe if I just finished building this building or I just research this technology and

just do this settlement and then I'll move this unit over there and suddenly like four more hours have gone by. Yeah, now that happened to me. Like I was trying to build like culture and the science and then someone trying to try to to invade me. And then my entire game just pivoted to me being like, okay, well, I'm going to absolutely annihilate you. Yes. It was so friendly. I was everyone like hours went by. I wiped them off the map. Yeah. And then I was like, all right, back to my science. Right. I was like, you know, diplomatic endeavors. Yes, I'll ally with you. I'll support you. And then suddenly I turned

into Trump and I'm like abandoning all my alliances and you got to hold up your end of the bargain and I'm being invaded or invading and, yeah, different vibe, but I guess, you know, you can play civilization in a number of different ways, which is perhaps one of the strengths of the series. So some of the complaints that people have had about the navigation and the UI and everything, they're already addressing those and they're patching it. And of course, there are mods that address a lot of these issues if you're playing on a computer. So, you know, it's the first couple weeks of a game that is meant to be played for years and years and years. So it's early days. And I assume that they will iron out some of those kinks and smooth out some of the difficulties. But it did hurt the first impression a bit.

It hurt my chemistry with this game. And it did grow on me over time, but more to the point where I tolerated it. I was like entertained, but not enthusiastically entertained. And that might just be my ceiling with SIV and with this genre. Yeah, I don't think there's a second date here. I don't think there's a second date for me. And again, I'm not dumping on Siv. I know this is a series that is very special to many people and played a major part in gaming history.

It has the pedigree. It has the credentials. But it's just not for me. You know, not everything is for everyone. And that's fine. We come from different worlds, you know? And it's like our families didn't approve of the union and we were sneaking around and we were going to elope. And then we realized, you know what?

Maybe they had a point. Like, we just, we don't have anything in common. We just don't have anything to talk about. It's just not enough. I'm just not into that Ben Franklin leading Rome shit. You know, and I'm not going to be, and that some people are. Yeah. I'm glad I gave it a shot.

You know, I understand Siv better than I did before, but I also understand myself as well as I did before. And I understand that I'm not a person who plays civilization. So apologies, Siv. I gave you a chance. I'm sure a lot of people will love you and play you for many years. But it's not you. It's me. It's me. It's us. Both of us.

Yeah, maybe. All right. Next up, second to last game, like a dragon, pirate yakuza in Hawaii. I'm excited to hear what you thought of this. Developed by RGG Studio, published by Sega, action adventure, beat them up, RPG, crime drama. Hard to narrow this down to just one thing that dates back to the original Yakuza in 2005. This series has sold roughly 30 million units. And this game is technically a spinoff. And the first installment since way back when in 2024,

when like a dragon, Infinite Wealth came out, these games, they're on an assembly line. And yet somehow that doesn't seem to have compromised the quality that much. So Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii is out for Windows for last gen and current gen, PlayStation and Xbox. I played it on Series X. And was this for me on paper? Is this my type?

I would say sort of. I think on paper, you don't know what this type. Well, yeah. Hard to classify. You know? Yeah. It's like one of those dating profiles. You're just, I can't get a handle on this person. What do they like? I don't know. You're getting signs of all different kinds. Yeah. They're like, they're wearing a suit and then they're wearing a bikini. And it's like, what are we doing here? Like, your likes are all over the place, your tastes, your interests. I really don't know until I get into it. But in general, like I like action adventure. games and RPGs and beat him ups and stuff and crime stories. So like all the ingredients were there for me to like this. And really the one thing I was most wary about was diving into this series after 20 years and almost countless installments. And I got to say, I picked the right time. You did. I really did. Because when a main character loses their memory, yes. It is a good starting point for a series because you are, you know just. You know just

as much about the character as he does. Exactly. I'm discovering along with him. I got a lot of ink here. Seems like maybe I've been leading a life of crime here in the Japanese underworlds, but I know nothing beyond that. And so another amnesiac protagonist, and again, like, this is a spin-off. So as I understood it, correct me if I'm wrong, but this long-running yakuza-like-a-Dragon series has not previously hinted

at the existence of a pirate subculture in Hawaii, right? You know, I haven't played every game in the past 20 years of Yacinza. But yeah, I think that's fairly safe to say. Yeah, to my knowledge, this was not well-established lore. And so this is the perfect place to start with, as I understand it, a legendary character in this franchise, Goroamajima. But other than knowing that he's important, he meant nothing to me. And so he was a blank slate for me, as he was to himself and to everyone he meets initially. in this game. And so, you know, you wash up on the beach, not knowing how you got there and

you're meeting everyone for the first time. And so the first impression was very positive. I was so worried that I was going to immediately feel out of my death. And I wasn't at all. I felt like it was it was holding my hand from the start. Yep. Absolutely. It does a great job of that. And, you know, once you get 20 hours into the game, it will connect back with previous, as a games and fill in some of that backstory, and you could get a little bit lost, but not as lost as you would be jumping into any of the other games in this series, I would say. Right. Yes. And so in terms of looks, you know, it doesn't wow you in terms of like pure technical performance here. Again, this is another game that's cross-gen supporting last-gen consoles.

And so, you know, it's not blown you away. There's kind of like a PS3-ish look to this game. but it has a distinctive style, and it's colorful world, and it feels like a lived-in setting. You're washing up on this place called Rich Island, and then you go to this pirate haven called Madlantis, and then suddenly you're in Honolulu, and it's like an actual huge city

that you can run and drive around. Yeah, so just briefly, the way that all of these spin-off games kind of work in the Yakuza series is they'll take a lot of the locations and maps from the mainline games and reused them. So you're like, wow, Honolulu is massive. It's, well, it's massive because it was in... Tokyo from some other game or something.

No, it was in Infinite Wealth. It was the main area of Infinite Wealth. And they kind of commonly reuse locations and even sometimes the mini games in those locations. You can do the same kind of thing. Well, doesn't bother me. Yeah. But you, as someone who didn't play Infinite Wealth, it's all new to you.

Yeah. And it's a pretty viable. vibrant city of Honolulu with a lot to do and a lot to explore and a lot to find. Yeah. And this pirate cove with all these wrecks that are suspended there and, you know, lots of Yoho Ho and such. And there's like, it's really unhinged in a very fun way, which I know is a hallmark of the series, but they aren't all this unhinged, right? Like, this is some wild stuff going on here.

Like they're trending in this way. And, you know, when we covered the yakuza. Amazon Prime series, this is one of my main complaints is that, you know, the tone of that series matches sort of what the series was like when it first came out. But it feels completely different to what the game series is in 2025. Right? It is so zany. There is a zany and yet there's still room for drama. Exactly. Yeah. And there's a heart to it too. It's not like purely silly. There's a lot of heart and character and bonding and people with a code and principles, even though it's like people cosplaying as pirates on like period appropriate tall ships and full pirate get up.

And like the kid who rescues you has a pet tiger that he insists as a cat. Like there's just a very simple, ongoing joke that is very enjoyable every time it comes around. I always say that the Yakuza series is stupid in all of the right ways. Yes, yes. It's absolutely true. And this is the stupidest. And I had so much fun with this. Also, you only played five hours. I finished pretty much everything there is to do in this in 35 or 40 hours, doing like everything.

Short for one of these games. And it is short for, because infinite wealth, you could easily put 100 hours into. And I felt so refreshed getting through one of these games in 35 to 40 hours. I thought it was the perfect length story is pretty good. It's not going to blow your socks off. But it conveys what the series is about, that silliness, but that heart and that everything you just said. I think this is just a wonderful slice of the series. And I really enjoyed the new pirate stuff that they added to it.

Like customizing your ship, like upgrading your weapon. I don't know how deep you got into this, but you recruit. You got to Honolulu, so you know you were recruiting people to be on your ship. I was upgrading my ship when I called time. And, yeah, I was really impressed. Like, I knew there were all sorts of side stories and mini games, you know, batting practice type games. Oh, that's such a good. It was really fun.

The Madlantis batting practice. Oh, yeah. With exploding barrels. Yeah. So satisfying. So much fun. And there's all this sort of like Shenmui, more mundane stuff, you know, like planting potato seeds and harvesting them and all these like things that. things that you're doing on the side.

But also, yeah, it's like a fully featured pirate sim, almost, which wowed me. I was a little bit of Win Waker in there for you, right? Yeah. Like, I've loved a good Pirates game going back to Pirates the Legend of Black Cat for Xbox and PS2, which I don't know if anyone else remembers, but that was a good game. This is like, you know, it's like black flag almost. I mean, it has that kind of like, oh, this is actually sort of like a ship combat game. Yeah, you can run around on the deck.

Between the deck and the external ship view and board the other ship. And, yeah, it's not like super in depth. You're not like tacking and furling and such. But like, you know, you're steering around and you're shooting your guns and you've got various armaments. And yeah, you're apportioning your crew and assigning people to various stations and recruiting. It's really fun. It feels like a very low stakes vacation. Yes.

Yes. So this game is just bonkers in the best way. and the combat was satisfying. And again, like, you could butt mesh and get through it, but there's some depths to it, but not overwhelming. And so, yeah, all my criteria here, is it my type? Yeah, more or less, looks, you know, not blowing me away. But first impression, breaking the ice, absolutely.

I felt like, oh. Good hang. Yeah, totally good hang. Like, is this a first date? Like, it feels like this is our 10th date or something. Like, you know, we're in a relationship at this point. were highly compatible. It grew on me the more that I played. So I will absolutely be giving a second date to Like a Dragon Pirate Yacca's in Hawaii and the Like a Dragon series more broadly. Now,

I'm still wary of, you know, one of the real ones, the mainline ones that are like a hundred hours and have some continuity. Like maybe this was the perfect place for me to jump in and hop out again. I don't know. But I feel like I understand the series better than I did. And I was expecting good things, but I was pleasantly surprised even so. This was great. And you know what? It's just going to get better for you after these five hours. There's still a lot of fun stuff to discover.

And some of those systems evolve in pretty fun ways as well. So I'm excited to hear from you after another 10, 20 hours in the game. Yeah. All right. Like a dragon veteran of five hours now. This is great. You did it. Finally, yeah, I feel like, you know, there's something you're dreading and you're like,

I should do that. You can get a good sense of it in five hours, though. Yeah, right. I understand what this game is and this series, and I like it. And so, yeah, you know, just push yourself to do the thing that you're afraid of doing. So many games are so self-serious. Mm-hmm. You know?

Not this one. Not this one. Finally, probably the biggest release on the list, Monster Hunter Wilds, developed and published by Capcom, third-person action RPG, started with Monster Hunter in 2004. It's sold more than 108 million units. It's highly specific, but that's the latest figure. This is the first new installment since Monster Hunter World in 2018.

It's on Windows, PS5, Series SX. I played it on Series X. This just came out today the day we were recording. We had early access, and so we won't spoil things from a plot perspective. But is this my type in some ways? Yes. I would say, you know, third person action RPG.

I'm generally up for trying something like that. But hunting, crafting, not quite so much. Obviously, I've never invested in one of these games previously. So there were things that were keeping me away from this series. And in terms of like first impression, well, let's start with looks. The looks are great. So this is, I would say, the best looking game of these five. And, you know, it's more of a like, this is a triple A.

This is pulling out all the stops. This is bells and whistles. This is great graphics and sound design and beautiful, lush world with very geographic environments. Like, this feels like a big budget, well-polished game in terms of the production value. So on that level, it impressed me probably more than any of these others. Would you agree with that?

Partially. Okay. I thought from a performance standpoint, this game is kind of bad. Okay. I do agree that it feels AAA. And I basically, I watched some YouTube 4K streams of someone playing this game on like a really decked out PC. And I was like, oh, my God, this game is beautiful. It's gorgeous.

And I sat down to play it on. series X, and I'm just like toggling between all the different modes because the 60 frames for second performance mode looks like shit. Oh, does it? Yeah, I went with the blended one. I always, if I have to choose between resolution and frame rate, I always go frame rate, but if there is a middle grounds, people complained about like Final Fantasy 7 rebirth when it came out and like the upscaling, making things look a little blurry. This is way worse than that when you put it on performance mode on console. Yeah.

Okay. I went with the middle ground. I know there have been some performance issues on PC as well. The uncapped frame rate middle ground mode was what I found to be the most tolerable. But I still felt like the things just like for how plain some of the textors like should be. I just didn't feel like it was doing. I played plenty of games this month that felt.

like they looked and ran a lot better than Monster Hunter Wilds. This is actually like the first time I felt playing a game on a console this generation, that I was having an impactfully inferior experience to people playing like a high-end PC version of it. Although judging by the Steam reviews, people are not having the smoothest experience on PC necessarily if they don't have some super souped up rig. But it did feel next gen, or we can probably stop saying next gen at this point. We're well into the gen, but this is the first Monster Hunter game that was not developed for like PS4, etc. So, like, you know, it was built for this generation and it looks at even if it doesn't always perform like it.

Yes. Just the design, like the world design, the costumes. The food, the gratuitous food, cut things. The scrumptious looking food. Best-looking food since Dragon's Dog. to's actual video interludes of steak cooking. It made me hungry to watch. And yeah, it's the easiest on the eyes.

And I just, I like the design of the world. As you noted, you start with a sky ship. So there's skies of Arcadia vibes, which instant reels me in. And also very reminiscent of Horizon. Now I know this series predated Horizon by a long time. So maybe Horizon is reminiscent of Monster Hunter. But having come to Horizon first and loving Horizon, Definitely getting some horizon vibes from this game as well.

And also just like some final fantasy in here. It feels like a blend of a lot of franchises, but done well. Like the mounts are good in this game. And my wife walked in while I was playing this. And she's like, oh, is that a chocobos? No, no. They're called secrets. Yes.

And they're really fun to ride. I liked a lot of quality of life things about this. You know, like if we date, this would be like a low maintenance relationship, I feel like, because, you know, just like getting on my mount automatically. You know, you call the mount and you just mount up. You don't have to press a button, which is helpful in combat. If you're on the mount or even if you're not and you have to climb something,

you know, you just joystick toward it and you mantle and you don't have to press a button or anything. Or you pick up items. You can just, you know, it's like a vowed, I guess, sort of. Like you can just send them away, you know, to your camp without having to fiddle a ton with your inventory. So a lot of little things like that that I appreciated. However, so here's where the rough waters enter the picture. When it comes to compatibility, the controls. My goodness, the controls. You warned me what I was in for here. I warned you a little bit. And this might be us just being monster hunter nobs. We are both monster hunter nobs. Yeah, but there is a serious learning curve

in this game for me. Like five hours was not enough. It's not just for you, Ben. Okay. I got a whole rant on this. It feels like, so Monster Hunter, the controls of it feel like they haven't changed much

since the game was designed in a completely different era. And trying to learn the controls of Monster Hunter in 2025 feels like you're a baseball guy. It feels like walking through a baseball stadium designed before World War II that has had like 37 renovations. Right. And imagine if like all the signage vanished after four seconds.

Yeah. Of looking at it. It's Wrigley Field or Fenway, but like less seamlessly done. Like, no, this is this is a Frankenstein experiment. At the base level of like I'm playing a video game, if I'm looking to attack. I'm going to hit square or X, depending on what you're playing, right? That's generally going to be an attack button, right?

Yeah. That's a use, that you're using the item in this game. And all of these, you're like, oh, well, maybe you could like rebind some things. That's what I said to you when you were like, I had a hard time with this. I was like, well, can't you just change it? No.

Because this is the least intuitive control system. Yeah. Of a game. Everything is so obtuse. Thankfully, the game sort of realizes that and at every moment shows you what all of the buttons on the controller do in the top right hand corner of the screen, because otherwise you would have no idea that to cycle through your current items, you have to hold, I believe, R1, and then cycle through them with circle and square while you're holding that to change. And the inventory system, you have your personal inventory, you have your personal inventory, you have your inventory back at camp.

And when you're on your sacred, you have a sacred pouch as well. And the game just like doesn't teach you things well at all. Yeah. They're like, I didn't, it doesn't teach you how to catch a monster until after you roll credits.

It's the first mission after you roll credit. And then when it's trying to teach you how to catch a monster, it's like, okay, well, you're going to have to use a stun, trap and then you might want to trank it and you're like okay uh all right well i didn't i didn't bring those things with me on this bit so i'll like make a pit stop and like figure out how to craft those if i don't have enough of them or yeah and it's you're just like fiddling with your menu or whatever you come back and you like try to try to do this and you're like okay i shocked it and then i tranked it

but nothing happens and it's like you figure out like oh you have to get it like way lower health And eventually what I ended up doing since the game hadn't been out at this point is I looked up a YouTube video of a previous Monster Hunter game and I found that oh no you have to use the trap when it's really low health and you're looking at the heartbeat of the monster

or like a skull icon on the map to tell you that it's about to be dead. And at that point you use a shock trap and then you have to trank it often most of the time twice while it's in the shock trap, but it doesn't tell you that you might need to trank it twice.

At all, at any point. And there's things like this constantly throughout the game where it's like, oh yeah, use a large dung pod, and then the others will all flee away and you can fight one at a time. It's like, well, I don't have any more dung pods, and I'm not in an area that is,

you know, flushed with components to make the dung pods. Or do I know how to craft that in the middle of a battle? Yeah. Because I haven't been taught that yet. Yeah. And it's just constantly things like this. Yeah. Where I just like, it's the worst tutorialization of a game.

And all I keep hearing online from Monster Hunter people is like, oh my God, there's so many quality of life improvements. So I'm like, what? What was this like before that you liked this game? Yes. It's like, I keep thinking of that meme. What did this series do to you before? I keep thinking of that meme where when it comes to like the menus and UI and everything,

I keep thinking of that meme of like two people in a messy bedroom. And the one character is like, damn, bitch, you live like this? Like, it's so, so unintuitive. It blows my mind. Yeah, I'm with you. That being set. Is it worth the trouble? Yeah.

Once I understood all of the systems of this game, which I can confidently say it was after I beat the game. I beat the final boss without any health boosters because I thought that I had re-uped them with the inventory I did anyway.

Once I finally understood how all of the systems in this game worked, I thought this is a really great game. It's a really great game. It's great to play with people. All of the weapon systems are different. They're really interesting. They're cool. It's great how you

like wound the parts of the monsters, and then you can cripple those parts, and it affects them in different ways. The monsters are designed well. The story is pretty good. It feels very AAA, like the locations are interesting. There's a lot of moments that feel... Geographic diversity.

You're in a desert, and then you're in a jungle. It feels very magical at times. Yes. So this is like the most... I haven't experienced the game like this in a long time, where I have such strong positive and negative thoughts about it. But overall, I'm just bewildered that there are so many Monster Hunter fans who just like none of my complaints as a newbie seem to like enter their mind

because they're like, yeah, of course you would use a shock trap and then you're going to crank it twice, of course. You didn't bring it up. Why wouldn't you bring enough tranks out when you're getting good? Yeah. No, this game, yeah, it's one of the. of those relationships where you're going to have great times and you're going to have some fights and you're going to need to go outside for a walk and cool off for a while.

I had so much more trouble with the menus than the actual monsters in the game. It was menu hunter for me. It's not a very challenging. No, it's not. In fact, I think they're planning to patch it to maybe make it more challenging, but it's challenging because of how hard it is to navigate everything. There were times when I was just completely stymied, not by like a puzzle or a different boss by like, I don't know how to do this simple thing. Like, I forget how to, like, the simplest things, like changing your weapon or like an attack or whatever. It's like, how do I do this? I forget.

Like, I probably told me maybe at some point, but it's so unintuitive. It's incredible. Like, you know, I'm going from game to game here. And each of these I can pick up with the exception of SIV, which is kind of a different thing. But, you know, the standard controls of like operating an avatar in a 3D world, there's some things that are kind of taken for granted at this point. And it can be kind of confusing if you're switching from Xbox or PS5 to switch and the buttons are a little different or something. But other than that, there's some conventions that most of the genre abides by.

And Monster Hunter's like, nah, what if we just did something completely different? And we assigned everything you think would be assigned to this button is actually assigned to that button. Sorry. And so you can't even really remap it because everything. is in the wrong place, at least in my mind. And you'd have to just reinvent everything. It's like entering a hoarder's home.

And where do you begin? Where do you begin? Right. The map I had a hard time with, like, where do I go? There's so many little things on it. And it's like, what's the destination? And oh my goodness, yeah, it's tough. That said, you've got to go to couples counseling, you know, like with this one.

But it'll be worth it. Like relationships. sometimes they take work and labor to make it work. You know, it's not always easy. It's not, oh, we met from the day we met, it felt like we'd always known each other. That's why this game is still single, you know? Right. How are you still single?

I get why. I get why I haven't tried this before. Now, many millions of other people have, and they love it. And this game has gotten great reviews, and it's going to sell us a copies. It's a great game. It's a really good game. It's fun. Oh, my goodness.

Yeah, there is a learning curve. There is a barrier to entry here. So it's tough. Like, the battles at first feel kind of just, like, grindy to me. Like, you know, I was just kind of doing the same attack and rolling around for a while. But then, and the monsters are like tanks, you know, they don't have health bars. And so I'm like, am I close? You know, sometimes it'll give you an indication.

Yeah, I could have used a little bit more visual feedback on that. And the monsters are doing things to react that. Yes. But even still, it still feels a little spongy. Yeah, the monster, they get injured and it'll say like, you know, you broke their leg, or something and then they'll be limping around, but then they'll get a second wind and go to another location and be fine for a while. But you do wear them down and they get tired. And frankly, I felt bad about that. I'm the monster. They're not the monsters. Man is the monster. Like, why am I

hunting these things? You know, it's kind of a, like, there's no real explanation given for why I'm slaughtering all these magnificent beasts necessarily. Well, you got to get better armor. I guess, yeah, so that I can kill bigger and bigger monsters. Now, A lot of the game is, it's like a boss rush, basically. Like, it is fast-paced. You're going from one monster to another. And the design of the monsters is great. Like, they're really varied and creative and don't look like anything earthly, really.

And so there's a lot of variety in the design of the monsters. And eventually, yeah, you can use the environment to, you know, hurt people. And you can also, like, you know, you develop some tips and, okay, I'll ride around on my mount. and I'll slash as I go, or there's like, you know, a secondary weapon and I'll switch to that and maybe I have arranged weapon. So initially I was kind of spamming the same attack and it was more or less working is the thing. So I didn't have a lot of like pressure to innovate. But when I did start to explore. And the nice thing about five hours is, you know, it's enough to really feel like you know.

But also in this case, at least I had barely gotten my bearings. I mean, I barely felt like I had any idea what I was doing. And then it was like, oh, time's up, I guess. But it was just enough where I could see past those initial struggles and see, okay, this is worthwhile. And as I understand it, the end game is very different. It's less fast-paced because Monster Hunter traditionally has been a bit slower-paced. And it's, you know, like laying traps and luring monsters and stuff.

And here it's more just like, go here, fight massive monster, go here, fight another massive monster. So it's more action-packed and fast-paced. And maybe that's good. Maybe it's easier to get on board in that way, but oh, man, I hope the next installment they find a way to just get in line with the last decade of controls of video games because I don't want to have to relearn this. And then everyone who loves the series will hate it because they changed everything for us newbies. Yes, yeah. So I left off at a boss after the Alpha Dushaguma boss, which was a fun one, but still like chapter one, but, you know, early going. But yeah, I had fun. And the battles are fast-paced and really, you know, adrenaline.

And even it's not that hard, they're still like a, who I was holding my breath that entire time. I didn't even realize it. Yeah, they absolutely feel like. For a game that's not that challenging, I don't think it's hurt very much by the lack of challenge. I think it still feels very engaging. And the stakes continue to feel pretty high in these fights, despite ultimately you're not dying in them very often. Yeah, you know. All right.

I will play more Monster Hunter Wilds. Like now that I've put the time in to understand the basic controls, it would be silly of me to stop here. So I get why it's getting rave reviews. And I think they are. Make sure you know how to craft those dung pods, the large ones. I'll be prepared for the dung pods. All right.

I really enjoyed this exercise just in general. I highly recommend this for everyone who's like, I've never played one of those. People say it's good. Maybe I should try it. Just do it low pressure, you know? Set a time limit. admit, say this is all I'm doing, and I'll just see if I like it. And if not, well, no harm done.

I haven't really put a ton of time in that I feel like I've lost a huge sunk cost here. And, you know, I don't know if I found love here, but I definitely, I found a lot of like. If you can only pick one of these to go on a second date, who's, who is it? Like a dragon's getting my first call. Yeah. Let's go. Yeah. Like a dragon's in my first call. But other than SIV, all of these are in my rotation, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I'd rank it like like a dragon dynasty warriors, monster hunter, sniper elite, Siv. That's my hierarchy here. But I had fun with all of them. We made some memories. I don't regret my time with any of them. And you know, you have to look around and see what's out there before you find love and settle down,

which I've done in real life. But in gaming, you know, we're constantly. We're constantly exploring. We're constantly open to new ideas and to new relationships. So thank you for... Or to the same ideas that have been going on for the past 20 years. Yes. But mildly iterated upon. Proven formula. Don't mess with success. Yeah. Okay. So we put ourselves out there. You never forget your first time. Thank you for going on this exercise being my wingman for this speed dating. And I hope it was fun for folks. And I recommend this exercise to everyone. stay tuned for split fiction next week and much more ButtonMash to come, as well as the Versies and Daredevil. Thank you as always, Matt. Oh, happy to be here. This is a really fun one. So thanks, Ben.

Thank you to Devin Ronaldo for producing this episode. Thank you to our Juno Remigpal for greenlighting this entire endeavor. And thanks to all of you for listening. Write us at ringerverse gaming at gmail.com. If this is your first date with Buttonmash, we hope that. You've enjoyed it, but we're grateful if you're in a long-term committed relationship here with us at the Ringiverse. As are we with you. It is not unrequited.

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