The Ringer-Verse - 'Onimusha: Way of the Sword' Reactions and Capcom's Career Year | Button Mash

Episode Date: September 4, 2026

Ben, Steve Ahlman, Matt James, and Lewis Gordon get together to ask: How does Capcom keep killing it? First, they run down some recent gaming news, including a lackluster Sony State of Play, a 'GTA'-driven bump in console sales, 'Star Wars Zero Company' maker Bit Reactor's furloughed workforce, the backlash to Nvidia's DLSS 5 AI upscaling tech, and two dubious arguments in legal filings by the major console manufacturers. After that, they share their reviews of 'Onimusha: Way of the Sword' and discuss Capcom's incredible run leading up to and throughout 2026, with insights from Lewis's reporting for The Ringer on the company's comeback. Finally, they provide their impressions of two other recent releases, 'Orbitals' and 'Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy.' Read Lewis's piece here: https://www.theringer.com/2026/09/03/video-games/how-capcom-cracked-the-code-of-game-development-onimusha-resident-evil-pragmata (0:00) Intro(4:15) Patch Notes(44:35) 'Onimusha: Way of the Sword' reviews(1:03:40) Capcom's comeback(1:13:00) 'Orbitals' and 'Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy' impressions(1:29:00) Outro Host: Ben LindberghGuests: Steve Ahlman, Matt James, and Lewis GordonProducer: Devon RenaldoAdditional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Two and five Canadians will hear the words you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcfwalk.ca.ca. Trade ice skating at Nathan Phillips Square for ice cubes in your umbrella drink. Let Porter Airlines fly you from Toronto Pearson nonstop to 10 top sun destinations in Mexico, the Caribbean, and Costa Rica.

Enjoy award-winning Porter service Toronto has love for 20 years and start your vacation as soon as you're on the plane. Book your sunny getaway today at flyporter.com. and actually enjoy a comedy. And welcome into The Ringerverse, your Nexus feed for all things fandom. I am Ben Lindberg, senior editor at The Ringer, and your host here at Button Mesh, where you can't even tell that all of our faces are uncannily AI upscaled because we aren't on video yet. There are three other faces and voices with me today. Two will be familiar.

One belongs to senior audio producer and Midnight Boy, Steve Alman, who hardly needs Jensen Huang's. help to look his best. Hi, Steve. Hey, I'm just done sucking down demon souls and now I just need AI upscaling to make me look even prettier. Perfect. Speaking of looking your best, I'm blowing up your spot for a second. I recently friended you on Facebook because we're old. Oh my gosh. I still do that from time. You did? I haven't been on that in a minute. I think you accepted. So you both are aware. Okay. Yeah. You're probably just auto-accept. You know, you probably have so many people for like Facebook wanting to be your friend.

Yeah. Well, one thing you used it for recently was sharing a photo shoot you conducted, which I am now privy to. Now, was this part of the recent Vanity Fair Midnice Boys feature or was this a solo project just for fun? No, this was part of some like Spotify press photos that like was both offered to podcasters and also offered to anybody that wished to take them. It was like a fun day at the office where pretty much anybody could get like professional headshots taken. Really? Where was my photo shoot? I guess they don't do home Spotify home mix visits.

They don't do the home office photo shoot. Listen, you can make the call. You've got far more important people in your phone than I do, Ben. You can absolutely make that happen. I thought this was all about Vanity Fair, but no, this was a personal Steve joint, though. I did enjoy that Vanity Fair shouted out your unapologetically. black sensibility, which we all appreciate it. It really is by popular fans.

So in this photo shoot, there's some great shots. There are a couple of you peeking coquettishly above an upturned collar, just peering out. See, this is where we need the video component to the podcast so that people who are not Facebook friends with Steve could appreciate this. But there's one particular image that I've been thinking about. It looks like you started to do a split and then. halfway down your back locked up and then you sort of grimaced through it. And so you're just sort of bent over with your hands behind your back and your legs splayed apart. What, what's the story here?

Was that just a freestyling? Well, this was actually me recreating a very famous Willem DeFoe photo shoot where he too did that exact same pose and that has since become a rather iconic meme. And I was just, you know, see, like when the photographer says have fun, I'm like, this is the only thing that I could think to do. That's just your go-to. Willem Defoe poses, yeah. Right. That's what you do just in your candids when someone says cheese and you just immediately launch into the Willem Defoe. Okay. Yeah. I'm glad you have that in your back. I'm not going to hop into the term coquettishly whenever we, whenever that comes across, because that's now the word of the day. The second voice and face belong to Ringer Deputy Art Lead Matt James, who as far as I know

has not been featured in a photo shoot lately and who definitely does not use NVIDIA's DLSS-5 for his excellent lead images on the ringer.com. Howdy, Matt? Howdy, Ben? Yeah, if you want to do like a personal photo shoot yourself in your home, maybe I can Photoshop them to get that Vanity Fair look for you. Yes, that's right. We don't need the AI upscaling. We have Matt airbrush it with the human element, right? It's the Photoshop personal touch that he delivers every day. Do you have a go-to photo pose if someone snaps a pick of you. Oh, yes. Also Willem Defoe. Yeah, of course. Yeah. That's right. Well, one of your excellent lead images adorns an article published on Thursday by our third guest, making his

button mash debut all the way from his home in Glasgow. It's Louis Gordon. Welcome, Lewis. Hello, hello. Hello. Nice to be here. So happy to have you. Lewis, freelances for many a site, but we're always happy to have his deep dive features. Grace the ringer.com. What a great website. and it was a great website on Thursday. In part, thanks to Lewis's excellent reporting and piece on Capcom. It's called How Capcom Cracked the Code of Game Development. You talk to a ton of people at Capcom, outside observers, and analysts about how exactly Capcom keeps killing it. Because we are going to be talking today about your piece and also about the latest release,

which has capped off the year of Capcom, which we tease coming into 2020. 26, that we were going to have new resin evil. We were going to have prognano. We were going to have Onimusha way of the sword. And now that final game has arrived. It's as good as advertised. And this might just be a career year for Capcom. So I'm very much looking forward to talking to you about how that's happening.

Why Capcom can't miss? Because a lot of other companies are having issues as Capcom is just on this incredible streak of success. And we will get to Capcom shortly. We will talk a bit about orbitals. We'll get into some other games. But our Patch Notes news section leading off this episode, I guess we could begin with a company that did produce an excellent game,

but did encounter some struggles along the way. So behind the scenes, we were hoping and planning to bring you an interview about Star Wars Zero Company today and the making of that great game. We still hope that will happen sometime soon, but it is not happening today. Thanks in part to the fallout from a report by former Button Mesh guest, Steven Totillo, at GameFile earlier this week about Bit Reactor, the startup studio that developed the excellent Star Wars Zero company. Turns out that the majority of the people at Bit Reactor were furloughed shortly before this game came out, which changed the tenor of the conversations and victory laps surrounding this game.

As many as 80% potentially of the personnel at that studio have not been working, have not been paid lately because the studio seemingly essentially ran out of funding. And there is also a lawsuit that Stephen unearthed that pertains to a dispute about ownership of the studio between a couple of the co-founders. Perhaps that hasn't helped this situation, but this doesn't seem to stem from that. It doesn't even seem to be anything particularly nefarious. It is just an all-too-common story in game development these days that even successful games and studios, well, behind the scenes, they are sometimes struggling to make ends meet. So were you surprised by this story, Lewis, dropping in the midst of your reporting about how Capcom can do no wrong?

I'd like to say I was surprised, but I mean, you just, I don't think you can be surprised at anything that happens with studios, particularly, I guess particularly in the West, in North America and Europe anymore. Yeah. And it doesn't seem to be anything related to electronic arts or Disney. It's just a tale that we hear all too often these days. Game development takes a long time. It costs a lot of money. And sometimes there's just not enough runway. And so we've seen a number of cases where a game bombed or didn't hit the way that it was expected to. And shortly after that, we heard about layoffs. I think that's why this seems a little bit different. This is not high guard. This is not 2XCO, something like that, where the planned post-release roadmap got scuttled

because the game had a light launch and thus wasn't generating revenue and thus people were laid off in studios were downsized. In this case, the game seems to be going gangbub. But of course, that doesn't help you before the game actually comes out, right? Matt. So it's lamentable that this happened, obviously. And I guess it's also an even greater tribute to the finished product because the game is great. It is. And I do think, though, that, you know, knowing this now, you know, the three of us have talked about Zero Company and how, you know, our only critique of it really was that there's a bit of jank, a bit of unpolicy. a few, you know, stutters here and there, some weird camera stuff.

All of these things that, you know, we noticed, but didn't super impact our time with it. But you would assume that those are the kind of things that, you know, a normal studio functioning at full capacity would spend the last few weeks leading up to the game ironing out. So perhaps, you know, that is what we're seeing here is that by the time they got to that final stage of smoothing things out, perhaps, you know, there weren't that many people around to actually do that work. Right. Yeah, reportedly there is still a skeleton crew that's a different Star Wars property, but also an expression that is still at the reactor, maintaining the game,

patching the game. And hopefully the success of the game will enable people to come back to work and get paid. Or in the worst case scenario, I guess, get good work elsewhere on the strength of having worked on this game. But sales have been strong. This is not just a critical favorite. This is not Marvel's Midnight Suns, where the sales didn't really mirror the critical reception. This game has been a hit and a well-deserved one.

So I hope that that does lead to a second act for BitReactor and for a lot of the people who had a hand in making this great game coming back to work. And also, Steve, I suppose it would be a shame if this story distracted from how good the game is. is, right? I mean, it's a minor miracle that any game gets made, but you're right, Matt, it's even more of a wonder that this thing shipped in any playable form if money was that tight. So it's, it's particularly impressive. But yeah, Steve, I hope that we can all, if anything, just pull for this game in studio even more, knowing the circumstances under which this game was produced. Of course. I would have nothing but good things to say about this game and as well as to root for anyone and everyone that worked on it both furloughed and not.

It seems like we can't really escape the narrative of the, like, terrible state that this industry is in, even with some of our critical darlings that have been emerging from the past few years. Like, this struck me like a sort of like high-fry rush scenario while that game studio shuttered and the property was left and that game was more or less finished. This seems to be something that, like, I don't know the, certain financials or particulars of that furlough to what needs to be happening for those people to get their jobs back. But to know that this thing has just kind of been released out into

the ether in the very good, but still to be improved slightly state that it's in, and know that that could just be it if this weren't a critical masterpiece or like something that was as well regarded as it was. To know that this is an industry that is kind of unwavering in its use of funds and success metrics and all those things to just simply cut a project out from under itself when this is a living, breathing document for a couple of weeks and months after its release. So it's a shame, but I'm without a doubt certain that if this continues its level of success now, then I have no doubt that this won't be the last that we see from those workers in studio. Yeah, it is a lamentable reflection of the state of the industry, except, of course, for Capcom,

where everything is going great. But I hope to bring you more on Zero Company soon because, again, I think that the game deserves to be celebrated and praised and discussed, and that this should not distract from the greatness of the game, if anything, it should only make that more impressive. Another thing we planned to talk about at some length today, but probably will not be,

is Sony's state of play presentations on Thursday, which, you know, you expect a certain number of announcements, and headlines from a state of play. This didn't particularly deliver on that score. And no, Sony did not announce that they're calling backsees on doing away with disks. Just kidding, guys, we weren't serious about that. No, they're still sticking to their guns on that one. But also, there wasn't much in the way of new games.

We got a lot of looks at already confirmed games and games that are coming up soon, some of which we will be discussing on this podcast. and some release dates and reminders about things that are coming early next year. But I think it's sort of similar to what we were saying about Gamescom and opening night live. It's just GTA is coming, you know. And so everything has cleared out of the fall and winter calendar. And so there's not all that much to hype except for, yeah, continue to look forward to Final Fantasy, various Final Fantasies. So, you know, games looked good.

games were shown proof of life, but not much new to discuss. Tons of DLC. Lots of DLC. Lots of DLC. For pretty much everything you've touched in the past two years seems to be getting some form of additional content. Or the past 11 years in the Witcher's case, though that was not shown here. But yeah. And Capcom, of course, got in on things too.

Getting some DLC for Monster Hunter Wilds, as if Capcom has not been prolific enough. But, yeah, not a ton came out of this. so we probably will not dwell on it. I will note, Steve, you hipped me to some Sony-related news. So there has been good news on the console sales front, not exclusively PlayStation sales. In fact, across the board. Right.

Hey, I have to take my little victory lap here. If at least you being right, you will take my notes and features. Absolutely. Yes. So last week, after console sales really bottomed out in July, and the sales figures were dire. There was some good news recently, as just about every system was up significantly

in terms of units sold. PlayStation and Xbox by about a third week over week. Even the Switch 2 was up, though that was more about, I think, getting purchases under the wire before the price hike. But there was PlayStation and Xbox sales bump as well, which seems to be largely related to GTA6 and the extended look that renewed

the hype fanned the flames for that game. And that was one of my big questions about GTA. Will this be a system seller? And I think it's tough given limited supply of components and exorbitant prices for components. But at least some people did say, ooh, I better get in on that because GTA is coming. And specifically for PS5 Pro, it turns out I thought I was late. I was behind the curve. I should have bought a PS5 Pro prior to the price hike. It turns out I'm actually actually a trendsetter. Was this the GTA bump or was it the button mash bump? I don't know. But suddenly the PS5 Pro is sold out seemingly everywhere. And in fact, there is a hot resale market going on here where if I were not actually using my PS5 Pro, I could probably hawk that thing

for a profit. So thank you, Steve, for alerting me to this so that I could feel a little bit better about my shameful gluttonous purchase of a PS5 Pro. I got to congratulate you on spending $200 more than the launch price spent. That was a really savvy move. Only to forego spending potentially $300 to $400 on the launch price when those eventually come back and stop. Look at it as an investment. Look at it as savings.

Don't cry over spilt hundreds of dollars. Look at it as the hundreds of dollars I spent by looking forward to future price hikes. That's the way I'm looking at these things. Possibly flattering to me. I'm curious what Lewis thinks about, like, if you have any, like, consoles that are now an appreciating assets in your house. Ooh. But is the base PS5 appreciating?

I don't know. It might be. I think maybe a little. Maybe a little. I appreciate it. Yeah. And yes, this is really our retirement plan. You know, there's not much of a safety net when it comes to games media.

There's not much else going on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a shrinking industry. So we're all just clinging to our increasing. expensive consoles, which we could potentially resell someday. Money has never been more fake, Ben.

My PlayStation's going to be worth a lot. It has this little slot that you can put this weird like circle thing in. I don't know what it does. Wow. Some sort of primitive artifact or relic. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah.

I plan to hand it down to my descendants because it may be generations until there's a PS6 at this point. So hopefully the PS5 Pro will have some shelf life. Now, one solution possibly to a lack of new hardware is trying to make the old hardware perform better or trying to make old games look great. That is ostensibly at least the goal behind DLSS-5. This is what I was alluding to in the intro. This is, of course, the latest iteration of Nvidia's upscaling, deep learning, super sampling series. which aims to critify games after the fact.

And this is a landmark release, DLSS-Five. And obviously, this has been in the works for a while. We have discussed it in passing previously. But it's out now. It has escaped containment. There were people who were data mining it, but now it's really out there. And the response has been divisive polarizing.

It is available as of Thursday in NBA 2K27. If, of course, you have the proper Nvidia hardware, which will cost you an arm in a leg or a kidney, the G4RTX-50 series GPUs on G4S now, you can, if you dare, get access to DLSS-5. However, there are some downsides. One, it turns out that it will kill your frame rates. What are we doing here? There are always tradeoffs. If there's no such thing as a free lunch or a free graphics upgrade. I'm sorry, I hate to cut you off.

But even if this shit were to look good, like, does it at least perform well? No, also no. God. And that's the other consideration. Does it look good? So we end up with uncanny valley yassifying of existing characters here because there are certain games. It appears to be maybe the more. photorealistic the character was in the first place, the better the results. I put better in quotes

because, again, this is all sort of subjective. However, if there's any actual stylized approach to rendering a character, you know, artistic intent, right? Then that all kind of comes out in the wash as this generic AI neural model filter is applied just in a very heavy-handed way, this neural rendering-based AI that supposedly is enhancing the lighting and the resolution and the surfaces and upscaling everything to 4K and all the rest of it. Nvidia says that they are attempting to retain the developer's intended style, but in practice, in many cases, there appears to be a great flattening here and also a very off-putting effect. Lewis, what do you make of what you've seen of this so far and also the online backlash?

It's the detail on the faces. It's all kind of like, it's so over-exaggerated. It's kind of like the shadows, the lines, the wrinkles, the paws. And my sort of takeaway was that all of these characters look cooked in the sense that they've just been on like a sunbed for too long. It's like a deep fried meme where like everything's just like a little sunken in. They looked like they've got some kind of like terminal, dermological, condition or something.

They just like they look like they need to sort of like, I don't know, just go and sit in a dark room for months at this point. Yeah, I don't know. It's not for me. I could give them some tips on some avoidance and sitting in dark rooms. Judging by the complexions of most people on this call, we could all identify with that. But yeah, I mean, they might be cooked or overcooked. We might be cooked as a society, as an industry at this point.

I don't deny that there may eventually be some utility to this or some applications. I guess it's of a piece with the larger AI conversation where there are the moral considerations, there are the ecological considerations, then there are the artistic considerations, are there certain applications of some AI-based technologies that could actually make games better and make people's jobs easier, et cetera? Yeah, there may be. then there's also the extremely problematic, worrisome stuff. And that is what has dominated to this point.

Of course, that is what social media algorithms cater to. And there may be plenty of people who are totally wowed by this and not just kind of gullible AI bros, but people who like graphical fidelity, if this could be applied with the input of the developers in sort of a finely tuned specific to a certain game way, I could imagine it having good results. But if it's just kind of a blanket,

we're going to apply this across the board with no nuance, and we're going to make everything look sort of the same. And one of the strengths of video games is that they all do look very different, and you can see the stamp of the creators in those games, then that would be a real shame in addition to the fact that evidently it massacres performance anyway for the time being. plus invidia of course not that invidia actually wants you to buy graphics cards right mac because invidia is largely in the business of selling to data centers and selling in bulk not to hobbyists right

and so there's that that it's not as if invidia really wants people to say ooh dLSs5 i got to go get the latest greatest invidia graphics card which may or may not be available in the first place But perhaps this is a demonstration beyond gaming to say, aha, here's the power of our hardware. Now you can use it for some other application. Yeah, I mean, if you have a 5090, apparently, an RTX 5090, Eurogamer's reported that you can get NBA 2K27 on 60, about 60 frames per second on Ultra with DLSS5.

And, you know, for those who don't know, a 50-90 is like the most expensive thing you can get. If you have a 50-60, apparently you can play at 1080p at 43 frames per second, according to Eurogamer, which is not ideal. 1080p, 43 frames per second, not ideal, I think. I will say, though, that for, you know, the game that they're launching this technology with is NBA 2K27. And I think that if you can make a slight case for this technology in any sort of setting, I guess it's a photorealistic sports game, right? Right. If you're simulating actual people.

A photo realistic sports game where there are constant photographers where Getty images is constantly being scraped for photos that are going to be thrown into this game in order to make semi more realistic graphics. Yeah. But as you're alluding to, Ben, like, you know, Nvidia, as you said, doesn't really care if you can afford this hardware. In fact, you know, they would love it if you never bought hardware again. And instead, you played everything through the cloud

where you paid to lease their computing power. And that's just kind of like the evil trajectory of gaming that Nvidia would like to see. And of course, this is a technology limited to Nvidia GPUs, where we should be keeping an eye on if AMD has any interest in trying to emulate this in their technology, let alone Intel. But AMD might be too busy trying to chase the data center race

to actually come up with some new gaming technology in the near future. But we will see, I suppose. Yeah, and there are already people who are applying this technology to make it available to people to use on themselves. So in Steve's next photo shoot, he could DLSS-Five himself, perhaps. It won't capture my coquettishness, though.

No, I don't think so. Yeah. So I don't know. This is all kind of brave new world and also dystopian and perhaps promising in some specific applications with the right guardrails and human input. we will see where all of this goes, but latest sign of the AI apocalypse, perhaps.

Before we get to Anamusha, one thing, just a little podcast court in session, not midnight court, but the Button Mesh branded version of this. I wanted to ask you to play judge and jury, or you three, about two legal arguments related to video games that we have heard recently. Sony's stated rationale for not further disclosing that digital game purchases are just licenses, and also Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo's rationales for not passing tariff refunds onto consumers. I did not get a discount on my PS5 pro. I will not get kickbacks because the initial round of tariffs were ruled illegal,

and Sony is getting hundreds of millions of dollars returned to it. there was some discussion about, well, will those revenues be passed along to the consumers who paid higher prices because of the tariffs? In these cases, the major console manufacturers are putting aside their differences in console wars and are presenting a united front that, no, they will be keeping those funds. Thank you very much. Everyone except for play date, the manufacturers of those cute, one might even say coquettish little yellow handhelds with the crank. They are passing these on to consumers. However, most companies, at least in the gaming space, are not in other industries. Some are.

So we have gotten some reporting and some lawsuits, and we know how these companies are defending themselves. First, I have to ask you to evaluate Sony's defense to this proposed class action lawsuit, which alleges that Sony still is not correctly disclosing that digital games are just licenses, because, of course, there's the California law from last year. that requires companies to make it clear that they're selling digital games that people won't permanently own. Everything is fungible and fleeting. So Sony argued essentially that how could anyone be ignorant enough to think that they actually did own a digital game? They argued in their filing in the digital age. It is not plausible to allege that reasonable consumers believed they were

obtaining ownership of a digital game. All right. Now, the rationale, and they name some of the names of the plaintiffs here, but here's how they justify that. Were that the case, that is, if consumers were obtaining ownership of a digital game, then plaintiff one would not have been able to obtain the game Resident Evil Requiem, Capcom tie-in on February 25th, 2026 for 6999 from the PlayStation store after Plaintiff 2 had obtained Resident Evil Requiem on February 14th, 2026, Great Valentine's Day gift, Resident Evil, because the first plaintiff, not. Sony would have owned it then. So Sony is essentially saying that how could anyone think that someone was owning a digital game that they purchased? Because if that were the case, if people were

actually owning the games that they buy, then the first person to purchase that game would have cornered the market and nobody else would be able to buy it because the first person did. So it's only one copy. It's like a once upon a time in Shaolin situation. it's Wu-Tang, there's only one copy, and once Martin Schrelli buys it, nobody else can. How do you guys rate the defensibility of this argument? If you're presiding over court, are you holding Sony in contempt? Are you kicking them out of the courtroom?

Are you saying, you know, actually they might have a point here. What do you think, Lewis? It's almost like Sony isn't the producer of, like, mass consumer electronics when they kind of, like, make that argument. I don't know. I think it's like just like incredibly disingenuous to argue that reasonable players don't think they are entitled to at least some kind of ownership when they actually purchase something. I mean, I know it's not been that way for a long time.

But like your average Joe doesn't. It is such a kind of like inside baseball argument that they're making. And also like the argument is kind of like, it's weird and esoteric and kind of like. Like, arcane. Like, it's a hard thing to get your head around. Like, I don't know. I don't know how you would expect anyone to kind of like make the assumption that Sony thinks they should be making. Yes.

Steve, what say you? I'm going to first hold myself in contempt for not going to law school in the first place. Because to know that the, like, legal team of a multi-billion dollar international corporation is just throwing shit out there and being like, yeah, well, Who really owns anything, Your Honor? Quite frankly, you weren't even there. Like, to know that I could have done that. And, you know, like, I'm very happy for this job, but, you know, not to be on Sony's payroll.

No, this is stupid. And frankly, it's, if this were, like, a general consensus and the climate that we've had in the digital gaming space is, we're like, well, more well known, like 20 years on. Obviously, like the main argument that, like, the main argument that, like, contrarians of this would say is that, like, oh, well, the PC community has known this for so long. Like, Steam has been around for decades, and that's always been the case. We've known that this is what happens when you get digital games. Like, they're just things that can be taken away from you at any point.

It's only now recently that they're starting to get taken away from you. And people didn't know what that meant until just now. now people need to have that level of informed consent when it comes to their purchases. And the California law that came here, which is basically like I live in California presently, and whenever I buy something digitally on the PlayStation store, there's a big sign in my purchase price. Like, you are not buying a item. You are buying a license to buy this game. Like it is very clearly stated.

And even if that were to deter somebody from buying a digital copy, that's a level of informed consent that is quite frankly required nowadays because we're seeing so many digital purchases from people. It might not be games at the moment, but it will be the case. Like we're seeing movies from people's libraries just disappear from the owners. Things are not being available to purchase because of rights and all these other things. Like it's a level that like, again, like there's a level of grassroots like consumerism that are trying to inform people of this. Like this is happening around the internet constantly. to inform people that this has happened, but from a, like, big tobacco legal sense,

like, yeah, you've got to put the warning sign on the pack of cigarettes. Like, you just got it. Yes. Yeah. And at this phase, Sony is just trying to get this thing kicked into arbitration to avoid a class action so that they could handle this on an individual basis. So that's really what this is about for now. And they could just rely on, as you said, the messaging that is there, the disclosures that

are there, some of which is up for. front, some of which is buried in hundreds or thousands of words agreements that no one actually looks at, right? But this argument that they've tacked on to, this feels like gilding the lily or hat on a hat or just. And here's another argument that we cooked up that I want to know their billable hours. I want to know how much they're making to say this. Yes. I do love the idea that someone might think that a game is just one copy available for the world. Once someone snaps up, that's it. It's gone.

Supplies are limited. It's fascinating. I mean, like, I read that, and, like, two things popped into my mind immediately. The ancient aliens meme of the guy just, like, looking insane. And then the other thing that popped into my mind was, what is that, Billy Madison? a joke where they're like, everything you have just said has made the entire...

Made it's all dumber. It's like the hoops that they've jumped through and like that is their kind of like best offering legally is just kind of mind blowing. Like excuse me for believing

perhaps that something purchased from a store in any sense, you know, transfers ownership. And also So just the concept of them talking about, like, one item being purchased and then therefore after one person buys it, like, almost relating it to, like, physical stock when it's an entirely digital, it just makes your brain, like, do so many hiccups after trying to process it that it's, like, disarming in a way that it might actually be effective.

Right. They can't possibly mean what they're saying. So they must have a better point buried under there somewhere. Do they need to rename the PlayStation store if you're not actually purchasing anything? Yes. The PlayStation Leasing Department. Yeah. Right.

Can we still put things in our shopping carts or can we just carry them around for a little while before we put them down again? Yes. Licensed now. There's also like a big level of concern that I have because this is a level of like technological insight and consumer. that I'm not sure, at least in this country in the United States, that the powers that be like, congressionally or legally might actually not understand. Like, how many times have we seen, like, the CEOs of big tech companies being dragged out in front of Congress and then having to explain what an Instagram instant message is to an 80-year-old man that doesn't

understand that you can send pictures on the internet? And to know that, like, oh, yeah, when you buy a thing on the internet, you actually don't buy it? Well, wait a minute. Like, and like, to know that, like, we don't have the infrastructure of, like, actually informing the people that make these decisions, what the wool being pulled from consumers' eyes is actually saying, I think that's even more alarming. Because in order for these lawyers to think that they can get away with this, they've got to actually read the room and know that the person that they're appealing this to might actually believe it. Yes, it might be a flood the zone strategy and stuff some techno babble or what will seem like techno babble to someone who does not play video games.

Okay, we're throwing that argument out of court. The second one pertains to the tariff-related price hikes, or Sony and Microsoft and Nintendo would say possibly not tariff-related price hikes. You can't prove that they're tariff-related. So in July, Sony told investors that the company is going to be getting $508 million in refunds from the government after those tariffs were ruled illegal. They also talked about a tariff fee of 200 million or so in the fall quarter. They told investors, that is, when they actually raised the price of consoles, when Microsoft did,

it cited market conditions and the rising costs of development. Sony cited a challenging economic environment. People could read between the lines, but they didn't directly say this is because of tariffs, at least in part, which is in part what their defense is resting on. on here. So this is maybe closer to credible, but are you buying the idea? Okay, so there's kind of a two-pronged argument here. One is, well, one is that people paid what the list price was and they got what was advertised to them. And thus, they weren't screwed over here. There was no false advertising. Paying fair market price for voluntarily purchased consumer goods is not a legally cognizable injury

in fact. That's in some legal language. But as Microsoft said, there's nothing unjust about plaintiff purchasing an Xbox at an advertised price and getting exactly what he paid for, regardless of whatever theory he devised months later about Microsoft's cost structure. And it went on. Also, plaintiff provides no specific allegations that would establish any pricing differential attributable to tariffs or suggest any possibility that Microsoft applied then or could recreate now, any dollar for dollar calculation of tariff-related pricing any more than it could any other market factor that affects pricing. So basically, A, nothing wrong with paying whatever the list price for the console was, even if it was higher than it was before, you got the console that you thought

you were getting for the price you knew you were paying. And secondly, even if you're aggrieved about that, you can't prove that we raise prices because of tariffs and that you are then entitled to refunds when we get refunds for tariffs. Steve, you buy in this one? You're in this argument stand? I now no longer wish to have gone to law school. This is the type of stuff where I'm like, okay, so this is what the good lawyers do.

Because, yeah, like in the surface of all of that legal word salad, I pretty much get it. Like, if somebody sees the price and buys a thing based on that price and the company does not disclose why they raised the price or lowered it, what do I know? Like, what are they to say? I suppose that that's, like, defensible, for sure. Like, you can't really, like, you don't really have a leg to stand on if you, like, check, like, we're the one that saw the price.

I don't know. Like, it's still maddening. I hate law. I hate everything that this has come to. I hate law. Don't you year for the time where, don't you, don't you yearn for the time when you didn't know what the straight of Hormuz was and we didn't have. and we didn't have to know about tariffs and everything. Like, wasn't that a great time?

And now we have to learn about this every other day. That's my thoughts, Ben. Yeah. This one worked for you, Lewis? I mean, like, legally, like, I don't know, whatever. It's obviously, I mean, it's smarter than the last argument. It's less dumb. It's more morally reprehensible, maybe, I don't know,

or at least of a piece. of it. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, it obviously kind of stinks, but I kind of like, I buy it. It holds a little more water. Yeah. We all know what's happening here. And yet I get it. Yes, if you charged us a certain amount and we agreed to pay it, then you could argue as they are that we're not entitled to then getting a refund, even if that was one of the reasons why the price was what it was. I think the cleverest part of the defense was that Sony essentially argued that you know that the price hike couldn't be solely attributable to tariffs because they raised prices again later. And that was not because of tariffs because the tariffs had been repealed or there had been no new

tariffs. And thus, if they were hiking prices again, then that actually strengthens their argument. So, you know, we are going to lose my mind, back. I'm going to lose my mind. It was a nifty legal strategy to hike the prices of the consoles again so that they could then say that, see, we weren't raising prices solely because of that, which obviously is true. We were just talking about the Rampocalypse and Ramageddon and all the rest. And obviously, there is a component shortage and components cost more. And that is a big part of why hardware prices have gone up across the board. So that is true, obviously, to an extent. and maybe it's tough to decouple that from the tariffs.

But I did enjoy doubling down because we can't give you refunds for one price hike because we did this other price hike and charge you even more. I'm going to set this off building on fire, bet. Anybody listening, I'm legally not doing that. I'm not doing that. I'm actually not doing that. This is a sad time. And just the argument that we didn't raise the price because of tariffs.

We raised the price because we were just being shitty. It's kind of, it holds water, though. I didn't expect any of these companies to refund tariff costs to the consumers, especially not Microsoft, who is laying off thousands of people and scrambling. And I think it's within their right to not refund after, you know, you make an agreed purchase. But at the same time, like, it certainly would go a long way for, you know, what you think of one these companies if they did. And I say that as someone who did buy a play date last year,

and might possibly be the only person you know to have received a tariff refund in the sum of $23.48. All right. Money bad on. Bags, Matt on. Put that toward the PS5 Pro that is not available anymore. Now, that ship has sailed then. Only a fool would do that.

Are you saying that these corporations should appeal to consumers to, in charge? your good faith. You think that's going to happen? Oh yeah, definitely. Definitely. Yeah. The bigger the corporation, you know, the more you can trust them is what I would like my happy meal too. Yeah. Well, they have us where they want us or at least console sickos like me and we will happily lap up the slot and pay whatever prices are charged. Two and five Canadians will hear the words you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research.

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Conditions apply. Visit scotiabank.com slash h-I-SA to learn more. Scotia Bank, you're richer than you think. However, we could move on to a topic that will allow us to pretend that things are going great. What a world, right? but when we look at Capcom, all is rosy and wonderful and right with the world. And that applies to the latest Capcom release of 2026, Onimusha, Way of the Sword. This is, as you put it in your piece, Louis, the third major release of 2026 for Capcom following Resident Evil Requiem and Pragana,

though we should also shout out Monster Hunter Stories 3, which came out in the midst of that and also was warmly received. So Capcom can't stop winning, essentially. And Anamusha, another victory, right? So this is a long-dormant series. Anamusha is back from the dead after a 20-year gap, much like its protagonist, who is also back from the dead, the Toshiro Mufune-looking protagonist, Miyamoto Musashi. And it is typical, excellent Capcom greatness,

a really well-done combat system, an excellent story, great design, great animation. It's just another example of Capcom kind of firing on all cylinders. We all enjoyed this game. Opinions have varied, as they always do, across the internet, but most of them have been quite warm. So, Lewis, you were playing this with an eye toward its inclusion in your piece and how it reflects the larger golden age of Capcom. But just talking about this game in isolation for a second,

how much did you enjoy? Oneimush, a way of the sort. Well, I haven't finished it yet. I'm still playing it. It is a lengthy game. It is a lengthy game. I would say I'm greatly enjoying it. It is funnier than I was expecting.

It is. Shockingly funny. Yeah, absolutely. The first 10 minutes is, like, is brilliant. I was going to say, this is one of the best, openings of a video game in recent memory. I was just, obviously, I was excited for this game, but I was completely sold on the characters and the setting and the tone and the writing and the voice acting, which, by the way,

the English voice acting is excellent, too. It is. It's really good. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Nice. Nice. And as is Japanese and, you know, presumably many other languages.

But, but yes, even playing it with the English voices, it's really good. Yeah. Strong start. immediately in on just the whole vibe of this game. Yeah, yeah. Strong start. And then, I mean, it's just, look, the sword play is some of the best ever, I think. I think I played a lot of like samurai games, sword fighting games on a PS2.

That was my first console. I think I played way of the samurai. And I was like vaguely familiar with like Ishido Blade. Yeah. When are we bringing back Rashido Blade? Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.

But it was always like this sort of like that kind of samurai swordplay was always like this kind of like in my mind this kind of like holy grail of kind of video game experience that the designers could aim for. But it always just kind of felt so undercut on the PS2. And like obviously like you've got devil may cry that has its own kind of like melee combat thing going on. Even the even the original Onomusha games, it's often just. like you're kind of like carving through enemies through that kind of like flesh. But like way of the sword, it lives up to its name. Like that sword play is just like if it really feels like they've kind of like made good

on the promise of kind of like virtual sword play. You've got like a simulated sword physics. You've got the varied terrain. And like I'm not, I'm not much of a boss fight guy. But man, these bosses are good. It's bad news for you. But they're so good.

They're so good. Oh, yeah. I'm having a great time with it. Yeah. The way that the sword animations are really tailored to each fight, where you really are getting blade on blade and steel on steel, and it's not just kind of fludging it, it's a testament to the animations, which are great in combat and also in the copious

cutscenes. There are a lot of cutscenes, and some of them are quite lengthy, which you won't mind, because they're, again, well-acted and animated. and written, but nonetheless, this, it reminded me almost of, you know, when the skill stick was introduced to the NHL series. Oh, okay. NHL-07. I know, kind of a strange comp, but it was like, that was hated back in the day.

I remember that. They were wrong, though. They were wrong. Yeah. It changed hockey games forever. Yes, because suddenly you were actually controlling the stick yourself. It wasn't just a single button press. Now, that's not exactly analogous to what we're talking about here, because you are

still sort of pressing a button for light attack and heavy attack. It's like, hey, we played skate. Why don't we put that in hockey games? Yeah. It's not like this is for honor or even kingdom come deliverance to or something. It's not exactly, you know, some sort of realistic sword fighting simulator. But it reminded me of the skill stick innovation just in the sense that you do actually feel like it's not just a generic fight. Each exchange feels like a specific fight because your sword is actually clashing with someone else's sword.

And there is a real weight and heft to that. So, Matt, you actually have finished the game because, of course, you have. So give us your full impressions on the combat and everything else. Well, I want to touch on the combat that you're just mentioning. I think that the reason why the combat is so successful, and in my mind, is the real. shining star of this game. If you're to isolate it down to one thing, it's the combat.

It has the right number of systems in it, right? You play a lot of games where you have a weak attack, a strong attack, and you can power your dodge, right? And this adds in a bunch of different elements. You can get into a clash where you have to tap the button faster to kind of overpower the enemy.

There's one situation where if you, it'll kind of clash swords and then if you press the other attack other than the one, the opposite of the heavy, yes. If you attacked with a heavy, you switch to a light and then you successfully win that interaction or if you're attached with a light, you have to switch to a heavy. And, you know, dodges on top of that, typical parry.

And then they have, you know, those, there's an attack also where instead of trying to parry or trying to dodge, if you attack right when someone else is attacking, and you get that timing very precise, you can do a particularly devastating attack. So there's all these systems that make it so that that sword gameplay is constantly, you're on the edge of your seat jumping

between all of these possible interactions rather than just tapping the button, like dodging, right? The fights become inherently more interesting just because of those few little systems added to it. and you get into a flow state or hopefully you do. And you just get so locked in because you have to watch the animations to see what kind of attack is coming. And obviously there are some visual indicators and little glints and color-coded indications. But a lot of it is just sort of being in the moment and watching what your opponent is doing.

And it's so gratifying when you actually can escape from a fight unscathed or by the skin of your teeth. And yes, you have the ESIN attacks, which are. foregoing a block or a parry or a counter and just attacking, but at the very last second. Attacking the attack. Yeah. And it's so sad. And we've talked about how everything is parries these days, every game seemingly

with any kind of combat. It attacks our parries. Love it. I love it, Jerry. It's parries all the way down. But what it's done as well as this, then it feels distinctive in a way that, something like Beast of Reincarnation, which you enjoyed. Matt, I was a little less impressed there are dozens of us.

Yes. This just feels... It's on another middle, obviously. It is, yes. And it has to be because it's a 40-hour game and because you're going to be doing so much combat that if it got old, then that would be bad. And that's kind of what I wanted to talk about here

because I have mixed emotions about this game because the combat is so outstanding, because the art direction is so incredible, because the performance of the main character is so memorable. The shortcomings of this game frustrate me to a degree that is a little bit unreasonable because of how much I love so much of this game. And you mentioned a 40-hour game. Yeah, that's one of my bigger frustrations is that this game feels to me

like it is stretched out to an unnecessary degree. in a year where we've had Resident Evil Requiem and Pragata, the absolute bangers that both sort of clocked in under 20 hours, and to me felt like perfectly paced, this kind of felt bloated. And it's a good thing, as you mentioned, Lewis, that the boss fights are so outstanding, because the majority of them you're asked to do multiple times.

And without spoiling anything, right by the end of the game, you're going to fight even more. more bosses again. And there's a mode in this game where you can choose to refight some of the bosses to unlock some cosmetics.

And let me tell you, you don't need to do that because you're going to be fighting these bosses again anyway, and you really don't need to make yourself any more familiar with them.

Another thing it has in common with Beast of Reincarnation. Lots of reincarnated and recycled and attacks. So that was really my main frustration with the game.

is just that I felt like at half to two-thirds the runtime, this could have been just an absolute all-timer. And instead, by the end, I was very ready to be done with it, which is something I could not have fathomed that I would feel after, you know, nine hours in, when you really can tell that this combat is really, something special and the character's rule and the setting is awesome. And so, yeah, that's kind of where I landed on it.

I don't think that Capcom is entirely worried about the like bang for your buck, like hours played versus cost of, a cost to entry type of argument with these games. I think it might have just been like a, like I hate to say pacing error or something because like they knew that they had something great and they had so many things that they wanted to emphasize and show the player again, because not only is it like a wonderful exercise in art direction and level design and puzzling,

but it feels like that there's like a level of these developers wanting to emphasize the work that they put in. And to a degree, I very much respect that, but it does, to your point, feel like it's hindering the thing that, like, it gets in its own way as far as your enthusiasm for it. goes because I started this game vibrating with how great everything is it's being shown to me. And then when I get into the groove of like, okay, well, we are in this sort of like mini hub area where we go and tackle different tasks and fight certain enemies and do little like,

like platforming environment puzzle and then kind of rinse repeat for like another five hours and then you go to the next section, that's where I'm like, oh, okay, this is. might be a bit of a step back. But I really want to, like, I think to me, like you say the comment and that it is exceptional. I really cannot emphasize to me how blown away I was with, not even so much the story, but I think the, like,

incredible performance and tone that this game set with its narrative because games often take themselves way too seriously, especially games like this, where, like, you're a blown samurai fighting demons, and it's all about my destiny, whatever the hell. And, like, reading into what Capcom's philosophy was to want to get the rights to Mishiro Mufune's likeness, because of what he means to samurai stories and what he means to characters like this, I truly think that they had a measured service that they wanted to give not only the characters in this story,

but the actual man himself that played these characters is something of a great personality. because I was stunned at like the level of attention that they had to establishing a level of lived in like character affect when it came to Musashi. And I kind of haven't experienced that in games ever, maybe. I don't know. Lewis, were you like as struck with me or am I like talking crazy? No, no, no. I love this.

There's kind of like one detail that the protagonist does. in the kind of like animation with his like jaw he's constantly just like chewing over his jaw and stuff like that and it's just like yeah it feels like a really it feels like the kind of like tick like you an actor might play with an actual kind of like movie but they've like done it

in a in a video game yeah I think it's really cool they've done imported some of Mopune's mannerisms and have done that with the consent of the family and the estate and obviously lots of love and care and attention to detail and everything. And it is just such a gratefully realized character that I enjoyed spending time with could it have been a little less time. Yes, perhaps. Not so much because of the story or the characters, but because of some of the repetitive gameplay as good as it was, I do think that a little less would have been more. And I'm always trying to put myself in the shoes of the players and our listeners who are not necessarily having to blow through games as fast as possible because there's another podcast coming next week and three more great games are coming out.

But everyone is dealing with that deluge to some extent, right? There were 700 games released on Steam last week. A lot of it is sloped, but nonetheless, there are a lot of great games these days. but you will not regret your time with Onamusha way of the sword. And it's impressive that they resurrected and rehabilitated this franchise, but it's not as if you needed to know anything about Onamush or you needed to have some preexisting attachment. It's a fresh start for the franchise in every way. And they could have called it a brand new IP the way that Pragnoto was a new IP,

and it would have been just fine, right? So there's a little nostalgia for those of us who were old enough to remember. But it's really impressive. And that's just kind of what we've come to expect from Capcom at this point. So I feel almost blasé about it. Oh, yeah, another really good Capcom game. If I had to rank those three major Capcom releases of this year, this one might be third, but only because the first two were so great and we like them so much.

I probably would put this below Pragmata and Requiem. But it's wild to think that that could be true. because I love Sony Musha so much. I was waiting for this game, this franchise to come back for so long. And it's really like Capcom's doing the money phone at this point because like to know that this is their like third best game that came out is nuts. Because like their B sides are other people saying it might be fourth if we're being if we're being honest.

All right. Okay. All right. I have not gone through Monster Understories three yet. but I've played some of it and it's also fantastic. Yeah, it's like when people listen to the master plan and say,

you've got to listen to the OASS B-sides, man, better than the albums, right? But it's like that with Capcom. It's like, you know, you can stop the cap. You can't stop Capcom. Nothing can stop Capcom at this point. And I want to ask you about that, Lewis. One little tip I will pass along,

at least for me, I found that changing the control scheme helped because it defaults to this aggressive, I think it's called Control Steam. And I switched it to the defensive. Oh, defensive is way better. Which is what's the difference? I thought so defensive is where you parry with L1 or block is just an L1 and as opposed to the face buttoning, the face buttons doing everything.

It needs to be on L1 or L1. Yes, I've got that extremely unintuitive and I was trying to learn it that default way because I usually go with the default, but I just, I couldn't get that down. And then that sort of messed me up for another hour or two because I was then unlearning what I had learned with the initial control scheme. This is why Capcoms might be the greatest to ever do it,

because I used to never like go in and look at different control schemes. I always assumed that like when I start the game, the control scheme that the developers make for me at the start is the one that they intended to do. But instead, at the beginning of this game, they're like, hey, pick a control scheme right now. And to me, I was like, what the fuck are you talking about? Why would I have to pick a control scheme?

It really is just where the Perry button is. Yeah, and it made me, like, sit down and look and I'm like, okay, this is the circle button for this one. This is the circle button for this one. Like, I looked at, like, I cross-reference every button. And it gives me, like, an already, like, a palette for how I think I'm going to play this game. And along with all of the great systems in this combat that they introduced to us, it drip

feeds you so well because all the things that we talk about, like we've seen in other character action games. Like, this exists in Bayonetta. This exists to a degree in Double Bay Crock. But the way in which this is slowly introduced to you at a consistent speed to where, oh, hey, we're going to give you like a not button mash mashing quality where like if you clash when you're sword with an enemy, you have to hit the opposite button. And it will make sense to you.

and you'll remember to do that for the rest of your play-through. That is, like, incredible game design, and that's perfect for what Capcom is, like, destined and put on this Earth to do. Yes. So Capcom is now wrapping up this masterful year, perhaps a career year, in a very lengthy career that dates back to the early 80s.

Some on our network might call this Capcom's apex mountain. Perhaps it's a re-apexing for Capcom. I don't know. It depends on how you define it. had so many successful eras, but it also had a lull and a stagnation, the so-called crapcom era of maybe the late 2000s to mid-2010s or so. And now they're in what people have labeled the Cap God era, where they just seem to have unlocked some kind of cheat code here.

It's like when you lower Onamusha's difficulty level, it tells you which buttons to press. And it kind of seems as if Capcom has just lowered the difficulty of game development. Not actually, of course, because making games is still hard. And even Capcom sometimes has its difficulties as it did with Pragmata, which took several years to come together. But nonetheless, you look at the results and it's so impressive. And we had a little table in your piece, Lewis, where we just sort of split the last 20 years into not entirely arbitrarily.

we were using Resident Evil 7, which is seen as something of a turning point as the dividing line. Prior to that, 27 to 2016, the average metacritic score of an original Capcom release was around 70. Since then, it's been 83. This is just par for the course that Capcom releases are Onamusha Way of the Sword quality. And as the quality has increased, the quantity has decreased. Perhaps that's not a coincidence, though, obviously they're still putting out Kamsat a fair early regular pace here. So we all can look at this and say, wow, Capcom's on an incredible generational run here across new IP like Pragmata, across old IP like Street Fighter, IP

that's taken the leap like Monster Hunter, Dragon's Dogma, Resident Evil, of course. What did you learn from speaking to producers inside Capcom, including Onamushas and also industry analysts about how they have done this and what, if anything, any other companies can learn from the success? I guess Kawata, the producer, long-time producer, Evari Requiem, Pragmata, I think he joined a company in like 1995. So he has been there for a good old stint.

But he was quite, he was like pretty candid. He was kind of like we were talking about like, well, how has Capcom gone on this kind of generational run? And it's like, okay, well, first of all, there's not one reason. There's lots of reasons. And then the second, he's like, I have just, I failed a lot.

And he was quite open about that. Obviously, I asked him to name specific failures. And maybe I kind of like respect to his colleagues. He said that there were too many to name. But, I mean, he's obviously, I think he's obviously, he's partly is like referring to those kind of like crapcom stinker years when it was outsourcing so much of its development to international studios to, yeah,

there were some, like, creative highs, like the Ninja Theory, DMC, Devil May Cry. It's a great game, even though it was, like, divisive at the time. But then there's, like, Dark Void, which I can't remember the Metacritics. Core off the top of my head, but it's not good. Who can forget, Dark Boy? Yeah, right. Yeah, it was, I suppose, kind of,

of bringing development back home to Japan, twinned with VRI engine, really kind of set the stage for this, you know, this like this new golden age, I guess. Yeah, and I was thinking, okay, is this replicable? Is this applicable? Can anyone look at Capcom and say, oh, let's just do that? Yeah. And it's difficult, obviously, for any number of reasons. This is a big company with a long history and a lot of beloved IP that people are really attached to,

and they can just reach into their back catalog and pull out Onamusha and resurrect that, right? Not everyone can do that. So it's almost Nintendo-esque in the tenure, also the richness of the library, also the intergenerational developmental model, which you wrote about in your piece, kind of passing the baton from old to new,

which is enabled in part by the fact that there is more continuity in game development in Japan, partly perhaps because there's an emphasis and a prioritization of that, but also because the labor laws support that and make it harder to lay people off. That's a big part of it too. Boy, so the conditions. Love those employment laws. Yes, you probably would not quite have a Bit Reactor situation if that's located elsewhere.

I feel like you also wouldn't get that element of ownership of one's failings as well. Like the amount of like reference that he that he had for his work in those in those down and out years. Like it feels it feels a lot more personal because of the fact that, hey, he's been like allowed to be with the company for so long and like dedicated his efforts to writing the ship. Like that like it's actually kind of beautiful. Yeah. And it's an exciting new era because not only do you have a new mainline Mega Man coming next year, right, for the 40th anniversary of that franchise.

but you also now have this move into adaptations. We've got Zach Craigers' Resident Evil movie coming later this month, which we'll be covering on But, I can't wait. You've got the Street Fighter movie coming next month, which I'm also really looking for. I can wait. You know, I can wait a little longer and we will because it's coming out next month, but it looks pretty darn good too. You know what?

If it's better than Mortal Kombat, I'll be happy. It could be dumb and fun. It could be dumb and fun, and that's fine. And you had the Devil May Cry animated adaptation, which seemed to boost sales of the back catalog. And that's the thing. They have perfectly nailed this formula of, we'll keep remaking and remastering and re-releasing your old favorites.

But then we will also keep making new installments of those old beloved series, which innovate in some way. They're not purely just, yes, here's the game you love, but we're also taking this in a slightly new direction, or at least synthesizing multiple directions, as in the case of Requiem. and then still finding time to resurrect a long-dormant series like Onomusha or do something entirely new like Pragmata, which, you know, I just read a stat about how something like six or seven percent of sales or playtime these days is original games. And it's demoralizing, right? Because people are playing the same games over and over.

And if not the same games, at least the same series and sequels. But Capcom is shown that making sequels doesn't mean that this series is stagnant, that you can do things new within the old framework. But then also saying, yeah, look, we have Pragmata here, which was this brilliant synthesis of, you know, kind of typical Capcom action. There's a core Capcom game, but riffing on that formula and then just delivering, hey, this is about like a quick time event kind of combined with combat. It's sort of a simple hook.

And yet it's so fun and so distinctive. So they're just firing on all cylinders right now, and it's really impressive. I was struck by the comparison to Obsidian, as I was reading your piece of this, because Obsidian released three games last year. And that was not by design and seemingly didn't go great. Obsidian released a vowed, grounded to, and the Outer Worlds to last year. And at least a couple of those underperformed, and then subsequently there were a lot of layoffs at Obsidian as part of the Xbox downsizing.

And that seemed to have been, well, we didn't plan on this. It just kind of happened that way, which is sort of the case for Capcom, because Pragmata did take longer than they anticipated. But it didn't feel like these games cannibalized each other's audiences in any way. At least the first two were quite successful. They were all well received. It felt like there was a plan, or at least all these games were given the time that they deserved and were polished to near perfection. And it's really something. You know, it reminds me of on 30 Rock when Jack Donagy is having a perfect day where he makes absolutely no mistakes.

And he refers to it as Reaganing. Capcom is Reaganing right now. And I keep thinking, surely Capcom can't keep getting away with this. And there's going to be a dud at some point. And they will because no one is perfect forever. But we're talking about 10 years now of just high after high. and even if it's tough for someone to emulate, I'm glad Capcom has found this formula at least

because it's a nice exception from the doom and gloom that we're so often talking about elsewhere in the industry. I'd encourage everyone to check out Lewis's piece, which dives pretty deep into all of this and get some good behind-the-scenes stories and anecdotes from the principals at Capcom. And we could just wrap up briefly with a couple quick recommendations. Wanted to shout out Orbitals, which is out this week, a switch to exclusive, which Matt and I played together.

Lewis also played independently. Lewis is going to be involved with an unannounced upcoming project from the publisher of this game. Kepler Interactive, just to disclose that, but also I think genuinely enjoyed this. game. This is developed by ShapeFarm, a new studio published by Kepler. And the hook is essentially what if Hayslight but anime and 80s anime specifically. And so even though this was developed by shape, shape, farm, it was almost co-developed behind Studio Mesk at the anime studio behind a lot of favorites and just going back to OGs from that era and Gundam animators. And it really has that incredible look. It's also directed or co-directed by Jacob Lundgren, who is a haze light

veteran and worked on all the hazelight games. It takes to a way out split fiction. So clearly both of those legacies and lineages are reflected very strongly here. So Matt, this was a nice change of pace in that it's a six to eight hour game. So if you need a little quick palette cleanser before you dive into new game plus for Onimusha Way of the Sword or the even harder difficulty that you unlock after you finish the game, then this is a quick little digestible co-op-only adventure. What did you think of the game? I think that's fitting too for a co-op experience. You know, you don't have 40 hours of hang time with friends, usually, especially as an adult. I have some mixed opinions about orbitals.

Overall, I think it's great. I think that the art style is just mind-blowing and that it's a real achievement visually and stylistically. I think that tonally they nailed what they were going for and anyone who this art style even remotely appeals to I think should check this game out. I did have some minor qualms with it.

I thought that some of the puzzles were better than others by a good amount. I think at times... And more legible than others, too. Legibility is really it. And I think that's sort of hand in hand with this art style being so distinct, is that it can be hard at times to kind of extract visual information from it. you know, speaking of Capcom, there's no yellow paint in this game.

However, there are some sections... But how will I climb? They do have yellow handles, I will say that. So don't worry about that. But yeah, just some of the puzzles, the sort of objective of what you are supposed to be doing either visually or logically

isn't all that clear. So there are occasional frustration points. And then the only other significant critique I have is something that will be irrelevant to all of our listeners, so I'll only touch on it very briefly. But we got one review code for this, and then Ben, you're able to use GameShare to let me play through the internet.

Yes, much like split fiction, only one player has to own a copy, or should I say, perhaps digitally purchase a license to a copy? To retain the license. Much better, much better. Yes, they just want to, you know, obviously. Not confuse anyone, yes. And then the other person can play with you online.

Yeah, that experience was bad because the delay input was at a level that made it very frustrating for me. But that won't be a problem for any of you because they have released an Orbital's sort of companion app that you can install on your Switch 2. And so you will then have the game sort of locally, even though you can't access it without your friend who owns them. that license connecting with you. So basically, what I experienced, that input delay of GameShare, no one will have to go through. You've just installed the companion app,

which I finally got to do mere hours before we started talking about it. And what a difference it made for the feel of the game. And I'm so glad I got to do that because I played through the entire game just feeling like this can't be what it feels like. And thankfully, it wasn't. it does feel very responsive.

And man, that was a weird review experience. And I'll stop talking about it now because it's, as I said, completely relevant. Or it could be, although it may be confusing to people that they don't have to do GameShare. This was my first game share experience like this with Swiss. GameShare instead of getting the companion app that lets your switch process it locally. If you can get the Orbital's Global Friends Pass app, then do download the game. GameShare can be handy in some situations. This was my first time playing a full game that way,

and I would not really recommend it because of, yes, some lag. It didn't affect me so much as you. Thankfully, Ben knew that I was better than my performance in the game. Right, I indicated. Grading a curve. But yeah, the interface, you know,

it's not true full screen in game share, and it's not going to be quite the fidelity and frame rate and everything and input responsiveness that you're used to. But go get the Friends Pass, or you could play it. locally in co-op or multiple people could buy it. There are many ways to play. But, you know, it will remind you of split fiction in a lot of respects, but with its own distinctive style and look.

Lewis, I know you were impressed by the story and the world building. I do think the setting is quite cool. There was a moment toward the end when we were watching the final cutscene where Matt and I both thought simultaneously and then said, I don't really know what's going on in this I guess there was a lot of story and it's like, I'm kind of lost the plot a little bit here, but I'm enjoying the look and the vials. Great. Yes, exactly.

And the boss fights, there are some exceptional boss fights in this game as well. There are some good. Some of my favorite moments from Orbitals and Onimusha. Yes. So I think it nails the look and sensibility that it is going for here and doesn't overstay its welcome and definitely reminiscent of or derivative of split fiction and hazelike games,

but that's not the worst thing in the world. I'm happy to have more games like that because I do tend to enjoy them. And overall, the reviews have been pretty positive. Obviously, there have been varying opinions. I meant to mention, by the way, when it came to Capcom, there was an IGN10 that has taken some flak. This was by Will Berger, whom you talked to for your piece.

And I just want to say, Because whenever anyone goes out on a limb like that, they take a ton of abuse, right? Maybe even more so when they go low than high. But either way, you stand out, you put your neck on the line and people are going to try to chop it off. And there was some discussion about that this week in particular because Thomas Mahler, who's the lead developer on the Ori Games and no rest for the wicked, which is coming out soon, he just made a presumably vibe-coded alternative to open critic and metacritic called video games critic.

And this is sort of a reactionary attention-seeking guy and very much on the corner of, you know, games media is biased or dumb or whatever. And so this is partly about empowering the player and the user reviews and everything, which I don't really get because you can look at user reviews everywhere already. So I don't really know why we need to blend them. The one good point I thought it had was that it does kind of update the review score based on the user reviews after the release, because as we've discussed, games sometimes get a lot better after the initial release, but those initial review scores are frozen in time forever, which can be a bit misleading. But beyond that, the whole goal seems to be to compare outlets to the crowd and to say that it's a good to match everyone else's opinion. And look, I find utility in review aggregators, and I sometimes let them guide my buying decisions or playing or watching or reading decisions.

But I think that's kind of a wrongheaded take to think that the goal of reviews should be to mirror everyone's opinion and for everyone to have sort of a hive mind opinion of games because I just, I want to defend the outlier reviews here. I don't think Onimusha is a 10. It's not a 10 for me, but if it's a 10 for Will and he feels that way, then by all means, express that. Now, it's tough when you have scored reviews. This is why a lot of outlets have moved away from that because a 10 implies perfection, right, as if there could be no improving upon this. And that's hard to defend, I think. But obviously, Will really love this game. And it really resonated with him.

And I would hate for that sort of standing up and saying, I think, this game is great or I think this game is not great and then weathering whatever criticism comes your way, I would hate if we lost that, you know, because review aggregators aren't as useful if everyone is just hurting and clustering and fearful and engaging in groupthink or just trying to project what other people will think as opposed to it being an actual genuine reflection of what a group of reviewers thought themselves independently. So I'm all for the outlier review score high or low, as long as you truly believe it and you stand by it. And there can be competing pressures, right? Because it's the internet. There can be the pressure to stand out so that

you attract attention in kind of a trollish, just trying to get traffic way. And then there can be the competing pressure of not wanting to stand out because everyone will pile on if you do anything different. So I just want to say, you know, it's not a 10 for me, but I will defend to the death Will's right to say it's a 10 for him, you know? Yeah. And, and, you know, also it's like people will then hold that against the outlet and say, oh, IGN gave a 10 to this, but IGN also gave a 10 to that. And there are many people employed by IGN, right?

I mean, this happens sometimes at the rigor where we have different opinions about things. There's not a house opinion about everything. And we want a diversity of viewpoints. And so it's not consistent across the board. You know, it's not if someone thinks this is a 10 that they're grading that in relation to everything else. Anyway, that's my little rant. Sorry, I just had to get that off my chest. Question for the panel.

Quick question for the panel. Is the Internet discourse reaction to the IGN10 the start of the death of media literacy or is it something else? That's definitely not to start. It's the end of that. It's the end of that. The end of circling the train. Look, we wouldn't be here if everyone like Crimson Desert, okay? To reviews.

Right. If Arborita Time came out today, they'd still give it a not. No. Yeah, that was one of my favorite discussions on this podcast when we really disagreed about Crimson Desert. And we each came to our opinions, honestly. So, yeah, look, I mean, as members of games media, it's nice that anyone is paying attention to what anyone in games media is saying these days.

So I'll take it, I guess. but I don't think too many people are maybe taking too much weight on certain games media. Yeah, perhaps. So look, there's a lot of kind of bad faith discussion of this stuff, but that's my spiel about outlier review scores. So orbitals, we give at least a qualified recommendation to Ode Mousha. It's $40. Split it with a friend, 20 each.

Right. Onamusha, we give a wholehearted recommendation to. And do you, Matt and Lewis, want to give just a brief parting recommendation for another new game that you somehow found time to play? The wordy title, Resonance, A Plague Tale Legacy, which is a prequel to a Plague Tale Innocence and the third installment in the A Plague Tale series. So this is available for all non-Switch platforms. Onimusha is available for all platforms and Orbitals is available for Switch 2 only. But yeah, give us your quick takes on resonance, Lewis. What did you think?

I had a good time with it. It is incredibly derivative of the last 15 years of action-adventure games. Okay. There is a lot of handholdy kind of platforming, but the setting is absolutely sumptuous and the characters, pelling. I think the lead is called Sophia, who's just like incredibly cool, like modern action heroine.

It's kind of like, it's what, I mean, it's obviously, it's walking the same path for Tumranes. at her swartz, uncharted as what. And then within the game, there is this kind of like set up that she is actually walking within the footsteps of a kind of like Minoan soldier as well. It's set on a Greek island, Crete, I think. But that's a kind of like nifty way of it kind of like justifying what it's doing from a kind of like gameplay and narrative perspective.

I had a good time with it. It was nice, actually. It was nice being on Crete in a kind of like Greek mythological kind of like set and it not be this kind of like the dower machismo of Nolan's Odyssey. It was kind of like refreshing, refreshing in that way. Ooh, a spicier one now. Wow, all right. Hey, I just defended outlier reviews.

So thank you, Lewis, for allowing up to that. Matt, you second that more or less. I do. I have my sentiments are almost exactly the same. I think there's some, you know, the gameplay is, is nothing particularly noteworthy, I would say. They do a decent job of pacing the different types of gameplay

that you'll find in here. There's sort of like a stealth section. There's obviously combat exploration puzzles. And I think those are well-paced, but really the star of the show here is the visuals, is the atmosphere. If you're someone who's particularly affected

by feeling like you're really transporting into a space in video games, I think that this game does a fantastic job. I was constantly just stopping to admire the setting. I think the voice acting's pretty great. It's about a 10 to 12-hour experience. Some of the puzzles I found pretty enjoyable.

The combat was satisfying enough. I think towards the end, the story maybe dragged a bit for me. Yeah, me too. There's a lot of, oh, I can't do this anymore from the main character that I could. I was like, can I just let me run? Let me run forward now, please. Thank you. So just like the very back end of it was a little, we got a little tedious.

You are always running forward in that game. I would like to trust the W.K now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, I echo the same sense. I enjoyed my time with it very much. and its strengths are worth seeing, in my opinion. And I felt there were very few negatives to it as well.

And again, if that had been twice its length, I probably wouldn't have finished it. But I thought it hit right at its perfect length. Well, we will continue to press the Sprint button to try to speed run this late summer rush of releases. We have not yet gotten to Mortal Shell 2. I know you played and liked the demo, Matt. We did not get access to the blood of Don Walker early enough to talk about that this week.

That's the new vampire-themed action RPG from some of the makers of The Witcher 3. Seems like people are liking it, despite it being a bit rough around the edges on PC. I know who would have ever expected that from some of the makers of the Witcher. This is more of a minor thing. But apparently it does have that Beast of Reincarnation issue of the subtitles being too small and not customizable. This happens on so many games. I assume because the QA folks are sitting too close to massive screens or something, I'm considering starting a side business where I become a games accessibility consultant

on a single issue, subtitles. And studios just hire me to come in and say, hey, have you considered making the subtitles a bit bigger? I might move into that area if my media career goes belly up. And, of course, next week, we will fully focus our attention on Marvel's Wolverine. So looking forward to that conversation as well. So many games, so little time, and we are just trying to keep up with this boss rush and live to tell the tale and podcast about the tale. And you can, of course, contact buttonmash at RingiverseGaming at RingiverseGaming at gmail.com. We will enjoy and read your emails.

This week's email that I will surface for you is a response to our prompt on our Zero Company pod where we ask for pitches for original Star Wars games, the likes of which we haven't seen before. got a good email from listener Amjad, who said, I heard your call for Star Wars game ideas, and the following immediately came to mind, a hitman style game in which you play as one of the six bounty hunters, Darth Vader, assembled in the Empire Strikes Back. Each bounty hunter has their own pros and cons.

Shout out to Angar. Yeah, shout out Forlom and Zuckus. No disintegrations. No, yeah. We had Star Wars bounty hunter, but that's not exactly what the pitch is here. I love it. They have their own pros and cons, specialties, skill trees.

you choose a bounty hunter and a large map with an intended bounty. Like the Hitman games, each map presents an extraordinary amount of choices and options and possibilities for how you capture, exfiltrate, or kill your bounty, and the wealth of replayability from the large maps and environments is further expanded by the variation in characters you can play as any of the six bounty hunters and the respective features. Tell me with a straight face that wouldn't sell a bazillion copies. I couldn't possibly thank you for the suggestion.

That's a free IP for anyone out there if you can get the Star Wars license. And it kind of gels with a suggestion I had, which I meant to make, though I don't think I did. I'd like to see a Star Wars immersive sim. Give me a prey Deiasex dishonored style Star Wars game set in that universe and just go whole hug. I'd be extremely into that. And I'm always into getting emails. Again, send them to RingiverseGaming at gmail.com. Matt and Steve, thanks as always for joining me.

Thanks, Ben. And Lewis, thanks so much for coming on. I hope to have you back. Yeah. But for now, I'd encourage everyone to go read Lewis's Capcom piece, which we will link to. It is well worth your time. So thanks for your effort on that, Lewis. And also for making an appearance on the pod today.

Hey, my pleasure. Pleased to be here. Thanks, as always to Devin Romado for producing this podcast and to Arjuna Ramgapal for his senior podcast management. But MASH will be back next week. Two and five Canadians will hear the words you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation Walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research.

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