Triple Click - Steam Deck, Switch, and the Rise of Handheld Gaming

Episode Date: September 29, 2022

Kirk, Maddy, and Jason have an obsession: handheld gaming. This week, the gang talks about the Steam Deck, the Nintendo Switch, and how portable machines change the way games are played. From "together alone" gaming with significant others to late-night Switch sessions while feeding a baby, handheld game systems are just the best.One More Thing: Kirk: Trombone Champ (Holy Wow Studios)Maddy: Rap Sh!t (HBO Max TV show)Jason: The Legend of Heroes: Trails from ZeroLinks:Support Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinBuy a Triple Click t-shirt: https://topatoco.com/collections/maximum-fun/products/maxf-tc-tclogo-shJoin the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpodTriple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/ Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick 🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpodInstagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

Everyone knows that some video games feel like they were made to be played on a handheld system. What this podcast presupposes is, maybe they all do. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week we're talking about handheld gaming, the Switch, the Steam Deck, classics like the Game Boy and the Vita, and how our relationship with handheld gaming has changed our relationship with games. Let's charge our batteries and get into it. I'm Kirk Hamilton.

I'm Maddie Myers. And I'm Jason Shire. Hello. Hello. Hello there. Hello. Oh, it's us again. Welcome back for another week of Triple Click.

We did it. Another week. We did it through another week. Did we? Did we, though? Because we're recording this early. We don't know. Maybe we didn't make it through the week.

Hey, man, I was trying to maintain the illusion here. No, I think we've got to be honest. What if something weird happens next week and like we still run the episode? Or there's like huge news that's happened. I don't know. Grand The photo seven leaks on that. Yeah, based on the last two weeks, since I started on my paternity leave, there's just been nonstop crazy news every single day. So people might be wondering. Why aren't they talking about the big news?

Why are they talking about this topic? But, you know, that's because we recorded this a week early. And sometimes you have to do that in podcasting. It's true. So we're doing that. So hopefully you all listening made it through the past week at least, and hopefully we did too. We don't know. We're talking to ourselves in the future. And we're talking to all of you in the future now too. Though I suppose we always do that whenever we record the show, I'm not going to get derailed by this quantum quantum pondering. Yeah, we always record in the past. That's so. wild when you think about it. Pretty wild. Why do we keep doing that? I don't know. It's really, really podcasting is a form of time travel and our form of time travel is entirely supported by listeners.

How's that for a transition? We love all of you who support Triple Click, all of you who have become members of Maximum Fun to help us keep this time travel machine running. Your support, your membership is the stuff that we put into the flux capacitor to power us. That's right. Fly our Delorean straight into the camera and onward into the future. So anyways, yeah, we appreciate everyone's support, and that's how we keep making this show. And if you want to become a member of Maximum Fun and support the creation of Triple Click and all the other Maximum Fun shows, you can go to MaximumFun.org slash join. And doing so, becoming a member, will get you access to a whole bunch of bonus episodes from a whole bunch of different shows, including this one.

We do a monthly bonus episode. And by the time you're listening to this, the September bonus episode will be up. us discussing five games apiece that formed us in our youths. So these are games that are good and games that were not great. But games that were important to us in some ways. It was really fun. We already recorded it and it was a cool conversation. So yeah, maximumfond.org slash join if you want to become a member and support our show. And thanks so much to everyone who already does so. All right, Maddie, what are we talking about this week? This week we are talking about handheld video games. This is the closest

that I think we're going to get to a steam deck episode, which I believe we could have done between the three of us, but it seemed too cruel and also just not comprehensive enough because a lot of people don't have a steam deck yet. I was living that life not that long ago. I would mention that it is more possible to get a steam deck now than it never has been. And it will be more and more easy as time goes on. And more possible to get a Steam deck than a PS5, I think.

still. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, you can at least sign up to get one and you will get one at some point with PS5. That's not even possible. Yeah, with a Steam Deck, you can pre-order any time. Yeah. With the PS5, you can't just up in pre-order. With a steam deck you can pre-order, you just have to wait a little while. So this seemed like, I would say the timing on this is a lot less cruel than it would have been

if we were doing them when we very first got them. Yes, absolutely. Which did always feel a little like, why am I talking about this thing that nobody can even have? Yeah. So we'll do a little bit of that, but there are some other examples too. So obviously the switch OLED is out. Switch is kind of old news, but it's new news for a lot of people who got one during the pandemic, including my darling girlfriend.

And also Logitech, this past week that we're recording this, announced that they're going to have a handheld device, the GCloud gaming handheld they're calling it. And it's mostly been mocked by people since that release, at least in my corner of the woods. When I heard you're like also Logitech, it's like, wait, why in Logitech? I feel like the main thing that's newsy about this is the fact that it's $350. It's like, oh, do you guys not know that you're supposed to be the budget option for something like this? Like, it's logitone. Hey, yo.

And then the other examples that are very trendy, but which I don't believe any of the three of us have, are the retro handhelds. There are a bunch of sort of Kickstarter and crowd funds for stuff like this. There's the play date, the analog pocket. there's this other one that Kirk put on the list that I've never heard of, the N. Barrett. Oh, the Anbaric, RG 351P. So to explain these a little bit, the reason that I put them on the list. So I should say PlayDade is in its own category because it's not really a retro handheld. It's got the crank, right?

It's got the little crank on it? Yes, this is the, I don't know if it was crowdsource, but it's, I think it's panic selling it. It's a very cool device from what I gather, but it is a boutique handheld that plays unique games that are designed for it. Among other people, Lucas Pope, I think designed a game for it. It's probably pretty cool since he makes cool games, but they kind of got a bunch of developers to design games specifically for that device. It's a little different than something like the analog pocket,

which I know people really like. Our friend Russ Frustick is into retro gaming. Also, Griffin McElroy, also on the Besties, plays a bunch of these things. People really like them, and I learned more about them when I started getting into emulation on the Steam Deck because there are some great YouTube channels that are all about retro emulation and retro games.

And they did a whole bunch of great stuff about the Steam Deck when it first came out, like guides for how to do stuff. And then I follow some of those channels now and I'll just see they're constantly posting new, like reviews of new retro handhelds that are primarily designed for emulation. The Logitech one is a little weird because it's like an Android handheld gaming thing.

It's sort of, I'm sure you can emulate a lot of stuff on it. It's meant for streaming, but it's kind of more in that camp. Like it looks a little like a Steam Deck, but it doesn't seem like it can really quite compete. Really, we just want to talk about the Steam Deck on the Switch. Well, yeah. I mean, I also think Logitech might be trying to eat a little bit of Nintendo's lunch very poorly because the Switch also does a lot of cloud streaming these days.

And many announcements that they've done have been for not necessarily a port, but for cloud streaming games. So that's kind of cool. It's a way to do things. And we've talked about streaming on the Steam Deck too and how that works. But mainly what I wanted to talk about, and I think we all do, is that having a steam deck has changed my life. Having a switch changed my life already several years ago. But having a switch and a steam deck means that I can constantly game on the couch now.

And I'm loving life. And I'm so excited about all the together alone couples hanging out that Tina and I are having. Have you two ever called it that together alone? It's coined by a different lesbian couple we also know. So I don't know if it's a trend. We call it parallel play, I believe, is the term, which I think is a childhood development term. That's what my toddler does. Yes, it's a childhood development term.

But it's something that adults can do as well, as you play in parallel to one of the other. I mean, if you're on the same development level as my three-year-old, Kirk and Emily, you guys are parallel playing. Well, they're on the same as each other's development. level, so they're parallel playing with each other. But yeah, we call it together alone, which is when one person is playing a game and the other person is watching a TV show and you aren't really talking to each other, but you're kind of hanging out. And every now and then you can say something to the other person, but you don't have to pay attention to what they're doing. When we do together alone, it's when we're watching the show alone together.

Ah, see that I feel like is another category that is also possible, which is like we, Dean and I could both watch a TV show that does not require very much thought, hate watching The Bachelorette, for example, while you're both playing a handheld video game that does require more attention. And you're just periodically looking up at the show and commenting on it together. This is a true 2022 lifestyle choice. This like multiple forms of media coming at you at the same time and you're hanging out. I feel like this is my life now. Jason, do you do this at all?

You guys are making me nostalgic for the time before I had children when I could spend a weekend just parallel playing with my wife. Well, I don't spend the whole weekend parallel playing with Emily. Let me explain the parental perspective here because handheld gaming is a life changer if you're a parent for several reasons. So when you have a newborn, as I do, as you guys may fondly remember. What? had a new baby about six weeks ago. Yes, yes, we're very proud of you. So when you're a newborn, there's a lot of time,

especially in the middle of the night, when you're just holding him because he won't sleep on his own quite yet. And either you're feeding him a bottle with one hand or you just have him resting on you and you can use two hands. But either way, it's a perfect time to have a handheld gaming device. It could be your phone. It could be a switch. It could be a steam deck.

So I've been playing a game on my switch, which I'll talk about with my, it's my one more thing this week. So I'll get to it a little bit later. But I've been playing it a lot while holding a baby at four in the morning. So that's been my key gaming time. That can also be true during the day. And then the other part of the parental equation is if you have an older kid and you like want to congregate in the same room as them, so you don't want to like go off to your office or something, depending on your specific living set. up in my house. I have my office where my computer is and my consoles are. And then we have our family room where we spend most of our time and where my kids' toys are and stuff. We spend most of the day, it's very helpful for me to have a steam deck or a switch because I can sit on the couch playing that while my kid is playing on her own. And I can parallel play with my toddler. You're playing in parallel when you're doing. I can parallel play with my three-year-old because she and I are on the same developmental level. So all this is to say that If you are a parent, and I'm sure every parent out there listening is just nodding furiously as they listen along to this,

handheld gaming is like, it's not only a lifesaver, it's like pretty much the only way to play games, unless you're lucky enough to like have a job where you can sometimes play games in the middle of the workday, handheld gaming is probably going to be your go-to, or unless you're lucky enough that you're, you can put both of your kids to bed by like 730 and then go play games by yourself. But many, many couples want to spend that time together. it makes it much more difficult. So yeah, thank God for handheld gaming systems. Yeah, handheld gaming systems have always been a part of my life.

We actually just talked in the bonus episode about games that we played as kids. Yeah, and I was allowed to have a Game Boy despite not being allowed to have a set-top console, like a Super Nintendo, which would have been the console I would have wanted around this time in like 1992, 1990, that kind of era. And like, ever since then, I've always played handheld games and they've always had a role in my life. but they've never become the way that I play video games because there's always been a kind of a divide for me. And I think this is true for a lot of people.

And maybe it's partly because as a kid I was allowed to play handheld games and then set-top games were treated as a slightly different thing. But I also think that just generally we kind of think of them as two separate things. I mean, I guess we're doing an episode about handheld gaming, like it's an discreet thing. But there's just always been this difference. So when I'm playing a game on a console, you know, I'm usually playing a monitor at my desk, sometimes at the TV. And it's much more of a plugged in intense experience. I'm wearing headphones. It's a big screen in front of me. Yeah, it's a production. And I'm really

committed to it. And for the longest time, handheld gaming was just a separate thing that I would do. So I had a DS for a while, and I played a whole bunch of games on DS. I then had a 3DS and played a bunch of stuff on that. Then when the switch came out, that was the first time in a long time that I'd felt like, oh, this is different, right? That was the exciting thing. about the switch was that there was a game like Breath of the Wild on a handheld. And we, that was the really remarkable thing about that game, like reviewing the switch and that game was we were, Jason and I, we've told the story before. We went to GDC in San Francisco and were able to just take our new, exciting, big, open world video game with us and just play it there. So I guess I've

had this feeling so many times where I'm playing a handheld game even before Breath of the Wild and have thought, well, this is a really nice way to play games. I really like just sitting here playing, I guess it was Fire Emblem. What's the one? Is it? Awakening. Yes. Which was the first Fire Emblem game that game that I got into. And I liked that game more than anything else. I maybe played that year or almost anything else. And I had this feeling of, wow, it's really nice to just be able to play this wonderful game wherever I go. And it always felt like kind of an anomaly. Oh, yeah, handheld gaming is cool. And now that's really changed for me. That's the thing that the Steam Deck has changed. It's that that's just how I play video games now. I haven't played a game

at the TV or at my desk since I got a Steam Deck, which was in, when was that? Like March, this whole year. And I've played a lot of stuff. Because I have it, it's now a thing that can play anything. I've got emulated games running on it. I've got a lot of stuff natively installed, but it can stream things from my PlayStation. So I've been playing persona on it. I've tried just playing like a little bit of Horizon Forbidden West. And it played. plays great. I mean, their latency is not a problem. It's totally playable. It runs a 60 frames per second. I suspect that'll change when God of War comes out because you're going to want to play that on a screen. Yes, I think so. I think I'll mostly play that on a screen, but that's the other thing is that we'll kind of, I'll have the option, right?

If I'm just doing some repetitive stuff or something I can just play it still on Steam Deck and it will work. Well, I think also to your point there, I think that might also be testament to the lack of like big AAA releases this year that you would want to play on a big screen. I think that it matches up. I think that there's some overlap there. But, I mean, the games that I've been playing on Steam Deck, I've been finally playing Cyberpunk 2077 streaming it from my PC. I've been playing. I've played through most of God of War streaming from my PC.

And the thing is, the spectacle, the size of the screen, I realize it just doesn't matter. I mean, I'm playing God of War, and amazing stuff happens. And it's still really exciting. It's just a smaller screen, but I'm holding it pretty close to my face. And, I mean, it's still amazing looking and cool. Yeah, I guess that's true. I guess I played All a Breath of Wild unhandled, so yeah, I guess I agree with you there.

Right. I've realized that it doesn't actually matter to me, and that the pros of the handheld experience of just sitting out with Emily, playing wherever I want, and just having that customizable relaxing experience really outweigh the pros of the screen. So I want to also bring up a point here, which you were taught, which something you said made me think of, which is, I think that in 2017, something really changed. And I think the Nintendo Switch really changed the way that we all perceived. receive handheld games. And the main reason for that is up until 2017, since the 1980s, Nintendo has always had two separate divisions of game makers. They've always had people working

on handheld games and people working on console games. And at first it was like the handheld is very much the B-team. It's like this is where we stick all the kind of like inferior experiences or like sometimes not quite inferior. I mean, Maddie, you were talking the other day on our bonus episode about Super Mario Land too, which is a great game. But it's always like the the, the, the, the smaller size versions. There's a lot of great Kirby games. Yeah, a lot of good Kirby games. And then as time went on, as the Game Boy turned into the Game Boy advanced,

and then the DS and the 3DS, Nintendo started like really making incredible games for their handout systems in addition to their console systems. But what happened was, uh, Circa, like right after the Wii U, they decided to, um, converge all of their development efforts on just making Switch games. And suddenly it was like, uh, uh, uh, for lack of a better word, a switch was flipped. and suddenly handheld gaming became the dominant place to play Nintendo games, and that changed everything.

Like, suddenly you're getting your full-fledged Zelda game and full-fledged Mario game and everything else on a handheld system. And I think that since then, I think the industry is just like our perception of portable gaming has really changed. And then the other part of the equation is, of course, mobile games, but that's a whole other conversation. And that also has really changed the way we think of games on the go on a handheld device. And also whether games have to be on the go in the first place, which is something I was thinking about a lot as I was putting together the notes for this episode. Because for me, a lot of it is just mental and it doesn't have anything to do with what the processing capabilities are of whatever I'm holding.

Because I have a pretty big iPhone screen-wise. It's an 11. It's capable of running pretty much anything I would want it to. And yet, I don't ever play games that. feel all that deep on my phone. And I don't feel like I would want to do that. I know for a while I was playing the Final Fantasy 7 port on my phone. And I was enjoying it, but I ended up buying it for switch just because I wanted that bigger screen. And I was still actually playing it handheld. But I replayed the whole first hour of the game again just because I was like, I'd actually

rather have a slightly bigger screen and better controls. That's the other big clinch point, is better controls. And that changes things. That's the thing I wanted to bring up, is that I think the controls are a really important part of this evolution. I think that's absolutely right, Jason, that the switch was the switch flip moment for this when there was suddenly what felt like a portable console.

And I think that a big part of that was because the switch was, I'm probably not the first handheld to do this, but the first that I owned and there was kind of a mainstream handheld that had the full, like, complete, set of controls that you would have on a standard video game controller accessible on a handheld. Because the Vita, you can look at these faints at this. I was going to say the Vita has the full set. No, but the Vita did not have a complete set of controls.

It had one set of triggers and not two, and the thumbsticks couldn't be clicked. And as a result, you couldn't actually, I mean, you could play things. I played Persona 5 remote play on Vita, and I set it up so they were kind of the back. You could like tap the back of the thing with this imprecise. you know, sort of there were buttons there, but they weren't buttons, but to do instead of the thumbsticks. And then I think the trigger was the other one. But it didn't work as well, and it wasn't truly one-to-one. And that was what the switch has. And now I think that's what the Steam Deck has done on top of what the Switch was doing. And it's really, I think, the Steam Deck's greatest strength.

Well, the Steam Deck has two great strengths. One is that it's an open OS, so you can just run whatever the hell you want on it. And that's huge because you can stream things from whatever. You can play whatever. You can just use Windows on it. You can, any Linux game, anything, which is really big because the switch is closed. Turn it into your work computer if you want. You totally can. People do. Or play all your

console games, as Kirk has been doing, which is also pretty rad. Yes, it's fantastic. And I feel like that's how everything should work. But the other thing that it does is the controls are, I would say better than the switch just because for me at least, this switch has always always felt kind of small. I have one of those big horrory controllers for the switch, which is better

for Monster Hunter. But it's still doesn't, you know, totally great. I mean, or at least it's good, but it's not as good as the Steam Deck, which is really pretty incredible. I mean, it feels as good as a really nice controller with additional underbuttons and track pads. And then what they've done is the software side of it, which I talked about back when we talked about when I was first talking about the Steam Deck. But they've also opened up reprogramming the controls to allow you to customize your experience on that end. And I think a big part of the appeal of handheld gaming is the customizable of, like, your environment when you're playing games, which is, like, that's just a way to think of it is

it's not just that it's mobile, you can take it with you on the train or traveling, it's that you can choose where you want to play games among anywhere that you can go, because you can play it anywhere. So it's kind of just more customizable experience. And then the controls on the Steam Deck are also really customizable in a way that I just find it's really accessible, it's really nice. I can do so many different things. I was playing my one more thing, trombone champ, which is the greatest... You're playing that on the Steam Deck? Amazing. Oh, yeah. The greatest video game ever made, and I'm playing it on the Steam Deck, and what's so

fun about that game, oh, everything about the game is fun, but one thing that's really cool is the Steam Deck has gyro controls that you can fully customize and apply to whatever you want, so you can be playing this trombone game by, like, moving the Steam deck up and down with your... I mean, it's your... Your Slide is going in and out, I suppose, rather than up and down, but it matches with the game, and you can do that kind of thing. You need to heck it up to a real trombone. phone. Someone will.

I'm not going to be the person to do that. It's inevitable and get a perfect score. But the point is, I don't know, for playing shooters, you can turn on gyro aiming, you can aim with the track pad, you can do some hybridization of things. There's all these different options. And that I think it's cool and just as a Steam Deck is cool kind of a thing. But it also, I think, complements the customizable ability of handheld gaming in that you can go wherever you want and you can play whatever you want with whatever control.

you want. It just starts to feel like a really different experience than sitting down with this one controller at a screen in this one place to play a game. I also always felt like there were some games that were just made for handhelds. And that is, those are the kinds of games that feel like they're really, really awesome now. Like the new Metroid. Metroid Dread is a great example of this where the previous game by Mercury Steam is on the 3DS and it came out right when the switch came out and no one but me was talking about how good that Metroid game was, Samus Returns, it's called. I still kind of wish they would surprise port that to the switch. I feel like people would really love that. But that trajectory of these developers who made a Metroid game for the 3DS that was

largely ignored, except by Metroid fans, who then make one of the most successful Metroid games ever for a platform that people actually have, but they're using their skills that already suited a handheld style of play, it just seems like a really great fit to me. And the other thing that I was thinking about was I really liked playing Dangan Rampa on my Vita. It was like the last game I played on the Vita, I think, before I moved on with my life. But games like that feel like they're meant for a Steam Deck or a Switch. And it's no shade to the Vita. I enjoyed it a lot. It's very cute. I actually think it's very comfortable to hold. I know it still has a huge fan base of mostly people who are really into hacking them because apparently they're really easy to

mod. I never actually went that route and I now feel like I never have to because it's so much easier to do that stuff on the Steam deck. And it just feels like the next logical step in all the kinds of games I like that were sort of made for the Game Boys of the world. It's like my dreams have been achieved as both a Metroid fan and also a fan of basically visual novel games like books as games. Where do you go from here, Maddie? Your dreams are achieved. I don't know. My dreams are achieved. You've reached the pinnacle. It just, I don't know. Life is good. I'm feeling good. I do feel kind of sad for my iPhone though. I was curious Kirk as an iPad owner. And also since we both just played Papers Please, me on my iPhone and you on your iPad, that was a great

experience and had me thinking to myself, the touchscreen here for shuffling the papers. That's so great. that's not really something the switch can do. The Steam deck does have some touchscreen abilities. But it just seems like there's a lot of opportunity there for games to try something different. Yeah, there is. And I think so many people have a subscription to Apple Arcade Plus now that they just sort of get a lot of those games and play them. That Clap Hands Golf game is really good. There's some other just good games that people can sort of download.

It's cool now that we have, we have like a family plan and I can just be like, oh, Emily, check out this game. that game and there's a lot of really good games there and they are really easy to play. It's different. I mean, it kind of comes back to the controls thing. As a lowercase G gamer who plays a lot of things with a controller, I am, you know, I will always like playing things on, you know, with Steam Deck style controller or switch controller, unless it's specifically a game like Papers Please, which it makes sense that Lucas Pope designed something for the play date because, you know, he, I mean, obviously Papers Please was on PC first, but when you

play it on a big touch screen. It really, like, you know, it's such a tactile game. It's about moving things around on a desk. It really fits. Or FTL, I remember that game is really good on iPad. There are some other games like that that just, they really work because it feels like you're kind of, it's like the game was designed for this sort of input. But most games aren't like that, or at least a lot of games that I play, aren't like that. And they at least benefit from having maybe the option to do both, which I haven't seen a lot of on either switch or Steam Deck, like touchscreen, like actual touchscreen games just because both of them tend to, like they have to include the ability to be played with a controller or like with the switch to be put on the TV

where there's no touchscreen at all so they can never quite make it required for games. I think there's one switch game that is touchscreen only. Yeah, I was remembering that when I was saying that. But I, you know, I do think that that distinction, the distinction you were talking about, Maddie, between like a game that feels made for handheld and a game that doesn't is interesting because it's true. And it was a thing that kind of arose after the Switch came out. Like where, I mean, Hollow Night, for example, when that came out on Switch,

that was when a lot of people played it for the first time, including me and I think, Jason. And that was where that game became such a phenomenon. It was before that, it was a lot of people saying, hey, this is one of the best games ever made. And other people saying, yeah, I believe you, but I'll play it at some point. And then suddenly it was on Switch, and that was just this perfect experience. It was the greatest way to play this game that was like 80 hours long. And I do think, I don't know, I think that that, imagining that distinction is interesting in part because I wonder if that distinction will be a sort of artifact eventually. Like if we'll stop thinking of the split between handheld and TV or whatever gaming, the way that we do, because technology will change enough that it won't be a meaningful distinction anymore.

And then people won't think of games in that way anymore either. Yeah, I think part of the reason that Hollow Night became such a cultural phenomenon on Switch is one of the same reasons that other games have like kind of whiffed on PC and then had a long tail when they got on Switch, which is that for its first couple of years in the market, a lot of Switch users were hungry for games, looking for games exactly like that. another example that comes to mind is something I read about in my latest book, The Flame and the Flood, which is a game that kind of did not meet expectations on PC, but then when it came to Switch later in 2017, it blew them away and sold really well. There have been other indie games like that too, especially in the first couple years of the Switch's release. So I think it's kind of that, it's less about it just being a perfect fit for that experience, although that's part of it, but I think it's more that it's just like it hit the zeitgeist just when people were,

were hungry for that sort of thing. And I think a game like Hollow Night, if that had come to PC last year and then to switch this year, I don't know that like the Switch release would have made the same sort of impact as it did three years ago when it came out. I'm not sure. It's an interesting thought experiment just because there's so many other options. I do think that Hollow Night was pretty successful on PC when it came out. It did well for itself.

It just then became much bigger when it came to something. Yeah. And I think part of that is timing. I really think part of that is just the timing of it all. But yeah, obviously it's a tremendous game. And the other part of that equation also is that I believe the holiday developers had announced from the get-go that they were coming to PC and switch, or at least very close to the PC release. They said they were coming to switch, which made a lot of people inclined to wait for the switch release.

Even today, I mean, with the Steam deck, you would think that maybe there will be less interest in like, oh, this popular PC indie game is coming to Switch. but the seam deck has only sold a few million units at most. The switch has reached 100 something, 110 plus million units. So there's a massive, massive audience for those games coming to Switch. So that's still going to be a thing in some ways. Maybe not quite as, maybe it won't be quite as easy for an indie developer. Not easy.

Maybe it won't be quite as common for an indie game to suddenly have massive legs on Switch the way it was a couple of years ago. But I think you're still going to. going to see a lot of PC games find new life on the switch. I wonder if Trombone Champ is going to come to Switch. I feel like it would do really well. I feel like it would too. But that game also feels like, I don't know.

I don't know that it's that deep. No. I think people are going to get sick of that game in a couple of weeks. But it's perfect for right now. No, it's funny that we're recording this episode early. Yeah. It will be forgotten about by the time. People will be like what are talking about?

Trombone chip. Oh, I remember that. We're recording it in the middle. It's of Trombone Champ mania, okay? We are right in the thick of it right now. We are waiting for clips to emerge on Twitter. People are going to be listening to this episode on September 29th, and they're going to be like, oh, Trombone Champ.

That was so September 22nd. Yeah, they're going to be able to place exactly when we recorded this. Yeah, I do also feel, not to harp on Holo Night too long, I feel like some of that was also Metroid hunger. I know I'm a very biased Metroid fan, but I think some of it was all. also people just really wanting a good Metroidvania. And that was, it just felt like a fit for Switch because it's Nintendo and people just wanted it to be a Metroid game. I know that's how I felt about it. The first time I played it and never beat it. But also it just speaks to my point

about how some things just feel like they're supposed to be a handheld game. I actually really liked playing Holo Night on PC because it's also really difficult. But there's something about it that reminds me of an old school handheld platformer. And, And playing the new, well, the new release of Ace Attorney, it's a very old Ace Attorney. I can't remember what that's called. But playing that on the Switch and reading all that text on Switch just felt like it made sense. Like, again, it just feels like some games feel like they're supposed to be on a handheld. It's just that they should also be on a handheld that is very big.

One of those big and comfortable. To your point, Metroid Dread has sold 2.9 million copies. Hollow Knight has sold 2.8 million copies. So I'm not sure. I feel like there's probably not a, like, the hunger for Metroid, I think critics tend to believe is higher. This is more, more insatiable than it actually is. Like, I don't think there's as much of an audience for those games. You could be right.

Yeah. There's also like Castlevania fans and, you know, other people with their own 2D. Well, I wouldn't be shocked if Silk Song outsells Metroid Dred because I feel like, Hollenite has become more of a cultural phenomenon than Metroid ever was. Well, and Silksong will be multi-platform release as well. And also, like, Metroid Dred was the first mainline plot Metroid game in like 15 years that wasn't a remake or like made by another studio or whatever. I mean, we talked about that on that episode.

I'm just forcing everyone to talk about Metroid. So wait, I have a handheld gaming thought. Okay. This is related to the Vita, which I at least found to be an. aesthetically very pleasing object. I think that that's a big part of handheld gaming. It is. Because not all handheld systems are all that aesthetically pleasing.

And I will say that for all of the things I like about the Steam Deck, I don't find it to be a very aesthetically pleasing system. I agree. It is not a good looking console. I'm sad to say it. It's in earshot right now. It's sitting right here and I'm dissing it right in front of it. Oh, man. Well, we said a lot of nice things.

So hopefully that built it up. Yeah, one of the worst things is on the Steam Deck subreddit people will post. You can get these sort of covers, like these protective covers for your Steam Deck. But they all look absolutely like boiled ass. Because they're like, they cover all of the surfaces. They cover like every surface. But because there are so many surfaces on a Steam Deck, including the track pads, it's just not as neat as like a screen cover for phone or something.

It's like really weird and gnarly looking. They just make your Steam Deck look more tactical, which is not something. something that it benefits from. And then it's just kind of this plastic thing. Your solid snake carrying it around. Think about the Vita or think about the Game Gear. That's another one that people really like. The Game Gear has these rounded curves.

It's just this sort of really attractive-looking sort of, you know, oblong shape. I really have very fond memories of just the color of the screen, the way that it looked, because I had a game gear that I really loved. The Game Boy is like a very charming looking device, even though the screen is pretty ugly. the Game Boy Color, though, better looking. Oh, yeah. And then you get into the analog pocket, which is this new handheld that people seem to really like. That looks, it's really nice looking.

It looks like this kind of modern Game Boy, and it can play all these classic games. It's like for all the people who have a Game Boy themed phone case on their very smart smartphone. It's for those people. It's for people who want to live the retro style, but with a new engine underneath. So I think that's a big part of the appeal of handheld. gaming, or it's just a cool aspect of handheld gaming that largely gets lost when you're talking about PC gaming or console gaming. You know, it's like controllers and mice and keyboards.

Like it's, you know, I think of the late great Mike Fahey and his obsession with mechanical keyboards. It was all about, they were beautiful, those keyboards here to review, these really nice looking like pastel colored blue and pink sort of keyboards with no framing and just raised keys or wooden keyboards. It's the same kind of thing where there's just a nice sort of sensual pleasure to having this cool object. And the Vita for me was, I mean, that's, I have an original Vita.

And it's so gorgeous. I mean, I still think of it as just, it's kind of the most nice looking handheld system that I've ever used, even though the controls aren't as good, that it's not as powerful, whatever, all these other things. No, but it's very pretty, though. It looks like an infinity pool with the glass screen that goes all the way to the edges. There's just something about that that makes it look super futuristic. And I don't know, it's fun.

I feel like the Steam deck doesn't look as cool as I wish it did. I'm glad you agree. It's very PC game company. It's very utilitarian. I don't know. I feel like I've run into this also building PCs. Like a lot of stuff looks very embarrassing and there isn't really anything you can do about that.

And I have a clear case, a clear side on my PC so people can see inside my embarrassing PC. So everybody knows that you're a member of the Republic of gamers. Republic of gamers, among other things. And if there's like rainbow lights cycling on something, you know, everyone can see that. The PC the names of the PC parts are always

the most embarrassing thing. I know. Oh, you got a G-Ripper, thread Ripper 400. My monitor, I think, is called a predator. Yeah, it's also a predator. So whenever I boot up my monitor, which is now mainly just sitting here displaying like some audio plug-ins because I don't play games on it anymore. But whenever I turn it

and it says, Predator. I'm like, okay. Settled down. My computer says Republic of gamers every time I turn it on. I think the Switch OLED is incredibly aesthetically pleasing. I thought that the DS Lite is one of the best-looking consoles ever made. The 3DS also started to look nice.

3D.S. Excel is up there too. My Majores Mask 3DXXL is definitely a fond. A fond of purchase. I have one of those as well. Nintendo always understood this about handhelds, They made really nice looking handholds. Well, not always. The original DS was pretty ugly.

So not always. They've had some missteps. And the original Game Boy was pretty ugly. As we said, they were very clunky. Always was overstating it. But they always had one of the cool things Nintendo did, the Nintendo always had like a bunch of different options, like the purple see-through option.

It was always super cool for the Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, etc. I had a clear see-through Game Boy for a bit, which was, I think, a Game Boy color. And it was very cool. Any clear electronics, very 90s, amazing trend. They should bring that back. Clearly, I'm living it because I have my clear side of the C. They should. What if a steam deck, like a clear steam deck?

Yeah, clear steam deck. I should show you, check this out. I just got these in-ear monitors. I wonder if you guys can see these in their clear electronics. You can see the electronics inside of it. Interesting. Very cool. Very old-school looking.

I like this. And I feel like the aesthetics are actually related to the larger point we're making about the main. streaming of handheld gaming and how you want it to be not just a status object, but an object that people want to have lying around in their living room that actually looks really attractive sitting there on the coffee table and doesn't just look like a bunch of crap. Or like the steam deck, which does look kind of like a star destroyer up on the nest. I think aesthetics of handhelds are more important because you're taking it on the go.

I mean, that's one thing. The three of us have all been working from home, so we've all basically been just like not leaving our houses, but of course, the one thing that we haven't really mentioned is that with the switch, with the steam neck, with any of this stuff, if you do commute to work on public transportation not in a car or someone else is driving you, or if you travel a lot, if you go on planes a lot, if you go on trains a lot, I mean, handheld gaming is just like a game changer. And the number of times that I brought my switch with me or my 3DS or Vita or whatever it was on work trips and just like filled up an entire airplane ride with them. In fact, I was talking about this on the bonus

episode, but I'll share it here too. When I was a kid, my Game Boy time, my parents said I could only use the Game Boy on trips, but on airplanes. Like, usually my video game time was limited, but on airplanes, I could play Game Boy as long as I wanted. So it taught me to love airplane rides because it was like, oh shit, like I could play 10 hours of Game Boy if we're like traveling across or like however long the flight was, which was amazing. Yeah, I remember bringing so many batteries with me. Like, because the Game Boy took batteries. Yes, you got to have a stack of Just to have like 10 AA's. It was wild.

How many batteries I was bringing with me on trips as a child? All in the name of the game boy. Well, I just wish I didn't still feel kind of sad about my phone. That's my main conclusion from today's topic. But I guess we can leave it there. Kirk, you look like you have one more thing you want to say. But maybe it's just your one more thing, in which case. No, I'm excited to talk about that.

But no, just mainly I'm about to go on a trip. That's why we're recording our episode early. And I'm going to bring my Steam Deck wet. Yeah. Well, don't forget to pack your AA batteries. I will. I'm definitely going to bring that my USB charging brick for the thing. So, yeah.

Yeah, right on. Okay, let's take a sec and be back with one more thing. Hi, I'm Hal Lovlin. And I'm Mark Gagliardi. And we're the host of We Got This with Mark and Hal, the weekly show where we settle the debates that are most important to you. That's right. What arguments are you and your friends having that you just,

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Every week on maximum fun. We do the arguing so you don't have to. Oh, all answers are final for all people for all time. We got this. Most game shows quiz contestants about topics they don't even care about. But for more than 100 episodes, the Go Fact Yourself podcast has asked celebrity guests, trivia about topics they choose for themselves.

And introduce them to some of the things. their personal heroes along the way. Oh, my gosh. Shut up. Oh, I feel like I'm going to cry. Oh, my stuff. It's so, so excited. Join me, Jay Keith Van Stratton.

And me, Helen Hong, along with guests like DJ Jazzy Jeff, Yardley Smith, Roxanne Gay, and so many more on the Trivia Game Show podcast, go fact yourself. Twice a month, every month on maximum fun. We are back with one more thing. I will go first because mine is not a video game. And I'll be quick. So we watched Rapshit on HBO. They put an exclamation mark in the title so that they can still have a swear word in a title on HBO.

They just don't even bother with Fuck Boy Island. They just call it F Boy Island, which isn't even a real word. But I'm not going to talk about F. Boy Island. Great show. But I'm going to talk about Rapshit. Have you two heard of this? This is Issa Ray's new show. She did Insecure.

another great HBO show. She is not in this one. She wrote the pilot and she's producing it and she worked on the final episode and I think just came up with the concept for it and there is a character, Shauna, played by Ada Osman who is like, I don't want to say

she's the Issa Rae self-insert character but like she kind of is. She's like, she has a real Issa Rae vibe and I mean that in the best possible way. So this is a show about two women who are aspiring rappers. And one of them is Shawna. And Shauna is the character to whom we can all relate

because she's a massive nerd and her raps are way too intellectual. And she just wants everybody to hear, like, about her metaphor about student loans. And like nobody gives a shit about that at all. And her friend, Mia, who's played by an actual, I mean, they're both wonderful performers. but this actress is known as Camillion. That's her rap name.

But it's Kobe Jackson. So she plays Mia and she's like the friend who's a single mom struggling. She's a sex worker. She's like really in a super different financial position from Shauna who's like the slightly more privileged nerdy friend. And the two of them team up to be like two different women with very different perspectives on rap and music and like womanhood to make raps together. but also it's a really funny comedy.

It's like I'm making it sound very intellectual and serious, but it's hilarious. There's so much internet in this show. Like almost everything that they show you is like live streams on Instagram or like memes and like they'll show the Instagram overlay and like the way that the characters all of their lives online and like all the promoting they're doing is online. I just thought it was a really cool way to set up a show. And it's rare to see that done well and also have it feel almost.

over stimulating sometimes. Like some of the characters will be like putting stuff on Insta and others will be like hiding it because they're like embarrassed by it. You're like sort of seeing everyone's version like Roshamon style of like a club show or like how they think a song went or whatever. I just thought it was really rad. I've always thought Issa Rae was hilarious and I love her writing of nerdy women and it's cool to see her have another success here. So it's called Rapshit. I really recommend it. We watched the entire first season. It got renewed for a second one already, and we're pumped about it. Kind of vents on a little bit of a cliffhanger. So I'm definitely excited to watch it. I recommend it.

Nice. Yeah, I liked Insecure. I watched the first season of it. It was good. And it's funny the way that cinema, I guess, TV shows and cinema are figuring out how to incorporate technology. Oh, yeah. It's hard. Like the beginning of crazy rich Asians or I've just been watching the cyberpunk anime on Netflix, which looks like the video game a lot of the time. Like people will be talking and the actual HUD from the video game will kind of be there because it's, you know, kind of overlaps with the game. So it really feels like you're playing the game sometimes,

but it's an anime. It's also kind of interesting. It has that overstimulating effect. Yeah, cool. So Kirk, what's your one more thing? My one more thing is, as alluded to earlier, Trombone Champ, the hot new game that has totally dated by the time you're listening to this and no one cares about it anymore.

No, I hope they still do. But in the moment I'm recording this. Is it called Trombone Champ because they would get sued if it was Trombone Hero? I assume that's why. I am not a legal expert. And also because people are champing at the bit to play it, right? Chomping at the bit. I will say that Trombone Champ is actually a funnier name than Trombone Room.

Right, it is a funny name. It is a good name. It is. It's a funny name. So this game, of course, in the, what, the one day before we recorded this, with mega viral on the internet. I haven't had something like this happened in a while where honestly like a dozen or more people within the space of an hour or two were DMing me or posting in various discords, being like, Kirk, you have to check this out.

Yeah. I didn't even send it to you because I was like, I'm sure Kirk has seen this. But I did think of you when I saw it. I will admit. This game is made by Holy Wow Studio. It is one of the most shareable, like social media shareable games I've seen in a long time. And it's basically a trombone-ish version of Guitar Hero, where you are playing in the actual gameplay, there's just a goofy, basically Nintendo Me-looking character with a trombone,

and you just control a slider that goes up and down the screen on a vertical as these sorts of lines come at you, and then you have to press, it's a one-button game, you move the mouse and press the button. And you press the button to blow into the trombone, and then you move the mouse to slide up and down, and then you have to match up with various songs. And it's all royalty-free songs, so it's nothing but like Beethoven's Fifth or, I don't know, Havanaugh is in there. The Star Spangled Banner is good.

So it was a bunch of those kinds of songs, which actually makes the game more fun than if it were pop songs because they actually have a lot of fun with the arrangements. They kind of all go, like sometimes they go super epic and techno, or like they really blow up by the end, despite starting kind of traditional. So I have a real thought about the way that this game is designed, but for starters,

this game is like a joke that someone took so far that they turned it into a whole thing. Like when I first saw clips of this, I thought it was just going to be like a mobile thing or a free web game. But when I downloaded it and installed it, like it begins with this epic cutscene where there's a voiceover by a real voice actor about like, I don't even remember, like the universe is out of balance and it's your destiny to fix it. Like look for the baboon.

And it's this music is playing. And there's like this silhouette of a trombone is coming into focus from the distance. So there's all this lore and there's a whole story that they've built in. With baboons involved. The menus look great. It looks like Wii sports. It looks like a Wii game when you're in the menus. The sounds, the background music, all the menu items are smash or smash or something like that.

Like it really has this great snappy design. And then it is really fun. And it's well made. Like it has a really good, it has good sticky friction to use Tim Rogers's term. The physical friction of it is good, which isn't to say that it's easy to play the trombone in this game. Because it is not. And that's really the key to the game is that it is extremely, extremely silly and you're bad at it.

And bad trombone playing over famous songs is very funny, which is why all these videos have gone viral. So wait a minute, Kirk. In this game, it says, like, it has a pop-ups of like, nice, like perfecto. And one of them is nasty, but it says nasty when you do badly. And I saw that and I was like, wait a minute, what? But Kirk told me that nasty means really good in jazz world. Yeah.

Controversial. Yes. Well, this is, I think this is more of a sort of classical trombone. in which nasty just means what it means. Okay. And it doesn't have that sort of filthy, nasty. That's very confusing. I expected nasty.

I swear to God, when I first started seeing clips of this, it would say nasty, nasty, nasty, and I thought it was a compliment. Like, I thought that was a good thing. I think it's a little unclear because, like, you could be like, man, that trombone player busted a nasty riff. And I think a lot of people would understand that you mean that it was very impressive. So it is kind of, it was surprising that the game used that. I've had a couple, one friend asked me the same question.

He was like, wait, does nasty mean you did badly? I'm like, I guess it does. I don't know. They could have used something else there. But I do enjoy the perfect if you get a perfect. But even when it says you've done it perfecto, it usually sounds like shit. I mean, that's also kind of part of the joke

is that even when you're supposedly performing well, often a trombone in this setting of these songs sounds terrible. Right. So that's the cool thing about the game in the way that it's designed and also the really funny thing. For starters, it's that the way that these arrangements are done, you are playing the lead part of like the William Tell Overture or something, which is not, there's a trombone part in that, or there can be,

but it's going to be playing like, well, the trumpets play the famous part that everybody sings, but in this, the trombone is in the front of the orchestra playing solo on everything. Like the full lead melody of every song. Like Beethoven's fifth, it's like, da-da-da-da, which like the trombone would be. I mean, it's crazy, so anyway.

So, right, so that's just very silly. And then the magic of this game and the thing that sets it apart from guitar here, is that you are playing the instrument within the world of the game, and it responds like an instrument, which is a really big difference from Guitar Hero, and actually one that has probably been explained at this point by the time people are listening to this, but I did think was kind of an interesting difference. When you play Guitar Hero, it gives you these, you know, those color gems, and you're pressing the buttons on the guitar, and you're playing along,

and it's a pre-recorded, you know, isolated stem of the guitar track from, like, Carry On Wayward Sun. And so you're playing that, and then when you make a mistake, you, like, press the blue gem when it's supposed to be the red one and you strum, it just goes clank and nothing comes out. And the feeling is really deflating, right? Because the music kind of stops. Like the guitar track just goes away and you're like, oh shit, like we were really rocking and now there's no guitar at all. That's not funny. Like that's just sort of frustrating. It just, it doesn't sound good, you feel bad. It like stops you. This is very different. And I think it's the key to why this game is so successful. In this game, anytime you click, the trombone begins playing a note.

And when you release, the trombone stops. And then you just start playing. So as a result, your failures become music. And it starts to sound like what I'm probably playing in the background right now is me playing this game and trying to do well. Which is hilarious trombone failure, tuning all over the place with loud notes and slides and mistakes. And that's really funny. So failing in this game becomes just as much fun as doing well. And it's a really big difference between this and something like Guitar Hero.

and I think it's the key to this game's success. So it's actually a really, really clever game that some talented people put a lot of work into. And while I'm sure it's kind of a flavor of the week, it is better, more clever, better designed than, I think you might give it credit for if you just saw it as this kind of viral sensation. So I do want to say, like, I really like it and admire it

and think it's really cool. And how long are you actually going to play it for? I mean, probably a few hours, but they will be wonderful hours. A few hours is plenty for a video game. Yeah. It's more than most. I'm just waiting for someone to beat all of Eldon Ring with a trombone for a controller. Well, see, first we need to come up with a trombone peripheral for trombone champ, and then from there we use that peripheral to beat Eldon Ring.

And by we, I mean gamers. I do look forward to the videos of people like getting perfect scores that sound really good, because it's possible. It would be very hard, but someone will do it because it's the world of gaming. Someone's going to do it. I hope so. Jason, what is your one more thing? My one more thing is a game called The Legend of Heroes Trails from Zero.

That name might be a little messy, a little messy name there. I think it sounds good. The Legend of Heroes. Trails from Zero. Let me give a little bit of context here. This is part of an ongoing series from the Japanese developer Falcom called Kiseki in Japanese, Kiseki, which has had kind of a very long and, turbulent history for various reasons, one of which being that not all of the games that came out

in Japan have made it out in the States, and those that did had very turbulent localization processes, which I've written about a little bit on Kotaku. Many listeners out there might know that I've long been a big fan of a game called The Legend of Heroes Trails in the Sky, which came out for the PSP in North America, circa 2011, 2012, something like that. And then now it's on like that. And then now it's on like PC so you can play it there. And and I believe that's it. But so that game is just like this incredible JRP that, uh, has the, this amazing writing and cast of characters and is just like, yeah, good game. Like as, as good to JRP as you could get, I would say. Um, and a really good combat system that like goes a little bit beyond your traditional turn based combat system by adding

like turn manipulation and a grid, a positional grid. And so it's really, really fun. Um, so that game got a sequel and its own kind of trilogy, the Trails in the Sky trilogy. And then what happened was in Japan, after the Trails in the Sky series came this duology, these two games called Crossbell, and then came another series, also in the same universe, called Trails of Cold Steel. Now, what's important about all these games is they're all set in the same world with the same characters and settings and people and NPCs and stuff like that, which is one of the big reasons they're so appealing to people is because kind of like the C-Coden series, instead of just like playing a game

and then you're on to the next one, your part, you're invested in this ongoing world and story and characters, and there's a lot to just like really sink your teeth into it. It's got a lot of rich lore and stuff like that. Unfortunately, the Crossbell series, just due to it being on the PSP and bad timing and all sorts of reasons,

these being super text-heavy games, being first and foremost, the Crossbell games never actually made it here. And then so the next game that we got here, after the Trails in the Sky Games was the legend of Cold Steel. The Cold Steel series, I mean, some people like it. I am not a huge fan to me. It's always felt like a slog.

It goes, it's just, it's not great, I would say. And in fact, I've talked about Cold Steel 2. I couldn't even finish that and I started Cold Steel 3 and it was just a bummer trying to get through those. But going to Trails from Zero, which is actually the first game in the Crossbell series, which is finally coming to the U.S. Essentially, NIS America, the localization company, decided to bring these games to the U.S. for the first time

because now there's this modern version that came out for Switch and PC. So they're bringing that version to the States for the first time. That is like a return to form. So essentially, this is just as good as Trails in the Sky was in many ways. So all that said, I'm playing this game called Trails from Zero. This is really awesome that I really, really enjoy. And if you out there, if you've followed even like a fraction of what I just said so far, or if you played Trails in the Sky back in the day but then like totally bounced off trails of cold steel,

the good news is that the Crossbell series is just as good as Trails in the Sky from what I played so far. So Trails from Zero, very short version. It's about this group of four kids or teenagers. I guess JRP characters are always going to be teenagers who join this police force. but instead of becoming like regular cops, they're relegated to this like special division that is seen as like the outcasts. And instead of doing police work, they have to go and do like random errands for people and like do all this cleanup work that nobody wants to do and stuff like that. And there are also a lot of dicks in the police force. So they have to deal with like being looked down upon by all these other douchebags and jerks.

And then they get caught in this like big overarching story involving like the mafia and all sorts of other twists and turns. It's all set in this big city crossbell, which is just like this huge thriving city full of like NPCs and all sorts of cool flavor and interesting stuff to look at and people to talk to you and stuff like that. And I really, really like it so far. I'm not super far in because I've been playing it like during baby feedings on my Switch. So I'm probably like, I don't know, seven or eight hours. I've been playing on an early copy provided by NIS America, the publisher.

And yeah, I really like it. I think that and the music is incredible. Kirkie would really be. into the music. I think like I said, if you're a JRPG fan, but you can never get into Cold Steel, but you like Trails in the Sky, this is the game for you. Like, this is probably, from what I played Safari, you will probably really dig it. I'm really digging it. We'll probably talk more about it when I finish it and have a better sense of the story. But another important thing is that the main characters from Trails in the Sky have so far made a return and come back into it, which is

another cool thing about it. Estelle, Maddie, even though you don't like Jerry. RPG is the main character of Trails in the Sky is this woman named Estelle, who's probably the best, like, female protagonist that I've seen in a video game. She's like this spunky, like, shit-talking, like, fighter. I mean, I'm sure she's great. I feel like I always like the main female character of a J-R-BG. It's just that the rest of the game is there. Really Maddie's problem. Do you? No. I feel like most J-R-PGs have like cliche female characters. This one is like... Not untrue. I feel like that was a lot of... of my praise for Final Fantasy 6, though, was for... That's true. What's her name? Tara? And Salis. Yeah. And Celis. Yeah.

I like to. Estelle blows them all the way. It still is awesome. Yeah, still is cool. Trails from Zero. Those of you, those of you who are JRP fans, I think, will enjoy this one because I am enjoying it quite a bit.

Nice. Right on. Well, that's been another episode. We did it again. We did it. One week. Oh, my gosh. A little bit more time traveling for us. Hello, future people. Yeah.

If you're all doing okay out there. We will be back in the future ourselves. You will. Next week. All right. We'll see you both then. See you guys next week. Bye.

Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. Triple Click is a proud. member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network and if you like our show, we hope you'll consider

supporting us by becoming a member at Maximumfund.org slash join. Find us on Twitter at triple clickpod, send email the triple click at maximumfund.org and find a link to our discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture.

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