Triple Click - Summer Game Fest, Switch 2 Impressions

Episode Date: June 12, 2025

Maddy and Jason are home from Summer Game Fest, where they played a bunch of upcoming games. Kirk watched some cool announcements. And everyone's got Switch 2s, so there's much to discuss.One More Thing:Kirk: Switch 2Maddy: Switch 2Jason: Switch 2LINKS:Dan Olson on “Silkposting” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSkbylysplIIfixit gives Switch 2 a repairability score of 3/10: https://www.ifixit.com/News/110926/switch-2-teardownTriple Click LIVE in Portland, July 11: https://albertarosetheatre.com/event/triple-click-live/alberta-rose-theatre/portland-oregon/Support Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinBuy Triple Click Merch: https://maxfunstore.com/search?q=triple+click&options%5Bprefix%5D=lastJoin 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

Just how many games can we bring to you in a given week. Let's see how far we can stretch it. This was a big week after all. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you, supersized edition, because this week we're talking about all the games we saw revealed at Summer Game Fest, and last but certainly not least, each of our experiences with the new Switch 2. I'm Maddie Myers. I'm Jason Schreier, and I'm Kirk Hamilton.

And hello. Hello, my friends. Hello. Hello, hello. Welcome home from Los Angeles. Home sweet home. Oh, thank you. It's good to be back.

It's good to be back in all New York. Or Boston, Boston, Massachusetts. I have my 20th year high school reunion Thursday night. It's upsetting. Which is wild. I have to give a speech. What should I talk about?

Yeah. They asked me to say a few words. I think I'm just going to talk about the switch to. Wait, why? I mean, is it just sort of game? Games journalism themed. Like, why did they come to you? Yes, my high school reunion is games journalism theme.

I would imagine that Jason is a prominent graduate of his high school class. That's cool. That's cool. Yeah, I mean, they just wanted me to give a speech. I don't know. Yeah, that's cool. They thought I would be good at just making fun of my classmates and old teachers. Oh, it's a roast.

It could be. You know, I just watched my niece give an eighth grade speech and she totally crushed it. I could send you her speech and you could just give the same speech. That is a good idea. Or you could just get some coaching from her on like how to give a speech to other kind of classmates that you had. I'm sure she would give feedback. Because she was really good at it. What was the theme of her speech?

It was about when she first came to the school when she was a kindergartner and then how now she's an eighth grader and she's been there this whole time. And how her relationship to the space has changed. And now she sees it as an older kid. So I think it would be totally applicable to a 20. I actually think that is applicable. Yeah. Interesting. I feel like you can really go for that.

And here. I thought I would just be burning all of my former classmates in a series of well-timed insults. But, okay, we could go either way. You could go with that, too. If you're enjoying all of these additional parisocial details about our personal lives, then you might want just a little bit more of them. And how could you get them? How could you get more triple click per capita? Well, you're missing out if you aren't subscribed to our bonus episodes.

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dot org slash join, become a member and support us. And also, why not, if you are in Portland, Oregon, round about July 11th, maybe you live there or if you happen to be there. This is how I go about promoting our live shows. You know, if you just happen to be there then, then I think you could come to triple click live. And you'd have a great time if you did that. We are doing a live show at the Alberta Rose Theater, doors at seven, show at eight, but also, even if it's not just like you happen to be there and you're listening to the app on the exact right day, you could actually get a ticket ahead of time. And I would recommend doing so.

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Yeah, man, there's a lot of gaming news over the last. last week. We're not going to go through every single announcement one by one, but there's a big PlayStation state of play. There was a summer games fest, Keeley keynote. And then there was an Xbox showcase. And then at the same time, Maddie and I spent a whole bunch of time in Los Angeles, where we played some games and talked to some developers and were about a mile away from all the big protests as that was happening. So that was a little surreal. And- Saw some smoke. Heard some sirens. Yeah, saw some helicopters, bigger police presence on the Play Days, SGF, Play Days, Summer Games,

as Play Days Campus. But we don't get into all that. We will get into some games because that's where we're here to talk about. Unless Maddie, did you have any thoughts on like what the craziness I was going on? Because I didn't really feel it other than just kind of like reading the news obsessively. Yeah, I read the news a lot while I was there. I didn't head over there, but I know some of our peers did and came back and showed us pictures. I mean, it was really right there, which made it kind of an interesting.

interesting show compared to previous years. But I don't know. Yeah, the one thought I had was that like it's surreal seeing the president talk about how Los Angeles is like a shit show while being in Los Angeles and it's like totally fine. It's fine. And it's just people trying to live their lives and perhaps the president should let them. I mean, as someone who was in Portland in 2020, it was incredibly familiar. That was the same feeling when we were here.

And I was hearing from older family members asking me if everything is okay because we hear it's anarchy in Portland. Portland. I'm like, yeah, I don't know. I walked my dog, man. There's some protests downtown. Like, it's, most things are totally fine. So, yeah, that is a... That's a good point. Yeah, my mom was texting me frantically, too. A very frustrating thing to see. Okay, so let's talk about some games. So let's start with the announcement talk, and then Mandy and I can both talk about some of the cool things we saw and played and talked about while we were there. So for you guys, I'm going to throw it to you guys in a second.

I want to talk about a couple of my highlights over the course of the week and the shows that that were aired. And then I'm curious to hear what you guys thought was the coolest. We don't have to, again, we're not going to talk about every single announcement, but I'm curious as to what stood out to you guys, whether in a good or a bad way. We could talk about what's most noteworthy. So a couple of highlights for me. First and foremost, on Thursday of the state of play, Final Fantasy Tactics finally got announced.

Sorry, that was Wednesday. Last Wednesday. Final Fantasy Tactics Remaster finally got announced after being leaked four years ago and being kind of on and off in development over the last. last few years. I am so excited for this, you guys. This is one of the greatest games of all time, of all time, now coming back on modern platforms. It's going to be cool. Are you really excited? I feel like I saw some people saying they wanted more out of this remaster because it was so long awaited, but maybe you don't feel that way. And you're like, no, it's good enough for me. A plain old

remaster, that's exactly what I want. Yeah, that's what I expected. That's what I knew it was going to be. I've talked about this in the Discord a few times. There's these two kind of coupled rumors, the Final Fantasy Tactics and the Final Fantasy Nine. And Tactics was always going to be this remaster visual overhaul, whereas Nine was going to be more of a full-fledged remake. I think I described it a couple of years ago as like not quite a super turbo remake on Kirk's taxonomy of the remakes, but also a little bit more than a remaster. So somewhere kind of in between, not quite FF7 style, three-part extravaganza,

but also more than just a remaster. And to answer your question, Maddie, no, I didn't expect more. Two, second thing is that it doesn't need more. It's a perfect game as it is. It could use maybe a couple new character classes and maybe some gameplay rebalancing, but like it really didn't need many changes. And the third thing is that a little bit of behind the scenes insight is that this is actually made by the unit within Squarion is called Creative Studio 3 or Creative Business Unit 3, whatever they're called these days. Oh, yeah, right.

Catching name. Yeah, right? for real. Division one, Division two, division. I mean, Blizzard had Team One, Team Two, Team Three.

I know. It's so funny. Anyway, and they are the people who make Final Fantasy 14 and also made Final Fantasy 16. So I believe one of the reasons

it's taken so long is because this project was just kind of on and off development over the years as that team had to work on these much bigger, much more important,

much more imminent projects. And so it wasn't just that they were like secretly working on this thing for four years. It's that it just stopped and start and restart a development over the course of that time. Well, I'm going to play it. But tactics, just to kind of, in case people aren't familiar with it, is a grid-based strategy game. It's not quite like Fire Emblem and it's not quite like XCOM, but it's definitely shares DNA with both of those games. The way it works is you build a party of five. You can have a bigger army, but you can only take five into a battle with you at once.

and you customize them however you want. You can train them in different character classes, which are based on typical Final Fantasy character classes like knights and archers and wizards. And then you can do some mix and matching of abilities, so you can train them up to learn abilities from one class and bring that over to another class, and you can customize your characters in all sorts of fun ways.

And then you combine that, which is super addictive kind of grid-based strategy combat, with this incredible epic sprawl. like Game of Thronesy story about religion and poverty and class inequality and a lot of themes that I think are still very much applicable today. And yeah, that's going to be a very cool game for us to jump into to talk about. Kirk and I both played it. Maddie you would be playing for the first time.

I'm excited. Yeah. It sounds kind of fire emblem-y based on your description. Yeah, there's a little bit of fire emblem. Which I mean as a compliment, of course. Like Three Houses had a lot of that, like fun themes on top. of a cool strategy game. I really liked that. So I think I'll like this. Yep. Yep. Yeah, I appreciated the statement that accompanied the announcement of tactics as well

from the director about how in this time of inequity and tyranny, we, once again, these themes are relevant. I just thought it was kind of nice to see someone just sort of saying something very straightforwardly like that. Yeah, I dug it. I dug it. Matsuno is a real one. And there are a couple other just kind of like little announcements that have me excited. There was one game called Blighted, which is the next game from Drinkbox Studios, the company behind Guacamayle, and nobody saves the world, and that game looks and also plays super cool. I'm very excited about that one. There are a couple others here and there, but yeah, what do you guys? Maddie, did you see anything in the announcements that got you excited? Yeah, for sure. A couple things I didn't get to just play, but I'm still

nonetheless excited for because we're still in that section. Marvel Tokon is an Arxas fighting game that's going to come out and it looks really, really cool. I will probably struggle to be amazing at it, but I think I'm going to have a good time trying. This is like a 4V4 tag fighter system. So you're going to have to select four characters with which to try to be good at, which even just saying that I'm like,

oh my goodness, it's going to be so complicated. I'm thinking about how meticulously I designed my MVC3 teams, which were three player in and of themselves. Like you'd have to kind of think about, like, okay, these three characters are each going to perform a different role on my team. Add in another one, that's already going to be wild. I don't think I've ever played a fighting game like that. I'm sure they exist.

But four is a lot in my mind. But anyway, the art looks freaking incredible. Really, really dig the style of it. I think it's just going to be cool. Obviously, I enjoy Marvel Comics. That's no secret. So I'm going to dig probably that part as well. But I just also thought the fighting game itself looked neat.

Does this mean, Maddie, that Marvel versus Capcom is dead now that they're doing this? I do kind of feel that way. Like there was a piece of me watching this where I was like, this might just be the franchise that we go ahead and jump off. I also saw some jokes from people online where they were like, get this, what if we added Capcom characters into this game? Like people were definitely like playing into it and being like, here's a crazy idea.

What if Capcom was involved in some way? Like there's definitely a lot of online bits about that, which is totally justifiable. I mean, that MVC is really in a weird place right now. I don't know if it's going to recover or not. I don't have any inside information about that. I'm just a fan of that series, so I'm sad about what's happened to it,

which means I'm interested in Marvel Tocon and kind of curious about what it's going to be like. It looks fun. And also, I didn't get to play this game, although I saw more of it, which is Resident Evil Requiem. Obviously, we all knew this was in the works, but it was fun to have it confirmed.

They did kind of a bait-and-switch thing as part of the stream where, like, the developer came out and said they weren't going announce RE9 yet and then later in this stream as the one more thing announced it fine sure i'll take the bit uh it looks cool it's been a while since there was an r e game that had like a little diminutive final girl type as the main character and like that's the only person you can play as there's not like the option to play as somebody else uh and so i think that's well hold on we don't know that i guess that's right i actually don't know that but i'm assuming i'm assuming it's her don't assume that fine

I won't. Yeah, I don't think. I mean, they're not officially saying, yeah, but the rumors are that there's Lianna's in there. I guess that's true. Although, in the presentation that you and I saw, Jason, they did highlight the fact that she's not combat trained. And that was, like, kind of a different thing for the game. Like, usually, at least the characters in Resident Evil are, like, police officers or their military in some way. They know how to use a rifle.

This is a character who, at the very least, even if she's not the only one who's play a in the game. She's really hard scrabble. Like, she's going to have to figure it out. And that does feel like kind of a different and more classically final girl situation for an R.E game. And I thought that was kind of cool and interesting. Yeah, I got to play it,

actually, so I can talk a little bit about Yeah, I want to hear more about it. What it's like. Yeah, so I played this relatively short demo and it's just, it feels like the most resident evil thing possible. So you're like, you, you, it starts off with her. Grace is her name? Grace.

Ashford. She, I believe, is the daughter of a previous Resident Evil character. Yeah, Alyssa's her mom. Yeah, from, I think the game's called Outbreak. I mean, there's a ton of Resident Evil's. Yeah, there's a lot of lore up in there. But she starts off, like, on this gurney, strapped to this gurney upside down, and she, like, maneuvers her way into getting off of it. So for all of her kind of helpless nature, she's clearly a badass. Yeah, she's clearly, she clearly knows what she's doing. And then you play as her in first person, which, by the way, you can switch to third person at any time. You can talk between first and third person, which is wild. You play as her in first person in the demo, and you creep through, you skulk through this

hallway, and you're seeing there's a lot of spooky things around you, a lot of kind of, it seems like you're in this medical facility, so there's like staff charts that you can look at and like photos and kind of patient records. And you find this key that's like cherub themed themed and use it to open a door that is charab-themed. And you go in there and you find a fuse box that needs a fuse. A fuse box. And then as you're looking for the fuse, you get chased around. You run into this massive, like, Mr. X style.

Yeah, you want to describe the monster? Yeah, monster that like eats corpses and is chasing you. I did get to see her. So here's what I'll say about this big monster. It's kind of like they looked at Lady Demetresk and the response to her and how hot she was is a Resident Evil monster. And they were like, what if we made a big, tall lady, but she was the least hot, tall lady you could possibly fath them. So she has this, like, disgusting, toothy maw and, like, one big eyeball and small eyeball.

You know, there's still going to be some people out there, though. She's got a big dinosaur claw. Like, I know, the step on me, mommy, memes are incoming for that freaking dinosaur claw. No, she looks horrifying. Like, they really were like, we don't want you to be into the monster. We want to make her really upsetting looking. It's funny because they took the actress who played Lady Demetretti. and made her, essentially their spokesperson for the entire person.

I know. I just thought it was kind of a funny parallel because much like Lady Demetresk, this monster will kind of like hunch over when she's walking through human-sized doorways and like kind of come after you and seem larger than life almost because everything is normal human-shaped, but like she's kind of navigating this area and is bigger than all of it. So you get chased by the monster, you have to like loop around and knock her out a little bit and then get back in there and then you move this kind of wheeled, cart to provide a stepping stone so you can jump up and get the fuse from a briefcase in which

that you like turn around with your hand so you can find the lock and unlock it. And then it's, it's all very Resident Evil once again. And then you use the fuse and I think you use a screwdriver to open the fuse box to get the fuse and then bring it over to the other place and eventually you turn the power. I like that you're giving us the play by play. Well, it's just this is, I mean, I'm describing it to make you to paint the picture that this is like 100% Resident Evil. And then the last thing you see in the demo is like you slide under this gate just as it's closing to get away from the monster and you wind up in this big room that kind of resembles like the foyer in the mansion and resident evil too which is when we all played last year just again feels like a little hub for that area so yeah all feel very resident evil there are rumors floating around about like whether leon is a playable character whether it's like linear or open world and this presentation this demo did not like touch upon any of that stuff it was really just a very like um short Resident Evil style thing that had just about that. But yeah, I'm sure you play as someone else, whether it's Leon or not, because they need the kind of the combat sections.

This is very much the puzzly sections. Right. And I'm sure they're also going to be the combat section. And if she can't use a gun, maybe that would be kind of tough. Like maybe eventually you need to use one. Yeah, exactly. Unless she suddenly is, or actually maybe we get a five-year time skip in which she learns how to be a police officer. Yeah. Kirk, did you see anything that said out to you over the course of the last week or so?

Yeah, there was plenty of stuff that was announced that looked neat. I thought, what is it called? There are no ghosts at the Graham. Yeah, this was at the Microsoft press conference. So it's like a musical slash narrative slash who knows what exploration kind of a game. That, you know, it was a little light on details on how it actually works and really high on high concept, which, you know, can sometimes be a red flag. can indicate a game that is cooler in theory and in trailers than it is to actually play. But it had a killer vibe and just looked really neat.

So that was one game that I will at least have my eye on. It was nice to see a sequel to Planet of Lana. That was my one more thing a little while ago. A kind of overlooked, underappreciated limbo-like game is how I would describe it. Side-scroller with sort of discrete puzzles on each page, with a hostile environment and monsters that chase you. but it's all very puzzly in that kind of set piece puzzle way

that limbo and inside do. And I just liked that game and it'd be cool to see another. I thought the trailer or teaser or whatever you want to call it for Persona 4 remake was really funny because it was so short. I guess they just didn't have much time

but that looks cool. What else? Outer Worlds 2. You two maybe saw more of that than I did but I'd love to hear a little more about it because I'm excited about it. Yeah, I played it. It's really cool from what I saw.

I don't know. It's hard to get a real gauge of an RPG from just like a 30 minute demo. 20 minutes. Yeah. Yeah. But I thought it looked really cool. It felt good. Guns felt good.

I should have played the first one like before coming to SGF just as a reference point. Yeah. Because I was trying to remember what I didn't like about the first one, which I kind of bounced off. But what I played of Outer World's 2 was really cool. Basically, the demo is set inside this one kind of dungeon area and there are a few different paths you can take. You can either you can find this NPC who can kind of like guide you into like beating the boss without having to fight him or you can like either miss that NPC entirely or like not even bother with that. And so it was very much like this RPG section where you can just like

pick a bunch of different ways to get past it in true fallout style kind of in pre-fallout four fallout style. Yeah. There's also really good gun feel in this game and I got to talk to the developers a little bit after I played it and they talked a lot about. specifically wanting to improve that and include a lot more comedy weapons this time around. And the one I had in the demo that I really liked is just shoots lightning at people. It was very satisfying. Like the animations were really funny. There's like a very slapstick comedy kind of a violent game.

Like it doesn't really feel. It feels like play violence and having lightning is really fun in that environment. But they told me there's like a better version of the shrink ray from the first game where now you can shrink people down to be like an inch tall and just like run over. them and that sounded funny. And there's like a gun where there's like one of the factions is really into advertising. This is a, uh, the first game and this game are both, um, like satirical comedy, like anti-corporate satire most of the time. And so one of the factions is a corporation. And they have a gun that just shoots ads like billboards at people that just irritate them. And I'm like,

that actually sounds really fun. Like they, they were describing just some of their ideas. And I was like, this sounds really whimsical. And like, they are really leaning into some of the things that, were cool in the first game but weren't really fully expanded upon as much as they could be and I really got the sense from the devs that they knew that and were like we really want this game to include more

and better of the things that people liked about the first one. Hope it works. Nice, that's good to hear. Yeah, I remember the shootouts were not that fun in the first one. And then overall the satire was just a little bit one note for me. I just didn't feel as fleshed down. It was a little much.

One note is exactly the quote that the developers told me as well. Like, I put that in the headline. And I was like, wow, you guys just said it, huh? Like, that's... They're like, we're going to have so many notes. A whole chromatic scale. Yeah, they're adding a ton of notes.

Well, this is the E3 experience, right? Like, traditionally, I think Stephen, like, once did a story about this. Oh, you know what it was? I think it was about sports games, how, like, every single year they would just trash the year before sports games, they were improving. So this is, like, the true E3 experiences developers being like, here's what we fucked up last time. Now here's what we're going to get better.

But no, this does seem, it's kind of, it's crazy that Obsidian is releasing three games this year and avowed this and grounded two. I guess it's different teams somehow, because somebody else in my interview asked about that, but it seems tough anyway. It is, yep, different teams. Grounded 2 was made, a lot of it was made in co-dev with Idos, Montreal, which is interesting. Grounded 2, I played 2, by the way, and was. left pretty impressed left wanting to play more.

Same. Oh yeah? I've never played the first one or really been into survival games that much, but it's pretty fun. If I were to like dive into a survival game, I think this would be a good one to do, just because it's so cute and the art style is awesome and the concepts are fun and it's funny and it looked pretty cool from when I saw. Yeah, I had a good time too. I really liked the rideable ant that you get and that's new to this game. I also didn't play the first one. It's called a buggy. It's called a buggy. You're riding a bug. It's a freaking adorable. It's a big old red ant and it's just wobbling around. It's like cute and fun to ride. It just felt really good.

So yeah, I had a great time with that one. And it kind of made me want to play the first one. I mean, that's what you want, right? You wanted a person who didn't play the first one to go back and be like, maybe I'll play that. I thought that game infinitesimals looked cool, which is funny. Speaking of Grounded, it was another grounded type game where you're playing little tiny aliens. It seems like a fun idea or a fun twist on that, honey, I Shrunk the kids. thing. And it just looked neat. I wouldn't have thought of that for a game. And it's kind of just

cool to see a game that makes an impression. And actually, infinitesimals is also a pretty good name. It is a pretty good name. I did think that too. That's an epic games title that's upcoming. It was at the show. I just didn't have time for it. I mean, we're barely even scratched at the surface of all the stuff I played. I guess now we're firmly in the section of stuff we played at this point. Well, yeah, I mean, if you guys have talked about all the stuff that you saw that, it was cool. there was a lot of stuff announced. There was like a new super meatboy. There was like high in life too, if you guys are stoked about that.

Oh, and man, how could we forget the closer to Microsoft's show, Call of Duty, Black Ops 7, just coming out with a bang. They're like, you got Black Ops last year and now you get it again. You know what did look cool was the double-fying game. We don't have to list games that did look cool, but the games that did look cool. It actually did look cool, though. That where you're playing a lighthouse. Keeper.

Yes. I like Lighthouse Keeper. That looked really neat. I was excited about that. Yeah, I was really hoping to play that at the show and it wasn't available. But I am excited to check it out. I suspect that's a tough game to demo because it looks pretty weird and surreal and psychedelic. Classic double fine.

Yeah. That's the new, that's the game led by Lee Petty, who also led Rad and stacking and. a few of Double Fine's other games. Yeah, for art directors, he's kind of got an art background, which is why his games tend to look amazing. Yeah, they tend to look really distinct and unique. And then there's another game that Double Fine has that I suspect they're going to announce pretty soon as well, like maybe this year even, that is the Clay game that they've been

talking about for a while. I don't know if they've made it official public, but it was pretty clear if you watch a psychoticy doc that, like, Because it was one of their amnesia fortnight prototypes. They made it during their game jam. And it was pretty clear that they were all stoked about it and like potentially turning it into a real thing. The idea is that it's like a multiplayer game where you shape clay. Oh, yes.

Yeah. And you fight with clay and stuff like that. Yeah. So I suspect that'll be announced in the near future as well because it's been four years since double finds last game. There was also there was another teaser of the new like a dragon thing. stranger than heaven like 1940s great. Oh yeah that looked cool. I mean like a dragon. It was like a period piece which looked really neat. It's like set in the 40s. Yeah and it wasn't yeah it wasn't like a dragon game exactly. It's kind of its own thing. There were a lot of games like that honestly. I mean Clockwork Revolution had a big demo. There were plenty of games where I watched the demo and I thought this is really cool. It did feel like almost none of the things I saw were coming out this year. So there's that kind of feeling like okay well there's going to be some stuff this year but you know but what? I suppose they did mention. Silk Song and we should mention that too. They mentioned it a lot. Which theoretically is coming this year. So that'll be out. But like a lot of

this stuff, you know, Clockwork Revolution for example, or just any, a lot of these games we're saying are coming out in 2026. So that's a little bit. We just have to wait. But I really did watch a lot of these trailers and think, that looks cool. I'll totally give that a shot. Mina the Hollower, which I mentioned last week, the next

game from Yacht Club, the Shovel Night People. I played the demo for that on the flight to L.A. and it's phenomenal. I immediately started a new game of the demo because I liked it so much. That's like the Gameboy color style, kind of links awakening style,

top-down action game, and it feels really, really good. I really enjoyed that. That comes out this year. That's how I bring it up. It comes out. October 31st, they said. Okay, good to know.

And then, yeah, they said Silk Song will be up by the holiday. They showed like a second of new footage while demoing the Rog Ally, the new handheld from Xbox. It's funny that we had Deadpool making a joke about Slick Song, but then Slick Song itself got such a kind of left-handed mention, or sideways mention, I suppose. No disrespect to left-handed people.

Well, that's what happened at the Nintendo thing, too. It was like part of a sizzle reel at the Nintendo Switch 2 event a couple months ago. Yeah, it's everybody's favorite sizzle reel appearance. I mean, I also did get to play the Xbox handheld, and it was very funny to me. I didn't get to play Silk Song on the handheld, but they showed us a really long video before we got to play it, where they just went through every single UI screen that we were going to experience. And Silk Song was on every single UI screen.

Like, they just fully committed. And I was like, are they just doing this because this is a room of reporters? And they know that this is what we want to play. And they're trying to, like, psychosomatically be like, you like the handheld because Sylpsong's going to be on it. Now, it's not on the one we're giving you today. Anyway, who's to say? I thought it was hilarious. Played Gersonmore on it.

They must have some deal together because Silk Song is going to be a day one game pass game. They announced that a couple of years ago. So maybe they have some sort of marketing deal in place. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Can I throw something out there, by the way? It's related to Silk Song. Dan Olson, the host of Folding Ideas, gave a talk at Pax about silk posting.

That's this whole, it's so good. I've watched like half of it. And it's so interesting. And it's his kind of analysis and breakdown of the history of what's called Silk Posting, which is like shit posting on the Silk Posting. on the Silk Song subreddit about like or tweeting Silk Song I can't believe it and then everyone was like wait what what happened did it get announced and like how there's this whole culture of trolling and shit posting around Silk Song and honestly it's like a very funny talk and a very good and informative one and also just a sort of fun thing to watch in light of the fact that we know Silk Song is coming out we can link it in show notes but I just watched like half of it just randomly over the last few days and really loved it and this made me think of it so I wanted to shout it out I'll check it out I love Dan also yeah they like to Photoshop tweets from me in that subreddit. Oh, nice.

I'm familiar with the silk posting. It's good. It's good bits. It's very funny. The whole thing is very funny. So there was one game that I play or saw. I didn't actually get my hands on it, but I saw it and was like, this is cool. This is a game that the three of us will want to talk about at some point, which was not in one of the shows. And it's called Grave Seasons. And it is essentially like Stardoo Valley meets supernatural murder mystery.

And this is a game by, yeah, right, right? Oh, wait, I think I know this. This is, this was like in a sizzle reel a little while ago, right? It's from the horror. Yes, Blumhouse. It's from Blumhouse. Yeah, okay. Thank you.

It's from Blumhouse. Yeah. Jason Blum, the infamous horror film producer, his game company. Yes, it's from Blumhouse. It's made by this small studio called Perfect Garbage, which I told them was a fantastic name for a game studio. It's very spider mansion. Very good. It comes out next year. And I was watching, I didn't actually play it, but I was watching someone play it for a while. And I was, I thought it looked really cool. It's like, it's got the,

the trappings of a typical cozy sim slash romance game. It has like this, this hymbo character that you meet who just like looks like a hunk and like all these other characters with these, there's really fun designs that look like they're in a romance game. But then the twists start to happen. And it's like people. die. And I was talking to one of the writers, and she was telling me that the way it works is that the game, when you start off, the game kind of picks randomly which character will die. And when I first heard that, I was like, oh, oh, man, is this going to be like a procedural thing where it doesn't really feel like a good story? But she was like, no, it picks randomly. And then it's all a

handcrafted story from there. So you can keep replaying it to like watch different people die. and it'll always be like an actual authored story as a result. And then you have to investigate. You have to figure out like how it happened and all the supernatural elements. They're like all sorts of creepy things like big ghost monsters. I love that. You know, Starreux Valley would really benefit from having a mystery to solve. And while there are mysteries, things hidden in the game,

the idea of that of a murder mystery in the town of Starry Valley would be a perfect fit for that game. That's such a good idea. Yeah, it looks really interesting. Again, caveat here is. that I didn't actually get to play it, but I thought it looked really interesting. I also got to play a game that Maddie, that you can talk more about it, the Soft Raines game, because you were really into this as well. I really like this game.

This game is called Ambrosia Sky, and it's going to be the debut game from a studio called Soft Raines. And I talked to Joel Burgess afterward. He's worked at Bethesda. People probably know his name or are familiar with his work anyway. And Ubisoft and Kappa. Yeah, and it's a really small team and just really super specific thing they're making. My headline version that I will say again is Metroid Prime meets Power Wash Simulator, which is like the most Maddie Myers thing ever.

But I almost don't want to put it in that kind of a box because it's also a story. It's got something to say. And it's not to say that, you know, there isn't lore in Power Rush Simulator. But y'all are picking up what I'm putting down. basically you're playing as this, you're a heroine named Dahlia, she's an astronaut, and she's an intergalactic, you know, explorer, and she's revisiting her home planet, and it's been completely overrun by this fungus that has poisoned everybody there. Everyone's dead. So she is there to actually perform funeral rights, and so it's actually kind of a sad story in some ways because she's, like,

looking back on her past life there and sort of saying goodbye to a series of people that she wants new. But she's also got a water gun and she's cleaning up the fungus the entire way through because she needs to in order to like get to find all of the bodies of her friends. And so it's also like a satisfying cozy game mechanic to go with the haunting sad, okay, I'm like reflecting on my life and what these people meant to me. And I loved the music too. I thought the music was really great. It's got like kind of a synth with some real instruments. Like there's jaw harps in it. And I did like just a fun interview with Joel about about that and why they chose all the different really specific things that they chose for that game.

The gun feels a little, it's like a little immersive simi. It feels a little like prey, almost like the glue gun from prey because in addition to spraying off these like monster fungus things, you can also switch it to put like put down like this electric electricity conducing goo. that you can use to solve puzzles. So you hook up a power line to something with the goo and use it to conduct power to something else. So it also has a lot of immersive sim to it as well, not just like the coziness of a power wash simulator. There's also like some puzzle solving

to get through where you need to go, yeah, for sure. Sounds a little like everybody's gone to the rapture actually. Yeah. At the time, walking simulators were still like the thing. And now the cozy game cleanup is the thing. So they've just, but it's a similar kind of narrative structure where you're learning about the people who were in a space, which sounds really neat. Makes sense.

I thought it was really cool. I played a couple more things that I just want to shout out real quick. Pragmata. Oh, loved it. Pretty interesting. Yeah, pretty cool. Cool combat. It's rather than just like a typical third-person shooter, there's like a little hacking

mini game that you have to kind of play as you shoot robots, which is pretty cool. I played a game called Tawa something or another, which is from Bandanamco. and it is like shockingly similar to Hades. It's like a like a Japanese like. There were a few Hades likes in those first conferences. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I played Thick as Thieves, which is a multiplayer thief by Warren Spector and his team.

Warren Spector being long time immersive sim forefather behind games like DeaSX, ultimate underworld, etc. I played Dying Light the Beast. That's a game that comes out in just two months. Feels like a new dying light game. Pretty cool. Looks pretty good. game that I'm excited for because I like dying.

Yeah, I really liked it. Feels really good to play. I really enjoyed it. And then the thing I really want to talk about is blighted, because that might be my favorite game of the show. This is the game I mentioned earlier that is from Drinkbox Studios. When I first saw it, it kind of, it has that same isometric viewpoint as Hades. So I thought it was a rogue like and it was going to be Hadesish.

But it's not. It's actually a Metroidvania, a handcrafted world. And it's got this really cool art style, this really cool world and story about, blight and people eating each other's brains. I won't get into all that, but I will say that it felt really good to play, and it got me really excited because those guys at Drinkbox make really good games, and that game had me really stoked. It's kind of got a lot of souls to it, a lot of soul-se combat to it. And it also has co-op, so you can play with someone else, which is pretty cool as well. Bladed is the game I was really excited about. I played another couple of things, but none of them

really stood out to me. Maddie, anything else stand out to you? from your time playing stuff of the show? Just a couple more. So I played Shadow Labyrinth, which better described is the grim dark Pac-Man game. Yeah, Pac-Man. This is an actual official Bandai Namco game

with Pac-Man in it, but you're also a mysterious sword fighter who has like a creepy yellow sphere that follows you around. It's like, what if Pac-Man were dark? Wait, so you don't play as Pac-Man? Pac-Man just follows you around? No, Pac-Man's your buddy.

Pac-Man is your buddy. And, okay, so this is a 2D Metroidvania. So naturally, it feels great and I'm going to like it. But here's the most important part of it. For the morph ball mood, you play as Pac-Man. You turn into Pac-Man so that you can eat up little dots and roll around and wall jump as Pac-Man, and it feels amazing. You just suddenly start playing Pac-Man at periodic points in the game. And it's so good.

It makes total sense. It really, really works. The design of the monsters is awesome. It just looks great. There's like, you have a mech suit that you get into at one point and you can just beat the crap out of people in it. It's like your special power up. And like the developer was like comparing it to like how when Pac-Man eats a power pellet, he can eat ghosts. And I'm like, yeah, I guess it kind of becomes a mech.

That's kind of, I kind of get where you're going with that. But like, it's really just, it's very silly to see Pac-Man juxtapose with the. sort of like dark 2D Metroid world. But I really dug it, thought it felt great to play. And then what was my last one? Oh, Ninja Guide and 4. That was my last one that I also played. Really liked this one.

So I know people are kind of skeptical of this because this is a team ninja and platinum games collab, which, okay. I mean, Team Ninja, you know, they make the Ninja Guiding games. They kind of are known. Two teams that make good action games. Yes. but not necessarily of the same variety. Like I kind of think of Team Ninja's like, okay, it's Neo.

It's really like super precise souls like. You really need to know what you're doing. Whereas for Platinum games, you could kind of button mash your way through. You need to learn some combos to be really good, but you can also just kind of get through a devil may cry if you need to. And you're just feeling like you look really cool while you do it. And I actually think the combination super, super works. I had a great time playing this game.

I think it is a nice combination of like, it is a 3D action game. You do lock on. There are some kind of like classic Souls like elements where you're like, okay, I need to really pay attention to these attack patterns and think about what I'm going to do next. But there's also the Platinum Games element where there's a ton of different fun, splashy combos to learn and they just look really cool. And like there's tons of blood splatter everywhere to a degree that's like kind of comedic and cartoonishal. most and it's like fun and goofy and devil may cryish in terms of tone. The lead characters really sarcastic and funny. And I liked that stuff too.

So like it is definitely like a heavy dose of platinum games energy in there, which I don't know that all your classic Ninja Guide and fans are going to like or not. But it really worked for me. I do like platinum games for the record. But like I also just thought the combination was actually pretty effective. And I think people will hopefully also end up liking it, even if they're just a ninja gate in person. Also comes out this year.

Yeah, it comes out this year. It comes out in October. So that one is actually pretty soon to be released. Nice. All right. Any final thoughts on SGF before we take a break and talk about other things? Had a good time. Got to see you in person, Jason.

That was fun. That was fun. Had a nice time. Hang out and talk about how awesome the state of media is. Yeah, it's going great. Stable everything. Yeah, that was what every reporter I met, said, they all said, it's going great. And we high-fived. Did you spend a lot of time at the

JW bar, aka Airport, Hilton Manning? A little bit, a little bit. I got my, I got my socialization on for sure. I had a lot of conversations. You know what I mean? Way too much socializing. So much socializing. I'm ready to lie down and play video games in the comfort of my own home. I mean, For people like us, we both work from home. So this is like our one time. This is like my big mega blast of socializing. And now I retreat to my cave. Feels good.

Yeah. Yeah, it was a fun trip. Nice to be there and nice to see you and many other old friends. And it's always fun to see people who like you only see once or twice a year. And I'm not talking about you because we see each other every week. No, we see each other more. But people I only see once a twice a year, but realize that I've known for like 15 years. It's kind of a strange, a strange feeling when it's like you've known these people for so long,

but you only actually see them like once every six months. It's just, it's always fun. All right, let's take a break, and then we'll be back with one more thing. Actor Samantha Sloan has played a lot of characters. Bev Kean and Midnight Mass, Miss Roarbocker in the new film The Life of Chuck, Lily, the mother who diligently watches over her son in the hit medical drama, The Pit. But what character really made Samantha Sloan feel seen? That is Special Agent Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks. When you see somebody swing for the fences with almost like no sense of embarrassment or, you know, just with total abandon, I'm just captivated. Join me, Jordan Grushiola, for that and more on the latest feeling scene from maximumfun.org.

Hey. Hey there. Do you love reading Smiley? Erotica. Romance. Romanticy. Is your e-reader full of horny fairies and sexy shifters? Are your shelves bursting with enemies to lovers? We're reading Smut, your new faded mate. Every other Friday, we dive into sexy books and talk to the people who love them.

Consider this, I'm me cute. Reading Smut, every other Friday on Maximum Fun. And we are back, Kirk Maddie. It is time for one more thing. But wait, all of our one more thing is the same because the new video game console just came out and we all have finally gotten our hands on it. So we should talk about it.

All right. The Xbox Rog Ally is here. And we don't have prices for those yet, by the way. We don't. I'm actually not sure you can pre-order them yet. No, that one is going to be like $1,000 because they're calling it like, like for enthusiasts, really powerful. so we will really care about performance.

It's going to be like a great. All right. What are we really talking about? We all have the Switch 2. I actually got mine sent to me by Nintendo while I was in Los Angeles. I got mine. You two both bought yours but have received games from Nintendo. So a big disclosure here is that the three of us have all,

in some form or another, got some stuff from Nintendo, which we should say before we talk about it. And yeah, I've had a bunch of times. to play around with it to play some Mario Kart. Maddie and I played Mario Kart in the J.W. Lobby. That was cool. That was really fun, honestly. Describe the mode that we played, because this is like the funnest new mode at Mario Kart. Yeah, we were playing Knockout Rush, which is the mode, is the Knockout Tour, whatever it's called.

Which is the mode that is essentially a Battle Roy Al, where you play across five different courses. and at each kind of goal, you have to be within the top X, and X keeps changing, keeps getting subtracted by four as you go. So for starters, you have to be in the top 20, then the top 16, then in the top 12, then the top 8, then in the top four. And it's super fun. I mean, the game looks gorgeous, feels fantastic, is really fun to play.

But yeah, let's talk about the hardware in general and kind of our thoughts on it after a week of using it. and whether the battery life is really this bad or what. But yeah, let's give some thoughts. Kirk, what are your kind of initial thoughts after a week of the Switch to? It's a faster, better switch. I mean, that's not really a mind-bling thing to say, but that is what it is. And that's a pretty cool thing.

I mean, it is a really impressive, sleek little device. It was expensive. I don't think I would have bought it, if not for Triple Click. Like, I felt the sting of spending $450 bucks, and then Triple Click, I guess, bought some of my games and Nintendo sent a couple codes for others, but each purchase felt like, geez, man, this is expensive. So I think that was one of the biggest impressions it made on me is just, first off, it's an expensive console. Second, you have to buy a lot of software. If you want to get Tears of the Kingdom running and looking really great, you got to either pay for it or you

got to get the expansion pass for the online service. There's just a sense that there are a lot of additional expenses, which I remember being true of the first switch as well. For example, There are no under buttons on the switch, even though the GL and GR buttons are kind of part of the switch to experience. If you have the Pro Controller, there are under buttons that you can program. And if you have the sold separately dock for the JoyCon, like the JoyCon grip, that has USBC charging so you can charge it while you play, and it has the G buttons on the underside. But the included grip doesn't have either of those things, so it doesn't charge the JoyCon. Wow. And it doesn't have any of the, it doesn't have the under buttons.

And I think that's actually an issue because when I play games with underbuttons, which I really like doing, I get used to that method of play. You know, if I'm playing a Souls game and I have Dodge on an under button, I really like my brain really learns to play that way. And then it's very hard to switch back. Or, you know, I put dodge and attack on those buttons a lot. So they're very, they get a lot of use. And so then I'm having to go back to using face buttons and it actually is more difficult for me. So then I wind up not really using the under buttons. I actually found that was true on the switch.

a pair of, I think there were Madcats, like somebody's custom grips. There were like JoyCon that go on the side that had under buttons, but I never used them because, you know, when I played the switch without those grips, I didn't have access to them. That's a little thing, but there's just a feeling with this thing that it's very, very expensive. You have to get a new SD card if you want to expand the storage. In fairness, I haven't had to expand the storage. All of my games are the games I wanted to play anyways fit.

But so there's that, there's the sense of expense. It comes to 256 gigabytes, which I think will probably be enough for a while. Yeah. I mean, I guess. But at the same time, I think it's the fact that in order to get more storage, I can't just take the SD card out of my switch and pop it into this. It's like, okay, one more thing I have to buy. That's my main point is there's just a feeling of,

I need a new case for this thing because it's bigger than the switch, so I'll have to get a case. And, you know, and there's just a feeling of... I ordered one on Amazon to my hotel so I can bring it home in a case. Right. So it's just kind of that thing with a new console where there's always a lot more expenses. And given that this console is very expensive, that was something that really stuck out to me.

I do like the console. I have a lot more thoughts on it, but I've already talked for a while. So that's one thing that's stuck with me. Yeah, I mean, I think it's worth noting here. I'll throw it to you in a second about you, but I do think it's worth noting that this is like the expenses you're putting in now are an investment for ideally the next seven, eight years. And yes, you'll still have to buy games, but you're never going to have to buy a Procontroller again. You're never going to have to buy a case again. So it does feel like there's that initial price that I'm with you. We talked about this last week. I don't think any of us would buy the switch to now, if not for having to cover it for work. I would wait for like the big holiday game or at least Metroid.

But once you make that investment, you're kind of you're in it for the long haul. It's worth notice. To throw out one other thing that I read and thought was very interesting, I fix it the website that gives a repairability score to lots of new tech. They give this a three out of ten. They took it apart and looked at it. And a lot of the issues that were in the Switch 1 that caused the stick drift that caused various things to fail are still there.

They haven't like, it's not actually that much better made and it's very, very difficult to take it apart and fix it. There are things that are glued. There are things that are just really hard to access. So while it is an investment, it's a very expensive one and one that is hard to repair. And I think that's also something that people should keep in mind. Yet again, I sound like I'm being really critical. And I actually have enjoyed using the switch too. But these are all things that are in the back of my mind as I'm enjoying it. Yeah, Maddie, what are your thoughts on the thing?

I mean, just to kind of build on what Kirk was saying, I'm not going to be negative the whole time either. But I just want to emphasize something. Like the launch game is Mario Kart. And something I was thinking about when Jason and I were playing it together in the JW, we were playing it on those two joycons, because that's what's available out of the box. And as soon as we completed that race, we both were like, our hands hurt now. Like, that is obviously not an ideal way to play Mario Kart is with that tiny little joycon. It's bigger than it was, but it's small. You don't want to play Mario Kart with that thing.

And it's just sort of interesting to me that right out of the box, you don't have really a great option to play. a multiplayer game. That said, this is also the era of Nintendo trying online multiplayer. I unfortunately haven't really had as much time with the Switch 2 because why Switch 2 arrived mere minutes after I left for the airport on Thursday morning. I'm so mad about it. It's fine. Whatever. Who cares? I don't care that Nintendo decided to launch the console during this type of I can tell you don't care. I'm not even mad at all. Maddie's face is the face of a woman who doesn't care. But I even with the limited time of had with it, I am really digging Mario Kart. and I'm in no way mad that it's a launch game.

But I'm also like, this is a game that I personally have seen as a local co-op fun experience. So I'm going to need to buy some more controllers if I'm going to make that happen in my household. That's fine. It's just building on the additional expenses that Kirk was talking about because I do feel like playing Mario Kart with friends in person is part of what's really fun about it. But I also don't want them to hurt their hands. So I'm already thinking ahead. So you don't have to buy it. You can use the Switch ones.

Well, you can use the Switch 1's, joycons, and Procontrollers on your Switch 2. So, like, if you have an old Pro Controller, if you have the thing, again, the thing you insert the Joycons into from the Switch 1, you can probably finagle like enough controllers to be able to play local co-op without having to buy a bunch of new Procontrollers. And I will be seeing what I can do, yeah. Let me speak to that because, so my nieces have been visiting this week and I have been playing a bunch of local Mario Kart World using Switch 1. They brought up one of their pro controllers, and I use my pro controller from the Switch one,

and we use some JoyCon from the Switch 1, which you can pair to the Switch 2. So we have a no shortage of controllers, and that's totally fine. All of them are fine. They work really well. And that game is so freaking fun to play in split screen. Man, it's not as smooth and wonderful as it is in either 2 player or single player, because it runs at 30 frames per second when you're in split screen, 4 player or 3 player. So it's just a little harder to feel totally in control.

The way that when you first play this thing, either on the huge screen of the Switch 2 or on your TV, it's really remarkable. It's running so smooth. It's so vivid at a high resolution. You really feel in control. It's a little harder to feel in control. But man, knockout to her, you mentioned it already. And that mode is so fun just at a first impression.

The first time you play through it, because of the elimination, you know, slightly battle royale, I guess, structure, or this feeling that there's this series of climactic races, you know, to a finish line that just it just keeps going and going and going. When you're in the same room with people, especially, you know, excited young people who you're playing alongside and are having such a good time, like we had a blast. It was so much fun. And actually, I feel like once they leave, my Switch 2 experience will not be as fun as it was when they were here.

They came at the perfect time. So I really, like, heartily endorsed playing split-screen knockout tour with other people. It's so much fun. Yeah, yeah. It's cool. And just to kind of echo the other thing you were getting into, Kirk, I do like the feel of the Switch 2 a lot so far. I like the Magnus. They feel really good.

I like that you can quote unquote accidentally put the Joycons in wrong and you don't get punished for that. That's the first thing I did. That is something the Switch one doesn't do and was deeply stressful to me. And honestly, still is, although I don't know that I'm going to be. be using my Switch 1 that much anymore. But being able to just like put those joycons in whatever, putting them into the version of the grip that comes with, comes in the box, great, feels great. I haven't used the mouse enough to really weigh in on that. I don't love the feel of it so far. No surprise there. I'm probably the biggest mouth skeptic on this show and I have been from the jump.

But I'm waiting for it to win me over and I will absolutely update the listeners if it does. really curious about Metroid Prime with a mouse. Like, I just, I don't know. And I guess I should also amend what I said before. There's no universe where I didn't buy the Switch 2 for Metroid Prime. Like, Jason, you kind of said that previously, where you were like, well, we wouldn't be buying it if not for Triple Click and maybe I'd wait for Metroid. Like, I know with certainty, games turtleister, no.

Every timeline of Maddie is buying that for Metroid. So even though we don't ever release it. Really? Well, but you could just play it on the Switch one. I know, but it's going to look so much better on the switch, too, isn't it? Well, that's, well, the question is, is it $500 better? Well, but in this other reality, I am a stockbroker or whatever we said. So I can afford it as fine, right?

Anyway, I just, I'm, this has made me very excited for Metroid is all I can say. Like, I do feel like Mario Kart looks great. I'm loving it, 60 frames a second, beautiful. I'm just like, I'm really excited for Metroid Prime now is really what this is. So, okay, a couple of things. thoughts for me. One is that playing it and testing it out for the last week, it is really striking

for me how Finn the launch lineup is. And I know it's sold, I believe Nintendo just announced that it's sold 3.5 million units making it their fastest console launch ever, which is impressive. And I imagine all of those three and a half million players are just

playing Mario Kart nonstop because there's not a lot of other games to play on this thing. I've been playing a little bit of Bravely Default HD, which feels like a game from 2013. I mean, there's a lot of games to play. They're just switch games. Yeah. Well, sure, sure, sure. I've been playing. I've been, yes. But that's worth mentioning. Yeah, it's true. Although in my testing, only a few of them actually feel and look better on this thing. Only a few of them have frame right enhancements and it's all

Nintendo games from what I've seen. So, like, for example, going from Tears of the Kingdom at 60 frames a second, which is incredible, to like, I was testing out Final Fantasy 12 because I have that loaded in. And that, like, is running. at 30 frames a second and doesn't really look that great. And it's a little bit of a disappointment there. But also just in terms of new stuff, there isn't a whole lot of new stuff to play on this thing. And I imagine it just kind of sitting on the shelf for a while

after the novelty of like checking out all of these big AAA things. Like maybe when Eldon Ring comes out, I'll check it out. I just got a code sent to me by Warner for Hogwarts Legacy. So I'm sure I'll check that out just to see how it runs on the Switch 2. But like outside of the kind of novelty of checking out all these games, I don't know how much time I'm going to spend with this thing until there's a lot more Nintendo first party stuff to play, which hopefully there will be in the next year. But like we've been saying, and like I wrote about on Bloomberg, console launches, you're always just buying, you're investing in the next few years. You're investing in this platform that is going to be your springboard for the next few years. and it almost doesn't matter what it has at launch other than the question of whether to buy it now or not.

The other thing that is not worth it to me and might be a bigger problem is that I have found that the battery drains really fast. I don't know about you guys, but I've been kind of looking at the percentage indicator and been shocked by like to out 10 minutes of play. It'll be down like 5% or something like that. I'm a little nervous about what that's going to look like in the future, especially as the games get more intense. But in my experience, it seems pretty grim. I haven't done extensive testing. I'm sure there's some YouTube video out there that has like really elaborate battery tests. Digital frownery will do it at some point.

Just tell us the numbers. But just in my own kind of amateur, just playing around and seeing what it's like, I've been a little worried about the battery. Yeah, that's good to know. I appreciate that the software allows you to keep it at 90%, which will allow the battery to last longer. It's sort of a standard feature now in a lot of technology, but it's something that they added. There's a lot of little software, stuff like that. That's nice. You can remap per game, which is cool, some accessibility features that are neat.

And yeah, I don't know, setting this thing up and just porting over my whole Switch library, just really underlined what a different kind of console launch this is for Nintendo compared to previous systems. I mean, there are a ton of games on here, and it made me realize for the last few years, the Switch has kind of been a console where I'll start a game and then not really finish it or play that much of it and think that's really fun I should go play more. And with the Switch 2 now, I'm kind of having this feeling of, yeah, Bayonetta 3. I know that was sort of some people were mixed on it, but I hear that it actually does run better now. It's got some great boss battles in it too.

It's worth it even if you don't like the story, which I did not. If you enjoy playing a game, it's good. And I was reading that it runs better now on Switch 2, that there are just some games where they had unlocked frame rates that now just run it a side. solid 60. I believe the Witcher 3 also runs a lot better. Not that I'm going to play the Witcher 3 on this console. But, you know, like, there is kind of that. Cyberpunk is out, which I know some people will. It'll be their first time playing Cyberpunk. You're going to play the Witcher 4 on the Switch 2, of course. Yeah, for sure. That'll be out on the Switch 5 or whatever, and it'll finally run at 30 frames for second in 2031. So anyways, the feeling of looking at it,

of thinking, oh, you know, I've got all this Tears of the Kingdom stuff that I want to do and playing this game, I mean, Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild both look beautiful if you have the paid, I should say, but the $10 upgrade for either of those games. I mean, man, it's really cool to play Tears of the Kingdom, especially and be summoning, you know, huge devices that you've made and have it running at a locked 60. It looks really good on the TV,

and it does make me want to just go back and finish the vast amount of that game that I never finished. And then there's a bunch more other games like that, too. So while there aren't that many new games, there is Mario Kart and that's really fun and that feels fresh and new but also a lot of this other stuff feels pretty cool to me like I do have a significant library on this console

for a new quote unquote new console. Yeah, it's kind of like getting a new computer or something. Yeah, exactly. Or a new iPad like I was saying last week. Where you're like, I'm just getting a new computer and now I'm playing all my old games on my new computer that I just bought. Right. Right. Yeah. The load times are much, much faster especially on Tears of the Kingdom, which even without,

I tested out Tears of the Kingdom even without getting, like before getting the Switch 2 upgrade. And even though the graphics aren't like a huge improvement from Switch 1, although it seemed like the frame rate was a little more stable. You don't get 60 frames a second unless you get the upgrade. But the loading times are much, much faster even without the dedicated switch to upgrade. I just was looking at Reddit a little bit. And it does seem like people have found improvements in a bunch of random games. So I think it's the type of thing where the more testing you do, the more you'll kind of see. I know one of the Pokemon games is infamously bad on Switch and now runs really well.

The most recent one, I believe. Is that the one? Yeah. Scarlet and Violet. And now it runs. Yeah. Apparently is better. Apparently was talking about that when I saw him in L.A. So that one was a big deal for Pokemon fans.

Yeah. Yeah. Can I just add one more thing about Mario Kart? I think I'm the only one of us that got the Mario Kart bundle, right? Yes. Okay. So I don't know. know why I thought that was going to come with a box with Mario card in it. It did not. Let me show

you to what it came with. It came with this tiny piece of paper that I almost couldn't find in the box and was scared and was like, did I not get Mario card? No, there's like a business card with a game code on it. And I was a little like, okay, well, I guess I'm not even getting the box. So that's what you get if you got the Mario Kart bundle. In case anybody was wondering, you may as well just purchase it in the store. I guess you don't get the discount. But yeah, I just thought that was an interesting choice. Oh, well.

Yeah, so Pokemon was one game that looks much better. Zelda Echoes of Wisdom, the one that came out last fall. Oh, I bet that was way better. Ran like garbage on the Switch one runs much, much better. Garbage is maybe overstating it, but it had some free-rate issues. Okay, I mean, it was pretty bad. It stuttered a lot, yes. And Link's Awakening also.

Both of those games, similar art style, had a lot of struggles in the Switch one. Both of them run much better on the Switch 2. A lot of Nintendo First Party stuff has gotten these kind of quiet, like Super Mario Odyssey runs 60 for a second in handout mode, which is awesome. So yes, I mean. I believe they added H.DR to Odyssey as well. Oh, wow. I never beat that game. I should go back and beat it.

You should. Yeah. Well, it's really good. And then once you beat it, there's a lot more to do. And Bowser's Fury got some updates too, and I never finished that. And that already looked really good. This is my experience where I'm like, wow, Bowser's Fear, I never finished that. The game was fun as hell.

Why don't I go back and finish it? And I probably won't, but it makes me really want to. But it's fun to pretend that you will. That's a me problem. I'm just too busy. But like, if I had more time, I definitely would. Yeah. So point being, yes, Maddie, I think your comparison is pretty good that it's like you just got a new PC and you're like,

oh, I should test out all these games that I own and see how they run now. Like see how much better they run now. So in that sense, it's pretty cool. But in terms of new stuff, I think that the line of, is pretty thin and we'll see if that changes. But yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, again, you're just buying the platform where you will play all of your Nintendo games for the next few years. So like, whether you buy it now or you wait a couple years and then just buy it when the next Zelda comes out, it doesn't really matter other than like what you get to

play at any given time from Nintendo. But yeah, I mean, then there's also people who like don't have a steam deck or any sort of handheld PC and might be very curious to play a lot of these third-party games portably, which will be cool. Cyberpunk being a good example of that. So yeah, I mean, it's an interesting launch, and I'm sure we'll be talking lots

more about it in the weeks and months to come, especially as Nintendo announces more stuff. One other thing is that, as far as we know, as of us recording this on Wednesday, June 11th, no Nintendo direct just yet for June.

And it was interesting that they announced a a Splatoon 3 expansion and update just as a press release. So it almost makes me, like, that's the kind of thing that would be in a direct. No, they announced a totally new Splatoon game, not an expansion. It was like a spinoff game. Oh, okay. So a spinoff and an update to Splatoon 3. So basically they announced something that you would have thought would be in a switch to direct

just separately, which makes me wonder about direct timing. Yes. And if they're going to do one at all. I had been assuming this whole time they would do one. Well, they almost always do one in June. Last year they did one like a week or two after summer game fest. Yeah, and I think it took us a while to find out. So it could still be, yeah, I mean, it could be next week that they just dropped one.

Could be they've got so much for the direct that the Splatoon stuff just that was just extra. So that could be exciting. It could be a good thing. Very possible. Maybe we shouldn't be hoping for that. Yeah, very possible. It does feel like we need a Metroid release date. Yes, please.

Which like has to be imminent, right? because they've said it's this year. So they have to be like, yay, it's coming in September or something. And also, right now the holiday lineup for them is pretty lacking. So they need to say something, whether it's a 3D Mario game or like some other big surprise. So it does feel like we'll get an Nintendo direct soon. And that, I think, will make a lot more switch to owners excited about owning the machine

and being able to get their hands on one. By the way, they're still difficult to get. I was at a game stop in L.A. And just for kicks, I ran it and was like, hey, like, Do you guys have any Switch 2? They were like, no, I was like, are you getting new stock in? Or is it all just the pre-order stock? And they were like, no, we haven't gotten any new stock in.

This was a few days after launch. I would have to imagine that over the next couple of months, also a lot of the third-party games that currently have games on Switch 1, some more of them will release updates for Switch 2. The way No Man Sky now has a Switch 2 version, I would think, especially as more and more people get Switch 2, there's a pretty good incentive for a lot of independent devs and third-party devs to patch their games and update them.

And so that'll just kind of be a steady cadence of, hey, check this out. It runs really well on Switch now. And for a lot of people, that'll probably be really cool. Yeah, for sure. Okay, cool. All right. Well, that is that for this week's episode. Kirk, Maddie, I'll see you both next week.

Yeah, and see you 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. Find us on Twitter at Triple ClickPod. Send email the triple click at Maximum Fun.org and find a link to our discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network. supported directly by you.