Triple Click - Super Turbo Remake Plus

Episode Date: September 9, 2021

What makes a remake worth playing? When should developers go back and change a game, and how much should they change? This week, the Triple Click crew tries to figure out when remakes work, when they don't work, and why. Plus: Kirk unveils his grand spectrum of Remakes, Remasters, and the Super Turbo Remake Plus.Kirk’s Remake Spectrum*:Re-release (The original game, playable on new hardware)Remaster (visually enhanced version of the same game, same tech, etc.)Remaster Plus (A visual remaster that makes some changes to the gameplay - e.g. Skyward Sword, ME Trilogy)Remake (New engine/tech and new visuals, but makes a point of keeping the gameplay the same. E.g. SotC, Demon’s Souls, Diablo 2 Resurrected)Remake Plus (New engine and actual new gameplay/mechanics/etc. E.g. Black Mesa, Tomb Raider Anniversary)Reimagined Remake (Uses the original as a template to make major changes, e.g. Resident Evil 2 & 3 Remake)Super Turbo Remake Plus (There is only one of these and it is Final Fantasy VII Remake)Sequel or Reboot *Note that these are stops along a continuous spectrum and not a series of discrete categorizations. Many games fall somewhere in between categories.One More Thing: Kirk: The White Lotus ReloadedMaddy: Dark SoulsJason: The Forgotten CityLinks: Mat Bradley-Tschirgi on why Final Fantasy shouldn’t be modernized: https://www.polygon.com/22648602/final-fantasy-original-ff1-retro-gaming-classic-pixel-version-steam-square-enixMike White’s New York interview about The White Lotus: https://www.vulture.com/article/the-white-lotus-finale-mike-white-interview-departures-ending.htmlSlate’s Working podcast interview with White Lotus composer Cristobal Tapia de Veer:https://slate.com/podcasts/working/2021/08/white-lotus-composer-cristobal-tapia-de-veerTwenty Thousand Hertz episode about the Dies Irae (feat. Kirk): https://www.20k.org/episodes/diesiraeSupport Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinJoin 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

Have you ever wondered what the difference is between a remaster and a remake? Well, this week, you're about to find out the answer. Welcome to Triple Click where we bring the games to you. This week, we are talking about remakes from Dead Space to Final Fantasy 7. What's a remake? When's a remake? How's a remake? All those questions. I'm Jason Shrier. I'm Kirk Hamilton. And I'm Maddie Myers.

Hello. Hi. It's us. It sure is. my friends, we are back for another episode of the podcast formerly known as Kataku Split Screen. Welcome to Trivicle. Are you going to say it? No, I wasn't. I wanted to, we need a little symbol, like the Prince symbol, the podcast formerly, it's three. That's actually what our logo is. Like originally we weren't going to have a title. We were just going to have that logo.

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You also get a monthly bonus episode where we talk about all sorts of things. We talk about all sorts of crazy things. Last month we were talking about Mythic Quest, the show Mythic Quest. You did a great little spoiler cast on that, beans cast on that. And this month, we are spilling the beans on Half-Life 2 episodes 1 and 2 in the entire Half-Life 2 saga, completing our predictions bet for the year. So that'll be really fun. It will be.

end of the month for MaxFund members only. Once again, maximum fund.org slash join. Thank you all to those who support us. To those of you out there who support us. Yeah. Thank you all so much. Even if you don't support us, thank you for listening to the show. Let's get on with it, shall we? Today we are doing a hot topic. Today is a hot topic. We got a hot topic for you. Throwing at you right off the stove. It is burning hot. Got to let it cool down on the, on a wire rack before you can actually eat it. Today's hot topic is remakes, remakes. Not just remakes, remasters, remakes. There are a lot of remakes being thrown out there these days.

The world is full of remakes, the video game world especially. Remakes are seen as just a very lucrative and satisfying way to release a video game these days. Everything from Demon Souls to Final Fantasy 7 remake. And then they're the uglier ones, the Warcraft 3 reforges of the world. before we even start talking though Kirk I'm going to throw it to you because we were kind of we were discussing beforehand what is a remake as opposed to a remaster and Kirk came up with this ridiculous amazing spectrum that defines all of these terms perfect and everyone will be using it from this point forward

that's true Kirk give it to us okay so this this is yes the spectrum of every type of remake going from re-release all the way up to sequel. So let me go through these from the beginning, and then I'll kind of give a couple examples of each one. So it starts, it goes re-release, then remaster, then remaster plus, then remake, then remake plus, then reimagined remake,

then super turbo remake plus, and then just sequel, and then reboot is kind of off on its own silo. We're not really talking about rebates. Right, right. I don't think you need to define these. I feel like the title's already fully explain exactly what they are. Everybody understands it. But just for the sake of argument,

Kirk, why don't you? Just to maybe clarify. For anyone who for some reason might not have immediately categorize all of this. For some reason, you don't immediately understand Super Turbo Remake Plus. So, yeah. Okay, so re-release is just the original game made playable on new hardware, straight up. Re-released. Remaster is a visually enhanced version of the same game, like the same engine. It's like Dark Souls remastered is a good example of this. basically nothing changed. It's just the game. There's that one bonfire they added in. That's true, I guess.

So that gets us to... Remember, this is a spectrum, so all games just bit somewhere on here, but after that is Remaster Plus, that's when it's the same game, like the same engine and tech, but there actually are significant changes. I'd say that Skyward Sword recently fits into this Mass Effect trilogy. Things are

different, but it's still basically the same game. After that comes remake. The game has been remade in like a new engine with new technology. So that's like Shadow of the Colossus or Demon Souls. It really is a remake, even though it's pretty true to the original game in terms of gameplay, like they make a point of saying, like Diablo 2 resurrected, new engine looks different, but the balance is the same. I think they call that a remaster, by the way, but by your definition, it'll be a remake.

Right. Well, Blizzard can call it whatever they want. We're going by the perspective. But they are wrong. Anyway. They are unfortunately wrong. Not the first thing they've been wrong about recently. Nothing spring to mind for me, but go on. After that comes remake plus. So this is where it's been remade, new engine, and there's actually also like really new stuff, like new mechanics, new gameplay. Black Mesa counts as one of these.

Tomb Raider anniversary counts as one of these. So it's remake, and it's like kind of different. Then there's a reimagined remake, which basically this is for Resident Evil 2 and 3. Those remakes, they need their own category because they're like really different, even though they still are remaking. There's like a template that they went off of,

which was Resident Evil 2, but it's an over-the-shoulder game. It just plays totally differently. It has like, it's very, very different despite being a remake. Yeah, you know, not to interrupt, but there's another Resident Evil example of this as well, which is the Umbrella Chronicles games. I don't know if you've ever played these, but they also reimagine every Resident Evil game is a time crisis style arcade on the rails shooter.

And it's like, what if you were playing Resident Evil's one through three, I think is what they do, again, but just in a different genre of shooter. And I, Resident Evil, Capcom, loves to remake its games. And we don't even include fighting games on here, but there are plenty of examples of that as well. Right. That's just a whole different thing. You know, like a persona fighting game is just a whole different thing. I think, I think the upcoming Dead Space reboot is going to fit into reimagined remake as well based on what they're saying about. We're going to spend the rest of the show debating that. But Kirk, why don't you get to your next example? So let me complete here.

Super Turbo Remake Plus has only one example, but it's an example that needed to be there. And that's Final Fantasy 7 remake. Because it is a remake of Final Fantasy 7, a completely reimagined remake that is also like a sequel and more. And a rebu, and a 10-year saga that will unfold over many episodes. Right, that is. So it isn't like a reboot exactly, and it isn't a sequel. It is a remake, but it's also not. So that just gets a something that's a super turbo remake.

Plus, then we just get a sequel. I think a sequel, it is interesting to think of sequels on the spectrum, because especially in video games, sequels actually do work in some ways, almost like a remake, like an opportunity to take the game and take all the mechanics and then, you know, build on them. But of course, they're sequels, their new games. Yeah, or you lose all your powers and then you have to get them back in new ways.

Right, right. And it has, like, it still kind of feels like a lot of the same ideas as the original, which a reimagined remake can also do that or remake. And then there's just a reboot, which is just take the core thing and just totally kind of restart it. And that's kind of its own thing. I don't think we're really going to talk about reboots too much. So that's kind of our framework for this conversation. I hope that that's helpful.

Okay. Good to know. So easy. We're going to remember all. these terms. Yeah, we will definitely. We go from re-release all the way up to sequel. This will be part of the gaming lingo from now on. So, okay, so this conversation, I think, or the reason I wanted to talk about this is inspired by a Polygon article that I read last week that will link in the show notes about the Final Fantasy pixel remasters, which are these interesting little things. I like, you hesitated

where you were like, is it a remaster? Is it a remaster? Tell me that I messed up. No, I'm actually, this is the official name of the game when I say remaster. So I'm not even using, like it's literally on Steam. It says Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster. So this one isn't up for debate. It's just the title of the game.

Maybe it should be Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster Plus, but we don't know. These are really interesting. And I want to hold off on talking about those themselves for a little bit. But the article made me think about because the article was essentially arguing that Final Fantasy, the original, doesn't need to be touched. It's great. And it doesn't, it should exist on its own without remasters and remakes.

And there's certainly some interesting arguments out there about the concept of like not only making a game playable on modern consoles, but also changing a bunch of things. And is it sacrilegious to kind of alter mechanics that maybe feel clunky now or clunkier now than they did 30 years ago? And it got me thinking, like, like when should a game be remade as opposed to rematch? And we played a lot of interesting examples of this kind of tension. And, like, I think we've all played games where, um, that are like, like new versions of old games where we kind of wish that things had been different or maybe we wish that things hadn't been different.

So I want to start the conversation there and kind of like wondering what you guys think of this concept of like when, when is a remake work for you? When does it, when do you wish it had been more of a remaster or a re-release instead? So Maddie, I want to start with you. I'm curious to hear your take on this question. Sure. So I thought this was a fun article, but I don't agree with it at all. And I say that as a person who recently had to play Final Fantasy 6 for this show.

We've talked about it a lot. We're talking about it again. I said in our many, many episodes about that game that I preferred the, what should I call it? the remaster of Final Fantasy 7 for the Switch that allows you to skip battles, among other things, other relatively small changes. That would be a remaster plus because it has gameplay. It does have a gameplay change. We got to follow this spectrum, man.

Right, I know, I know. And we've also talked about how when we were playing Final Fantasy 6, hypothetically, there may have been some ways for us to make some gameplay changes in the version of it that we were playing, hypothetically. But even as I was playing it with those advantages, I was still thinking it would be really nice if these were baked in. I don't need to change that much about this game in order for me to enjoy it significantly more. Just a few things, a few quality of life changes would have gone such a long way for me in that game. So I'm not necessarily saying that I'm a purist with all remasters and remakes where I'm like, oh, you know, you shouldn't change anything about the game.

because I also think I would enjoy like a super turbo version of Final Fantasy 6 la FF7 remake. I think that would be really interesting and cool to see. Honestly, for any game, like maybe every game should have a version of that. But I also think that

there are just some games that are old enough that there are so many quality of life issues with them. And again, like, I have played the original Metroid multiple times. Like, I get why we do this to ourselves and I have respect for the form. But, God, I just, I don't think anybody should play Final Fantasy One. And I never have, and I'm stating that. I'm just coming out here and I'm saying it sounds ridiculous to me.

And I don't think people should subject themselves to that. It sounds like I need a new game for my 2022 predictions. God. Oh, boy. The original version only, no remaster. Wow. So, yeah, I think when it comes to quality of life stuff, it's kind of an easier decision.

Just like talking about that Final Fantasy 7 re-release with a fast forward. Yeah. Those kinds of things. Those are just pretty, I mean, they're kind of optional and they don't really change too much. And those are nice. I start to struggle with it when it comes to something like a good example of this is Black Mesa, which was a fan-made remake of the first Half-Life that then was sanctioned by Valve. I've talked about it on the show before.

It's really, really good. It's really impressive. It does follow all of the beats of Half-Life, but it is a different game. Now that you've both played Half-Life 2, it would be interesting if you ever play it just because it feels like Half-Life 2. I think it's the same version of the Source Engine.

You can move objects around. There's physics the same as in Half-Life 2, which weren't really there in Half-Life 2, which weren't really there in Half-Life 1. So it's a different game. It's just the same game at the same time. And I never know whether to recommend that people play that

or people play the original Half-Life, which is good, but feels much more dated. And that's where it kind of gets interesting for me. I don't know. There's always sort of attention, and it's hard to make the decision because you have to play both, to even make the recommendation. And I haven't played the first half-life in a really long time. Like, I don't actually know what I would recommend.

I run into this with music all the time. Anyone who's listened to old Beatles records knows there are remasters of all of the classic Beatles albums, and there are also remixes of the classic Beatles albums. Is that the equivalent of a remake to you spiritually? Let's get into a different taxonomy here. It's a relics plus, actually. It's basically like, if you just think of the spectrum as a spectrum rather than getting too fixated on the individual points on it,

they just move closer and closer and closer to like totally overhauling it. And it does get weird when you listen to the Beatles in a stereo mix because a lot of times the mix of the panning is weird. And then you go back and like listen to Revolver in mono on vinyl. And it actually sounds really good. And you can see why people say, you should just listen to this in mono. Like you shouldn't go and listen to these,

especially not the like 2017 remixes. Those are weird. Like they bring out instruments that aren't really that audible. And it can feel that way sometimes playing these remakes too, where like a game will run at 60 frames per second, for example. And sometimes that just makes it look weird, or it looks too high-deaf where the textures are gigantic because they're spread across things.

They look okay on a TV. So like the way that you're playing it starts to matter. It can just get very complicated and difficult to make a recommendation on any given game. So I struggle with it sometimes. to time. So, okay, so it's interesting you bring up quality of life improvements because that feels like the obvious answer, right? Like having a fast forward button for old JRP's, great, fantastic, right? Adding like more save points and more abilities to like, like Final Fantasy 3, for example, the NES one,

not six, which we played, but three, the original is infamous for having this end game gauntlet where you have to play through like five or six hours of stuff without a single save point and you go through bosses and it's just brutal, right? And there have been some interesting arguments over the years about that because on one hand, it's just a beast to play. And once you die close to the end of it and lose hours of progress, you never want to play it again. But on the other hand, you have a tension in that

that is unlike any other sort of tension you would play. And again, like if there's no actual sense of stake when you're playing, if you can't lose something if you fail, then it isn't quite as exhilarating when you actually. win and you don't have that tension of like like a final boss like knowing that the stakes are super high for your for your actual playing it right there than in there so that's one argument and then like you can make a similar argument for like adding a bonfire to dark souls or like adding adding i don't know uh if someone decided to remake uh one of those souls games and added difficulty modes or

any sort of other thing like something that you could say is a quality of life thing can also be argued as like a design decision question. And so that raises interesting questions. And then to take that one step further, imagine if someone took a Beatles album and remade it by just like adding a bunch of new instruments to it or like changing a bunch of things. I do think about that.

And when I get farther down the spectrum toward the remake end, that's really when you get into cover recordings. That's more how I think about it. Like there is the whole George Lucas adding the job of the hut scene to Star Wars. Like that's its own thing. And yeah,

if you were like overdubbing, guitar parts over George Harrison. That would be weird and nobody would like that. But covers can be pretty cool. And some of these remakes feel to me like covers almost. Like the Resident Evil 2 remake feels like a really talented band, you know, group of developers covering really cool source material and doing their own thing with it. And that to me can be really interesting. That's like the most interesting type of thing here because you're getting to see new creative people putting their own imprint on something that already was successful and already existed rather than just like shining it up and re-releasing it to us again.

Yeah. Yeah. I feel similarly about AM2R is a Metroid-made fan game that is another example of what I would say is a cover song. So Metroid 2 is a Game Boy game that is often maligned by me because it's like a little bit weird. I enjoy it. It has some imperfections. I think the soundtrack is a real downpoint. In terms of comparing it to overall Metroid games, it's pretty good just as a soundtrack, but it's not as good as many other Metroid soundtracks. There are many other things you could say about it. I won't go on and on. But enough fans agree with me that they made a version of it, a remake of Metroid

called Am2R. I think it's like another Metroid 2 remake is what it's technically titled to signify how many people have attempted to remake it. And of course, it was officially remade Metroid Samus Returns for the 3DS. And that remake is quite good, good enough that Mercury Steve is going to make Metroid dread. And that was in fact like a true. trial for Sakamoto to see if they were going to be good enough to make Metroid

tried according to him. No pressure. But clearly, Metroid 2 was something that a lot of people really wanted to fix and remake, not just because of design issues, but just, you know, other little tweaks that people wanted to make. And I can understand that. And I think that's part of why AM2R is like a fun cover song. Like, it keeps a lot of the spiritual elements of the game, but then changes enough other things that it feels like it's its own game, which is interesting. I guess to me at least I feel like there is a difference on my personal spectrum of what I like where it starts with quality of life changes, which to me are a necessity. But then it gets further over on my spectrum of like, I don't know if I like this or not,

when it's taking away just the romanticization I have of things about an original game that are actually quite unpleasant. But because I've romanticized them due to whatever memory I have of playing them, I feel like I don't want them to be taken away. And that's like this ineffitable quality of like what should we or should we not remove, even when we're talking about quality of life changes. It's like, I guess, enjoying the scratch of a cassette tape or something or VHS artifacting. It's like what are these things about games?

And Metroid, especially the old ones, has many of these where it's like, okay, the most pure way to play the original Metroid is on an arcade machine where you have basically you have only the save points that you can find and quarters and it's just the worst. Like, why on earth would anybody do that? I've never had that experience. And yet, even though I haven't, I still kind of romanticize it. And I'm like, oh, that must have been such a cool way to play that game. Like having to just see the arcade version of it and like you don't really know what's coming next and people just had to try and try and try. Like it's similar to the boss gauntlet Jason was describing. And that is lost now. Like every version of Metroid,

you can play now has save states and it's like significantly easier, but maybe that's fine. I don't know, it's a little bittersweet, you know? Yeah. No, yeah. There's a, there are two really different feelings that I have when I'm playing different types of remakes. Like, Mass Effect trilogy, which we've talked about already on the show, and I will get back to at some point I had to stop because it turns out Mass Effect trilogy is really long. But that is like, it's, they've changed some things, especially with the first game, but what's great about it and what I'm liking about it is just that it's very comforting. And I just enjoy, especially Mass Effect 2, just this rolling sci-fi story and rediscovering the story beats. And in my mind, I'm always thinking, oh, wait, Thane is about to do this.

Like, we're going to get to this part and then it happens and I like remember it and kind of relive it. And that's really fun, which is very different than I would imagine a Resident Evil 2 fan would feel playing Resident Evil 2 remake, where it's not about, oh, I can't wait to see my favorite thing again. it's, I can't wait to see how they're going to do this, you know, which is much more like when you see a cover band play Freebird, and there are a completely different ensemble than Leonard Skinner, you're like, what are they going to do during the guitar solo? Like, how is this going to end?

And it's kind of this exciting question. It's the same thing with that game where you're like, well, Titan X is going to show up, but this game is so different. Like, what is that going to look like? Or the Titan, maybe the Titan X is in R33. Anyways, like those questions, it's more of a question and less of a just comforting, you know, reassuring, familiar thing. What's frustrating, I think, at least for me personally, what's frustrating is that with a lot of these remakes that do change things, a lot of these remake pluses or super turbo remake, I know.

Further down the spectrum. With the ones further down the spectrum, oftentimes the companies that release them are at the same time not re-releasing the original version of the game because they want you to buy the new one. And so it's kind of like oftentimes it's like because of the way games work because so many of the older platforms are really difficult to get a hold of or difficult to actually play on today, unless you have a CRT TV in your office somewhere. It's it's almost like as if you can only get the Beatles cover band and you couldn't actually get it. Well, this is true on streaming services. I found this with David Bowie. There's like fucked up remasters of David Bowie records. and the ones that you listen to on Spotify

are those ones, and there are better remasters or better masters that aren't always surfaced. So streaming media totally has that problem. Yeah, it's super frustrating. But at least, I mean, at least you can go buy a David Bowie CD or buy it from iTunes or whatever. It's a lot. Or if Netflix fucks up the aspect ratio,

you can get a criteria and collection DVD. Sure, yeah, exactly. With games, I feel like a lot of this stuff is way more inaccessible. It's very difficult unless you get an emulator, which I guess is technically illegal for whatever that's worth. But I think that games, it's a lot harder to track down older versions and classic games because a lot of these companies just don't care about preservation and do not really give a shit about like ensuring that people can play their history

unless they can remaster it and sell it for more money and one for another. And what happens is you run into these weird, weird situations like with Final Fantasy. So the three of us talked a lot about which version of Final Fantasy 6 should we play because each of them has like its pros and cons and it's kind of a weird feeling where like the original version of the game has some script issues but then the GBA version of the game has a better script but like the music is kind of compressed and so that is also happening now with these new Final Fantasy pixel remasters which which are good in a lot of ways and bad in a lot of ways what's annoying is that they have these ugly as fonts but more than that um so like you look at

the original Final Fantasy game and there was a remastered version for the Game Boy that like added some new dungeons and features. And then now this Final Fantasy pixel remaster takes away those dungeons and features. So you're playing like a remaster version of the game that doesn't even have some of the cool stuff from the remaster that came out 10 years ago, 15 years ago. So it's kind of this weird saga where like you pick up a remaster or the latest version of a game and you never really know what you're going to get, how different it's going to be from the original, whether it's going to have all of the stuff that they had added before. It's just kind of a nightmare. And this week, Final Fantasy four pixel remasters coming out and I'm kind of dreading

the issues that people are going to find it. And I'm very curious to see what happens with that one. But all of this, I mean, it's just kind of, it's really frustrating to see these companies put a lot of time and effort into remakes where at the same time just totally abandoning all issues of preservation and all attempts to preserve their classic history. Yeah. It's tricky, right? It's definitely one of the defining frictions of the digital age. Like I always think of the wire, the way that the wire, if you watch it on HBO,

whatever now HBO Go, whatever their streaming service is called. If you watch the wire, you get the widescreen version where it's generally okay, but that was shot in 4-3. And I don't know if maybe they finally added an option to watch the original 4-3 version, but it's a beautifully shot in 4-3, like 4-3 aspect ratio. This is a square for anyone who doesn't know this versus widescreen. And in widescreen they cut some of the shot out to make it look like it should look, I guess, like a modern show. But it looks fine in 4-3.

And I always, that was very frustrating because you need to get the physical media. And you don't have the option, right? You didn't the last time that I watched it. They may have added it. But it's the kind of thing where, just like you say with releasing the old version as well, there's so little incentive for these companies. because they need to make money and people mostly will buy the remastered

or remade thing. I always think about those Monkey Island remakes or whatever they were, wherever they fall on the spectrum. They're kind of in an interesting place really because those, they took the very unusual step in making those of allowing you to press a button and then switch back to

the old game. So they're like a total art visual overhaul, but the game is still running the same underneath. And you can just, with the press of a button, go back and forth between them. I know that's essentially impossible on more complicated games than a point-and-click adventure game, but it was so cool to see that. It's awesome.

Yeah. It's one of the coolest things. They're going to do that in Diablo 2 resurrected. I don't know if you two knew that. There is a button that is going to toggle back, at least the graphics, to make it look like the old version of the game. Yeah. That'll be weird. The wire thing reminds me of like the Final Fantasy 5 and 6th remakes, whatever you want to call them, re-releases,

that have all the mangled sprites and like garbage art, which was one version that the three of us absolutely would not play because the art is trash. Because Jason told us we weren't allowed to. I told you you should not play that version. But yeah, I think it's interesting. Warcraft 3 Reforge, which was released last year to critical, like, disdainment from Blizzard.

It was essentially Blizzard's like first really bad game that got like a 50-something on Metacritic and it was just widely panned. One of the things that was most heinous about that was when Blizzard released that, they disabled. They replaced Warcraft 3 in BattleNet with Warcraft 3 forge. So nobody could play the original Warcraft 3. And this is a worse version because they like remove features that were in the original

game that still aren't in there today, a year and a half after release, even though they promised they would be coming in there. And that is really like, in that case, they didn't even have an excuse because Warcraft 3 was very easily downloadable and playable and you could just buy it. Like, it wasn't like they needed to do work to make the original version accessible for people. So it's really just capitalism in action, just like blatant greed. Like, we want you to buy our new thing so you cannot have access to the old thing anymore. Is there still no way to play Warcraft 3 legally?

You can't, yeah, not through BattleNet at least. Maybe you can download like an older version. Yeah, I guess pirate it's somewhere. But, yeah, that's pretty wild. I feel like a lot of the examples we've given have. been related to just the obvious hardware deterioration that happens with games, which also happens with music and movies. I mean, it's not as though that isn't an issue as well. But with games, we're talking, at least with console games, about consoles that are designed to deteriorate

within a certain time limit so that you have to buy a new one. And so preserving them is actually a huge undertaking. And that's part of why. So the reason why we wrote about the final fantasy game at Polygon is because we've had this whole collection of stories this past week about retro gaming and people who are still trying to play retro games in the modern day. And there's like a great article about CRT TVs and why people feel so emotional about them and the way the games look on them and why it's worth keeping one for some people. And Chris Grant of Polygon co-founder fame wrote multiple articles about like his obsession with, are you too familiar with Mr. technology. It's like a way through which people can play emulators in like the most

accessible way possible. And it's like this open source form of software that people are using. And I just, I don't know, it just fills me with a certain wistful feeling, even though it's not my personal interest. It's the same sense of wistfulness that I feel about people who played the original Metroid on arcade machines, where I'm just like, I don't know. I can respect somebody who really wants to experience a game the way it was originally made, even though it's deeply unpleasant. I'm just like, I don't know, I kind of get it. Like, you want to see what it looks like on a CRT. And I don't know if there's a version of a remake or a port or a re-release that can ever fully capture that audience. But the audience that is me that should still be captured is the

audience that's like, I just want to play a version of it that I can actually play, but it's still basically the original game. Like, I just want all the save points to be in there. And I don't like change anything too crazy, but like, you know, just make it so I can play it. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, first of all, that's the beauty of emulators. And when I say, I mean, when I think of like proper classic game preservation, I think of like the Nintendo's virtual console service, which has many problems and the library is very limited. But like over the years, and it's been so inconsistent from platform to platform, but at least in its best years back on the Wii and the Wii you and stuff, you could play these games with save states.

And I don't think any of them had fast forward, but like we've had other like packages of re-release classic games that include fast forward and like rewinding and stuff like that. Which I love. Like that's fine with me. As long as they're save states, like it's all good. I can even put up without rewinding and fast word, although those are also great. Well, rewinding is useful. So the Mega Man collections that came out had a rewind, which was.

great for those games because those games are like nails tough platformer shooter games and if you jump the wrong way or like or pixel off on a jump you'll hit a pit of spikes and instantly die so it's nice to have the option of rewind just if you want it but i want to talk about another concept here which is more along lines of like the cover band stuff um which is this idea of like remakes really getting in there and changing things and specifically i want to talk about dead space because even though that game isn't out yet the designers of that game who are at ea motive are talking about talking about how they are essentially, it's like a cross between a remake and a reboot. They're taking the old game. They're essentially remaking the old game, but they're changing a bunch of stuff.

They're going to make them in character. Isaac talk more. They're going to add more story. They're going to change gameplay elements. It's essentially going to feel like a new game, sort of along the lines of the Resident Evil 2 and 3 remakes. And I think that's really interesting because with some exceptions, a couple of people who worked on the original, who are now advising on this project and such. This is a totally new team. And there's a lot of weird history and crossovers between Visceral, the original makers of the game that were shut down in 2017 and Motiv, which was fun fact here. Motive was when they were created, one of their original goals was to help out Vissarles game, Ragtag.

But then that didn't happen and they got moved to Battlefront 2 instead and that Vistral went to work on Ragtag and had to shut down. What a twisted web we weave. Visceral essentially was shut down because EA had to buy respawn instead and had to free up some cash and lots of weird EA Game of Thrones and stuff here. But now it's really bizarre that Motive has wound out remaking this game. It's essentially a new group of people who are saying, hey, what can we make better about this game that came out 10 years ago that people love? And I think that's really interesting. I don't know. I'm curious to hear your takes. Is it is it sacrilegious to get in there and be like, I want to make this better? Or is it just kind of a cool tribute that could have really awesome results? So it's funny. I think that it actually, it matters less to me the more they change in a certain way. I think it kind of matters less to people in general, the more they change. I'm actually fine with them taking the original game.

And it sounds like if Isaac's going to be talking and they're going to, you know, updated in some ways that it's going to be a little more like Dead Space 2. And when Dead Space 2 came out, they're like, Isaac's going to talk. It's going to be more like uncharted. And I think a lot of people were worried about that. I thought it was going to become an action game and be the sort of aliens to Dead Space is alien, which I would still kind of make that comparison. But then I would also point out that Alien and Aliens are both awesome movies.

And Dead Space 2 is a great game. And if they want to reboot, remake, whatever, the first game and make it a little more like that, that's fine. It's actually more interesting to me if new people want to do the cover thing, like go in a new direction with it, then if they remake it and then just kind of subtly change some stuff. And that to me, now from here on out, like everyone who plays Demon Souls pretty much for this foreseeable future, which is a fantastic game that I just played this year, they're going to play the PS5 version, which is brilliant and beautiful and fun, but very different from the game that it's still a one-to-one remake of, especially in terms of art, in ways that a lot of people who, like, the original game have pointed out, like, that they don't always like, it's not always an improvement. It's just kind of like an aesthetic change. And I do kind of, I do kind of, I find that tension interesting and I wonder about the fact that no one will kind of play that original Demon Souls again. Well, it also speaks to, I mean, the Demon Souls remake was also made by a totally different group of people. It was made by Blue Point. The original Demon Souls was made

by From Software. I think that kind of speaks to ownership and like who really owns this thing, especially with Dead Space where it's like, who ultimately decided that EA motive would get to make a Dead Space game. I'm sure they were interested in it and pitched it internally, but like The decision was made by the executives at EA who owned the brand, not any of the creative people who actually collaborated and, like, put their blood and sweat and pixels into making the original Deadspace, right? So, in fact, that studio was kind of seen as a black sheep and some of those same executives were like, man, dead space doesn't sell. We're going to have to kill it. Like, it's not exponentially growing enough for us, so we're going to have to kill it. And it's just, there's something really sad about that.

I kept thinking about that. On seeing this news, I was like, man, Dead Space, the Black Sheep, now they think it's profitable and they're circling back around 13 years later with a completely different group of people to remake it. That is kind of sad to me. But I actually agree with you, Kirk. I didn't think about it that way, but it would be so much weirder and possibly worse if they did get the band back together as it were. And they were like, hey, can you re-record all of your tracks and then we're going to like put it on the PS5 or whatever? Like that would be so much stranger and I think would give all of them a sense of, well, perhaps they would go back and be like, oh, actually these are all the things we would have wanted to do. But it might also give them a little bit of George Lucas syndrome where you're just endlessly polishing the diamond to the point where it doesn't even look at anymore.

And having a completely different group of people look at dead space and be like, well, we didn't make this. So we don't know what was on the cutting room floor per se. We have the blueprints. But like we look at this and we think, why doesn't it have X or Y? and those are things that maybe never occurred to the original team that made it. And now those elements are going to be in the game and it'll feel different and it'll be a cover song. And I think that might be better in some ways. So, Maddie, to that point, if you look at what happened with Double Fine and the Day of the Tenticle Remaster and Full Throttle Remastered,

those games were that same band getting back together and doing the cover or really just re-painting over because they essentially took those old games and just gave them a total. totally new HD code of paint. They didn't change anything for those games, which just might have been the ideal way to do this. And I guess this all raises a question, like, why isn't this just Dead Space 4? And I think, uh, the answer is probably really cynical. Well, do you know how Dead Space 3 ended? There's a lot of lore reasons. Yeah, I don't know if you play. You would want to just start fresh. It got pretty complicated. It got complicated. Okay, no, I haven't played any of those games, actually. Yeah, they're good games. Yeah. But, but, okay, but why isn't this like a reboot of the franchise? or whatever it is. Or like dead space origins or whatever. Right. Right. I think that you have this kind of cynical, um, executive, answer, which is that the series

has been stagnant for too long and everybody's finding all the success with like, let's call it God of war. Let's call it fable. Like let's just call it. Let's call it modern warfare. Yeah. And you're finding the success with like quote unquote these, these, uh, reboots or whatever you want to call it.

Um, whereas this is like, it's. kind of a remake, kind of a reboot. I wish they would just do something totally new with it, rather than saying we're going to recreate the original dead space, but also make some changes and kind of weirdly straddle that line. Because I feel like, I don't know, maybe it's, maybe this is a little snobby or naive, but I feel like the only people who have the right to go back and make changes to the original game or the people who made the original game,

as opposed to a new group of creators who by all means, like, play around in Dead Space, but, like, do you really have to call it a remake? Like, is it really a remake with some tweaks? Like, why not just do a whole reboot? Why not just do something completely new? I don't know. Yeah, it'll kind of depend on what the game winds up being. Yeah, my feelings on this are not fully formed in large part.

The game isn't out. Yeah, but unfortunately, we have the power to cancel it, and we will be decided whether or not we're going to do that. We do have a big decision to make regarding whether or not to cancel the new dead space. It is up to the three of us, which it's a huge responsibility. It is. We'll be considering it. Someone's got to do it, you know. By the way, some job news.

We have purchased EA, Triple Big. Yeah. Thank you so much for your support of the show. We've been able to purchase EA. We saved our pennies for this past year. Stop buying avocado toast and now we can finally afford. Acquired a major video game publisher. Why would that be the studio?

we would buy. Yeah. Anyway, that's fine. Before we end in this segment, before we move on to one more thing, we have to talk about Final Fantasy 7 remake at least for a minute or two. Because we all love that game, but it's also the most bad shit thing ever and kind of goes against every single, every single other idea of a remake and what it could be. Yeah, but that's why every game should do it, though.

But also, I feel like it even hues to your, perhaps you're going to change your mind about it later statement that you made five minutes ago about how the original creators of something should get to work on the remake because Final Fantasy 7 remake has at least some of the original team as part of it, envisioning how it's going to go, as well as many completely new people, of course. And it's also a weird example of a game where, as Kurt keeps saying, that is the version of Final Fantasy 7 that many people are experiencing and are not bothering to go back and check out the old one. And I think as more and more time goes on, the more true that will be, which is so weird because that game is so much a response to the original game that it's like, okay,

like I know people enjoy it when they haven't played the original, but what a weird game. Like, what a weird game. It's wild. I agree. And it's so ambitious and so wild. I mean, the thing, that was maybe the thing I liked the most about that game. I liked it was fun. I had a good story and music and everything.

But, like, in the end, it was just this feeling of just being kind of gobsmacked at how audacious it was. the whole last like two hours of it, just being like shocked that they were doing this, to something that's so, you know, vaunted and so sacred in the video game Canada as Final Fantasy 7. I would love it if there was more ambition like that, if it felt less like this kind of, oh, well, like the way you were describing EA's possible thinking with the dead space thing of, well, yeah, it's been a dormant franchise, it was always kind of big, but never as big as it could have been, maybe we can make money.

You can kind of see those gears turning with a lot of these. And with FF7 remake, it felt that way going in. It kind of felt like, oh, well, sure, they know it's popular. And then playing it, I was like, this was a huge passion project for a lot of really brilliant people who wanted to make something wild. And that's cool. Like, I would love more people to do things like that. It's almost like the game is like weighing in on this conversation and being like, hey,

you want a straight-up remake? Like, screw you. Like, go away. Like we're not interested in that. And it's answering that question and like, like, approaching the fans. Yeah, almost. But it's also like, it'd be so cool if other games looked at those risks and were like, maybe we should do something like this too.

Like, I would think it would be really fun if Dead Space did a bait and switch where it was like, okay, like the whole premise is different. Like, Isaac's crew maybe doesn't die or who knows? Like, you're a different crew member this time or something else changes that alters the fabric of reality in some type of way. Like, why not? So that's the thing, too, is that there is space for that in so many of these worlds for things that alter time and space, which is what's required if you're actually going to do this weird, like, layered on layer remake, reboot, like, sequel thing.

And, I mean, so many, you can write it into, they're all fictional worlds, guys. Like, you can just write in time travel. And so you can just, like, drop in a time stone or whatever and make it work. I don't know. Just, yeah, have Loki moving from. game to game. Don't actually do that, though, because that's just Fortnite. This isn't the Metaverse episode.

No, we don't need Marvel characters any more things. We don't. As fun as that would be. Dr. Strange shows up. Oh, man. Oh, boy. I hate Super Turbo remake pluses now. I'm against them now.

I don't think we should ever do them again. Pull the plug. Pull the plug. Well, as the executives of EA, I think we have decided that Dead Space is going to play with time shenanian. So the elect to the team of motive. We will be calling them up after this episode and telling them exactly what we've decided.

We're giving them their marching letters. Isaac's wife lives. You play as her. It's a real Ghostbusters reboot situation. We're referring here to piss off the fans. It's going to be great. Yes. Yes.

They should call it deader space. All right. Dead space too. Debtor space. Space doesn't get deader than this. Isaac says, he thought it was dead before. And then.

then the sequel whole will be deadly space, deadliest space. Deadliest, there you go. All right, why don't we take a break, and then we will be back with one more thing. I'm Jesse Thorne. This week on Bullseye, David Byrne, on the talking heads, easing back into live performance, and the magic of doo-wop. You don't get it very much, people doing di-da-dip-dib, whoa, whoa, mamma-nam-namamma. You don't get a lot of that.

Listen to Bullseye from Maximumfund.org and NPR. fan, we'd like to get a better idea of who you are and what you care about. So we have a quick favor to ask. If you have a few minutes to spare, please go to maximum fund.org slash ad survey. There, we've got a short anonymous survey that will take about five minutes to fill out. Plus, if you finish it, you'll get a 10% discount on merch at the MaxFund Store. MaxFund shows have always relied on support from our members and always will. This survey will help keep the few ads we do run, interesting and relevant to you. That's maximumfund.org slash ad survey. A-D-S-U-R-V-E-Y, all one word. And thanks for your help. And we are back. Kirk, Maddie,

it is time for the Super Turbo remake plus one more thing. Oh my God, okay. We'll do our best. Maddie, since you are remaking your one more thing once again, why don't you tell us what it is? Welcome to my reimagining of the video game Dark Souls in which I return to the world. of Blight Town. But, okay, seriously, though, I've gotten to Blight Town, and I've returned to the world of Blightown so many times already,

and this is a notorious part of Dark Souls. Wait, so you're just randomly decided to start playing Dark Souls again? Not enough games to play. There's not enough games to play. Every time I'm in between stuff, and I'm like, I don't know what to play. I'll boot up Dark Souls again.

It happens. You know, it happens. Someday I'll beat it. I don't know when. Jason, I just want to say, if you hadn't already rage quit this game during the part with the poison frog guys and you'd made it to Blightown, this would have been the part when you would have Rage Quit. Because it's terrible.

And I don't want to quit playing this game, but I feel like I need a pep talk. I don't know. Let me just explain this part. Kirk is grimacing. Kirk is grimacing like he isn't going to be able to give me the pep talk that I need. And it's upsetting, but I'm going to plunge onward for the people who have never played Dark Souls and have no interest in doing so. I will describe Blightown for these lucky souls.

So Blightown, you descend a ladder, and then you descend another ladder, and then there's a bunch of ogre guys, and there's a bunch of screaming guys that jump at you. It seems hard, but, oh, it's not even that hard, actually, because what's really hard is after you get past those guys, and there's a bunch of blowdark guys that shoot a dart at you, and then you become toxic,

which is similar to becoming poisoned, but it's more annoying. And the meter moves down faster, and it also takes away your health. It doesn't inflict a permanent status on you, Jason. I think there is a version of toxicity that later on that does that I haven't gotten to yet. So I'm sure it's about to get worse. Does it make you go on Twitter and start tweeting game developers saying that it turns you into a toxic fan?

No, it makes me pace around my apartment sadly and be like, do I want to try again? I've died so many times. And I've come so close to seeing something else. And yet, no, I am just becoming toxic, as Brittany Spears would say, every time over and over again. I don't know, guys. That Britney Spears song was about Dark Souls, by the way. It may as well have been. It's, it's, I just, I don't know.

I don't know if I'm ever going to get past it. And I hope that I do and that someday I go back and listen to this moment of darkness in my life. And I think, oh, Maddie, you had no idea. It was going to get easier after that. And you're going to defeat it. I have a suggestion, Maddie. I was a sedition. Why don't you, now that you've had all this time, like getting your feet wet and dark souls,

why don't you finally jump through all of Bloodbourne, like start from the beginning and play through all the thing? Not a bad idea. I could like take a break and just try a different FromSoft game. Yes. And then level up my skills in that. And then go back to Blightown. Bloodborn, I will say, there's some frustrating bosses in Bloodbourne, but there's never a moment where it feels like, oh, man, like I want to reach with this game because it pissed me off so much. I mean, maybe, maybe towards the end, there's some status.

effects that get there, but by that point, you're committed. By that point you're committed, by the time you get to the annoying parts of the Yeah, I hear you. Because, like, I can kind of deal with a boss. I feel like I've had bosses I've been stuck on in Dark Souls and it's, it's fine. I can just slug through that. I'll memorize a combat animation. I'll get it, whatever.

I can always do that. But status effects, they're just a downer, man. It's just a downer because it's like I'm already having a great run and then I just get hit with the wrong thing at the wrong time or like somebody knocks me off the ledge. You're also on a ledge for like most of the beginning of this part anyway. Demon Souls also very playable, by the way. Both of those are good options. Yeah.

My thoughts were just that I got, I stopped not because I was like rage quitting exactly, but I stopped. I'm at Blightown. Like that's where my farthest Dark Souls play through is at. And I just, it's hard to get motivated to get back to it. Like once you lose momentum on one of those games, if you're at a place like that, which is the most unpleasant environment, I always think of Owen Wilson and Armageddon where he's like, oh, so like the scary.

environment imaginable. Like that's what Blightown is. It's the scariest environment and imaginable. Because right, you're getting darted and you're on these narrow catwalks and it's so dark and shitty looking. And I know that like once I get past the catwalks, I'm going to enter a swamp. And like I have the rusted ring. If any listeners are very familiar with Dark Souls and they're concerned about me,

I do have the ring that is going to help me with one of the status effects of walking through the swamp, which is slowing me down. But I'm still going to get like blow darted and stuff. And like, I don't know. going to be fun. You could try Demon Souls or Bloodborn. I would just say neither of them have a level like Blade Town. They both have their challenges, but there's never a point that's just so unpleasant.

Yeah, neither of those games made me want to like that part. Or Soldier Through, I'm sure a bunch of people would recommend that too. I'll just deal with it. I'm listening to a lot of podcasts. It's fine. Yeah, I don't know. I think you will beat it eventually. People have done it so it's possible.

I know. I know. No matter what you picked, you got this. Yeah, if I choose, I've got it. Kirk, what's your one more thing? So my One More Thing is also a re-release. A remake. Another remake. It's actually a cover because it wasn't my One More Thing.

I kind of piggybacked on your One More Thing when you mentioned the White Lotus a couple weeks ago, just to say that I kind of was really bummed out by the ending. I was definitely still processing it because I'd finish it the night before. And I just want to make it my One More Thing to say both that I keep thinking about the show. I've really thought about it a lot since I finished watching it, which is just cool and kind of unusual. It feels like these days there's so much stuff. We just watch one thing and we finish it. We move on to the next thing. And it's really lodged there just because it was so specific. It was so this thing that this one guy wrote and made Mike White, like just

made this show. And it was just very dense and complicated and everything about it made me feel complicated feelings. And I've really come to appreciate that. I think even like the stuff at the end. It has a lot of bummer stuff in it. But when I just think of it, almost like it was a book I read, you know, like it's just a bunch of characters, and they'd made choices, and then it ended. I really have just come to value that and appreciate that show. And I wanted to recommend two things for anybody who watched it, who maybe hasn't listened or read, listened to or read these two things. There's an interview with Mike White at New York Magazine, which is just really good. He just talks about the process of making it, which was very interesting.

he wrote the thing super quick. The whole pitch was like, can you make a show during quarantine? And a lot of the reasons for some of the things in the show, like the reasons that characters will appear and then just vanish is because the actors were gone. Like they had a really small cast and people cycled through, but they were only there to shoot their scenes and leave. And it winds up having, I think, an interesting effect on the show itself, like the way that particularly people who work at the hotel will come into the story and then just vanish really unceremoniously. It winds up feeling like a choice, even though it was just a result of the production. So that interview is very interesting.

He really wrestles with all of the complexity and contradiction of the story. And then also, there's a great podcast, Slate's Working podcast. They interviewed the composer, Christobal Tapia DeVier, who was also the composer on Utopia, the original, I think it was a Channel 4 show in England, and had wild music. And I didn't know this, and then learned it after the fact. And of course, they're really similar. And the music in the show is so amazing. He talks about how he recorded it, like the flutes and stuff.

pitch shifting he did to get those sounds. So those will both be linked in the show notes. And they're really good. But yeah, cool show that I've come to appreciate. And Maddie, I know that you watched it in the interim as well. I did watch it. I watched it in part because of both of you watching it last week and talking about it. And Kirk, you saying that the ending was a bummer sort of helped me because there, as Jason said, it is very enjoyable. There's a lot of dark comedy, which is my vibe. And there's a lot to laugh at in the show. But I was like, okay, it's going to be gearing up for some sort of tragedy at the end, which is the kind of emotional preparation that I need for a show of this kind,

and then also allowed me to appreciate the more hopeful-tinged aspects of the final episode because I wasn't expecting there to be any hopeful aspects. So I will just say to the listener who's thinking maybe they want to watch it, you should. It's weird. It's good. The music is also incredible. It makes it feel like a horror movie the entire time, and it's great. It's really fits. Can I say one thing really quick? This is a fun thing.

A little musical trivia fact is the very first four notes that play. That's the DS Eray. It's a very famous musical motif that it comes from this Gregorian chant. It's a death chant. It's in a million movies. There was an episode of the podcast, 20,000 Hertz, all about D.S. E.R. that had a certain music podcaster as a guest on it to talk about it.

And it's a really interesting thing that once you learn about it, you'll see it everywhere. it's like a musical Wilhelm scream. It's in like so many movies. And it always means death. And that's the very beginning of the theme music is like this death thing, which is pretty cool. Well, and then you see a body. It's the first thing you do. You see the coffin right away.

So that's not a spoiler. Yeah. Okay. So my one more thing is a video game that you guys both have to play. I started this game. It just started it. I've heard nothing but good things. Go on.

I just finished a game called The Forgotten City. And the best we to describe the forgotten city is that it's kind of like all the stuff I love about a Skyrim or a Fallout New Vegas without all the boring stuff. It's a game about exploration and talking to people and solving the problems, but there's no boring, like, monotonous combat

and, like, moving numbers around and shit like that. It's also, it also reminded me a lot of outer worlds in that, or sorry, outer wilds. In that, it's a game that, like, rewards curiosity and exploration. So this is a game. It's set

in an ancient Roman city, and you play as an explorer in modern times who is sent back in time. And it turns out you're caught in this time loop where you keep repeating events. So it's a time loop game, sort of like 12 minutes, which I absolutely destroyed last week because it sucked. This is way better. And the concept is you're in this city. There are 20-something people in it. And they all live by this rule called the Golden Rule, where if one person in the city commits a crime,

of any sort, everybody will be put to death. And what happens is, if you do that and you can trigger this on your own or like someone else can commit a crime, suddenly it'll be a apocalypse in the city and everybody's dying. And that's when you can go back through time and relive the loop. And you learn things over time and you remember, you keep all your memories. So you can remember things and like do repeat dialogue options and be like, I'm living through a time loop and know where things are going to happen. And everybody in the city is on a schedule so, like, you can follow them and, like, see what they're doing. And you have to kind of solve all their problems. Your goal is ostensibly to figure out who in the city is about to break the golden rule so you can stop that from happening.

And then, therefore, cause a time paradox where you will have never been summoned because the loop never will have happened. And so you'll get sent back to your own time. And it's a brilliant game. There's so much in it. It's very dense. It's not long. It took me maybe six hours. hours to get the final ending. They're like four different endings. But it's really smart and well

constructed and just asked a lot of interesting questions. There's a lot of great writing in it. It's it's it's actually started life as a Skyrim mod and then over time became its own game. It feels very Skyrimish as you play. I was surprised by that right how it feels like it feels like it feels like it feels like it feels like yeah, which is why I described it as like a Skyrim or fallout type game except only the parts I really like. It's like the equivalent of like when you get to a town in Skyrim and you get to go around like talking to people and seeing who they are and solving their problems and stuff except you're not sent out on any like boring ass like kill some drogger here in this dungeon um so i really really loved it it's one of my favorite games of the year i got the final

ending really enjoyed it um there's just a lot of creative ways that they play around with like letting you do stuff and you you are led to feel smart in a lot of ways and it's just really good it's just a really good game um the forgotten city i played it on peter you i played it on peter you I think it's on consoles. It's coming to Switch, but it's not on Switch yet. I think it's on PlayStation and Xbox right now. Highly, highly recommend it. Both of you should play it.

Both of them love this game. I've got it. I started it and totally going to play. It is. It is really cool and weird. It explores, it's got a lot of mythology. So if you like, I know you guys both are into mythology, you'll like that, like Greek mythology, Roman mythology, that sort of stuff.

It's got a lot of just like interesting explorations of like Roman history. And you can pick up objects and examine them just for flavor. And it'll tell you interesting things about how, like, the Romans would store, like, fish sauce in these jugs. And, like, you can learn some interesting things. I love some fish sauce facts. I do love trivia. I do love trivia about video. Yeah.

It's a lot of, a lot of good history and archaeology and stuff in there. But the real highlight is the characters. So you get to know all these characters. And a lot of them are really interesting and just have a lot of interesting personalities. And, yeah, highly recommend this game. It's really, really good. Yes, I will definitely play it. All right.

Go play The Forgotten City, and that is it for this week's remake of an episode. A super, Super Turbo Plus remake of an episode. I guess next week we'll have to do the remake of the Hot Topic Remakes episode, and we'll be like, all right, well. And then the gritty reboot. Well, this is a remake of split screen, a Super Turbo Remake Plus. It is. I would say it's a Super Turbo Remake Plus.

But I think anytime we publish an episode and we're all like, that wasn't a great episode. We should just get a chance to remake it. We've never said that. We've never said that. That's true. We always get it. We always like, damn, that was perfect.

Because we always re-recorded in full and then we released that. Exactly. Exactly. All right. Kirk Maddie, see you both next week. Yep. See you next week. Bye.

Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreyer, 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, 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 maximum fun.org and find a link to our

discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximumfun.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Audience. Audience supported.