Triple Click - Triple Click Picks: The Games You Should Play (Vol. 3)

Episode Date: November 3, 2022

It's time for Triple Click Picks! Kirk, Maddy, and Jason go through the podcast's irregularly updated list of games that they love and think everyone should play. Which games will be removed? What will be added? SUSPENSE!!! You'll have to listen to find out (or just read the full list in the episode notes).One More Thing: Kirk: Physical TherapyMaddy: The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia HighsmithJason: Tactics Ogre RebornLinks:Support Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinBuy a Triple Click t-shirt: https://topatoco.com/collections/maximum-fun/products/maxf-tc-tclogo-shJoin the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpodTriple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/Triple Click Picks:Disco ElysiumReturn of the Obra DinnHollow Knight Outer WildsHadesMetroid DreadBreath of the WildDivinity Original Sin IIPersona 5 RoyalElden Ring 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

My toddler says to me, does a train have teeth? No, I say. Then how come it can chew? She says, ha, that's very funny. Chee, chew. She says, no. How come it can chew food? Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week, we are going over our Triple Click picks, our list of the best games, our favorite games, the games you should go play, the games you should tell your friends about. Let's see what we can add. I'm Jason Shrier. I'm Kirk Hamilton. And I'm Maddie Myers. Hello. Hey. It's us again. We are back.

All three of us again. Can you believe it? It's all three of us this week. All three hosts are here. Normally people are worried. They don't hear all three names at first. They just hear one person talking. And they're like, oh my gosh, are the other two hosts going to show up?

But then we all come in and it's just a big relief for everyone. Plus there are the times that Maddie, you and I record. And then Jason just overdubs his parts later, which no one can ever tell because I do a lot of That's why no one ever reacts to me because I'm just, uh, chiming it. It's not that we're just ignoring whatever Jason says. That's not what it is. I've gotten better at just sort of anticipating when you made a joke and just laughing. Right. And laughing in advance.

I think one week we should do, I'm Jason Trier. I'm Kirk Hamilton and then just silence for the rest of the episode. And we just air an hour a lot of music. And then at the very end, I like, I burst open the door and I'm like, ah, Barry Myers. And it's like, it's too late. It's too late. too if you would like to make it so all three of us can continue during the show and we don't have to kick someone out because we ran out of money this is the only thing preventing us from kicking someone

out yes listen closely one of us one of us would be ousted if we didn't if we weren't able to fund the show hey did you know that we are not uh we are not supported by advertisers at all we don't have any ads on this show instead we are entirely made possible by listeners and listeners becoming members of maximum fun, the network that we are hosted on. If you become a member, not only do you get to support the show, which is really cool and good and really just good people just support our show. You also get cool stuff. You get bonus episodes from us. Once a month, we do bonus episodes every single month, including one we just ran a few days ago, where we, the three of us talk about the Mario movie, not the one that's coming out in April. Yeah, we didn't get advanced screeners

for the 2003 Mario animated film. No, we did not. We're talking about the one, of course, the iconic Mario Brothers movie from 1993 starring Dennis Hopper. That was a very fun conversation. I really enjoyed that one. Was that a true chaos mode episode?

Extremely chaos. It's so much fun to just dissect a silly, weird movie. It's like not good, but not like horrible to watch or anything. And I was thinking... It made me want to watch more weird, older movies. Yeah. I was thinking about how it's so much easier to watch a bad movie than to play a bad game.

Oh my God. Yeah. So anyway, point being, check out our bonus episodes. Become a member today. Go to maximum fun.org slash join. You don't only get that. You get like a whole, whole host of dozens of bonus episodes we've run and one new one every month, including a new one this month, which we're not 100% sure yet, and then a new one

in December, just every month. Every time there's a month, you will get a bonus episode. Every time there's a month. And there will be another month. So as long as we keep having months. Yeah. That's how that works. They just keep coming.

It's one after the next. It is daylight savings this weekend. And if they decide to make a month flight savings, then maybe you won't get a bonus episode that month. If that ever happens, yeah. If they ever just decide, hey, we're going to skip February. If they get rid of daylight savings, we will stick with the monthly bonus episode schedule. A lot of people are probably worried about that too. But don't worry about that.

Yes, it's true. Anyway, go to maximum fun.org slash join to help us out, become a member, get some cool stuff along the way. All right. On with the episode. Kirk, what are we talking about today? We're talking about games. And more specifically, we're talking about good games. And even more specifically than that, we're talking about the best games, according to triple click.

So we are going to update our list of triple click picks for the first time in about a year and a half, which is kind of wild that it's been that long. It has been a lot of time. But it's time to update this list. So let me explain what this list is. And then I will tell you all what is currently on the list. And then we will talk about those games. And then we'll talk about what games we think might make it on. So triple-click picks was an idea that we had around the beginning of triple-click when we were sitting around a Google document thinking, what are some things we should talk about on our new games podcast.

And one of them was a sort of living list that we update just every so often, every year, year. and a half, not like constantly updating it just every so often, we return to it. And it's a list of 10 games that we all think are really good and that also sort of give you a good context for us as a... A trio? The things we like. Yeah, the things we like. Because these are all games that I think inform our tastes and that we think a lot of and that we're typically judging other games that we play against. So if you wanted to sort of understand the primordial soup of triple clicks taste. You could play these 10 games and you'd have a pretty good sense of it.

There are also games that have held up really well. I was just thinking about this and I was looking actually at my list of like my favorite games of X year. And sometimes you pick a game that like you're really enamored of the month you play it and for a couple weeks after you play it but then a year goes by and you're like, you know, I don't know.

I don't really have that fun feelings about this. RECency bias basically. Yeah, there's a lot of that. These 10 games and the games we may are may not add to it. We'll see how this goes. But the idea of these 10 games is that they're kind of timeless where you play them.

You can play them at any point and you will love them no matter whether or not they're in the zeitgeist, whether or not you feel like. And then also they're like the type of games that you will probably want to keep replaying because you'll play them and then you'll fall in love with them and you won't ever feel badly about them. You will never have any regrets about loving them. Never. Big talk from Jason.

Well, we've already said this is a regret free. games according to you. So we're really bringing it. These are great. They're the best games, but they are the best games according to us. So here is the current list of triple-click picks as of last April, April 2021. In the first spot, these are, I don't think, in any particular order. They're not.

We have got Disco Elysium and then Return of the Obradin. Number three is Hollow Night. Number four is Outer Wilds. Number five, Hades. Number six, Bloodborne. Number seven, Breath of the Wild, The Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild, to be clear, just in case anyone was confused. Number eight, Divinity Original Sin 2. Number nine, Hitman 3, and that is the most recent Hitman 3, to be clear.

And number 10, the Demon Souls remake. So, 10 very good games that we have debated at least once and made one update, and it's time to make an update to this list again. But for starters, I want to just go through those 10 games and reexamine them because some of these games we haven't talked about in a long time. They're all pretty fun to talk about. And I'm sure we all have, you know, we're different people now than we were a year and a half ago. And we have different thoughts about games. So let's start with Disco Elysium. Maddie, why don't you make the case for Disco Elysium?

Why is Disco Elysium on this list? I really still love Disco Elysium a lot. I think Disco Elysium does a lot of things well that, are beyond compared to me. I'm going ahead and presenting this as though it's an opening statement in a court case or something. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. We all know Harry. We all know Kim.

We all love the interplay between those two main characters in the game. Kim, truly one of the funniest secondary characters ever in terms of just deadpan humor and reacting to the absurdity of being around a video game protagonist at all times. and then the protagonist. Do you want to zoom out and tell people what this game is? Yeah, so this is a mystery game. We've actually got a few mystery games on here. But this is a mystery game.

You wake up with amnesia because you have a hangover and you are Harry. Harrier Dubois, Harris. I can't remember your full name, but it's Harry. And you are a cop in a slightly similar to our world, but not quite our world. It's sort of a science fiction alternate reality where most of the world has been taken over by this strange mist and you have this weird history that you're learning about, but mostly you are solving a murder and collecting clues around this town. I can't remember the name of the town. It's been too long. And you can decide what kind of cop you want to be, what kind of a detective you want to be. And you can, a lot of that revolves around what, personal politics you have, which this is probably the only game that portrays you as a cop as being mostly about your personal politics, which I've always thought was incredibly cool. Most of the time when you're a cop, they just sort of take it as a given that you like being a

cop. But this game supposes that maybe you don't. And you can play that way or you can play according to really liking the system and wanting to uphold it. And then characters will react to you accordingly. There are tons of different ways dialogue can go. Kim is another cop who reacts to you. It's a role playing game. It's presented like kind of an old school, isometric role playing game, except there's no combat to it. So it's all dialogue and problem solving and picking up objects and stuff. And then there's a bunch of dice rolls that determine like the outcomes of stuff. Yeah. Which is really cool. So it feels like a playable D&D campaign essentially minus the combat. Right. And almost everything you can eventually

push your way through, even if you don't have the right skills for a given interaction. You can generally just brute force your way through something or save scum your way through something if you're really close on skills. So you can pretty much always see the next piece of a story. It just might not play out the way you wanted to if you are role playing as a version of Harry who the character doesn't like who you may be talking to or who just isn't capable of getting the answers he wants. But no matter what, there is an ending, there's a way to figure out the mystery or not. And I just think the way

that it portrays people and the way that it explains its weird world is still so freaking cool. It's hard to think of games that are anything like it. There's a couple that we can get to when we get to the new games portion of this list.

But yeah, it's a really textured game that has a lot to say and manages to say it without feeling preachy, which I think is really hard, especially for a game with as much text as Disco Elysium has. Yeah, I think Textured is a good way to put it. It's such a rich game.

I mean, there really is still no other game like this. It'll be a very hard task for any game to unseat Disco Elysium just because as much as I've played other games, they're inspired by it. This game, just between what it's doing with the protagonist, which one of the mysteries of this game is, who am I? Because, like you said, the role-playing systems occur internally. So so much of the game is these conversations between your limbic's and your subconscious or whatever, where one is going to emerge victorious.

You have to get into an argument with your impulse control over whether or not you're going to blurt out something to somebody and offend them. And so there's so much stuff like that that you're not totally in control of. It's given me, it gave me a new perspective on role playing. And actually, I played this game before I started playing D&D with a group of friends. And I'd love to play it again. I'd actually love to play it with my dungeon master, my game master, and talk to him about it because the way that they've managed to do so much of this complicated stuff, but systematize

it is really cool. And then, yeah, the world is amazing. I mean, it does, it is like an overtly political game in that the politics of the world are a really important part of it, but it doesn't feel like it is saying any one thing. It's saying so many things. It's such a rich and interesting and nuanced experience. It's really not like anything else. Man, discolysm is good. Discolysm sure is good. Yeah, let's keep moving. Let's keep moving. We got a lot of games. We still think it's good.

We can just ran about how good disco-leasy miss. Okay, Jason, return of the obradin. Yeah, I love this game. This game is like a giant logic puzzle, which I just love to death. Short premise is that you play as a claims adjuster, as one does. You know, sure. Gripping narrative set up. You're on the ship in the 1800s and you're trying to figure out what happened to all the people on board.

So you go around and you find a bunch of dead bodies and you have to use your kind of spiritual, magical device to go back in time and see a flashback of a moment just before they died. And by doing this with a series of different bodies, you can eventually piece together not only what happened to each person, but also the grander narrative of this ship and what happened to it and why it has been just like abandoned at sea. That way you can properly adjust the claims for the insurance on this ship. And it's just super cool. You're just, you're given this basic tool and a notebook and told to go figure out what happened. And it's brilliant. Just having to use actual deduction skills and intuition and logic and just like actually do detective work.

It's one of the first and one of the only games that really, really just like makes you feel like a detective and makes you feel super smart when you play it, which is always a fun experience. I remember just marathoning and threw it on a Saturday. And it was just a blast to just figure out everything that. that happened to the Oberdin and all of its sailors and crewmen and passengers. I feel like every so often I'll just see somebody saying some variation of, I wish that I could have this game wiped from my mind so I could play it again. It was when Lucas Pope was recommending the case of the Golden Idol, his Twitter replies. There's at least one person saying, man, I wish I could just forget your game

so that I could play it again, which is a pretty high praise. Yeah, I've been thinking about trying to play it again just because, like, it's been O'I. Holland, so maybe my brain doesn't work anymore. Yeah, so maybe you don't remember it. Exactly. Exactly.

This is one where people have criticized some aspects of it, though. For example, the way that you can brute for some of the puzzles. And I don't mean it in the way that I did with disco Elysium. I more mean that you can, and in some cases have to guess

based on kind of nothing, who you think maybe did it. And then from there proceed, and I certainly know there are some people who just didn't like that. I didn't mind it in playing, but it is a pretty common... I don't think that's a flaw necessarily. Criticism. It's just that not every single clue can be worked out from what you have,

and you do have to make some educated guesses or just not even that educated guesses. Right. Well, educated. I think one of the keys is that every single guest is at least somewhat educated. And in fact, the game tells you at the beginning, like you might have to make some guesses. That's totally fine. That's part of the game, because part of the game, because part of the game, being an investigator, part of, like, doing actual, like, detective work is making some educated guesses and, like, seeing if the puzzle pieces fit properly.

I do think, yeah, that this is one that reflects something that the three of us all really enjoy, which is a game that's extremely opaque and requires this kind of work, but it is not necessarily a game for everyone. And it's a thing, you know, we recently did an episode about Lucas Pope's first, I guess, first solo game, Papers Please. And it is, there's the similarity between these two games, as different as they are, is that they both make you do a job and you just do the job. And that's the game is doing the job. In this case, the job is being a detective, which is a pretty fun job, maybe a more fun job than, you know,

being a border inspector. Why far. But they both, that's really the appeal of the game and that's not for everyone. So this is definitely a kind of particular pick. And I do think that's a good comparison because I think somebody who liked Papers Please and didn't like Oprah Dinn is perhaps a person who likes that in papers please, the only question of whether you're doing the wrong thing is a moral question and an emotional question and those kinds of changes to your behavior impact how the game proceeds. But it's always clear to you, this person's passport is correct or it's not. That part is never in doubt. Whereas in return of the Aberdeen, there might be stretches of time where a lot is in doubt from a technical logic perspective and you're really just guessing for a while until you're like,

okay, I think I got it and I've now found something new that's telling me I'm on solid ground again which is a brain space that not everybody is that comfortable being in. Yeah, and they are very different in terms of their moral universes. I mean, just because Papers Please is

happening in real time and you're a part of this system so you're making these moral calls in that game where in return of the over dead it's much neater. You're there after the fact everyone's gone from the ship and you're pretty much dead. And you can take a sense. much time as you want. There's no ticking clock or like assassins coming to the booth trying to murder you and your colleagues.

Much less stressful game as well. So yeah, a good game of singular game, I would say. Another one like Disco Elysium. There's nothing really like it. Though there are some new games that are a little like it. All right, let's keep going. I'll do Hollow Night and I'll just go really quick. We've talked about it before. This is one of my favorite games of all time personally. And Jason, I know that you especially really love it as well. It is a side scrolling. Metroid-like, Souls-like, influenced by both the Souls games and Metroid games, in that it is very difficult. You lose progress if you die. It's a very mysterious world that you slowly uncover through hidden clues. And over the course of the game, you learn this grand story of a fallen kingdom, all very Soulsy. The actual combat and mobility feature, and it feels a little bit like Metroid, but actually a little more like, I don't know what, duct tails.

It doesn't feel like anything because it feels like better. It feels like better than any game ever. Yeah, like it's the best. That's the thing. It feels the best. It does. Well, it's hard to make a comparison because it just like outclasses all of its competitors,

and that's what makes it special. Yeah, I would say, so as a 2D platformer, this is a very difficult game that's equal parts platforming in combat, a lot of melee combat, a lot of, like, very difficult moves. I was pulling off stuff in this game by the end that I can't believe I was doing because I'm not usually one for this kind of difficult game, but I got pretty good at this one. And yeah, I mean, it is, I would say, yeah, it's up there for me just in terms of game feel and controls.

I mean, there's nothing else I can think of that I like to play as much. I've played through it so many times, like three times or something. And I love it. And I also love the story in the world building. I just think it's one of those almost impossible games, considering that it was made by, you know, a very small team fronted by just two guys who are currently working on a sequel. And I love it. I think it's a little miracle and a really just a game. that I always come back to and always play

and think it's very, very good. Yeah, I think we should knock it off just because Silk Song isn't out yet. That's punished. That'll teach him. Yeah. But no, it's hard to imagine this game getting knocked off, just like the next one.

Also hard to imagine. Yeah, Maddie, Outer Wilds, you take this one. Oh, boy. Have you all noticed these games are really good and that like every single one of these games is great? It's like we pick the games we like the most. We talk about all of these games freaking constantly. Here's another one you've heard.

before it's called Outer Wilds. What do we like about this one? Well, the environmental storytelling. And get this, you don't have any weapons. There's no combat. You just go around this world. So you play as an alien creature. You're on a different star system from our own. And you are an explorer, much like the rest of your kind. You get to go on a spaceship and explore the stars. Is your coming of age story? And this is just something that everybody in your culture does, which is cute in and of itself. You meet a bunch of other cute friendly aliens along the way. And you explore various planets in your relatively small solar system.

They're all within reach of you. And then you discover a story about a different ancient alien sect called the Moni that were really intelligent and cool. No my. No my. I can't remember. Whatever. It's fine. I can't believe I do remember, but I do.

And mainly what's cool about this one is just an environmental thing. It's just all you exploring and discovering stuff on your own and you can do it in whatever order and it'll still hang together in the end. You're sort of solving a mystery in a puzzle and clearly we like that sort of thing here because a lot of these are about solving a mystery or looking around a place and collecting clues and figuring out what really happened. And Outer Wilds is one of the greatest to ever do it, truly. It's incredible. And the music. Yeah, the music is amazing. It's aesthetically really wonderful.

And I'll say that since I think since we talked about this last, the Echoes of the Eye expansion, the DLC came out, which just makes the game better to me. It fits a little awkwardly into the overall game. I think if you were playing from the start, it's a little tricky. I don't actually know what my advice would be. I know there is advice out there for which order to do things in. But Echoes of the Eye is amazing just on its own as an experience and is just a totally worthy thing to do along with Outer Wiles. And now it's part of the game. So it's even better now than it was when we first put it on this list.

Another game that I would just love to erase, erase the old memory banks and just like it again. One of the problems of these games actually, you know, I said replayable before, but some of these are actually not very replayable. But yeah. Holognites. Yeah, Disco Elysium. You can see things in different ways, although it's not quite as replayable as some of the others. But you know what is replayable is game number five, Hades, which is meant to be replayable. it's a roguelite set in Greek hell.

And you play as the sun of Hades and you are trying to escape hell and you go through this kind of series of randomly generated levels along the way. This is a game that I think is just like, and sort of like Hollow Night. It's just brilliant because of how it feels to play. And it's just so perfectly crafted, meticulously crafted. you just get access to a bunch of different weapons and they all feel really good and you always want to keep experimenting with them. And then it has this brilliant system where you're just like constantly finding these new power-ups, but you're making decisions about how to build your character along the way. In some really smart ways you pick, you decide which gods boon you want as you go.

Different gods give you different types of powers. You can create different types of builds because some of them work really well. conjunction with one another. It's just a super fun, super well-crafted game with a really good story and a bunch of just like hot, greed characters who people fall in love with along the way. Yeah, it's one of those games that I also feel as unmatched when it comes to interweaving a story with a system that is really combat heavy. There are other games that have tried to do it. Neon White is a recent example. It's really hard is mainly what I've learned from this. Hades makes it look easy, and it's actually super not. Yeah, I would say that that is another similarity this game

has with Hollow Night. They tell their stories very differently, but both games are games that I find very appealing on a moment-to-moment level because of how they feel to play, but that both tell a really amazing story in a really amazing way, and also that both tie the whole thing up in an aesthetic package of art and music that I just love. I mean, the music for Hades, just like Hollow Night. All of these games have great music, but especially those two, where you're just, it's so pleasurable to play the game. The music is great. The art is beautiful. It feels so good. And then the story you're being told is so wonderful as well that, yeah, they kind of feel similar in a certain way. So that brings us to the next game on the list is this is Bloodbourne, a 2015 PlayStation

4 game, another Soulslike from From Software. This is when it became known as the Soulsborn series. So I don't know if I see that as much anymore because it's kind of an older game now. Do we call it a Soulslike if it's a From Soft game? But I mean, I guess this is a game that doesn't have Souls in the title and makes people ask that question. Yeah, I think people still say that one, now there's Eldon Ring, which will talk about in the but that doesn't have Souls or Born in the title. What do we do? Eldon Soulsborn.

Right. Souls ring born. It's right, ring souls. Anyways, this is another one of those, though notably different in some ways. This was also the game that got me into these games. I had kind of bounced off Dark Souls and Demon Souls and then finally played this one. and it clicked and I got really, really into it. Then I won a bet with Jason way back in the day

and made him play it. And he played all the way through it. Our first video game bet for the pod. Yeah, I think that was the first one. The first and only one that I'll ever win. So it's a great game. I mean, it still holds up and in some ways is still my favorite of all of them.

Eldon Ring is such a triumph in so many ways. It certainly likely deserves a spot on this list among all of the games that we're considering. But Bloodborn still has something special, even though Eldon Ring improves on it in so many ways. And since this game, of course, Sekiro and Dark Souls 3, there have been a lot of Frum games that have improved on a lot of things. Bloodborn just still has that world.

It still has the story of the city of Yarnum and this kind of lovecraftian cosmic horror element that it turns up in all of their game, in all of the Frum games, there's some element of something from outer space. It happens in Eldon Ring too. But there's just something about the world of Yarnum, the city that you're going through.

It's this mix of gothic horror and weird cosmic horror that unravels into this nightmare over the course of the game. It's still just like nothing else. And it'll always have a special place in my heart. And I do think everyone should play it. Though maybe it's a little bit of a precarious place just because of how old it is and how long it's been since it's been updated. But I guess we'll get into that.

I love Blubborn. I think it's an amazing game. Replaying it today is really hard. Because the frame rate is really rough. It looks kind of janky in places. It feels pretty janky. Especially if you're used to playing, like if you have a new console or a good PC

and you're used to playing games at like a stable, nice 60 or even 30 frames a second, and you jump into this game and it's like chica, chicaa, chicaa. It's like really tough. And Eldon Ring also made that even more difficult. That said, like if there was like a 60 FPS version on PC or PS5 or something, then this will be a very different conversation. But because of that and because it's got a lot of technical flaws,

I think there's an argument to be made that maybe it should be replaced by one of its successors. But we can get to that a little bit later. I just wanted to bring up that point while we're going through these games. Yeah, let's keep going. Maddie you've got number seven. So this is Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. Another great one, although also one that has me thinking in the back of my head about Eldon Ring and also the fact that we're about to have,

yet another Breath of the Wild game. It's not to say that its place is shaky yet. It is perhaps the most famous Zelda game in our current era with good reason. I would say it is a Zelda game that introduces the open world concept of Zelda and also has breakable weapons. It's like, what if Link were in Skyrim, but it was all gorgeous cell shaded. Is it cell shaded? It looks kind of like a picture book.

I don't know. I never know how to describe these. these things, but it has a really particular look. Yeah, it looks like Zelda, but you know how every Zelda looks a little different? Like everyone has a slightly different picture book illustrator on it. And it's also in a Zelda game that has a really cool portrayal of Zelda. You know, she almost never gets anything to do in these games, but I really liked her in this one. Beautiful weird music.

I don't know. Beautiful music. It's got some parts that are really freaking hard, but in a satisfying way. Yeah. Yeah, it's great. It's a really good Zelda game. And for many people, it's the only one they've played because they bought a switch during the pandemic. And who could blame them?

It's a great one. Another game that suffers from technical problems, not only the frame rate issues, but also you can't even remap buttons. I'm not saying that that necessarily makes this precarious the way I'm saying with Bloodbore, but it's worth noting. Otherwise, a perfect video game, if not for some technical problems. It's so funny. Because I feel like I know and I want to acknowledge the listeners out there who don't like this game because there is actually a vocal group of people who aren't irrational. They just have actual complaints about this game, about the dungeons in particular, the open world isn't their thing.

And we often talk about it in glowing terms and Jason will say things like, it's a perfect video game. And I feel them out there as their fists slightly tighten around their chosen podcast device. Because they prefer Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask, et cetera. Maybe. if the game is knocked off the list. Maybe they will be. All right, let's keep going, Jason. How about you get number one?

Yeah, Divinity Original Sin 2, just a fantastic RPG in the style of Baldur's Gate, another Infinity Engine games of the 90s. This game takes that even further, those ideas even further, by making everything systemic, everybody killable, just everything really just come together in all sorts of of cool ways. And yeah, I think it's brilliant. I would have thought by now Baldur's Gate 3 would have come out to replace it, but that game is still in early access.

so I don't think it counts for the purposes of this list. I just love this game. I love everything about it. I love the characters. I love the writing. I love the systems, the combat. If there's a flaw,

it's that maybe there are too many battles that can feel a little filler-ish. But even then, like, there are no random encounters, so every battle feels like it matters. I wouldn't ever describe them as filler. I can't really think of, yeah, I can't really think of much wrong with this game,

except for the fact that they released like a better version, a year later, like a director's cut version and Kirk had to redo his whole save file to... That doesn't count as a flaw. No, of course not. I've been playing it on Steam Deck this year this year has really been Divinity Original Sin 2

and Persona 5 Royal or like the two games I've probably played the most this year just because they're so easy to just play on Steam Deck. But yeah, this game is amazing. One of those games is not on this list right now, but it might be... It's true. We could talk about it. But yeah, I agree and I think... I don't know, I think that Baldur's Gate 3

is going to have a real fight on its hands to outdo this game. I mean, having recently been playing it, the world, the story, the whole vibe of this kind of bent fairy tale thing, there's a cheekiness and a humor to it. It's really a wonderful game. I mean, anyone who likes this kind of thing should, would probably love it. And it's a great tactical combat game as well. Like that's the only one on this list that isn't, you know, like an XCOM or a fire emblem, a sort of turn-based, party-based combat game, which I I love those kinds of games, and we talk about a lot of them, but this is the one on the list that has that kind of gameplay, and it's really well done, even though it is pretty complicated. Like, you have to get your head around a lot of stuff and a lot of inventory, a lot of management and nonsense.

Anyways, okay, a couple more, and then we'll get into the new additions. Hitman 3, the best hitman game, kind of a hitman game that contains the first two Hitman games. This is of the recent trilogy by I.O. Interactive. I love this game. This is really the only stealth game on this list. The only game that is a kind of poke and prod and see what you want to make happen to this system as, you know, these interlocking clockwork systems all bounce around off of one another. And you get to walk around the outside, preferably dressed up as a giant hot dog and, you know, poke and prod at it. Throwing briefcases at people's heads, et cetera.

Knocking people out with a banana. And it's a wonderful game. It's hilarious. It is thrilling at times. It's very satisfying. It's really replayable. I mean, I haven't played this game nearly enough. Yeah, there are so many cool challenges and unique kind of one-off things that they've designed into these levels.

And then, of course, it's a little unfair because it contains, if you want, if you own them, I guess, all of the levels from the previous two games. So this is an insane amount of stuff. So it's a really great game. It's still a game that I would easily recommend to anybody. And I think it has a distinct spot on this list because it isn't really anything like any of the other games here because it's a stealth game. And it's also one of the only kind of sim-based games, for lack of a better way to put it. Right. Right. That's true. There aren't a lot of immersive sins. Like divinity original sin, too, is kind of one, but it's so, it's is asymmetric.

It's so different in some ways. And I guess Breath of the Wild is simy. So one marking answer, at least for me personally, is that even though the individual levels are super fun and there's a lot you can do at them, I've found that once I did one big stage and once I played the hell out of it, I didn't have any desire to keep. knowing because there's no like ongoing narrative a lot of good self games have like ongoing stories that keep your propelled through the through every stage with hitman through it's kind of like the the story is whatever like you barely pay attention to it and so once you've done one level for me like in hitman three it was the big manner level which i did a bunch of times and had a lot of fun with i was kind of like do i really need to see more of this it's just kind of more of the same so not saying that that makes it any less of a special game but that does feel like i'm marked against it at least in

my book. Yeah, I get that. It's tricky because it's the thing that makes it so modular and replayable is also the thing that makes it feel a little less compelling, is that the story is kind of whatever, and you don't really have a big sense of stakes or characters, because 47 is just this anonymous bald guy who kills people, and that makes the game moment to moment very, very fun, but there is a kind of, if you want, that bigger narrative context that's missing. Okay, so last one is Demon Souls remake we added this last time. I guess Maddie, you can start us off, but this one's pretty straight forward. Sure, this is the PlayStation 5 remake of Demon Souls.

I think when we added this, it was back when it almost no one had access to this game. So it was kind of an unusual pick for us. Yeah. But, I mean, it's a remake of a classic game and we love from Soft Games here. And I think we all felt, including me, like it sort of represented the soul, legacy in a certain way because it's like a great version of demon souls which is preceding dark souls one through three and preceding elden ring and bloodborne etc. Sekiro and it it kind of takes you back to where it all began and it's got all that same good shit in it. I mean that was kind of our thinking clearly I don't think it's weak because I don't sound like it looks amazing it feels amazing. I mean I

think a lot of our rationale is that it's just like a fantastic game. not just that it was the representative of the soul series. It's a good starting point too because it's not quite as hard as some of the later ones. Yeah, and the bosses are kind of gimmicky for the most part. You can beat them pretty easily. They're like more fun and not. There's not as many brickball bosses in it, which I think is. Not quite as nails tough as one way.

And then we wouldn't have to argue about which dark souls game to put on. You just kind of get around it. But yes, it's definitely vulnerable. And if we were arguing for, say, Eldon Ring, you could definitely make a case that it could replace the soul. Interesting. Interesting. Interesting. So let's get into that.

All right. So how should we do this? Do you want to just go through all of our suggestions? Well, Kirk, why don't you read them all? And then we can each make the case if we want to make the case for something. We can each do that. Okay. Okay, cool.

So the suggestions that we came up with based on the last year and a half or so of playing our Eldon Ring, which we've mentioned. Metroid Dread, fantastic game. The case of the Golden Idol, a recent one that I haven't even finished, but we wanted to put it down here. Probably too soon. Probably too soon. As fantastic as it is. Inscription. another very cool game that at least I just really think is neat.

Horizon Forbidden West, which came out this year and I really loved, maybe a little more than the two of you, but I thought was great. Citizen Sleeper, fantastic narrative game that we did an episode on earlier this year. Persona 5 Royal, a game that just feels like it should be mentioned at least because I played 7,000 hours of it and I'm still playing it. Yeah, why didn't we put it on this list in the first place? I think it almost made it on. I think it was in contention extensively.

I think I would argue, actually, no, I'll hold it. it. Let's let me finish. We're almost there. The Forgotten City, which is another time loop narrative game a little bit like Outer Wilds that I didn't really get to play that much of, but I know Jason loves. Overboard of wonderful narrative game. Another sort of looping narrative mystery. Very cool. Wildermith, a groundbreaking and very interesting RPG that is maybe a little bit more of the promise of its systems than the actual the end result, but a really cool game that's worth mentioning and chicory a colorful tale which is a beautiful, really

interesting and cool sort of Zelda-like top-down indie action RPG I guess you'd call it with a narrative puzzle action RPG it's a Zelda like so it's got all it's got all free Let me get a thought out before I forget it Persona 5 Royal I want to make the case for this

I think because it's now on Steam and Switch and Xbox and it's way more accessible to just about everyone I'm nodding I'm agreeing I'm a seconding all of this. I think now it should be on the list. And yeah, I mean, I just don't see a reason why it shouldn't be.

It's fantastic. It's amazing. My other argument, it's a JRP. And I don't want to put SpeedCode in two or Final Fantasy 6 on this list. However, it seems like we should have one. It seems like we should have one because we talk about JRP's, especially a turn-based JRPG a lot. So why not put on one of the only ones that even I like?

You know? That seems fair. So the question is, What is vulnerable here? My proposal is Persona 5 Royal replaces Demon Souls remake. That's my proposal. What do you guys think?

Let's decide what we want to keep. We kind of want to get on there because we might have to, maybe all the games we want to put on don't make it because we can't come up with a cut. But I think you're heading in the right direction. Here's an easy one though. Eldon Ring. Yeah, I agree. Need I go on?

No, you need. Let's just keep going. Elvin Ring definitely should be on the list. Come on, like, it's an incredible game, and we all loved it. Yeah, people have heard us rave about this game all years. And Will, again, when we talk about games of the year, so no more needed. Let's talk about Metroid Dread, because that's an interesting one. It's a fantastic game, and Maddie, I would assume you would probably have an argument.

I would like to have this on the list. I think I originally suggested Super Metroid for this list in the pre-Metroid Dread days. Metroid Dread in many ways is taking all the concepts that we're in Super Metroid, which is one trillion years old, and many people don't really enjoy playing it anymore. People who are wrong, I might add, but that's not who I'm arguing with today. Metrooddred even, it has an easy mode now. I've not played it, but it has a mode for people who didn't like how annoying the bosses are. I personally love every single one of those bosses and how challenging they were,

but I respect that not everybody likes having to learn a series of dance moves that Samus needs to do in order to fire missiles at the right time. And just, I don't know, I freaking loved this game. And you two liked it too. So hopefully you're at least a little bit interested in potentially putting it on. But I am very nice. I love the minute of it. I'm all for putting it.

I thought it was incredible as well. I loved it. And I think, like, so there's kind of one Metroid-alike game on the list already, which is Holo Night. Which is Holo Night. But I would argue they should both be on there because Hollow Night is a pretty different game. And doesn't actually have that much. in common with how it feels to play a Metroid, whereas to me, a Metroid dread feels like the Er Metroid.

Like, it's like as good as you want Super Metroid to feel, you know? Like, it really capitalizes on all those feelings. I think, yeah. And if I were to recommend someone to play a Metroid game specifically, it would be this one. Like, this game is the best metric game, I would say. Even over Metroid Prime, I would argue, I think it has so many good. It's very playable. It's really fun.

It introduces you to Samus's story and advances it at the same time, which is like, amazing. We love to see it. And it's a pace thing for me. It's the pace of Hollow Night is so completely different from Metroid Dredd. Metroid Dredd hits the ground at a sprint and just does not let up for the whole time. I was a breathless experience playing it. I thought it was incredible. So we're all

sold on that. I totally am sold. I think we can probably find a spot. All right. I'm going to make another, I'm going to make another pitch to you guys. Overboard. I think overboard is a brilliant game. I think it's unlike it's unlike anything else I've played. So Overboard is a game where you are

this woman on a cruise liner in the 50s and you've just killed your husband and you have to figure out how to get away with it. So you have to frame people. You have to like seduce people. You have to and you have this time limit of when you're getting to shore. And if you don't successfully like get rid of all the evidence and like prove your innocence by the time you get to shore, you will be arrested. I love the game. And it even has like a weird supernatural twist. Like there's so many endings you can play. It's so replayable. It's not like, this big epic experience that only will take you like five or six hours to be. But you know what? I think we need a game on here that only takes five or six hours to be because we don't have one. So here's the thing. Okay, I like this argument. And I do like the idea of getting a shorter game and a game that's a little bit different onto this list. I'll get into my, I actually kind of have a proposal for that.

I like that. And I'm kind of with you. Maddie, did you play off reward or are you skipped? I did. I did. I liked it. I don't think Kirk or I liked it as much as you did. but I totally agree that it's doing something different,

and that's part of what I like about our list, is trying to have not just games of different lengths, but also just games that do something that no other game does, so they're good points of comparison. But it's also a game that all of our mothers could play, like anyone can play, which I think is, deserves, deserves. It's a very accessible game. True, true.

But in terms of games that are short and have a really great story, citizen sleeper was going to be the one that I put forward because it's also six hours. Okay, maybe my mom and dad couldn't necessarily understand it. It's a little too hard with the dice rolls. But I really liked it. This one is tough, though, because in terms of games that work this way, I still feel like Disco Elysium is stronger. But Citizen Sleeper is so great at what it's doing.

And it's set in a totally different world. And you're like a weird cyborg. being and just that concept and the way that they explain that. You're on a space station and you're learning about the world as you go in the same way that Harry does in disco. But it's just, I don't know, I really liked all the characters, the writing was great, learning about the world was really cool. It really, really worked for me.

And it was probably the closest thing to Disco Elysium in recent memory that I've played. I agree with all of that. Both with the strengths of the game, I think it's a really wonderful game and also with the fact that it's just, it is very similar to disco elysium, but it doesn't quite have disco elysiums just unbelievable richness

and breadth, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, right, because it makes it shorter, but at the same time, I don't know, as special and interesting as it is. The case against citizen sleeper, just real quick, the case against citizen sleeper is there can be a lot of monotony. I mentioned this when we did our triple play. I got stuck in this loop where I

had to get out of poverty. Right. Yeah. a long time and it's kind of a brilliant satire of capitalism but as a game experience it was not super enjoyable and i would have stopped playing if i didn't have to play it for this podcast i had a similar issue with overboard where i got stuck and kept seeing very similar dialogue over and over and felt like replaying it a lot wasn't as fun as i wanted it to be it's i mean it's tough we're we're trying to pick the best games here so it's like we're we're kind of being nitpicky i would recognize I think that's a very good point too. I think that's a very good point too. I think that's a case against it.

And we're also trying to pick the games that we like the most because we're not going by some objective standard. And I think that just in that case, it's not like it has to be we swap out the narrative games that use dice rolls to tell a story. But if we are kind of comparing those two games, they're similar enough. And I think that just across the three of us that disco Elysium still does have an edge of her Citizen Sleeper is fantastic as citizen sleeper was. So I'm kind of looking at this. We have four games that I think have a shot. I don't think, like you said, with Case of the Golden Idol, it's too soon. Inscription, I think, is good, but a little too weird.

Maybe. I think I maybe liked it a little more. The first part of inscription is its strongest part. Yeah, after the first part, it can't go. Okay, that's fine. That's fine. Horizon for Reden West, again, I think that's one that I really liked, but that the two of you were a little cooler on.

Yeah. And it doesn't need to be on this list. the forgotten city, cool game, but I don't know. Like, I think just... Well, you two would have had to beat it to really understand it. Yeah, it might be that we'll come back to it. I still own it. I'd still like to play it.

I do still have it installed and want to play it. Yeah, I mean, Maddie, you should. It's still a video game that's out there, folks. I agree with your comment about Wildermith as well, Kirk. Like, it's a really cool concept, but in practice, I saw the cracks in ways that started to grade on me. and I think I'm the only one who's really played Chiquary. I really loved it, but I get that it's harder to make a case for games that only one of us has played.

Right, and I liked it, but I guess it apparently didn't grab me enough to finish it, even though I should probably finish it one day, because I did really like what I played. But we can, I guess, come back to that. So even if we just leave those aside and look at the four games we have, we have four games, Persona 5 Royal, Eldon Ring, Metroid, Dread, and overboard, and then we only have three spots. Although Maddie just pointed out that Overboard, Maddie had a case against Overboard, so I don't want to necessarily make it a lock. Well, the thing I was thinking with Overboard, I think the three most vulnerable games based on that conversation are Bloodbourne Hitman 3 and Demon Souls remake.

And I only pick Bloodbourne and Demon Souls remake because I think Eldon Ring is a lock. And so I'm kind of thinking of it in terms of we're going to have swap one Souls game in for another. And I say Hitman 3 just because Jason, you kind of gave an argument against it. And also, the thing is, like, overboard is the opposite of Hitman. It's you have already done the murder and you must get away with it rather than you must figure out how to do the murder. Yeah. And I would enjoy the symmetry of swapping those two for one another, if only because Overboard is very different from Hitman. But I love Hitman.

I mean, I probably prefer Hitman to Overboard. If we put in Overboard, then we have two games about being on a boat. So that we got to consider that. Interesting. Okay. So it's tricky because if we take Hitman off, you know, we're losing a game. There isn't really another game like it on this list.

But also, you know, I know that I like that game more than the two of you. And then that leaves us, I mean, that would leave us with Metroid, Dred, Eldon Ring, and Persona 5 Royal. Leaving aside, leaving, I guess, leaving overboard off. I don't know, what are the two things? Well, unless we

pick another game to get rid of. What else is vulnerable? It's hard to argue. Yeah. Yeah, it's tough. I know. And Hades is, it's, is still pretty strong breath of the wild.

It's hard to argue against that. I mean, I haven't played divinity original sin too, so I'm just going to come out and say, what if it sucks? I haven't played it. You should play it. You should really play all the trip. I know.

Whenever we talk about it, I'm like, this is the only game on the list I haven't played. Yeah, what am I doing? It's like one of the best video games I've ever played in my life.

I love it. I feel like you would really enjoy it. Guys, I'm really busy with Assassin's Creed Origins right now, and that's not a joke. Anyway. I'm a lot of, also like what about some of the older games like is it time to phase out the oprah dins and outer wilds of the world that feels sacrilegious to say on this show but i've considered it like opradin

some people get kind of motion sick the the visuals of it is really are really interesting not everybody clicks with the visuals of obradin you know like something like persona five royal is easier to get into if you just want to play a cool story but also it's a completely different game i realize that's apples and origins. I've just, I've just throwing out crazy ideas here. Outer Wilde just got an expansion, so we can't really be counted as an old game, I would say. Obrid Din, I think an elegant replacement for that one day might be case of the Golden Idol, but we'll see how it ages. Let's see what we all think about it when we've all had a chance to finish it. I know. I'm just trying to kind of keep Hitman 3, but maybe it's a lost cause. Maybe we replace Persona 5 Royal there.

There's nothing like Persona 5 Royal on the list. So, like, we're replacing one unique game with another unique game. Also, I would argue that, like, we don't necessarily need that. Like, it doesn't need to be a different one entry from each genre or something. Well, I know. But it's fun to think about it that way and be like, well, Kirk's really into Hitman 3, but now all he's doing is playing Persona 5 Royal. Let's do this one at a time, right?

Like, I think it's very easy to make Eldon Ring swap for Demon Souls remake, right? Like, that was probably... You're saying let's, but Kirk is just silently putting in the news. In the Google, like Kirk is just messing around. He's just trying to see, I remember he would do this, he would do this with games of the year.

He was like, I just want to see what different lists look like and visualize it that way. And then he'll put it in like character order. So it's like the shortest level is shortest. Anyway, just thinking this through, Eldon Ring for Demon Soul,

I think is a pretty obvious and easy swap. Right? Let's do this one game at a time. Kirk you can really confuse me by changing the Google Docs. Here's what Kirk has replaced Bloodbourne with Metroid Dread, which also feels logical because they're both kind of scary. I like how I started that sentence and didn't know how it was going to end and I tried to make it work.

It doesn't need to be that they have things. Okay, let's just talk this through, right? Okay, Eldon Rang for Demon Souls. Metroid Dred for Bloodborn, Persona 5 Royal for Hitman 3. I think those are good swaps And then the question is, is there room here for an overboard or a citizen sleeper to replace any of these others? Just to read the list again as it is right now. Disco Elysium, Return of the Obridon, Hollow Night, Outer Wilde, Hades, Metro Dredd, Breath of the Wilde, Divinity Original Sin 2, Persona 5, Royal, Eldon Ring.

I like that list. Yeah, I mean, like, Hades, if you're not in the mood for like a hack and slash rogue-like, I guess. but that game is so perfectly crap I spent like part of me is like man I've spent so much time in Hades but wait a minute oh I've spent so much time in Hades because it's amazing yeah I don't know Breath of the Wild I mean I think that'll probably be maybe be replaced by its successor in May so we can't wait until then to knock it off the list I can't see Breath of the Wild going in favor of either overboard or citizen sleeper so I don't know maybe that's maybe that's the list I think that's the helpful the helpful exercise here has been replacing the

three games with the three newcomers and then trying to see if there's a space for either of the other games because I don't think that there is. I think this is a hell of a list and every game on who deserves to be here. So it's a good list. And you know, this is how it'll always be for this, especially as we go, all the games that we cut, which will include in the list, you know, you can see all the past entries. They're all good. They're all good games. Any game that even gets considered to be on this list is incredible. So that's a pretty good list. I think we did it. We added three games. Yes. We did it. That's a solid. That's solid work, I think.

I think one of our criteria at the beginning was that these should be relatively modern games. They need to be a list of classic stuff. They need to be accessible. Yeah. And I think that's true as well. At some point we could revisit and be like, okay, let's make a cutoff year just to keep things thriving. Because otherwise we could keep hollow night on there forever. So yeah, so we'll revisit that in the future.

So, Kirk, you want to read the final list that we've made as of right now? Yes. So the final triple clicks picks as of November 2022. Disco Elysium, Return of the Ober Dinn, Hollow Night, Outer Wilds, Hades, Metroid Dread, Breath of the Wild, Divinity Original Sin 2, Pursona 5 Royal, and Neldon Ring. We did it. That's the update.

We did it. We'll be back in another year and a half to do another update. We'll take a break. And then we will be back for one more thing. I'm Lisa Hannah-Walt. And I'm Emily Heller. Wow, Emily. We've been doing this podcast for 10 years.

I know. But hey, don't worry. You can jump. in at literally any episode and hear us talk about some of our favorite stuff, caterpillars becoming butterflies. Martha Stewart flying around in a private jet full of trees. Yes, you heard me right. Trees.

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You might not learn anything, but we're a good hang. Every other week on Maximumfund.org. Hey, I'm Jesse Thorne, America's Radio Sweetheart, and I'm Jordan Morris, boy detective. Our comedy podcast, Jordan Jesse Go, just celebrated its 15th anniversary. It was a couple months ago, but we forgot. Yeah, completely. Our silly show is 15 years old. That makes it old enough to get its learners permit.

And almost old enough to get the talk. Wow, I hope you got to talk before then. A lot of things have changed in 15 years. Our show's not one of them. We're never changing and you can't make us. Jordan Jesse go the same forever at maximum fun.org or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back for one more thing. Maddie, why don't you go first?

Sure. So my one more thing is a book, which is called The Talented Mr. Ripley, and it's by Patricia Highsmith. So I've actually never seen the movie. I have. Mr. Ripley? It's good. And only knew a little bit about what happens in it. So here's the thing about this book.

Patricia Highsmith was a lesbian. Also wrote Strangers on a Train, also wrote a whole bunch of other Tom Ripley books, and also wrote the book on which the movie Carol is based. So I read an article about her, and I was like, first of all, I didn't even know that a woman wrote Strangers on a Train and Talented Mr. Ripley. That's cool. Second of all, didn't know she was a lesbian. Also cool.

So then I was like, it seems like some important queer history. I've got to read this. This book is stressing me the hell out. I'm like two hours from the end of the audiobook. I keep pausing it because I'm freaking out. I don't even know if I recommend a talented Mr. Ripley. So Mr. Ripley is a con man and eventually a murderer. And he is not a sociopath.

I don't know if the movies change that. But he is a being with emotions and thoughts and feelings. And he is also maybe bisexual. It's never confirmed. I mean, he lives in Victorian times. So, like, the ways that he talks about his sexuality are very, like, awkward. And obviously, being queer is not socially acceptable

or legal, depending on where you live. But he's in Europe. And he's sort of insinuating himself as sort of a poor man into rich people's lives by conning them and taking advantage of people and trying to find a way to make money on his own or steal money so that he can live a normal, happy life. But also he's really selfish and short-sighted and is a deeply flawed character. I don't know. One of the first things I said

about this book was that I was like, oh, it's really cool to read a queer villain written by a queer person. That's like really fascinating. But then the other part of it, now that I'm like in the home stretch of the book where the police keep questioning him and he keeps like narrowly getting out of things is that I'm just like, this book is incredible. I'm so. so stressed out. I'm rooting for Tom Ripley to get out of every situation that he's in, but then he does something else horrible. And I'm like, I want you to stop, man. Like, I need you to stop doing everything you're doing. But the first half of the book is like really slow. So I don't know. I guess I recommend it if you want to read a really slow book that then

becomes ridiculously stressful in the second half just so that you can like experience what it's like to read a book with that slow of a build. It's very artfully done. So I'm, I'm, I think I'm going to take a break from Tom Ripley's adventures and read strangers on a train after this because I want to see what else Patricia Highsmith has written. But the audiobook's really fun, great reader. The Talented Mr. Ripley, maybe I'll watch the movies. I don't know. Maybe I won't even be able to finish reading this book because I'm freaking out. That's what I've been doing.

Nice. I haven't seen the movie in a while, but it's definitely that description of a general arc of it is similar where it's kind of a slow burn and then suddenly it gets extremely stressful and really changes when. when something extreme happens. Nice. Well, I'll go next, since Jason, I know you have a game so you can close this out. My one more thing is not a book or a movie or anything. My one more thing is physical therapy because I wanted to mention this as something that, I don't know, maybe some of our listeners will be inspired by. So I, as any, or as a lot of tall people, especially in their early 40s, have got some lower back pain.

And I think that's pretty common. Like a lot of people just sort of are like, yeah, my back hurts a lot of the time. and that's just life or, oh, yeah, my arm hurts from where I heard it, you know, when I was a kid, and now it just gets sore because as you get older, your body starts falling apart. And the thing is, physical therapy is a thing, and physical therapists are amazing. And I've been going to see a physical therapist. My doctor referred me to one, and it's sort of covered by my health insurance. So I'm aware that this, I'm suggesting something that is harder to get than it should be.

Now that I've been doing physical therapy for a little while, this isn't major stuff. just like, here are some stretches for your back. Here are some ways that you should sit. Let's work with you on this thing and that thing. And they give me exercises to do. Now that I've been doing it for a little while, it's so amazing. Everyone should have a physical therapist assigned to them. And also, physical therapists themselves are incredible.

It's like an incredible kind of work. They can really help with a lot of stuff that I think people just sort of go through life thinking is just, oh, this is just part of life. I don't know. Like, yeah, I just hurt all the time. Like, every time I stand up from a chair, I groan because, you know, it hurts in some part of my body. That doesn't have to be the case every single time, right?

There are actually a lot of things you can do. So I mainly just wanted to sort of share that and to say, first off, to any physical therapist listening to this, you rule and you're doing amazing work and I really like respect the hell out of you because physical therapists, I've really come to appreciate what an amazing occupation that is and how important it is. And also if you're out there and you do have that kind of pain, and especially if you have health insurance, even though I completely think this should not be necessary, but if you have insurance, they'll cover it or a way to help afford it since it can be expensive,

that you should consider going to your doctor and saying, hey, you know, I've got back pain. I've got some arm pain, shoulder pain, whatever it is, and just going in to see a physical therapist because it can really make a huge difference, and it might wind up, like, really changing your life and just removing a lot of pain from it, which can be amazing. So that's my one more thing, just to throw that out there into the universe for anyone who might need to hear it. All right, Jason, what is your one more thing? Triple click. Come for the video game.

for the life advice. A little bit of health advice. Mitigation. My one more thing is a video game called Tactics Oger Reborn. Yeah. This is a game that comes out next week. It is a strategy RPG

directed by Yasumi Matsuno, who is known as director of a whole bunch of games, Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy 12, lots of other cool stuff, ogre battle. And Tactics Ogre Reborn is a lot like Final Fantasy

tactics. you are, it's set in this medieval world full of politics and strife and lots of lots of proper nouns. Amazing music. Tons of proper nouns. There's so many proper nouns in this game. It's very difficult to keep track of them all like a good fantasy novel should have. And it's a bunch of grid-based battlefields like Final Fantasy tactics where you move characters around and it's turned-based and they can be positioned and smack people or shoot hours of people or cast spells of people. And it's really, really good. Yeah, it is. I talked about this a little bit last week, but I wanted to elaborate and get a little bit deeper into it because I've been playing a lot more.

I've been playing it on my switch while holding a baby or in bed, like right before I go to sleep. And it's a really good, like, complement to Final Fantasy tactics, especially in this modern version. Because this modern version, like, changes a lot and adds a lot of cool new stuff. There's a fast forward button, first of all, which is really good. there's also like a bunch of these stat cards that wind up randomly appearing on the battlefield and boost your stats if you land on them. So you have to make a lot of interesting decisions as you're playing like, hey, do I want to attack this guy or do I want to just go and jump on this attack boost card to prevent someone else from getting it and also to boost my attack? And then on top of that, you're like building up this party full of classes, which is really interesting. You're making a lot of interesting choices there.

And then you're also making decisions as you go along in the story and there are a bunch of different routes you can take. There's like a chaos route and a lawful ruin and a neutral route. And you can either recruit different characters or drive different characters to leave your party along the way. It's really, really cool. The one thing is I forgot how long a game like this takes because each battle, it's not like a simple turn-based battle. Each battle is like on a big grid and you have to like maneuver characters around. it can take like a solid 15, 20 minutes per battle, if not longer. And so this game is going to be 400 hours.

Like I already feel like I've been playing for a while and I'm still in chapter one out of like five or something. I don't even know how many chapters there are. But it's a very lengthy, meaty experience. But that's said, if you haven't played this game or even if you have played this game because there's so much new stuff in it, Tactics Oger Reborn. So good. Really, really good.

I love it. Especially if you're just like, like you have to be. strategy RPG. If you're a strategy RPG fan, you will really enjoy this. If you're not into the likes of Final Fantasy Tactics or whatever, you will not be into this one. But yeah, man, I'm really digging it. It's probably going to keep talking about it because it's pretty much all I've been playing other than God of War, which we'll talk about next week. But yeah, I mean, getting a new, man, this year full of strategy RPGs has been, it's been very good for strategy RPG fans between Triangle Strategy and like,

dual field Chronicle, which I haven't tried yet, but I heard good things about and now this. Mario and Rabbits, which I still haven't started, but I'm really excited to play. Yeah, also a very different feeling. Yeah, it's a good time for tactics. But yeah, tactics have a reward. I'm just like so into it. I'm like figuring out how to maximize my party and like,

should I have this bow guy or this hammer guy and how should I do this and this? Bo guy or hammer guy. I mean it's a classic question. Hammer guy or bow guy That is the eternal question It really is Nice yeah I'm excited to play that one All right well that's it

We've done it We've talked about some new games We've talked about some old games We've added some new games To our list of old games All kinds of different games really We covered them all on this episode That was a lot of fun

And our Mario discussion Is in the bonus feed for members Thanks again to everyone who's a member And supports us making this show And yeah until next time I'll see the two of you Next week. 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 maximumfun.org slash join.

Find us on Twitter at triple clickpods and 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. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned, audience supported.