Triple Click - Triple Play: Star Wars Jedi: Survivor

Episode Date: May 4, 2023

Kirk, Jason, and Maddy strap on their blasters and take a trip to Koboh for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, the latest game in a universe far, far away. They talk about PC performance problems, whether Survivor is too much of a direct sequel, the brilliant traversal mechanics, and the cutest droids in the galaxy.One More Thing: Kirk: PsychOdysseyMaddy: DredgeJason: Case of the Golden Idol DLCLinks: Digital Foundry’s analysis of Jedi Survivor’s PC Version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI6eAVvvmg0Maddy would die for Turgle: ​​https://www.polygon.com/23707008/star-wars-jedi-survivor-turgle-frog-alien-characterTriple Click LIVE IN BROOKLYN, May 18th: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/triple-click-live-tickets-513213584647Support Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinBuy Triple Click Merch: https://maxfunstore.com/search?q=triple+click&options%5Bprefix%5D=lastJoin the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpodTriple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/ Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick 🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpodInstagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

The world of Star Wars has given us so many beloved characters like Princess Leia, Obi-Wan, Kenobi, Han Solo, and now, wait, it says Turkle? Welcome to Triple Click, where we turtle the turtles to you. This week we're talking about Star Wars Jedi Survivor, a very fun game with cool custom lightsabers, fun platforming, and some unfortunate tech problems. All that and a little bit of turtle coming up. I'm Kirk Hamilton.

I'm Maddie Myers. And I'm Jason Schreier. Hello. Hey there. Hello. It's us. again. Hello, friends. It's us. It sure is. We are here. Coming at you. Yep. Into your speakers or headset. Coming at you live. No. No. It's not live, but there actually is a situation where it could be live. Kirk is off by a couple of weeks. It's going to be

live in just a couple of weeks at the Bell House in Brooklyn, New York on stage. Triple Click Live. It's coming up, everybody. You all know the drill. We're doing it live. We're going to do it live. We really are. You're going to see how much of this show is editing and how much his raw host talent. You're really going to get to find out. I'm sure it is us throwing tantrums and you're like, we'll do it live. We'll do it. All of that is normally edited out.

Kirk, you have to like, you have to leave and then come back and be like, Bing, like at the end of the show for an encore. They'll be cheering for an encore. Or like in the middle of something. Yeah.

He'll have to do it. He'll just be like, hold on, hold on. And Maddie, we'll all freeze. And then Kirk will be like, you know, these are gold ideas.

We shouldn't be spoiling these. Yeah, we need to script out an elaborate comedy setup. that is totally unlike how the show ordinarily operates. This is just brainstorming. The actual ideas we have for the live show are so much more exciting. What we're really going to do is have one of us forget the name of somebody, and then I'll have it ready on my phone, and I'll bing in and say the name of the person that we all forgot.

I'll just somehow be ready to do that. Anyways, yeah, we're going to be live on May 18th. We're very, very excited. It's coming up. You can buy tickets online. You can also watch a live stream and get tickets for that if you can't make it to New York. But it's going to be super fun. We haven't done a live show together, the three of us in quite some time.

And I think we've gotten better at podcasting since then. Have we gotten better at live performance? Who knows? There's only one way to find out. We had no opportunities to practice, but maybe weirdly we'll be way better at it. Maybe. There's only one way to find out. Only one way to find out.

So get tickets. And of course, also, we are a listener-supported show. As you probably know, we're on the Maximum Fun Network, and we love being listener-supported. That's why you don't hear any ads. where we don't have any sponsors. It's totally just us and all of you. And thanks so much, as always, to everybody who is a maximum fun member and supports Triple Click.

And if you want that to be you, and if you want to get access to monthly bonus episodes of our show, one episode per month since we started, so like almost 40 of them or something, most reason it was Persona 5, but we've done all kinds of movies and TV shows and video games. There's going to be a lot of cool stuff this year too. Go to maximumfund.org slash join, become a member, support our show, and you know you'll you'll have our eternal gratitude all right so we've got a video game to talk about this week we do have a video game to talk about today we're talking about star war again july survivor the war the war the wars in the stars they continue a universe that is a distance away today we're talking

about star wars jenni survivor a new video game from respawn entertainment and electronic Arts. It is the sequel, the direct sequel to Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order. And hilariously, the actual title of this series is Star Wars Jedi, colon. So like the next name will be Star Wars Jedi colon, something else. So this is, yeah, like a pretty, a very straight up direct sequel. In fact, it is, you play as the same guy, Calcestis five years after Jedi Fallen Order. And he retains all of his abilities from the last game, which we'll talk about. This is pretty much, it's a lot like God of War Ragnarok last year in that you, if you don't, like, it's a direct sequel to the last game and a lot of the emotional beats and character development and stuff is carried on from the previous game. So you pretty much need to have played that game to like grasp a lot of what's going on. We've all been playing it. We can talk about some impressions. We will talk about, I think we'll do a little sidebar. We'll start with our initial impressions and then do a little sidebar to talk about the performance and bugs and issues that people are. running into. But for now, let's start with some kind of broader overall thoughts on the game.

Kirk, do you want to go first? Sure, I'll go first. So I'm a little ways into the game. I've played like 12, 15 hours. I'm playing on PC. We should say we're all playing review copies of the game that we got early. So we were playing before launch and have still been playing after the game has come out. And of course, we talked about it some last week. And I gave my kind of early impressions last week. So they haven't changed too much. I enjoy the game. I will say, I'd, I'd, I'd, actually can't separate my impressions of the game from the technical issues because for a while it was actually fine for me. It was sort of stuttery. It was doing the thing that everyone's been

complaining about where you load into a new area on PC and it sort of stutters and is a little annoying and I would occasionally have some frame rate drops, especially on a cobo on the big open planet. But then it was kind of fine most of the time and I was playing and having a good time. And actually just recently, I'm now in a big ship. I'm like exploring this big crashed ship. And man, I'm really running into a lot of just weird jankiness and frame rate stuff to the point that it's kind of making me want to stop until they patch it somewhere. So that's kind of taking the wind out of my sails a little bit on what's otherwise.

A really, you know, a propulsive, fun game that is really working for me. So, yeah, I've played like 12, 15 hours kind of through some stuff that happens on Jedda. I've gotten a lot of the gang back together. The plot, I suppose, is thickening, that the story isn't really grabbing me as much as the first game. We can talk about that some more. So that's kind of where I am and how I'm feeling. Maddie, what about you? I'm about 10 hours in, but I don't think I'm actually 10 hours into the game because I've also experienced a lot of technical issues.

And I don't want to get too far into that. So maybe this won't be a sidebar. Maybe this will be a part of our whole. I don't think it's interesting. Like, I don't think anyone needs to hear the lengthy story about how there is an entire evening where the game, just didn't recognize my controller and I did like a series of absurd fix-its in order to eventually get it working around 930 when it was time to maybe stop playing the game and brush my teeth. No one cares. That has definitely put a damper on my ability to play the game,

but I'm really liking it, which is why this is so bittersweet. I think that the combat is a lot better feeling to me than Fallen Order. We talked a little bit about the Perry system last week. I really enjoying it this time around. I feel just great about it. I like all the different lightsaber stances. I like the traversal a lot. It feels great. Love that I have a double jump from the start. Also love how the wall run feels and wall jumping. These are kinds of things that I often complain about in a game when it feels bad. So it's pretty cool to play a game where it just feels right. Like it immediately, I understood how to use all those tools after just a brief, you know, tutorial or telling me what buttons to press and I immediately understood them makes me feel like a

Jedi. I love that feeling. I do not love the game repeatedly crashing. So that's rough. Are you playing on PC? I'm on PC. And it actually, from what I've read, people with like higher end video cards are having more trouble, which is deep irritating. That's what response said, but I don't know. I think everybody's having trouble. Yeah, that might be true. But they could explain why I'm having perhaps even more trouble than you, Kirk. Like, I've lost progress at various points. Again, this isn't interesting. At the very least, I think we can say that performance on PC is pretty variable,

but it's variable for me, like, depending on the mood of my computer. Like, sometimes it's great. It was pretty fine for the first few hours, then I started noticing it more. And it could even be that by working on trying to fix it and tweaking settings and just spending more time thinking about it, I'm noticing it more, and it's bothering me more. Like, it's a lot of, you know, it's pretty variable, which is frustrating. Our former Kotaku colleague Luke Plunkett was talking about this recently on his Twitter and about how talking so much about performance in a game right after it's launched becomes increasingly irrelevant.

Like what if somebody five years from now was playing this game and wanted to check out this episode? They wouldn't want to hear me talk about all the PC bugs. So I'm just feeling extremely cognizant of that right now because I'm thinking about Luke's tweets yesterday. And I think he's right. But it is tough because this is such a huge part of my experience right now. And I'd much rather talk about the things in the game that people will probably talk about years from now if they happen to be playing it.

And I do like the story so far. There's some really fun little weird guys, some cute little aliens. There's Tergle. There's Tergle. You wrote a whole article about Turgle. I wrote about Turgle. And there's the Scuba Skeve guy.

He's basically like a little guy in a scuba suit. A little Scottish guy. I don't know. He's got some Star Wars'ass characters in it. And I even like the lighthearted vibe. of the game. Like there's all these cute little flute sound effects when you open something new. And it just reminds me of like that good feeling part of the original trilogy of Star Wars movies and not, not maybe the gritty and or vibes that we all also enjoy to clarify. But there's just something

about it that I'm just like, God damn, Star Wars is really cool. So yeah, that's the stuff I want to talk about. The emotional core of Star Wars. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you guys are making me glad that I got a code for PS5 and not for PC. I know I'm jealous of you. Yeah, it's running fine for me. I mean, there's definitely some like frame rate stutters and playing in performance one on PS5 and I've gotten like a couple of just random bugs and crashes and stuff. But like for the most part, it's been totally fine for me. I am, Kirk, I'm where you are pretty much. I just got to, uh, the first save point inside that big crash death star looking thing, um, which I will be entering shortly. And I really enjoy it.

think it rules. I think the game's really good. I think the smartest decision they could have made, as I said last week, is retaining all your powers, including the double jump. And I also just unlocked a dash that is added to your double jump. So you go full-on hollow night, where you can jump and then dash or dash and then jump. And it really makes you feel like a badass. The sequence on Jedda that Kirk and I were raving about to you, Maddie, was just like an incredible spectacle that just felt like unlike anything I've played in a game before in a lot of ways and just felt like a total dimensional. It felt like something out of God of War, I would say.

I'd say that God of War has some set pieces that are on that same. Yeah, I guess so. It felt like a combination of Goddabour and that Ratchet and plank game with the rifts and stuff like that. But it was pretty cool. And yeah, I'm just really enjoying my experience of the game. quick thought on performance just to kind of make the conversation a little bit broader and maybe add a little interesting kind of theory to this whole thing so i spoke to stegas musin the director

of this game last week i was talking to him about the how they made this game in three three and a half years which i think is pretty incredible given that most games these days are made in six plus years a lot of people it was unfortunate timing because a lot of people joked that uh well maybe they should have taken more time to polish the thing, which fair enough. But I still think it's an remarkable achievement. But one of the points that he made is that they also made it during a pandemic and they've been remote the entire time, which got me thinking, well, a lot of these issues are on PCs. Now, typically in the pre-remote days, you would have a QA team that all comes into the office. And when they're testing games on PCs, they might have a giant pile of video

cars that they can just swap into a PC or they might have different machines around the office and they can all test out on different builds and swapping in different parts as need be. I wonder if that's made more difficult when you're remote and when your QA team is remote and you can't get the same hardware moving around and maybe it's a lot more difficult to do the mixing and matching that you kind of need to do if you're going to test out different CPUs and GPUs and motherboards and whatever else. And I wonder if that is one of the reasons that we're seeing this PC performance struggle is because respawn, the developers, have become a remote first studio. So they really let people work from wherever they want, and a lot of people are taking advantage of that. So I suspect that that might be one of the very few drawbacks to working remotely is that when it comes to hardware testing, it makes things a lot more difficult.

I'm sure that it is true that the remote factor plays into QA. There's some funky stuff with, well, first, there's some funky stuff with the PS5 build as well, just from like watching Digital Foundries, frame-pacing analysis and stuff. It might not be stuff that you notice or that a lot of people notice, but it's pretty rough in a lot of ways compared to something smoother, like a, you know, Sony first-party PS5 game. And there's also just some weird stuff. I mean, I don't know, watching the Digital Foundry analysis of the PC version,

which goes well beyond my, you know, knowledge, It just seems like it's not doing things that one might expect the game to do. Like it doesn't pre-compile shaders. There's a pause on PC where it says it's doing something. Like it's like every time you start the game, it says, okay, we're doing something. We're getting the game ready for you. Optimizing game files, it says. Right, which you would typically think is pre-compiling shaders, which has been this ongoing problem.

If you know about stutter struggle, this is a thing that PC gamers have been talking about for a while now, where the stutter struggle is so many new games. The stutter struggle is real. It is, it is real. So many new games have this issue where no matter what hardware you're playing on, what your settings are, when you walk into a new area,

there's like a little hitch. And it might not bother you. You might not even notice it. For example, in Dead Space remake, I don't notice it, but I see people complain all the time about the PC version of that game. It's not a huge deal to me,

but some people really notice the stutter. And that's, I believe, largely, or often due to compiling shaders. I believe this is more of an issue under DirectX12, which is more recently adopted compared to earlier versions of DirectX like DirectX11, which is why it's become more of an issue recently. Anyways, you can pre-compile shaders, which means the system does a lot of work beforehand

so that the game cannot have to load and stream it while you're playing the game. That's the idea anyways, and apologies to anyone who's got technical expertise listening to this being like, okay, that was okay, Kirk, but like stop while you're ahead. So anyways, there's stuff like that where the game doesn't seem to be pre-compiling shaders and it also does it every time you load the game, which is weird. So I don't know. Like, yes, I think it probably would have been easier if they had done what you described

and had a big room just full of GPUs. But given what I've seen online, the problems are pervasive enough. They affect everybody. They're happening like really consistently across different builds, even though they are kind of different amounts in different places. It just makes me think, like, the game could have used a little bit more time for testing. But, yeah, we can talk more about the game itself just because I agree with you, Maddie, that, like, as relevant as this is to the current experience that we're all having,

even for me, it's basically been fine. I've been having a great time playing the game. I've played a lot of it. It's mostly okay. It's only recently that it started to make me feel like maybe I should just wait a month and come back and finish it. You don't, you're not playing and constantly thinking, man, I wish these shaders were compiled. compile.

More like I, you know, man, this stutter is really annoying, which it, I mean, it's pretty constant. Like it is, it does happen a lot. But it's also, you know, you, it stutters and then you keep playing the game and whatever. You're jumping around. You're swinging your lightsaber. It's fun. Yeah, let's talk about the game.

So you guys, so we've all played through all of Jedi Fallen Order. We've talked about it a few times. I believe we did a spoiler cast at one point. Maybe on our last podcast, we did a spoiler cast. And we all really liked it. Do you guys feel like this sequel? is too iterative? Do you feel like it's too sequally or like

too much like fallen order to like 1.5 and not innovative enough? Especially in the wake of the fact that we're like that it's coming out two weeks before Zelda's Cures of the Kingdom which seems primed to be like revolutionary like mind-blowingly crazy and different.

Do you guys when you're playing this? That's true. But when you're playing this do you feel like it does it feel like 1.5 to you guys? And is that a bad thing necessarily? I think it's a great thing. It does feel like a continuation, but in the way that I appreciate where all the little things about fall in order that I just wanted to be slightly better. I mean, we've talked about the Perry a lot, but I also remember some very weird difficulty unevenness in that game, not even just difficulty spikes, but like something would be weirdly easy and then super hard and then easy again and then just pacing issues.

haven't had any of that in this game. I've really liked all the pacing of the story, introduction of characters. I've enjoyed it. I don't think the story is blowing my mind or anything, but it's fun and having a good time. So I like that it feels like a 1.5 game. And I also know it's a bigger game.

I just wish I could play more of it. But I'm enjoying the 1.5 feeling of it all. And it is reminding me that when games are, sequels, they can often be a stronger version of what came before and perhaps even the intended version of what came before. Yeah, I think that's a good point. It does feel like they listen to a lot of feedback. This time there's no backtracking. There is a decent amount of backtracking in Jeddifall in order, especially if you wanted to go and like take advantage of some of the Metroidvania stuff. It was deliberately designed to feel like a Metroid game and you had to walk through old levels and like,

like find new passages and stuff. Although there was some smart design. in the way they went about it. This time there's fast travel. You can fast travel between any bonfire or meditation point, whatever it's called. The worlds are a lot more open. Like you get to Kobo and it's way bigger than anything in Jedi Fallen Order. There's a lot more side stuff that you can do. In the first game, there was some side stuff, but it was more constrained.

The levels were a lot more linear. This is way more, like these are so open that often on the two big planets, Kono and Jedi, you get animals that you can ride around. That's how big the terrains are. And one of the biggest changes I've noticed is that it feels like they've, like, gone full-on-charted with everything. There's a ton more climbing and, like, big set pieces and explosions. And a game reviewer might call it bombastic. But it is not bombastic.

We would never do that. It is not bombastic. It is not a particularly bombastic game. But it is a game that feels a lot more unchartedy. it's got so much climbing, so much jumping, and things falling, and like you land on something and suddenly it falls and you go sliding in and Nathan Drake is like, oh no, I jumped on a ledge a fella again, which I think is pretty cool. That's one of the reasons I'm really enjoying it. It's just it feels like it's Jedi Fallen Order taken up a notch and I really like Jedi Fallen Order

so of course I'm going to really like the sequel version. Yeah, I really like the Traversal a lot. I actually like it much more than Uncharted because it doesn't do the thing that Uncharted does where you're glued to the wall and you're basically just holding the stick down while Cal cal climbs around. That's actually never how the platforming works. I mean, maybe you're on a ledge or something, but there's a lot

of double jumping and mantis cloaking. I don't know what they call it in this game, but the sort of surge forward that you unlock that really opens things up. As we've mentioned, because you have the double jump from the beginning and because they kind of have designed the game around the wall run in a lot of really clever ways.

The levels themselves are just way more vertical and way more open from the start because they don't have to worry about a low-level character coming in somewhere and not being able to do stuff because you can do stuff from the beginning. One of the coolest things you can do in this game is jump up on a wall run, you start running, then you can jump off, jump back, and go higher. And so you can use the wall run to get higher up. And they have you do this. The game is designed to make you learn to do this.

this move really early on. And then it's really cool. I mean, it's a flexibility that just isn't always present in a game with wall running. And because you can double jump, you jump off the wall, you jump back on, it's really cool. I mean, I guess you could always double jump in Titanfall. And Titanfall and Titanfall II have the same kind of wall running and the same types of levels. There are levels in Titanfall, too, that both fall in order and now Jedi Survivor both really emulate, where there will be these cranes kind of holding billboards that are just arranged so that you can kind of run on one billboard and then jump over to the other one.

And a lot of the level is trying to find the controls from the crane to lower the one billboard so you can get across some chasm. Like that's very tight and fall too. But they've gotten even better at it and it's even more blown out in this game and it works really well in third person. So yeah, I really enjoy the platforming in this game. I think it's really fun. Yeah, something that I really enjoy is that when you're climbing,

you are free to jump off and then double jump back on. so you could do some maneuvering yourself if you want to make yourself like a whole Jedi acrobat. It feels very forgiving, right? It does. Yeah. And it's very flexible. I was thinking, I've been thinking a lot while playing this game that I wish you could like customize Cal to make him Yoda because it would be so much fun to be flipping around as Yoda in this game.

Like double jumping and dashing as Yoda. There is a lot of customization in this game. But sadly, sadly, none of that. Always very disappointing. Yeah, you can't completely change your height in the, entire makeup of your character. Yeah, you can't transform into Yoda, sadly. What what you would do is you would become a human

sized Yoda? It's like a terrifying, like, truly cursed-looking character. Where you're, like, wearing a Yoda costume, basically. Yeah. Why isn't that in the game? It's disappointing, I will say, for me, to be exploring side paths and just find

treasure chest with, like, cosmetic nonsense for, like, upgrading the handle, like, height of my lightsaber. it's trained me to just not even bother going through side paths in this game. Although there are a few, like, especially some of the optional content, there are a few rewards that are more substantial skill points and health packs and stuff like that. Well, there's also perks. I mean, you can find currency that you then spend at various stores that get you perks that do

kind of cool stuff. Yeah, some of the stores give perks. Some of them are just cosmetics from what I've found. But yes. Yes, you can also do that. But it's always disappointing to, like, go through solve some puzzles. or something, and then at the end, you just see one of this cosmetic chess size, just stop bothering. Opening them, I know there's some people out there who are going to, like, go on full-on Barbie doll with their Calcestis and customize the hell out of him, which I respect.

It's just not for me personally. It's not for you. I mean, some of the puzzles are their own reward. I like those Jedi chambers. Those are cool. Those end with good rewards. Yeah. Yeah, they do.

But also just the puzzles are cool. And I'm really, I mean, I'm also still replaying Breath of the Wild, doing all. the shrine, so I'm really vibing with all the puzzles in Jedi Survivor as well, because that's just where my brain already is. So just, I don't know, there have been a few times when I've leapt off something in Jedi Survivor and tried to open my paraglider and it hasn't worked. So that's something that's disappointing to me. It's just that I can't open a paraglider. Didn't think of the Yoda thing, though. That also would have just obviously solved everything for me. Yeah, it would just be so fun to see like a little ball of like green fur, just like double jumping and dashing or

around. Yeah. But yeah, I like the puzzles. Because Calcasis, he's like the wonderbread of Star Wars protagonist. Like his personality can be summed up as like, oh, he's the guy in this game. That doesn't really bother me that much. I mean, I have seen people make fun of that, which is totally fair. He's kind of, I'd be hard pressed to describe his personality any which way with any adjective at all.

He's a nice boy. I would describe him as a nice boy. He's a video game protagonist, but the nice kind. The good with a capital G. But that's okay with me because every other character is so colorful and sometimes in a corny kid's cartoon kind of a way. Like this Star Wars game's tone kind of skews more towards that end of things, the Clone Wars cartoons end of things as opposed to the end or end like I was saying. And I like that. I can get on board for that.

And I don't really need the protagonist of the game to be really spicy and zingy. And if anything, I feel like that would only annoy me if he was constantly quipping around or how. had a whole lot of opinions. I'm like, no, you're a Jedi. You're supposed to be super chill. And that is your downfall. It's that you have nothing going on. Yeah, yeah, I can see that. One thing about the spicy characters is that the second that I saw Bode at the beginning of the game, when he's first introduced, I was like, that guy is going to betray you. And I don't know for sure if it happens, but I would pretty much bet my life. But you're suspicious of him. I would bet my life on the fact that Bode betrays you for his daughter.

Wow. You bet your life on it. I would bet my, I would bet this podcast on it. I would bet my children on it. Like there's no way that Bode does not betray you. I can guarantee everyone out there. I mean, I don't know if people out there if you're listening and you've finished it, you're probably nodding along and saying, yep, Jason is right.

Bode betrays you. If you haven't finished it, well, yeah, I'm pretty sure it's going to happen. I haven't gotten there yet, but pretty confident in that whole one. Yeah. is not that complicated. I'll say that. I'm not going to weigh in on this boat thing. I'm not going to place any gamblers. Oh, do you know what happens? Well, sure. I allow myself to get spoiled on things because I edit stories for Polygon, but I'm not going to spoil it for you, Jason. You can play it yourself. But regardless, I just was trying to say that even of what I've played, this story is very

simple. The plot beats are pretty easy to guess. But again, that's not really what I came to Star Wars Jedi for. No, it's the fun acrovats. It's watching Yoda flip around on school. Right, exactly. Yeah, I think it's possible that Bo just dies. Maybe he dies and he doesn't betray you, but we'll see. I don't know either. I enjoyed here, I will say, a slight spoiler warning for just like the first act of the game.

The first mission of the game. So anyone doesn't want to hear this. Just skip ahead like a minute. But I just want to say something that was funny is that in the first mission, you meet Cal's whole crew. And it's all these people. And there's all this great dialogue where they're like, man, remember that time with the bantha. man, this will be just like when I saved your butt on tattooing, and I'm like, these people are all going to die.

And I'll die 30 seconds later. And I thought that was funny. Yeah, I was a little sad. They all died. On that point, there is a book called Star Wars Jedi Battle Scars by Sam Mags that is, I think, about some of the two games that, like, include some of this stuff. Yeah. They're like, we need you to come up with a bunch of characters that we can kill for

emotionally if you kill in the first act of the next game So she wrote a whole book about all these endearing rag tag

resistance fighters who were all going to die. Yeah, exactly. I really like Grease, the pilot slash cook. He's just great.

He's played by an actor named Daniel Robuck and I just think the vocal performance is wonderful. It's really good. Something I really liked about the way

this game tells its story is that he's the first character that Cal goes back to meet from the crew of the first game. He goes to Grease's Cantina, which then becomes the kind of home base for the game. And what I really liked is that Grease is kind of this grumpy guy or he has this kind of grumpy

New York cabby energy. But he's not, he doesn't have a grumpy vibe when Cal meets back up with him. He's immediately like really kind of paternal and caring and he's really happy to see Cal. And he just wants to like help out and take care of him and like get him food and give him a good place to have shelter and like help him find everybody else. I just really liked that it begins with you, not reconnecting with a sort of, you know, someone you have this intense history with where they're kind of mad to see you and they have to warm back up to you.

But instead it's like this guy who's just really happy to see you. Like that was just a really nice beat to start out with. And then kind of carries the story from there. Just every time you see Grease, it's cool because he's just such a kind of warm, caring character. Yeah. The story for me is not really doing too much just yet. I'm still, yeah.

I told you guys where I am. So I'm pretty deep into like the quest for whatever it's called that that secret Jedi planet thing. Tanelor. Tanelor. And I'm still not really sure why they're looking for Tanalore. Like what the deal is there? Like it's not, none of it is really made clear. It's kind of like, well, Cal was working for Sawyerra for a bit, but now he's not.

And now he's just going on this other random quest. Yeah. Well, it's tricky. I agree that the story is not really great. me, and I think it was just a lot clearer in the first game what the context of the quest was and what the point of the McGuffin was. Because you were looking for this holocron that could allow Cal to find all of the force-sensitive kids and create a new Jedi order.

That was the idea. And then that drove, like, a lot of the most interesting drama in the story of, you know, them kind of deciding at the end, well, maybe we don't. We want to protect these kids and, like, not let this fall into the empire's hands. And maybe it wouldn't be a good idea anyways to train a bunch of Jedi because they could all just turn to the dark side. Like it led to a bunch of interesting and understandable sort of stakes and questions for the characters. This time around, it's much, it just is a lot less clear. It's like, okay, well, we only want to go somewhere safe. Maybe we could all

go hide in this safe planet that's really hard to get to. But there's this built-in, you know, kind of begging the question. I don't know what the logical fallacy is, but it's like, well, if we can get to it, then soak in the empire. It's the exact same thing you were dealing with in the first game. So like, this is clearly going to be the problem, even if you do eventually get to Tanelor. You're not really going to be safe there. So then it's like, well, what's the philosophical question here? You know, it's kind of, is it better to fight or is it better to hide? But they haven't really gotten into that yet. Maybe they will later. I could see them going in some interesting directions with this. But yeah, right now, it's all a little vague.

And then it's compounded for me by the fact that they're bringing back characters from the high republic era, which like doesn't do much for me, both because I don't know much about that era. it feels a little more kind of franchise IPE because I know there's that High Republic TV show coming out. There are parts in this, there's a part in this game where Cal says, man, the High Republic was so interesting.

I'd love to just hear stories about the High Republic or something. I'd love to see a television show about it. If only there was a network where I could get that plus. Right. And even the way people talk about the High Republic feels like there should be a little TM next to it. And, like, that kind of, you know, rubs me the wrong way.

So I'm just sort of not feeling it. Like, the fact that there's this dark Jedi from there, I'm like, oh, great, another dark Jedi who, like, you know, whatever. So, yeah, agree the story is not. That part of the story isn't doing much for me, even though, like I said, I do like these characters, and I'm down to follow them wherever they go. But just wait, Kirk, when Bode betrays you,

then I'll finally be in a hug. I'll be like, Bode. Yep, Bode. I like that dark, I like that dark force user. I guess, I don't know if we can call him a sick. or not because he doesn't have a pal that I know of. Maybe it's bowed. I don't know.

In Star Wars lore, if you're a Jedi, but you go to the way of the dark side, you automatically become a Sith or they're like evil Jedi? No, the Sith is their own thing. You need a buddy. The Sith coming to. You need to learn from a Sith. I think it's funny. I know this point has been made a million times before by many other people, but I still

think it's so funny that, like, Cal Custis can push people off ledges with the force, but like, you choke people, that's a no-no. It can't choke you. You only sever them with a lightsaber, push them off ledges, make them kill each other, use mind control and make them all just blow each other to bits, turn a rocket around in mid-air and make it explode in their faces. But choking people, no, no, no. Lightning can't shoot lightning from the rain.

See, that's the most interesting part of it, though, for me. Like, jokes aside, I'm like, that's why as soon as there was a dark first user, I was like, oh, good. Finally, we're getting to the good stuff. Because again, I mean, I say it every time we talk about Star Wars, but it's still true. It's fun to think about that duality and be like, okay, but what about the people who are kind of in the middle? The Assoc atonos of the world who are like, yeah, I'm not a Jedi. I'm not a Sith. I'm still experiencing emotions and using the force. Deal with it. I'm not siding with either one of you guys.

Like, those are always the characters that I'm like, all right, I want to follow those people. And here's me staking my claim. Surely Calcestis will also be tempted to the dark side at some point in this game and I'm just waiting around for him to think about it because there's so many opportunities here like for him to be like what the heck am I doing? Like why am I trying to uphold these these neutral so-called values of these Jedi order that didn't even really do the right thing? Yeah. I mean it's worth mentioning Knight's Sister Marin as well another major character in this. I was about to say well there's a great relationship between her and Cal also. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She was my favorite character in Fallen Order, and of course she's

back in this one too. So yeah. No, they have some wonderful scenes together. I mean, she plays a role in that amazing set piece that Jason and I were talking about, which is quite a bit of fun. And yeah, and she... Yeah, I'm probably about to get to her because I only just met the bad guy whose name I'm forgetting. Oh, yes. He's very pale. You know how evil people have white skin, like paper white skin? Look, he's been in Bacta for like 500 years. Okay, he hasn't seen a lot of, he looked pretty paperwhite even in the forced flashbacks. Yes, she did. He was fated to be a Sith Lord, I think, with that face, you know?

There's nothing he could have done about it. It was just going to happen for him. He looked evil. Well, yeah, you're going to meet up with Marin, and then she, of course, becomes a major character. Of course, yeah. She's very cute with Cal. They have a kind of, at first I was sort of like, this all seems a little flat, and then they kind of got into their groove again.

I'm like, yeah, I like these two. Yeah, they had a betting romance in the last game. developed a little bit more here. It's always fun to see a romance in a game because it feels so rare. Or romance in Star Wars. Yeah. With a Jedi. Now that, that is against the rules from what I know.

So being tempted to the dark side by even considering it, Cal. Well, Luke did kiss the sister. Yeah. And that's far as that one. Man, as you catch, there's even in that there's a kiss in this game where it's like, was that for luck? They do feel the need to reference the original trilogy, bit more than I wish they felt the need to.

I think they should make a 12 minutes version of Star Wars. That's Luke and Leah kissing each other. And both of them just saying I've got a bad feeling about this. I've got a bad feeling about this. Yeah. That would be really good. Yeah. I love it.

What do you think before we wrap up, I would talk about a couple more quick things about this game. What do you guys think of the Metroidvania aspect of it so far? Because I found that there aren't, it doesn't seem like they're quite as many like blacked off paths that you come back to later. There are the big green walls that you get

an ability to get through at some point. But there isn't a ton of that stuff. It's a little bit more open and a little bit more encouraging exploration as opposed to encouraging backtracking. And I think that's by design the same way the last game was was more Metroidvania E and linear by design. What do you guys think of the new approach to this? I think it's tough to do at Metroidvania when you have fast travel in the way that this game does. I mean, you can, but it just really changes it when you can go anywhere at any time really easily. And you don't need to reward backtracking the same way when you aren't forcing someone to do it.

And instead it's like, well, you need to actually go to this place for a specific reason. So that automatically changes the tone. But I prefer it. I don't think this game ever needed to be that. I think having all the abilities from the start and not taking them away, allah, the beginning of Metroid Prime 1 when Samus falls down really hard. Like the fact that they don't feel the need to do anything like that means the game also feels very different.

And that's cool. I mean, I think it's working fine that it isn't leaning into those elements. Yeah, I think there are these sort of vestigial dark souls aspects of this game that I just don't really think are necessary. They're fine. But, you know, that... You mean like enemies respawning every time you sit at a meditation point? Well, that's okay.

That I think it's good. I like that, isn't, because it adds a little bit of tension, especially if you're playing on the highest difficult team mode. I'm playing on the second highest, but adding a little bit of tension to like, do I really want to rest here? I think is an interesting, an interesting game design choice.

Yeah, no, I'm referring more to the level design aspects of it, where, you know, sometimes you'll cut down a cord that'll lead to a shortcut back to the save point. And that feeling can be kind of cool. Like, oh, hey, nice. I didn't realize, but I'm up way higher now, and I'm kind of dropping down, and I can go back and save and now really quickly bypass everything. But just because of the map and the way that the levels are laid out,

it just doesn't have the same feeling as you have when you're playing Dark Souls and you unlock a shortcut and you really value it, and it's this really kind of central part of the gameplay loop. Here it just feels a little tacked on because so much of the game is you're just like moving through these really well-designed sort of platforming exploration, gated combat, keep moving, platform explore. a boss fight, like these sequences that are placed in a much more kind of linear AAA kind of a way. And it's so good at that that I'm like, well, it doesn't really need to be doing this other thing

where you're doing a Dark Souls level exploration. Like, that's just not really a big part of the game anyway. It's funny you mention that. I think it's that and also that it's a little bit easier than Jedi Fallen Order, even on some of the higher level difficulties, even on the one I'm playing. It feels easier to me than Jedi Fallen Order did, in part because you have all those abilities from the get-go so you can do things. are just kind of trying to block. But also, it just feels easier. And I think there's an interesting tension there from a design perspective of, like,

having that soul-sy aspect and also wanting to make sure that the game is approachable and can be played by the 30 million people they want to play it, since this is a new Star Wars game and not necessarily like a niche, difficult souls game. And I think that lack of tension is really what makes it less appealing or less exciting when you find one of the shortcuts. Like in Souls games, you find that shortcut and you're like, oh, man, what a relief. Like, I was hoping I was, like, begging, like, I'm low on health, low on estes flasks,

and I really needed that. I really needed to get back to this daypoint. This is as far as I've ever come, and I'll probably never make it here again, and then you find a ladder, and it's the bonfire that you recognize. Yeah, exactly. And in this, it's not quite like that because it all feels a lot smoother, and there isn't really, there aren't really a ton of obstacles. in your way and things will be different.

I mean, I know a new game plus, well, in new game plus you can get like a thing, a toggle to turn on that makes the game super, super, like, difficult. I think there's one game, one toggle that makes it realistic lightsabbers. So like a light saber just kills you instantly and you kill enemies instantly, which makes everything a lot harder. I mean, so there could be some interesting. Or, well, if you die, you have to go back to your last save point.

So it makes it. That's true. But also every enemy is a one. hit kill, I suppose, in that scenario. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Which is kind of true now anyway. A lot of Storm Troopers are one-hack kills anyway. That's true.

All right, any final thoughts before we wrap things up? We have to get to one more thing, but any kind of final thoughts on the game from you guys? No, this is a cool game. I'm looking forward to getting some patches and playing. Yeah, it's too bad that the discourse is all around the technical problems. I know. It's a cool game, and I wish people were discussing it more for some of the design choices it makes and the spectacle. and the traversal, which I think is really cool.

Like, one of the reasons that I think I'm enjoying this game more than I enjoyed Gotta War Ragnarok last year is just the flightiness of it all, like double-jumping everywhere and dashing and climbing. It just feels really good to play. Yeah, it feels very mobile and fun. And, yeah, just really enjoyable game to play on a moment-to-moment basis. So hopefully they got all the technical stuff ironed out soon. All right, let's take a break and we'll be back for one more thing.

The following pro wrestling contest is scheduled for one fall. Making their way to the ring from the tights and fights podcast are the baddest trio of audio. The hair to beware, Danielle Radford. It really is. Great hair! The Brit with a permit to hit, Lindsay Kell! The queen is dead. Long live, the queen!

And the fast-talking, fifth-clocking, Hal Upland! See, I can wrestle and be an announcer. Get ready for tight and fight. Listen every Saturday or face the pain. Find us on maximum fun. No ring the bell. Hey, when you listen to podcasts, it really just comes down to whether or not you like the sound of everyone's voices. My voice is one of the sounds you'll hear on the podcast, Dr. Game Show.

And this is the voice of co-host and fearless leader Joe Firestone. This is a podcast where we play games submitted by listeners, and we play them with callers over Zoom we've never spoken to in our lives. So that is basically the concept of the show. Pretty chill. So take it or leave it, Bucco. And here's what some of the listeners have to say.

It's funny, wholesome, and it never fails to make me smile. I just started listening, and I'm already binging it. I haven't laughed this hard in ages. I wish I'd discovered it sooner. You can find Dr. Gameshow on Maximumfund.org. And we are back. It is time for one more thing. I'm going to go first because I just finished something that you guys are really stoked about.

I played through the DLC to Case of the Golden Idol, which is called The Spider of Lanka. And it adds three new cases, three new episodes to the game that we all loved last year, the Case of the Golden Mail. One of the three games that was on all of our favorite games of the year list, that Eldon Ring and, Monkey Island. So it's really cool. It's basically, I mean, it's what you would expect. It's three new chapters in the case of the Golden Idol. It's a prequel to the main game. So it leads naturally into the first, like the prologue of the main game. And yeah, it's fantastic. And it's just great. It's like I could keep playing the new mysteries of these like every few months. And it seems like they're setting up to do something like that because the way it's kind of listed in the or the way it's

named in Steam and in the the launcher it's like Golden Idol Mysteries colon the spider of Lanka which certainly implies that they're just going to keep doing this which is awesome. For people who aren't familiar real quick, case of the golden idol, it's a detective game where you really have to deduce things and you are looking at this kind of tableau scene after a murder in every chapter and you have to figure out exactly what. happened by just going around and having this omniscient view of everybody and their inventories and all the scenery and all the things that are happening in any given scene. So this one is set in on kind of a different, like a foreign island that's away from the kind of more Eurocentric themed. So in case of

the Golden Idol, most of the episodes take place on this kind of fictional version of Europe, so to speak. and they make references to, and they're characters from a fictional version of more like Middle East Africa-inspired cultures, like basically the kind of Western versus Eastern cultures. And of course, the Eurocentric countries, they call them savages and stuff like that. There's a lot of just easy parallels there. This game is set on the island of Lanka, which is that whole culture. And so you get into some of that interesting culture stuff. There's one case in this.

the second case that is all about this ritual to succeed the Raja of this one country that is very India inspired. And yeah, there's just a lot of good stuff. Just classic, classic case of the Golden Idol stuff in there. I beat it all, I beat all three cases over the course of a couple hours and just really can recommend it with absolutely zero reservations to anyone who enjoyed the original game. And I hope they keep cranking these out forever and ever and ever because they're awesome. Yeah, the mystery solving was so, so fun. And I'm really excited to play those three, probably all in one go in however long it takes me to do it. Because I will be unable to stop.

Yeah, you got to do it before Zelda comes out. Just get it all done. Just get it out of the way. I'm surprised you haven't already. I don't think that's going to be hard. As soon as I open the file, that'll be like, the next several hours of my life. So I need to just be aware of that before I open it.

That's all it is. Yep. Yep. Yep. That's a good one. Kirk, what's your one more thing? My one more thing is a YouTube series that I've started watching that I'm actually

watching with Emily called Double Fine Psych Odyssey. That I know, Jason, you have watched some of? Have you watched all of it? Have you finished it? I watched all of it twice. Okay. I knew you were really into it. She watched the whole thing twice.

Maddie, have you started it? it yet? No. I'll explain what it is. I've watched it zero times. Okay. So Jason's watched it for both of you. That's right. So now I actually don't need to watch it. Yeah. To explain what it is to anyone who doesn't know. I know Jason, you made it you one more thing not that long ago, but this is a two player productions documentary of the creation of Psychonauts 2, the double fine game that came out, well, was it last year? Was it last year? Was it two years ago? What is time? Psychicinuts dude came out two years ago. Yeah, it was two years. August 20. August 2021. So, which a wonderful game. So this is a like 30 part YouTube documentary or 30 part

documentary that is on YouTube documenting the seven year production of this game. And it's really cool. I have been, I've watched the first couple of episodes, the first maybe three. Of course, this is the same production team or some of the same people who made double find documentary or double find adventure, I guess it was called, which was the creation of broken age. And that is an amazing documentary that we have, of raved about and recommend for anyone who wants to actually see how video games get made. This one seems like it's going to be even more complex, only because I know some of the things that happen during this seven-year period. Like, they've replaced the director on the game.

Like, they get purchased by Microsoft. And so there are these really major sort of seismic events that happen in the midst of development of what is also like a fantastic game, but surely a very difficult one to make and a very ambitious game. So just wait. Just wait until the COVID part. It's like, there's a part in it. They're like, oh, they're locking down Italy.

It's like so crazy. Yeah, sure. COVID happens to. Because you know it's coming and it's like, oh, my God, there's a sense of dread. Anyway, you'll get there. Well, I'm looking forward to it. I'm going to take my time because it is a lot to watch. But actually, I've been watching this with Emily, which is also really cool because

it's totally, I mean, anyone who wants to know more about how video games are made would enjoy this. Like, if you've watched Mythic Quest, this is the real thing. And while it's not quite as dialed up for comedy, a lot of the people who work at DoubleFind are really funny, interesting, engaging people. I mean, I think a lot of people in game development in general are that way. But DoubleFind in particular attracts just very fun, interesting people who are fun to watch. And right from the beginning, I mean, it's real stuff. Like you're seeing people kind of wrestle with, I don't know, their project being overlooked or having resources diverted away from something.

something they're working on or feeling stuck, and like watching the sort of different low-key conflicts that occur during any kind of collaborative creative process. And that's just interesting to watch no matter what. And then in the process, you also just see so much of the nitty-gritty, even in the first few episodes of just how games are made, how hard it is to make everything work, how prototyping works, how weird it is to make a game in VR. Right now they're working on the VR Psychonauts sort of Mid-Quil. So anyways, it's really cool.

I'm excited to watch the rest of it. I feel like at some point we'll probably all talk about it on the show. Like we'll all have seen it. I was kidding. I do want to watch it. Yeah, I think there will be a lot to say. And so part of me mentioning it here is to just plant the seed. I'm sure there's a lot of people out there who think it sounds interesting but also think it sounds like a lot.

Just start watching it. Watch it like a TV show. There's a ton of the episodes. There's like 30 episodes. It's going to go on forever. Just pace yourself and kind of watch it. And then maybe you'll be kind of keeping up with us as we watch it. And then if we do talk about it on the show, you'll be a little more prepared.

But anyways, yeah, it's called Psychic. Odyssey. It's on YouTube. You can just watch it. And it's really good so far. I'm very excited to watch more. Cool. Oh, man. How excited for you. Let me know I keep watching because I want to chat about it. Maddie, what's your one more thing? Mine is a game that is

called Dredge. And it is a... Game that's buzzed about a little bit. It is buzzed about. Deservidly so. It's a pretty cool game. So I'm playing it on PC. It is a horror fishing game, which is a genre mashup that I have never experienced before.

and I'm really, really enjoying. So you are a fisherman who ends up with a job somewhat mysteriously in a place, an island that is besieged by Eldritch Horrors in its waters, and you're just also a fisherman who works in that environment. And people warn you about not fishing at night, except eventually people really want you to catch the fish that only come out at night. And so you just kind of have to deal with it. You have to worry about like a sort of insanity meter, like amnesia style when you're fishing at night. It's pretty low polygraphics, like in a literal sense, like very blocky looking kind of game, but a very cool look. So for a while, for the first couple hours playing, I was like, how could this ever really be scary?

I mean, I was having a great time. You catch weird fish that are kind of eldritch-e, and you're like, oh, this is kind of a spooky fish. But like, again, that's not really, that's not really horror. Like catching a weird fish. Not that scary. But then eventually you start fishing at night. And even in like a very low, polly environment, if something sneaks up on you, it's pretty scary. It's really freaking scary.

Yeah, I really find the, I mean, I find nighttime ocean, dark, deep ocean to be profoundly terrifying. So even this could be scary. And yeah, so I don't know. I really recommend that. I think the sound design of it is really cool. I like the nighttime stuff. there's all these weird things that I haven't played long enough to kind of piece together the whole mystery. I think it's only like eight hours.

There's a story that I'm slowly piecing together from talking to villagers and stuff. But when it's nighttime, you kind of see all these weird boats that only come out at night and they're like off in the distance and you're like, what is up with that? And then they're like closer than before, but then further away. I mean, I love stuff like that. It's very fun. It's got really cool horror vibes. Also enjoy just the idea of a fishing game being. a horror game. I think that's neat and the story being delivered piecemeal just purely through

conversations that you have with people that you meet on the shorelines of various other islands that you discover. And that's, I mean, that's the only way the story can be told. It's just purely environmental. And I think that's a really cool way to tell a story also. So if you like a game that's like a little bit scary, but mostly narrative and mostly chill, because you are fishing. Right. And also has some fun fishing mechanics. Like every kind of fish has a different, like, not a quick time event, but like, you know, there's like a bar that you have to hit hit a button at the correct time, like it'll turn green at certain times. You guys know what I mean. And each fish, each creature has a different system for catching it. Really fun. So it's like a

combination of fun fishing mechanics and spooky vibes and a cool story. So yeah, dredge is what it's called. Like you're dredging up fish from the depths. Great name for a fishing game. I have this installed on Steam Deck and have been excited to play it. It's cool. It's distracted by another game that I'll probably talk about next week. That's also really good that I'm loving. But yeah, I really want to play it. It looks awesome.

I think you'll dig it. Yeah. Awesome. Well, that is it for this week's episode. And may the Force be with you. Yeah. May the, you'll all be listening to this on May the Fourth.

Wow, it's going to be May the Fourth. Wow. I didn't even realize that until right now. Wow. Wow. Wow. Cool. Is Disney Pengus for this?

Like we planned it. Check out for a High Republic show. I don't care if you are not. May the fourth be with you. And next week, by the way, we'll be doing a mailbag episode. So send us your questions at triple click at maximum fund.org if you want to participate. Otherwise, yeah, we'll see you guys next week. Yep.

See you next week. Bye. Triple click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes.

Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network, and if you like our show, we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at Maximumfund.org 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.

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