Video Gamers Podcast - GAMECATION!! – Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: July 6, 2026

Gaming hosts Josh, Ryan, and Ace are kicking back after a mini break to share the games we each couldn't put down. If you love video games, this is a fun gaming conversation you won't want to miss. Join us for plenty of laughs, honest impressions, and everything that made our time away full of great gaming. Grab your video games, settle in, and enjoy another episode of the Video Gamers Podcast celebrating gaming! Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Disratory, Ol’ Jake, Gaius, Jigglepuf, Phelps and NorwegianGreaser, Dettmarp and NightWizard63   Thanks to our Legendary Supporters: HypnoticPyro, PeopleWonder, Bobby S.   Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: ⁠patreon.com/videogamerspod⁠ Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/h2cHKAvSmu Follow us on Instagram:⁠ https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/⁠  Follow us on X:⁠ https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod⁠  Subscribe to us on YouTube:⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@VideoGamersPod?sub_confirmation=1⁠    Visit us on the web:⁠https://videogamerspod.com/⁠   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, fellow gamers, and welcome to the video gamers podcast. Summer is historically a slowdown in game releases and gives gamers some much-needed time to catch up on the backlogs. Go back to some old favorites, and if you're us, time to finally play some of those. I'll probably pick this up games. Well, on this episode, we're going to be breaking down our summer vacation games. Eldon Ring for Ryan, Zero Parades for Dead Spies for Me and Mina the Hollower for Ace. Before we get to our thoughts on those games,

some introductions are in order. I am your host Josh. And joining me, we aren't sure if he'll ever become Eldon Lord, but we do know he's at least been having fun playing one of the greatest games ever made. It's Ryan. I identify as the Eldon Lord.

So jokes on you. Yeah, you don't get to do that, buddy. There's only one way to become Eldon. Oh, man. No, nice try. No, that's reserved for the true game. Dang it. All right, fine.

Yeah. And joining us, he's one of Yacht Club games biggest fans. But does Mina the hollower carry on the tradition that was built by Shovel Night? Or is this a game that belongs in the past? It's ace. Oh, that is a good segue. That's a good intro, honestly. We will see.

I'm not giving away anything yet, but I got thoughts. I got heavy thoughts. No thoughts. No spoilers, no spoilers. Celia, if you're listening, you might want to skip a head a little. Oh, no.

Yeah. We will get to these games. We have all been playing them. This is not like a traditional deep dive for us because these are the games that we played of on our own because we wanted to because it is summer and you know June and July are not crazy busy gaming months. And you know, we kind of get a little bit of a breather before the

chaos of September and October come around. And so for us especially, it's this like, it's this really nice time a year where we go like, bro, I can just play what I want to play. You know what I mean? And it's like, and I know that might sound crazy to a lot of people, but it is one of the tradeoffs with having a gaming podcast is that, you know, we don't get that opportunity very often to just sit and go, hey, these are some of the games that I've been meaning to play. I have time to pick it up. Let me play it. I'm going to play it at my pace. I'm going to play it when I want to play it. I'm not going to feel like I need to grind through this and just, you know, commit 20 or 30 hours to this thing no matter what. So it really is a little bit of a different perspective for us. And so we're going to be talking about these games kind of in that way.

These are not full deep dives for these, but you will get our thoughts on these. You know, we'll say what we think about them and stuff like that. Before we get to diving into these, could these three games be any different, by the way? No, I really don't think we could have gone any farther away from one another. How did we go to opposite ends of the universe when it comes to gaming, man? There's zero relation. Zero relation. We cover everything. That's what we do here. Cover a whole gamut.

It's true. We really do. We do. I mean, I think sports games are the only game, like, genre that we probably as a collective group really just don't talk about very often. I mean, what's there to say? Not really. There's a ball. I mean, Ace ain't wrong.

No, it's going to be like, you're going to alienate all the FIFA. I know the Madden people. What I was going to say is that, like, I'm probably the highest on sports games, but even I'm not like that big. I love like NHL. I love Madden. I'll play some FIFA, but, but I'm much higher. than you guys on sports games, but even then, like, I love combat and narrative-driven games and stuff like that.

So, yeah, could you carry a 30-minute episode, though, just talking about a sports game? Oh, yeah. Really? Do you have enough to say? I couldn't find enough to say. Okay, guys, if you press X to pull up the passing route. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what I'm thinking.

But then you can press circle to quick snap the ball to really throw the defense off. Yeah, I don't know. Anyway, we're just not sports. Yeah. I don't have anything against them. You produce a football podcast. What do you? I love watching it and I love playing fantasy football.

I'm just saying like sports games themselves just aren't. And I've played a lot of them in my day. It's like it's not like we're not familiar with them. It's just not. I don't know, man. They're not our jam. So, you know, we're honest around these parts. Now, I will say back in the day, boy, dude, give me double dribble.

Give me, I'm trying to think of what that wrestling game was on the Nintendo. You know, I got into sports games, NBA jam for a while. Maybe a jam was the bomb. NFL Blitz was one of my favorites. Blitz was super fun. The problem is they started going to Sim. I don't like Sim games. You know what?

Give me the arcade, like you said, like NFL Blitz, and I'm in. I'm having a blast at that. Well, when you would, when you got to a point where when you would boot up Madden if you played online, and then all of a sudden, like, you started an online game and it'd go, and it'd pause. And then the other opponent was like, and they were like switching 800 different things for their game.

And then you're just like, oh, I'm cooked. I'm so dead, right? I was like, I'm just trying, I work a full-time job, man. I'm just trying to kind of play a game. I'm like, I guess I just go play the computer because this is not it. Yeah, no, so. All right, Ryan, before we get into these games, we do have a review to read. As a quick reminder for everybody, reviews are a lifeblood for a podcast.

It lets other gamers know it moves us up the algorithm. It is one of the easiest and most supportive things that you all out there can do. So if you have not done so, please take a second to rate the show five stars on Spotify. If you listen on Apple Podcasts, they let you actually write a review. That's where we pull these written reviews from. We have had people email us. This review that Ryan's actually about to read came through as a DM because they said, hey, I'd love to leave you guys a review, but I don't use Apple Podcasts.

But here's my thoughts. And that's actually one that we pulled for today. So we see all of these. You can email us. You can DM them to us, however you want to get them over there. but we love seeing them and like I said it really does help the podcast as well so Ryan what do you got for us well I have an amazing review that you like you said was DM to us from the one the only john a bravo man it is titled vGP is the way to be which i love good title by the way i like i listen to this podcast multiple times a week you guys are nothing short of entertaining and relatable thanks for making my commute to work that much more tolerable keep on keeping on guys nice love it love it love it what a good

hearing when we're part of people's commute yeah it feels good to be part of people's day you know traffic sucks traffic does suck traffic sucks as someone who drives a long ways a lot of days for different jobs i go all over my state basically for for work and so yeah something good to listen to um is always clutch and if we're that for people that's fantastic. Yeah. Love it. So thank you for the review.

Johnny Bravo and everybody else that's taken the time to leave us one there and to rate us on Spotify. It really does help. So all right, boys. You have ready to talk some games? I suppose we could talk some games. Before we get to these three games, is there anything other than we've all been playing Overwatch together? We've played a stupid amount of Overwatch.

I want to ask, have we, are you hooked now, Ryan? Are you, are you in? I think I kind of like it. Yeah. I think I kind of like it. I want you to like it. I think I kind of like it. I think I kind of like it because I'm kind of getting good at it.

Maybe a little bit. And then the thing is you're going to like, you're getting very good with Sigma and then you're going to be like, let me try this guy. And then it's going to kind of sort of click just enough that you're like, okay, I'm playing this guy now. And then the cycle just resets, dude. Well, I'm learning the maps now too. Like I didn't know the maps before I didn't know where I was going.

what I was doing where the choke points wore, where the fighting usually like ends up on these different push objectives or different things like that. So I'm starting to learn like we did with rivals or any other game like that. Like, you know, you learn, once you learn that, like that makes such a big difference.

And then you learn the character too and it just helps you that much more. I mean, now you know how to block a diva bomb with Sig Shield like at the last second. I did it twice last night. I'm like, wow! I would spin and turn and just drop a shield and it was like, I'm alive. So we have all been playing Overwatch.

I have been just absolutely cracked out on Path of Exile 2. You broke it. What I play in my spare time. You know, yeah, I mean, I can't come to find out that there's a gillian people to play this game. So what I thought, like, I invented actually other people had found too, but I did kind of come up with this, like, just willing to. I don't like, like, looking up builds. Like, part of the fun for me in a game is going, like, is the fun of, like, theory crafting it. And then I found out that it's like, oh, this has been found out before.

So it's still fun to do, but I'm not unique in that sense. But yeah, Path of Exile 2 is just like Diablo except way better. Like way better people. Well, that's all we have for today, ladies and gentlemen. Ryan doesn't know. He's scared because he doesn't want his world shattered to realize that there's a way better game out there than Diablo. But, yeah, Path of Exile 2 for me, Overwatch.

And then for this, I'm going to be talking about zero parades for dead spies. which is the kind of, well, I won't say spiritual successor. It is the successor to disco elysium. This is actually from Zom Studios who made the disco Elysium. There's been a lot of, you know, to do about them being mean to their developers and kicking people out and then developers split off to make their own game. But Zom actually is the one that made zero parades for Dead Spies. So I'm going to be talking about that one.

Ryan, I hear you've been playing some Fortnite. night with your boy in the uh in your spare time i have i have we streamed a couple times um we've been playing a lot of duos and then a lot of times we'll just i'll come out in the living room and he'll be on and then we'll just take turns playing you know regular solos or comp or something like that but uh but yeah i've actually fortnight's like really grown on me like it it's it's one of those games that like i i did not like it for a long time and then i know that we played it you know Ace got me that skin. We played it with Paul. And I was like, all right, it's all right. But it's, it's really growing on me.

And I appreciate the maps. I know where to go. I know what to do. It's a fun game, man. I've been playing a lot of it. Is your kid like, is your kid like mine where they're like better than you? And so they're telling you like, hey, you shouldn't have pushed. Like, you know, don't do that. Oh, he does that all day long. And then I say, I was like, don't tell me what to do. And he's like, you need to do this. And then and then I say, okay, one v1 me. one v1 me let's right right now oh i can't say that and he goes he goes no no and i'm like yeah that's what i thought he's what i thought he's really give another year too though oh oh i'm not this is what i've been doing

i've been training them i i have a video i think i sent you guys a few days ago but i have like i have him playing um war zone uh br like when he was like four or five he was cruising around and he would just use one finger for the w and he was killing people and he you know So he's, he's been playing, playing these games for a long time. He was, he was born into it, molded by it, if you will. But yeah, so it's, it's been a good time. Yeah, he does talk a lot of crap, though. These younglings, man, these, they, they got a mouth on them these days.

Yeah. It, it kind of hurts when your kid tells you something and, like, points out something you did wrong. But you know deep down inside that they were kind of right at the same time. Yeah, whatever, whatever cast says is true, for sure. Whatever criticism. Yeah. She's right 90% of the time. I will never threaten a 1v1 against my kid because she will smoke me, dude.

She could probably do a 2V1 with us. Like she would destroy us. Yeah. So, Ace, what about you? Have you been playing anything just other than Mina the Hallware, which we're going to talk about here in just a second? But have you been playing anything on your own? I'll throw, I know you were playing some Lys of P the other night, but anything that you've been playing kind of during your summer gamecation? I've been playing a lot of things.

I've been having that issue where nothing's really sticking. And I'm having a slump. Yeah. I'm in that slump. I know it well, buddy. Yeah, you know it well. So I've jumped between rivals, Overwatch, and I played some dead by daylight because it had its 10 year anniversary recently with some friends.

That was fun. Did some customs. It was a good time. Then I told you I was playing Liza P with someone because we found a seamless co-op mod for Liza P, which apparently you could just find seamless co-op mods for any souls like nowadays and it just works. Right. And then finally something's starting.

pretty well. Abysus had a major content update so I went back and got my 100% back for Abyssus. Dude, yeah, you just showed the 100% how much new content? Like, I mean, we don't have time to do a full abysus thing. Yeah, well, there's a whole new area with a whole new mini boss and

and boss and all these new new blessings and there's even a new blessing type, Brian, which is cool. Do they fix that gold thing? Hmm? Did they fix the gold thing where you just get, like the gold is a little bit more even now? Yeah. All right. Cool.

Frost is actually pretty broken now, but gold's, yeah. And then they added any elements or anything? Yeah, they added brine. Brian is the new element. Oh, that's the new element. Oh, that's the blessing. Okay. You make pickles?

No, but it does look like pickle brine. Oh. And then every existing boss has two other existing variants now, which are absolutely completely different from one another. Like that water boss, the second boss, he has a blood water variant and a lava variant that has completely different attacks and patterns now. Dude, that's freaking sweet, man. So you just don't know which one you're going to get.

Also, all the areas are randomized now. So you're never going through the same thing twice. Oh, that's a good touch too, man. This boss is weak to pickles. This guy's weak to pickles. I got double brine on these pickles. Yeah. And then, you know, Mina, of course.

I've been playing Mina. All right. Well, let's, we've been teasing this for 15 minutes now. So let's talk about Mina, Ace. Oh, we're talking right to Mina. All right. Yeah, we're jumping right to you on this one because I'm actually curious on this. Like you were, you know, we, you know, we've talked about Mina.

We, like, this is one of those things where, you know, we interviewed Yacht Club games. This was a very, very important release for Yacht Club games. This was a make or break release for Yacht Club games. If they didn't succeed with Mina even like partially, that's probably the end of the studio that brought a shovel night. And you could, you could tell. with how she was talking about it and how they had to delay it for so long. They delayed it, yep.

That was scary for them, they said. That this has to land. Like, this game had to land. And lo and behold, the day before Mina the hollower drops, we get the review scores, tens and nines across the board. We were all shocked.

Like, Mina was the game. Like, I was looking forward to, like, probably the most of all of us, in this room, at least. I'll say that. Because you guys have been dunked on its graphics since we saw it. We would never.

Oh, you would never. We would never. You don't have any proof of that case. I'm sure there's entire threads in our Discord dedicated to it. I'll be real. Maybe. You can't prove anything. So, you know, I thought this is going to be an ace game

where it's like, it gets like a seven or eight and some people like it, some people don't. And then I would be the one who's like, oh, this game's great. No way, it's nobody talking about this game. Lo and behold, everyone's talking about this game. And everyone thinks it's great. It's a 10 out 10. So, of course,

had to pick it up. You guys are familiar with the kind of gameplay that Mina is, right? Like, we've talked about how it's... It's like Zelda meets, like, kind of more of an action. I don't know, man. Like, it's a weird, like, Zelda-ish is kind of the one, like, comparison that I hear from a lot of people. The other thing I hear is that it is hard.

Oh, my gosh, it's hard. This is like... We'll talk about that. This is like, Zelda meets Dark Souls. And it's like, wait, what? So, yeah, in the truest form, Mina is an homage to the Game Boy color, to those old school retro Zelda style games where it's a big open world, it's an action adventure.

The difference being it's a souls like action adventure. To a T, like if you die, you go back to the first, the save point you were at, and you've got to go through that entire level again. And if you die a second time, you lose all of your bones you picked up from killing the enemies just like you lose your souls and dark souls. It is punishing. I want to pause there for a second because this is like the old

and this is something that Yacht Club told us as they said we like that retro feel like we're going for the Game Boy color type graphics. Go beat Lion King. Beat Lion King and come back. Yeah. Like legitimate. But so that's my question because you mentioned this and like I for a lot of people that

is not a gameplay element that goes over real well nowadays is the if you die you have to start the level over again or at least back to the checkpoint. Yeah, it's a checkpoint. It's a checkpoint. It's not level based. It's a big open world. Okay. But I mean, that was one of our complaints with like Silk Song was the runback, right,

to the boss fights or something like that. Is that like semi-present in Mina or is it just like you do have to go back to a checkpoint but it's not like it doesn't feel punishing? I would say a little both. It's very punishing. It's like, but it's very punishing because you take damage from falling in pits. You take damage from touching enemies like there's, you know, contact damage, which I hate, I hate contact damage.

I hate it with a passion. I hate taking damage when I fall in a pit and then I come back and then I take more damage because there's no eye frames. So it's like, it's punishing and frustrating, but it also teaches you you just need to be better because the game gives you the mechanics

and the tools you need to avoid the damage you're taking. Like the hollowing mechanic, which is the whole big thing about this game. Mina can go underground and it's both a dodge and a jump at the same time. It's a huge deal. Yeah. It's like the whole point. So that's the that's the hollowing, right?

That's the part where it's like the, the mean of the hollow word, the hollowing is where you go underground. Yeah, it's the hollowing. Okay. But it makes you immune or you like can you stay underground? Yeah, no, it makes you immune for like the duration of the ability and then you will be forced out again. So you'll use this to dodge boss of attacks. You'll use this to platform through water like there's deep water. So you'll go from the shallow water to.

through the deep water and try to land in some more shallow water. And you don't think about that the first time you get to, like, the deep water that you could just burrow into it. Because if you touch it, you die. There's a lot of ways that Mina wants you to think about how to use its mechanics to not suck, basically. That's good. So do you think then, like, having the effects of, like, you know, that having to do the run back or having to reset from your checkpoint and stuff, that makes you. really dive in to the depths of the mechanics of the game and, and how best to attack every level and how to approach every situation.

So you're a little more cautious and you really learn the mechanics that you need to use, like, through that. I would say so, yeah. It's got a lot of those souls elements where you get far enough into the level, you could open up a shortcut. And now if you die, it's not as punishing to go back. Which is, you know, it's something we dogged on Soxong for and I will dog on Mena for is like, I hate runbacks.

It's not fun. But if that's baked into your gameplay, I guess that's just what you wanted people to experience. And you are at least hearkening back to an era. I think there's other ways to make a game difficult or make a game challenging than just to have dumb runbacks. But, you know. And you are harketing back to an era of hard games.

Yeah, dude. Hard platformers and things like that. Yeah. That's what I was going to say is they intended this, you know, this is the type of game that they make. This is their kind of MO. like this is not, you know, like unique to them by any means. I mean, their history with this is, is pretty evident.

We don't have time to go into all the mechanics for these games. You know, the internet lost its mind over Mina, to be honest. You know, crazy good reviews for this game, like you said, A's 10 out of tens, nine out of tens. On social media, people were praising this left and right, saying, guys, this is one of the best games I've played in a while. A lot of people mentioned the difficulty level. We had a lot of people in our Discord server that were playing it and saying, hey, this is a really, really good video game here. You know, the teasing the graphics aside, you know, that is an issue for some people, you know,

we had people that said, I wish the game looked a little bit better, but from a gameplay standpoint, this game is awesome. And then they quickly followed that up with, it's also pretty difficult. Overall, as far as like, you know, your, again, this isn't a deep dive. So, you know, you don't have to necessarily rate it or anything. It's like, are you impressed? Is this what you were hoping for? Are you like, is it better than you thought it was going to be?

Like, what's kind of your take after spending some time with Mina the Hollower? I think Mina's exactly what I expected from the quality that Yacht Club Games puts out. Like, this is another Yacht Club game's masterpiece. This just oozes passion. It has everything that they brought to Shovel Night. They brought into Mina. And it's a perfect game for what it wants to be. For me personally, it's too hard.

It's way too hard. Like it kicked my butt from here to Timbuk to. But thankfully, but thankfully, Mina has like little adjustments and things you can make so that you don't take damage from falling in pits. And you don't, you know, respond if you don't want to respond at the other thing. You'll respond at the beginning of the frame you're at or whatever. And there are ways to make the game easier at the cost of turning off your achievements

or something like that, which I think's great. I think accessibility is great. But Mina's great. And it's exactly what they wanted it to be. and clearly people love it. It's been successful. I've been like legitimately, I have heard a lot of people say

this is my like favorite game of the year, you know, which sounds crazy to a lot of people, but that's a pretty strong sentiment from a lot of people online. It's a massive game too. It's massive. Yeah, like I like that old school difficulty. I do plan on actually trying out mean at some point

because it does have a lot of mechanics to it. Like you said, it allows you to be. creative and things like that. So I'm really really happy for Yacht Club. Because this, like you said, this was do or die. And I think that the success of Mina will hopefully carry them forward and let them keep making, you know, awesome games that are that kind of throwback.

You said it's a big game. Is it, what is it, like a half gig download? Yeah, I don't think it's a gig. I do wonder what the size of Mina is, dude. I was curious. I was thinking about it. We got to take a break. One of you look up what the install size of me to the hollowers, because I am actually curious about that.

We'll come back and then I'll talk about zero parades for dead spies. We'll be right back. All right. We're back. Ryan, did you find it? Ryan's last, his best 900 megs. It's not even a gigabyte? It's not even a gig.

It's not even a gig. Dude, that game would install in about two seconds on my. You're good to go. Ready to play. It's just like, you want to install? Yes, I do. Done. You can play it right now.

Done. We did it before you clicked it. That's how little it is. All right, Josh, I got to hear about zero parades. Like, you've said nothing about it. You've given me no context at all of how you feel about this game. But I got to know. We know nothing.

I got to know how. Yeah. How is the Discolysm, you know, predecessor? How is it? Okay. So I'm going to answer the million dollar question first. Okay. Yes, you, it is very, very simple.

similar to Disco Elysium in a lot of ways. You can tell it's made by the same studio. It is not as good as Disco Elysium. It is not. I will say, while it is a rock solid video game, if you are in the mood for this kind of game, it is basically a point-and-click adventure. If you've ever played Disco Elysium,

this game is going to feel very, very familiar. Except it doesn't have any of the magic that Disco Elysium had in my opinion. opinion. You know, it's not to say that it's a bad game because it actually there's a pretty good video game there, but this game kind of just throws you in to this world. You are a spy that has not like, it's very similar, right? You just start in the like, I don't want to say the middle of the game, but the game just starts and you're in like this room and there's this guy next to you and you don't know what the heck's going on. And it's like very similar to disco

Elysium. Where I think it starts to falter is they don't explain anything. Oh. Like anything. There's all these different factions. There's these different, like, you know, it's this fake world that you're in. Revischal was very like small and quaint. And, you know, you kind of only had a little bit of what was going on in Revischal with

disco Elysium. And it was very digestible through playing the game. And you talk to the characters and stuff like that with Zero Parades for Dead Spies. there are so many different factions that the game mentions and they never go into who's what and why do they think the way that they think.

Like you can't align yourself with anybody. You know what I mean? Like it's just, it's just word fluff almost at that point. And I'm going like, I don't know who the bad guys are. Like, like honestly, like at this point, is it the bank?

Is it like the other faction? Like it's all varying. So it sounds like it's not as open ended as Discableasian was. where you could, you know, identify with the more, you know, racist character or the communist character or the anti-capitalist. And then you would have dialogue that follows that. And then Kim would be like, what? Yeah.

I mean, you know, it does well with having the mystery. You are trying to solve what happened. You know, you're a spy. You're in this theater, you know, that they call it, like, so you're working, basically. But you don't really remember a whole lot of how you got. like activated or brought back in. Something went wrong and you happen to be there. And so they're counting on you kind of thing.

But you weren't really their choice and you've got this bad past about they don't really trust you and you don't trust yourself and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Here's where the game kind of misses for me is there's a lot of characters that you talk to, but none of them are memorable like disco Elysium was, right? Like this is where I really had a hard time with this to really start caring about this game. There's no Kuno. There's no Kuno. There's no Kizuragi. There's no Kim Kitsaragi. You know, like there are a couple characters in the game that you meet that are kind of outlandish, but they're not like main that you don't like, they're not super important. You know what I mean?

They don't stick with you through the game or you're, you know, you may only interact with him for like a short bit, right? And it's like, everything's just very like convoluted, man, you know? And it's like, it's, I don't know. No, it just doesn't hit the same. Like, honestly, it just doesn't hit the same. It is a very good point-and-click adventure where there's some neat aspects going on, and you are trying to kind of solve these problems that people have. And just like any point-and-click adventure, when you get information on this one thing,

you can take it, and then that kind of unlocks this other thing, which then allows you to help out these two people that needed your help. And because you help them out, they'll give you information on the main quest line that you're on and tell you about your spy friend or something like that. But here's the other issue that I have is the voice acting in disco Elysium was absolutely incredible.

Like it carried that game. Once they put it in. Yeah, once they put it in there. Once they put it in. And I got to give Zom credit. They kind of went people want to be able to hear this stuff. But it's not very good. Really?

It almost makes me wonder, and I haven't looked this up, but this is just like a, you know, it almost makes me feel like the voice acting is AI generated in this game. Oh, that's not a good sign. Do you know what I mean? Okay, I've been reading reviews. I've been reading reviews of the game and a few people

I've said the same thing as you. Like I feel like it's just doesn't have the soul, man. Like I don't know if it's, I'm not saying it is AI generated voices, but it feels like that. So sorry to if they were actually real voice actors in this. But like between the convoluted dialogue, not really understanding the world and not having the world explain to you

in a way like Disco Elysium did. Like Disco Elysium, the more you played, the more you kind of understood Revischal and what was going on in the plate of the people and the, you know, the kids in the church with the disco and the, that kind of stuff. Like it just doesn't have a lot of that like heart and soul. And so it's like, it's this weird like,

it's a good game. Like I don't, I never minded hopping in and playing it. But at the same time, it just never had that, like, like disco elysium like undertone or vibe where I really love the character. Did it do anything to stand out from disco elysium at all? I was going to say, what was the difference? Broke the mold?

What between the two? The graphics are a little bit different. Like it is kind of the same art style. But see, like none of it feels as good. Like here's the other thing, right? Like there's little gameplay mechanics. Like in disco elysium, if you had to roll the dice, right? Like you had to make these skill checks, right?

Where it's like, hey, you got to make the skill check. You want to shoot the corpse down from the tree. but you missed, right? Well, then there would be like a kind of funny consequence to that, but the game would keep going. In Zero Parades for Dead Spies, if you fail a skill check that's necessary to progress the story, you have to attempt it again,

but the only way to attempt it again is if you sleep, right? So then it's like, you're just delaying the game at this point. Like, there's no point to that, right? Like, you had let the game go on. The perfect recipe. And you just completely threw it out because that, yeah, it worked so much better. in disco elysium where if you tried to shoot the body down and you missed and you put a bullet in

the body. Kim just like, we're going to have to put that in the police report. Right. And you had a reaction to it where in this one, you know, yes, it'll tell you, hey, you failed blah, blah, blah, right? But it's like, but it's not consequential at all. So I, you know, I do enjoy the game.

I think it's worthwhile if somebody's looking for a point and click adventure. But disco elysium, this game is not, man. Like just plain and simple. It's not. So you would say esoteric ab did a better job of capturing the Disco Elysium spirit than this did. I haven't played esoteric Ebb, but based on reviews and from word of mouth and what I hear, I think Esoteric Ebb is definitely the game that people should pick up and play if they're in the mood for something like this. Because, again, I didn't play esoteric Ebb, but everything I see goes, you should play that game versus Zero Parades for Dead.

Again, Zero Prades for Dead Spies is not a bad video game. but if you go into it thinking this is the people these are the people that made disco elysium this is going to feel like disco elysium it only really feels that way in the art style and a little bit of the

the vibe or the tone but it really misses on everything that made disco elysium it's more the expectations than anything they just didn't hit for you like it's not a horrible game but it's not what you thought it could be it's not fair to hold a game up

to Disco Elysium, because let's be honest, that's kind of an all-timer. Yeah. But at the same time, the same studio that made it, well, that's my point is that the same studio that made it, you do expect that they kind of knew what some of the magic was. And I feel like they did not capture any of the magic of Disco Elysium. I mean, again, not a bad video game. Like, definitely worth playing for people if they're in the mood after you play esoteric Ebb and after you play Disco Elysium, you know, kind of thing.

So if Disco Elysium's like a 9-5, ish. Like, where, where does this sit? Like a 7-3. I was going to guess in the 7s for sure. I was fair. It's just average at best, from what I'm seeing. Yeah. It's, and like I said, it may not be fair to hold it against the standard of disco Elysium, but this is the studio. Yeah. So it's kind of like, well, I'm going to kind of asking for it. Yeah. No, yeah, no. That's that's totally fair. Fair enough, man. Yeah.

At least you haven't hate your time with it. I didn't. Thankfully, like I said, it's not, it's not bad by any means. So, all right, we have kept everybody waiting for this last part because anybody that has listened to this show for a long time knows that Ryan has never played Eldon Ring. We kept saying, hey, maybe we'll make Ryan play Eldon Ring at one point. Well, Ryan just decides on a whim he's going to pick it up. And he starts playing it at 10 o'clock at night. Yeah, right.

You know, and then tries to troll Ace and I saying, you guys did you play with me? And then you didn't. And then so we had fun just picking on each other about that. I mean, I have made no qualms about the fact that I, Eldon Ring is a top five game of all time for me. It is one of my favorite games ever. Ace, I feel like it's up there for you as well. I think it's in my top 10 for sure.

Yeah. And so the big thing was, is Ryan going to like Eldon Ring if he started to play Eldon Ring? We did, we did tell Ryan that we would play with him to do the co-op. but at the same time we also wanted you to experience Eldon Ring like every other gamer in the world where you just hop in kind of by yourself and you're kind of thrown into the world.

What'd you think, Ryan? Come on, Ryan. Tell us, we've been waiting so long. I was lucky enough to hop in with the stream and they could tell me where to go. But I think that this is pretty much, gosh, where do I go with this? It's like every other Souls game.

I think it was, and I had, I did have an exposure to the Eldon Ring world with, uh, what's the one we played? Um, said you played Bloodbourne, didn't you? No, no, no, no, the one we all played. Oh, the elder, night rain. Night rain. Night rain. Night rain.

I kept wanting to say Rain tree. And I'm like, that's not right. Rangree. Night rain. We played night rain, which I loved, because I love the fast-paced nature of it. I love the combat. and I don't mind Souls-based combat. I loved in God of War being able to fight the Valkyries.

That was kind of similar to Souls-like, like with a lot of Dodge Rolls and trying to set up your attacks. Yeah, I get that comparison. Yeah, so I was ready for it. I was not as ready as I thought I was. It's an interesting game, man. Once you get in, you are not really given much of anything. you are just sitting out into this world and it's just like go have fun and you got to figure out what to do, what to equip, what to attack and what you can attack and will kill you instantly.

And I don't know how these guys do these no hit runs, especially the guys that do like the no hit runs through all the Souls games. You are something else. Use a banana as a controller. Right? Or a goldfish like in a tank like to do it. But, yeah, we started out. And I've got probably 30-ish hours, 25, 30 hours in the game so far. And I said so far because I think I'm going to keep playing, guys.

Yes. That is right. Okay, that was the answer that I really wanted was will Ryan keep playing Eldon I think I'm going to keep playing. I am not anywhere near the level that you guys are. And most people I've played Eldon Ring. It's an older game. And a lot of people have experienced a lot of Dark Souls world and everything.

But for me, it's not exactly my type of game, but I love the challenge. And I love the thought of, oh, I think I could try this that time and I could beat this guy. You know, so going back and just beating my head against the wall and trying to fight somebody, I feel like I like it for some reason more in this game than I do in other games. Other boss fights and other things in like normal regular, you know, regular quote-unquote games, I'm not as big on, but for some reason with this, it fits. Like if I got a guy that I cannot beat, I'm like, there's something I'm doing wrong. I'm either not high enough level or I need to get a little bit more technique.

I need to dodge roll better. I need to time myself better. Like there's always a way. If somebody can do it at level one, like I can do it at level 47. You know, like there's no reason why I can't do this other than I'm just not good enough. So I think that the soul's genre as a whole has created something awesome. And I think that this game is a perfect example of that. Is it my favorite?

No. Is it in my top 10? No. But I genuinely had much more fun. especially playing co-up with you guys, than I ever thought I would have playing this game. After playing Bloodborn, I was just out on Souls games.

I'm like, this is dumb, it's boring. I'm not a fan of it. I don't want to just run around and kill stuff. But this has turned my tide a little bit. Like, it's not, I'm not a big Souls fan now, but I will say that I very much am surprised by how much I did enjoy playing this. And thank you to,

a homeboy McSweddy for sending me that steam deck because I played a ton of Eldon Ring in bed or on the couch on that steam deck, which is a little trickier than playing normally, but I played quite a bit. Does the open world aspect of Eldon Ring sort of help you enjoy it more? Because you know, you don't have... I was going to ask the exact same question. Because you know you don't have to always go like down the linear path and fight the boss.

You can go do something else, go level up or go do a quest or something else. Yes. Yes. know, I love the ability to explore, but I also love a direction if I want to go there. So not having, I mean, with my one big, big gripe with is, you know, I'm very narrative-driven on video games. I love cutscenes. I love a deep, dark story that kind of pulls me into this world. I find it immersive. I find it what makes me drawn into video games. And I got none of that from this game. Having to, read every little bit. Everybody, like, when I streamed a game a few times, they're like, read every dialogue thing. And I'm like, I don't want to read this stuff. Like, that's not what I'm here for.

Like, if, if it's that great, get a voice actor and have them just tell me in some great booming voice of what's going on, you know. So that, that to me, I feel would have enhanced the game substantially. I did not like that part of it. But I love the option to be able to just go around the world. and go to places that you shouldn't be. Like, hey, oh no, I just got two shot in. Like, I don't think I should be here.

And then I would go, well, let me try one more time. And then I'm like, yeah, yeah, I shouldn't be here after I died. I love when games do that, dude. Yeah. Honestly, I love when games do that. To just go, you can explore, but you're going to get your butt kicked. And it's like there's something to be said for that kind of natural discovery. Yep.

I think the complaint about Eldon Ring not having any kind of coherent story is a valid complaint. Like to me, Eldon Ring is 1,000% about the gameplay and the world. You know, the lands between incredible, dude, being able to look around and see a castle way off in the distance and go explore that castle and find some spectacular boss or something like that, I think is absolutely top notch. it's an oddly eerily beautiful game in my opinion too which I think really does help that kind of sense of exploration but you know ultimately for me at least Eldon Ring is all about the gameplay it is that combat like you said it is that if I die to this boss

it's ultimately because I screwed up you know not because the game gated this content not because it artificially held me back or something like that it is just am I good enough or not and you can make yourself good enough through leveling and gear and stuff like that. But it's like, yeah, there's people that beat this entire game from level one and never level up. It's doable, which I think is really cool at the same time. So we will definitely have to play more co-op because I'll be honest,

I'd never played co-op Eldon Ring and I had a blast. Dude, that was so fun. Yeah. And it is kind of like writing a bike too, which is great half, though. Margaret did jump us that one. He got to get Ryan credit just because I do like picking. on you, Ryan. I was just going to... I was impressed you.

This is what I was going to say. Very impressed. And why is everybody so surprised? I don't know, man. Because you're such a goofball, man. It's like, you don't take anything seriously. So it's like, you know. Okay.

Yeah. So, but I got to give you your credit, dude. I can dodge roll. Like, I'm kind of shocked. How good Ryan is at this, man. Everyone in our Discord was shocked, actually. That's the funny thing. Yeah, I know.

Everybody was like, wow. Oh, wow. It's like, okay. I know you're trying to. compliment me, but this is kind of insulting. Like, I did say, now you brought this on yourself, because you even said, when's this game going to get hard? And I was like, okay, you come back after you have to beat Redan. You know what I mean?

Or Moog or somebody like that. Then the game definitely does have like choke points. Oh, I'm sure. To where it's like, it's that real skill check. Like, you know, but you took Marget down pretty dang quick, man, at the same time. So not an official rating, you know. Is this an eight, a nine in the, like, where are you at kind of if you had to rate it right now? Because honestly, you're just kind of getting started.

I checked my playtime. I'm 136 hours into Eldon Ring. That's awesome, which is funny. Does that count Shadow of the Urd Tree? I don't think it does. It'll count that as well. It'll count the full. Does it?

Yeah, it'll count both. Including Shadow of the Urtree, I'm 136 hours in Elden Ring. Yeah, so a sub 30 hours, I think I had 25, 26 hours, something like that. I would say that I can totally see why it's people's favorite game of all time. And I think it's beautiful. I think the combat is amazing and crisp and clean. It's one of the high points of the entire game. If it has some sort of narrative driven,

even something simple as like it has something. It would make a big difference for me. But personally, I would say it's like mid-eight. like an 8-5. I think it's an amazing game. I had a lot of fun. We're going to keep playing. I'm going to personally keep playing.

It's definitely changed my mind on Souls-type games. But there was a couple things that I wish were different. But overall, I think it's a genuinely, it's a solid, solid game. And I see why it gets the recognition that it does. All right. That's fair. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair criticism.

The fact that Ryan says he's going to keep playing is about as much praise as I could. Well, because now I'm like, I'm like, where can I take this? Like, how can I, how can I, because my build like, you called me a dirty magic user, but like, I'm like, I want to keep going with this and I want these boulders to just obliterate everybody. You'll find some interesting magic weapons. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I got 190 hours in. Jeez. Yeah. Yeah.

I'll say this, Ryan. I, there, you know, this is no joking aside, but I think that there is a reason that a lot of people like say I'm Eldon Lord, because beating Eldon Ring is an accomplishment. It is. Oh, for sure. Like, plain and simple. I can see that, yeah. You know what I mean?

Like, yeah, you can look up builds and you can look up some of the best weapons in the game and you can go hunt for those and quest for those. But you got to earn them. You know what I mean? Like, even to get those, you got to earn them, which ain't easy. So I think, like, where does it go is, like, ultimately, and I'm not saying you have to do this, you know what I mean? But that desire to go, I can say I beat Eldon Ring.

And that's something that not a lot of gamers can say, even though it's, semi-approachable to do that. Like, it is doable. It's not like this is not some impossible game, right? But it's like, I think to be able to say, hey, I am an Eldon Lord is the kind of goal, you know, or the end point for playing.

You know, obviously you want to have a good time the whole time. Yeah. That kind of thing. But like, to me, that is like the cool, like, you kind of just nod, you know, like, oh. It's not. It's that, cool. Yeah. It's like I, instead of I got to level blah, blah, blah. It's, I beat this character. I beat Redon.

be whoever like and that's and that's what and that's what i found myself like i wanted to find the next boss and and fight my way to the next boss so i could beat them and check them off the list which i've never been that type of person but like i won't that's what i wanted to do the other thing i'll tell you is that just when you get tired of running around on your horse in this kind of open world you're going to make it to like furu mazula and or or knock on the city of night and you are going to go like there's no way but it is almost like it is a completely different world

that you were in and it's huge dude like it is huge what's the big castle one I can't remember the castle that's in the center of the map oh the castle in the center of the map yeah the gigantic castle that you're in for like 20 hours and like every part of this game like just like there's

there's moments where you're just like there's no way I'm in a completely different like area or world and it's massive and it feels like a kind of like a new game all of a sudden. And then you got a DLC with really, really pretty. Royal Capital. That DLC is. Yeah. What's the capital?

A Lindel. Yeah. Royal Capital. Yeah. The Royal Capital. There you go. You know, or so or the library, right? Where it's just like it kind of, it does change the pacing a little bit.

Like, yes, you have the open world area, but then you're going to come to these areas that are massive that just kind of change the vibe a little bit. And it does just enough to kind of keep you going. so yeah dope love elton ring i'm glad i'm glad you like it are you guys happy are you guys happy i am if you said nasty things about elton ring it was going to be a top 10 game it was going to end poorly for you like yeah and and it does me i'm just again i just want to say i'm not that bad at video games people like i can dodge roll all right like this game is made to be played on controller so i think that helps yeah that helps that does help that does help quite a controller a

I'm good with the controller. That helps you. All right. Well, listen, there you go, everybody. That is the games that we have been playing over our summer. I'm saying it's a break. It's a break from just the grind of playing new releases. Yeah, that's what it's a podcast is still going strong here.

But that is a kind of our break to be able to play what we've wanted to pick up and play. So, Meena the Hollowar for A, zero parades for Dead Spies for me. And finally, Eldon Ring for Ryan. We want to know what you're playing. You know, we love to hear about the games that people are experiencing. Leave us a comment on Spotify. Hop in our Discord server. We got people that are picking up games left and right,

playing games that they should have played five years ago that they're experiencing for the first time. Everybody loves hearing, you know, about people's playthroughs and their experiences with these games and, you know, how the story of this game hit you and things like that. So there's a link in the episode description to join our Discord server. Hop on in, chat with us. The three of us are in there all the time where they're,

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Yeah. So that's going to do it for this episode, everybody. Until next time, happy. gaming. See ya. Peace out.