Video Gamers Podcast - Metroid Prime 4 & Doom The Dark Ages Anticipation + Nintendo Direct Predictions – Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: April 3, 2025

Gaming hosts Josh, Ryan, and John break down this week’s biggest video game news! Schedule 1 dethrones Monster Hunter Wilds, we get an epic look at Doom The Dark Ages, and cover the divisive Metroid Prime 4 trailer! Plus what’s coming in the next Nintendo Direct—could we see Kingdom Hearts 1 & 2 remasters, Mario Kart, or ports of beloved video games like Red Dead Redemption 2 and Elden Ring? Plus, Ghost of Yotei is officially coming in 2025! All the gaming news you need, each and every week from the Video Gamers Podcast! Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Ol’ Jake, Disratory and Gaius Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz 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   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Nicky. FX's Dying for Sex, streaming April 4th only on Disney+. Sign up now at DisneyPlus.com. Hello, fellow gamers and welcome to the Video Gamers Podcast. The Nintendo Direct is looming. Well, okay, by the time this episode releases it's already happened. Doom the Dark Ages is making a strong push to unseat Expedition 33 on my height meter at least and Metroid Prime 4 will let you open doors. We've got a lot to cover, but first some introductions are in order. I am your host Josh, and joining me, he's been dreaming about setting up his own unsanctioned

medicine empire and watching reruns of Breaking Bad to prepare, it's Ryan. What should my color be? I can't be Mr. White, obviously, so make me Mr. Tan. I don't know's Ryan. You can, what should my color be? I can't be Mr. White, obviously. So like make me Mr. Tan. I don't know Ryan. Mr. Tan. Mr. Light Tan. Is Tan, Tan is a color I guess, right? My favorite color is light tan.

You're Mr. Red, bro. Oh yeah, there you go. Yeah, yeah. And joining us, he's really just here for the Nintendo Direct Chat, and he's already doubled down on a Switch 2 Red Dead Redemption 2 port. It's John! Hey, everybody! I got my diet cock and bowl here, this episode brought to you by Cock and Bowl.

Cock and Bowl! It's a chicken and a cow. Wait, wait, wait. Are we getting proceeds from this? I'm working on it. Wait, wait, wait. Are we getting proceeds from this? I'm working on it. OK, all right. That's for all you advertisers out there that would like to advertise with this podcast.

I'm just thinking of the smoke coming out of a Switch trying to run Red Dead. Yeah. It just would, pow. John also mentioned Elden Ring in a little text message to us. And I kind of went, Elden Ring on the Switch is, I feel like I'd go blind. That thing better have a bigger screen, man.

I think that's just your age. Yeah, we'll get to it, but I mean, the Joy-Cons, or whatever they're calling them, are like 20% bigger, so the screen's probably 20%. I don't know. The Drift-Cons? Yeah, the Drift-Cons, yeah. Yeah.

Guys, we got a lot to cover. This is another great week for video game news. Again, the Nintendo Direct, we're going to make some predictions today. And then people that are listening are going to be like, you guys are idiots, man. You didn't get any of those right. But we're going to throw out a couple predictions as

to what we think we might see or things that we hope we see from the Nintendo Direct as well. But as promised guys, we've got another quick question from one of our epic supporters here that we're going to start off with. This one comes in from Technofile75, and I like this one man, it's a little more on the technical side, but you know, I like these kind of questions here too. So he asks, what are your thoughts on the new DLSS 4 and the use of AI in frame generation? So Ryan, why don't you go ahead and explain frame generation and DLSS and what

that stands for in 20 seconds? Go. This guy, yeah, I know what you're doing. I know what you're doing. I will say, because I was reading it, I'm looking at this, I'm like, oh, geez, I know what you're doing. I know what you're doing. I will say, because I was reading it I'm looking at this. I'm like, oh jeez, I better I better kind of at least Look a little bit into what what this all means and what this stuff is normally I'm just like that one's expensive plug it into the rig. It's good to go, you know But I was looking at this stuff and so With this ai like frame rate generation and stuff. Um, I was reading and I put it in the chat

right before we started, 15 of the 16 frames will be AI generated. So, take that however way you want, either that's gonna kind of bog things down and make it look weird. Cause you know how sometimes with AI design, like it can make crazy stuff and things that are really kind of wild and creative and detailed but also not everything looks right all the time and when you're relying that much on not just standard

performance in generation from the hardware itself and you're using AI to to kind of replace that you know it leaves a little room for error if, you know, if the way I'm looking at it at least. All right, all right, you failed on that explanation, Ryan. What? John? Just. I cannot comment. I wasn't really gonna explain. I was getting my opinion, I was getting my opinion.

This is what you get for slamming Goldeneye, Ryan. Oh, I'm gonna pay for that for a while. You don't. I can't comment on the technology specifically, but I'm a bit conflicted on the use of it. So the humanist in me is concerned, I like probably anybody else, and especially people that are in the industry as like, you know, if you follow this thing to its logical end, all I'm saying is a lot of lost jobs.

Um, but, uh, the gamer in me and especially the part of me that's so wants to have as much of my humanity torn away from me as possible, like and plug into the machine. I think that any AI advancement that brings us closer to the matrix and or ready player one or whichever iteration you wanna call it is like fine by me. So yeah. Bow to the AI overlords. Yep.

So real quick, because I love tech. And so to explain what this technology is for people, this is basically rendering. I'll call it software, even though it's the hardware that does this and processes this. So DLSS is deep learning supersampling. What this does is it downscales your resolution so that it's easier to render on your console or your PC.

And then it does this artificial AI upscaling. So this is what is going to say, hey, I'm rendering this game at a lower resolution, which is very easy for a graphics card. And then the AI brain kicks in and upscales it into your 2K or 4K resolutions. So this is a good way to improve frames per second. That's really all this comes down to. There is a lot of talk that it's like, hey, well, this is a good way to improve frames per second. That's really all this comes down to.

There is a lot of talk that it's like, hey, well, this is kind of cheating. And there's a loss of visual quality and stuff like that. We've gotten better at this. And we now have this stuff called frame generation where to even boost frames per second higher, the AI basically looks at your screen and goes, yeah, I can kind of see what's on here. Let me insert these artificial frames into your game to improve your frames per second even more.

I have played around with this a lot because again, I love technology and I have a higher end graphics card that can actually do this kind of stuff. I will say that I do think that there is a world where DLSS can drastically improve things for people. I am not one of these people that can tell the difference in the minute graphical quality that's like, oh, you're losing some of this fidelity and stuff like that. The frame generation stuff, I can tell

because it looks artificial to me. Do you guys remember when TVs came out with like the 120 Hertz black frame insertion? I know exactly. And it looked like cheap European TV. It looked like soap operas. Literally everything looked like a soap opera. And our brains kind of went, this doesn't look natural, dude.

That's the same technology, basically. So in a nutshell, I don't hate it, but I get that some people would not like it. But for most gamers, all we care about is a smooth experience. And so I think that the technology makes sense. You always have the option of turning it off. I should say that a few games lately have just relied on it completely

and gamers have gotten upset by that. But gamers will get upset over anything guys. So. This is the truth. Yeah. It's also important to acknowledge that this is a step in that direction. Whatever you're experiencing that, or somebody might be experiencing that feels

like off-putting or whatever, like it's going to fix and it will be fixed and smoother and more pleasant to experience very soon. Yeah. The last thing I'll say on this, cause we got a lot to cover is the main complaint from a lot of people is that this is just making developers lazy. So because instead of making a game efficient and optimized and things like that, they can just rely on this technology to make their game better.

And there is some proven loss of quality with using some of this technology. So it's kind of like, if you just make your game the right way and optimize it, we don't need to rely on this stuff. So I get why people are concerned. But for the most part, I think gamers do benefit from this stuff. But you also have to have a higher-end graphics card

to be able to do that, which kind of makes it a moot point because I don't need to use this stuff because I have pretty much a top-of-the-line graphics card. So it's like, I don't really get the thinking that this is limited to those two. So we'll see, we'll see where it goes. But again, we all love frames per second, right?

So. Yep. All right. Hey, listen, if you have a question for the show that you would like us to answer, there is a very easy way you can do that. You can head over to multiplayersquad.com. You can sign up for our epic tier.

And if you do that, not only will you get an awesome shout out on the show, but you do get to ask a question that we will answer at the top of an episode as well. So guys, we got a lot of gaming chat, a lot of gaming chat to cover. I get the, because I'm the host, I'm just gonna start off with Doom,

the Dark Ages boys. Oh my gosh, okay. Have either one of you played Doom Eternal? No. No. No. Okay. I have said this many, many times, many, many times. Doom Eternal is one of the best single player, first person experiences that you can have.

This game is bananas, dude. And every time I see one of our listeners or somebody in our Discord community pick it up and start playing it, they always say the same thing. Oh my gosh, this game's great. It just flows so well. It's like I'm dancing. It's a ballet of destruction. And the game just builds on itself layer after layer before you know it. By the end of the game, you're grapple hooking everywhere. You're flying around. You're switching weapons on the fly and you're wrecking fantastical demons. I am a huge fan of Doom Eternal. If you've played it, you understand, but it is pretty much the pinnacle of that first person shooter experience

as far as just the flow of the game and stuff like that. Doom the Dark Ages. We covered this before. We said, dude, the motto for this one is stand and fight. You have this sawtoothed shield. You're this big tanky you know the Doom Slayer in this armor this takes place way before like a lot of the Doom games I guess or something like that so it's like a prequel in a sense I thought this

looked absolutely freaking incredible as a fan of the Doom series what did you guys think? Dude so I played old old, old school Doom, original, Doom back in the day and some of the newer stuff, but nothing kind of in the last 10, 15 years or so. And I'm pretty excited, man. I know you've screamed from the rooftops for years about it and I haven't had a chance to get to Eternal and whatnot, but this game, and I know from

everything else we've looked at previously, uh, I was excited before and the hype meter just keeps going up. It's one of those where every little drip they give you, you're like, yeah, more, more. I want more. And, and it just, it keeps getting you more and more excited, more and more hooked on it.

And you just, you're excited and ready for it to release so you can Enjoy, you know the game in all its glory. So I'm stoked man. Like I said, everything we see is just is just raising that height meter So it's I can't wait It looks cool But I Have a just enough bandwidth for one shielded protagonist My loyalty is always with Captain America, and I just became aware of another game called Marvel cosmic invasion

That's like an old-school like arcade style beat-em-up That looks awesome, and that's where I'm gonna be spending my shield time That looks awesome. And that's where I'm gonna be spending my shield time. Gentlemen, you will have to let me know how doom is. Yeah. Oh, I will don't you worry? Oh, yeah, I mean, oh, yeah, I get doom it, you know doom is not really John's type of game He definitely, you know prefers a little bit more of that chill kind of aspect and grandpa games Yeah, well not grant but just story based and there's not much story. You can't walk on a treadmill and play doom, dude You're gonna be jumping all over you're gonna fall off like it'd be it's dangerous. That's a hazard Yeah, I tried it with halo and it was ridiculous

It's I just I think they you know you talk about that drip Ryan They kind of turn the faucet on for this run some of the things that really stood out to me our number one The the shield gameplay is incredible. You have to parry these different attacks, like the bullets from the demons come out green sometimes, and if it's green, you can parry it and shoot it back at them. They showed you piloting. So for anybody that's played Doom Eternal, they showed you piloting the gigantic mechs that fight the gigantic demons. So there was a whole like segment of this preview where you get to be in one of those and you're just punching this like 20 story tall demon and then you get these guns that like a gatling gun that's huge. I mean this game's so over the top you're riding

a cybernetic dragon at one point. That's the word over the top dude like you know when you're playing these shooter games and you get like that heavy weapon, but they don't come along often You're like, yeah, this is awesome. That's this whole game like that's that's the whole game You're just running around just with heavy weapons just destroying everything. Um, but in a like a fluid motion. It's dude. It's wild I'm excited. I John, you know how excited I have been and I am for Expedition 33, but this preview, this preview like legitimately was like tugging on Expedition 33 being like, I don't know if you can hold onto that number one spot now, man. It looks really cool. You may convince me it looks really cool.

There's just so many good games coming out guys. I mean, yeah, I got to, I got to pick and choose. This one is absolutely, I mean, I got this this one is absolutely I mean I'm playing doom the dark ages there's no way that anything in the world could stop me from playing this one so if you haven't seen this preview check it out because it's pretty mind-blowing and I don't know that I've gotten more excited from watching like a game trailer and just going like I knew I wanted to play this game but oh my goodness this this touched on everything that I could want from this next game in the Doom series so we have guys you know every now and then a game comes along that really just

shocks the the world you know the internet becomes a buzz where everybody is like, did you hear about this game? Are you playing this game? Pal World was a good example of that lethal company when it came out. You just hear so many people talking about it that you're like, I can't ignore it. I cannot ignore this game.

And there is a game that is out right now that is like my buddy at work, it literally came into work. He's, you know, he's a gamer and he said, Josh, have you, you know, heard of this game? And I said, yeah, I absolutely have. I've heard of this game. And he said, I played it all weekend with some buddies of mine.

It's really fun, dude. And I think the chatter is on point. And I was just like, man, we've been talking about covering this game as well and I've been hearing really incredible things. We're going to tell you what that game is right after this break. This episode is brought to you by Samsung Galaxy. Ever captured a great night video only for it to be ruined by that one noisy talker?

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Buy the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra now at samsung.com. All right. So... So... So... All right. So this game has dethroned Monster Hunter Wilds guys in its first couple weeks of release. It has a higher concurrent player count than Monster Hunter Wilds, which is like gargantuan franchise and release. This is a game called schedule one.

This game sounds like the stupidest premise ever. But before we actually talk about that premise, let me just hit you with the steam ratings on this game. This game is sitting at a 98% steam rating. Unheard of. Unheard of with 33,000 reviews. This is not like 500 people found this game to be really enjoyable. This is a 98% rating 33,000 reviews schedule one sounds bananas Ryan what do you tell the people like what do you do in this game, dude, dude?

So have you ever wanted to and disclaimer we do not support and Encourage any of these actions that go on in this video game at the Video Gamers Podcast. Are you sure about that? Are you sure about that, Ryan? Sure about that. So have you ever wanted to create your own meth lab? Well you know what? In schedule one you can.

So if your dreams were that, then you can run your drug empire. I just, it looks like such a... An interesting, neat like premise on just the way these all kind of run along the same, you know, we have repo, we have lethal company, we have all these types of games where you have to go do something. You have some sort of task. You have to get money. Things cost money and rents and repeat. You know, it's just how they execute it. And they've all been doing it pretty, you know, in a fun way that that is entertaining.

And this one just seems to be that next level to where now you're doing it. The goofier they make it, the more crazy and outlandish they make it, the better it seems to be. And this one just seems to hit all those marks. I mean, you were talking about beating Monster Wild. 414,000 players on its peak, uh, peak player at a 20, 24 hour current count. Like that's insane. That's a Monster Hunter Wilds was at 283.

So it's like 130 ish thousand, you know, more like that's like a normal NFL stadium is what? Like 60, 70,000 people if that, like that's two completely full stadiums more than monster hunter wilds of people playing this small little game that, you know nobody knew about. And you say like, oh yeah, I heard about this game. You see this game because every single real or YouTube shore or everything is

all, all people playing this game. It's nonstop. And, um, it just looks like dumb, stupid, uh, uh, illegal. I was just going to say illegal, illegal fun. John, have you seen, I mean, I'm assuming you've seen the trailers. I am absolutely so completely indifferent to this game. I couldn't care less about this game.

I could not care less. I don't care about the topic of the game, the graphics of the game look ugly to me. You guys, this'll be another one you enjoy without me. Boomer John's gonna be rocking in his chair on his porch, shaking his fist at this game for as long as it- Dude, I'm gonna be so rich, getting tattoos, and like, buying them, oh man, it's gonna be awesome.

So the premise of it, you touched on it, Ryan, but the whole premise of this game is you are living breaking bad, basically. So if you ever thought, hey, I bet I could build a drug empire. I bet I could manufacture these drugs. I bet I could grow these drugs. I bet I could set up distributors and avoid the law

and all that stuff. This is exactly what this game does. You play it with buddies. Talking to my buddy at work, he said, this game would not be nearly as fun without playing it with friends, which is, that to my buddy at work, he said, this game would not be nearly as fun without playing it with friends, which is, you know, that's a lot of games. But, you know, that is the premise of this game.

You know, you can buy a house and, you know, decorate your house and buy a lab and try to get efficient and things like that. I will say I'm with John. The graphics on this remind me of like a Roblox game. You know, there are some really funny parts that I have seen. I've seen some funny reels where it's like, you sell some drugs to somebody and then their eyes turn blood red

and they go staggering away or something like that. Kudos to the solo dev on this because this guy's filthy rich at this point. But this to me seems like one of those games that yes, I absolutely believe it is probably a ton of stink and fun, but it's probably a flash in the pan as well. Are we gonna be hearing about schedule one in three weeks? I highly doubt it, but it's only 1999.

If you're up for a really good time with your buddies, I'm sure you're gonna laugh and things like that. It's probably well worth the money to see. I know that we get FOMO. I mean, we're gamers, dude. Ryan, we've been talking about picking this game up and playing it because we're like, well, if it's that fun, I don't wanna miss out on this.

Dude, join the empire. Ace already got it. So I'm gonna play. You can join our trap house and we can go. Yeah, yeah. We can go from there. I mean, this is for 20 bucks. I think you're gonna absolutely get your entertainment's value out of this game.

Yeah, it's a movie ticket. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. And so I think it's very low risk, especially with a rating like this, man. What was the other one with the pictures? I don't even remember the name. Oh, that was Headliners. Headliners, yeah.

I mean, that was a pretty big box. Similar in a lot of ways, yeah. Yeah, these games are simple, they're dumb fun, you have a great time with them, and then you just move on. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I think there's a reason that you see these games being so prevalent. You can make a ton of money if you hit on one of these. I mean, and then the people don't complain because it's a simple premise game. So gamers don't get all snooty about it. I can't do this in this game because it's like't do this in this game, because it's like, it's just meant to be fun, dude. That's all it's meant to be, you know? So again, you know, legal disclaimer, we don't support any of the activities that you may or may not perform in schedule one,

but if you wanna have a good time, it seems like that is a good opportunity for you. So. All right, guys, let's talk about Metroid Prime 4. Now, I mean, you talk about a mega franchise that has a very rabid fan base, myself included. I love the Metroid games. I mean, I grew up playing Metroid,

the very, very initial Metroidvania. It started all of the, you know, that genre. You know, this is a game that if you grew up playing Nintendo, you understand it. You know, Game is a game that if you if you grew up playing Nintendo, you understand it. You know, GameCube, Nintendo 64, there's been all these iterations of the Metroid series. And you know, we got the announcement about Metroid Prime four months ago. And then recently we got this gameplay overview trailer for it where we got kind of a little bit more of an in-depth look at it. I have thoughts on this, but I'm going to save those

because I want to hear from John, because, you know, John, you are a Nintendo fan. You love your Switch. Love Nintendo. You like Nintendo games. Yep. What is your opinion of Metroid Prime 4 from what you've seen?

From what I've seen, it looks really good. I will admit, and you touched on this, but I love Nintendo properties. I love Nintendo as a brand. You know, I admire a lot of, I admire their ingenuity with the way they approach titles and games and I love that they have done a really good job of maintaining exclusivity and quality exclusivity of IPs. Metroid is a blind spot for me, man. I haven't played a Metroid game in a really long time

This may change it for me. I'm really excited about the switch to so assuming that this is a you know Hopefully pretty close to launch title for switch to I would absolutely pick it up But right now I am Somewhat excited about it. There's other games that I'm more excited for I am Somewhat excited about it. There's other games that I'm more excited for Yeah, Ryan if you if you played it cuz you might be with John if I remember right I don't know if you're if you've played a lot of the I have not played a lot of the Metroid games I've never been like I've never been a big Nintendo guy. I'll play some of the big titles

You know, I'm I like Zelda and you know some of the other stuff and I just this to me it looked like an old PS3 game with some cool mechanics stuff. Like I'm like, oh neat. Like you can control this thing with her lever and then you can control your missiles now and direct them the way I'm like, that's cool. That's not gonna make me play this game.

I'm sure people who love this IP are gonna be amped up and I'm not a Metroid hater. I'm just, I wouldn't say I'm sure people who love this IP are gonna be amped up and I'm not a Metroid hater. I'm just I wouldn't say I'm a fan. I'm just like John was. I'm indifferent. Like it's you know cool good for them. It doesn't you know doesn't look like anything to me you know. So I don't know it's just one of those that it's not hitting any marks that pique my interest but I'm sure people like it. So I like the Metroid series. The most recent one I played was Metroid Dread

on the Switch. I thought that was a neat take. It kind of had this creepy, slightly more horror aspect. You know, you were being stalked by these unkillable robots, so to speak. There was really neat boss fights. You know, I thought it was a very fun video game. I really didn't have any major issues with it. There was a couple of complaints I had, but it was a great game

in my opinion. So this is not to slander Metroid Prime 4. This is to slander the trailer that we got for Metroid Prime 4. Guys, I don't know that I have seen a more stupid trailer in my life for such a major IP. You know, like they're showing it off. You've got the first person perspective on this one. That's kind of the gist for the Prime series for Metroid. You're walking around these beautiful forests that are all just muddied and dull looking because the graphics suck for the Nintendo Switch,

you know, and then they get into the, for the Nintendo Switch, you know? And then they get into the, like the hook of Metroid Prime 4 and it's that Samus gets these psychic abilities. There's something magical on this planet. You're on Pandora from Avatar basically is what they're trying to say. And it's like Samus getting psychic abilities

on top of her suit, her rockets and all this stuff. And then they go on to show you this stupid little totem with this little glowing ball on a door where you reach out to it and you use your psychic ability to open doors. That is literally the line from the trailer is use your newly discovered psychic abilities to open doors. Like what are we doing here guys I agree it's a big mess best you can come up with Nintendo big like is this an intern that you had make the Metroid Prime 4 like trailer like come on man I get it I it's wild dude it's it's uh yeah it's like in a world where doors are no longer open by your hands use your psychic abilities

Coming this fall, you know, I just baffled dude You know isn't like I feel like now that I'm reflecting on it in Star Wars Isn't that like 90% of what they use the force for? It's still like open doors and push things aside slightly Yeah, I'm not saying I wouldn't use my psychic abilities to open doors I just mean like this is what we showed off in this trailer guys It's not the showcase like make it make it big and fantastical, you know in a comedy movie They're gonna show you you know in the trailer the two or three

Mostly funniest parts of the movie to get people to show up. Like, and that's what they do. And so you got to show the hits. And if this is what's like supposed to sell this game, they missed the mark, you know. The shooting looked bland to me. It looked like it had no impact whatsoever. I get that they're not going to show off every, you know, weapon that she gets,

but the shooting looked very, very plain to me. The big highlight for them in the shooting was that you can guide your shots. And it showed it like slow down the game and then you hit one creature and then you aimed it over to the other creature. And I'm like, this looks dumb because these creatures don't look like they're hard to kill anyway.

Like, am I just slowing down the pace of the game at this point? Look, again, I am not saying that I think Metroid Prime 4 is going to be a crappy game. I'm just saying whoever made this trailer, somebody needs to watch these things and go, is this really the best we got, guys? Where's quality control? Is this what we want to show the world?

I'm sorry to whatever intern was forced to make that trailer. You're going to get somebody fired, dude. I know, I apologize. So just out of curiosity, have you guys been following what the chatter is on it? Like what the general consensus is? It's not great is the thing. That's the thing. I remember saying this exact same thing about Hogwarts Legacy. We saw a really good looking trailer for Hogwarts Legacy and then we saw a really bad looking

trailer for Hogwarts Legacy. And I responded pretty much the exact same way where I went, what the heck is this trailer? I'm very hopeful that this is just a bad trailer. I mean, we all loved Hogwarts Legacy, fantastic game, but man, it's funny. I don't see a lot of people talking about that trade prime for right now. Maybe it's that we don't have a release date. Maybe it's just we haven't really seen a whole lot or maybe it's just that they're not doing a very good job of hyping people up for this game either.

They're all making drugs in Schedule One. Yeah. I will say, the silver lining might be that if there is some big public response, that they will have the opportunity to correct, like we've seen with a lot of other games, like Cyberpunk and Final Fantasy XIV and stuff. I think that studios are doing a good job of responding to things, especially with big important properties.

So, I don't know. We'll see. This is Nintendo. I don't think Nintendo listens to their fans at all, man. You know? Nintendo listen. Here's the thing. This game's gonna sell a million copies no matter what.

I mean, it's got the Metroid name on it, so no matter what, people are gonna buy it, it's gonna sell, Nintendo's probably gonna make their money, but I Again, I don't know that I've seen a trailer. That's got me less excited if Nintendo listen to their fans They'd have a good Pokemon game. Yeah, exactly and honestly that is that is exactly the truth man So Pal world did it and then they're getting sued by Nintendo because Nintendo went hey We're the only ones like bad games around here. You can't go making a good Nintendo game on us.

So, all right. Speaking of Nintendo boys, we're going to get to a couple of Nintendo direct predictions, but we have to talk about Ghost of Yote. Yeah, John, this is now John's excited. Look at him. He's like, dude, I don't care about Metroid Prime. I don't care about Doom. I'm not playing schedule one, but Ghost of Yote Man, yeah, so for anybody listening I am playing ghosts of Tsushima right now I missed it when it came out on the ps4 and it's been in my backlog forever and it's been one of those games, right?

I've always wanted to tackle it, but I've just put it off for whatever reason new games new confetti just keeps manifesting itself in front of me off for whatever reason. New games, new confetti just keeps manifesting itself in front of me. Man, what a great game. It's like every minute I get further into this game, I get sucked deeper into it. And Josh and I were talking briefly offline before the show. And it's just been such a long time since I've had a game that is completely capturing my attention like this. And I love, man, I can't wait for Ghost of Yote now. I had the opportunity to go to Japan with my best friend CJ last year, and this is just giving me such wanderlust.

Like every time I encounter a new vista, every time that gust of wind shuttles me in the right direction, or I reflect in an on, oh my, it's just got my heart right now and I cannot wait for Ghost of Yote. Yeah, we, when we saw this trailer and Ghost of Yote was announced, we all went, oh my goodness, it's about time. Like how has it taken this long to get a sequel to,

you know, Ghost of Tsushima? I'm a little jealous, John, that you're get a sequel to Ghost of Tsushima? I'm a little jealous, John, that you're actually getting to experience Ghost of Tsushima for the first time, like legitimately. And so it's really neat that we get this announcement. And so the announcement is basically that Ghost of Yote has been confirmed for 2025. There's a tiny bit of like a snippet of story that we got where it's basically saying like, hey, the protagonist is upset

because people raided her village and raised her village and now she's upset and she's gonna enact revenge. There's a lot of speculation on the, like some of the game mechanics, like she's gonna be doing bounties because they mentioned that there are a plethora of odd jobs for her to do so that she can make money to enact her revenge. And then of course people take that and they go, Ooh, there's going to be bounties. We don't know a whole lot about that. The main takeaway is that it is planned for a 2025 release to. Is shaping up to be a heck of a year, guys.

And I remember 2024 at the end going, I don't really know how 2025 is going to be over to top this, man. But dude, it looks like it's topping it, like in all honesty. I feel like every year we're like, man, it doesn't look like it's going to be too good. I don't know what it's going to shape up to be. And then every time it's like, whoa, where'd this come from? Oh, where'd this come from?

You know, every few months. Do you remember the year that it takes two one game of the year? Like we do get those down years, but I think we're in a couple of really, really good years right now. So we might be spoiled a little bit too. So I'm so jealous.

Do you guys wanna hear a little fun fact about Ghost of Tsushima 2, this franchise? Yeah, of course. So recently we've had two big sort of samurai titles come out, one is Ghost of Tsushima too, this franchise. Yeah, of course. So recently we've had two big sort of samurai titles come out. One is Ghost of Tsushima, obviously, and Assassin's Creed Shadow would be the other one. And Assassin's Creed Shadow's Ubisoft game, lots of publicity. Did you know that Ghost of Tsushima

has sold 10 times the physical copies that Assassin's Creed Shadows did in Japan. Oh my goodness. Really? In Japan? Yeah, yeah. That's interesting. I mean, like the Japanese audience does not seem to be, like Assassin's Creed Valhalla outsold Assassin's Creed Shadows in Japansold Assassin's Creed shadows in Japan.

Yeah. I mean, they had a lot of longer time though for Tsushima. Yeah, but the physical copies sell, like the grand majority of the sales happened in the first two weeks. Yeah. That's very true. So like everything you see after that, like you'll know pretty quick. Well how it's going to shape out.

Yeah. Geez. Yeah. that you'll know pretty quick. Well, how it's gonna shape out. How it's gonna, yeah. Jeez. Yeah. Well, real quick, I did this, and it's just totally, I absolutely not chowed GPT at all, but I made a haiku for you, John, for your first playthrough of Ghost of Tsushima. John rides through the fog. Samurai blade meets silence. Ghost in moon the fog. Samurai Blade meets silence.

Ghost in moonlit fog. You used fog twice there. Okay, I will say it was ChappieGPD, so blame it on ChappieGPD. Yeah. I literally, I brought- I was like, there's fog in the first line, there's fog in the third line, what's going on here?

I'm not gonna lie, I didn't pre-read it, I just typed it in and just read it right there, pretty quick, so you can blame that on there. I have a haiku for you, Ryan. There you go. Ryan is so wrong, like patch notes that nerf my mane, pain forevermore. That would imply that Jon has a mane in a hero shooter,

which we also know is not true. This is not true. Just get lies all over the place here, man. What is happening? Whatever, you don't even have a haiku. You can't come up with anything. Dude, because I refuse to use AI to come up with a haiku is why. A man of principles, I see.

Yeah, exactly. You know, I respect the art form, guys. Anyway, let's go make some drugs. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. We're going to name our drug empire Haiku. We're drawing some weird lines here, guys. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. All right, guys, real quick, because we're running out

of time, Nintendo Direct predictions. All right. I'm going to throw out one, because I know we've been hopeful, but not to be a buzzkill. We are not going to hear anything about silk song at Nintendo Direct. I think you're safe there. I think I think it continues to be a radio silence. Yep. Why do that to me, man? I'm sorry, Ryan. My safe bet would be Mario Kart is a launch title.

Go figure. Nintendo just overusing a franchise for the, what is this like the ninth or 10th iteration? This would be Mario Kart 9 officially. But don't they have some kind of like off shoot Mario Kart where it's like been little, like little side games? I don't know. I'm so sick.

Look, we pick on Ubisoft about this, you know what, but Nintendo, it's your turn. Mario Kart 9 is gonna be the same as Mario Kart 8, which was the same as Mario Kart 7, which was the same as Mario Kart 6, 5, 4, 3, and I'm sure at some point somebody went, ooh, like how can you say that, Josh? We got Rainbow Road in Mario Kart 6, how dare you?

Dude, they're all the same. They're all the same games. And if we pick on Ubisoft about making the exact same game over and over again, then you know what? You're not immune either, Nintendo, because stop it, make a new game. Why? They're just passionate, they're just raking in money

on all this old IP. And as I say that, please give us a brand new Mario 3D game. Right, exactly. Oh, that's great. Oh, man. So OK, any other predictions? I would like new Smash Bros.

Ooh. See, that's what I'm not sure of, man. I don't know if that, like, we've seen a lot of failures. Multi-verses and some of these other games that are trying to kind of mimic that have not done well lately Yeah, and like I I just don't know if Nintendo's willing to risk the like the burnout on that particular type of game or not It's been how many years has it been like I don't know six seven years. I don't play Smash Bros I like real fighting games. I could I, yeah, I'm with you, Josh. But I could very easily see it.

That seems like a bankable property. I mean, it's for sure been over five years, and with a new system to launch to get all the homies in on some Smash Bros, I think it's a good launch. I don't think they want to expend all of their repeatable IP like right out of the gate. Yeah. I mean, it seems pretty safe.

It's still very popular and like a Mario Kart Mario, I actually have a soft spot for Mario Party, but like a Mario Kart, there's probably not a lot that they would have to do to enhance the game to justify a new title, you know, add some more characters and some new levels and stuff. But like all the core mechanics and infrastructure for the game exist and probably are still good.

This is my problem. A couple new levels and a couple new characters, it's the same game. It's like buying that in every year. And then they just call it like super mega Smash Bros. And then everybody's going to lose their minds. And hey, man, it works for John wick brother I'm Not accept any John wicks Lander

I'm saying I Don't know if you call this a prediction but I would love to see a remake a Proper remake of the first two Kingdom Hearts games. Those are games that have been, again, perpetually in my backlog because the dialogue stuff, like I just can't read that much text on screen, but I would love to see a proper redo of those and Switch 2 seems like a, you know, that seems like a good format for it for me. I know the Kingdom Heart games are beloved by a lot of people They are iconic to a lot of people those are games that I will just never experience in my lifetime

I don't know why but it's just my brain has I like mixing Disney characters with like this Yeah, it doesn't compute for me man Like I don't know why and I know there's people that are, Josh, you have no idea what you're saying right now. You don't know how OP Donald Duck is, bro. Yeah, I mean, apparently Donald Duck casts the most deadly spell in the universe or something like that that would make Dr. Strange jealous. I don't know.

It's a very weird lore. I can't wrap my head around it. I hope for the Kingdom Hearts fans and you, John, that maybe they do announce something like that. But it's such a blind spot for me that I'm content to just be blind on I'll make one more prediction I think we will get the announcement of a Mario a 3d Mario title to go along with the switch to I think Nintendo is Smart enough to understand that they need some sort of mega draw or mega game

to announce with the Switch 2 and they're going to rely on the Mario franchise because we had Zelda Tears of the Kingdom which was a huge success and so I think now they're going to say, hey it's Mario's turn, let's give the people a brand new 3D Mario game. So that's my other prediction. They got a lot to choose from too. Yeah, that seems about it. If not Mario, like certainly not Link, if not Mario, then what?

I mean, it has to be. Please don't be Donkey Kong, dude. I've seen some chatter about Donkey. Listen, I like the Donkey Kong games, man. My wife and I have played almost every Donkey Kong game that has been released. Donkey Kong is fine, but he's not like a console selling type of character. He is a side character in the Nintendo franchise. I hate to be like the contrarian on this, but it's like, don't try to give us a Donkey

Kong game and then be like, look guys, you're getting a Donkey Kong. Cause I'm going to be like, what the heck man? You couldn't even give us a Mario or a Zelda. Like come on. Come on. Yeah, come on man. All right. Oh man, these episodes are getting off the rails here.

All right, listen, that's it. We're out of stuff to talk about. We're out of time. Well, actually we got way more we can talk about, but we're out of time, so we're gonna wrap this one up. Thank you everybody for joining us. Listen, if we sound like complete and total idiots because we whiffed on every prediction or thought

imaginable, we did that on purpose just to make it entertaining. And if we got any of these right, that's because we are absolute video game geniuses. And then we'll make sure that we point to this episode and point out that we got everything right at the same time. So you know, that's the beauty of this is we have evidence. So, all right, listen, thank you for joining us, everybody. Remember, if you haven't done so already, please take a

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