Hold On, I'm Not Done Talking About Dicks | The Big Deal

[00:00:00] Hi everyone, usually we do these show openers with some sort of skit or show notes, but today we have an important breaking news story we feel obligated to comment on off the top because it's serious and important to talk about.

[00:00:11] As the show's designated Canadian, it's been decided that I should be able to speak to the topic impartially.

[00:00:18] A study was completed in 2022 measuring average global penis size, and the United States came in at number 59 with an average length of 5.35 inches.

[00:00:30] On a completely unrelated note, Canada ranked number 12 with an average penis length of 6.19 inches, placing the average American penis at 0.84 inches shorter than the average Canadian penis.

[00:00:44] However, Canadians as a whole would like to comment that we still respect Americans despite their incredibly small and inadequate peni.

[00:00:54] We would like to thank you for your time regarding this matter. Let's start the show.

[00:01:01] Step into video game land. Welcome to...

[00:01:25] Penis people.

[00:01:27] Pretty people. It's your boy Dre, and it's my penis Steve.

[00:01:35] Sorry, I'm just trying to figure out how he's measuring things with, you know, imaginary units of measure, but, you know, keep going, keep going.

[00:01:42] Inches? Inches? What do we do with these wacky inches?

[00:01:45] Inches? Yeah, what do you do with those wacky inches you got up there, Kevin?

[00:01:50] I don't know. I don't want you guys to have to stretch your imagination.

[00:01:55] Oh, I see what you did there.

[00:01:58] Don't stretch yourselves thin.

[00:02:02] Damn, Steve.

[00:02:04] We're supposed to be having a day of healing today, and he is just...

[00:02:08] He's on fire.

[00:02:09] I've always been taught by my parents, kick them when they're down.

[00:02:16] You guys are having a rough day down south? Let me talk about your tiny dicks.

[00:02:20] Yeah, I mean, geez, Steve.

[00:02:21] Steve. Kevin left out that, you know, all those units were self-reported, and I think that only proves that we were honest in our reporting.

[00:02:29] That was not...

[00:02:29] In no way, shape, or form did it say this was self-reported.

[00:02:33] I think this was a highly scientific study that was run by penis doctors.

[00:02:40] Yeah, how many penis doctors do we all know?

[00:02:44] I don't know them personally.

[00:02:46] I also don't know any heart surgeons, but I feel confident in Canada if I needed open heart surgery, it could be done.

[00:02:53] If I got the call to, you know, serve the duty for my country to have my penis measured, I would make sure that I went to a respected penis measurer.

[00:03:02] You should at least get a coupon to Dairy Queen or something like that after you do the penis measurement for sure.

[00:03:07] Get a free, like, Blizzard or something?

[00:03:09] Come on.

[00:03:10] Why Dairy Queen?

[00:03:12] It's just, I don't know.

[00:03:13] What's the first...

[00:03:13] Okay, okay.

[00:03:14] Full disclosure.

[00:03:15] We don't want anybody going into any cold to Dairy Queens before the measuring.

[00:03:20] Yeah, that, and I was going to say Baskin Robbins, but I wasn't sure that was up there.

[00:03:25] So I said Dairy Queen.

[00:03:26] You're trying to rig the next penis measurement contest by convincing Canadians to go somewhere chilly before they get their, the penis doctor gets his ruler out.

[00:03:37] Yeah.

[00:03:37] I mean, the Canadians are already somewhere chilly, so what, never mind.

[00:03:42] Yeah, well, that makes our large penises that much more impressive.

[00:03:48] They probably did that test in fucking mid-January.

[00:03:52] I was going to say, if y'all came down to Texas, oh boy, Canada would be number three on that list, not 12.

[00:03:59] Okay, hold on.

[00:04:00] I'm not done talking about dicks.

[00:04:02] On that list, Ecuador is number one.

[00:04:05] I don't know what's going on in Ecuador.

[00:04:07] I don't know what their diet is.

[00:04:08] I don't know what kind of...

[00:04:09] I mean, man, I tell you what though.

[00:04:10] Yeah, man, they were pushing seven inches like fuck.

[00:04:14] Yeah, Jesus Christ, man.

[00:04:17] Congratulations, Ecuador.

[00:04:18] If you're from Ecuador or Ecuadorian descent and listening to this, congratulations to you, man.

[00:04:23] I mean, just...

[00:04:24] If you're from Ecuador and listening to this show, please send us an email and let us know how big your dick is.

[00:04:30] I thought you were going to say something else.

[00:04:33] What's...

[00:04:36] Something more inappropriate than requesting dick-lengthy emails?

[00:04:40] Yeah, no attachments, please.

[00:04:41] No picture attachments, please.

[00:04:43] Just the...

[00:04:45] Just the stats.

[00:04:47] Just the facts, man.

[00:04:49] I know video games aren't as fun as talking about dicks, but I guess we should just talk about video games anyway.

[00:04:55] I would like to start this time because I played a little thing called Beyond Shadowgate.

[00:05:05] So, for those who don't know, Shadowgate is a classic point-and-click adventure game for Macintosh.

[00:05:18] I think it came out in 1987.

[00:05:20] There was an NES port in, I think, 1989 by Kimco, which is the one that's famous.

[00:05:26] I'm sure both of you have played Shadowgate before.

[00:05:29] I've played the NES one.

[00:05:31] Okay.

[00:05:31] Kevin, you have not?

[00:05:33] I have not.

[00:05:34] Okay.

[00:05:35] But yeah, this is a classic adventure game on NES.

[00:05:39] Probably the most famous point-and-click that it has.

[00:05:42] And it was just one of my favorite games as a kid.

[00:05:44] You know, it had this cool mystery to it.

[00:05:47] Really good descriptive writing.

[00:05:49] You know, excellent music.

[00:05:50] Bangers up and down the soundtrack.

[00:05:53] All sorts of puzzles.

[00:05:54] It was just fun.

[00:05:55] Very memorable game, right?

[00:05:57] And that NES version was the one that was popular.

[00:06:00] And it proved to be so popular that they made up an entire design document for a sequel for NES called Beyond Shadowgate.

[00:06:10] Not only did that game not get made, another team took a few ideas from that design and made a turbographic CD game called Beyond Shadowgate, which I have never played.

[00:06:21] But I guess it's very, very loosely based on that original design document.

[00:06:26] But it's not really that game.

[00:06:28] So that particular NES sequel never really got made.

[00:06:31] Until today, the two co-creators of the original Shadowgate formed a new company, secured the rights to the Shadowgate IP, and made a Kickstarter to bring that original vision for the NES game to life of Beyond Shadowgate.

[00:06:45] And it was funded, and the game was made.

[00:06:47] And here I am playing it on Steam Deck, Beyond Shadowgate.

[00:06:51] Guys, did you know this was a thing?

[00:06:53] Like, I never knew.

[00:06:55] No, I played the remake on Switch a few years ago, but I didn't know about this existing.

[00:07:03] This is new to me.

[00:07:05] I feel like I knew there was a turbo CD game called Beyond Shadowgate.

[00:07:09] I feel like I knew that much.

[00:07:11] But, you know, something I vaguely read in a magazine one time, but that's about it.

[00:07:15] Yeah, that sounds like a tidbit.

[00:07:17] I'm like, oh, neat.

[00:07:18] I don't have a turbo, though.

[00:07:19] And then kept paging through.

[00:07:21] Kept it flipping, yeah.

[00:07:22] Yep.

[00:07:22] But yeah, so after all that fuss, it would be a shame if our adventures ended today.

[00:07:28] That's a little joke for people who play Shadowgate.

[00:07:31] Ha ha ha ha.

[00:07:35] It would be a shame if Beyond Shadowgate turned out to be a piece of shit.

[00:07:40] So is it any good?

[00:07:43] Well, before we get too much further, I think it's important for me to note something.

[00:07:49] While this is based off of that original NES design doc, Beyond Shadowgate is not an NES game.

[00:07:55] It's just an indie game that is 8-bit inspired.

[00:07:59] Okay?

[00:07:59] This is not adhering to, like, NES spec or anything like that.

[00:08:03] No, I just find that interesting.

[00:08:05] You'd think they'd make a game with today's aesthetics, but using whatever idea they had from whatever back then.

[00:08:12] Yeah, that's exactly what this is.

[00:08:14] But again, I didn't have any aspirations that it would be to NES spec.

[00:08:18] And personally, I think they made the right call.

[00:08:20] I think that's the way to go with this.

[00:08:22] There's no need to pretend this is an NES game when it's not, you know?

[00:08:27] I have to start here with the music, though.

[00:08:29] It is incredible in Beyond Shadowgate.

[00:08:33] Absolutely incredible.

[00:08:35] Shadowgate on NES had this legendary soundtrack.

[00:08:38] Steve, I'm sure you can still remember the music right now, and you haven't played it since God knows when.

[00:08:44] Yeah.

[00:08:46] Like, being ported by the Japanese company Kemco, you know, the Japanese composers worked on it.

[00:08:52] And you can tell it has that very classic NES sound, and those compositions are fucking fire.

[00:08:59] Beyond Shadowgate does not disappoint in this regard.

[00:09:02] I'm, again, I feel like I talk too much about music on this show, about every game that I played, so I won't go too much into it here.

[00:09:10] But just know it lives up to that legacy, if not better.

[00:09:14] But this is, the music is very reminiscent of something you would have heard on NES, I'm assuming, then.

[00:09:20] It's not jazzed up.

[00:09:23] Um, I feel like it has a few more channels than something you'd hear on NES.

[00:09:27] It doesn't sound exactly like just a few, like three channels or whatever, or four.

[00:09:32] But generally invoking the sound, I guess.

[00:09:36] Yes.

[00:09:37] I mean, I hate, I know everyone uses this as a touchstone for everything 8-Bit Indie, but honestly, I think you could compare it to something like Shovel Knight, where it's like,

[00:09:46] it sounds like NES music, but maybe not necessarily something that could exactly come out of a NES, but like fairly close, you know, with a tiny, maybe a tiny bit of embellishment.

[00:09:57] But the instruments are all sound, right?

[00:10:00] Yeah.

[00:10:01] If it was, if it was orchestrated, it probably would come off a little mismatched.

[00:10:05] Right.

[00:10:06] I know there's a, I know there's a Shadowgate game for Nintendo 64, which I've also never played.

[00:10:10] I wonder how the music comes off in that.

[00:10:12] Cause I never like, I don't know.

[00:10:14] I wonder if they try to keep that same pedigree.

[00:10:16] Anyway, that's something I can explore in my own time.

[00:10:18] So on the surface, beyond Shadowgate seems like your standard point and click Shadowgate adventure.

[00:10:26] You know, you start out in a jail cell and you have to figure out how to escape.

[00:10:30] And the tenor of the game is revealed right away because you have to do this very specific set of things in this jail to escape.

[00:10:40] And that's kind of it.

[00:10:42] Cause like, if you do anything else, you will die and you'll have to start over.

[00:10:47] However, it feels pretty restrictive, you know, to start the game that way.

[00:10:51] And I'm like, okay, maybe this is just how the opening works.

[00:10:54] And they're trying to get me used to problem solving or whatever.

[00:10:57] The problem is this period of the game lasts way too long because you get to an area, you do these very specific set of actions.

[00:11:05] So you don't immediately die.

[00:11:07] And then you move on.

[00:11:08] Does that sound like a adventure game to you guys?

[00:11:12] Cause it really doesn't to me.

[00:11:13] I mean, it almost at that early juncture, it almost feels like it has more in common with something like dragon's lair or night trap or something like that.

[00:11:23] You know what I mean, Steve?

[00:11:24] Where you have to do very exact things or you're done.

[00:11:29] Yes, you do.

[00:11:30] But in those games, you have the adventure aspect.

[00:11:33] You're roaming around the castle.

[00:11:35] Oh, here's a torch I can pick up.

[00:11:37] Oh, what's this on the wall?

[00:11:39] I'll check that later.

[00:11:40] There's not really any of that in the beginning of Beyond Shadowgate.

[00:11:44] You're just, you're kind of just there and you better do that thing or you're not moving on.

[00:11:48] Like very scripted.

[00:11:49] Yes.

[00:11:51] So it feels restrictive at first, right?

[00:11:54] And then this is compounded by the fact that there's like a real time element to this game sometimes.

[00:12:01] So like, okay, you escape from the jail and then like, oh no, the guard is waking up.

[00:12:07] You better hide somewhere.

[00:12:08] And you have like a finite amount of time to do that or you're going to die, which is fine.

[00:12:14] It's not like you have like five seconds or whatever to like hide in some alcove and close the door or something.

[00:12:20] It's not super restrictive.

[00:12:21] But that combined with the on rails portion of the game makes it feel really probably more restrictive than it should.

[00:12:29] And it happens a lot because you're doing a lot of hiding at that point and doing a lot of running from enemies.

[00:12:35] Oh, no, it's going to get you unless you do this specific thing.

[00:12:38] And it's like, okay, I get it.

[00:12:40] That's how Shadowgate works.

[00:12:41] But like, if you don't let me actually adventure around, then it feels very like claustrophobic and not in a great way.

[00:12:50] But here's the thing.

[00:12:52] After a point, I would say the first chapter and a half that really lets up.

[00:12:57] And then you're playing a Shadowgate game.

[00:13:00] You get to a village where you do this little like trade up quest to get into the castle next to it.

[00:13:06] Right.

[00:13:07] And then you're exploring a castle.

[00:13:09] You're finding keys.

[00:13:11] You're looking at items.

[00:13:13] You're searching items.

[00:13:14] All the descriptive writing that the original game relied on is also here.

[00:13:20] All that stuff is great.

[00:13:21] Whoever wrote this game got it.

[00:13:23] Maybe the original guys did write it.

[00:13:25] Again, I know they're behind this.

[00:13:27] They secured the IP.

[00:13:28] But it's probably, I assume it's their baby in that regard.

[00:13:31] Really excellent writing.

[00:13:33] You can click on all sorts of stuff and look.

[00:13:35] Or just, you know, all the goofy stuff is there too, Steve.

[00:13:38] Like if you, you know, use your sword on yourself.

[00:13:41] Oh no, you stabbed yourself through the harness.

[00:13:44] It's like very descriptive like death sequence or whatever.

[00:13:47] All that stuff is there.

[00:13:49] I know that's not this game, but I'm just remembering just a little while ago when I'm playing the remake.

[00:13:54] It's one of the first rooms of the castle.

[00:13:56] There's a spell book.

[00:13:57] It's on a very cursed pedestal.

[00:14:00] Yeah.

[00:14:00] But you need what's on the book.

[00:14:02] But if you take this book and leave the room, you're fucking dead.

[00:14:06] What the game wants you to do is you read the book while it's still on there.

[00:14:10] You memorize its contents and then you get to leave.

[00:14:14] They're telling you that you don't necessarily take everything that's nailed down.

[00:14:19] That isn't nailed down.

[00:14:20] It's like, okay, I understand what we're doing here again.

[00:14:24] Yeah, that game, this game beyond shadow gate does have a fair amount of that stuff too.

[00:14:30] And that's great.

[00:14:31] It just takes, I don't know, like a good, like, I don't know, 30 minutes of like the very restrictive on rails portion of the game to do that.

[00:14:40] And again, they're probably doing that to like, hey, this is how you problem solve because this is not a genre we have anymore.

[00:14:47] This kind of point and click shit, right?

[00:14:48] So maybe they're trying to ease people into it like, okay, this is how you play one of these games.

[00:14:53] And here are the systems that are going to be used in the game.

[00:14:58] So I get it.

[00:14:59] But again, as you're going around the castle and then the subsequent forest and like, you know, crossing a river and all that, you're again, you're solving puzzles.

[00:15:08] You're seeing cool monsters.

[00:15:09] Oh, I got to do this specific thing to this monster.

[00:15:12] Oh, I should try this next time.

[00:15:14] And again, all the death, Steve are great.

[00:15:16] The manticore burns your eyeballs out and you, you know, with a heat of a thousand suns and you, you know, you all that stuff is there.

[00:15:25] It's really good.

[00:15:27] It's shadow gate, baby.

[00:15:28] Beautiful.

[00:15:29] So, yeah, I didn't want to bitch too much about the beginning, but I wanted to illustrate that like it didn't start great for me and then it became became shadow gate.

[00:15:38] So I don't know if I have a whole hell of a lot more to say than that.

[00:15:41] It's just a fun little point and click.

[00:15:44] I think it's like 20 bucks on steam.

[00:15:46] I don't know if it's on consoles at all yet.

[00:15:48] It should be.

[00:15:49] I really hope it is.

[00:15:51] How much like polish is in this?

[00:15:54] I just I mean, this can't have that much of a budget.

[00:15:57] I would assume I just I can't.

[00:15:58] I don't think there's that many people like Googling what's going on with the shadow gate IP in 2024.

[00:16:05] Exactly.

[00:16:05] Yeah, I think I would assume.

[00:16:08] Well, as for budget, it doesn't it's not cheap.

[00:16:11] That's for sure.

[00:16:12] Things are very well animated.

[00:16:14] I mean, it's not like, again, it's a very eight bit point and click, right?

[00:16:17] So most things are like static and whatever.

[00:16:19] But there's a lot of different scenes and there's a lot of different like monsters and like bespoke, like little things that you see just like once or twice or whatever.

[00:16:28] So like they're doing the work here.

[00:16:30] People are putting in the sprite art and it's not it's definitely very well made.

[00:16:35] Like I said, the music is pretty top notch.

[00:16:39] The writing is really good.

[00:16:40] So I feel like this is one of those genres.

[00:16:43] You know what?

[00:16:44] You know what I can liken it to?

[00:16:45] You don't like horror movies, right?

[00:16:47] Shadowgate.

[00:16:48] They always make a lot of money at the box office because they're cheap because it doesn't take a lot to make a horror movie.

[00:16:54] You know, you have like a house and then it's dark and then you maybe have a monster and then you have some scary things and maybe a couple special effects.

[00:17:01] Most of them practical.

[00:17:02] And that's it.

[00:17:03] You know, and I kind of feel like Shadowgate is maybe in that realm, too, where it's just like, yeah, it does.

[00:17:09] I don't think it makes a lot of money at the box office.

[00:17:11] I mean, I don't know.

[00:17:13] I mean, I think Shadowgate is probably well more well remembered than you might think.

[00:17:18] I don't think.

[00:17:19] OK, do I think this game is setting the indie charts on fire?

[00:17:22] No, but like it got it's got successfully kickstarted.

[00:17:26] I mean, I feel like that counts for something, you know, I hope it's doing well.

[00:17:31] I'll put it that way.

[00:17:33] I don't want this to come off as pessimistic.

[00:17:35] Like, I think it's very cool that this exists, but I'm just curious about to like, you know, financially, how viable is it?

[00:17:43] Yes, Kevin, we know you don't like the point and clicks.

[00:17:47] Andre, I have a question.

[00:17:48] You keep saying this is Shadowgate, but does this ever become beyond Shadowgate?

[00:17:53] Um, what do you mean?

[00:17:55] Like in terms of like scope or?

[00:17:58] I'm being a semantic jerk.

[00:17:59] You're supposed to yell at me and never mind.

[00:18:04] What?

[00:18:04] That wasn't a question?

[00:18:05] I was ready to answer your shit.

[00:18:08] I mean, I think you could answer that.

[00:18:10] Just interpret it as you will.

[00:18:11] What is the beyond for what is the beyond of beyond Shadowgate?

[00:18:15] Well, I'm not in Shadowgate.

[00:18:16] It was, you know, you are exploring around and doing Shadowgate things, but it's not at Shadowgate.

[00:18:21] Though, again, I haven't beat the game yet.

[00:18:23] I don't know.

[00:18:24] Maybe you do go to Shadowgate.

[00:18:26] Uh, no one spoil it for me.

[00:18:28] Kevin, the beyond Shadowgate Kickstarter wanted 25k.

[00:18:33] It got 120k.

[00:18:36] So I think that's pretty fucking good.

[00:18:38] Yeah.

[00:18:39] Yeah.

[00:18:39] Okay.

[00:18:39] That's pretty good.

[00:18:40] I guess.

[00:18:43] I think I'm sure if they had just hit the 25k, this would be probably a different conversation

[00:18:48] too.

[00:18:49] Oh, sure.

[00:18:50] Sure.

[00:18:50] For sure.

[00:18:51] But I'm glad that I don't know what their stretch goals were, but like, I'm, I'm glad

[00:18:55] that they, um, they hit that.

[00:18:57] And then some enough people were interested because like, I don't know, think about stuff

[00:19:01] that seems like a slam dunk or even just stuff.

[00:19:03] People remember, like, remember they tried to revive Booger Man and that didn't that flopped.

[00:19:08] Right.

[00:19:09] I gave them.

[00:19:10] Well, I, I pledged 25 bucks.

[00:19:12] It didn't make it.

[00:19:13] And so they didn't get my money.

[00:19:15] Yeah.

[00:19:15] Yeah.

[00:19:16] So like, you know, I know now, thank God.

[00:19:18] Yeah.

[00:19:19] So we see all sorts of stuff that doesn't like, I don't know, pan out.

[00:19:22] I get it.

[00:19:23] Shadowgate is probably more well-known than Booger Man, but you, you know what I mean?

[00:19:28] Anyway.

[00:19:28] Yeah.

[00:19:28] Looks like, uh, looks like, uh, beyond Shadowgate made it a lot further than, uh, Earthworm Jim

[00:19:33] on Amico at least.

[00:19:35] Yeah.

[00:19:36] Cause it actually exists and I'm playing it.

[00:19:38] Um, but it's like you said, Kevin, I'm glad beyond Shadowgate exists because revival projects

[00:19:43] like this are rare.

[00:19:45] And for them to be able to take that, what got to be 30 years old design doc and actually

[00:19:50] just like make the game as intended instead of just leaving, oh, there was a turbo CD game

[00:19:55] that kind of is not really it.

[00:19:58] Um, yeah, just, just excellent.

[00:20:00] Just what a great story and a pretty good game too.

[00:20:04] So if you out there ever enjoyed Shadowgate in the past thumbs up for me, this is definitely

[00:20:10] Shadowgate.

[00:20:24] All right, Kevin, why don't you go next?

[00:20:25] I am Shadowgate out.

[00:20:27] Uh, you take it away.

[00:20:27] Yeah.

[00:20:28] Okay.

[00:20:28] Well, before I start, I know you guys love it when we, when I like talk all the inside

[00:20:32] baseball and tattle on you to the audience.

[00:20:34] Um, I'm playing Meteos.

[00:20:36] The reason for that is because week after week, Andre is like, yeah, I'm going to play

[00:20:40] Astro Bot.

[00:20:41] I'm going to talk about Astro Bot with you.

[00:20:42] Um, cock teased me in that he was finally going to talk about Astro Bot, which I played

[00:20:47] at launch and then backed out last minute, knowing that he had already incentivized me to play

[00:20:52] Meteos because he's got the sick obsession with talking about Meteos on the show as often

[00:20:56] as possible and knew that it would force my hand into giving him yet another Meteos platform.

[00:21:02] I've been planting FOMO for months on you for media.

[00:21:05] So, so here we are now that being said, to be fair, I'm, I'm glad that I was pushed into

[00:21:14] playing this.

[00:21:14] It did live up to the hype.

[00:21:15] It's very good.

[00:21:17] Um, so I'm going to start out like presentation wise.

[00:21:21] Uh, so these guys told me before I played it, they're like, oh, you can see that the

[00:21:24] Sakurai influence in the menus and boy, can you ever, um, and it's, it's not important

[00:21:31] stuff like, you know, just, just like the aesthetic look, but you can also like drag the menu tiles

[00:21:36] around with the stylus.

[00:21:38] And there's just so many like little aesthetic things in like the sub menus and kind of like

[00:21:43] how they present the, um, you know, different ways you can play star trip or whatever that

[00:21:48] everything just adds up into, to making it feel like a polished experience, especially

[00:21:52] for like a puzzle game on the DS.

[00:21:55] Um, so I appreciated that.

[00:21:57] And, and on, on, I guess further wise with presentation and gameplay, I really liked the

[00:22:03] concept of the physics.

[00:22:05] So the puzzles are like radically, they, they behave radically different by planet.

[00:22:11] Um, so everything feels like really fresh and dynamic as you play this in each play through.

[00:22:16] I mean, obviously you're going to be playing through the same, um, the same planets, but

[00:22:21] because, you know, each, each stage you play feels so different than the last it's, it's,

[00:22:26] it's really easy to like feel engaged the whole time you're playing.

[00:22:29] And I think too, because of that, you know, it was, it was easy for me to play this at

[00:22:34] like at an hour at a time, as opposed to, you know, like picking this up and then after

[00:22:39] 20 minutes being like, okay, you know, this is fun, but you know, redundant after a while.

[00:22:45] That's also me with most puzzle games.

[00:22:46] I play for like, I give it a few rounds.

[00:22:48] I'm like, okay, I'm good.

[00:22:49] You know what I mean?

[00:22:50] Then I might come back to it later, but I never sit there and play Tetris for two hours

[00:22:54] or whatever.

[00:22:54] That's never been me.

[00:22:55] Meteos.

[00:22:56] I can play forever.

[00:22:57] And that's not even, that's not even necessarily like condemning those kinds of games.

[00:23:00] Like I, I love Dr.

[00:23:02] Mario, but it's the same thing, you know, I'll go back and play that regularly.

[00:23:05] But after 20 minutes, you know, I'm like, okay, I've got my fill.

[00:23:09] I'm done with this.

[00:23:10] I'll come back to it in a few months.

[00:23:12] Um, but yeah, Meteos has received pretty regular play over the last couple of weeks.

[00:23:18] Um, I want to talk about gameplay and, and I, you guys let me know if I'm not explaining

[00:23:23] this properly and I'm going to try and like give the proper context, but I feel like this

[00:23:27] is a really hard game to discuss without like going on a long rant about exactly how the,

[00:23:32] um, like the gameplay works.

[00:23:34] Go ahead.

[00:23:35] I think it deserves it.

[00:23:37] Yeah.

[00:23:37] Okay.

[00:23:38] So I guess long story short, you move blocks vertically and try and get groups of three

[00:23:45] together.

[00:23:46] Now, when you get a group of three, basically from that point up, you will push the blocks

[00:23:54] above it into the air.

[00:23:57] Now, depending on how much gravity, I think basically it's based around gravity.

[00:24:02] Like it will change both how far that group of blocks goes up into the air as well as like

[00:24:08] how, how fast they will come back down and how much they might like hover into the air.

[00:24:13] And so this is, I'm sure this is probably a little bit hard to imagine, but there's

[00:24:16] a lot of like minutiae that goes into, into it that I'll kind of get into it in a minute

[00:24:20] as well.

[00:24:21] Um, the game is very much to me, a shining example of easy to learn, difficult to master.

[00:24:27] Like the concept when you actually start doing it is, you know, it's pretty easy to pick

[00:24:31] up what you're doing, just dragging these tiles vertically to create sets of three.

[00:24:36] Um, but there's so much more that I didn't even like really pick up on was a thing when

[00:24:42] I first started playing it.

[00:24:44] Um, and I, and I don't think for most of these concepts, I'm, I'm really that close to

[00:24:48] be able to like really effectively work them.

[00:24:52] Um, so one example, like, and this is kind of a, more of a base level thing.

[00:24:58] When you push tiles up into the air, you also probably want to be able to prepare ahead.

[00:25:07] So when you push them up, depending on the gravity of that planet and how many you're

[00:25:10] pushing up that you have something below it that you can send up or, you know, one tile

[00:25:15] that you can send because you can send tiles from the ground upwards into the group that's

[00:25:21] in the air and then have something that you can push up to then manipulate.

[00:25:24] Because if you, if you also create a group of three on, on one of the groupings that's

[00:25:28] in the air, that will also send it up.

[00:25:30] So you, you think ahead and I mean, you know, especially on the higher difficulties, it gets

[00:25:35] fairly frantic.

[00:25:35] So you're always trying to, you know, make these matches, but there are definitely cases

[00:25:41] when you can make a match and, and maybe it's like a small benefit and you'll like cut

[00:25:46] off a few blocks at the top, but long-term you would have been better to wait.

[00:25:51] For a better situation to like make that grouping.

[00:25:53] So you could have had something underneath of it.

[00:25:56] And I want to add to that.

[00:25:57] It also depends.

[00:25:58] Like you said, each planet has their own gravity.

[00:26:00] So depending on which one you pick, those parameters can be different because like,

[00:26:05] if you make a vertical, if you make a vertical row that can also, I think if correct me if

[00:26:09] I'm wrong, I think that can boost different than a horizontal row.

[00:26:12] Yeah.

[00:26:13] Well, I think in general, the less like vertical sets you are lifting, they will always lift

[00:26:19] higher is from what I've seen.

[00:26:21] Like, I think if you, because you can also, and again, I feel like this is really hard

[00:26:25] to describe in, in the, you know, podcast format, but you can like, you can like lift up one

[00:26:31] group and then you can lift up another group that's beside it.

[00:26:34] But as long as it overhangs under, it will push all of that upwards.

[00:26:38] Yes.

[00:26:38] Um, you know, and, and because you're like catching multiple groupings, it will increase

[00:26:42] the momentum.

[00:26:44] So there's, there's, there's like a lot to wrap your head around.

[00:26:47] And I mean, you know, I, I, I see these concepts are there the more I play, but as far as being,

[00:26:52] like I said, being able to like really effectively work them.

[00:26:56] Like, I think, I think you could dump like 70, a hundred hours into this game and still have

[00:27:02] a ways to go to like truly mastering, like a forward looking understanding of, of how

[00:27:09] you like can like completely effectively play it.

[00:27:14] Um, and that's really fucking cool.

[00:27:16] That is fucking cool.

[00:27:17] And again, I think that goes back to the planets.

[00:27:19] There's so many different planets you can use and so many different gravities that like

[00:27:24] you can find one that you really like, oh, I like to play this way.

[00:27:27] This, this planet allows me to do that.

[00:27:29] So you can, it's almost like a fighting game where you find your character, if you will,

[00:27:33] in a planet, and then you can harness the way that you like to play through that planet.

[00:27:39] It's a gravity.

[00:27:40] And of course, I mean, I'm sure you're getting to it, but the aesthetic of each one is just,

[00:27:44] yeah.

[00:27:45] And that's, I mean, that's, that's what's, that's, what's so cool about it.

[00:27:47] Right.

[00:27:48] Like not like they, they do look really like unique and interesting and interesting.

[00:27:52] And like, obviously the music, which I'll get to in a second, you know, they all have

[00:27:56] their, you know, some of them feel like much more frantic.

[00:27:59] Than others.

[00:28:00] And some of them feel that there's one that the concept is like, basically like flowers

[00:28:05] and vegetation.

[00:28:05] And I mean, it's not that like, you know, on higher difficulties, that's not going to be

[00:28:09] tough, but even just like the way the gravity and like the mechanics on that one work, it

[00:28:14] just, it doesn't like feel as immediately frantic without making it like, you know, significantly

[00:28:20] easier for the context of the difficulty level you're playing on.

[00:28:23] Um, this game was also really great too, for multiplayer.

[00:28:27] Cause you could do the one card thing and other people could download it and you can

[00:28:31] pick between four planets, geo light and like three others.

[00:28:35] And so other people, so not everyone had to just be like the same thing.

[00:28:38] It was really, really robust.

[00:28:40] I actually did that a lot with friends and that got them to buy the game as well.

[00:28:44] So it's kind of spread that privilege.

[00:28:46] But you know, and I do wonder because I mean, always like the concept when you're playing

[00:28:51] single player is that you can like see other, like see your computer opponents boards and

[00:28:56] where they're at on, on their progress.

[00:29:00] But I wonder like, okay, so if you are playing multiplayer with other people, like how is,

[00:29:08] I would assume, and I might be wrong about this, but it seems like some levels would have

[00:29:14] an inherent advantage playing against like other people from the one they're playing.

[00:29:19] Or is it like, so like well thought out and balanced that despite the, you know, differences

[00:29:24] in the mechanics that you're playing that, you know, it's, it's still, you don't have

[00:29:28] a massive advantage by picking one over the other.

[00:29:31] You know, I feel like I've played multiplayer of this quite a bit with, with Evan, with Vin.

[00:29:37] And I think me, Vin and Evan have all played it together, three player.

[00:29:41] And I feel like it's pretty goddamn balanced.

[00:29:44] If there's like some busted ass planet or something, I mean, we don't really know of it.

[00:29:47] Like it felt like we just did the thing that the played the way that we wanted with the

[00:29:52] planet that we like, and it felt pretty balanced to me.

[00:29:56] Yeah.

[00:29:57] Cool.

[00:29:57] Wow.

[00:29:57] Yeah.

[00:29:58] And I mean, that's not, that's not surprising.

[00:30:00] I mean, I like, I would, I was thinking that just because of like how, how radically

[00:30:04] different those planets are.

[00:30:05] But also, I mean, again, going back to how much like polish and forethought has gone into

[00:30:10] this game.

[00:30:10] It's not surprising that, you know, there, there would be quite, quite a bit of effort

[00:30:15] that went into making sure that there was a quality in the difficulty of each, each

[00:30:18] planet.

[00:30:18] Yeah.

[00:30:19] And again, the, like you said, the aesthetic of each one is just so insane.

[00:30:22] There's, there's, you know, like planets that seem to be made out of totally iron and

[00:30:27] the sound effects too.

[00:30:28] I think that's what makes it feel great.

[00:30:31] Is that like the sounds on each planet, it's not just the same sounds when you clear stuff

[00:30:36] or whatever, like you get in puzzle games, there's unique ones for every single planet

[00:30:40] and there's what, like 10 to 15 of them.

[00:30:43] I don't remember how many, but.

[00:30:44] Yeah, I don't know.

[00:30:45] Oh, definitely.

[00:30:46] I would, I would assume over 10, there's definitely a good chunk.

[00:30:50] That's another Sakurai ass thing.

[00:30:52] You unlock planets just like you do like Smash Brothers characters practically.

[00:30:57] It's really fun.

[00:30:59] And you can like collect different elements and cash them in and the whole nine yards.

[00:31:02] Oh my God.

[00:31:03] Masahiro Sakurai.

[00:31:04] What, what were you on?

[00:31:05] I loved it.

[00:31:07] Difficulty wise too.

[00:31:09] Like, I don't know.

[00:31:10] It's, it's interesting.

[00:31:10] So, you know, they start you out as default on two out of five stars, which is, is pretty

[00:31:15] easy, pretty quickly.

[00:31:17] Easily I can do three stars.

[00:31:19] I've fucked around with four out of five stars, but definitely there, there's like levels where

[00:31:25] I'm like repeating multiple times before I'm getting through the run.

[00:31:28] I haven't even thought about trying, trying five.

[00:31:30] But again, just like, you know, another thought towards like the, the complexity to how the

[00:31:35] game works.

[00:31:36] Um, I don't think that that five is prohibited by your natural ability to recognize patterns

[00:31:43] and react.

[00:31:44] But, but just again, that, that understanding of the aforementioned inner workings of the

[00:31:49] game.

[00:31:49] Mm-hmm.

[00:31:50] You know, I think anybody can get there once you play it enough and really, you know, like

[00:31:55] let your mind, like let the mechanics of it, like weasel into the recesses of your brain,

[00:32:00] I guess.

[00:32:00] I don't know.

[00:32:01] No, I think, I think you're correct.

[00:32:03] Cause I think like you said, it's easy to understand at first.

[00:32:05] Cause like you guys, you described earlier, it's fairly complicated, but.

[00:32:10] And anyone can pick it up and play.

[00:32:12] Okay.

[00:32:12] You mash the things, but then once you realize what's going on, it's like, oh, oh wait,

[00:32:16] I should do it this way.

[00:32:16] Oh wait, I should do it this way.

[00:32:18] Oh wait, I should that.

[00:32:19] And that thought process, that learning process almost never ends.

[00:32:23] Like you can play, like, it's like you said, you could play it for 70, a hundred hours or

[00:32:27] whatever, and still learn stuff.

[00:32:29] Oh, it's better if I do it this way.

[00:32:31] And what other, what puzzle game has that?

[00:32:33] I mean, I'm sure, I'm sure a lot of them do, but not like the best ones anyway, but not

[00:32:37] now that I've played like this and that's why it's my favorite ever.

[00:32:41] Yeah.

[00:32:41] I think most of the ones I think can think of, I'm sure you get better just by like improvement,

[00:32:47] but not, not in that same way.

[00:32:49] Like I think, you know, probably after years of playing Tetris, everybody is going to like

[00:32:53] cap at a certain level.

[00:32:55] Like playing more Tetris is not going to like really get you that much better at Tetris

[00:32:59] the same way it would here.

[00:33:01] I do have a comment about, about the music.

[00:33:04] I am not trying to trigger you Andre, but I did ask when we were first talking about

[00:33:08] me playing this, you know, cause you said this has the best music of any puzzle game of

[00:33:14] all time.

[00:33:15] And I said, is it better than Luminous?

[00:33:16] And you were like, yes, hands down.

[00:33:18] Yep.

[00:33:18] Not to take away from the music.

[00:33:21] It is very good.

[00:33:22] It's not as good as Luminous.

[00:33:24] I just have to say it.

[00:33:25] I don't, I mean, it's very like fitting and, and it, it, it, it like adds a lot to the game,

[00:33:32] but I feel like in Luminous, the music is like such a glaring, important component of

[00:33:41] the game where that's not as much the case here.

[00:33:46] Um, okay.

[00:33:49] Obviously the music and how do I, how do I tell you're wrong?

[00:33:52] Um, obviously the music in Luminous is fantastic.

[00:33:56] You know, it is, it's, it's, it's great.

[00:34:01] Um, I just really like Meteos because of the, the drama of it, because you have the three levels

[00:34:08] of the music you have.

[00:34:09] When you start out, it's calm.

[00:34:11] You get a little more stack, the medium song.

[00:34:13] And then when you're heightened, you're really up there.

[00:34:14] Then it starts getting frantic.

[00:34:16] Every single planet has their own three layered attack of music.

[00:34:21] And I think, I just think that's so fantastic to me.

[00:34:25] Like, you know, I just think that's like, it's very dynamic.

[00:34:27] Obviously the stuff in Luminous is very dynamic too.

[00:34:30] I'm not saying it's not, it's just that for Meteos.

[00:34:33] And again, maybe it's a personality, if you will, of the planets and just the way they

[00:34:37] look.

[00:34:37] And it's really fitting of the way each one looks.

[00:34:41] And it's a very good audio visual thing for me.

[00:34:45] So I don't know.

[00:34:46] I guess that's just how I feel.

[00:34:48] Again, I'm not shitting on Luminous.

[00:34:49] It's just that for me, Meteos, excellent, excellent drama in the music.

[00:34:55] I think it's a valid opinion.

[00:34:56] So I'm not, I'm not trying to take away from that.

[00:34:58] I have, I have not just because we're on the topic.

[00:35:00] I have something to admit.

[00:35:02] And I feel I've always been like a little bit embarrassed about this.

[00:35:05] For years, the only, I didn't play Luminous when it first came out.

[00:35:09] And the only, like I knew about it from EGM.

[00:35:12] And for years and years and years, I thought that game was called Lumines.

[00:35:20] Luminous.

[00:35:20] Gonna play Lumines on my PSP because there's nothing else to play, eh?

[00:35:26] Lumines.

[00:35:27] You probably are not the only one.

[00:35:29] I'm sure you're not the only one.

[00:35:31] I just, I felt like I needed to step up and admit that.

[00:35:34] I think like it's probably been maybe like five years that I knew Luminous was called Lumines.

[00:35:40] Okay.

[00:35:40] I'll embarrass myself too.

[00:35:42] I'll embarrass myself too.

[00:35:43] Okay.

[00:35:43] Okay.

[00:35:46] So, there's a machine at work, a slot machine, of course, called Pompeii.

[00:35:52] I thought it was Pompeii too.

[00:35:54] Because, you know, you spelled like Pompeii, P-O-M-P-E-I-I.

[00:35:58] Oh.

[00:35:58] I thought Pompeii was like P-O-M-P-E and then the two I's were like a two.

[00:36:03] I had never seen Pompeii spelled before.

[00:36:06] So, I just didn't know that's how you spelled it.

[00:36:08] So, I thought the machine was Pompeii too.

[00:36:10] Oh, they have another machine called Pompeii.

[00:36:12] And this is like an upgraded one Pompeii too.

[00:36:14] Because that happens in the slot machine industry.

[00:36:16] You know, it wouldn't be unusual.

[00:36:18] There's Zeus.

[00:36:18] We're up to Zeus three now.

[00:36:20] You know?

[00:36:20] So, like it's not really, you know.

[00:36:23] But yeah.

[00:36:24] But I was embarrassed.

[00:36:25] And I remember when this happened.

[00:36:27] And he's never let that go Pompeii too.

[00:36:29] He's never.

[00:36:33] So, now everyone knows my secret.

[00:36:35] Okay.

[00:36:36] Pompeii too.

[00:36:37] Thank you.

[00:36:38] I feel better about Lou Mines.

[00:36:49] Okay.

[00:36:50] I'm going to bring Steve in because the next game I played only because of him.

[00:36:55] I downloaded the.

[00:36:56] I see how it is.

[00:36:57] Well, I did.

[00:36:58] I talk about it by myself.

[00:37:00] Crickets.

[00:37:00] But now that there's 10 million people downloading it.

[00:37:03] Oh, friends of the show are all playing it.

[00:37:06] Okay, Kevin.

[00:37:07] You keep going.

[00:37:08] Well, I remember when it was announced.

[00:37:09] And it was.

[00:37:10] I knew it was a thing.

[00:37:11] It was not on my radar at all.

[00:37:12] And then Steve sent a screenshot.

[00:37:14] And he was like, all right.

[00:37:15] This is my life now.

[00:37:16] Now that this is out.

[00:37:17] And I was like, I want to.

[00:37:18] I want to be there for Steve.

[00:37:19] I kind of expected I was going to download Pokemon the trading card game pocket.

[00:37:25] And, you know, like open some packs and dick around for it for.

[00:37:28] With it for half an hour and probably forget about it and move on with my life after I've

[00:37:34] kind of seen how it works.

[00:37:36] I've never I never actually learned how to play the actual trading card game.

[00:37:39] So I was kind of interested just to like try out the tutorial more than anything.

[00:37:43] And then a few days later, like I'm talking like maybe three days later, I've got probably

[00:37:49] like six or seven hours into that when I'm not playing it.

[00:37:53] I'm like thinking about what what I want to do with deck building.

[00:37:57] I'm keeping an eye on the clock throughout the day because I know like, you know, I've

[00:38:01] already calculated.

[00:38:02] OK, the next time I can open a booster pack is at like four thirty five.

[00:38:05] So I'm waiting for that time.

[00:38:07] Oh my God.

[00:38:08] To the point where I spent I spent four dollars on a microtransaction here.

[00:38:13] And that is pretty notable because I don't think I've spent I've spent like, you know,

[00:38:17] a dollar or two for like remove ads for something I'm playing.

[00:38:21] I don't think I have ever in my life spent money on getting like in game currency to like

[00:38:26] speed up something up for a mobile game.

[00:38:29] And I can see this being a slippery ass slope because they've got the like, you know, early

[00:38:34] deals for the pokey gold.

[00:38:36] And now there's the 14 the $14 pack that, you know, you get like quite a bit extra extra

[00:38:42] pokey gold for the introductory offer.

[00:38:44] And and I'm I'm going to be honest.

[00:38:46] I'm thinking about it.

[00:38:49] So they, you know, the the carrot on the stick is pretty refined here.

[00:38:53] Or am I the only one, Steve?

[00:38:55] Have you you haven't fucked with pokey gold yet?

[00:38:57] I try very hard not to do too many microtransactions.

[00:39:02] It took a very long time for Fire Emblem to get me, but but they finally, finally suckered

[00:39:07] me in to the to their $10 a month plan because I play that game a lot and whatever.

[00:39:13] And the things that provides are, you know, good enough for me to do.

[00:39:17] But I can't fling money at this yet.

[00:39:21] I just can't.

[00:39:22] Now, did you because they also for the like thing that charges you every month and gives

[00:39:27] you an extra booster pack per day, they give you two weeks for free.

[00:39:31] Did you sign up for the two weeks for free?

[00:39:33] Absolutely not.

[00:39:34] Not yet.

[00:39:35] Whoa.

[00:39:36] Okay.

[00:39:36] Cause I did.

[00:39:37] And, you know, initially being like, oh, I'll just get like, you know, 14 days of the

[00:39:40] free booster.

[00:39:41] But now I'm like, I've, I've calculated out like, you know, like buying the gold versus

[00:39:46] if I just like stay on the monthly plan, like, you know, what, what benefit.

[00:39:51] They got him good.

[00:39:53] They got him good.

[00:39:55] I don't know how long this is going to last because it has, and I mean, I'm still playing

[00:39:59] this every day and still opening up the booster packs, like before I get out of bed

[00:40:02] in the morning, but I do think that there, I mean, like progression in the game to level

[00:40:09] up.

[00:40:09] Cause you get quite a bit of like, you know, shit to speed up time when you level up and

[00:40:12] stuff.

[00:40:13] Um, it gets pretty, you get very little experience from doing, um, PVP battles and you get zero

[00:40:21] experience if you lose, which is, uh, which I think is kind of bullshit.

[00:40:26] Cause you can also like at any time concede without penalty.

[00:40:29] I feel like if you see a battle through, you should get like five experience cause you get

[00:40:33] 15.

[00:40:34] That is kind of bullshit.

[00:40:35] Yes.

[00:40:36] Yeah.

[00:40:36] But yeah, I, I like I'm an, and even, and I know, I think one, one thing I want Steve

[00:40:43] to talk about because I am really enjoying just like literally like playing the card game

[00:40:47] itself more than just the, like, you know, I want to like open booster packs, which I do.

[00:40:52] Um, you know, and you, there's kind of like a single player group of, of things you can

[00:40:57] do and then the, the PVP, but I know it's also like a boiled down version of the actual

[00:41:03] card game.

[00:41:04] Um, and I was wondering if Steve can kind of like talk to about, uh, like, you know,

[00:41:08] how, how boiled down it is and if it really is like taken away from his experience.

[00:41:13] Well, before I do that, Kevin, I think you're selling short a little bit, how fun opening booster

[00:41:17] packs is because you're picking them from a pile and they're making you rip it open.

[00:41:23] And then you could look at the cards like, like, like flip them around.

[00:41:27] And some of them are backwards and then it's like, fuck, like, you know, if I get, is there

[00:41:32] a higher chance of getting a like good card in the backwards ones?

[00:41:36] It's like, that's a game in itself, but yeah, there is a truncated PVP mode.

[00:41:42] Andre is a little more familiar with the actual game because we did play the Game Boy color version

[00:41:48] of what was going on in the year 2000 on our, uh, app show.

[00:41:54] However long ago that was now.

[00:41:56] I think it was a March.

[00:41:58] Yeah.

[00:42:00] Cards have cards.

[00:42:02] Decks have 20 cards in them.

[00:42:03] And in exchange, there's like a pool of energy instead of having energy cards.

[00:42:08] So the game sped up that way.

[00:42:11] Even though there's a lot of cards with familiar art, they don't necessarily match the cards

[00:42:16] we're more familiar with.

[00:42:17] There's like a bunch of cards.

[00:42:19] I saw they're like, Ooh, I remember those cards.

[00:42:21] And then I'm seeing them in the game.

[00:42:23] Like, that's not what these do.

[00:42:28] So there's, there's a bit of an adjustment that way.

[00:42:31] And, and the, and the one thing I'm a bit more complaining about right this second is that

[00:42:36] they took away my favorite win.

[00:42:39] Well, not more of a lose condition is that you can keep going after you run out of cards

[00:42:44] in your 20 card deck in the, in the main game.

[00:42:47] If you, uh, if it's your turn and you, you're supposed to draw a card and if you can't, oh, you lose.

[00:42:55] See, one of my favorite asshole decks was making a game where, oh no, you can't, I'm going to make

[00:43:00] you draw out your deck.

[00:43:01] So you can't do that anymore.

[00:43:02] Oh, I can't build that deck in, in a TCG pocket because the game still lets you play.

[00:43:09] If you run out of cards in your deck, it just goes up, no card to draw too bad.

[00:43:13] Make, make your move.

[00:43:15] Hmm.

[00:43:16] So I, yeah, that kind of sucks.

[00:43:18] So I gotta be a bit more flexible, but, but the game is here.

[00:43:22] That's here.

[00:43:23] It's fun.

[00:43:24] I'm having fun opening packs.

[00:43:26] There's like the whole card decks that there is to go through to look at what's available so far.

[00:43:34] I can't wait until there's like more expansion packs because they're not going to obviously end it here.

[00:43:39] I hope that's why I'm leery on spending money here in particular, because it would really suck if I dropped 40 real life dollars.

[00:43:47] And I was like, here's the new set with 200 new cards.

[00:43:53] And shirtless Ike from Fire Emblem.

[00:43:56] For some reason.

[00:43:59] I thought you typically do like the starter pack, quote unquote, for any of these like freebie games that you play, right?

[00:44:05] I mean, I guess, is that not a thing in this one?

[00:44:07] Or like Kevin is talking about getting a pack every day or something?

[00:44:11] There is one.

[00:44:13] I haven't dipped into that.

[00:44:15] Okay.

[00:44:17] I don't know why.

[00:44:18] I guess I could with my pretend Google money.

[00:44:20] Maybe I should.

[00:44:21] We'll see.

[00:44:22] Yeah.

[00:44:22] I don't know.

[00:44:23] I would feel better about myself if you fuck with it a little bit.

[00:44:26] Also, I think you guys maybe need to like, I would appreciate it.

[00:44:30] You know, if you guys maybe just check in on me every couple of weeks and be like, Kevin, you're not like spending your kids college fund on Pokemon cards that you can't even actually hold in your hand.

[00:44:43] I had a couple other things I wanted to hit on quick.

[00:44:46] As far as actual card game itself, I feel like card games walk a very like fine line about how much engagement they require, especially digitally.

[00:44:55] There's something different about playing it physically.

[00:44:58] And here you definitely need to do some pre-planning and evaluation and look a couple moves ahead to be successful.

[00:45:04] But it's not so intense that it doesn't still feel somewhat casual.

[00:45:09] I know how to play Magic the Gathering in real life.

[00:45:13] And I've checked in on the like digital versions of that periodically throughout the years.

[00:45:17] And I'll fuck with it for a little bit.

[00:45:19] And it's fun.

[00:45:20] But it always winds up just feeling like a little bit too much work, especially when you're playing with like, you know, a number of different like generations of cards because there's so many one off rules.

[00:45:31] And there's so much like mental gymnastics that goes into trying to like really understand like what the outcome could be three turns down the road.

[00:45:40] And that doesn't have this work working against it for me.

[00:45:44] I mean, there's enough complexity here to keep me engaged.

[00:45:47] And that's about it.

[00:45:50] My biggest frustration and this is coming, but it's I guess just because now I'm hooked is like when I want it to be here.

[00:45:58] You know, they've got Pokemon and card and game, but they don't have trading.

[00:46:01] Um, the trading icon says coming soon, which just feels to me like it kind of sucks for a game about trading cards.

[00:46:10] I do understand that there's probably got to be some like question about how they handle it, because I mean, it would be pretty easy just to make like an alt account, get your other two packs of cards per day or two.

[00:46:21] Yeah, your two packs of cards per day and then like send all the good shit to your main account.

[00:46:26] Um, I was with Steve.

[00:46:27] What do you think?

[00:46:28] Like, are they, is it going to be a free for all, um, like trade, whatever you want or like one for one trades of the same rarity?

[00:46:35] And also do you think they're going to have like another, cause there's like fucking eight different kinds of currency in this game.

[00:46:41] Do you think there's going to be like another kind of currency where you have to like pay to do a trade?

[00:46:48] I don't know what this is going to look like because I'm already thinking about how, uh, random trading works for mainline Pokemon games.

[00:46:55] And we have the global trading system, which has existed like for, since the Pokemon online has existed and the poke pals will tell you that it is a shit show because people cannot be trusted to, you know, make good faith trades.

[00:47:11] And game freak cannot be trusted to, you know, makes a system that makes sense.

[00:47:17] That doesn't let players ask for impossible shit.

[00:47:20] So right now there's like hundreds of trades of like, yeah, I want your Zapdos and I want you to trade me a thing that literally doesn't exist.

[00:47:28] But since I can punch these parameters into the thing, we're just going to clog up resources with it until, uh, until, you know, time stops.

[00:47:37] And I don't know what this is going to look like.

[00:47:39] Um, at first I'm almost thinking maybe it's going to just be friends list only, but we'll, we'll see.

[00:47:45] We'll see.

[00:47:45] I mean, and I think that would be fine.

[00:47:47] Like it's, you know, you get quite a bit of friends requests just from people I've been playing with.

[00:47:51] So, I mean, I would be okay with that.

[00:47:55] That could be fine.

[00:47:57] I'm having fun.

[00:47:58] I just, you know, don't make it too overly complicated.

[00:48:02] When I get a card game, which sometimes I find myself turning on a Yu-Gi-Oh master duel for a few days and then I'm like, oh wait, this game is overly complicated.

[00:48:12] Now that's why I don't play anymore.

[00:48:13] And then I stopped.

[00:48:27] Okay, guys, that's enough Pokemon.

[00:48:29] That's enough pocket monsters.

[00:48:30] Or maybe it's not because guys, I can never keep.

[00:48:35] He just, he just, he just got it.

[00:48:38] Oh yeah.

[00:48:39] I got it.

[00:48:40] Okay.

[00:48:40] We're all caught up on the innuendos now.

[00:48:43] All right.

[00:48:44] Okay.

[00:48:45] I appreciate that.

[00:48:48] Guys, I can't keep the spoopy games confined to October, but at the same time, if you're looking at the episode list, it's episode 69 of Big Deal.

[00:48:57] What am I going to do?

[00:48:59] Pretend that's not the funny internet sex number?

[00:49:02] What a bind I would be in.

[00:49:04] Except how I very much wanted to play Resident Evil Village forever.

[00:49:07] Forever.

[00:49:08] And not just because of the tall vampire mommy and her daughters, which, you know, weren't even in that initial trailer.

[00:49:15] Basically when PS4 was being debuted, I wasn't rushing to get one, but talking highlights for me at the time were Returnal, which I loved even if it doesn't love me back.

[00:49:24] Final Fantasy 16, mixed feelings there.

[00:49:28] And this, and you know, this just kept slipping by one reason or another.

[00:49:32] So I'm like, fuck it.

[00:49:34] Here's the, I'm getting the gold edition.

[00:49:35] Here it is.

[00:49:37] And I guess I kind of need to open up with talking about the story a bit because there actually is a story.

[00:49:45] Despite what all the please step on me mommy memes would lead us to believe.

[00:49:49] It's all the story I need.

[00:49:51] I know, but humor me for a moment because in a previous creative endeavor, me and Andre did play Resident Evil 7.

[00:49:58] One of us liked it more than the other.

[00:50:00] But the point is we're picking up with the same protagonist, one Ethan Winters reunited with his wife who are trying to hide away in Europe land with their newborn Rose.

[00:50:09] And, uh, hey, Andre, I know this was forever ago, but remember when I brought up Chris showing up at the tail end of that game?

[00:50:16] And I thought he felt kind of un-Chris like, and you're like, I don't know what you're talking about.

[00:50:23] Yes, exactly.

[00:50:24] That voice that is exactly of a conversation way.

[00:50:27] Yes.

[00:50:27] Well, there's like a little opening.

[00:50:29] You put Rose to bed.

[00:50:30] Oh, good night, baby.

[00:50:31] I hope everything's okay.

[00:50:33] Chris just breaks into your fucking house with two commando guys.

[00:50:37] Chris takes two, takes pot shots at your wife before taking you and Rose into custody.

[00:50:44] What?

[00:50:45] Yeah.

[00:50:46] Then you're knocked out and unconscious, you know, as you do in these situations.

[00:50:51] But then you just suddenly wake up on the side of a road, your vehicle's overturned, and you're just the only one there while your Jeep that's there was set on fire in the middle of the dark of the night outside of a village.

[00:51:05] Hey, now.

[00:51:08] So this is like, so this isn't taking place in like the 13th century.

[00:51:12] You're really at this like village in the year of our Lord, presumably 2024 or whatever recent times.

[00:51:18] Yes.

[00:51:20] Okay.

[00:51:21] So just Dracula is real.

[00:51:23] So we're in a village and parallels to Resident Evil four can immediately be drawn into that.

[00:51:30] Shit's largely abandoned, except for a handful of citizens that are still alive, sort of, and a handful of other citizens that are considerably less.

[00:51:40] So you got some of the strange zombies, not quite that have been, they've been playing with for a while now, but also a lot of fuzzy guys that look like they're headed to a shadow of the beast costume contest.

[00:51:52] Why the hell would I bring that game up?

[00:51:54] I have no idea.

[00:51:55] Yeah.

[00:51:56] But anyway, the combat's actually improved from seven a bit.

[00:51:59] I know that was a point of contention for one of us.

[00:52:02] You have your usual assortment of weapons augmented by adaptive triggers.

[00:52:07] Thank you very much.

[00:52:08] Love those.

[00:52:09] And even the hand-to-hand combat's a bit better than it was in seven and you'll be needing it because with village, they, I feel like they tried listening to the Andre types while listening to customization aspects of, you know, Resident Evil four that, you know, everyone except Andre liked.

[00:52:27] Yep.

[00:52:27] There is a shop ran by a portly man known as the Duke and he serves largely the same function as the merchant in four does.

[00:52:35] You know, he talks to you, he sells you shit, he buys your valuables, but, you know, resources are still scarce.

[00:52:43] You're not going to be walking around with all the bullets in the world and you're not going to be barely hit.

[00:52:49] Like things hit hard and, you know, everything he provides to you is very pricey.

[00:52:55] You're not going to be walking around like, you know, Leon at the end of four, you're going to be working for this a bit.

[00:53:02] Can you be, are you allowed to be by law under 250 pounds and be called the Duke?

[00:53:10] Cause I don't think you are.

[00:53:12] No, I don't think you can.

[00:53:14] Yeah.

[00:53:14] And so that's my feeling.

[00:53:15] I feel like two 50, two 50 gotta be like at least it.

[00:53:19] Yeah.

[00:53:19] I feel like this guy is definitely the fat controller's cousin, you know, from Thomas, the tank engine, but I can't prove that.

[00:53:26] Okay.

[00:53:26] If you ever actually saw it, I don't know.

[00:53:29] Two 50 sounds like on the light end for a Duke even.

[00:53:32] I don't know.

[00:53:32] Two 75.

[00:53:34] I was thinking three hundo.

[00:53:35] Yeah.

[00:53:36] See three feels like a bit much.

[00:53:38] I'd be willing to meet you in the middle.

[00:53:39] Two 75.

[00:53:40] But you're the Duke.

[00:53:41] You need fucking.

[00:53:42] Two 50 is the lightest Duke you can be.

[00:53:45] I would say.

[00:53:46] No, I agree to disagree.

[00:53:49] Two 50.

[00:53:50] You're grazing the Dukeness.

[00:53:52] I'm lowering it now.

[00:53:53] Two 70.

[00:53:54] Two 70 to be the Duke.

[00:53:55] That's it.

[00:53:56] Final, final offer.

[00:53:58] Who?

[00:53:59] I don't, I don't, I don't need to.

[00:54:02] I don't need your acceptance in my mental Dukeness.

[00:54:05] You don't need to consent to my 300.

[00:54:07] I'm saying it's 300.

[00:54:09] God damn it.

[00:54:10] You can say whatever you want, but you know.

[00:54:13] I'm telling you.

[00:54:14] Is the law of Dukes.

[00:54:16] Good luck getting that past the Duke board.

[00:54:18] Fuck.

[00:54:19] And I'm already hearing.

[00:54:20] You fucking edit the show and you get to make all of the rules all of a sudden.

[00:54:24] Yeah, I do.

[00:54:25] I'll just make it sound like you're agreeing with me this entire segment.

[00:54:29] Sorry, Steve.

[00:54:30] Yeah, go ahead.

[00:54:31] Sorry.

[00:54:31] No.

[00:54:31] And I'm already hearing the other voices out there going, Steve, we've been fucking polite.

[00:54:36] And we listened to you talk about hairy fat guys long enough.

[00:54:39] Talk about the horny vampires, please.

[00:54:42] Tell me about vampire mommy milkers.

[00:54:44] God damn it.

[00:54:45] I've waited long enough.

[00:54:46] Oh, yes, because eventually you have enough hairy encounters with the beastly complainers and such.

[00:54:53] You do get to go inside Castle Dimitrescu.

[00:54:57] And remember when they first unveiled her and we all reacted appropriately on the Internet and Capcom was all, wow, we had no idea reception to her was going to be this positive.

[00:55:10] Remember that?

[00:55:11] I'm calling bullshit on that.

[00:55:13] They 101% knew that was going to be going on because this is the horniest Resident Evil has ever been.

[00:55:22] You go in the castle.

[00:55:24] They close the gate in behind you.

[00:55:27] And mommy and daughters want you bad.

[00:55:31] You're walking around the castle as you do.

[00:55:34] And like, you know, another Resident Evil game might be in a more confined space.

[00:55:38] You're solving similar puzzles that you might be more used to.

[00:55:42] And then suddenly a vampire daughter just shows up like real fucking close.

[00:55:46] I'm sure this is like great in PS2 VR.

[00:55:50] VR.

[00:55:50] I'm not going to pretend I know what it's called right now.

[00:55:53] They vanish, reappear, bite your neck, the whole fucking thing.

[00:55:57] And you got to figure out how to dispatch them all.

[00:55:59] Not to mention, you know, the madame while figuring out what the hell's really going on.

[00:56:04] Which is to say, guys, it's very unfortunate.

[00:56:08] My schedule hasn't been super friendly.

[00:56:10] I haven't finished the game yet.

[00:56:13] Oh, wow.

[00:56:14] Okay.

[00:56:15] I did.

[00:56:16] Which small spoilers.

[00:56:17] I did kill Lady Dimitrescu and her friends because, you know, they were getting too much in my space.

[00:56:23] But it's Resident Evil Village, not Resident Evil Castle.

[00:56:27] So there's a big chunk of game that happens after you deal with them.

[00:56:31] And I applaud Capcom for preying on all of our horniness that well to throw everyone off the set in that regard.

[00:56:38] Yeah.

[00:56:39] You know, that's the thing I always hear that people complain about.

[00:56:42] There was not enough vampire mommy because she's just one part of the game.

[00:56:46] And then you kill her and then you move on.

[00:56:48] So like that's I think that's pretty known.

[00:56:51] And then the remaining villains are considerably less horny, I imagine.

[00:56:56] Yeah.

[00:56:57] I mean, I think I'm in for something good.

[00:57:02] I feel like this could be a personal all-timer for the series.

[00:57:06] And if not, well, we have a little segment that we put on sometimes called Fuck I Was Wrong.

[00:57:12] And we'll see if it ends up there sometime.

[00:57:16] I'm having fun.

[00:57:17] Okay.

[00:57:18] That's good.

[00:57:19] Again, as you alluded to many, many times during this segment, I did not like Resident Evil 7.

[00:57:24] So I wasn't like super keen to play 8, even though Vampire Mommy Milkers.

[00:57:28] But you're kind of getting me more in the mood.

[00:57:32] You've kind of turned me on here with the second.

[00:57:34] I kind of feel like I should.

[00:57:35] Is it on like PlayStation?

[00:57:36] Is it on Royale with Cheese or?

[00:57:38] It's not.

[00:57:39] October started.

[00:57:40] I was like, we're getting.

[00:57:41] I scheduled this.

[00:57:43] I'm like, we're hitting 69.

[00:57:45] This was all planned.

[00:57:48] Okay.

[00:57:49] Is that it?

[00:57:49] No more Vampire Mommy?

[00:57:51] Is that all you got?

[00:57:52] That's it.

[00:57:53] No more Vampire Mommies today.

[00:57:56] Well, that got me all hot and bothered.

[00:57:58] I got to tell you, I think I need to cool off in the shower.

[00:58:01] What do you say, boys?

[00:58:03] I think we better.

[00:58:05] Yeah.

[00:58:05] You know I'm in.

[00:58:06] Let's go.

[00:58:07] It's time to hit the showers.

[00:58:09] We'll be right back on Fine Time.

[00:58:53] Okay.

[00:58:54] I'm cooled off.

[00:58:55] Sometimes you do need a cold shower sometimes.

[00:58:57] It's just refreshing.

[00:59:02] Tell you what.

[00:59:04] Okay.

[00:59:05] Steve, we have another taste test to conduct.

[00:59:08] And this time it is Sprite Zero Sugar Winter Spiced Cranberry.

[00:59:16] Now, you were trying to tell me this is an annual thing.

[00:59:19] I had never seen this before.

[00:59:22] Okay.

[00:59:24] I'm looking at this and I'm remembering way back.

[00:59:27] And that's not too far back.

[00:59:30] Because when I'm looking for the YouTube video, that was, I guess it was supposed to be LeBron's Claymation Family.

[00:59:37] It was 2017.

[00:59:39] And I guess they were trying to do the California Raisin singing Christmas songs.

[00:59:43] But now, it's a mess.

[00:59:45] Look it up.

[00:59:45] Or I'll just link to it later.

[00:59:49] Okay.

[00:59:50] Yeah, there was like four different concepts in that sentence.

[00:59:54] There were seven in that commercial.

[00:59:56] But okay.

[00:59:57] It's like, hey, you guys want Cranberry Sprite?

[01:00:00] No.

[01:00:00] I mean, I did have it at the time.

[01:00:03] And it was good.

[01:00:04] But this is something different.

[01:00:06] Well, we'll find out.

[01:00:08] We'll find out.

[01:00:09] Okay.

[01:00:09] Let's find out.

[01:00:10] Let's open it.

[01:00:10] Let's open this for the people.

[01:00:14] I'm foaming up a little.

[01:00:15] I'm foaming up a little.

[01:00:19] Okay.

[01:00:19] There we go.

[01:00:22] So, it definitely smells like a Cranberry Sprite.

[01:00:25] Sure does.

[01:00:26] I definitely am getting Cranberry.

[01:00:28] Because like, what do we have before that?

[01:00:30] That peach Pepsi didn't smell like anything.

[01:00:33] No.

[01:00:34] Okay.

[01:00:35] Ooh, mine's bubbly.

[01:00:36] You hear that?

[01:00:38] Mine's definitely bubbling up.

[01:00:40] Yeah.

[01:00:41] Okay.

[01:00:41] You ready?

[01:00:42] There's a go.

[01:00:43] Let's have a sip.

[01:00:54] Yeah.

[01:00:55] I can get down with that.

[01:00:56] It's all right.

[01:00:58] Do you guys feel festive?

[01:01:00] Yeah.

[01:01:01] I don't know if I'm getting like holiday vibes from this necessarily.

[01:01:04] Maybe just Cranberry Thanksgiving.

[01:01:05] I don't know what they're doing here.

[01:01:06] But like, pretty good.

[01:01:10] It's got an aftertaste.

[01:01:11] I don't know if I like that.

[01:01:12] I don't know if I'll get it all the time.

[01:01:15] I don't like it as much as like some of the other special ones.

[01:01:17] Like, I really like the lemonade, Sprite Lemonade.

[01:01:20] It's not as good as that.

[01:01:22] Yeah.

[01:01:23] More inside baseball.

[01:01:24] You were showing that off to us a while ago.

[01:01:25] I haven't seen that in a while.

[01:01:26] But apparently they just make that all the time out where you are.

[01:01:29] I see it all the time over here.

[01:01:31] It's definitely a thing.

[01:01:33] I have one more set.

[01:01:36] Yeah.

[01:01:37] I'm okay with this.

[01:01:39] Again, I don't think I'll get it all the time.

[01:01:41] I'll definitely probably get a couple more before the holidays are over.

[01:01:45] For sure.

[01:01:46] This is okay.

[01:01:49] It's definitely what it is.

[01:01:50] Just as it is.

[01:01:51] I mean this in a good way.

[01:01:53] It's going to sound like an insult.

[01:01:54] But I mean this in a good way.

[01:01:55] It has like a good aftertaste of like a cheap wine cooler.

[01:01:59] You know what I mean?

[01:02:01] That's like that like.

[01:02:02] That's what that is.

[01:02:03] Yeah.

[01:02:04] You know what I mean?

[01:02:04] But I kind of like that.

[01:02:06] I don't think that's bad for me.

[01:02:08] See, I'm not sure if I do like that.

[01:02:10] I don't know.

[01:02:11] Yeah.

[01:02:13] Like you just said, I'll have a few of these and then they'll get rid of them.

[01:02:17] I won't miss this.

[01:02:19] Yeah.

[01:02:20] I'm not going to like, oh man, I can't wait for next year for it to come around.

[01:02:23] But definitely good.

[01:02:24] Good enough for me to try at least like once or twice more before the year's out maybe.

[01:02:29] All right.

[01:02:30] We don't really have big questions this week except for one.

[01:02:34] There's nothing really happened.

[01:02:35] But we do want to talk about this.

[01:02:38] Nintendo.

[01:02:39] What is you doing, baby?

[01:02:42] Part two.

[01:02:42] I remember about a month ago.

[01:02:44] They just started going, Steve, what were they doing?

[01:02:47] They went buck wild for like a week.

[01:02:49] Oh, we're putting out of zero games on Game Boy Advance.

[01:02:54] We're making an alarm clock.

[01:02:59] It's like, guys, what are you doing?

[01:03:01] Well, Nintendo had themselves a couple of weeks here.

[01:03:05] So here are the things they announced over the last, I want to say, seven to ten days.

[01:03:12] Okay.

[01:03:13] Number one, they shadow dropped Shadow Man.

[01:03:17] Ha ha.

[01:03:18] And Turok 2 on the Nintendo 64, Nintendo Switch Online, Mature 17 Plus app.

[01:03:24] So now we can play those.

[01:03:25] And yes, we are definitely playing Shadow Man for our next NSO thing.

[01:03:30] And sorry, Steve, if you just found that out right now.

[01:03:33] But we are definitely doing that.

[01:03:34] Well, we promised them something.

[01:03:36] Okay, here you go.

[01:03:38] The next day, just on Twitter, they announced Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition coming to Switch on March 25th.

[01:03:48] Guys, what the fuck?

[01:03:49] We've been asking for this the entire generation.

[01:03:52] I figured at this point they were just going to put it on Switch 2 because there's a lot of things it could probably do better to make a better Xenoblade X.

[01:04:01] But I guess not.

[01:04:03] They've probably been working on this so long where it's like, I don't know.

[01:04:07] You think they can make it 60?

[01:04:08] I hope it's 60.

[01:04:10] I don't know.

[01:04:11] Maybe?

[01:04:11] I really hope so.

[01:04:12] Okay, the day after that and what we thought was going to be the meat of our discussion until what they said Tuesday.

[01:04:20] But until we get there, the day after that, Nintendo announces and releases a Nintendo Music app for iOS and Android.

[01:04:31] So if you have a Nintendo Switch Online subscription, you can use this app and just listen to Nintendo Music.

[01:04:37] It's Spotify, but for Nintendo.

[01:04:40] Okay.

[01:04:41] It is pretty bitching.

[01:04:43] I like it.

[01:04:44] No, it's great.

[01:04:46] I love that you can extend it too.

[01:04:48] You can loop this for 15 minutes.

[01:04:51] Loop it for 30 minutes.

[01:04:52] Yes, I sat there and listened to Norfair from Metroid for 15 solid minutes.

[01:04:56] Somebody in Guantanamo is being blasted with Wii Shop music for like 48 hours.

[01:05:04] Hey, that's not torture.

[01:05:06] That's a right.

[01:05:07] I imagine if it's 48 hours at like 200 decibels, it's probably a bit much.

[01:05:13] Okay.

[01:05:14] And then on Tuesday, America's election day to distract us from the horrors that we saw that day.

[01:05:20] They announced or rather they tweeted from their Japanese Twitter account from the president of Nintendo himself.

[01:05:29] Shuntaro Fukakara announces that the Switch successor will be backwards compatible with Switch and Nintendo Switch Online will carry over as well.

[01:05:40] They didn't necessarily say in what capacity, like the apps or just our subscriptions or whatever.

[01:05:45] But it's going to carry over to some degree.

[01:05:49] I mean, I feel like that's the thing we might want to talk about the most.

[01:05:53] But guys, you got Kevin.

[01:05:55] What about any of these things here?

[01:05:57] Like what?

[01:05:57] What in the world happened?

[01:05:59] Yeah.

[01:05:59] I mean, the backwards compatibility and Switch Online carrying over like that news in itself is not a surprise to anybody.

[01:06:08] I don't think that's generally what we would have expected.

[01:06:11] But why in a tweet?

[01:06:13] Like, I was like, I just I mean, you know, they've said the announcement is coming before the end of March or the before the end of the fiscal year.

[01:06:24] Like, I mean, it's obviously implying as far as like form factor and hardware capabilities, you know, again, what we assumed.

[01:06:32] But the successor is going to be very similar to the Switch in, you know, fundamental ways.

[01:06:38] But I guess why like, you know, on from their perspective, why like, you know, why you blow your load with a tweet?

[01:06:47] Yeah, it's weird, isn't it?

[01:06:49] I mean, well, OK, maybe I'll say this.

[01:06:53] They are obviously not going to have another direct until they're going to show the Switch 2.

[01:06:57] I think that's like pretty, pretty safe to say.

[01:07:01] Right.

[01:07:01] So I think that's why the Xenoblade Chronicles X thing happened now and it's coming out four or five months from now.

[01:07:09] Also, I think it's weird that they didn't announce this information along with the Switch 2.

[01:07:16] I figured this kind of information.

[01:07:18] Yes, it will be backwards compatible.

[01:07:19] Like all those things would be in that presentation.

[01:07:22] But they're saying it now.

[01:07:24] And I can't figure out what that reason is, Steve.

[01:07:28] I just can't imagine it.

[01:07:32] I just wish we actually knew what Nintendo Switch Online would pull carry over to because if it means the apps, you know, with the ones with the long names we all know and love carry over as is or mostly as is, you know, that'd be great because I'm sick of, you know, starting over from square one every time.

[01:07:49] But, you know, you know what else would be great showing off the damn system.

[01:07:54] I know.

[01:07:55] I know.

[01:07:55] You're antsy.

[01:07:56] You want to see it.

[01:07:57] We all want to see it.

[01:07:58] By the way, folks, if they do announce that while we're while we're off, this is our last big deal of the year.

[01:08:04] Is this a good time to say that?

[01:08:05] Just in the middle of the show?

[01:08:08] Oops.

[01:08:10] Sorry.

[01:08:10] I probably should have led with that.

[01:08:12] But yeah, this is our last big deal of the year.

[01:08:14] Don't worry.

[01:08:14] Of course, we will have material coming up.

[01:08:17] I'll talk about it at the end of the show.

[01:08:19] But yeah, if they do announce us while we're like off, we will have an emergency episode.

[01:08:25] We will.

[01:08:26] All hands on deck.

[01:08:26] All hands on deck.

[01:08:28] I got the even if I'm at work, I have the Zencaster app on my phone ready to go.

[01:08:35] Like we we will do this somehow.

[01:08:37] I don't care if it sounds like shit.

[01:08:39] But yeah, Kevin, are you using the Nintendo music app?

[01:08:43] Like it kind of makes sense that they went after all those like channels, right?

[01:08:46] All those music channels on YouTube.

[01:08:48] I mean, that's that's like the coolest.

[01:08:50] Oh, yeah.

[01:08:50] Sorry.

[01:08:51] I was like, I guess for me, you know, the coolest part of that is just having like one consolidated place for shit.

[01:08:57] Like, you know, the we weather, you know, just kind of like it's easy to get like a random playlist of stuff like that that you wouldn't necessarily hear as often.

[01:09:08] And so, I mean, again, you know, obviously we've had many ways to access any of this music in the past that we've wanted.

[01:09:15] But it is cool just to have it in a official capacity where you can download it and play it in the car if you want or whatever.

[01:09:24] I do.

[01:09:24] I want to.

[01:09:25] OK, sorry.

[01:09:26] I want to backtrack to my previous question just for a minute, though.

[01:09:29] I want to rephrase that.

[01:09:30] Do either of you have like even a possible like pie in the sky, like super overreaching, like completely unreasonable guess as to why they're making these announcements?

[01:09:43] I mean, even like we've seen the the Yuka replay thing the other day or the other week where they had like just the Nintendo logo at the bottom.

[01:09:51] Like, obviously things are happening.

[01:09:53] But why are they like why are they allowing that?

[01:09:56] Why are they allowing Xenoblade Chronicles X to be announced like just in a random video?

[01:10:03] Any any guesses?

[01:10:05] Because I cannot come up with even like like a borderline incoherent explanation.

[01:10:13] I don't know, Steve.

[01:10:15] Look, I don't know.

[01:10:16] You saw me on the illegal betting a month or so ago.

[01:10:20] I was very sure.

[01:10:22] OK, they're definitely going to show us something in October.

[01:10:25] Well, what month is it now?

[01:10:27] Guys, what fucking month is it now?

[01:10:30] I wasn't.

[01:10:31] You were bullish on October.

[01:10:32] Yeah.

[01:10:32] Look, I know you want this thing.

[01:10:34] Yeah.

[01:10:34] I don't know, man.

[01:10:35] Like I said, I think the best I can come up with is that they just don't.

[01:10:40] They're not going to have a direct until switch to which is not obviously not going to be a direct.

[01:10:45] It's going to be its own bespoke presentation.

[01:10:48] So I just think they're trying to get it out there.

[01:10:50] Do you think something is like somehow going wrong as far as I mean, they've got to be very far along with the hardware development at this point.

[01:10:59] You know, maybe like questions about how it's going to be marketed or something like that.

[01:11:03] Where all because it just it just seems to me like it's a little bit like messy and scrambled at this point.

[01:11:10] I think they didn't want to cut off switch.

[01:11:13] And I think that switch is finally slowing down.

[01:11:15] I think we just saw the report the other day where it just dropped like 31 percent or something in sales or whatever.

[01:11:20] I think I think we're finally reaching that end.

[01:11:23] And I think they've had this ready to go for a while for when that happens.

[01:11:27] And that's why they didn't really want to commit to like we're going to announce it then and it's going to come out this year or whatever.

[01:11:33] Like, I just think they again, they didn't want to cut off switch.

[01:11:37] But now now is the time, obviously.

[01:11:40] Do you think people's just like holiday general holiday shopping period might be factored into that where they're saying, OK, most people have like most of their holiday shopping done by like late November.

[01:11:51] So let's do an announcement early December.

[01:11:54] Yeah.

[01:11:54] And also, like I feel like not a whole not like not nearly as many people are going to get switches for Christmas this year because of that.

[01:12:00] I feel like everyone who has one has one.

[01:12:02] Everyone who wants one has one rather.

[01:12:05] And now like a savvy people who hear this, it's like, well, all of us have a switch.

[01:12:10] Right.

[01:12:10] If I mean, please.

[01:12:11] Right.

[01:12:11] So it's not like this is going to stop us.

[01:12:13] Oh, I better wait for the next one.

[01:12:14] We already have this one.

[01:12:16] So if they do a two minute teaser for the successor hardware on the game awards, I'm going to fucking jump off a cliff.

[01:12:22] I'll be, you know, fucking what?

[01:12:24] I wouldn't be surprised.

[01:12:27] I genuinely I know people I know people always think like, oh, Nintendo does their own thing.

[01:12:31] They like to do stuff at the game awards sometimes.

[01:12:33] So I'm not I'm not ruling that out.

[01:12:37] I don't think it's likely.

[01:12:38] I'm not going to bet on it.

[01:12:39] Like if you put it on place, your bets.

[01:12:41] But I wouldn't be.

[01:12:42] I just think that would suck.

[01:12:44] Really?

[01:12:44] That thing is never revealing hardware, though.

[01:12:47] That's the thing.

[01:12:48] They want all eyes on them.

[01:12:50] They don't want to be.

[01:12:51] Oh, and by the way, Nintendo showed off the new thing at the game.

[01:12:54] They'll steal the fucking show if they do that.

[01:12:57] And they know it.

[01:12:58] Come on.

[01:12:58] That's all anyone's going to talk about.

[01:13:00] So, OK, but even like, I don't know, I'm a little bit just like jaded with like, you

[01:13:04] know, Jeff's fucking overall branding over the last couple of years.

[01:13:08] But I like how do I put this?

[01:13:12] Does the game awards even want to be the thing where like, is it important enough to be like

[01:13:16] we stole the show of the game awards?

[01:13:18] Like, does it have that much street cred in 2024?

[01:13:22] No, I don't think so.

[01:13:24] But I don't think it.

[01:13:26] I just feel like with where they show it off doesn't matter whether it's at an event

[01:13:30] like that or whether they do it themselves, no matter how or when they do it, it will

[01:13:35] be the talk of the day.

[01:13:36] They can do it 15 minutes before the game award starts.

[01:13:40] And that's all anyone will talk about.

[01:13:42] Nobody will fucking care about the game awards.

[01:13:44] Right.

[01:13:45] So they can they can do whatever they want.

[01:13:47] I think it won't matter.

[01:13:49] That's what I'm saying.

[01:13:50] Nintendo has the power in this situation.

[01:13:53] The hardware video in like the fucking game awards pre show.

[01:14:01] They should just show the they should just show the Wii U one that just talked about

[01:14:04] the new controller.

[01:14:08] Play from the TV on your new controller.

[01:14:12] Play golf on the new controller.

[01:14:16] Watch TV on the new controller.

[01:14:24] All right, guys.

[01:14:26] All right, guys.

[01:14:27] All right.

[01:14:28] We know what you're thinking about today.

[01:14:30] OK, if you're an American, we're not feeling great about it either.

[01:14:34] OK, let's let's be real.

[01:14:35] The show has always been real with you.

[01:14:37] We've never hit how we felt about those kind of things.

[01:14:40] It fucking sucks.

[01:14:41] OK, this country.

[01:14:43] I don't know what's happening.

[01:14:44] So right now we could all use a little bit of comfort.

[01:14:49] And we had another segment here about games of the year, but we're going to save that

[01:14:53] for when we come back in January.

[01:14:55] Right now we want to talk comfort games.

[01:14:59] Let's talk about the games that makes us feel like someone's giving us a big warm hug

[01:15:05] or however you want to describe your comfort game situation.

[01:15:09] That's what I want to talk about right now.

[01:15:11] OK, the games that you just keep going back to.

[01:15:14] They're not even necessarily like your favorites of all time.

[01:15:17] They just make you feel a certain way.

[01:15:19] That can be nostalgia.

[01:15:21] That can be whatever, whatever you want to define it for yourself.

[01:15:24] And I think I'll start.

[01:15:27] OK, that's mine.

[01:15:27] If I go first, because I want to set the tone here.

[01:15:31] You go first.

[01:15:32] How many are we going to do?

[01:15:34] 3H or something like that, I think we decided on?

[01:15:37] Yeah, that sounds good to me.

[01:15:38] OK, I want to talk about and I don't think I've ever talked about this game on fine time.

[01:15:45] One of my comfort games, all time comfort games is MDK.

[01:15:50] The shiny entertainment, 3D action platforming sniping thing that came out in the mid to late

[01:15:57] 90s, I think 1997.

[01:16:00] You guys ever play MDK?

[01:16:02] I haven't.

[01:16:04] OK, I haven't.

[01:16:06] But I do remember you talking about this on our previous creative endeavor years ago.

[01:16:10] OK, so it's like I described.

[01:16:13] It's a it's kind of a 3D jumping around.

[01:16:16] It's not a platformer per se, although sometimes you do a little bit of that.

[01:16:20] It's a very hard game to describe because it's so unusual and it's so unusual looking.

[01:16:25] I'm sure and I've talked I know I've talked about this on fine time before.

[01:16:28] I love the MTV era of like animation, whether it's liquid television or a on flux or what's

[01:16:36] the guy with the big head max with two X's.

[01:16:39] Love that shit.

[01:16:39] Right.

[01:16:40] MDK makes me feel like that.

[01:16:42] There's a little bit.

[01:16:43] In fact, a lot bit of a on flux in there and its visual design because he has this like

[01:16:48] parachute.

[01:16:49] You can float down after you jump off of stuff and it looks something straight out of that

[01:16:53] cartoon.

[01:16:54] It's crazy.

[01:16:56] You're you're wearing this helmet, but your your helmet has like a sniper rifle, quote

[01:17:02] unquote, in it.

[01:17:02] So at any time you can zoom in, weigh in on stuff and snipe them.

[01:17:06] It's such a bizarre game.

[01:17:07] I know I'm describing it really shittily.

[01:17:10] Basically, it's like a bunch of little problems to solve.

[01:17:14] Some of them like, oh, just kill the enemies in the room and then move on.

[01:17:17] Oh, get these three things and you get the key and then you can move on.

[01:17:20] And then some of them are really goofy.

[01:17:22] Like one of them is like there's a room full of huge enemies that you can never beat.

[01:17:27] And then you have to get the world's most interesting bomb.

[01:17:31] And then you throw the world's most interesting bomb in the room and they all sit there and

[01:17:35] stare at it.

[01:17:36] And then you leave the room and then it blows up and you go to the next thing.

[01:17:39] You know, that typical like shiny entertainment humor at the time.

[01:17:42] So 90s and wacky, right?

[01:17:44] That kind of shit.

[01:17:45] I don't know.

[01:17:46] There's something about this game that just hits a certain like visual style and execution

[01:17:53] of it and a world.

[01:17:55] It's this very weird.

[01:17:56] I don't even know if I want to call it post-apocalyptic.

[01:17:59] It doesn't even look like Earth kind of thing where it just makes me feel even at the time

[01:18:04] and whenever I return to it feel like I'm at home, not literally at home like where I

[01:18:11] grew up, but just it puts me in a inner peace state that I almost can't really describe.

[01:18:17] I think that's what all these games that we're probably going to say do for us.

[01:18:20] Right.

[01:18:20] So, yeah, MDK is definitely one of mine.

[01:18:25] All right.

[01:18:26] Who wants who wants to go next?

[01:18:27] Steve?

[01:18:28] Sure.

[01:18:29] Steve, are you going to talk about a Super Nintendo game?

[01:18:33] You better.

[01:18:34] I'm going to talk about all the Super Nintendo games, Steve.

[01:18:36] We need you to pick only one.

[01:18:39] Fine.

[01:18:40] You jackasses.

[01:18:41] But they're all so good.

[01:18:42] Okay.

[01:18:43] I know.

[01:18:44] He won't even let us argue with him anymore.

[01:18:46] He's going to argue with himself.

[01:18:48] It's easier that way.

[01:18:49] Okay.

[01:18:50] We get it out of the way faster.

[01:18:51] Okay.

[01:18:54] Look, I can't help it if the Super Nintendo has so many bangers.

[01:18:57] Okay.

[01:18:57] But I'm going to talk about Mega Man X today.

[01:19:01] And I'm not going to just talk about why Mega Man X is one of the best games ever made,

[01:19:05] because it is.

[01:19:06] But I'm going to talk about why it's comforting to me.

[01:19:10] I don't know.

[01:19:11] I like I've alluded to it before.

[01:19:14] I'm very fond of games where you start out as, you know, being not very good.

[01:19:19] And then you end up being almost overpowered by the time you get to the end.

[01:19:23] But I've played this game again and again and again.

[01:19:31] I've got this game committed to memory.

[01:19:33] I can probably do it blindfolded.

[01:19:36] I don't know.

[01:19:37] It's just there's there's just something oddly comforting about, okay, I know I'm going to

[01:19:41] run down the highway.

[01:19:43] The vial is going to beat my ass and then zero is going to come in.

[01:19:45] Okay.

[01:19:45] I'm going to jump in the water here and we're going to take down these two things.

[01:19:51] The air, the sub thing is going to crash into the ground.

[01:19:54] We're going to beat the serpent and find the hard tanks over here.

[01:19:57] All right, great.

[01:19:58] I'm going to find all these sub tanks and the things and we're going to keep crashing the

[01:20:01] mine carton of the wall until I get the Hadouken.

[01:20:03] And then I'm going to keep using that to cheese as much of the end game as possible.

[01:20:08] Okay, terrific.

[01:20:10] I don't know.

[01:20:11] I probably got something wrong in the head.

[01:20:13] Of course I do.

[01:20:14] You've listened to me for a while now.

[01:20:16] Maybe, maybe not.

[01:20:18] Then that's going to just have to be the answer.

[01:20:20] Routine is comforting.

[01:20:22] I like me making man eggs.

[01:20:23] I'm probably going to play it again soon.

[01:20:25] I just like this game a lot.

[01:20:27] I played that game.

[01:20:29] I mean, I had it growing up too.

[01:20:30] I played it a number of times myself, you know?

[01:20:33] So I get that, you know, it's damn near one of mine as well.

[01:20:36] So I totally understand.

[01:20:37] I can't, I'm not one of those, oh my God, games done quick people where they're like done

[01:20:44] in 45 minutes, but I could be done in two hours now.

[01:20:50] Wow.

[01:20:51] I don't know.

[01:20:51] I don't think I've ever timed myself.

[01:20:53] Well, I guess if you get the Hadouken, you can definitely do that.

[01:20:56] Again, we all know I played the latter four Mega Man X games on this show and I never

[01:21:02] want to touch him again.

[01:21:03] Like Mega Man X one is like, man, I could play that right now if I didn't have all these

[01:21:08] other games to play for, you know, fine time and just in general.

[01:21:13] Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's up there.

[01:21:16] I understand why people feel that way about it.

[01:21:18] All right, Kevin, let's, let's hear one of yours.

[01:21:21] Comfort game.

[01:21:22] I'm going to, I'm going to ride on Steve's coattails and we're talking about both Super

[01:21:25] Nintendo.

[01:21:26] And what really resonated was the routine is comforting.

[01:21:30] I go back to the, the first Donkey Kong country, probably more than any other game.

[01:21:36] And I've never, I didn't, haven't really like stopped to purposefully evaluate why until

[01:21:40] we were talking about doing comfort games for the show.

[01:21:42] So, but anytime, not, not anytime, but often when I pick up like, you know, an emulation

[01:21:48] handheld or something and I don't have something in mind, I want to play.

[01:21:51] It's just like, you know, I've got some time to kill and I just want to play something.

[01:21:54] So often I default to Donkey Kong country.

[01:21:58] And when I, I think the reason is a it's, it's very like visceral.

[01:22:04] I love the sounds when you like bounce off the Kremlin.

[01:22:08] I love how like satisfying it is when you like bang on the trees and the bananas pop out

[01:22:13] or, you know, you get like a whole, but like a lot of it I think is audio.

[01:22:17] It's so like bright and colorful.

[01:22:19] And I've done it so many times that it is routine, you know, to the point where I'll

[01:22:25] just be sitting playing it.

[01:22:27] And I'm not, I'm not thinking about it.

[01:22:28] I'm not even really aware of what I'm doing, especially those early levels.

[01:22:32] Cause a lot of time I'll just start from the start and play for 20 minutes, half an hour

[01:22:37] burn through the first few worlds with, with no like intent other than just to, you know,

[01:22:42] be doing something.

[01:22:43] And it just like, I don't know, maybe it just like scratches that thing in my brain that

[01:22:48] it feels good and it looks good and it sounds good and, and, and it's, it's routine and

[01:22:54] it's familiar.

[01:22:55] And, and I just, I know what I'm doing.

[01:22:57] So it's just kind of second nature.

[01:22:59] So yeah, definitely that, uh, that like routine feels good thing resonates with me.

[01:23:05] I think we're all coming at it from the same place because I talked to, it was, it was in

[01:23:11] a discord I'm in, it was like a week ago.

[01:23:13] I remember we were talking about some game and they were talking about doing it this

[01:23:17] way.

[01:23:18] I'll try it.

[01:23:19] I think it was a dip Mega Man game to some degree.

[01:23:21] I was like, Oh, I'll, I tried it not using, you know, this item or not using energy tanks

[01:23:26] or not using, I'm like, I, I, and I was saying, I never play games that way because for me,

[01:23:33] it's not about tricking up the experience.

[01:23:36] It's like watching my favorite movie.

[01:23:38] It's about like, I want to do that thing I did before again.

[01:23:42] It's not about like, let's see how much I can squeeze out of this.

[01:23:45] It's I loved what I did so much.

[01:23:47] I want to do it over and over again.

[01:23:49] And I think you guys are also like kind of doing that.

[01:23:53] Like Steve, I don't think, I can't imagine you being out here playing Mega Man X.

[01:23:56] Oh, I'm not going to use, uh, the, the special weapons or something like that.

[01:24:01] Or, I mean, I don't, I don't even think you can do that in Mega Man X, but there's a

[01:24:04] few points where you have to, but there will be times where I'm like, you know

[01:24:07] what, this time I'm just gonna fight the guys counterclockwise and see how well I

[01:24:14] do that way instead of doing it, instead of doing it the ideal way.

[01:24:19] Okay.

[01:24:20] I get you on that.

[01:24:20] Who do you do first?

[01:24:21] I do Storm Eagle.

[01:24:23] Uh, either Flame Mammoth or, uh, Chill Penguin.

[01:24:27] Oh, really?

[01:24:28] Okay.

[01:24:29] I think Chill Penguin is like probably more conventional wisdom, but I, I do, I

[01:24:32] don't know why Storm Eagle is always my, my first.

[01:24:35] I like getting that dash.

[01:24:36] I understand.

[01:24:38] Okay.

[01:24:39] I'll, I'll go next with my next one here.

[01:24:41] One of mine is absolutely, and this is going to be no surprise to either of you.

[01:24:45] It is Final Fight.

[01:24:48] Man, I tell you what, beat them ups, especially arcade ones are just, ah, just, I even just

[01:24:58] thinking about Final Fight right now.

[01:24:59] It's just perfect.

[01:25:00] I've played it a million times.

[01:25:02] I know every scene.

[01:25:03] I know I beat it with all three characters many times.

[01:25:07] I've seen, I've seen it all.

[01:25:36] I've seen it all right.

[01:25:37] Don't get me wrong.

[01:25:38] Don't get me wrong.

[01:25:38] However, when you start getting more complicated, when you start adding stuff to the screen,

[01:25:42] okay, let's have more guys.

[01:25:44] Let's have three players play.

[01:25:45] Let's have four players play.

[01:25:46] You can't have those sprites.

[01:25:48] You can't have the game look like that anymore, like it does with Final Fight.

[01:25:52] Final Fight sprites are big and tall and imposing.

[01:25:56] Absolutely.

[01:25:58] Yeah.

[01:25:58] And the, and it, the, like the, the art style is so good.

[01:26:02] Also, you know, quite honestly, as a kid, it reminded me a lot of where I lived looking

[01:26:07] around, right?

[01:26:08] That's how, that's how big cities look sometimes, you know, not that we lived in a crazy, you

[01:26:12] know, slum with the, with graffiti that said sexy on the bathroom, right?

[01:26:17] I mean, well, there was, there was a bathroom graffiti, but maybe it didn't say that, but

[01:26:21] I'm just saying like, you know, as a kid, I think that's like interesting.

[01:26:24] I think it was like the first time I ever played something where I was like, oh,

[01:26:27] that looks like something that's real that I recognize instead of like fantasy land with

[01:26:32] the mushroom kingdom or whatever.

[01:26:34] Right.

[01:26:34] So I don't know.

[01:26:35] Maybe I just made that connection as a kid.

[01:26:37] Also, I just love, I love cool, filthy cities in games.

[01:26:42] I do.

[01:26:42] It's like one of my favorite things and Final Fight is, is that for me.

[01:26:47] So it's just a comfort thing.

[01:26:49] It's a, it, the, the gameplay is obviously top notch.

[01:26:53] I mean, what can I say about Final Fight really at this, at this point, but yeah,

[01:26:57] that, that game will always, I will gravitate to it every time.

[01:27:01] I know it's like the basic bitch answer for like Capcom beat them ups, but that's for a

[01:27:05] reason.

[01:27:05] Like, it's just one of my ultimate comforts, Final Fight.

[01:27:09] Um, so yeah, that's definitely one of mine, Steve.

[01:27:13] Okay.

[01:27:13] I'm doing a fair bit of cheating here because I haven't necessarily gravitated to these

[01:27:17] for a time because accessibility, har, har, har, but guys, I love me some Pikmin and we

[01:27:26] all know that Pikmin 4 nearly made game of the year.

[01:27:30] You know, if it wasn't for that pesky, uh, Zelda game, you know, fuck, fuck Zelda.

[01:27:35] Right.

[01:27:35] But who cares?

[01:27:36] Yeah.

[01:27:37] Fuck Zelda.

[01:27:38] But holy shit, got 20 years ago.

[01:27:41] Now there is a time where I just kept circling near Pikmin 2 a lot.

[01:27:48] Maybe it was because it was, there was no real, uh, time limit beyond, uh, certain things

[01:27:56] going on in the background for other things to activate.

[01:27:58] But, uh, there's just something oddly comforting to this cycle of raise your little Pikmins, sneak

[01:28:06] behind other things, drag their carcasses back to the thing, repeat the cycle, go on treasure

[01:28:12] hunts and try not to disappoint as many of them as possible.

[01:28:17] I really like the, the, that's why Pikmin 2 will always remain my favorite.

[01:28:21] Again, I haven't played 4 yet, but like the quote unquote dungeons are just the best.

[01:28:26] They're just the absolute best.

[01:28:28] I could, I could spend hours in there.

[01:28:30] And sometimes I have, I really think four comes close, but I still think Tuesday all

[01:28:36] time.

[01:28:36] Again, I'm going to really go through all of them again, but I had like, there was a time

[01:28:41] where I was really like, you know what?

[01:28:43] It's time for Pikmin 2.

[01:28:45] And it really, given the way things are right now, it might be time for Pikmin 2 soon.

[01:28:51] They did put the Pikmin game in the Pikmin 2 game on switch, right?

[01:28:55] In beautiful HD, baby.

[01:28:58] HD.

[01:28:59] Wow.

[01:29:01] What will Nintendo think of next?

[01:29:03] I'm sorry.

[01:29:04] I'll stop.

[01:29:05] They look pretty good the way they were, but you know.

[01:29:08] No, I just, you know, I like to make fun of that.

[01:29:12] Was that it?

[01:29:13] And Kevin?

[01:29:14] Go on, Kevin.

[01:29:15] What else do you got for us?

[01:29:17] We still play Duck Hunt at our house quite often.

[01:29:21] And this is more, I don't know, comfort games might like, this is more of like a feel good

[01:29:26] thing because I think, um, Duck Hunt is very often like a community thing.

[01:29:31] And it's, it's always fun for everybody.

[01:29:34] Like, obviously my kids did not grow up with Duck Hunt, but they've played it.

[01:29:38] Well, they did not when it was current, obviously, but you know, we've played it numerous times.

[01:29:43] And still, it's like, oh, do you guys want to go downstairs and play Duck Hunt for a little bit?

[01:29:46] And they're always like, fuck yeah.

[01:29:48] It's not like, oh, we've played Duck Hunt.

[01:29:49] Let's play something else.

[01:29:50] And even if, if I come down here with both of them, you know, it's, it's, it's kind of like

[01:29:55] a group activity when one person is playing, it's exciting for, you know, regardless of

[01:30:00] how simplistic and repetitive it is.

[01:30:03] It's always exciting to like watch when somebody misses, watch the dog pop up and laugh.

[01:30:08] Um, you know, and I, so we had my, uh, my cousin's kid, he's 15.

[01:30:12] He was over here this summer.

[01:30:13] He had never played, um, Duck Hunt.

[01:30:16] We came downstairs.

[01:30:17] He was super into it.

[01:30:18] And then it's, it's a little bit different.

[01:30:19] You know, if my, I've played it with my dad over here, right.

[01:30:22] Me and my dad played that when I was a little kid.

[01:30:24] So everybody like, it's really hard not to identify with Duck Hunt, whether you, you know,

[01:30:30] played it when it was relevant or not, but everybody seems to like latch onto it because it's just

[01:30:34] so simplistic.

[01:30:36] So like as a, as a like feel good communal event, I always like Duck Hunt.

[01:30:41] Okay.

[01:30:42] I think that's, that's pretty valid.

[01:30:44] I think, I think during the entire NES era and even past it, even while I was in the 90s,

[01:30:49] we still busted out the white gun games.

[01:30:51] I played Hogan's alley for fucking well into my teens.

[01:30:54] I think, you know, like I, I think light gun games sometimes can, can do that.

[01:31:00] It really, I mean, just like the, like at its like most simplistic value, it just really

[01:31:06] like stands the test of time.

[01:31:07] I think.

[01:31:09] When I started collecting NES games and you know, in my big eBay box slots things, Duck

[01:31:14] Hunt was always a favorite around here, right up until HDTVs said, fuck you and your light

[01:31:21] guns.

[01:31:23] It's that good.

[01:31:24] Yeah.

[01:31:25] It's still, it's still just a simple challenge.

[01:31:27] Yeah.

[01:31:27] For me, the go-to is Hogan's alley.

[01:31:29] I mean, that's damn near what am I, I mean, look, I haven't played it in forever, obviously,

[01:31:33] but you know, that's a game that always get me, but okay.

[01:31:38] I'll do my last one.

[01:31:40] I was going to say something else.

[01:31:42] Actually had something else right now.

[01:31:43] I'm going to, I'm going to switch it and calling an audible.

[01:31:46] And this is not a game I play anymore because once a new one comes out, you move on.

[01:31:50] But the original animal crossing.

[01:31:53] I played for years and it was, you know, when did it come out?

[01:32:00] September, 2002.

[01:32:03] I think the most depressed I had ever been was that year in 2002.

[01:32:07] I was 20 years old.

[01:32:09] It was, I didn't really live in Nevada yet.

[01:32:11] I was jobless.

[01:32:12] I was still at home, you know, you know, just one of those middle points of your life.

[01:32:17] What's that Britney Spears song?

[01:32:18] I'm, I'm not a girl, not yet a woman.

[01:32:21] That's, that's how I felt.

[01:32:24] We're going through some things under.

[01:32:26] Yeah.

[01:32:26] You know, you, you get it, right?

[01:32:28] We've all been 20 years old and animal crossing.

[01:32:32] I should.

[01:32:33] I mean, I know it sounds pathetic in retrospect.

[01:32:35] Those, those stupid animals felt like my friends, man.

[01:32:38] Like I legit, I know that sounds crazy, but like, I really, I really did feel that way.

[01:32:43] And back then, and this is one thing I will be an animal crossing truth or about the villagers

[01:32:48] were just better back then.

[01:32:50] It's not that they suck now.

[01:32:51] I don't like when people say that, but back then they had so many fucking things to say

[01:32:56] because that was the entire basis of the game.

[01:32:59] You couldn't get by in graphics and all these decorating and all this other stuff you could

[01:33:03] do.

[01:33:03] You just had those villagers and you had 15 of them back then.

[01:33:08] You never had 15 cents.

[01:33:12] And I don't know, man.

[01:33:13] There's something about the, I look, um, new horizons is the best animal crossing game.

[01:33:18] I'm not saying that like, oh, the original was the best one.

[01:33:21] What I am saying though, is that it is the most unusual one.

[01:33:25] And in some ways the most interesting, like in an unusual way one, because of those aspects.

[01:33:30] And because the villagers were so well-written, they said shitty things to you all the time.

[01:33:35] It's not a lot of nice things.

[01:33:36] I sent you stupid letters.

[01:33:37] They got pissed off.

[01:33:39] If you looked at them the wrong way, like it, and I did really, man, I'm telling you,

[01:33:44] I loved, I loved having late night villagers like a wolf or something like that.

[01:33:49] So I could just like, as you know, I've always been a night owl, right?

[01:33:52] So I just be up at 3am.

[01:33:53] It's like, oh, he's the only one awake.

[01:33:55] I guess I'll talk to him 20 times and go, you know, plant some flowers or whatever.

[01:33:59] Yeah.

[01:34:00] Animal crossing the original really, um, was a comfort game for me for a long time.

[01:34:05] So again, slightly cheating.

[01:34:06] Cause it's not one anymore.

[01:34:07] Cause I obviously I'm not playing an old one when there's a new animal crossing and a

[01:34:11] new one and a new one and a new one.

[01:34:13] But yeah, that, that original one was one for me for ages.

[01:34:19] And what, what better tend to, you know, two 30 in the morning board, not much to do

[01:34:24] and go play a clue clue land for an hour or two.

[01:34:27] Right.

[01:34:27] So yeah, it was just one of those games.

[01:34:29] I went back to God.

[01:34:30] I know we didn't have our accounts back then on the system at the system level, but if

[01:34:34] we did, I can't even imagine how long I played that original game and I never played

[01:34:41] another game more, another animal crossing game more than that till new horizons.

[01:34:46] It's, it's funny how you can like, like actually feel a personal connection with like a cutesy

[01:34:52] video game animals.

[01:34:53] I did man.

[01:34:54] Yeah.

[01:34:55] I, I, and I mean, this is to a lesser extent I was handing, I stayed home and was handing

[01:35:00] out the Halloween candy this year.

[01:35:01] And a couple of years ago, I remember like, you know, after having put that game mostly

[01:35:05] down, I like all of October, I went and like collected all the Halloween shit and like

[01:35:10] decorated the town for Halloween and played on Halloween and did the like trick or treating

[01:35:14] thing.

[01:35:14] And then, you know, I didn't, it didn't even like occur to me this year until I was handing

[01:35:18] out the candy and I felt kind of bad, you know, like I had this like sense of guilt,

[01:35:22] like, you know, I bet you the villagers would have appreciated if I would have went and decorated

[01:35:25] for Halloween this year.

[01:35:27] And then I was like, Oh, maybe, maybe I should do Christmas this year.

[01:35:30] Cause maybe they'll make up for it.

[01:35:32] Yeah.

[01:35:32] I love, I love decorating.

[01:35:34] And obviously new horizons makes it better than ever to do that kind of stuff.

[01:35:38] Right.

[01:35:39] So like, yeah, maybe, maybe I will.

[01:35:41] Um, all right, Steve.

[01:35:43] Steve, are you sure you're not just going to talk about another super Nintendo game and

[01:35:48] just rehash the same points you did before?

[01:35:50] No, I'm going to talk about a different super Nintendo game and talk about different

[01:35:54] points than the one I did before.

[01:35:55] So there he's doing it again.

[01:35:58] He's doing it again, Kevin.

[01:35:59] We're all having a rough time.

[01:36:01] I think we just got to let him at this point.

[01:36:02] Okay.

[01:36:04] Having a bad time.

[01:36:04] Okay.

[01:36:05] We all process grief in different ways.

[01:36:07] Yes, we do.

[01:36:09] But I'm going to talk about Penelda Pon or Tetris attack or puzzle league or whatever

[01:36:14] the fuck you call it.

[01:36:15] You know, Nintendo's puzzle game with an identity crisis.

[01:36:19] Pokemon puzzle league is what I always think of.

[01:36:22] It's a game that I call the best puzzle game of all time versus Andres Medios.

[01:36:28] And.

[01:36:28] Oh, please.

[01:36:29] And I'm going to counter him say it's by saying it's the best rising block puzzle game of all

[01:36:37] time.

[01:36:37] If you, if you played it, you've played it.

[01:36:39] I'm not going to go into how you play it by now, but I don't know.

[01:36:43] A new iteration of this game always seems to show up in my life.

[01:36:47] What?

[01:36:48] Just when things are getting shitty.

[01:36:51] Well, yeah.

[01:36:55] I mean, there's probably not going to be one right now, but it was very uncanny how the

[01:37:04] original last untranslated game with the fairies and not the Yoshi's Island characters showed

[01:37:09] up right in the middle of lockdown.

[01:37:12] Yeah.

[01:37:13] And I'm like, well, I'm, I'm alone in the house only breaking out occasionally to do light

[01:37:21] shopping and door dash for extra cash.

[01:37:24] So, uh, I'll, I'll, I'll get this video of me beating the end boss and 20 seconds that

[01:37:30] I'll never be able to replicate.

[01:37:31] And Andre will go, Steve, what the hell are you doing with your life?

[01:37:36] But I don't know.

[01:37:38] It's a, it's just a fun game.

[01:37:40] The music's awesome.

[01:37:41] And for, you know, in the original one, at least it's a very super Nintendo puzzle game

[01:37:48] to play.

[01:37:48] We we've talked about, uh, wrecking crew 98 in particular, but there's other very good

[01:37:54] super Nintendo puzzle games.

[01:37:56] This is the best one.

[01:37:57] And there's a reason why you can just jump in, play for a few minutes or a few hours and

[01:38:03] just lose the time and make it as easy or as complicated as you want it to be.

[01:38:10] And it hasn't changed that much the whole time.

[01:38:12] And I don't, again, I don't need it to, it's, I guess I did sort of make it like the same

[01:38:17] one as Mega Man X, but not sorry.

[01:38:21] Would you play Tetris attack 99?

[01:38:26] That might be its only hope of coming back, huh?

[01:38:31] Made by intelligent systems, right?

[01:38:33] Intelligent systems.

[01:38:34] Yeah.

[01:38:34] They made the original.

[01:38:36] I know NST made puzzle Pokemon puzzle league because.

[01:38:40] Yes, they did.

[01:38:42] America needs a project.

[01:38:45] Never came out in Japan.

[01:38:46] I don't think only that was only for us.

[01:38:48] Yeah.

[01:38:50] All right, Kevin, go ahead with your last comfort game.

[01:38:53] All right.

[01:38:53] In a surprise to no one, it's a golden sun, which I probably bring up every like four

[01:38:58] or five shows on this show.

[01:39:00] And I mean, I think it's hard to like boil down to a reason other than nostalgia.

[01:39:05] Like that's really it.

[01:39:06] I was, I was so into like just the graphics and the music and, and just like the aesthetic

[01:39:12] of that game and the kind of like pseudo 3d of the battles.

[01:39:15] Um, and I mean, obviously as an RPG, that that's not something that I'm going to just like pick

[01:39:21] up and play, you know, for 20 minutes or half an hour periodically every few months.

[01:39:26] But I think, um, you may be kind of the same as what Steve was saying.

[01:39:29] Like when things are feeling shitty, I'll sometimes just like get that itch.

[01:39:33] You know, if it's like for months, things have seemed kind of shitty.

[01:39:36] Like maybe I should just like pick up golden sun and play it again.

[01:39:39] And there's nothing new, you know, for me to find in that game.

[01:39:42] I've, I've played that game through to completion a number of times.

[01:39:46] Um, but again, just, just maybe like the repetitiveness of it and, and yeah, the nostalgia of it.

[01:39:52] It just, it just like feels good inside to, to do the same thing that I've already done yet again.

[01:40:00] Was it one of your first RPGs?

[01:40:02] Cause at that age, it may have well been the age that you were.

[01:40:05] Did you play stuff before that?

[01:40:06] No, cause we, we did.

[01:40:07] Yeah, we had, we had done like RPGs on super Nintendo.

[01:40:11] Definitely wasn't one of the first one.

[01:40:12] And even like we, you know, I remember playing a final fantasy on original NES.

[01:40:17] Okay.

[01:40:17] Um, it was, you know what, maybe at the time and, and obviously like in retrospect, like

[01:40:23] the, the gap between like super Nintendo and, um, Game Boy Advance was a lot smaller than

[01:40:30] what we think of as like, you know, retro styled RPGs.

[01:40:33] But at the, you know, at the time it was very much like maybe a nostalgia for like super Nintendo

[01:40:39] RPGs that came out and it just kind of like, you know, felt like a throwback to that time

[01:40:43] period that I really got into.

[01:40:45] I don't know.

[01:40:46] Okay.

[01:40:47] Um, that's interesting.

[01:40:48] Yeah.

[01:40:49] Because I, I mean, obviously it wasn't one of my first, but no, I, I think of golden

[01:40:53] sun fondly.

[01:40:54] I have not played it since it came out.

[01:40:57] I actually played it a couple of years later.

[01:40:59] I think it played in like 2003 or something.

[01:41:01] Yeah.

[01:41:01] Cause I played it like when I first moved here.

[01:41:04] So, or maybe shortly before.

[01:41:05] So like, yeah, I was even a little late getting to it, but, um, yeah, man, I, I, I don't know

[01:41:12] if I would ever consider any RPG, maybe grandia two is about it.

[01:41:16] That's like the only comfort one for me because like, they're so fucking long.

[01:41:19] You can't go back and play it a lot.

[01:41:21] Right.

[01:41:21] Um, but yeah, I, I totally understand that about golden sun cam a lot, man.

[01:41:26] They have a, they have a thing.

[01:41:28] They had a thing.

[01:41:29] That, uh, like slightly slanted text font.

[01:41:33] They do have that.

[01:41:35] I need my own show to go through what art, what would constitute a comfort RPG.

[01:41:41] So I'm not contributing to this any further.

[01:41:44] It starts with earth and ends with a bound.

[01:41:47] I mean, that would have been it until mother three happened and through all that into a different

[01:41:52] perspective, but.

[01:41:54] Does everybody feel a little bit more comforted now?

[01:41:57] I do.

[01:41:58] I definitely do.

[01:41:59] I'm glad I talked about, I'm glad I called an audible and talked about animal crossing.

[01:42:03] I feel like that was, uh, felt therapeutic.

[01:42:05] My shoulders feel 2% less stiff than they did a minute ago.

[01:42:25] Our, uh, episode 69 shenanigans aren't quite done yet.

[01:42:30] Uh-oh.

[01:42:31] Because I've been cultivating a little game over these past few weeks that we can play exactly

[01:42:37] only one time.

[01:42:40] Oh boy.

[01:42:41] I'm getting sweaty.

[01:42:42] I think you might actually do okay because it's called JV bot.

[01:42:50] Or frog and toad bot.

[01:42:56] I see the look of bewilderment on Kevin Tricks.

[01:43:00] Yeah, he's baffled.

[01:43:02] I think you might have to explain this one.

[01:43:04] I know what you're, I know what you're up to, but you explain.

[01:43:07] Frog and toad was a short series of children's books by one Arnold the bell, who in light

[01:43:14] of today, we need to point out that he was very much working through some things of his

[01:43:20] own at the time when he was writing them about a frog and toad who were friends.

[01:43:26] And there is a bot who is gathered a lot of lines from these stories that could be.

[01:43:33] Okay.

[01:43:34] Okay.

[01:43:34] It's Judas's story.

[01:43:36] So.

[01:43:36] I do think now that you, now that you're, I think I like have like a very, very vague

[01:43:41] concept of what frog and toad is.

[01:43:42] I think I'd seen that at one point.

[01:43:44] I definitely read those books when I was a kid for sure.

[01:43:47] So what I've done here is saved for identifying names and places that would obviously give

[01:43:55] away answers immediately.

[01:43:56] I've pulled lines and titles that would definitely either be from the J A V title bot or the frog

[01:44:05] and toad, but they're definitely from one or the other.

[01:44:08] I didn't make anything up.

[01:44:10] You have a 50 50 shot of getting any of these.

[01:44:14] Okay.

[01:44:15] I think, I think I can like really tune into my like sexual discomfort and making parallels

[01:44:22] with it being a frog for sure.

[01:44:24] So I might do good at this.

[01:44:31] You think so?

[01:44:33] I mean, in my mind, yes.

[01:44:37] All right.

[01:44:37] So we'll, we'll, we'll get started.

[01:44:42] If he looks funny in his bathing suit, then I, for one, want to see him.

[01:44:49] I think that's frog and toad.

[01:44:52] Well, he's pretty good at this.

[01:44:54] That is frog and toad.

[01:44:55] Yeah.

[01:44:56] I mean, it's like, it's like innocent and genuine.

[01:45:00] But not too innocent, but you know what I'm saying?

[01:45:07] Moving along.

[01:45:07] They say you can't change the past, but I am determined to change my life.

[01:45:15] Wow.

[01:45:18] Say it again.

[01:45:19] Oh man.

[01:45:20] They say you can't change the past, but I am determined to change my life.

[01:45:26] Now I'm, I think this is JV titles.

[01:45:31] Man.

[01:45:32] Remember Kevin's wife.

[01:45:33] Kevin loves you because you got this right and right, right too.

[01:45:36] Oh wow.

[01:45:37] Wow.

[01:45:37] Wow.

[01:45:38] See, he might be, he might be acing this.

[01:45:40] Okay.

[01:45:40] Let's see how well you do.

[01:45:42] Okay.

[01:45:43] A sensitivity check through tickling.

[01:45:51] That's JV titles.

[01:45:53] That is JV titles.

[01:45:55] Wow.

[01:45:55] Okay.

[01:45:55] Come on.

[01:45:56] Get them all.

[01:45:56] I want you.

[01:45:57] Now I'm rooting for you.

[01:45:57] Get every single one.

[01:46:00] Leave them alone for a few days.

[01:46:02] Let the sun shine on them.

[01:46:04] Let the rain fall on them.

[01:46:06] Then your seeds will start to grow.

[01:46:09] That's, that's frog and toad.

[01:46:12] I'm starting to think you're a closet fan.

[01:46:15] I mean, I'm just saying if that's, if that's JV titles, like that's like weird, even for like our standards.

[01:46:21] Oh, come on.

[01:46:23] You're going to get them all.

[01:46:24] You're going to.

[01:46:24] Yes.

[01:46:25] But I've said, I've said weird ones like that.

[01:46:27] And you're like, you made that shit up.

[01:46:29] And I'm like, baby, it's real.

[01:46:35] Water pole 38.

[01:46:46] Well, like the 38 is really through like, in what context could that be frog and toad?

[01:46:51] That has to be JV.

[01:46:53] Like.

[01:46:54] You'd be surprised, but okay.

[01:46:58] Is he right or not?

[01:46:59] No, he's right.

[01:47:00] No, he's, he's, he's guessing this so far.

[01:47:02] I thought he was going to trip on this a little more, but no, I'm, I'm, I'm like, I'm liking that he's acing this today.

[01:47:08] We need positivity today.

[01:47:10] How many do you have?

[01:47:11] A bunch.

[01:47:13] Okay.

[01:47:14] Oh my God.

[01:47:15] I was on a roll.

[01:47:16] Give him two more.

[01:47:17] Give him two more.

[01:47:18] All right.

[01:47:22] Uh, let's see.

[01:47:24] They won't say they're coming, but they obviously are.

[01:47:30] Ooh, that's good.

[01:47:33] Man.

[01:47:33] Yeah.

[01:47:34] That one's risky.

[01:47:35] That could go either way.

[01:47:36] That's good.

[01:47:43] I think it's frog and toad.

[01:47:45] Kevin, I'm sorry.

[01:47:47] This is a JV title.

[01:47:48] Son of a bitch.

[01:47:50] Oh man.

[01:47:50] I wanted you to.

[01:47:51] Oh, come on.

[01:47:53] All right.

[01:47:54] Give him one more.

[01:47:56] I'm always told that I'm serious and neat and clean.

[01:48:00] But the truth is I'm really not.

[01:48:06] Okay.

[01:48:07] Okay.

[01:48:08] That's the best one yet.

[01:48:09] That's the best.

[01:48:10] Can you, can you repeat that for me, please?

[01:48:12] Yeah.

[01:48:13] I'm always told that I'm serious and neat and clean, but the truth is I'm really not.

[01:48:20] That sounds so filthy.

[01:48:22] I'm not going to influence you.

[01:48:25] Yeah.

[01:48:25] Well, I think it's frog and toad and I think it like kind of is filthy.

[01:48:30] It's filthy because it's a JV title.

[01:48:33] Oh man, I was doing so good and it just all fell apart at the end.

[01:48:38] One more.

[01:48:38] Let's let him go out on a, let's let him go out on a winter.

[01:48:40] Give him one more.

[01:48:41] But what if, if, if, if I get it wrong, how disappointed in me are you going to be?

[01:48:45] You fell apart at the end.

[01:48:47] Yeah, I know.

[01:48:49] You must not look at me until I get into the water.

[01:48:56] That's frog and toad.

[01:48:57] That, that came from the same story as the, like, if he doesn't want me to see him in his bathing suit thing.

[01:49:03] I, that it, that's a natural progression.

[01:49:06] Look at Kevin paying attention to that.

[01:49:08] Yeah.

[01:49:08] He got it.

[01:49:09] Okay.

[01:49:10] Okay.

[01:49:10] Good.

[01:49:11] Okay.

[01:49:11] See, he left on a, left on a, left on a good note.

[01:49:14] Okay.

[01:49:14] That was, I was not expecting that kind of game.

[01:49:18] And you're right.

[01:49:19] I think we can only play that once.

[01:49:22] Yeah.

[01:49:23] This was definitely me calling Kevin out for nevermind.

[01:49:28] You can't, you know, now you got to tell the people.

[01:49:31] Oh, Kevin's usually showing off like, oh, I don't go on social media that much.

[01:49:36] And I'm like, well.

[01:49:39] So I'm assuming the frog and toad thing is on blue sky.

[01:49:42] Is that right?

[01:49:43] Yes.

[01:49:43] Yes.

[01:49:44] Both of these blacks are on blue sky.

[01:49:46] Definitely follow them until people change the rules too much and they go away.

[01:49:51] That at least won't happen for 10 years.

[01:49:53] Hopefully.

[01:49:54] Fingers crossed.

[01:49:55] All right.

[01:49:56] I think that's enough show for today.

[01:49:58] Thank you guys for joining us.

[01:49:59] Thank you for joining us for our last big deal of the year.

[01:50:02] But as I said earlier, do not fret.

[01:50:05] When we say every Thursday, we mean every Thursday.

[01:50:09] So next week, my friend Dave from tales from the backlog, he's going to join me to talk about

[01:50:14] the recent final fantasies of the last, let's say decade or so the state of final fantasy,

[01:50:19] we're going to call it.

[01:50:20] And then after that, me and Steve, as we've been hinting to for maybe like weeks now, we

[01:50:28] are going to play a bevy of cinematic platform games.

[01:50:32] We are going to play flashback.

[01:50:34] Another world, AKA out of this world, shadow of the beast, heart of darkness, blackthorn.

[01:50:41] We're going to play a lot of them and it's going to be seven episodes and that's going

[01:50:45] to carry us all the way through January 2nd.

[01:50:47] And then we will return with our next big deal on January 9th.

[01:50:51] So we're going to have a big extended break here.

[01:50:56] Again, thank you guys for listening all year.

[01:50:58] Thanks for these three years of fine time.

[01:51:00] We're going to keep doing this until I fucking, I don't know, I piss everyone off, I guess.

[01:51:05] And then they're going to leave me and then I'll do a shitty show by myself for a while.

[01:51:09] And then that's it, I guess.

[01:51:11] I don't know why I just predicted the future, but we, I don't know.

[01:51:16] Don't leave me.

[01:51:17] We're years away from that at this point.

[01:51:19] Okay.

[01:51:20] Not, not at least I won't piss you off to at least I'm 50 or something.

[01:51:24] No, I'm only sending it like 30% like real resentment right now.

[01:51:28] Okay.

[01:51:29] Let me know when you get to like 70.

[01:51:30] So I need to buy you like an expensive present for Christmas, you know?

[01:51:34] Yeah.

[01:51:35] So you can bring that level down.

[01:51:38] Um, all right, guys, thanks for listening.

[01:51:41] Check the description of this podcast to find our names on blue sky and Instagram.

[01:51:46] I don't promote that enough, but I shut down our Twitter account for fine time for reasons

[01:51:51] that should be very obvious at this point.

[01:51:54] So yeah, find us on blue sky, find us on Instagram and see you next time.

[01:51:59] Bye.

[01:52:00] You've been listening to.