Press B 269: Hollow Knight: Silksong - First Impressions

The game that shook Steam and the Nintendo eShop. Did it break our hearts or win them over? This week on Press B to Cancel, we dive into our first impressions of Hollow Knight: Silksong. From its challenging gameplay and hauntingly beautiful music to the curious art direction and early difficulty. Was this long awaited sequel worth the hype?

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00:00 --> 00:15 Gentlemen, I have one question for you all. It's the same question. I've seen every Nintendo Direct, every Showcase, every Xbox, every Sony, and that is Silksong. Today on.
00:36 --> 00:37 I don't believe it exists.
00:38 --> 00:41 Don't disavow the existence over the intro.
00:43 --> 00:44 Prove it.
00:44 --> 00:45 Gotta believe.
00:45 --> 00:46 Prove it.
00:46 --> 00:48 I, for one, never had any doubt.
00:48 --> 01:00 Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of your favorite podcast. That's all retro all the time. Today we're talking about Silksong. Very much a retro game.
01:00 --> 01:02 Came out yesterday. It's retro.
01:02 --> 01:09 Yeah. I'm not alone today, though. I'm joined by three of the four other co hosts. Wolf, how are you today?
01:10 --> 01:16 I'm doing pretty darn good. I gotta say, I am surprised at this one.
01:16 --> 01:21 Okay, all right, we'll get into it. Chard, how are you today?
01:21 --> 01:28 Really glad that we're talking about Kronos today. I'm super pumped to be here and cannot wait to have this discussion.
01:29 --> 01:33 And last and certainly not least, Jake, how are you today?
01:33 --> 01:37 Doing great. Very glad it's Friday. Very, very glad it's Friday.
01:39 --> 02:06 Well, I want to, you know, for our audio listeners, I just realized that I called everybody by a nickname version of their. Of their actual names. So for, for audio listeners that might be new, it's Werewolf, Chard, Monk, and Sick Jake. And I am Sinistar. We originally were going to be talking about it a different game, which will likely be our next episode. Likely. Although we change all the time. We're. We're kind of, we're kind of flighty that way.
02:06 --> 02:08 It was what, three times this week?
02:08 --> 02:15 Press B to pivot. You want to see ADHD in action? Come to our discard. Yeah.
02:15 --> 02:16 Squirrel.
02:16 --> 02:17 Shut up. Shut up.
02:19 --> 02:28 No. So we, we felt it was kind of timely because this, I'm not going to call this like a shadow drop, but it was pretty damn close to a shadow drop.
02:28 --> 02:35 It's close to a shadow drop if you're like, hey, by the way, you've been waiting for this for seven years. Comes out tomorrow. That's kind of Shadow drop.
02:35 --> 02:40 Yeah, it was like released, announced one week and then it was a week later it comes out, I think is what it was.
02:40 --> 02:50 It was something like that. I mean, the, I think the most that we got was it had what, a five second clip and a Nintendo direct like two weeks ago.
02:50 --> 02:52 Yeah, yeah. It was when they were talking about the Switch 2.
02:52 --> 03:15 Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, yeah. And everybody's like, day one. And of course, yeah, that, that happened. For those that don't. That don't know, because I kind of don't know. And if somebody has the details for me, I know that this was originally going to be a DLC and it was a bat or Kickstarter.
03:16 --> 04:05 Yeah. So going back to when Hollow Knight was first announced on Kickstarter, they, they had a pretty modest goal. I actually don't have it offhand, but it was in Australian dollars. But it was very modest goal. It was not the million dollar goals that we saw for a few other games that were, you know, darlings of Kickstarter back in the day. But one of the stretch goals, I think it was, I think it was around 30 or something like that. Aud was for a second playable character, which is Hornet from who was a cameo character in Hollow Knight. And they met that goal. But which, funny enough, from their Kickstarter campaign, they had a number of different stretch goals. They never met all their goals back then. I remember the game being wildly successful and it was. But not on Kickstarter, really. I mean, it got funded, which is fantastic. But there was a stretch goal for a third character that they didn't meet and kind of lost.
04:05 --> 04:05 Right.
04:05 --> 04:34 And there are a couple of other goals on additional areas that they did end up doing anyway as DLC for the original Hollow Knight. But yeah, the fact that this was a. A DLC character and they, and they kind of said in interviews recently that as soon as they announced that they met the stretch goal and they started working on it as a character, they realized that the different moveset they wanted to have for that character just wasn't going to work for Hollow Knight and it didn't make a whole lot of sense. So it would have to be its own standalone game. And they. So they knew that even back then.
04:35 --> 04:50 Yeah, yeah. If I remember right, it definitely did not surpass $100 in, in Australian dollars. I think it was in the 60s. 60, something like that.
04:50 --> 04:58 Yeah. Looks like the Kickstarter didn't even hit 62 because that was one of. The, one of the goals. It hit 57.
04:59 --> 05:09 Okay. If, if this had Kickstarted today, honestly, this thing probably would have gone like up to millions of dollars with that.
05:09 --> 05:22 Kind of blows my mind that it didn't. The Kickstarter didn't reach the numbers that they were asking for. And yet how many people were playing this game yesterday? What do you say? Up to upwards of like 500 or some shit.
05:22 --> 05:22 Half a million people.
05:22 --> 05:23 Yeah.
05:23 --> 05:24 I mean, two days straight.
05:24 --> 05:27 And that's only on Steam, right? Doesn't count.
05:27 --> 06:09 Yeah. Yeah, we're not talking about Epic or Nintendo or PlayStation or any of those other consoles that were available. It. It's crazy. It's. It's insane that. I mean, it's been a meme between us and the podcast because we've been doing the. The critic thing, the, the fantasy critic. And I jokingly, you know, always told Jake that keep picking that game because I'm always going to win if he picks that game because it's never going to come out. And then, you know, like they said, they Half Shadow dropped that shit a day ago. And you're, and you're telling me that back then when Hollow Knight was wildly successful and a good game, it's a great Metroidvanian, that it didn't even reach its markers, but half a million people were playing this game. It's like Half Life 3, right.
06:09 --> 06:14 To be clear, it. It made its goal, it just didn't. It didn't reach the stretch goals that they were.
06:14 --> 06:15 The stretch goals. Okay.
06:15 --> 06:15 That's right.
06:15 --> 06:16 Yeah.
06:16 --> 06:18 What date was the Kickstarter Wolf for Hollow Knight?
06:18 --> 06:24 I don't know how to see the original date, so I'm running through the updates to find the first one.
06:24 --> 06:36 Okay. Because I, I can tell you, I'm just looking at a list of other games that were popular on Kickstarter around that time. And like the, the one that's the earliest one I see here is Broken Age from Double Fine. They funded on Kickstarter in 2012 and they made $3 million.
06:36 --> 06:36 Oh, wow.
06:36 --> 06:36 Yeah.
06:36 --> 07:23 And then you had. FTL was also a pretty big hit. Pillars of Eternity was the one I was thinking about. They raised $4 million. We had a, we had for a while there a lot of games that were, I guess big studios or big publishers that said were dead genres like CRPGs, metroidvanias platformers. And then so smaller studios went out of the way to fund my Kickstarter to see if there was interest in players, and there totally was. But I think we had a point where there was an oversaturation of things. On Kickstarter. I had this issue with board games, right. There's been so many board games on Kickstarter, it's almost a joke now that companies that are very large are using Kickstarter to almost early, early access their board games or pre order their board games. It's kind of not the spirit of Kickstarter. So I think maybe when Hollow Knight came around, maybe people kind of burnt out on the concept of crowdfunding a video game.
07:23 --> 07:44 I think so Because I found the date. So the first Update was posted November 19, 2014 and it says it's been 24 hours. So November 18, 2014. And if I remember correctly. Yeah, Jake, you're not wrong. This was a point when people were getting burned on their Kickstarters a lot.
07:44 --> 07:45 Yeah.
07:45 --> 07:59 And so people were really taking a step away from Kickstarter and it was a lot more of like, if you really, really want to fund it, do it. If you think maybe don't bother is kind of where people were at, to.
07:59 --> 08:29 Be fair as well, you know, you had, you had studios like the group that did, you know, Wasteland. I mean you had these massive studios and then you had Team Cherry, which also, sure, they had, they had some ip but they weren't nearly as, as well known as, as, you know, some of the other people like Tim Schaefer. Tim Schaefer could, could say I'm going to make a game about clipping toenails and he'd get a million dollars. Right?
08:29 --> 08:31 Yes. Potato Tree simulator.
08:32 --> 09:19 Yes. Yes. So, you know, which is why Broken Age carried the kind of weight that it did. So, okay, so it was originally a DLC for the original Hollow Knight. I know that the original Hollow Knight was incredibly successful once, you know, once it was released. One of. To understand how successful it is, literally every single Nintendo Direct or Xbox Showcase or Sony or whatever, like every single one you watch on YouTube and the comments are just flying across the screen and it's literally Silksong. Silksong. Silksong. You know, so yeah, you know, part.
09:19 --> 10:03 Of that is because like just the way I think Team Cherry just managed the development of Silksong. Right. They had, I mean there's a great interview with them with. From Jason Schreier over at Bloomberg. The day the game gave, had an announcement, launch date announced, he released a review, an interview he did with them. And it really is just two guys who made enough money that they don't have to work ever again if they don't want to. They get to do their passion making game the game that they want. And they spent the entire seven years with their heads down, just drawing, doodling characters and anything that seemed like an awesome, cool idea they're adding into the game. Yeah, right. So in the interview they even said they got to a point where if we don't stop doodling new characters and putting them in the game, we're never going to finish.
10:03 --> 10:03 Right.
10:04 --> 10:24 When it came to like the lack of communication with, with fans, they're just, they said they, they, they weren't as focused on that kind of side of the business. They're too busy making their game. So, I mean, that's fair. Yeah. And especially when how fans get so toxic with games. Like, I. If I was a developer of Silksong, after year two, I would go radio silent too. I would want to engage with people.
10:24 --> 10:25 Right?
10:25 --> 10:26 It's such a. It gets too toxic.
10:26 --> 10:33 I mean, even amongst us. It was kind of an in joke that we, you know, Silksong's never coming out, right?
10:33 --> 10:59 I mean, it's the next. It's the Next Half Life 3. It just. We're not going to see it. There's no way. They keep putting it on every year saying, maybe this is the year and it just never saw the light of day. And it. It just couldn't have been more blindsided. Like, it just. It blows my mind to the point of when they're like, this is happening. I was like, no, it's not. And they're like, officially, like, Team Cherry was like, yes, this is the date. August 4th.
10:59 --> 11:00 This is September.
11:01 --> 11:31 And I went, no, no, it's not September. Like, it's not coming out. And even, even Jake was like, I can't get to this game because all the damn things are crashing out on me. Steam is crashing out. Nintendo's crashing. I cannot get this game. I'm like. Because it doesn't exist, Jake, they're playing with you. They're toying with your poor heart. Let it go. And then he's like, yeah. And then he showed me a video of him playing it. Yeah, it exists. It's like, damn it.
11:31 --> 11:42 No. There's a news story where it was. They said Silksong would be playable at some museum exhibit. So before it was even in a director or anything like that, it was like, oh, it's playable at a museum? Like, what are you. What are you talking about?
11:42 --> 11:50 You do in here Smithsonian. Because it's fucking never going to make. See the light of day. It's an ancient relic by this time.
11:50 --> 11:57 Is this the new. Is this the new? Doom plays it, right? Or it plays Doom. The museum plays silksong.
11:57 --> 11:59 My Dr. Pepper plays silksong.
12:02 --> 12:57 All right, so kind of circling back around, we originally were going to talk about a different game and this is actually a good segue. We have a behind the scenes channel in our discord that is. Sadly, we're going to shill a little bit here it is locked behind Patreon. And so you can actually get kind of updates as we go, plus funny videos, plus whatever just inside behind the scenes stuff. We do have a Patreon. We're not actually trying to get people to, you know, that don't have any funds. This is basically. If you feel like you want to throw us a couple dollars, cool. If not, no big deal. We, we have some interesting tiers all the way up to. We'll play a game for an hour or two that you request. So we have, we have. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll even play a bad one.
12:58 --> 13:00 Subject to review, but yes.
13:00 --> 13:30 Well, I was going to say you get, you get the real time or we'll record it and put it up on YouTube, but you get our take on it. So if you want us to bash you for an hour, give us something horrible. Yeah. So anyway, sorry to shill, but I wanted to do that. So anyway, we talked about what we were going to be doing last moment. We switched to Silksong and all four of us have spent a little bit of time with it.
13:30 --> 13:31 Yes.
13:31 --> 13:37 Yeah. So who wants to start with kind of their first impressions and thoughts?
13:37 --> 13:39 Well, can I preface with being the villain?
13:40 --> 13:46 Before you get into being the villain, can we just mention how I couldn't even buy the damn game for three hours because it brought Steve.
13:46 --> 13:58 That was the joke, that was the segue that I didn't think it existed because you couldn't buy it until like 11 o' clock your time. I was like, it's not there. Someone's pulling the wools over your eyes.
13:58 --> 14:12 I've never seen a game break Steam and the Nintendo Eshop like this badly before. I've never had an issue with Steam buying games on Steam ever. And like, maybe it's just a testament to like, you know, not being able to pre order ahead of time and everybody trying to buy it all at once. I thought, that's wild.
14:12 --> 14:31 I think it's pretty telling that on, on yesterday, on Thursday when it came out, it was like a hundred and some odd thousand people at any given time and today was 500 and some odd thousand like that. To me, part of that is like their checkout system broke and people couldn't buy it.
14:31 --> 14:34 They finally got in. Yeah, the floodgates finally broke.
14:35 --> 14:35 Yeah.
14:35 --> 14:36 It's crazy.
14:37 --> 14:39 Yeah. Anyway, Wolf, you want to be the villain?
14:40 --> 16:07 Yeah. I'll take the hits here. Hollow Knight. I feel like it was overrated. I have reasons for that, but I feel like it was overrated. I'm not saying it's not a quality game, but I don't think it's the gold standard for Metroidvanias that it seemed like everybody else portrayed it to be for a long time, it just, it didn't click with me like that. I thought the music was great. I thought the art style was pretty. But I had an issue, and I've said this before, I know we'll get past it finally with this one, you couldn't just like. It was hard to parse what was an enemy or a mob or whatever and what was foreground and background. Everything was the exact same palette. It was not even really a difference in saturation or anything. And there were certain mechanics. I felt the gameplay was a little bit slow for most of the game and that bothered me too. Boss fights were great. Music was great, but. And you know, the characters were super charming, but it just, it was lacking to me. Silksong was a big surprise. I was not actually excited for Silksong. Now that I've played a few hours, I'm in.
16:09 --> 16:09 Nice.
16:09 --> 16:10 Okay.
16:10 --> 16:11 Locked in.
16:11 --> 16:13 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
16:13 --> 16:54 I'm with you on the background issue. Like that's the major issue. And it seems stupid to talk about it now, but my big issue with Hollow Knight was that the graphical style wasn't doing it for me. The characters are great. I did like the characters, but you're right, the backgrounds, while there was some detail there, they were very flat color wise. And it just felt so bland of a style. I just did not dig it at all. Everything else was great. My issue with it was, it was also quite difficult and I think I hit a point where there's the Mantis Lord boss. I think. I think Chard, you were similar. I got to the Mantis Lords, beat my head against the desk for dozens and dozens of tries. And when I finally beat it, I'm like, I'm. I'm good. I don't need to play any more holidays. I'm done.
16:54 --> 16:59 Yeah, I beat this. I'm good. Yeah, yeah. We uninstalled it.
17:00 --> 17:03 Oh, really? That was one of my favorite fights.
17:04 --> 17:06 Yeah, the three is hard. It was hard.
17:06 --> 17:08 I loved that fight.
17:08 --> 17:20 Well, since. Since we're gonna trickle into Jake and my issue, I'll go next. My. My wife bought me Hollow Knight for my birthday with. With alien isolation. So understand that it came in a package.
17:20 --> 17:21 Oh boy.
17:21 --> 17:28 That I adore. So it was. It was difficult to break away from alien isolation to really give Hollow Point its.
17:28 --> 17:30 Dude, I was gonna say this thing had no chance.
17:30 --> 20:00 It had no chance. Yeah. And I had not really gotten into my. My soul's phase at that time. And this game can't be. The difficulty level is Much like a soul's idea where you die, you lose your experience. You have to go find it again when you get it back then, or if you die, if you don't get it back. It's that whole, you know, song and dance and it was very challenging. It was exceptionally challenging. I, I actually really like the art style, but I, I could totally agree with Wolf and Jake's. It's difficult to parse. I, I was attacked and Wolf said this, but it also happened to me that I got attacked by things I didn't know were there because it was part of the back. I thought it was part of the background or it just didn't seem like was easy to miss. And I died a lot because of things like that, where my eyes were not tracking what was supposed to be there because of the black and white and dark green motif. The. I think Wolf called it the Tim Burton esque look of the game, which is, which is stunning. It is absolutely beautiful. The soundtrack, fantastic. Very whimsical. I love it. Very ethereal. But my biggest beef wasn't the difficulty and it wasn't, you know, the boss fights, because the boss fights were challenging. When you beat him, like Jake said, it was like, holy shit, it was the greatest villain of your day. I got tired of getting lost. I like Metroidvanians. I enjoy, you know, I love Super Metroid, probably my favorite of the Metroidvanians. Symphony of the Night, also the same kind of thing. But everything in Hollow Knight seemed like it looked the same. So I didn't know if I was someplace new or if I had gone back to someplace else. And I couldn't find the gear to progress into the areas that I literally kept coming back to going, well, I need, I need blank to get higher or across this gap. Where the hell is this power to get me through this? I literally keep coming back to the same spot and I don't know where else to go. And I got really tired of just running in circles and I turned it off and I never kind of went back to it. And there have been times I was like, you know what, I should finish that. I'm a better gamer. I'm older, I'm wiser. Let's give this a try. And I do Jake and Half Life 2. I'd load it up, it'd be on my Steam deck. It's easily played on the Steam deck. And I'd be like, oh, there's something else I'd much rather play. And I'd uninstall it to put Something else on this. Literally Jake and his Sisyphe in games for the last three years.
20:00 --> 20:03 I've made progress, for the record, but that's fine. You keep going.
20:03 --> 20:04 Rage bound progress.
20:04 --> 20:05 I've made progress.
20:05 --> 20:25 Yeah, different game. Yeah, different game. But I. After playing again, I was just like, Wolf was not excited about this. Was like, whatever, I'm on the fence. I'll wait till it goes on sale. It's 20 bucks, though. Hard to beat 20 bucks on that in a game like of that kind of magnitude. Right. And.
20:25 --> 20:27 Well, that's a point I want to talk about.
20:28 --> 20:47 I won't. I won't go to depth on that then. But these guys are throwing. I mean, Jake is just waving the team cherry flag this whole time, as is Sinistar. He's just like, go check it out. You got to check this out. And I reluctantly checked it out and I am glad that I did because I'm into. It's a. It's beautiful.
20:47 --> 20:47 I.
20:47 --> 21:31 All the things that I had an issue with. There's still some. Now, I only played for two hours, so there's still quite a bit to uncover there. But I know the map system is very similar to the original, which I really had a beef with. But the levels look different. Each area has a different feel to it. And I feel like I'm progressing. I don't feel like I'm backtracking into something else. And if I am backtracking, it feels like it's supposed to be like I'm supposed to go over into that area. And I've done the thing that everybody does when they play retro games where they're like, wow, I got into this area that. That fight was pretty tough, but we made it through. Now everything is killing me. In two shots or one shot, I probably should be here. And then I stopped playing because I need to backtrack and I don't know where the hell I'm supposed to go. And I got to go to bed.
21:31 --> 21:44 I saw a meme that's a, you know, guy in armor. Like a knight in armor. And a spear comes with like just lodges in his chest. And it's like hit points. 3 of 100. Like, this area seems a little hard.
21:44 --> 21:46 Yeah. Shouldn't be here yet.
21:46 --> 21:46 Yeah.
21:47 --> 22:39 I do want to point out what I have seen in Silksong Through. I want to say maybe five or six regions. Enemies very distinctly stand out from the background and foreground. Now. I do not miss them once. Like, if there's an enemy there, I see it. They're not that Exact same color and saturation as the region, which I appreciate. I know there was an art style they were going for with the original. This still maintains that style without holding so tightly to the rules that they made with the first game. I also feel like the colors are a lot more vibrant. They're not afraid to use a couple like an extra color here or there to liven things up, make it more interesting to look at. So the game doesn't feel as dreary and depressing, which is nice.
22:42 --> 22:46 You say that as I'm showing The video on YouTube is of hanging cages and fire.
22:48 --> 22:50 But I mean, you're right though.
22:50 --> 22:52 Look at how vibrant that orange is.
22:52 --> 22:54 Super Pops. Exactly right.
22:54 --> 23:03 And then you see that enemy down there is gray in a dark spot. You see it's there. It's not the same orange as the background. It's gray.
23:04 --> 23:13 And the main character has also got some color to it, which the main character in Hollow Knight does not. It's very black and white. So she's got a little pop to her.
23:13 --> 23:27 Yeah, that was something with the first game is they leaned hard into not quite black, but a really, you know, sad sort of purplish blue, really dark, which was the same color as the. The Hollow Knight's cloak.
23:27 --> 23:28 Right, right, right.
23:28 --> 23:29 Yeah.
23:29 --> 23:34 So that was frustrating. This. They're like, okay, let's go with some black and she's red.
23:34 --> 23:35 Yes.
23:35 --> 23:59 So, yeah, she stands out really clearly. I. I just, I love the art style in this. They fixed what was wrong with the original game and I love that. I also just absolutely love how quickly combat moves in this game and the platforming and they do lean a lot on platforming from what I've seen so far. Location design also feels more distinct.
24:00 --> 24:01 Yes. Yeah.
24:01 --> 24:04 So when I'm in a new area and I don't have access to a map.
24:04 --> 24:05 No, it's a new area. Yeah.
24:05 --> 24:11 It's scary mostly because I'm not. I've not learned it yet.
24:11 --> 24:11 Right.
24:12 --> 24:16 Like, oh, where did I go? Where do I come from? You know, where did I come from? Where do I go?
24:17 --> 24:17 What?
24:17 --> 24:22 Like, what's gonna kill me around the corner and send me back to that bench that I last sat on 10 minutes ago.
24:22 --> 24:23 Where was the.
24:23 --> 24:26 Lose all this progress. It's nerve wracking.
24:26 --> 24:26 Yep.
24:26 --> 24:29 You die and you're like, got down, sat on a bench.
24:29 --> 24:51 Yep. And it's. And he's right. Like your first area start out has pops of green and vibrance. It's called Mossfield or something. And then the next area is this Fiery brimstone. So there's certainly very different differentiated areas that, you know, whoa, we're not in Kansas anymore. Like, we're definitely in a whole another location.
24:51 --> 25:08 So who, who actually beat Hollow Knight out of the four of us? I didn't. I didn't. I got far, but I didn't beat it. Well, did. Okay, so in terms of, like, if you beat in Hollow Knight, was there any. Was there as much of variety in the, in the, the look of the levels? Like there is in Silksong, cuz Silk song, like Chart just said.
25:08 --> 25:08 I.
25:08 --> 25:17 There's also like a, A steam funky bell area and, and pipes and stuff. There's spike cave, cavern hill. Like, it's very varied and we've only played for a handful of hours.
25:18 --> 25:33 I mean, there were areas, like, there was a big, massive sort of buried castle area which sort of was like an old kingdom, and it was like, you know, waterfalls everywhere. It was, it was pretty. But the whole region felt very samey.
25:33 --> 25:35 Right. Right.
25:35 --> 25:41 And then, you know, there's like the mines and then the caves and then the other caves that are a different color and.
25:43 --> 25:45 Right. A lot of caves.
25:45 --> 26:04 So it, it, it felt a little too samey. I think, in the first area to where the only distinction mostly was color palette. And you know, I use color palette very generously because it was literally like, this area is pink. This area is orange. This area is brown. This area is blue.
26:06 --> 26:10 They're all very closely related in their color palette too. There's no, like.
26:11 --> 26:14 Yeah, it's never like it's going from blue into purple.
26:14 --> 26:36 Yeah, you go into blue and then you go into the purple and then aqua. You know, it's, it's. They're all within the same rainbow scale. It's not very. It's not like green to red. Right. It's not this huge thing. So. And that was my thing about getting lost because I was like, okay, so there's a different hue of black here. I think I'm in a different area.
26:37 --> 26:38 This is a black rare.
26:39 --> 26:39 Yeah, this is definitely.
26:39 --> 26:40 There's landmarks too.
26:41 --> 27:32 Not for those of you who are fans of Spinal Tap. Yeah, it's just, it's. This is so much better because there's so much more clarity on the things that were very, very hard to, to delineate from. And, and, and I, I. And like, Wolf said that the, that combat is great. The controls are really, really responsive. Plays great on the Steam deck. Um, it's. This is, this is definitely a labor of love with some great successes. I, I think this is going to be. There's going to be a lot of fun to play once I get through all the games I already have laid out in front of me, because I'm the one that has all the scary games to play right now. But this is going to be a great game to. To. When I'm done scaring myself on Kronos or Silent Hill F this month, I can. I can decompress with some Hollow knight and. And play that downstairs. So.
27:32 --> 27:33 Decompress with hollow Knight?
27:33 --> 27:35 Well, in a different way.
27:35 --> 27:37 Such anxiety. Last night in bed, I had to.
27:38 --> 27:41 Scare me in a hollow night as badly as Kronos.
27:41 --> 27:44 That's like, I'm gonna decompress with dread.
27:44 --> 27:49 Well, yeah, I think it's hilarious because I was like, I'm gonna stream this in Discord today.
27:50 --> 27:52 Just free, you know, of course, while I'm at work.
27:52 --> 27:53 Thanks.
27:54 --> 27:55 Can't watch.
27:55 --> 27:57 Last night was Baldur's Gate three night. Okay.
27:59 --> 28:00 Sorry, I didn't mean anything.
28:00 --> 28:12 So I figured I'd check it out for a few hours. I streamed it. Jake and Sinistar came by and after a while, Jake was like, wow.
28:15 --> 28:16 Yeah, you're God tier gamer.
28:17 --> 28:19 Yeah. What's a Metroidvanian?
28:19 --> 28:38 That was one of the first things I noticed. I watched. I started watching it. I'm like, holy, he moves. He moves through this so much faster than I do. And then he's doing these, like, you know, enemy jumps to get to all these hidden air. And I'm just like, I'm lucky to jump from one platform.
28:38 --> 28:53 It is bread and butter. Dude. This is like. I would not be shocked to watch Wolf just totally annihilate this thing. After two hours being like, I've been to eight different biomes and we're like, cool. I can't get past the door hammer guy.
28:53 --> 28:54 Sweet.
28:55 --> 28:58 We'll get to him in a minute. But I want to talk about that guy too, but.
28:58 --> 29:00 Well, I couldn't get past that guy either.
29:00 --> 29:14 But when you were streaming it, I saw you lead like a fly over to the side of the screen where there's a door up on a cliff and you attacked it to get up to the top. I'm like, oh, I didn't think of that. So I did that. My save when I played afterwards.
29:14 --> 29:18 Yeah, I watched all this and I was like, you know, I suck.
29:20 --> 29:21 Yeah, it's.
29:21 --> 29:21 I just.
29:21 --> 29:32 It's definitely a testament to the gameplay, like how tightly, well, it controls and how fun it is to feels to flip around and bounce off enemies. Like, it's. It's a fun game to play and it's so much more dynamic than Hollow Knight.
29:32 --> 29:47 Yeah. And that's. I mean, I swear by the messenger, that's one of the things I love about the messenger is the platforming includes enemies as the platforming. And I know Hollow Knight did that to a degree and it but it like, oh, we lost Chard.
29:48 --> 29:49 We lost Chard.
29:49 --> 29:49 Oh dear.
29:50 --> 29:50 That's okay.
29:50 --> 29:59 So I'll. I'll keep going though. I'll just be. Spill here. It's fine. I. Shoot. What was I saying?
30:02 --> 30:04 Oh yeah, Enemies.
30:05 --> 30:34 In Hollow Knight, the enemy platforming was kind of saved for late game. For the most part. It didn't expect you to use it a whole lot early on. It became like a mid to late game mechanic and that was. That became super heavily used by, you know, post game stuff that was extra DLC and whatnot. Silksong seems to jump right into it. It's. Yeah, it doesn't expect it of you, but it rewards you for making use of it early, which I really appreciate.
30:35 --> 30:36 Welcome back, Chard.
30:37 --> 30:41 Sorry guys. I don't know what happened. My computer literally just shut itself off and turned.
30:41 --> 30:43 You know what it is? You know what it is?
30:43 --> 30:44 What?
30:44 --> 31:02 No, but wait, that's even creepier. And I'm not kidding you. Kronos fired up and I went, why is this game launching? So I turned it off from Steam where I stopped it and then my computer said, well, fuck you if you're not going to play it.
31:02 --> 31:03 They kicked me out.
31:05 --> 31:11 What the hell? That was. Sorry. Anyways, for the audio listeners, I just had the weirdest technical difficulties.
31:12 --> 31:28 Anyway, we were talking about how in the original Hollow Knight using the enemies as platformers was mid to late game. This is as Wolf was showing us with great skill. Happens immediately.
31:28 --> 31:29 No surprise.
31:29 --> 31:33 Do we want to talk about the controls a little bit or the moves or we want to save that?
31:35 --> 31:47 We can talk about the. Because the moves I have are still in the first three, four hours. So it's not a big deal because the game is supposed to be bigger than Hollow Knight 1 and I think I have 34 hours in that one file in Hollow Knight.
31:47 --> 31:51 So I saw a few websites claiming it's.
31:51 --> 32:02 I thought you were gonna say now. I was like, how long did you play today? Holy. Yeah, 34 hours is only 24 in a day. Dude, what are you doing? Sorry.
32:02 --> 32:37 So the one thing I'm gonna say about the moves, it's the basic move, right, Is the downward attack. And it's a necessary one because it's called pogoing. Right. Where you jump in the air and you dive kick. Almost like TMNT style, Ninja Turtle style off of enemies. But in the original Hollow, it was a downward attack. Yeah, I was much more used to that downward strike. So I was. I had some issues dealing with that angle of attack because especially in certain parts of the game early on, you have to bounce off balloons. So I have to like space not directly above the balloon, but. But to the side. And you have to time the jumps. That was a little tricky at first. How about you guys? What do you guys think?
32:37 --> 32:46 Yeah, I actually disliked the downward. Downward attack when I first tried it. I was like, oh, good. Now I have to plan my angle as you said. Right?
32:46 --> 32:46 Yeah.
32:46 --> 32:53 Like I'm. Most games. Most games, honestly have like a straight down attack. Like, you know, and this.
32:54 --> 33:19 Yeah, I. Yeah, I. It was an adjustment just because it's not a standard way of doing things in most games, but I don't mind it. I think I struggled more with learning the fact that it doesn't keep going. It like stops after a short period. And so I would try to dive bomb things from high and then get hurt because she'd stop short and then take damage.
33:19 --> 33:55 Right? Yeah, that. I like the. The angled attack. It's kind of cool because that's something that I would assume that you would have picked and picked up later in the game after beating a boss. Like a power that you get, but they gave it to you right off the bat. But I was like Wolf, where I was like, oh, I'll start from this top corner of the screen. I'll just dive bomb the shit out of stuff. And then it's like, nope, like halfway through and you land on it. But I. I love the momentum on this game. I like that if you time your jumps right on a corner, grab it, flings you into the air, and you can get higher. And I was like, that's really cool. That's a cool aspect. I like the.
33:56 --> 34:19 The whole momentum thing is actually really on point. I saw a video spent comparing Silksong to Symphony of the Night and it's clear they took their inspiration from. In the animations. Right? Anybody's played Symphony of the Night, right? Alucard has a very distinctive. When he turns, there's a flowy animation as he. As he spins around and there's a gravity to. When he moves back and forth. It's the same in Silk Song. I swear they copied that exact animation frame set.
34:19 --> 34:24 Yeah, I noticed she kind of dips her head and. And and speeds into.
34:25 --> 34:34 Yeah, it's really. Yeah. When she. When she starts her first momentum of walking, it's like really leaning into it. They need the backwards dash, though, if they're really going to go with the.
34:34 --> 34:38 They need a. They need a double jump. I've not found a double jump yet.
34:38 --> 34:38 God.
34:38 --> 34:40 I kill will be.
34:40 --> 34:45 Because there was a double jump in the first one. I fired up the original thing for like 20, 30 minutes to mess with.
34:45 --> 34:53 The mechanics and I downloaded it, I installed it just so I could re. Uninstall it here later when I do it.
34:54 --> 34:55 Yeah, yeah.
34:55 --> 35:10 It had a simple dash that was literally just, you know, either you dash for a short period on the ground or you dash through the air straight for that same short period. And it had a double jump. And at this point, at the point.
35:10 --> 35:12 I'm at, it had a wall jump.
35:12 --> 35:17 It did have the wall jump, like Mega Man X where you could. You could just do it up the same wall over and over once you have it.
35:18 --> 35:20 Was that from the beginning or did you unlock that?
35:20 --> 35:29 I'm pretty sure that was unlocked at the beginning. You are just kind of tundling about, not doing a. Yeah, you're just a.
35:29 --> 35:36 Dude with a nail just bebopping around Tim Burton's best drawings. Something else.
35:36 --> 36:41 But yeah, like the dash in Silksong. I absolutely love how it works. I. I do think there's one spot that I've struggled with and it's just one spot, so it's not a huge deal, but it seems like that was intended to like, take. Teach the player that, you know, you. She has to run for X amount of time before she can jump with the dash. And you have to make sure you're all the way back on this ledge before you start running. Otherwise you won't have the time to jump and she'll just fall off. But other than that, like the game I've already seen, and I pointed out to Jake earlier, which, because Juby pointed it out to me, because he. He came in and watched too, that they. They do a show don't tell kind of thing where they show you how mechanics will work using things around you. And in that particular case, it was with an enemy that started just jumping around through the hot coals and not getting hurt because it was just jumping and it was like. Oh, yeah. Because you know, when enemies touch things that hurt, they get hurt.
36:42 --> 36:46 Yeah, right. That's. That's brilliant. I think I just ran through the.
36:46 --> 36:59 Fire because I was like, I didn't even touch it. I didn't Until I saw Wolf do it. I'm like, oh, that's what you can do. That opened up a whole other screen for me. I didn't. I didn't quite realize because earlier in the stages, there's like, lava rivers or lakes of water.
36:59 --> 37:01 You can't even touch those for their instant death.
37:01 --> 37:02 Yeah, but the coals are good.
37:02 --> 37:04 Yeah, the coals are cool.
37:05 --> 37:05 And.
37:06 --> 37:22 Yeah, the layout and everything and all that stuff just. It's really cool how, you know, like, we could take the coals and the lava, for instance. Like, you. Your brain goes, that's a hole. I'm not falling in that. That's bad. I think in the first one. Can you. You don't swim in the first one, right?
37:22 --> 37:23 I don't believe.
37:23 --> 37:26 Remind me if that's water is instant death, I think, or it's you.
37:28 --> 37:31 I found one hole and my first initial.
37:31 --> 37:32 And I swam in it.
37:32 --> 37:54 Yeah. Oh, my first initial thought of water was like, nope. But then I fell in it on accident, and I was fine, so I kept going. And there was a hidden secret in this little canal that opened up a whole nother spot for me. And I was like, God damn it, this is cool. All right, sold. That was like the second screen, that was like, that's how.
37:54 --> 38:03 That's an interesting point because, honestly, like, this game is almost like, whack. Every wall there is secrets everywhere.
38:05 --> 38:06 It is the Elden ring of.
38:08 --> 38:14 All the time. Just run around smacking everything. Like, this wall break, this wall break, this wall break.
38:14 --> 38:15 Yeah.
38:15 --> 38:25 Yep. Oh, I'm hitting them all now. But the problem is, is this. Are slightly indestructible environments. So every time you hit, like, a stalactite or some shit, it explodes. You're like, oh, there's a secret there.
38:25 --> 38:25 Nope.
38:25 --> 38:26 Like, no, it's just the background.
38:28 --> 38:45 There's one part I haven't figured out yet where there's a character singing and there's a creature caught in webs. And you can chop the webs, but they. And they do disappear, but, like, not. You can't chop them as fast as they. As they regrow.
38:45 --> 38:47 Yeah, I. I solved that puzzle last.
38:48 --> 38:48 I have.
38:48 --> 38:50 Back to the Metroidvania style of it, right?
38:50 --> 38:50 Yeah.
38:50 --> 38:52 There's something you get that let you.
38:52 --> 38:55 Do that, you'll overcome that relatively quickly.
38:55 --> 38:56 Okay.
38:56 --> 38:58 Yeah, that's pretty nearby.
38:59 --> 39:16 So we touched on it, and I want to. I want to talk about it really quick before we forget. But when. When this game had basically disappeared, like, you know, they were working on it, and then it disappeared, and then it Showcased in the Switch 2 event for like 5 seconds.
39:17 --> 39:19 Not even. Yeah.
39:19 --> 39:41 And, and I said, you know, I said, here's the thing is this game cannot live up to the hype. It cannot live up to the hype at this point. Seven years of development, they're not even giving like, they're not even giving rough estimates of time. Right. And then, and then they drop it for $20.
39:42 --> 39:42 Yeah.
39:43 --> 39:56 And in my brain, literally the thing that I said to myself wasn't, hey, it's coming out. It was, that was the one thing they could do to redeem seven years of like being silent. Right.
39:58 --> 40:00 Or make a, make a good game. Which so far.
40:00 --> 40:09 Yeah, but what game in 20, 25 of this caliber comes out at $20, right?
40:09 --> 40:11 Like, you're right. You're absolutely right.
40:12 --> 41:14 Ninja Guide and ragebound was, was $5 more expensive. Shinobi came out and that's I think, I think $10 more. Like there's a lot of games that are a lot more expensive and they're much more shorter than silksong is. Like, there was a few folks writing articles from, I guess some indie devs saying we can't sell our games for free. We can't compete with $20. And I don't think you need to. I think you could charge what you need to charge as an indie developer to, you know, whatever you think your game is worth and whatever you need to make from your game is fine. The folks at Team Cherry literally don't need to make as much money off of this game because they made their bank the retirement off of Hollow Knight. So it's, it's definitely interesting. The $20 is what got me to play. Having bounced off the original. I didn't really care to spend a lot of money on this, not after playing Ninja Gaiden recently. But then I saw $20. I'm like, how, how can I say no? It's even on Game Pass if you want to do Game Pass. Yeah, it's everywhere. No, no Deluxe edition, no pre order bullshit. Yeah, the only, just the game for 20 bucks.
41:14 --> 41:18 So early release because we didn't know when the hell it was coming out. The early release was literally the only.
41:19 --> 41:22 The only add on you can do is. Right. I mean.
41:22 --> 41:23 Right.
41:23 --> 41:31 So anyway, I just wanted to touch on that. I was like, wow. They, they did the one thing that I didn't think they could do.
41:31 --> 41:45 I mean, yeah, we, we, we, we talk about off and on, you know, the state of gaming and stuff quite a bit. And, and with everybody, with Nintendo coming out and being like, you guys, 80 bucks, 90 bucks. That's what's happening. We're like.
41:46 --> 41:49 And then raising the price on the switch one.
41:50 --> 42:03 Yeah, yeah. I mean there's, there's just things that are attached to it that you're like, really dude? And then these guys come out and be like, here's a game that we've worked on for seven years that people have been literally clamoring to get their hands on.
42:03 --> 42:05 The plays in museums.
42:06 --> 42:33 Yeah, yeah. The plays in the Smithsonian. It's on game pass. You could play it for free if you want to. It's very clear obscura kind of approach in this day and age, right. Where these indie companies are just like, here is 30 bucks. Go, go ballsy with it. Have fun. And they're great. It's not trash. It's not like, it's not like, what's that goddamn pirate? That four star pirate game that came.
42:33 --> 42:34 AAA games or whatever.
42:39 --> 42:57 I mean it's asinine. And, and we still got these, and we talk about all the time, these indie studios or these first time gaming studios release these games and they're better than the people that have been here doing this shit forever. And it's like, thank you, Blooper. Thank you, Sandbox. Thank you.
42:57 --> 43:16 I will, I will say though, like having played like Sonic Crossroads for example recently that they had a network test. I was all gung ho after playing that game. But then I saw the price point. It's got regional pricing, it's a full price game. It's got a full season pass. It's got all this other additional content and it's going to cost me, it would cost me $120 to get everything in my, my currency.
43:16 --> 43:17 Oh yeah.
43:17 --> 43:19 Like so like why would I do that? Right?
43:19 --> 43:47 And 20 bucks of that, like bloodlines two. Right. That's coming out. Not only is it going to be a. Well, I guess, I guess it's a $50 game supposedly. But they locked, they locked one in particular, you know, race of vampires behind day one DLC like this, like they, they basically came out and said, hey, we're on a cash grab here.
43:48 --> 43:50 Yeah. Just so you know.
43:50 --> 43:50 Yeah.
43:50 --> 44:56 Bring your wallet. Like it's, it's ridiculous. But I mean, you know, this, this game came out. It's, it's polished, it's nice, it plays great. It's not garbage. It's obviously got seven years of polish underneath it from people that know what the hell they're doing. I mean Hollow Knight was massive success and I, I can't imagine Silk song being anything different. All jokes aside, and my flat earth theory of this game not really existing. This. This game is really gonna. It's a banger. And this. I'm not. We're not. We're not. None of us are shouting Game of the Year for this whatsoever. But I will shout move of the Year for, you know, for, for a company to release something so quietly that is it. It would be like, seriously, it'd be like Valve being like, oh, yeah, Half Life 3 comes out tomorrow. Would be like, what? Where did this come from? And it would probably be pretty good because, you know, you know, for at least the star and I, because Jake will just uninstall it and doesn't like Half Life. But I would just say, you know, it's, it's, it's just that kind of level of holy shitness that we're.
44:56 --> 44:57 Holy shitness.
44:58 --> 45:33 And going back to your point, saying like, is the game. Can it live up to the hype? I think for Hollow Knight fans, absolutely, it's going to live up to the hype. Oh yeah, it's more everything in Hollow Knight. But for. I wonder what the half million people who are playing on Steam alone, who knows how many on Nintendo and Sony and Xbox systems, how many of those people that are even playing next week. Because as much as I like the game, it is a Metroidvania and it is also quite difficult early on, how many people are going to be turned off from that? And so for those people, it may not live up to the hype. Maybe because they don't know what the game was.
45:33 --> 45:34 That's true.
45:34 --> 45:36 So I'm curious to see what it's like next week.
45:37 --> 45:47 I mean, how many of these people have bought it just because they heard the name Silver Song and never, never played Hollow Knight, but because there's so much behind it, they're like, yeah, everybody's talking about it.
45:47 --> 46:03 It's only 20 bucks. I should see what all the Hob's about. I could see that as a point of purchase for people. It's funny because you're like, I don't know about this being Game of the Year. Looking at the games I've played this year, I think it's a contender.
46:04 --> 46:06 Okay, that's fair. That's totally fair.
46:06 --> 46:17 That's not to say I've played games this year. It's just I'm looking at the list. And so far, like, of all the games I played, this one already has me in a way. Those ones didn't.
46:18 --> 46:23 I think I Think I just learned something that I need to keep a list.
46:25 --> 46:32 That's what I've been doing, tracking the games I've beaten in the year because I've been trying to get better at it. I'm trying to fix games I started.
46:32 --> 46:41 But you know, doing that this year, I'm actually keeping a list as I go and I'm trying to like, make notes on the games as I finish them. Like, okay, this is what I thought of it.
46:43 --> 46:45 Like, if it chat keeps me honest.
46:45 --> 46:56 If it wasn't Clarity Obscure coming out this year, I think this could be a contender for Game of the Year for me as well. Or at least a runner up. But, but we had, we had so much this year. Like Monster Hunter Wilds. We had blueprints, which I still love.
46:56 --> 46:57 And there's still more.
46:57 --> 47:05 You're. It's your season. Like how many horror games are coming out and they've all got like high 70s, early 80s on, on Metacritic. It's nuts. How many good games are coming out.
47:05 --> 47:15 This, this month alone could be a contender to fight against Claire Obscura, which is still going to be really tough, right?
47:16 --> 47:17 Yeah, yeah.
47:17 --> 47:18 I mean, well, Silent Hill too.
47:18 --> 47:19 Oh, was that last year?
47:19 --> 48:31 But I mean, yeah, Silent Hill F is coming out of the end of September, so. But I mean, it's in the moment, right. What am I going to be most jazzed about? I. There's nothing in this planet that could beat Claire Obscure for me. But you know, I'm going to be so pumped that if Kronos turns out to be as magnificent as what I think it should be and Silent Hill carries on the story or its lore in its own way, I could easily just hurdle, hurdle, clear Obscura. Just because I'm so jacked about the game that I finished right before the game awards. Right. So I have to be very cautious about my emotional outburst towards the games that I'm going to finish up. But I mean this. Maybe I play this game and it becomes. Maybe it gets better. I mean, it could get better as I play it, right. I have two hours in. I don't have a lot of. I could tell you. I think it's great compared to the first one. But I can't tell you, like this is going to be. It's going to Destroy the greatest RPG that I've ever played in the last 18 years of my life or whatever. So I don't know, we'll kind of see. But this could definitely turn into something that could be a runner up at some point. This could Turn out to be like, this was the greatest couch game that I've played since I put retro games on my Steam deck, you know, it.
48:31 --> 48:34 Was the greatest song in the world for sure.
48:34 --> 48:46 Like this game is awesome. I've been held. I know it's on Switch 1, but I think it was Candle Jack from our Discord community. He mentioned that Team Cherry. If you buy the Switch 1 version, you get us a free upgrade to Switch 2. If you later get.
48:46 --> 48:48 I think it's one or two dollar upgrade.
48:48 --> 48:48 Oh wow.
48:49 --> 48:53 I thought it was free. Like they give you a switch, but they give you the game an upgrade.
48:53 --> 49:00 Does your switch like in your hands turn into a switch too? Because I bought Silk Song.
49:00 --> 49:22 It's not wizardry, you know, but it's on the Steam deck like I'm playing on the OLED Steam deck. So it's running at. It's running at the 1200, 800 res on the steam deck, but it's at 90, 90 Hz, which is the res of my screen. Looks gorgeous. Runs flawlessly. The battery usage is nothing. I mean it's not a highly demanding game, right? It's. It's a Unity game. It's fine. But I'm pretty impressed how run it. How well it runs on handheld. It's pretty awesome.
49:23 --> 49:33 Yeah. Well, any other call outs? I. I know that this is kind of first impressions, so I do.
49:33 --> 49:35 I'll go ahead. Well, fine.
49:35 --> 49:36 Were you going to talk about the map?
49:38 --> 49:40 No, I was going to talk about the difficulty with the doorman.
49:41 --> 49:42 So yeah, I was going to talk about the.
49:43 --> 49:44 Yeah, okay.
49:44 --> 49:50 I still am not a fan of the fact that it takes an equipment slot to be able to see where the hell you are on the map.
49:50 --> 49:53 Yeah, that was one of my beefs too.
49:53 --> 50:15 It's even more restrictive in this game because unlike Hollow Knight, which had a series of badges, this one has tools which are similar, but they're divided by three color groups. And the same spot that you would assign to the compass to show yourself on the map is the same one that's used for several other really awesome cool utilities. I would love to equip, but I can't live without this freaking compass.
50:17 --> 50:22 Maybe we. Maybe we get out the graph paper, guys. Go back to Legend of Zelda.
50:23 --> 50:25 Yeah, let's graph it out. Let's go.
50:27 --> 50:29 Squad goals. Graph. Graph your map.
50:29 --> 50:33 Don't tell me. I'll make one. That's the list of goals we don't.
50:33 --> 50:38 Do we need some cartographers for our Patreon?
50:39 --> 50:47 Yeah, it is frustrating how they like make you buy all the parts to the map and the pins and all that kind of stuff. Just like Hollow Knight does. I'm with you. I didn't like that either.
50:47 --> 50:53 Yeah, yeah. Not a feature. I'm glad that I'm happy they brought back over, but it is what it is.
50:54 --> 51:10 I guess for my point, it was the, the difficulty there is. I don't even think I thought it was a boss. I died like six to eight times on this one guy with a giant bone club until I finally got past him and realizing he wasn't even a boss. He was just a doorman blocking the way to a hard, hard difficulty.
51:10 --> 51:13 It's got a 12 foot radius, dude. It's insane.
51:13 --> 51:28 But there's. When you get the trick, it's. It's pretty easy to figure out the pattern. But man, I died so often and that's that early difficulty spike. And that's why I'm wondering if that would turn off people. Like, am I going to get rage quit after like five bosses because they're like, I can't get past a freaking mob that's just bigger than normal.
51:28 --> 51:30 Little bit of a hockey stick there.
51:31 --> 51:51 Yeah, I. But maybe that's intentional, right. Because I still think, and I, I said this earlier, that maybe that particular boss might need a tool or a weapon or some kind of power that you get later. Like a dash or some. Something that'll make that easier. Then you carry over into the new area and you're not getting your face stomped in.
51:51 --> 51:52 Whatever's running seems like it's.
51:52 --> 51:53 I think instead of being a.
51:53 --> 51:55 It's a gear check basically.
51:55 --> 52:40 Yeah. It's like a warning. Yeah, right. It's more of a warning than like, yeah, you could beat this guy. And if you do, God help you. Sex area is not going to be any better. So when I, when that happens to me and I'm usually the one that kind of spins off when I'm, you know, chard headed enough to keep hitting my head against the wall. I. With this, you just go. There's other places I know I haven't gone to. I'm going to go back and explore those other spots. But yesterday I was like, I'm too far away to all that stuff and I don't really want to traverse all this area again. So I'll pick this up at a later date. So. But it's less of a spin off. It's more of a two hours is good. I'm drinking enough coffee. I think I'm good. I don't need to have another cup. So I'm going to have to sleep eventually. No, one of those things.
52:40 --> 52:41 Yeah. All right.
52:42 --> 52:51 I found another room actually that I thought was a boss. Jake and Sinister saw it. I tried to fight the thing the first time and it was scary as hell.
52:51 --> 52:52 You mean?
52:52 --> 52:59 And so the next time I was like, wait, I wonder. And it was literally just survive it all the way across the room to get to the other side.
52:59 --> 53:02 I'm gonna, I'm gonna call it the vomitarium.
53:02 --> 53:04 Yeah, it's a good name for it. Yeah.
53:05 --> 53:06 But you did that early.
53:06 --> 53:14 That's when you were doing your stupid speedrunner trick to make it across the map. Because we found out later you're supposed to have the dash to get there. You got that way.
53:14 --> 53:22 The dash was probably the way you were supposed to do it. But it does look like the room was intentionally designed to where you could walk it the way I did.
53:23 --> 53:23 Yeah.
53:23 --> 53:40 Yeah. Pretty clutch at the end though, to dodge the vomit at the end. The enemy designs in this is so good. There's so many. There's so many enemy sprites in this game. In the five hours I played, I've seen at least 20ish enemies that are unique. Like that doesn't count the bosses.
53:40 --> 53:45 So it's like Legacy of The Ancients. It's 40 different NPCs.
53:45 --> 53:47 40 different men. Yeah. To deal with.
53:50 --> 53:52 I don't know how many. Is this the one with a Janko?
53:52 --> 54:02 How many bosses are in this game? I think the trailer says something around 40. So it's definitely a beefy game. If you like Hollow Knight, this is, this is exactly what you wanted if you're a holiday fan for sure.
54:03 --> 54:08 It's just, it's quality of life. Hollow Knight, basically, for the most part.
54:09 --> 54:16 Well, awesome. Any other thoughts? We're, we're kind of, we're kind of at a good, good point here, I think.
54:16 --> 54:17 Okay.
54:17 --> 55:04 No, I mean all of our impressions are very short winded except for Wolf. He's already beat the game because he played it for 35 hours. But no, I mean for, for somebody who. This is such a whirlwind with this game. Because it wasn't coming out. There's no way this is going to come out. Hahaha. Why did Jake Pickett for his fantasy critic. This thing's never going to see the light of day two now. We all have it and we've all played it and we all like it. But it was. It's so like, it's so much happening, it's so quickly that it's hard to even still register that the game is literally on my desktop. I'm looking at the icon for right now to fire it up. So I don't know how to feel other than mildly portrayed, but also mildly excited that it's here.
55:04 --> 55:10 Yeah, I'm not going to win Fantasy Critic either way because it's not going to get me enough points, no matter even if it scores a perfect time.
55:10 --> 55:27 I know, but I'm right behind Wolf, and that's the only game that was gonna. That was gonna kick me in the dick, and it didn't, and I'm really mad about it. Enjoy your split. If this game doesn't drop, I'm there. I could. I might be able to get him. And then it came out, went, no, I will be in second place forever.
55:28 --> 56:01 First place, I will say. I, I, I'm not sure if I'm really enjoying it because I was not super excited about the game and it's just landing better than I expected, or if it's actually just super legitimately that good to where it sold me on it already because, you know, I didn't have the highest expectations for it because it's been in development for seven years. I didn't love Hollow Knight the way everybody else did, so, I don't know. Hard to tell for me, right?
56:03 --> 56:39 It's happened so fast that it's like, feelings are lagging. They're so far behind. Like, do I actually feel this way, or is it just so surprised that it's here that I'm excited to play it? Because it's. It's something we didn't ever expect to see? And it came out yesterday. Like, a day ago, I was laughing about it going, I'm going to get Wolf. And now I'm not, you know, and it's. It's just like that. It's just a complete whirlwind of. I just. I'm a roller coaster of emotions right now. I'm. I'm. I'm in a glass box of emotions. I'm Ron Burgundy screaming into the payphone right now at the top of my lungs.
56:42 --> 57:02 There's no reviews for this yet, I guess, because Team Cherry didn't do any review copies, which is unfortunate for games media, but, yeah, there won't be reviews for this game proper until, like, next week at the earliest. I am curious to see what it ends up getting. Scores, I think. High 80s, I think, is what's going to land down, hopefully higher for my fantasy critic, but I can see high 80s for sure based honestly Based on.
57:02 --> 57:06 What I've played so far, I would give it an 85.
57:07 --> 57:10 Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would agree with that.
57:10 --> 57:10 Yeah.
57:10 --> 57:31 I mean, it's more the same. It's just. It's just the quality of life improvements of Hollow Knight and Hollow Knight was a huge success. There's no way that this game doesn't carry on that legacy in some. If, if this thing drops below 70 or even 79, I will be absolutely beside myself. Like, there's no way. Absolutely no way.
57:33 --> 57:44 Well, cool. Well, I'm just gonna finish by saying if you enjoy platformers in a Metroidvania style, this is a no brainer. It's $20.
57:44 --> 57:45 Yeah, it is.
57:45 --> 57:45 Yeah.
57:46 --> 57:47 Hard to argue with 20.
57:48 --> 58:20 Yeah. And honestly, it's worth in. In my estimation, if I were a Metroidvania fan more than I am, I would pay 40 for this game. I really would. Well, cool. Well, real quick. We are part of the Superpod Network. We have some other friends. The GNC podcast, the three do experience Superpod themselves. Although Super Ghost Now.
58:20 --> 58:21 Super Ghost Now.
58:21 --> 58:49 Yeah, yeah. So you can find us there superpod network.com. you can also find us at our. At our website, pressbeatcancel.com or press b.org come join us in our discord. Give us all your thoughts or comment on our videos. You'll also find us on your audio podcast services. And if we're not on your favorite service, yell at Jake. He'll fix.
58:49 --> 58:57 Sure. I'm used to it. You can tell me that I suck at Half Life too, while you're at it. By the way, it needs to be on XYZ service. Yeah, that's fine.
58:57 --> 59:13 Yeah. All right, well, I'm just going to throw this out. Anything we want to call out. I know, I'm just, you know what I said anything. But I know CHARD is going to be streaming here this weekend, probably tonight, which is Friday night.
59:13 --> 59:39 Yep. We're going to finish up Silent Hill 3 tonight and getting that guy buttoned up. And then we start new game Kronos tomorrow. New game from Blooper. Very excited about it. I'm on a blooper kick. I have Observer. I have the medium. I'm on a kick. They are. I wish I had checked these guys out earlier. Some of the games I've had forever and didn't know they were blooper games. So if you couldn't tell right now, my favorite company.
59:39 --> 59:44 All right, well, Jake or Wolf, anything you guys want to call out?
59:46 --> 59:48 No, not for me. I'm. I'm just Here right now.
59:48 --> 59:49 No.
59:49 --> 59:56 Work is kicking my ass and I just. Honestly, it's. It's focusing on the podcast best I can right now. There's cool stuff I want to try and do, but I got to find time for it.
59:57 --> 01:00:05 Jake, we appreciate you keeping up on the audio and all the craziness, because that's work that I. I don't know how to do. So.
01:00:06 --> 01:00:14 Yes, we love you. We love you for it. We love you for everything. You're the one that reaches out to us first thing in the morning in Marco Polo. It makes me smile.
01:00:14 --> 01:00:14 For sure.
01:00:14 --> 01:00:15 We're good.
01:00:15 --> 01:00:17 For sure. Wolf, anything going on?
01:00:19 --> 01:00:34 No, I do want to start getting some. I don't want to. I don't want to over promise. So I'm not going to say anything here just yet, but hopefully I'll have something to share with the community in the next few weeks that'll be kind of fun.
01:00:35 --> 01:00:38 Someone. Some. Someone did finish his Sisyphean. I did.
01:00:38 --> 01:00:40 I did finish my Sisyphean game. That's true.
01:00:42 --> 01:00:44 You had so much time, man.
01:00:44 --> 01:00:45 What's the rush with you guys?
01:00:46 --> 01:00:47 Yeah, we've got like. Like half a year.
01:00:48 --> 01:00:52 Yeah, I was gonna say I beat my two weeks in charge of your achiever.
01:00:52 --> 01:00:58 Jeez, let me go to my steam and see how many hours I put into that stupid game this year.
01:00:58 --> 01:01:00 I'm sure you put quite a bit.
01:01:00 --> 01:01:09 Well, he's looking at RPGs. I am not DJing this weekend. I have. I have been putting together furniture, so that's what I'm doing.
01:01:11 --> 01:01:13 Let's go stream that. Yeah.
01:01:15 --> 01:01:16 140.
01:01:17 --> 01:01:18 Jesus Christ.
01:01:18 --> 01:01:18 All right.
01:01:18 --> 01:01:22 Why wait? It just. Hold on, hold on, hold on.
01:01:22 --> 01:01:28 We have to. It did just open up. Yeah, it really opens up right now. Let's. I gotta compare. We gotta compare. Contrast.
01:01:28 --> 01:01:29 This is Final Fantasy 12.
01:01:29 --> 01:01:30 Someone keep talking.
01:01:30 --> 01:01:35 Yes. And I spent most of that playing the game at 2x speed.
01:01:36 --> 01:01:37 Oh, boy.
01:01:39 --> 01:01:41 Some of it at 4x. Okay.
01:01:41 --> 01:01:43 Like, did you do a lot of.
01:01:43 --> 01:01:44 The side stuff or is it just.
01:01:44 --> 01:01:47 That's just a fair amount of the side stuff.
01:01:47 --> 01:01:47 Okay.
01:01:48 --> 01:01:51 And I will save some of that for when we actually talked.
01:01:51 --> 01:01:52 Yeah, let's. Let's.
01:01:52 --> 01:01:53 Yeah.
01:01:53 --> 01:01:53 Okay.
01:01:53 --> 01:01:53 Yeah.
01:01:54 --> 01:02:01 Final Fantasy 12, the Zodiac Age for me is my number one longest played game. Total time, 500.
01:02:01 --> 01:02:02 Oh, my.
01:02:02 --> 01:02:03 Nine hours.
01:02:03 --> 01:02:05 You played it at 1x the whole time?
01:02:06 --> 01:02:08 I did. I did.
01:02:09 --> 01:02:12 Is that one playthrough or multiple playthroughs? Because of chivos.
01:02:14 --> 01:02:22 No, I've got 16 chivos, so certainly wasn't. That's I streamed it. I streamed it. So I probably walked away with it on once or twice.
01:02:22 --> 01:02:25 I've got 35. I'm only missing six.
01:02:27 --> 01:02:36 I've. I've beaten both Final Fantasy 7, the original at 416 hours, and of course, everybody's favorite, Final Fantasy 8. 323. Three hours.
01:02:36 --> 01:02:39 That's so many hours on such a bad game. Gosh.
01:02:39 --> 01:02:40 Yeah.
01:02:40 --> 01:02:42 Well, you know, to be fair, standing.
01:02:42 --> 01:02:43 There staring at it.
01:02:43 --> 01:02:58 To be fair, I had a lot of. If PlayStation could track hours, I would have a lot of hours in Final Fantasy 8, you know, the original PlayStation. Because I fell asleep playing that game because it was so boring. So many times during combat.
01:02:58 --> 01:02:58 Yes.
01:02:58 --> 01:03:03 I would fall asleep in a fight and wake up dead so many times.
01:03:03 --> 01:03:17 It's gotta be engaging. It's gotta count the title screen. Because I'm sure I've stared there in dread being like, I don't want to play this thing. I'm gonna go take a walk. Leave it on. That's probably why I have 323 hours. This game.
01:03:18 --> 01:03:19 Well, all right. No, you're.
01:03:19 --> 01:03:20 Sorry I had to do that.
01:03:20 --> 01:03:32 Oh, all right. Well, I think that's probably got us done and dusted, so. This has been another press be to cancel. Have a good one.
01:03:32 --> 01:03:33 We'll see you in seven years.
01:03:34 --> 01:04:10 This game is never coming out. It's never coming out. See you in seven years, Sam.