Latest / Respec: Video Game Ramblings / Tokyo Game Show, Fire Emblem, Control Resonant, and appreciating the N64's tiny launch lineup | Respec Ramblings

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Tokyo Game Show, Fire Emblem, Control Resonant, and appreciating the N64's tiny launch lineup | Respec Ramblings · Respec: Video Game Ramblings

• 0:03
  Hello there, everyone. It's me. I'm back. Or
• 0:05
  should I say, or something like that. I don't
• 0:08
  know. I've been in Tokyo and I'm back for this
• 0:11
  week for this edition of the Respect Ramblings
• 0:14
  podcast. I'm Alex Donaldson. I'm joined this
• 0:17
  week, of course, by Mr. Tamari and also by Mikael
• 0:20
  Madlani and by Mr. Dave Breens. How are you guys
• 0:25
  doing? Wonderful. Feeling okay. Yeah. How's it
• 0:31
  been? It's wonderful, okay. Mikhail's just silent,
• 0:33
  so probably worse than okay. What have I done?
• 0:40
  How are you, Mikhail? I'm just praising the sun,
• 0:43
  although I hate the sun. So, yeah, that's all.
• 0:46
  But yeah, busy, busy week. It has been. Yeah,
• 0:50
  I mean, I don't know how it's felt on the ground,
• 0:52
  but last week felt just ridiculously busy. Sort
• 0:59
  of... Let's jump straight into it. I'm going
• 1:04
  to do a slightly different order of topics than
• 1:06
  we'd planned. But how was TGS perceived on your
• 1:11
  end? Almost like it didn't exist. I think I said
• 1:17
  last week, it feels like years back, TGS felt
• 1:21
  like a big deal. There were loads of new games
• 1:25
  being announced, particularly out of the Japanese
• 1:28
  companies. I remember like... seeing Sonic Adventure
• 1:32
  the first time I think at TGS possibly and now
• 1:37
  it's sort of a bit like Gamescom where unless
• 1:41
  you're actually there it's like it's not a massive
• 1:45
  deal doesn't feel like it is like the announcements
• 1:47
  out of it particularly for my interest I mean
• 1:49
  I'm maybe not the ideal person to speak to about
• 1:51
  it because I tend to not care too much about
• 1:54
  like the RPG stuff that I know the rest of you
• 1:57
  will love but Yeah, it wasn't a massive deal.
• 2:01
  I mean, the main talking point was the Kojima
• 2:05
  stuff, which happened obviously prior to that
• 2:07
  anyway. It's a bit of a strange one. I mean,
• 2:10
  we'll talk a little bit more about Xbox later
• 2:12
  on, but it's definitely like I had a conversation
• 2:17
  with an Xbox executive the day before TGS. There
• 2:24
  was a party and they were at the party and I
• 2:26
  was at the party. We had a bit of a chat. on
• 2:28
  the way out. And it was funny because I was saying
• 2:33
  to them, I was like, oh, you know, we've spoken
• 2:35
  before about the Japan problem and the Kojima
• 2:38
  thing's got to be pretty proud of that in terms
• 2:40
  of a get of sort of sorting out the Japan games
• 2:43
  problem. This person and I had spoken about it
• 2:46
  before in the context of, it was around the time
• 2:49
  that FFXVI had just been announced. And obviously
• 2:53
  Microsoft had spent a lot of money and a lot
• 2:55
  of effort. getting Square Enix to put FFXV and
• 2:58
  the Final Fantasy games around that time on Xbox.
• 3:01
  And then with XVI, they just turned around and
• 3:03
  went, screw you guys, we're going on PlayStation
• 3:05
  again. And at that time, at the same time, Microsoft
• 3:08
  had also just paid Sega a big lump of money to
• 3:11
  get all the Persona games over. And I was saying
• 3:14
  to this exec, you know, you've got to make sure
• 3:16
  that Sega don't make you look like a bunch of
• 3:18
  wankers in the same way Square have. And they
• 3:20
  were like, you know, we're really trying to make
• 3:23
  these Japanese relationships better. And now,
• 3:24
  of course... They've signed their Kojima deal.
• 3:26
  They've got, you know, Final Fantasy VII on day
• 3:29
  one. They've got not only Persona 6 on day one,
• 3:31
  but they've got the Persona 6 and Persona 4 marketing
• 3:33
  deal. And I think the marketing deal for like
• 3:35
  Strange in Heaven and stuff. And so I spoke to
• 3:36
  this person and we're speaking about that like
• 3:38
  going, yeah, you're finally accomplishing what
• 3:40
  we talked about. And then you have to wonder
• 3:43
  afterwards, I then catch myself and I think,
• 3:45
  God damn, did they know what was going to happen
• 3:47
  days later? This is the weird thing about Xbox
• 3:50
  is that they can't seem to... have a win and
• 3:55
  let a win sit. They have a win and then immediately
• 3:59
  step onto a rake. It's sort of crazy. And that
• 4:08
  was the crazy thing about it because obviously
• 4:09
  TGS is such a big time difference. So for us,
• 4:12
  it was like the day before the announcement,
• 4:15
  but late at night for us, like 10, 11 on the
• 4:17
  night and phones start buzzing and we start getting
• 4:20
  text messages saying from people at studios and
• 4:23
  stuff saying, This stuff's going to be happening
• 4:26
  in the next 24 hours. So yeah, it is weird. The
• 4:30
  biggest news of TGS was something that really
• 4:33
  wasn't anything to do with TGS. But yeah, I can
• 4:36
  understand why the show didn't register, but
• 4:38
  it was good. It was interesting on the ground.
• 4:40
  You sort of get that interesting geopolitical
• 4:42
  sense in the sense that a lot of China wasn't
• 4:46
  there this year because of... a geopolitical
• 4:50
  dispute about the anniversary of some um of like
• 4:53
  an atrocity a war crime that japan doesn't acknowledge
• 4:56
  but china definitely acknowledges and so a lot
• 5:00
  of chinese companies weren't there but then the
• 5:02
  flip side is you know there was a gigantic russia
• 5:05
  booth games from russia which you don't see at
• 5:08
  gamescom or or sgf or pax or whatever these days
• 5:12
  um since you know it's it's interesting on that
• 5:15
  front obviously you know nintendo don't do it
• 5:18
  But Sega had a big stand. What strikes me, a
• 5:21
  few small takeaways from me on TGS. I won't talk
• 5:23
  about it forever. But one, you can just see that
• 5:26
  the Japanese industry is just killing it. There's
• 5:31
  just so much variety from them. And, you know,
• 5:34
  you can really see people like Konami are actually...
• 5:40
  are actually... now again, whereas there was
• 5:46
  years when Konami was, don't get me wrong, they
• 5:48
  were making money hand over fist, but they were
• 5:51
  not really making video games, right? And now
• 5:56
  they've got a huge stand with a New Castlevania
• 5:57
  game. Actually, I had a chat with the analyst,
• 6:03
  Dr. Serkan Toto, who's a Japanese market specialist,
• 6:07
  like a Japanese Chris Drink. And he was telling
• 6:10
  me that... of the big Japanese game publishers,
• 6:17
  they're all at an all -time high except for two
• 6:20
  of them, which is really, really impressive,
• 6:23
  the big publishers. The other thing I'd say is
• 6:26
  I think they're, I don't know, I think they're
• 6:29
  in severe risk of showing too much of Final Fantasy
• 6:31
  VII. I don't know if it's like a mad panic to
• 6:34
  do as much marketing as possible before GTA,
• 6:36
  but there is, a bit like with the content of
• 6:40
  the game, there may be such a thing as too much
• 6:41
  of a good thing. What else? I don't know. You
• 6:50
  never cease to be surprised in the Japanese market
• 6:53
  by how much mobile matters and how every time
• 7:00
  you're on a train, every single person, young
• 7:02
  or old, is playing some gacha that you've never
• 7:05
  bloody heard of in your life. Is it all phones
• 7:08
  or is it like mobile devices? I did not see.
• 7:11
  a person playing a handheld video game machine
• 7:15
  on any train and i took a lot of trains um i
• 7:18
  just saw phones the flip side is you go into
• 7:21
  a big camera or yoda bashi or something like
• 7:23
  that now and the game section is huge and it
• 7:27
  is 90 nintendo like maybe you're talking even
• 7:31
  in a small store i went into a small store and
• 7:33
  it was like eight to ten bays of nintendo two
• 7:37
  bays of playstation like a quarter of a bay of
• 7:41
  Xbox. Xbox shared its bay with accessories. It's
• 7:47
  sort of wild, but it's a fun show. It's interesting.
• 7:51
  It's always nice to get out there and sort of
• 7:54
  get a feel for what the market is doing out there.
• 7:59
  And it feels much the same. And everyone was
• 8:01
  showing off. The problem is it's so close to
• 8:04
  Gamescom. A lot of the stuff's the same. so it's
• 8:08
  like yeah i played um megaman it was slightly
• 8:12
  different content but not that different to gamescom
• 8:14
  yeah i played um dragon's dogma uh but it was
• 8:20
  you know similar content to gamescom however
• 8:22
  i did play that on switch and wow we um i could
• 8:27
  not believe how well that was running on switch
• 8:28
  too um there'll be an interview and stuff to
• 8:31
  come about that on um rpg site And there'll be
• 8:36
  quite a bit of TGS content on Respec as well.
• 8:39
  But yeah, I don't know. I mean, if you guys have
• 8:40
  any particular questions about the show, and
• 8:42
  what went on there, I can answer. But yeah. I
• 8:46
  know you've mentioned before how Japanese developers
• 8:49
  and studios kind of see AI differently to how
• 8:53
  Western teams and consumers see it. Was that
• 8:57
  evident there or not in any form? Well, obviously,
• 9:01
  it's interesting because... We had the whole
• 9:04
  hideous, huge backlash against, and when I say
• 9:09
  hideous, I mean hideous for them. I think, you
• 9:11
  know, it deserved against level five, which they
• 9:16
  didn't expect. But what I will say is, broadly
• 9:21
  speaking in Japan, the attitude is it's just
• 9:24
  a tool. And I think most people are using it,
• 9:28
  to be honest. And I think, so you get a case
• 9:30
  like Crazy Taxi where it's a lightning rod. where
• 9:33
  they've used it for placeholder, but they've
• 9:35
  said no AI content will be in the final game
• 9:39
  is what they've said. They've said we've used
• 9:40
  it for placeholder, for development, for ideas,
• 9:42
  et cetera, et cetera. And the thing is, they've
• 9:49
  said that, which has become a rod for their back.
• 9:51
  And I'm not advocating people not saying it.
• 9:53
  I think people should disclose. But I guess what
• 9:55
  I'm getting at is I think there's an enormous
• 9:57
  number of Japanese devs who just don't say. enormous
• 10:01
  number of devs around the world um but certainly
• 10:05
  you speak to people on the ground whether that's
• 10:07
  devs or fans the attitude is rarely like the
• 10:11
  in the west you hear a lot of devs on blue sky
• 10:14
  and stuff saying like this technology is disgusting
• 10:16
  i won't use it i have not heard the words of
• 10:19
  that effect from japanese devs whatsoever whenever
• 10:22
  we've had the conversation there they are for
• 10:25
  better or for worse much more pragmatic about
• 10:26
  the whole thing yeah Which is why it's nice to
• 10:32
  get out there. It's nice to talk to people. And,
• 10:35
  you know, there's things we may never know. Like,
• 10:37
  I wonder, how is Nintendo using it? Because they
• 10:40
  will be using it. They will be experimenting
• 10:42
  and figuring out what they can do. But the question
• 10:45
  of how that actually manifests... Didn't they
• 10:46
  make the entire Zelda remake using AI? I'm sure
• 10:49
  that's what someone said on Blue Sky. That's
• 10:52
  why it's called Grocery in Half -Time, right?
• 10:56
  Very good. Very, very, very good. But yeah, I'm
• 10:59
  very much still processing it, the show. I will
• 11:07
  say it was obviously all a bit weird because
• 11:09
  it was meant to be the longest TGS of all time
• 11:12
  because it was 30 years of TGS. They then cancelled
• 11:15
  the last day because we had the typhoon coming
• 11:17
  in. Some of that was a bit overblown. we were
• 11:22
  in a pub in Tokyo and BBC News was like going
• 11:27
  Japan in floods and they had a photo of a guy
• 11:30
  riding a bike like where you know it's up to
• 11:33
  the spokes of the bike up to the centre of the
• 11:37
  wheel and we all stayed literally all of us you
• 11:40
  could tell when that BBC report came out because
• 11:42
  I was with two other Brits and we all started
• 11:44
  getting text messages at the same time more or
• 11:47
  less and we were like It's actually dry outside.
• 11:50
  It had lashed it down all day. And you did, it's
• 11:54
  funny, when you're with people who live there
• 11:56
  and are used to it, because they get 25 typhoons
• 11:58
  a year or whatever. I remember saying to someone,
• 12:02
  we were going into a bar and it was downstairs.
• 12:06
  It was a basement bar. And we'd had a text message
• 12:09
  saying, in case of flood water, do not avoid
• 12:12
  basements. And I was like, are you sure we can
• 12:14
  go in here? And this person who lives there is
• 12:16
  like, ah, it's fine. And they were right, of
• 12:19
  course, we did not get anywhere near that mountain
• 12:20
  range. They were saying, you know, if you're
• 12:22
  out by the water, it's a problem. Which is, to
• 12:27
  be fair, why they cancelled the show, because
• 12:28
  the show is right out by the airport, right getting
• 12:31
  close to the sea. And apparently someone who
• 12:35
  was an exhibitor there, someone whose company
• 12:38
  was an exhibitor there, did say to me that like
• 12:40
  part of the show floor was like, you know, in
• 12:43
  water, not underwater, but like, you know, inches
• 12:47
  of water. So it was good that they closed it
• 12:50
  on the Monday. But it just threw the whole thing
• 12:52
  into a bit of chaos, for sure. I have to say
• 12:56
  that from here, it was kind of strange because
• 12:59
  obviously I knew Tokyo Game Show was happening.
• 13:01
  But if you check social media, you wouldn't know.
• 13:04
  I genuinely don't think I knew about the Xbox
• 13:07
  TGS stream until after it happened. And there
• 13:10
  was just a couple of announcements people were
• 13:12
  talking about. It's strange, and we mentioned
• 13:17
  earlier that once upon a time, Gamescom was a
• 13:19
  really low -key one. If you weren't there, you
• 13:21
  didn't know. But now it feels like, now that
• 13:24
  E3's gone, Gamescom rose in importance, and Summer
• 13:28
  Games Fest is the one that's lagging behind.
• 13:31
  I don't know, I think SGF is pretty big. I think
• 13:34
  TGS is a funny one because, don't get me wrong,
• 13:37
  I went to TGS in the truly... dog shit years
• 13:43
  when the japanese market was like collapsing
• 13:45
  um and you know and the show as a result was
• 13:50
  also collapsing and it was all mobile games and
• 13:53
  you know all weird little companies you've never
• 13:55
  heard of before um and it is a million times
• 14:00
  it's bounced back so brilliantly from men however
• 14:03
  this is still a show that is for a it's very
• 14:06
  much aimed at a smaller market as in the japanese
• 14:08
  market and also The main driver of that market,
• 14:13
  Nintendo, doesn't go. I mean, it doesn't stop
• 14:16
  it being over a quarter of a million people went.
• 14:19
  So it was a big show. That puts it up there with
• 14:22
  Gamescom in terms of the size. But it definitely
• 14:25
  has dropped down the pecking order a bit. And
• 14:28
  one of the questions I fielded the most during
• 14:30
  the show was people kept saying to me, are you
• 14:32
  going to Gamescom Asia? Which I'm not because
• 14:36
  I want to stay married. But that also shows,
• 14:41
  because Gamescom Asia is a show that nobody gave
• 14:46
  a damn about a few years ago. But they've made
• 14:49
  some canny moves just in terms of how they are
• 14:52
  pitching that. They also moved it to Bangkok,
• 14:56
  which I think has made it much more popular because
• 14:57
  I think, I always used to say this about E3,
• 15:00
  when E3 was struggling, I was like, I made this
• 15:02
  argument to many people. I made this argument
• 15:04
  internally when Gaming Network was at ReadPop.
• 15:08
  Is this the Vegas thing? Yeah, and I used to
• 15:11
  say... You always want to go to Vegas. You'd
• 15:13
  want every event in Vegas. Well, maybe, yes.
• 15:15
  But my whole argument was always, if you put
• 15:18
  a show somewhere where people want to go, where
• 15:21
  it's a bit of a jolly, they're more likely to
• 15:25
  go. And DTLA is pretty miserable. Like Gamescom,
• 15:30
  part of the reason Gamescom is popular is because
• 15:32
  Cologne is a fun city. You know, it's a fun place
• 15:38
  to eat and party and stuff like that. And Gamescom
• 15:41
  Asia, when it was in Singapore, struggled, I
• 15:46
  think. And everyone, it moved to Thailand and
• 15:49
  to Bangkok last year. And everyone's now like,
• 15:52
  oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, you've got to
• 15:53
  go, you've got to go. It's the best, it's the
• 15:55
  best. And immediately the people saying that,
• 15:56
  they're saying, yeah, there's some decent business
• 15:58
  there, but. And so, you know, I always just say,
• 16:03
  if you put it, you know, you put it in Vegas,
• 16:05
  E3 would have survived, I think. At least with
• 16:07
  the business element. I think the whole thing
• 16:09
  when they were trying to open the show up, that's
• 16:10
  not as compatible with Vegas. But hey -ho. We'll
• 16:14
  see if the ESA do Icon again, which was their
• 16:17
  highly exclusive, very small show in Vegas. But
• 16:21
  I don't think that's going to be happening again,
• 16:24
  if I'm honest. Anyway, I will say... For the
• 16:28
  Xbox discussion of Xbox layoffs, I mean, since
• 16:32
  we just brought it up earlier, I mean, do you
• 16:33
  guys have any particular comment on that? If
• 16:36
  people have been following the podcast feed,
• 16:38
  there is a special edition of this podcast that
• 16:41
  is out by the time you guys hear this, which
• 16:44
  is myself getting just the lowdown on the business
• 16:47
  side from the games businesses, Christopher Dring.
• 16:50
  But what did you guys make of... We talked about
• 16:53
  they had Kojima and then at the very end of TGS,
• 16:56
  this bombshell dropped. What did you guys make
• 16:58
  of that? I think we mostly expected it because
• 17:05
  obviously earlier in the year, Microsoft said
• 17:07
  that their grand reset wasn't entirely complete,
• 17:11
  you know? But also, how do I put this? I feel
• 17:18
  like they've made some... some wise business
• 17:22
  decisions and some awful awful pr decisions um
• 17:29
  for example i hate to say it uh halo's kind of
• 17:34
  been in a weird place for a very very long time
• 17:36
  and i feel like moving it to under activision
• 17:41
  let's just hypothetically uh a halo made by treyarch
• 17:45
  could be very very good I'm just going to throw
• 17:48
  that out there. They're making a new team though,
• 17:51
  aren't they? Yeah, it's going to be a brand new
• 17:52
  team. They could get people across from other
• 17:54
  studios. I mean, I'm assuming it's going to be
• 17:56
  primarily people, formerly Halo Studios for a
• 18:00
  small part, and then people from across like
• 18:03
  the Call of Duty and support studios, you know?
• 18:05
  That's what I'm assuming. And I feel like that
• 18:08
  sort of direction could be very, very good. But
• 18:10
  also then you're like... How long is this going
• 18:15
  to work? Because they've laid off so many people.
• 18:18
  And how long is it sustainable to have these
• 18:25
  studios with a much lower headcount expected
• 18:28
  to make much more money than they were previously?
• 18:32
  I think the Halo thing is like they've announced
• 18:36
  it, but if they've just started building a team,
• 18:38
  that stuff is going to be like, what, four or
• 18:40
  five years away. Minimum. Minimum. But you assume
• 18:43
  also... They must be working on some remakes.
• 18:45
  Yeah, well, you assume also... With external
• 18:47
  partners and stuff, right? Or something as well.
• 18:49
  And you've got to assume this is the investment,
• 18:51
  right? Like, yes, maybe it's three, four years
• 18:53
  away. But the Activision way is once they've
• 18:55
  built that pipeline, they will make those games
• 18:57
  every two years. Does it make sense to you to,
• 19:00
  like, use Activision's God team who, like...
• 19:03
  can release a new COD like they have multiple
• 19:05
  teams doing that and COD regardless of how bad
• 19:07
  but they're not using the COD team they're building
• 19:09
  a new team I know that but like they're probably
• 19:12
  going to have some tech help or something but
• 19:14
  at that point like does it make sense to use
• 19:16
  Activision resources to make a big Halo game
• 19:19
  sometimes it's just about management like the
• 19:21
  point that Dring made to me in that podcast is
• 19:24
  he was like the thing about that Activision publishing
• 19:26
  team is they deliver games on time and on budget
• 19:30
  and they tend to do pretty well You know, they've
• 19:33
  had a couple of missteps with COD over the last
• 19:34
  couple of years, but generally speaking, they
• 19:37
  tend to deliver on time, on budget, and good.
• 19:41
  And that is something that Halo Studios, and
• 19:45
  in its previous incarnation as 343, has not been
• 19:48
  able to do. I am excited to see the future of
• 19:52
  Rare making skins for Call of Duty and Halo.
• 19:55
  You know, but this is the other one, right? Like,
• 19:57
  I don't know. I know a little bit about... about
• 20:03
  what they have been working on up until now.
• 20:05
  There's a couple of games. And it'll be interesting
• 20:10
  to see how all that slots in with Activision
• 20:13
  and hopefully both projects continue. But the
• 20:18
  other thing I'd say is, well, I guess what I'd
• 20:21
  say is neither of those projects is a Banjo -Kazooie
• 20:23
  game, right? And for instance, Rare now the pipeline
• 20:29
  being in the same group. that was happy to greenlight
• 20:32
  those Crash and Spyro games makes a lot of sense
• 20:36
  to me. And I actually think, like, with this
• 20:39
  move, for instance, the chance of people who
• 20:40
  like those games getting a new banjo has probably
• 20:43
  risen dramatically. But maybe that now is what
• 20:45
  Toys for Bob ends up doing after they finish
• 20:47
  this Spyro game. So... I don't know. I hope Rare
• 20:53
  survives as it is. I think there are some cuts
• 20:56
  there, but my impression is that it's not to
• 20:59
  game dev sort of stuff. It's more to, you know,
• 21:04
  the support structure, which, of course, those
• 21:08
  are the places where, sadly, the cuts are going
• 21:10
  to come in the hardest because when you consolidate
• 21:12
  like this, you don't, you know, you can use the
• 21:17
  Activision support staff, you know, who, I don't
• 21:19
  know, build the websites or... community manager
• 21:22
  or whatever else. My next question really is
• 21:25
  is Obsidian essentially going to be Bethesda
• 21:29
  support staff now? I think before we get to Obsidian
• 21:34
  I just have a question about the whole Spyro
• 21:37
  thing like you remember when Crash Trilogy happened
• 21:40
  and it sold so much and everyone was happy with
• 21:42
  it and they did the new Crash game and like I
• 21:45
  think a lot of people were happy with it but
• 21:47
  it didn't seem to do well enough for Activision
• 21:49
  even though it like did more than, like, I think
• 21:51
  most non -Mario platformers. And now we've not
• 21:55
  seen anything for Crash since, like, you had
• 21:57
  that dogshit Crash Rumble, whatever, which is
• 21:59
  dead. You had, like, a mobile game which no one
• 22:02
  plays. What else is happening with Crash right
• 22:04
  now? So do you think that's going to happen with
• 22:06
  Spyro then? Like, they give it a shot and if
• 22:09
  it doesn't sell, like, 20 million, that's it.
• 22:11
  Spyro's a skin in Fortnite or whatever. I think
• 22:15
  the resources are... It's challenging, right?
• 22:18
  Like... And also, I think probably the argument
• 22:22
  for them is they only need to do one of those
• 22:24
  at any given time. And so maybe you do end up
• 22:26
  in a flow where now where you get a Crash game,
• 22:28
  a Spyro game, and then a Banjo game, and maybe
• 22:30
  it just loops like that. I don't know. You know,
• 22:33
  you don't need to have a constant flow of these
• 22:35
  games. I mean, think about how long has it been
• 22:37
  since Mario Odyssey now, since the last new 3D
• 22:39
  Mario, right? So, I don't know. It's fine. It
• 22:51
  is challenging. But we are getting a whole new
• 22:53
  really big AAA Spyro game, right? Which I don't
• 22:56
  think anyone would have predicted that 10 years
• 22:58
  ago. No. Do you think that... There's still more
• 23:04
  cuts to come, right? Sounds a bit... The maths
• 23:08
  based on what they said before, because they
• 23:11
  did say a number before, is that there are only
• 23:13
  about two thirds through. Yeah. So you look around
• 23:16
  and like... it must be really hard working on
• 23:19
  a game that is close to being released at the
• 23:22
  moment because you think you must be thinking
• 23:24
  as soon as this ships like this happened already
• 23:28
  with with the coalition right and there was talk
• 23:30
  of someone losing their job like the literally
• 23:33
  like as soon as it went gold kind of thing it's
• 23:35
  like oh it's well unfortunately you look at it
• 23:37
  and all the teams that have games to launch in
• 23:40
  the relative near future they have not touched
• 23:43
  so they have not moved because i thought for
• 23:45
  instance I was surprised that InXile didn't also
• 23:49
  go under Bethesda at the same time as Obsidian.
• 23:53
  But my guess is that Microsoft don't want to
• 23:57
  upset whatever the marketing plan is for Clockwork
• 23:59
  Revolution that's been built. And probably Bethesda
• 24:03
  doesn't want to inherit a marketing plan and
• 24:05
  have to retrofit it to how they do things. So
• 24:08
  you leave Clockwork Rev where it is. You leave
• 24:11
  the coalition where they are until Gears of Ships
• 24:13
  and you've done your post -launch stuff. And
• 24:15
  Playground also. you leave them. My question
• 24:19
  is, I guess, is I don't know, is their goal to
• 24:23
  not have Xbox game studios at the end of this
• 24:25
  process where they will file everyone who's under
• 24:29
  XGS into one of the bigger pots they've got?
• 24:33
  That seems to be the look of the move to me.
• 24:38
  Who's left under Xbox now? Playground. Playground
• 24:42
  in exile. The bit of XGS that contains... I don't
• 24:55
  even know if they've got a name, but the bit
• 24:56
  that sort of... For instance, Flight Sim is made
• 25:00
  by Asobi, which is a third party. But there's
• 25:04
  obviously a bit of Microsoft that sort of produces
• 25:06
  the game through them. So all that is XGS. But
• 25:10
  no, I mean, yeah. Technically, at this point,
• 25:14
  the big names is The Coalition, Halo, InXile,
• 25:18
  Ninja Theory, Playground, Turn 10. And Turn 10
• 25:24
  are now part of Playground, essentially, right?
• 25:26
  Yeah, and Halo's days are numbered. Yeah, Halo
• 25:30
  is now going to be a support team for legacy
• 25:33
  titles. So it sounds like they will do updates,
• 25:36
  they will keep stuff running, you know. And I
• 25:40
  imagine... Because they've got to basically try
• 25:43
  and keep the Halo IP alive, right? If it's going
• 25:45
  to take three or four years to stand up a new
• 25:47
  one. So that'll be their job. And then I imagine
• 25:51
  once the new Halo ships, they'll be absorbed
• 25:53
  into what exists. Sorry, I was just going to
• 25:59
  say, to be fair, it's not that unusual to go
• 26:01
  like three or four years without Halo. like even
• 26:04
  with a dedicated halo studio it's not unusual
• 26:06
  to not see halo for half a decade well i wonder
• 26:09
  when you say support team for legacy titles for
• 26:11
  instance it's like does that manifest as um as
• 26:16
  they do halo 2 and halo 3 evolved or whatever
• 26:20
  you're gonna whatever you want to call them as
• 26:23
  you know remakes as you do in the main i could
• 26:26
  see that but it depends on how many people they've
• 26:28
  laid off ninja fairy of course is going to close
• 26:31
  um obviously unless someone sweeps in um two
• 26:35
  separate deals fell through for that it just
• 26:37
  sounds like they're too expensive um they had
• 26:40
  a load of tech there didn't they that they bit
• 26:42
  all the stuff for all the motion catch and everything
• 26:44
  as well like it felt like someone would have
• 26:47
  wanted that but well i i know two names of companies
• 26:52
  that did want it but i think it just ended up
• 26:54
  being too expensive it's a shame because honestly
• 26:57
  would have been a great support studio for kojima
• 27:02
  yeah but i don't know but kojima likes to be
• 27:04
  so have so much granular control i don't know
• 27:06
  that he'd want to do that anyway um yeah it's
• 27:11
  it's a very interesting um development interested
• 27:17
  to see me not interesting for the people working
• 27:19
  there obviously because it must be awful but
• 27:21
  gears is out what next week um and it's like
• 27:27
  like is there any number that this could do in
• 27:30
  terms of performance that would stop people losing
• 27:33
  their jobs or is that it is it like it doesn't
• 27:35
  matter at this point it's just stuff's gonna
• 27:37
  happen um i don't know like it feels like this
• 27:41
  is the of all the studios they've had i felt
• 27:43
  like they're the one that could produce something
• 27:46
  stands up to like if you're looking at like what
• 27:50
  sonia's done first party coalition and i guess
• 27:53
  uh playground of the two that have been the most
• 27:56
  likely um but today it feels like it's a doesn't
• 28:00
  matter what happens that it's gonna be bad news
• 28:02
  probably for some people obviously i guess it's
• 28:06
  uh it's not a great time fire someone who was
• 28:10
  just promoted last week i was reading there was
• 28:12
  stuff there was there was stories around that
• 28:14
  yeah there was one guy who got who got promoted
• 28:16
  and fired in the same week which is it's just
• 28:19
  insane um that feeling of job security immediately
• 28:24
  shattered crazy Yeah, it's pretty terrible. And
• 28:30
  then the way it played out was all once again
• 28:32
  terrible in the sense that, you know, like I
• 28:37
  say, it just began with text messages, you know,
• 28:41
  basically saying shit's going down here tomorrow.
• 28:44
  And then more and more and more and more and
• 28:46
  more over time. But it's not good. None of it's
• 28:53
  good. it just all this feels like a stopgap and
• 28:57
  this is a funny bit it's a funny one because
• 29:00
  um as we sort of touched on earlier as brian
• 29:04
  sort of said the sad thing is a lot of these
• 29:07
  moves make sense um on paper but i also think
• 29:13
  there just isn't much of a plan yeah i do man
• 29:17
  you sort of like if you look back you understand
• 29:20
  why Microsoft was so keen on having Obsidian
• 29:24
  because I remember when The Outer Worlds launched
• 29:27
  on Game Pass day one, that pushed so many people
• 29:31
  I know to get Game Pass, if not for one month,
• 29:34
  then maybe for a little while to try out that
• 29:35
  game specifically. But that effect it had stopped
• 29:41
  working with Game Pass because so many games
• 29:43
  came day one to Game Pass, but it also raised
• 29:45
  in price and people stopped. stop thinking oh
• 29:48
  yeah i'll jump on because of this new game release
• 29:50
  uh it seemed like the outer worlds 2 and avowed
• 29:55
  had to struggle to figure the name then i feel
• 29:57
  like they just underperformed and unfortunately
• 29:58
  i think gamecast is a large part of that like
• 30:00
  maybe those games would have had sales and possibly
• 30:03
  money if they were on sale The thing about Game
• 30:07
  Pass is it's always felt like you can afford
• 30:10
  to do that because you have Steam coming out
• 30:12
  where people are going to buy it at full price.
• 30:14
  Because for a long time, they didn't actually
• 30:16
  sell Steam codes on third -party stores. So like
• 30:19
  if you wanted Flight Simulator, the new one or
• 30:22
  the old one, you had to buy it directly on Steam.
• 30:24
  There was no discounts or key sites. All the
• 30:26
  key sites had Xbox codes. They finally started
• 30:29
  doing Steam keys like I believe a few months
• 30:31
  ago or earlier this year. like i was chatting
• 30:34
  with warrior 64 about that because like i was
• 30:36
  like did this was this available on steam on
• 30:38
  like gmg or whatever and it was new so or they
• 30:42
  have moved to that but the thing with avowed
• 30:44
  and outer worlds 2 is what a lot of people didn't
• 30:46
  realize is they raise the price of those games
• 30:49
  in general and in all all parts of the world
• 30:52
  so like I think when I looked at it, stuff like
• 30:55
  Ninja Gaiden 4 or even Outer Worlds 2, they were
• 30:58
  almost double the price of what the previous
• 31:00
  games cost over here. Now, obviously, that won't
• 31:02
  matter to like the US, but then even in the UK,
• 31:05
  I believe, I think some of them went up by like
• 31:07
  15 or 20 quid digitally. And when you don't have
• 31:09
  key sites or discounts, like people are just
• 31:11
  used to it. Like, why would anyone buy Control
• 31:13
  Resonant on Steam at full price when you, I know
• 31:17
  what you're thinking, on Steam at full price
• 31:19
  when you can just get it for like 10 bucks off
• 31:22
  straight up. as a pre -order on gmg so a lot
• 31:25
  of factors played into those with forza i think
• 31:28
  they can rely on steam so they were fine on that
• 31:31
  front but if you can't get your steam sales who's
• 31:34
  buying your game then like because you don't
• 31:37
  hear much right on it's also though that's a
• 31:39
  very hardcore way of looking at it right because
• 31:41
  there's also the element of just this is something
• 31:45
  that was said to me and it resonated with me
• 31:46
  once it was said to me i was like yeah that is
• 31:48
  obvious which is that I think they overestimated
• 31:51
  how much time people have and how many games
• 31:53
  people play. And if you're a real hardcore gamer
• 31:56
  and you play a lot of games, then Game Pass is
• 31:58
  a very attractive proposition. But if you're
• 32:01
  more casual and maybe you buy two or three games
• 32:03
  a year, even if it costs you slightly more to
• 32:07
  buy those two or three games a year, at least
• 32:11
  then you definitely get the games that you want
• 32:13
  and you've got no commitment around it as well.
• 32:18
  So like if you're someone who buys two or three
• 32:20
  games a year and you want GTA and Call of Duty
• 32:23
  and Gears, and let's say for now that Call of
• 32:27
  Duty is also still in Game Pass, you could subscribe
• 32:30
  to the TV or you can, I think, yeah, I think
• 32:33
  a lot of people just ended up passing it by.
• 32:36
  And I just think the growth couldn't be there
• 32:38
  because it basically, to really work, this needed
• 32:41
  absolutely ridiculous growth. And it grew really
• 32:43
  quickly for a very short period of time. the
• 32:46
  growth absolutely stalled out because I think
• 32:48
  it only truly worked for a certain segment of
• 32:51
  hardcore gamers. I think in the future, a service
• 32:54
  like this could work better in tandem with streaming,
• 32:57
  but we're not yet there yet on streaming. And
• 32:59
  yes, I do think it hurts studios like Obsidian.
• 33:01
  And also Obsidian has been a victim of Microsoft's
• 33:05
  acquisition strategy anyway, in the sense that
• 33:08
  Obsidian was bought obviously in a world when
• 33:10
  Microsoft didn't own Bethesda. And in that point,
• 33:14
  Obsidian provided a really unique USP. We've
• 33:17
  got the guys who made, you know, a really, really
• 33:19
  great Fallout game. And then, oh, we've got the
• 33:23
  guys who actually made Fallout now. Wow. You
• 33:26
  know, and the story of that can be traced in
• 33:29
  the story of Avowed, which took many forms over
• 33:32
  the years from a much larger, more Elder Scrolls
• 33:35
  -y game to a multiplayer thing. And then to what
• 33:39
  we finally got. So, and some of those changes
• 33:44
  were precipitated, well, all those changes were
• 33:46
  precipitated by the mood within Xbox. But obviously
• 33:49
  the mood towards Obsidian shifted most keenly
• 33:52
  when the Bethesda deal closed. And I don't think
• 33:55
  they're going to be a Bethesda support studio
• 33:57
  as such, but it's obvious that they are going
• 34:00
  to be working predominantly on Bethesda IP going
• 34:03
  forward. But that's because those Bethesda games
• 34:05
  take eight, nine years to make, and they need...
• 34:09
  But really, realistically, if Elder Scrolls 6
• 34:12
  is still another two years away, we can't wait
• 34:16
  all that time for a new Fallout. But what you
• 34:19
  can do now is have a third -party studio, Virtuous,
• 34:23
  whoever, remaster Fallout 3 and New Vegas. And
• 34:27
  what you can do is give Obsidian the Fallout
• 34:31
  4 slash 76 engine and go, can you do us a stopgap
• 34:37
  game, please? And that might mean that you might
• 34:40
  get Elder Scrolls in 2028 and then a new Fallout
• 34:43
  in 2030. And then maybe after shipping a Fallout,
• 34:46
  Bethesda goes on to do something, do the same
• 34:49
  for Elder Scrolls or even maybe the same for
• 34:51
  Starfield. Although I think in the Microsoft
• 34:54
  ecosystem now, you won't get another Starfield
• 34:57
  game. 2028 is optimistic, isn't it? Who knows?
• 35:00
  I mean, they've been building it for ages already,
• 35:02
  right? I mean, I don't know. I want to be absolutely
• 35:04
  clear to people. I genuinely do not know anything
• 35:06
  about... The Elder Scrolls. This is like when
• 35:10
  Kirk announced the release date of Dustbloods,
• 35:12
  isn't it? It's exactly the same as when Kirk
• 35:14
  just announced it. Well, that was a Guardian
• 35:15
  exclusive. Yeah. And you've just announced the
• 35:18
  release date for The Elder Scrolls. 2028 confirmed.
• 35:23
  Subscribe to Respec. Anyway, that's TGS on Xbox.
• 35:28
  If you want a deeper dive into the Xbox stuff,
• 35:31
  there's like a full 30 -40 minute conversation
• 35:33
  with me and Dring where Dring really lays out
• 35:35
  the business. case for what they're doing for
• 35:38
  good and for real um now what's on this list
• 35:41
  because i've been away there's control resonant
• 35:43
  on this list who wants to talk about control
• 35:45
  resonant oh hater there's one hater in the room
• 35:48
  oh the pretentious hater oh yeah i want to talk
• 35:53
  about control resonant um i don't like the game
• 35:58
  very much uh to be clear I think visually it's
• 36:02
  fantastic, atmospherically very interesting.
• 36:07
  It is, however, an action game with poor action
• 36:10
  combat. It also has Metroidvania influences and
• 36:16
  exploring and navigating the world. Also very
• 36:19
  poor. Very, very poor. I think it's below par
• 36:25
  on most of the genre staples it's trying to hit.
• 36:28
  I think it manages to hit some decent emotional
• 36:30
  moments with its characters and storyline. Other
• 36:34
  than that, kind of shocked. Kind of shocked from
• 36:39
  Remedy. And this is coming from someone who has
• 36:41
  played Control, thought it was decent enough.
• 36:43
  Played Alan Wake Remastered. You know, considering
• 36:46
  when it was made, it was okay. Played Alan Wake
• 36:51
  2. Loved it. Incredible. Fantastic game. Recommend
• 36:54
  it to everyone. uh fbc firebreak played that
• 36:57
  too that was a shame and control resonant unfortunately
• 37:00
  goes in the that was a shame category any questions
• 37:05
  how long do you play this for it's quite long
• 37:08
  isn't it this is the thing it's actually uh not
• 37:11
  so long if you use the assist modes which the
• 37:14
  review guide handily recommends really yeah uh
• 37:17
  if you throw on the assist modes i spent about
• 37:19
  18 hours on it I did mainline the main quest,
• 37:25
  but also I probably wasted at least an hour or
• 37:28
  so getting lost. Do you feel like, so this is
• 37:31
  an interesting question, because it speaks to
• 37:33
  review. This is always funny with review guides.
• 37:36
  So you get a review guide that encourages you
• 37:38
  to turn the assist modes on, but do you not worry
• 37:40
  that using the assist mode diminishes the combat
• 37:44
  to the point where it's made you feel worse about
• 37:45
  the combat? 100%. But this is the thing. So I
• 37:51
  actually, after playing it, I spoke to someone
• 37:53
  else who got the game literally just the other
• 37:55
  day and I said to him, I'm not saying don't use
• 37:57
  the assist mode. I'm saying play the game for
• 38:00
  as long as you can before you touch them because
• 38:03
  that's what I did. I think I got two of the resonant
• 38:06
  fights in. I think there's four or five resonant
• 38:08
  fights in the game. I got like two of the fights
• 38:10
  in and I was just not enjoying it at all. Let
• 38:16
  me break it down again. This is all assuming
• 38:20
  you're on default mode. No, no, no assists turned
• 38:22
  on. Okay, first of all, every smaller enemy infinitely
• 38:26
  respawns. So in every combat encounter, you got
• 38:30
  like maybe like five or six small guys running
• 38:33
  around and they'll throw rocks at you. And it's
• 38:35
  really annoying because if you get hit, your
• 38:37
  combo ends, you get opened up. And then you got
• 38:40
  the larger enemies. I'd say there's probably
• 38:43
  about four or five of these which continually
• 38:46
  pop up across the game. There's a guy with big
• 38:49
  pointy arms who stabs at you. There's a weird
• 38:51
  floating flower thing that lasers you. There
• 38:54
  is a bus. I fucking hate the bus. And then there
• 38:58
  was like some monstrosity with a big head on
• 39:00
  two legs. And that's before the later hedron
• 39:03
  enemies get introduced, which I would argue are
• 39:05
  worse. It's incredibly frustrating because basically
• 39:09
  at all moments you're going to have projectiles
• 39:12
  being thrown at you. You've got dodge, dodge,
• 39:13
  dodge, dodge, dodge, because all these projectiles
• 39:15
  are constantly coming in. Luckily, it does have
• 39:18
  a character action game staple, whereas if you're
• 39:21
  like two moves into your combo, then you dodge,
• 39:23
  you continue that combo. You don't restart from
• 39:25
  the beginning. That's a good thing. Unfortunately,
• 39:28
  the combos aren't good or interesting. There
• 39:30
  is essentially one combo where you mash. the
• 39:33
  the x or square button on your controller you
• 39:36
  just mash that and then there is a secondary
• 39:38
  attack which you get an ability to link them
• 39:41
  together initially they don't actually combo
• 39:43
  into one another very efficiently which is just
• 39:45
  it's just not very good so you have a primary
• 39:48
  and a secondary weapon there are several forms
• 39:50
  which have different speeds and different ranges
• 39:52
  to attack different types of enemies it all essentially
• 39:55
  adds up to mashing the one button until things
• 39:58
  happen you do also have a suite of abilities
• 40:00
  the abilities can do falter damage which is like
• 40:03
  a stamina meter and when that goes to the end
• 40:05
  you just get a button which kills them um there's
• 40:09
  no way for me to really explain how tedious i
• 40:15
  found this after like five hours especially when
• 40:18
  it comes to the floating the floating flower
• 40:19
  enemies that laser you out of nowhere You just
• 40:22
  have no real choice but to take cover. It takes
• 40:25
  too long to charge up your abilities to use them
• 40:27
  effectively. Combat feels constantly stop -start
• 40:31
  in a way I don't like. And I think it really
• 40:34
  all sank in in a relatively early miniboss fight
• 40:37
  where you're in like a sewer, big cavern ting.
• 40:42
  And there is like one floating named enemy of
• 40:45
  a big health bar. And I had to like... do my
• 40:47
  double jump and and combo and when you when you
• 40:50
  double jump and combo you float in the air for
• 40:51
  a little while before you start sinking down
• 40:53
  then you need to like run up a flight of stairs
• 40:56
  and jump over to him and do the combo and all
• 40:59
  the while there's those six smaller enemies throw
• 41:01
  in the rocks at you and projectiles and i just
• 41:04
  had to keep like run jump attack run back up
• 41:07
  jump attack and i was like man this is awful
• 41:11
  it this it is It is the worst combat system I've
• 41:16
  had to encounter in 2026. It's funny that they've
• 41:18
  had a game that had a worse combat system than
• 41:21
  Wolverine, and Wolverine has just come out, and
• 41:23
  that was quite basic. I don't want to get into
• 41:26
  ripping on other people that have reviewed this,
• 41:29
  but I've seen a few people say this is maybe
• 41:32
  the game of the year, right? It's an interesting
• 41:35
  review. Everyone has their own thoughts on stuff,
• 41:42
  but how... Can you see how people might think
• 41:46
  it's a game of the year somehow? How does that...
• 41:50
  Can you see, like, what other people have seen
• 41:53
  that you haven't? How is that a thing that has
• 41:55
  happened? I know one person really empathised
• 42:02
  with the protagonist, Dylan. They really empathised
• 42:05
  with his backstory. I won't spoil it, but there
• 42:08
  was a... a remedy level near the end of the game
• 42:11
  which is different to all the other levels that
• 42:13
  that's that's something they usually do there
• 42:15
  is a remedy level i understand what's referencing
• 42:17
  i appreciated it and hell if they if they made
• 42:20
  the level like the rest of the game then it probably
• 42:22
  would have been really really expensive for a
• 42:24
  short set piece so i understand why they've done
• 42:26
  what they've done um and i understand why some
• 42:29
  people might empathize heavily with that protagonist
• 42:32
  i understand why he is the way he is but the
• 42:37
  getting the reasoning behind it didn't justify
• 42:39
  having to deal with like 15 or so hours of not
• 42:43
  liking him um i also think i will say that like
• 42:48
  the city again visually it's not just like oh
• 42:50
  this game has really good ray tracing and stuff
• 42:52
  uh it's the art direction which is really really
• 42:55
  stand out the way the the city you're walking
• 42:58
  along a standard city street and then just suddenly
• 43:01
  the the the road comes up in front of you and
• 43:04
  you can see like a bus bent over the ridge it's
• 43:07
  like morphed across um and like the art direction
• 43:10
  of it it's really it's really enthralling like
• 43:14
  i'm not gonna lie to you it's really fascinating
• 43:16
  what they're doing here but again i personally
• 43:19
  i hit that oh but that makes it worse to navigate
• 43:23
  and i can't get over that personally i i do i
• 43:26
  definitely have weirder values i think than most
• 43:28
  reviewers where it's like I look at a game and
• 43:31
  I kind of zoom out and I'm like, if it's not
• 43:32
  in service of the fun stuff, what are we doing
• 43:36
  here? You know? I don't like navigating the patterned
• 43:43
  Manhattan. And I think I saw someone else say
• 43:46
  exactly the same thing where it's like, the abstract
• 43:49
  nature of the map design makes it fascinating
• 43:51
  to look at, but to explore, it is just... It
• 43:56
  is just... Needed the Wolverine lines that everyone
• 43:58
  hates. Yeah. yeah which weren't even that bad
• 44:01
  they're not even a problem yeah and i think there
• 44:03
  are like some some game design choices which
• 44:07
  are incongruous here it's like okay so it has
• 44:09
  some open worldy elements where it's like you
• 44:12
  click on your side quest or your your resonant
• 44:14
  target or what have you and it'll give you like
• 44:16
  the icon on your map saying it's in this area
• 44:19
  of the map and you'll head over there but um
• 44:23
  i was trying to do some of those but i didn't
• 44:24
  realize the faults which are under the main story
• 44:27
  quests but i was like okay that's progress the
• 44:29
  faults actually give you your traversal abilities
• 44:32
  say like a you know like a metroid double jump
• 44:34
  star thing uh and it's like so i'm running up
• 44:38
  against this thing where it's like i can see
• 44:40
  my map marker is behind this wall and there is
• 44:43
  absolutely no indication that i was supposed
• 44:45
  to go the other side of the map to do a fault
• 44:47
  to get traversal ability to get into it and it's
• 44:49
  like there's no other metroidvania game that
• 44:52
  does it quite like this where it's like map marker
• 44:54
  cursor right here you need to go here but doesn't
• 44:57
  tell you you actually need to go other side of
• 44:59
  the map first it's it's really strange it's it
• 45:03
  just doesn't it doesn't it feels like genre meshes
• 45:07
  that just don't blend together i don't really
• 45:09
  know how else to put it but i do for one if you
• 45:13
  haven't finished the game uh I could see why
• 45:17
  you'd be less tired of this. I'm just saying
• 45:18
  some of you don't play loads of the game. Let's
• 45:21
  say they did. I do think the final area, some
• 45:24
  people made a really big deal about how visually
• 45:26
  impressive it is again. I won't spoil it for
• 45:28
  the people that are interested in it, but I just
• 45:31
  thought it was okay. And you navigate it in a
• 45:35
  unique way. I thought that navigation method
• 45:38
  was more awkward than it was worth. Is it nose
• 45:42
  controls? Is it the classic I'm playing with
• 45:45
  my nose and that's why I've lost at FIFA? No.
• 45:47
  Is that the... No. Trust me, it does that. Yeah,
• 45:50
  no. I couldn't possibly. There used to be a Street
• 45:53
  Fighter player who used to play with his mouth
• 45:54
  and his nose because he was disabled and he was
• 45:57
  amazing. Yeah, Broly legs. Yeah. Shout out Broly.
• 46:00
  We used to talk from time to time. Rest in peace.
• 46:04
  Yeah, no. I don't... I guess I don't fully understand
• 46:08
  what other reviewers are seeing in Control Resonant.
• 46:10
  I kind of wish I did. It's been... There's been
• 46:13
  some weird things. Like I say, I looked at other
• 46:16
  reviews after the embargo, after everything had
• 46:19
  been published, and there was some times where
• 46:21
  it's like, okay, you don't think the navigation's
• 46:25
  that good and you don't think the combat's that
• 46:27
  good and you don't think this is that good, but
• 46:29
  however, it's a strong recommend, 8 out of 10.
• 46:32
  I just don't understand what's going on with
• 46:34
  those people. I will say that the flip side is
• 46:36
  Hayes on RPG, so we had the full gamut of this
• 46:40
  company of reviews because he loved it. So it
• 46:44
  was interesting actually reading both yours back
• 46:46
  to back. I was like, damn. He won't appear on
• 46:48
  a podcast with Brains. He said he will not talk
• 46:50
  to him. Brains will try and Brains will physically
• 46:53
  attack him if they're in the same room now. Yeah,
• 46:57
  I'll start growling. Yeah, it happens. But yeah,
• 47:02
  no, I guess I do understand why people like it,
• 47:06
  but it doesn't have the aspects of the genres
• 47:10
  that... it doesn't have the aspects of those
• 47:12
  genres that i enjoy that that it purports to
• 47:14
  have in my opinion i think if it did and i was
• 47:19
  trying to explain this to someone the other day
• 47:20
  uh there are there devil may cry style combat
• 47:23
  there's loads of imitators and and i was thinking
• 47:25
  recently our final fantasy 16 that is an imitator
• 47:28
  of devil devil may cry that missed a few key
• 47:30
  tricks especially when trying to blend it with
• 47:33
  final fantasy like the the range projectile turning
• 47:36
  into like an elemental burst but also there was
• 47:38
  no elemental effects whatsoever in the game It
• 47:41
  didn't matter if you use fire or ice or electricity
• 47:42
  in your range projectile attacks. It didn't matter.
• 47:45
  It was essentially a gun for Dante, but you're
• 47:46
  Clive, you know? And I've looked at other games
• 47:50
  like that, and I'm like, there are some games
• 47:51
  that have looked at DMC combat and they've not
• 47:53
  quite understood it or they've tried to implement
• 47:55
  it in slightly the wrong way. It's not quite
• 47:57
  there. In Control, I just, I feel like it's just
• 48:01
  a failure. I mean, because like, even though
• 48:04
  I look at like Final Fantasy XVI again. Even
• 48:06
  though I'm like, this isn't as good, I'm still
• 48:08
  like, there's plenty to enjoy here. There's plenty
• 48:09
  of flexibility. In Resonant, I don't see that.
• 48:13
  And it really is like one auto combo you mash
• 48:17
  out. Like in other action games, I mentioned
• 48:20
  this in the review, there are like staggered
• 48:21
  button presses where it's like, yeah, you can
• 48:23
  press A, A, A, A, A, but you can press A, gap,
• 48:26
  A, and that will result in a different attack.
• 48:29
  I tried to execute that sort of stuff with Control
• 48:32
  Resonant and there's just not those options.
• 48:34
  They don't exist. Oh, there you go. It's a strong
• 48:38
  not recommend from Brains. You can read our review
• 48:40
  on respect .net and you can read Hayes' on RPG
• 48:45
  .net if you want a very different opinion. We've
• 48:50
  also got Fire Emblem on this list. Now, I haven't
• 48:52
  had time to play this, so I'm hoping you have,
• 48:54
  Mikhail. I think Brains has played like 300 hours.
• 48:58
  Of course you have. Of course you have. Sorry.
• 49:00
  I've played literally like the last week has
• 49:04
  been playing like five or six hours of each thing,
• 49:06
  skipping cut scenes, testing stuff. Okay, move
• 49:08
  on to the next thing. But yeah, Fire Emblem is
• 49:11
  my quote unquote fun game, which I'm going to
• 49:14
  be playing for the next month. But I have played
• 49:15
  a bit of it at least. So we will discuss it.
• 49:18
  I forgot. It's because you're not writing about
• 49:20
  it for us brains that I just like deleted. It's
• 49:23
  been a busy couple of months for me. I'll tell
• 49:25
  you that. There's been a lot of games. There's
• 49:27
  been a lot of games to play. It's been kind of
• 49:28
  a nightmare. What I will say is from my perspective,
• 49:31
  just as someone watching from the outside in
• 49:33
  terms of website stuff and level of user interest,
• 49:37
  this is doing a lot better than Engage. We'll
• 49:40
  see what the sales figures. I did see the week
• 49:42
  one sales figures. When I was out in Japan, I
• 49:46
  saw the document on a laptop screen that I shouldn't
• 49:50
  technically have seen. And it seems like it has
• 49:52
  done all right. But from our metrics, I think
• 49:56
  people are really, really enjoying it. Yeah.
• 49:59
  I think this is great, honestly. Completely opposite
• 50:02
  of Control Resonant. I think this might be one
• 50:06
  of the best Fire Emblem games. I feel like it's
• 50:09
  really, really up there. And honestly, I feel
• 50:11
  like it beats a lot of those classic grid -based
• 50:13
  strategy RPGs. You're going to have to hit me
• 50:18
  with a list of games that are better. It's kind
• 50:19
  of like, I'm struggling. I'm struggling. It's
• 50:22
  really, really good. I think the big question
• 50:26
  is, from my perspective, is how it... up to Three
• 50:30
  Houses. Now, I think, I'm not saying that Three
• 50:33
  Houses is the best in the series, but Three Houses
• 50:35
  is certainly the game that most cut through with
• 50:37
  audiences, right? Yeah, I feel like it was a
• 50:39
  bit of a breakthrough game. It was the next breakthrough
• 50:42
  game after Awakening, you know? Yeah, 100%. It
• 50:45
  helped find a big new audience. I liked Three
• 50:49
  Houses, but I also had my fair share of issues
• 50:51
  with it, especially coming off of past Fire Emblem
• 50:53
  games. Obviously, it was made by Koei Sekima,
• 50:55
  and it felt like... There was some battle system
• 50:58
  adjustments which kind of made it almost like
• 51:00
  a unique style of Fire Emblem in my eyes. It
• 51:02
  was still Fire Emblem, but there's some rules
• 51:05
  and some systems in there which had been changed
• 51:08
  that I didn't particularly love. I will also
• 51:10
  say that I didn't particularly love the school
• 51:12
  setting and I do feel like the school uniforms
• 51:15
  ultimately made the characters have less flair
• 51:19
  because you basically just had... a hairstyle
• 51:21
  and and some personality quirks but sometimes
• 51:24
  you couldn't really get a full grasp of them
• 51:26
  in fortunes weave uh obviously you're in the
• 51:29
  big city of dagsian there's so many recruitable
• 51:31
  characters all with really flamboyant and unique
• 51:34
  designs i also think fire emblem engaged the
• 51:37
  previous game i feel like it went a bit too flamboyant
• 51:39
  in its designs there were obviously uh i think
• 51:41
  the artists did vtubers and you can kind of see
• 51:44
  that some of that has carried over here I feel
• 51:47
  like it's way more tasteful, way more sensible,
• 51:50
  and it's not distracting for me. The one character
• 51:54
  that does look like a VTuber, Fortuna, she is
• 51:56
  also like a very special goddess type. And it's
• 51:59
  like, okay, you're allowed to look ridiculous
• 52:02
  and ostentatious. But the rest of the cast, it's
• 52:06
  far more sensible. The battle system, I think,
• 52:11
  is... Personally, I'm having less issues with
• 52:14
  it than three houses. I don't think it's the
• 52:15
  best firing battle system ever. The clashes especially,
• 52:18
  not great. Those are battles which exclusively
• 52:22
  happen in dungeons and they exist because turn
• 52:26
  -based strategy battles take very long time to
• 52:29
  do. And if you're going to throw like seven or
• 52:31
  eight of them into a dungeon, that would be very
• 52:33
  annoying. So they replaced those with clashes
• 52:35
  and clashes are not a good battle system. but
• 52:39
  they serve a purpose in that it makes you do
• 52:43
  battles, but it doesn't take forever. What's
• 52:45
  a clash? Because I'm not into turn -based combat,
• 52:49
  really. Like, XCOMs are the only thing I've ever
• 52:54
  really enjoyed. What is a clash? How does that
• 52:56
  differ, then? What do you do in a clash? So you've
• 52:58
  got, obviously, your typical grid -based, turn
• 53:00
  -based battles. You know what we're talking about
• 53:02
  there. You take a turn, you select a square,
• 53:04
  you select an attack. In a clash, it's almost
• 53:06
  like a Pokemon battle, but you have five people
• 53:08
  on your team and you literally just select a
• 53:11
  character and an attack and they will perform
• 53:13
  that attack. And the enemy team is just directly
• 53:16
  in front of you. This is kind of simple, almost
• 53:21
  too simple and a little bit boring. And the game
• 53:24
  knows this. Insys knew this and they put on the
• 53:28
  side, here's the auto battle option, but also
• 53:30
  press plus and we will skip this battle entirely.
• 53:35
  You just select the attack. It just attacks the
• 53:37
  opponent and everyone has one big shared health
• 53:40
  bar on the team. They're over pretty fast. They're
• 53:44
  pretty simple. And again, I feel like they just
• 53:46
  serve a purpose. They're not supposed to be any
• 53:50
  part of the meat of the game. Because the dungeons
• 53:53
  are heavily influenced by Shadows of Valencia.
• 53:56
  And Shadows of Valencia, yeah, if you went into
• 53:58
  a dungeon, you got into all the battles, you'd
• 54:00
  be in there for a while. Now they're over pretty
• 54:02
  fast, which is good because there's already a
• 54:05
  decent amount of like extra turn -based battles
• 54:07
  in like the overworld map inside quests. It's
• 54:12
  okay. Clashes are not fantastic, but they exist.
• 54:16
  The rest of the game I think is just... it feels
• 54:19
  like an epic is what i'll say because obviously
• 54:20
  you got your four protagonists going through
• 54:22
  part one which is like the arena arc really really
• 54:24
  interesting loads of like character drama uh
• 54:27
  from each of the four perspectives you get to
• 54:29
  see different angles on all the characters like
• 54:31
  you might not care about them in one playthrough
• 54:33
  the end of a playthrough you're like oh my god
• 54:35
  they have all this depth to them it's really
• 54:36
  really interesting um and then in part two you
• 54:40
  have a war arc where you go to war it's that
• 54:43
  the part two is honestly the probably the most
• 54:45
  simple and least interesting part of the game
• 54:48
  it's very lore relevant but in terms of like
• 54:51
  what you probably would play fire emblem for
• 54:54
  not fascinating and then finally in part three
• 54:56
  you get to bring together all the characters
• 54:58
  from your four various playthroughs of part one
• 55:00
  and part two and they all come together as one
• 55:03
  super army and they can overthrow the the super
• 55:06
  evil um and i will say it just feels like it
• 55:10
  feels like a crazy epic because you if you pick
• 55:12
  any one of the four protagonists you could just
• 55:15
  go part one, part two, part three, straight through
• 55:17
  the game with the one protagonist. And that would
• 55:19
  feel like a massive Fire Emblem game. But then
• 55:23
  you have four protagonists. And then the part
• 55:26
  one story is all very distinct. Just a part one
• 55:29
  story can set you back 30 hours on your first
• 55:31
  run. You will get experience boost, et cetera,
• 55:35
  to speed up subsequent runs, and you'll probably
• 55:37
  spend less time doing side stuff. It's just an
• 55:41
  absurdly meaty game. It kind of feels bottomless
• 55:44
  when you first start playing. You need to be
• 55:47
  able to zoom out and get a full view. Is that
• 55:49
  a problem though? It doesn't feel like a problem.
• 55:51
  I will say there have been plenty of people that
• 55:54
  I've spoken to who didn't know where to start.
• 55:57
  Do I start with one protagonist? Should I take
• 56:00
  it one chapter at a time with each protagonist?
• 56:02
  Because that's also an option. You could play
• 56:04
  through all through playthroughs concurrently.
• 56:06
  do one chapter one chapter one chapter one two
• 56:08
  two fruit you know uh although that's probably
• 56:12
  not the way i'd recommend playing it uh but it's
• 56:15
  kind of it is kind of strange because it does
• 56:16
  feel like you don't know how to approach it and
• 56:19
  you need to i feel like you need to play through
• 56:21
  part one and part two at least once and then
• 56:23
  you're like oh i get it now you know because
• 56:28
  also people thought that it was a game that required
• 56:32
  four unique playthroughs and that's not quite
• 56:35
  the the truth again no it's sort of got this
• 56:38
  doctor who ish thing going on yeah yeah you're
• 56:41
  going back into like different timelines but
• 56:42
  again you're carrying across experience boosts
• 56:44
  from the ones you've already done so yeah it's
• 56:47
  it's really really interesting but really really
• 56:50
  meaty i think if i was gonna make a complaint
• 56:52
  about it other than the clashes it is that it's
• 56:55
  like uh it can feel slightly unfocused just because
• 57:00
  the the cast is spread so thin again If you go
• 57:03
  into a different protagonist playthrough, you'll
• 57:05
  see different sides of characters. You get to
• 57:06
  know them better. And that does reveal those
• 57:09
  stories. But if you just go through like the
• 57:11
  one, there's going to be some characters that
• 57:13
  feel like they are just a character design and
• 57:16
  nothing else. And it's like, I don't know. How
• 57:21
  do you give all those characters a good backstory
• 57:24
  in each playthrough without repeating yourself
• 57:25
  in each playthrough, I guess would be the alternative.
• 57:27
  So maybe this is for the best. yeah i think what
• 57:31
  they've done with the structure is pretty interesting
• 57:33
  because like you said right three houses koei
• 57:36
  tecmo i kind of wrote it off before i found out
• 57:39
  who was writing the story and then at that point
• 57:41
  i was interested but then they made a lot of
• 57:44
  fumbles over there because while they had a good
• 57:46
  character designer i thought the transition to
• 57:49
  3d models didn't work out well and it also was
• 57:51
  like kind of dog shit technically on switch one
• 57:53
  right like yeah Like I was revisiting it when
• 57:56
  I was writing this technical article and I was
• 57:58
  like, wow, how did I play 300 hours of this shit?
• 58:00
  But I did. And I feel like with Engage, Engage
• 58:05
  was like, I love the character models in Engage,
• 58:07
  but what I didn't like about Engage is the, you
• 58:09
  know, the somnial, right? It felt like it was
• 58:11
  a last minute addition because they panicked
• 58:13
  and said, shit, if we don't have social stuff,
• 58:15
  the game isn't going to sell. And I think that
• 58:17
  the game just didn't have the breakout. Like
• 58:20
  it kind of had, like, I don't want to. I kind
• 58:22
  of do this as a shitpost online when I tell people
• 58:24
  Xenoblade 3 didn't do as well as 2, but it kind
• 58:27
  of didn't do. And I feel like Nintendo has this
• 58:30
  issue with their, like when they do two big games
• 58:32
  on the same console, the second one doesn't seem
• 58:34
  to hit the same highs, right? Like, I mean, it
• 58:36
  happened with Breath of the Wild and Tears of
• 58:38
  the Kingdom as well. Tears of the Kingdom, Breath
• 58:40
  of the Wild still like sells more than Tears
• 58:43
  does if you look at their sales and stuff. But
• 58:45
  with Engage, I feel like in doing a more focused
• 58:48
  Fire Emblem made for like veteran fans. they
• 58:51
  didn't end up getting them back because of the
• 58:53
  visual like the aesthetic like some people were
• 58:55
  just turned off by it i like it but some people
• 58:57
  were turned off by it what i didn't like is like
• 58:59
  that somniel thing felt super tacked on in in
• 59:02
  three houses i enjoyed all the social stuff through
• 59:06
  and through in engage it felt like it was wasting
• 59:08
  my time even though i like the maps a lot more
• 59:11
  with with fortunes weave i feel like they've
• 59:14
  taken all the complaints which people had with
• 59:16
  you know like with three houses I don't want
• 59:19
  to play the game thrice so now you can play everything
• 59:21
  in like one long playthrough but then you have
• 59:23
  this issue which is like it's not it doesn't
• 59:25
  feel focused to you but then I feel like how
• 59:28
  do you even balance this as a designer because
• 59:30
  you need to give people flexibility to do what
• 59:32
  they want you need to let them do everything
• 59:34
  in one playthrough but uh i'm with you on the
• 59:37
  character designs i love them in fact i did this
• 59:39
  i like a joke when i was editing the rpg site
• 59:42
  featured articles on top and i was testing something
• 59:45
  i just put all the fire emblem uh like fortunes
• 59:48
  we because adam did like a shitload of work on
• 59:52
  that so i did this thing and everyone i put anatolia's
• 59:55
  photos like screenshots over there because i
• 59:57
  was like doing that as a shit post and in general
• 59:59
  i think it's just a stronger and more focused
• 1:00:02
  game but i wonder how it's gonna do because like
• 1:00:06
  alex knows this right when you have a game which
• 1:00:09
  is heavily like it has romance as a big plot
• 1:00:11
  point like the persona games they have a lot
• 1:00:13
  of sticking power but metaphor it did not have
• 1:00:16
  that because it doesn't have romance so i'm just
• 1:00:18
  wondering how fortune's weave is going to handle
• 1:00:20
  that like is it going to have the same like fan
• 1:00:22
  base as three houses or like what do you think
• 1:00:25
  brains it romance is more of of something that
• 1:00:30
  gets alluded to it's kind of strange because
• 1:00:34
  honestly fortunes weave is like possibly the
• 1:00:38
  horniest fire emblem game uh despite it not being
• 1:00:42
  the one that has you making breeding pairs out
• 1:00:46
  of your warriors to to make new warriors you
• 1:00:49
  know despite the fact that that is not this game
• 1:00:52
  it's still like the characters are very very
• 1:00:54
  flirty my first playthrough was with a leader
• 1:00:57
  i love leader i think she's she's a great character
• 1:01:00
  um but like She is like the bisexual queen. She
• 1:01:06
  loves to tease boys, girls, men. She's off the
• 1:01:10
  chain. And she knows exactly what she's doing.
• 1:01:14
  Like she likes to like put people in her pocket,
• 1:01:17
  you know, get them in the good place to manipulate
• 1:01:20
  them later. Man, I should play it sooner. But
• 1:01:24
  yeah, no, I feel like it's strange because there
• 1:01:26
  is that aspect of it where it's like characters
• 1:01:30
  have libidos. especially soraka again in in later's
• 1:01:34
  path uh but romance takes a back seat for sure
• 1:01:39
  uh it's not a game really with with the s rank
• 1:01:44
  support conversations you know but i think there's
• 1:01:48
  still if you want to say if you want to see how
• 1:01:51
  how that's going to appeal to fans man you don't
• 1:01:54
  need relationships for fans to get excited about
• 1:01:56
  them you know what i mean they will they will
• 1:01:58
  have their their ships their pairings and there
• 1:02:00
  will be artwork i know that i just meant that
• 1:02:03
  because i kind of saw this with metaphor because
• 1:02:05
  a lot of people just wrote that off because one
• 1:02:08
  it like it is persona and everything like i like
• 1:02:11
  it more than the other persona games by a big
• 1:02:13
  margin but it just did not have the staying power
• 1:02:15
  and i feel like romance played a part of that
• 1:02:18
  so i was just wondering how that'll like translate
• 1:02:20
  over here because this is the first big like
• 1:02:23
  this is like at least from my perspective this
• 1:02:26
  is the biggest nintendo game since mario kart
• 1:02:28
  world for me until xenoblade comes out i know
• 1:02:30
  that's not like how the mainstream is gonna view
• 1:02:32
  it but it's like a huge deal like i know everyone's
• 1:02:35
  talking about how it's an expensive game but
• 1:02:38
  like this is like fire emblem three houses was
• 1:02:40
  like three games in one and i have no like when
• 1:02:43
  someone tells me was it should i buy it now or
• 1:02:45
  should i wait for sale i'm like it's the it's
• 1:02:48
  amazing just buy it like don't wait and stuff
• 1:02:50
  so like i'm not one of those people but i just
• 1:02:52
  i'm just curious from that angle like how the
• 1:02:54
  mechanics and how the social elements are gonna
• 1:02:56
  like play into it long term i will i will say
• 1:02:59
  yeah there's one key difference between like
• 1:03:02
  this and like something like persona or metaphor
• 1:03:03
  and it's that your actual protagonist not all
• 1:03:08
  the four protagonists for part one your actual
• 1:03:12
  protagonist your created character you create
• 1:03:15
  when you start the game isn't really present
• 1:03:18
  until part three so like they're not there for
• 1:03:23
  most of the game it kind of feels a little bit
• 1:03:27
  like uh it's not the same it feels a little bit
• 1:03:29
  like metal gear side five where you create a
• 1:03:31
  character beginning of the game and then they
• 1:03:33
  just pop up like near the end of the game and
• 1:03:36
  you're like wait what the fuck i forgot i did
• 1:03:37
  that Do you know what I mean? Yeah. So the fact
• 1:03:42
  that you, your created character, that is, isn't
• 1:03:45
  doing any of the romancing, it feels a bit different,
• 1:03:50
  you know? It feels more like, it feels less like
• 1:03:55
  a social sim like Persona and more almost like
• 1:03:57
  The Sims where you're pairing off characters
• 1:03:59
  you like. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Did
• 1:04:03
  you notice, did you try the mouse controls when
• 1:04:05
  you played it? I haven't tried the mouse controls
• 1:04:07
  even once. okay because yeah i i was kind of
• 1:04:11
  surprised that they added mouse controls because
• 1:04:13
  i don't really think of that for a game like
• 1:04:14
  this because i'm like two console brain but the
• 1:04:17
  hd rumble thing they did in this game is fantastic
• 1:04:19
  like when you're moving the cursor on the grid
• 1:04:21
  if you're in a danger position it vibrates differently
• 1:04:24
  and shit like i love that stuff so i kind of
• 1:04:27
  like that but i'm surprised that how is there
• 1:04:29
  no amiibo support in this like are they going
• 1:04:32
  to add that later like fire emblems like the
• 1:04:34
  biggest quote -unquote scam for them to keep
• 1:04:35
  selling and like giving you random shit when
• 1:04:38
  you scan the amiibo so there's no there's no
• 1:04:40
  amiibo support zero i i literally had a guide
• 1:04:42
  prep i had a guide prep for this because i wanted
• 1:04:45
  to do it like i did for some other games before
• 1:04:47
  i was like fire emblem fortunes we've amiibo
• 1:04:49
  guide and i was like i guess it's not there and
• 1:04:52
  i want i've heard that like obviously no spoilers
• 1:04:55
  but do you think we're gonna get like story dlc
• 1:04:57
  soon I think it's possible. I think there's opportunities
• 1:05:02
  for it. I mean, there's more opportunities for
• 1:05:05
  DLC stuff here than there ever was in Three Houses,
• 1:05:08
  but Three Houses got it. You know? The DLC for
• 1:05:12
  Three Houses turned it into Four Houses and they
• 1:05:14
  just didn't acknowledge it. What the fuck? True.
• 1:05:19
  I will say that we're getting very long, but
• 1:05:21
  I will quickly note, yeah, there's truly... truly
• 1:05:26
  comprehensive guides on rpg site where it's literally
• 1:05:29
  a full walk through everything you need you need
• 1:05:32
  is all there and um if you just go if you just
• 1:05:36
  go to rpg site .net and hit the hit the fire
• 1:05:39
  emblem thing that's on the uh the front page
• 1:05:41
  of the site at the minute you can go through
• 1:05:44
  each and every path, each and every chapter.
• 1:05:46
  And it's got all about, you know, if you don't
• 1:05:48
  want to follow a walkthrough, you just want to
• 1:05:50
  have specific guides to dungeons or paralogs,
• 1:05:53
  which is the story of each of the characters
• 1:05:55
  or character recruitment and stuff like that.
• 1:05:57
  It is all there. Even like maps to some of the
• 1:06:00
  areas that are a bit lost woodsy in their nature.
• 1:06:05
  It is all there. Very, very quickly. I mean,
• 1:06:09
  Tom, I've been away. Can you just tell people
• 1:06:10
  what's on the site? Yeah, we've got a lot of
• 1:06:15
  games out at the moment. So we didn't actually
• 1:06:18
  review Fire Emblem, but we've got the big coverage
• 1:06:22
  on RPG site. We've got Silent Hill Townfall reviewed
• 1:06:26
  by Hayes, which I think we were probably slightly
• 1:06:31
  a bit more down on than some people were. But
• 1:06:34
  still, if you read that, you get a sense that
• 1:06:36
  there's something worth playing here still, even
• 1:06:38
  if it does have issues. You, Alex, wrote about
• 1:06:43
  Fortnite and Kingdom Hearts, which you appear
• 1:06:46
  to have got quite angry about. I don't know,
• 1:06:48
  maybe it was late and you'd had a few drinks
• 1:06:49
  and thought, I don't like this. I've been thinking
• 1:06:51
  about it for days and days and days on end. I
• 1:06:54
  stewed over it. Yeah, so that's on the site.
• 1:06:59
  You can read that if you're someone who maybe
• 1:07:02
  does sort of put us on the odd face when you
• 1:07:05
  see a beloved character holding a machine gun.
• 1:07:10
  bird cage which mikhail wrote about which i'm
• 1:07:14
  pretty sure he's written more about than any
• 1:07:18
  other game ever possibly every time it comes
• 1:07:19
  up he must write about bird cage which mikhail
• 1:07:22
  do you want to explain what that is briefly for
• 1:07:25
  people that are wondering what that is yeah so
• 1:07:27
  uh just some backstory on this uh usually i i
• 1:07:31
  follow a few people who talk about shoot -em
• 1:07:33
  -ups like you know classic arcade games vertical
• 1:07:36
  or horizontal scrolling I got into this early
• 1:07:39
  on with the Switch because when you get into
• 1:07:42
  a region -free console that has a lot of Japanese
• 1:07:44
  exclusives, you start looking at those. And M2,
• 1:07:47
  the best porting house in the world, they have
• 1:07:50
  done so many boutique shmups and they also did
• 1:07:53
  these Sega Ages things if you played them. So
• 1:07:56
  they have a lot of these collections that I just
• 1:07:58
  thought were too expensive and at some point
• 1:08:00
  I got over that hump in my head and I started
• 1:08:02
  buying these. I think it's like 50 quid for like
• 1:08:05
  essentially what people call three ROMs or something
• 1:08:07
  like that. So you really have to want to play
• 1:08:09
  these and play them with arcade perfect emulation
• 1:08:12
  and stuff. So this was like my gateway into shmups.
• 1:08:15
  And that's like discovering a whole genre which
• 1:08:18
  you've like not played since you were a kid.
• 1:08:20
  So I started playing loads of these. Some of
• 1:08:23
  them are really good on Steam. Like you have
• 1:08:24
  these indies like Blue Revolver, Zero Ranger
• 1:08:27
  and stuff. They do creative things by like...
• 1:08:29
  getting inspired by classic shmups and adding
• 1:08:32
  like you know you can when you're in indie and
• 1:08:34
  you you know you have good design sensibilities
• 1:08:36
  you like push things which the like veterans
• 1:08:39
  wouldn't have done back in the day so what happened
• 1:08:42
  with this is i started seeing people talk about
• 1:08:44
  this shoot em up which was called birdcage which
• 1:08:46
  was like mgs but a shmup and i was like okay
• 1:08:50
  this sounds interesting so i I don't remember
• 1:08:54
  if I tried the demo or not, but I just saw the
• 1:08:55
  trailer and I was like, what the fuck is this
• 1:08:57
  soundtrack? This is like the best thing I've
• 1:08:59
  heard all year. And then I found out the soundtrack
• 1:09:01
  was done by Barry Topping, who did the Paradise
• 1:09:04
  Killer soundtrack. And I was like, okay, I'm
• 1:09:06
  interested in this. But I was like, okay, I'll
• 1:09:09
  just wait for it to come out. And then I got
• 1:09:11
  sent a code pre -release and I played it and
• 1:09:14
  it was like, wow, this is like amazing visually
• 1:09:17
  and music. Like the music is fantastic, but the
• 1:09:19
  game is... it's like fine it's not doing anything
• 1:09:22
  amazing as a game but the the way they did the
• 1:09:25
  storytelling with mgs style codec stuff it just
• 1:09:28
  felt like this weird blend of ideas that shouldn't
• 1:09:31
  work so i enjoyed it a lot when i played it on
• 1:09:33
  steam last year and they kind of fixed some of
• 1:09:35
  my issues with it when it comes to like replay
• 1:09:37
  value like the the whole draw of shmups for a
• 1:09:40
  lot of people is like score chasing this isn't
• 1:09:43
  one of those games but like you're playing this
• 1:09:45
  more for the story the aesthetic than like score
• 1:09:48
  chasing but that's not a bad thing it's just
• 1:09:50
  designed a bit differently i feel you know like
• 1:09:52
  how breen said final fantasy 16 like even though
• 1:09:55
  they like they try and make it like that i'm
• 1:09:57
  not playing final fantasy 16 to get like sss
• 1:09:59
  super sexy rank or whatever like i am in dmc
• 1:10:02
  but it gets the job done for me at least on that
• 1:10:05
  sense so uh when that happened i was like okay
• 1:10:07
  this is really really good i i enjoyed it a lot
• 1:10:10
  and i was like i want to interview the composer
• 1:10:12
  and stuff eventually and i just played quite
• 1:10:14
  a bit and then they announced the console port
• 1:10:17
  and i was like wow this is like i'm gonna play
• 1:10:19
  this again and yeah i was like i want to review
• 1:10:22
  this like i was pretty sure that no one else
• 1:10:24
  was going to cover this because it's like the
• 1:10:25
  busiest month of the year and i was like i'm
• 1:10:28
  going to be the guy who does the birdcage comparison
• 1:10:30
  and that's what i did so i i played it on like
• 1:10:34
  ps5 and switch i got codes for that and i got
• 1:10:37
  it on xbox on launch day because i was like may
• 1:10:39
  as well just have everything covered and yeah
• 1:10:41
  there we are like it's a i think it's like one
• 1:10:44
  of the best like if you like the aesthetic and
• 1:10:46
  you've never played a shmup before this is like
• 1:10:48
  the one to buy it's accessible it's fun to play
• 1:10:51
  it looks fantastic this isn't just this is not
• 1:10:54
  going to be one which you spend dozens of hours
• 1:10:55
  like trying to 1cc which is like clear it with
• 1:10:58
  one life and not die and all you're not going
• 1:11:00
  to be able to you're not going to be doing that
• 1:11:01
  for this but it's like one of the easiest recommendations
• 1:11:04
  i can give for an indie game like on any platform
• 1:11:07
  this year so but yeah it's not perfect so unfortunately
• 1:11:11
  so yeah that's why i kind of wanted to do that
• 1:11:14
  and yeah i was actually going to have three other
• 1:11:17
  things sent to you but this week man we'll get
• 1:11:20
  to that it's all right everyone's doing a lot
• 1:11:24
  of stuff um so yeah we got that article on the
• 1:11:27
  website and then also Dynasty Warriors 3 which
• 1:11:31
  is a remake right the remake of 3 yes got a preview
• 1:11:34
  up and an interview from Kite so if you're into
• 1:11:37
  that the interview goes into a lot of detail
• 1:11:39
  about I want to say that's like golden era like
• 1:11:42
  I was looking at my shelf then to figure out
• 1:11:44
  which were the Dynasty Warriors games that I
• 1:11:45
  really loved yeah it's one that fans really care
• 1:11:50
  about I think yeah It is PS2. There's one thing
• 1:11:56
  I will say that before we started recording,
• 1:11:58
  the demo went live on every platform. I just
• 1:12:02
  downloaded the Switch 2 demo and it's probably
• 1:12:04
  the blurriest game I've played on Switch 2 since
• 1:12:07
  the console came out. A Dynasty Warriors game
• 1:12:09
  that runs badly? You don't say. I know, I know.
• 1:12:12
  I'm with you on that. But the thing is, Koei
• 1:12:14
  Tecmo released Dynasty Warriors Origins earlier
• 1:12:16
  this year and that's the best Switch 2 port period.
• 1:12:19
  like from a ps5 game so it's like you literally
• 1:12:22
  have both sides of the spectrum now in a dynasty
• 1:12:25
  warriors game like you have the best switch to
• 1:12:27
  port and you have if this is the final game honestly
• 1:12:29
  like i i i don't know and this was supposed to
• 1:12:32
  come out on switch one also like what the hell
• 1:12:34
  would have that been so yeah they're not the
• 1:12:38
  studio that i go to for technical prowess i'll
• 1:12:40
  put it that way um Yeah, there'll be some other
• 1:12:44
  stuff. I mean, I'll just say now, we're recording
• 1:12:47
  this a little bit early and I've got other things
• 1:12:49
  I'm going to be writing between now and the weekend.
• 1:12:54
  There's going to be a thing from me about the
• 1:12:55
  Nintendo Museum, about what the Nintendo Museum,
• 1:12:58
  two years after it opened, is saying about Nintendo
• 1:13:02
  now, which I think is more than you might expect.
• 1:13:06
  And very, very quickly, just to finish up, we've
• 1:13:08
  got the Retro Respective, as always. A couple
• 1:13:11
  of good ones this week. Notably, earlier this
• 1:13:14
  week, Dark Souls turned 15 years old. Which,
• 1:13:19
  what a game. I remember I was living in a flat
• 1:13:25
  in Croydon with my now wife. That was a time
• 1:13:30
  when I had free time. And I spent it playing
• 1:13:35
  that terrible piece of shit game. Be nice. It's
• 1:13:39
  a great game. i really sort of uh there was a
• 1:13:45
  rumor recently wasn't there about them like doing
• 1:13:47
  remasters of those three games um or maybe just
• 1:13:52
  the latter two because they sort of already did
• 1:13:54
  do the first one sort of um but it's sort of
• 1:13:57
  even that remaster is a bit out of date now right
• 1:13:59
  um but i really sort of hope they do that but
• 1:14:02
  i can't believe because well it's just sort of
• 1:14:06
  mad in that time right like obviously demon souls
• 1:14:08
  like sleeper here and sony got egg on their face
• 1:14:11
  through not publishing it in the West and Atlas
• 1:14:14
  got to just dine out on that. And then, you know,
• 1:14:17
  you fast forward and each subsequent game just
• 1:14:20
  did better than the last, better than the last,
• 1:14:22
  better than the last, and then you end up with
• 1:14:23
  Elden Ring. It's sort of insane to think about
• 1:14:25
  how those 15 years have gone for Miyazaki and
• 1:14:29
  FromSoft. It's sort of bonkers. Still making
• 1:14:33
  bad games. That's amazing. Well, speaking of
• 1:14:37
  that, where's your next video on Elden Ring?
• 1:14:39
  I don't know. Don't touch me about that. Yeah.
• 1:14:43
  At some point. I think we need to quiet down.
• 1:14:46
  We need it to beat Margit at least. Yeah. The
• 1:14:49
  other thing about Dark Souls is like, obviously
• 1:14:52
  it didn't come out on PC first. It came out on
• 1:14:54
  PC later and that basically springboarded Durante's
• 1:14:57
  career into like being a professional porting.
• 1:14:59
  Like they do porting consulting and they basically
• 1:15:02
  fix dog shit ports now. for like everyone so
• 1:15:05
  that wouldn't have been possible without dark
• 1:15:07
  souls being dog shit so it was actually really
• 1:15:09
  it was yeah it was actually surprising to me
• 1:15:11
  when i saw geranti day being credited for like
• 1:15:14
  a professional port and i was like wait isn't
• 1:15:16
  that the dude that fixed dark souls yeah yeah
• 1:15:18
  it is like what a king And I've interviewed him
• 1:15:22
  four times on RPG site now. Yes. Like friend
• 1:15:25
  of the site. Similarly, in a, wow, how much has
• 1:15:30
  changed in 10 years, Forza Horizon 3 is 10 years
• 1:15:32
  old, which is a bit bonkers just from the perspective
• 1:15:35
  of, again, when that came out, Horizon was the
• 1:15:38
  sub -series and now it's the main series. That
• 1:15:40
  was the Australia one, right? Yeah, Australia.
• 1:15:43
  Yeah, not my favorite one. four was the uk one
• 1:15:47
  where they added the seasons three was like the
• 1:15:49
  last pure one which was like just an arcade race
• 1:15:52
  or not a live service whatever but i uh i i enjoyed
• 1:15:56
  all of them except five so i still have i still
• 1:15:59
  have all of them installed and i play three and
• 1:16:02
  four quite often so good you put in six over
• 1:16:06
  five yeah for sure like dude like five has this
• 1:16:11
  the family guy bullshit story which they force
• 1:16:13
  on you i kind of i'm a bit lenient on how it
• 1:16:16
  is in six but five is like oh like we need to
• 1:16:20
  go and drink tequila and my vocho they keep saying
• 1:16:22
  that shit over and over again and it pissed me
• 1:16:24
  off and uh yeah like i think uh six this i'm
• 1:16:28
  not just saying it because forza horizon bad
• 1:16:30
  forza horizon in japan good i genuinely like
• 1:16:33
  six is like my runner -up game of the year below
• 1:16:35
  rhythm heaven groove so But the one thing I will
• 1:16:39
  say is 6 is the one I've gone back to the least
• 1:16:42
  because the weekly 4 more shit, I just do not
• 1:16:44
  care. So specifically the campaign stuff, I enjoyed
• 1:16:47
  it a lot more than 5. Okay, fair enough. What
• 1:16:52
  else? Ico, 25 years old. This is all like, what
• 1:16:57
  have we lost? Because that studio is gone. Silent
• 1:17:01
  Hill 2, 25. You know. That's a good week, isn't
• 1:17:07
  it? Yeah, actually, yeah. One day apart. And
• 1:17:12
  a couple of big ones, actually. Castlevania is
• 1:17:15
  40. Castlevania NES, which I guess is the first
• 1:17:19
  one. So does that mean it's the whole series'
• 1:17:21
  40th birthday? I think that's what they have
• 1:17:25
  on the box art for the new one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:17:29
  So it's the whole series. Obviously not NES,
• 1:17:32
  technically. Famicom Disk System. 40 years for
• 1:17:37
  all of Castlevania and sort of crazy. I mean,
• 1:17:39
  Castlevania now obviously is more the Netflix
• 1:17:46
  show at the minute than the games. I really don't
• 1:17:49
  like the art style of that new one, unfortunately.
• 1:17:52
  I would like to give you a quick fact that blew
• 1:17:55
  my mind. I was playing Super Smash Brothers with
• 1:17:58
  my nephew who is about 17. This is an important
• 1:18:02
  fact to note. And he was going through the characters.
• 1:18:05
  He was like, oh, Trevor. I was like, what the
• 1:18:08
  fuck are you talking about? How do you know Trevor?
• 1:18:11
  It's like Castlevania on Netflix. I'm like, what
• 1:18:13
  the hell? That shit worked for some people. That's
• 1:18:15
  funny. Somehow that worked. It's hugely popular.
• 1:18:17
  Yeah. Bring back Lords of Shadow. Bring back
• 1:18:22
  Patrick Stewart. First one's a good game. I'm
• 1:18:27
  not playing them. Yeah, yeah. I mean, those guys
• 1:18:33
  obviously are now making Metroid games. So all's
• 1:18:36
  well that ends well. And lastly, it's not relevant
• 1:18:40
  to us four here, but it is going to be this week
• 1:18:44
  30 years since the N64 launched in the US. So
• 1:18:49
  that also means it's 30 years since Super Mario
• 1:18:51
  64 and Pilotwings made their US debut. I think
• 1:18:55
  the interesting, crazy, notable thing about this
• 1:18:58
  is that was it. There were no other launch games.
• 1:19:01
  Two games. That was it. I think that's got to
• 1:19:05
  be the last console that ever launched like that,
• 1:19:07
  right? Six months. We got it in March, right?
• 1:19:09
  Yeah. Over here, the following year. Got mine
• 1:19:12
  from Comet. From Crawley. Comet. Comet, yeah.
• 1:19:19
  Exciting times. It's actually one of those ironies
• 1:19:21
  about it sucked, obviously, that we had a big
• 1:19:24
  delay. So we got it like six months later. The
• 1:19:28
  advantage was, whereas the US had two launch
• 1:19:30
  games and then a gradual trickle, we obviously
• 1:19:33
  got Mario and Pilotwings, same as everyone else,
• 1:19:35
  but we also then got Shadows of the Empire, Turok,
• 1:19:39
  a FIFA game. I think there was some others. Wonderful
• 1:19:44
  FIFA game. FIFA 64. I remember getting Turok.
• 1:19:49
  I got Console Mario from Comet and then... I
• 1:19:55
  went around the shops in Crawley looking for
• 1:19:58
  the cheapest price for Star Wars and Pilotwings.
• 1:20:03
  And then we got Turok and the memory card. You
• 1:20:08
  needed a memory card for that, didn't you, I
• 1:20:09
  think. From Blockbuster a couple of weeks later,
• 1:20:15
  whenever that came out. Yeah, I don't know how
• 1:20:18
  we had the money for this. We're not a rich family.
• 1:20:21
  I just don't know what we were doing to get cash
• 1:20:23
  back then. Paper rounds. A lot of paper rounds,
• 1:20:26
  I think. I think N64 in the UK, it just, it never
• 1:20:32
  really kicked up until in full. Well, I suppose
• 1:20:35
  it's always the same, but it was like that October.
• 1:20:38
  I remember there was the one -two punch of October.
• 1:20:40
  You got Star Fox, you got Lilac Wars. And then
• 1:20:43
  November, you got Goldeneye. And then that was
• 1:20:46
  it then. It was like you were off to the races.
• 1:20:47
  When was Maricot? Was Maricot that before then
• 1:20:51
  or not? mario kart was that was the june so for
• 1:20:59
  the uk market so yeah so it was like march machine
• 1:21:02
  with those launch games june mario kart and then
• 1:21:05
  you got to october november and you got the the
• 1:21:07
  real bad boys it's a good year good good first
• 1:21:10
  year that is what's mad actually is is um is
• 1:21:15
  and i'd never realized this really before but
• 1:21:19
  The delayed launch meant for us, there wasn't
• 1:21:22
  that much of a gap between the machine launch
• 1:21:25
  and Ocarina. It was only a little over 18 months.
• 1:21:28
  Whereas obviously in Japan, it was the better
• 1:21:31
  part of two years. Yeah. I got the console at
• 1:21:37
  some point after Ocarina time launching. So I
• 1:21:41
  had plenty of games. Didn't have to worry about
• 1:21:43
  that launch lineup. Star... Snowball Kids. Star
• 1:21:46
  Fox. Yeah, Star Fox, Ocarina of Time, Mario 64.
• 1:21:49
  I mean, already, what else do you need? But there
• 1:21:52
  was other things. It's pretty bad launching a
• 1:21:55
  console with just one game, so that one game
• 1:21:57
  has to be really, really, really, really good.
• 1:21:59
  Yeah. It does remind me, when you mentioned the
• 1:22:02
  lack of launch titles, it reminds me how the
• 1:22:04
  GameCube got slightly delayed in the EU, and
• 1:22:06
  as a result, we got Melee as a launch title,
• 1:22:08
  and the US did not. Was it? Yeah, we had Melee
• 1:22:12
  as a launch title, but US did not have Melee
• 1:22:14
  as a launch title. I got a GameCube on launch
• 1:22:16
  day and I do not remember that. I'm sure it was.
• 1:22:18
  Or was it like a week later? No, slightly after.
• 1:22:21
  Oh yeah, so Melee was 21 days later. So not very
• 1:22:26
  much. I'm sorry. So you're almost right. Launch
• 1:22:29
  window. Launch window. Yeah, launch window. That
• 1:22:32
  was not even the launch window. And then Pikmin
• 1:22:35
  was two weeks after that. But it was still, GameCube
• 1:22:38
  launch was great. In Europe, listen to this.
• 1:22:41
  This is just great. 2002 FIFA World Cup, Batman
• 1:22:44
  Vengeance, Bloody Raw Primal Fury, Burnout, Cell
• 1:22:48
  Damage. Okay, none of those are particularly
• 1:22:50
  exciting. But then we get in Crazy Taxi, Dave
• 1:22:54
  Mirror, Freestyle BMX 2. Disney's not going to
• 1:22:57
  look great in Quackers. Disney Tarzan untamed.
• 1:23:00
  But then Extreme G3. Great. ISS 2, International
• 1:23:04
  Superstar Soccer. Luigi's Mansion. Sonic Adventure
• 1:23:08
  2 Battle. Star Wars Rogue Squadron 2. Super Monkey
• 1:23:12
  Ball. Wave Race Blue Storm. Beautiful. I like
• 1:23:17
  how you put Sonic Adventure 2 Battle as the good
• 1:23:19
  game. It was good. Listen. It's good. It was
• 1:23:24
  an improved version of a game that was all you
• 1:23:25
  are. I'm wearing a Sonic t -shirt. Look. There
• 1:23:28
  you go. So you can't disparage him. You've got
• 1:23:31
  a t -shirt on that you've got his t -shirt on.
• 1:23:36
  Sonic Adventure games are like those games that
• 1:23:39
  are like I have to admit they're not very good
• 1:23:41
  but also I love them so much. The first Dreamcast
• 1:23:44
  one was incredible. Like it was incredible. But
• 1:23:46
  I replied to them. Sonic Adventure 1. is the
• 1:23:50
  game. The game with like the most heart and soul
• 1:23:54
  and design idea. I think it's actually probably
• 1:23:57
  got as much as Mario 64, but the problem that
• 1:24:00
  it's got is whereas they clearly spent years
• 1:24:02
  perfecting Mario's movement in Mario 64, you've
• 1:24:05
  sort of got SA has like, you know, Sonic Adventure's
• 1:24:08
  got like... really finicky analog controls and
• 1:24:12
  the physics go wrong all the time so sometimes
• 1:24:14
  you go on a loop -de -loop and Sonic just fucking
• 1:24:16
  flies off it and dies which is not ideal right
• 1:24:19
  and I've longed for if they just remade that
• 1:24:22
  game and sort of gave made Sonic Control more
• 1:24:25
  naturally you'd have the best 3D Sonic game ever
• 1:24:29
  made but instead they're like it's got the whale
• 1:24:31
  bit you don't need anything else the whale jumps
• 1:24:34
  out of the water yeah amazing yeah yeah but yeah
• 1:24:40
  so there you go those that's this week's retro
• 1:24:42
  respective hopefully hasn't made you feel too
• 1:24:44
  old uh and we'll be we'll be back with more of
• 1:24:48
  that next week please don't forget you can join
• 1:24:51
  us on our discord to chat and hang out you can
• 1:24:53
  hit the discord button that's on the top or the
• 1:24:55
  bottom of the website and if you like what we
• 1:24:57
  do don't forget you can back us on patreon for
• 1:24:59
  even more of this stuff plus a warm fuzzy feeling
• 1:25:03
  inside knowing that you know you're keeping independent
• 1:25:05
  gays media alive but like i say you get bonus
• 1:25:07
  stuff i've got a load of video recorded it's
• 1:25:10
  just like my travel blog in japan everything
• 1:25:12
  from walking around tgs to uh checking out some
• 1:25:16
  of the shops the ones i could get in because
• 1:25:19
  some of them were hideous um to uh just you know
• 1:25:23
  living through the top through the uh through
• 1:25:25
  the typhoon all the rest so at some point when
• 1:25:28
  i get five minutes i'm gonna more than five minutes
• 1:25:30
  i've got to edit that together but all that patrons
• 1:25:32
  can enjoy we're also very close now to launching
• 1:25:35
  the ad free offering where if you want to get
• 1:25:37
  the ads off the website you'll be able to do
• 1:25:39
  that by being a patreon backer and we're off
• 1:25:42
  now to record our extra podcast where we're going
• 1:25:45
  to talk about everything from i don't know credit
• 1:25:48
  card fraud to uh tom's diy So, you know, think
• 1:25:55
  about what you're missing out there if you're
• 1:25:57
  not a backer. And if you are a backer, thank
• 1:25:58
  you very much. That's it from us for this week.
• 1:26:01
  That's a long one. So that's thank you and goodbye
• 1:26:04
  from me. Tom, say goodbye. Bye. Mikhail, say
• 1:26:09
  goodbye. Bye. Breen's my man. Say bye -bye. See
• 1:26:16
  you next week, everyone.