Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
How to NOT Do A Metroidvania | Windbreaker Podcast
8.3k Plays10 months ago
On this week’s episode of Windbreaker, Yahtzee, Frost, and Marty chat about the past, present, and future of the metroidvania genre.
Second Wind is fully independent, employee-owned and fan-funded. Consider supporting us on Patreon for as little as $1/month at patreon.com/SecondWindGroup
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Welcome
00:00:00
Speaker
This video is sponsored by Sovereign Syndicate, a new Victorian steampunk CRPG from Crimson Herring Studio, where your successes and failures are decided with tarot cards instead of dice. Fight, talk, and deduce your way through the dark underbelly of this fantastical take on Victorian London. Use your investigative skills to untangle the web of mysterious disappearances and nefarious cults across brothels, opium dens, I'm thinking we'll even find an abandoned Radio Shack! And instead of rolling a d20, the fortunes of your skill checks rely on the favor of the innovative tarot card chance system.
00:00:28
Speaker
What will the Fates have in store for you? Sovereign Syndicate is available now to scratch that CRPG itch on PC via Steam and GOG. Hello everyone, welcome once again to the Windbreakers podcast. That was a nice ad for Sovereign Syndicate, wasn't it? I thought it was really well written.
00:00:48
Speaker
Yes. Who wrote it, incidentally? Me. Oh, that was a joke. Well, yes, I'm joined by Marty Sleever and Sebastian Rues as always, and I'm Yahtzee Crowshaw. I should have said that first.
00:01:02
Speaker
Hello. Hello.
Exploring the Metroidvania Genre
00:01:04
Speaker
And this week on the Windbreakers podcast, we're just a bunch of sweet Metroidvestites from Metroid sexual Metroidvania. Very confusing. I'm excited. Guys, favorite genre. I think it's my favorite genre.
00:01:24
Speaker
Well, I find that I'd be hard pressed to call it my favourite genre because I've played so bloody many of the things lately. That makes it your favourite. Yeah. Sounds like your favourite. Just because a lot of them doesn't mean they're favourite. Pizza's my favourite food and there's a bunch of pizzas out there. Well, in playing games like Sanabi, I find myself thinking, boy, I remember this. Level-based games. Whatever happened. Level-shaped levels. Give me a big old world. I think it's just this time of year. You actually said that when Neon White came out.
00:01:50
Speaker
It's possible. So yes, we're going to talk about between videos, what makes good ones, what makes bad ones. We're on with the subject of Prince of Persia. Marty, what's the subtitle? The Lost Crown. The Lost Crown, only because I told you what it was before we... I thought it was called The Last Crown. I was very close. That was one vol off. It's quite common these days, the lost and the last.
00:02:14
Speaker
With the new Prince of Persia slightly forgettable subtitle being a Metroidvania, and by many accounts, not a bad one. We thought we could talk about what makes that game good, and all the ten hundred million billion squillion indie platformers that are also Metroidvanias, not quite so good.
00:02:35
Speaker
I think it's... Do you want to start with the basics? What are we defining? What's a Metroidvania? Well, a Metroidvania... Do we even like the name? I like the name. I love the name. It's the only name that's stuck. Yeah, it could have been a Castletroid. It could have been... What was it? The creator? He was saying... He actually, the creator of Metroidvanias, or Symphony of the Night at least, said he preferred Zeldavania. I think it's closer to Zelda than Metroid.
00:03:03
Speaker
Isn't there a name like the Japanese name for them? Is something like, you know, completion platformers because they're about completing a map? I guess, yeah. Interesting. I think one of the reasons I resonate so
00:03:23
Speaker
strongly with it is it's a nice it's a very nice melding of platformers, adventure game progression, and some light RPG elements, which are three things I just really like. Well, just yeah, just for the people who live on the moon. Let's confirm that a Metroidvania is basically a platformer in the model of Metroid or Castlevania Symphony of the Night.
00:03:49
Speaker
where you, instead of going from level to level and beating a boss at the end of each level, you can freely explore an open-ended map.
00:03:58
Speaker
with multiple themed areas, gradually unlocking abilities that open up new areas of the map and gradually progress your way into a position of power and esteem so that that fucking Grim Reaper finally respects you.
Metroidvania vs. Souls-like Games
00:04:15
Speaker
Give me my things back. That's the plot of every one of them, isn't it? Give them back.
00:04:22
Speaker
I think there's a very strong link between Metroidvania and Souls-like. Certainly I always think of Stark Souls as like the modern 3D Metroidvania. Yeah. It's pretty much the same setup. It's fully explorable, it's open-ended, there's multiple themed lands and you can... There's ghoulies? Why do Metroidvanias have ghoulies in them? Dark Souls got tons of ghoulies.
00:04:44
Speaker
And it feels like the majority of indie Metroidvanias that come out are 2D Souls-likes, fairly overtly. I don't know where that's come from, but yeah. The last, I'd say like three Metroidvanias I've played, including The Last Faith. I haven't tried this one just yet. It has that Souls-like combat that I'm just like, I can just jump over you until you make one where I can't jump over you. I'm gonna keep going.
00:05:09
Speaker
Yeah, it's become, not only is it its own genre, but I feel like it's also become a seasoning for other genres. I was just looking at a list of some of the bigger games I've played over the last few years, and I feel like games like Jedi Survivor, God of War Ragnarok, Pikmin 4, Elden Ring, all have Metroidvania-esque elements to them, although I don't think I would. Pikmin 4's the odd one out there, isn't it?
00:05:33
Speaker
Yeah. This is Metroidvania.
Modern Metroidvania Innovations
00:05:35
Speaker
I would say so with one of the core tenets of Metroidvania, in my opinion, are sort of the teasing and foreshadowing of abilities, of areas, of obstacles, of things saying you have discovered this thing, but you are not quite ready to learn how to overcome it, to get through it, to jump over it, to open this door. So make a mental note of this and come back when you are ready.
00:06:00
Speaker
Yeah, and actually, that's one of the interesting features of the new Prince of Persia, in that you don't have to keep a mental note, because you can actually take screenshots of places where you've been and paste them to the map, which is probably the most exciting innovation in Metroidvanias. There's been in quite some time, which just goes to show that the genre is pretty much perfected at this point.
00:06:20
Speaker
You're thinking, I don't know. I feel like we're going to get sort of a bit of a renaissance in the fact that we've gone finally to accepting that obtuse maps are probably not the best thing. You know, helping people go back to the map is as fun as the having a big wrinkly brain. And I remembered exactly where everything is. Yeah.
00:06:42
Speaker
I mean, the weird thing about the genre for me, and again, this could be nostalgia goggles because they're two of my favorite games, is I feel like the genre was born perfect. I think Super Metroid and Feed the Night are the two best Metroidvanias. I don't know which direction you were. I did not point in the right direction. I think those are the, I think those are the number one and two best Metroidvanias. And I think they were the first two.
00:07:07
Speaker
like they are the like progenitors of the name. And so I feel like there is a lot of games who are trying to chase that high and a lot of games come close. And then I feel like the more successful ones are the ones that take that feeling and do something different with it.
00:07:21
Speaker
Okay, well, I don't think you could say Metroid and Symphony of the Night didn't have room for improvement. Oh, no, I did say that. I think they are perfect. And okay, that's a contentious point. Because personally, my favorite open world Castlevania was Aria of Sorrow. Yeah, let's argue about that. My Lord, my gosh, my golly, the GBA ones were really good. The GBA trilogy was really good.
00:07:49
Speaker
The characteristic of Castlevania was always a hugely extensive monster list. To sort of express the fact that we're in Dracula's Castle and all the monsters come to Dracula's Castle to hang out and party. And Arya of Sorrow works that into gameplay very effectively. By with the elements that every single monster you kill drops a unique soul that grants you a unique ability.
00:08:15
Speaker
And that, like, completes the... You're just a Pocomaniac at heart. Well, for me that... For me it completes the Castlevania formula so well, and clearly Igarashi agreed, because when he was making his game that was just all the good things about Castlevania piled into one game, i.e. Bloodstained Vigil of the Night, he remembered to include that bit of Mario Osoro over there. I thought it was a little too much. I thought Bloodstained was a little too much.
00:08:40
Speaker
There's a little too many ingredients in that jambalaya for me. You weren't a fan of the cooking mechanics? No, literally, yeah. There were too many ingredients. Yeah, and I don't think bloodstain is bad. It just felt like a... It truly felt like a kitchen sink game, which can sometimes be good, but other times I'm like, do we need every system imaginable?
00:09:03
Speaker
Frost, what say you? You weren't playing Super Metroida in Symphony of the Night back in the day, right? You came to the genre later. No, funny enough. Actually, that's one that I kind of got into late as, you know, that's the great thing about indie games is sometimes they go 90% off and you get Hollow Knight for like two bucks.
00:09:19
Speaker
But I bounced off of it immediately because of the world. You can just have a go every now and again on a very open world, Metroidvanias, where you go, I'm just going to go in our direction until I hit something and you can just go for hours and hours and actually not find anything because it's decided to not lead you around.
00:09:38
Speaker
But and it wasn't until Guacamelee that finally like it just actually held you by your tiny baby hand and said here you're a luchador and now you get the double jump in the role and like it just it keeps almost it was a better entryway into Metroidvanias and that's when I really got addicted to the whole like oh okay you are it is I think it's more
00:10:00
Speaker
cerebral, the whole genre. I think it
Core Strengths of Metroidvania Games
00:10:03
Speaker
gets into a better spot in my tiny little brain that I enjoy more than just a normal platformer would do because I kind of like zone out in those. But these are, yes, remember where things are located at this sort of sense of space. I still love
00:10:17
Speaker
the all-time favorite Metroidvania gag is when you see a wall, but there's like an undefined line and a haze there and you're like, oh, that's something I gotta smack. There's something right there, isn't there? Absolutely love it. So it's hitting like a different reward center of the brain, because I don't know, humans are made of like five of them or something like that. And it's that sense of discovery. It's just unmatched. Absolutely unmatched. And it's
00:10:44
Speaker
Exploration Discovery is one of the major food groups in video game design and Metroidvania of course plays to that strength quite a bit. So why don't we get into it and talk about what turns us off a Metroidvania
00:11:05
Speaker
I think you were talking about being able to pick a direction and go, but I think I'll play a lot of them where you can't because the first place you go to, there's like two paths you can go, and one of them is the way to go, and the other one's just a locked door. You need an ability later.
00:11:24
Speaker
I think that has more to do with sense of scale because I've been, I guess, studying Dark Souls and some of the Metroidvania maps that I really like and I go, why do these other ones suck? When they are essentially that where it's like, all right, you can go these ways, but this door is locked and going that way leads all the way back. I feel like it's just sense of distance. You have to go so far out before you actually eventually come back and go, damn, this is actually interconnected.
00:11:46
Speaker
But you went through a different way than the one that you'd expect to go through. I don't think I do appreciate Metroidvania. I think I do appreciate that Metroidvania is interconnectedness rather than just letting you teleport right off the bat. I've always admired that about the start of Dark Souls.
00:12:02
Speaker
Like, you don't get the teleport until way, way into Dark Souls. And the moment you do, the level design starts to suffer, because it just turns into linear paths to
Balancing Mechanics in Metroidvania Games
00:12:10
Speaker
the next big boss fight. Because they don't have to worry about it anymore. It's not full teleport, which is nice. They definitely let up on that later on. And that was sort of... Yeah, Dark Souls 2. Yeah, it's like, why go back? Why ever return? Yeah, for me, there's a lot of things to wear. It's less do's and don'ts and more of
00:12:32
Speaker
you need to get this right. Because if it's like the Goldilocks porridge, like if it's too hot or too cold, this is not going to be good. Fast travels for me is if there's too much of it, you have no faith in your level design or even your sense of locomotion of like the person having fun playing the game. If there's too little of it, then I'm like
00:12:52
Speaker
Jesus Christ by the end of the game I have to go all the way back there and I have to go through all these fucking areas that I've already completed that I already know what to do that there's nothing for me to do other than run through here and then that's frustrating so it is
00:13:05
Speaker
To me, there's that balance. But it's also, if I'm going to be backtracking a lot, which is a core thing in these games, have it come at times where I now have new abilities, and I'm opening up new things, and I'm constantly teased with the prospect. When you're trying to get to, I love when I'm like, this is where I'm going, and then I get to a fork in the road, I'm like, but I want to see what that way is first, before I go in the road that I'm going. And that sort of teasing really works for me. Yeah. I mean, that's the whole point of the backtracking.
00:13:31
Speaker
your backtrack. And as you and as you're backtracking, you look at all the places you couldn't access before and think, hey, let's like try and see if we can go through here now. Yeah.
00:13:44
Speaker
Um, yeah, I guess that's a second strength. And if the first one is discovery, the second one would be re traversal. And I'm with Marty here in that sense of like, you kind of have to get to a certain point, you have to just kind of get it right. And to me, I don't like the games that almost like tease too blatantly and way too early. I know in Metroid, they like to tell you about that, that one spot. Remember that you can just double jump, right? But at the first time that you ever going through that, you don't really have that in mind. You're just like, Oh, I can't make it.
00:14:13
Speaker
I just can't make it. Then you get the double jump in your brain immediately. It just has a blast of weight. That one spot, instead of just like a, hey look, it's sparkling and you can just assume you're later going to get an ability that, I don't know, throws me at sparkling things, you know. Yeah, I like metroidvania is where new areas are locked off by organic abilities rather than just doors. I think that's Metroid's problem.
00:14:36
Speaker
They just lock off areas with a door that literally doesn't open unless you've got the weapon that makes it open. Yeah, the orange door. And I tend to appreciate a metroidvania that's laid out so that you technically need the high-level abilities to reach certain areas. But if you're really crazy with some of the traversal abilities we give you earlier, you could theoretically break sequence and get to places you're not supposed to be at.
00:15:04
Speaker
See, he's hitting more on that thing of the more engagement through the brain being a little naughty. Like, yeah, you don't feel like like a super genius until you break sequence or feel like, oh, I've just I've got one up on the developer. No one knows about this. Yeah. Yeah. Of course, you know, I talk shit about Metroid, but that was always like the classic Metroid thing with bomb jumping. Yeah. If you could master morph ball jumping, you could get to higher places long before you get the space jump.
00:15:31
Speaker
Yeah, or there's rooms to where it's like, oh, you need, you know, there's like spikes and enemies everywhere and it's dark, so you're gonna need the lantern or whatever to illuminate the room. But if you're crazy, you might be able to do this without the lantern, if you're able to get through in the darkness. I think also what kind of goes along with all of this is you need, your level design and your environmental design needs to be remarkable and memorable.
00:15:58
Speaker
I was playing that Disney illusion island which came out late last year, which was a perfectly serviceable serviceable Metroidvania for for children
00:16:08
Speaker
if it's like my first Metroidvania. The problem is every area had no character whatsoever. And so I'd get an ability and I'd be like, where was the thing I could use this on? It was in the room that looked like every other room I've been to. Whereas I feel like, so take Super Metroid in Symphony of the Night, Zebes the planet, and then Dracula's castle. The areas have these really distinct identities to them. Like the Zebes has their own little biomes, has the hot one, the haunted one, the water one.
00:16:37
Speaker
Those are my three favorite types of people to date. And then, Castlevania has the castle is just laid out, there's the dungeon, and there's the towers, and there's the attic, and there's the library.
00:16:54
Speaker
What's important to remember though, and this is something I see a lot in sort of amateur indie metroidvanias, is that it's not just the appearance of the places you go to, but their layouts as well that need to be unique.
Level Design in Metroidvania Games
00:17:05
Speaker
Like in Symphony of the Night, like the grand staircase is built around those like huge diagonal rooms with the big staircase. And at the top of it, there's an area that's like a bunch of towers, which is very vertical focused.
00:17:18
Speaker
Or there's the underground catacombs that are more like horizontal. Yeah. To take a boat to get across or if you get the ability to go underwater, you can do that. So you got to think about how each area is laid out uniquely as well as having different wallpaper. I've played a lot of procedural games where you get to like a new dungeon and it's just the dungeon you were in before, but now it's pink.
00:17:47
Speaker
So if it's procedural, can it legally be a Metroidvania? It doesn't come from the sparkling region of Igarashi. I'm playing procedural Metroidvanias. There was one called Chasm a while back. I remember Chasm. Is it though? I mean, Rogue Legacy. Is Rogue Legacy dead souls? I feel like these are different things.
00:18:09
Speaker
Well, this was the thing, because the problem with chasm was that, obviously, Metroidvaniers need to be tightly structured, because, you know, you get the abilities in order and access new areas. So all that chasm did was they'd randomize the in betweeny rooms in between the important, yeah, steps on the path. And at the end, those are the rooms you just don't remember. So if you play the second time, you're not even sure it has randomized again, it just seems like pretty much the same.
00:18:37
Speaker
Yeah. And then the, uh, Frost, you, you touched on it earlier, um, the, the actual map. I feel like that's another one of those, um, this is too hot. This is too cold. This feels right. If my map has too much information on it, the aforementioned Disney illusion Island just listed everything on the map. And so you'd open the map and it would just be everything. And I'm like, this is too much. Yeah. Whereas there's other maps where we open it up and you're like, I can't tell what any of this means. Like this is like way too, like,
00:19:04
Speaker
like archaic and simplistic. Oh, and some take it out on you. Like those maps where it's only uncovered with your body, your presence. Sure. Yeah. Takes it away where some are like, you explored the room or you got the secret. So I'm going to give you blocked outlines and let you know you don't have to come back here. But yeah. So how do you, how do you like your maps? Do you like them like that? Do you like finding a little character who's whistling like in Hollow Knight? Oh, freaking love that. If they don't, if you can get a, oh,
00:19:31
Speaker
That's a cold take review for a different thing, but you hit me right where I love it. Yeah, the little whistler. Yeah, Haiku the Robot did the same thing with a nice little whistling character. I think a good Metroidvania, this probably gets a little later, is the one that doesn't even have to talk to you. It just emotes you with these characters now. But as far as maps go, Yahtzee once mentioned a good Metroidvania map does this unfolding, like a bit of paper. Yeah, just a nice unfold and unfold and then boom.
00:19:57
Speaker
Well, I was talking about open worlds generally, but... You were talking about tunic in that one, I think. Yeah. It's like a bit of both. But it's more like a puzzle. Like, have you ever done a puzzle, a jigsaw puzzle, done one over the weekend? Easiest thing to do, find the edges. Yeah. You've set up the frame now and then find the big chunks that have like the same color that pertain to each other. And now you've slowly you've gone from like, I've made the frame, I filled out the big chunks and now I've just got the little ones.
00:20:27
Speaker
And then the picture, you can kind of tell what it is, even if you're missing like, I don't know, 10 pieces. But then those are the juicy secret bits for the true ending and all that kind of stuff. My Metroidvania maps reveal themselves like jigsaw puzzles.
00:20:45
Speaker
Well, it was a little annoying. It was a little annoying in Symphony of the Night, speaking of how that totally hadn't yet perfected the formula, Marty. It was unlocking all those fiddly little bits of map that there's no reason to go to except to block it out of the map, but you have to block it out of the map.
00:21:03
Speaker
Yeah. Otherwise you think, Oh, what if there was a secret there? I didn't get to yet. And then there's that like fuck around in like the air and the corners of the of the sky. There's one fucking square in the like flooded caverns that you just can't get to unless you do a really stupid like jump at one specific spot. Yeah, there's something I appreciate in the new Prince of Persia actually is that generally you have to go all over the room to unlock it. But if you've like
00:21:29
Speaker
Basically been to the important part and the rest of the room is just like decoration Then it just fills it out in the map says yeah, don't worry about it. Okay. Oh my god. Maybe I'm wrong Maybe maybe maybe the genre did have room to grow because all these sound great.
Impact of Abilities on Player Satisfaction
00:21:43
Speaker
Yeah Say you um, you said you think it's the big came out perfect. I think it's not perfect but it's those imperfections that accidentally make it a
00:21:52
Speaker
Like, so good in that regard. Yeah, there's a lot of weird imperfections about Symphony of the Night. Like, one that I really do not understand what the thinking was behind it, was that instead of just using a food item, you have to equip a food item to your hand, press the attack button to throw the food item on the floor, and then walk over it to eat it. Just like real life, yeah. Yeah, that's pretty simply.
00:22:20
Speaker
10 second rule is worth 10 seconds. You crack open a wall and all of a sudden there's like a fully formed ham in there. You know, it's funny the contrast between Metroid and Vania just thinking about it because Castlevania 17 the night had a million billion different enemies like a unique enemy for every single room.
00:22:40
Speaker
And it had a million billion different items you could pick up and a million billion weapons. And in contrast, Metroid has like five things you can pick up, five different enemies, and five weapons. Yeah, it is. I just replayed Symphony of the Night on stream.
00:22:59
Speaker
late last year, and it is shocking how many like one-off enemies there are. There aren't even bosses. I'm like, who made this thing? Like someone spent time making this enemy. They tucked it away in a hallway in the inverted castle you do not need to go to. I'm like, someone did so much of the holiday making this thing.
00:23:15
Speaker
A lot of the enemies in Symphony of the Night, they just copy-pasted the sprites from Rondo of Blood or previous Castlevania games. Though, you know, it's not that impressive. But yeah, a lot of it was just like a big library of sprites they still had from previous games. Hey, I think it's smart. But you know, if you've got them, toss them in. Exactly. I think it's smart.
00:23:36
Speaker
I also think a big don't for me is to, as your traversal expands and becomes more fun, don't keep that too close to the vest for too long. Don't keep like a double jump or a cool air dash away from me until the last 25% of the game.
00:23:53
Speaker
Like, if you got something cool to show off, give that to me early. I liked the first Ori. Held abilities too close to the vest for the duration of the game. The second Ori, you gathered all those old abilities within like the first hour. So in the first hour of Ori 2, you felt like you were at the end of the first Ori. And I was like, this is great.
00:24:11
Speaker
This is perfect. Do you get more? Yeah, and then you get more. Dude, Ori too is incredible. Ori too might be one of the best. I kind of could go either way on this because on the one hand, it's kind of disappointing that you need the game to trickle out all the mechanics for the actual mechanics to work.
00:24:33
Speaker
I think I would say that's sort of a problem with Prince of Persia's combat. Hell, I'm giving away a lot of stuff that I'm putting in the future of you. But, you know, it's just because it's fresh on my mind. At the same time.
00:24:48
Speaker
A traversal ability can be really satisfying if you've been stuck without it for prolonged periods. If you got through two thirds of the game and you've had to just been falling around on the ground like a fucking slug the whole time, and suddenly the game goes, hey, now you've got a grappling hook. And I'm like, oh shit, I'm gonna go all the way through the entire map again and jump on top of the heads of all the enemies who bullied me.
00:25:15
Speaker
Yeah. Oh my God. A high jump. I could jump high now. So sometimes I guess you got to find the right balance because sometimes, you know, edging the player as it were can make it all the more effective on edging. That Prince of Persia trailer gives away quite a few plot points. I've just noticed.
00:25:34
Speaker
That's an Ubisoft's bag. They do that a lot. It's just a bluff. You wouldn't think that we would, but we do. How do you feel about that? Do you want all your goodies? Do you want to start with your dessert or do you want it portioned out? That's interesting there because you have to at some point acknowledge. The only way you'll know that you got all the goodies was after you beat the game.
00:25:56
Speaker
So it's in that sense of surprise that it can subvert itself, like Super Land. You get one jump and then a double jump, but then at the end of the game, even though it's like, oh, I'm happy enough with the double jump, you get a mega jump that you can just, oh, the whole way around. And even though it gave it to me near the end-ish of the game, I still spent
00:26:19
Speaker
a majority of my time with it, secret hunting. It's like almost the amount of use I get out of something instead of just when I get it.
00:26:29
Speaker
I think in a good Metroidvania there's a certain point towards the end where you get what I like to call the, I'll just go to the fucking final boss already ability. Where it just makes the traversal completely trivial. Like the Black Panther ability in Harry of Sorrow where you can just super fast blur across the screen without even interacting with the enemies.
00:26:49
Speaker
or in the other night when you've got the poison fog ability yeah like yeah you're fucking done just go to the air asshole yeah the uh the the upgraded screw attack in uh super metro yeah that's uh that's you mentioned earlier uh dark souls and uh sort of the map design of that and that's one of the things there's that moment dark souls everyone talks about is where you uh after your you you
00:27:12
Speaker
or in the church and you take the elevator down and you're back in the firelink shrine. And that to me is like the moment when everything clicks with Dark Souls where you're like, oh, this is what you are. And that's a similar thing in Super Metroid when you go through all the zones and you're like, where the hell am I? And then you have a bunch of new abilities and you go a little bit to the left and you break through a wall and you're back at the starting ship and you're like, oh my God, I made a big circle. Like that's what this game is. Like this game, that's, that's what this map is. And Hollow Knight does the same thing where you'll
00:27:41
Speaker
they'll come upon the city again. And that's, that's always the thing I really like in a game where it's like, uh, you don't realize it, but you've come back home and that really like puts the map in context.
00:27:53
Speaker
I'm kind of clued into all the tricks now though. Like I've played so many metroidvanias. Like I unlock the map that shows the area that I'm currently in. And I say, okay, well, there's the boss fight. There's the area where we get the new ability.
Predictability and Unique Mechanics in Metroidvania
00:28:08
Speaker
And that little corridor there is where we are tutorialized in the use of that ability. And that brings us back around to that locked door. I couldn't open earlier. All right, that all checks out. Oh, but now you feel nubbly, don't you?
00:28:21
Speaker
That's I guess one thing here is so we talked about Super Metroid and Symphony of the Night and whether whether or not they were fully formed when they came out It doesn't feel like the genres have grown that much since the Super Nintendo and the PS one there's a lot more of them and they get kind of stapled to other genres as well like an Arkham Asylum or that kind of thing, but
00:28:47
Speaker
Like when was the last time one like really kind of impressed you with something new? Doomblade actually, it was like two years ago. What is the Doomblade? Doomblade is a Metroidvania. The only interesting thing is the character can only attack on the thing you click with your mouse. It's very mouse intensive Metroidvania. And the way it opens up the map, the way it makes it so like you're slashing with your mouse and through that is how you get through the map. It's how you get across everything. And it just keeps on opening up over and over again.
00:29:17
Speaker
and keeps expanding and expanding. And I'm like, Jesus Christ. I got one of the endings. Metroidvanias, for those who don't know, sometimes have multiple endings. This was the first one where I stopped at the first one, because I was just like, Jesus Christ, I'm terrified of where it ends up going elsewhere. But no, it was great. And even though it looked kind of funky, the biggest thing that stood out was like, oh, you've tried something new. And it's quite nice, especially because the boss fights were multiple mobs instead of just one boss.
00:29:44
Speaker
So you just have this character going across the frickin and it's you on the mouse you know you're playing fruit ninja. Yeah, but nice. No, I struggle to think of like, Metra venues that have done something that new and impressive. Probably why I was impressed by the fucking photo mechanic and been supposedly something. Yeah. Yeah, I guess, you know, nothing new under the sun and all that.
00:30:08
Speaker
Did you guys ever play Yoku's Island Express from 60 years ago or so? That was a pinball. No, I didn't get around to that one. Oh, actually, now you mention it. I was impressed by that Laika Aged Through Blood and how it was a Metroidvania, but with the Trials HD motorbike riding traversal mechanics. That felt refreshing. Yeah.
00:30:34
Speaker
Yeah, as you say, like I was like, I was writing in my review this morning, you can judge basically every Metroidvania by at what point in the game you get the double jump, which is officially the point where the designers ran out of ideas.
00:30:47
Speaker
twice you get it right to start. It's fine. Yeah. Yeah. So if you just something with like fundamentally different platforming mechanics like Leica is what it takes to make something really stand out for me. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. And Yoku's Island Express, which is you're like a little just a little pinball going around these pinball environments. There's also the kind of the tunic witness outer wild Z ones that are
00:31:09
Speaker
ostensibly Metroidvania, but just with you learning things with knowledge. Yeah. Isn't there a word for that? Metroidvania. Metroidvania is where the abilities aren't a double jump or a new weapon, but it is literally you now understand what the game is trying to tell you at this point, so you can engage with the first screen of tuning in a way that you could have right at the start, but didn't realize you could. Same thing with those. Yeah. Limited replay value there, because you could just play it again and instantly know how to do everything.
00:31:37
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Those feel like very, um, that's like a, once you know how the magic trick is done, it's hard to kind of re-experience that moment of all for the first time. And that's, that's the problem with detective games. Sure. Yeah. I think funny enough, that's the strength in Hollow Knight because the developers have said there's two ways to get to each area. Yeah. At least get one more play out of it now. And now that you know everything and where everything is, you're like, Oh, I could have accessed this area a little sooner than.
00:32:04
Speaker
instead of the other one. Actually, I feel like they are getting to that point where most of the innovation is going to come through, I'd say, the accessibility or quality of life features like the camera and Prince of Persia.
Accessibility and Storytelling in Metroidvania
00:32:19
Speaker
The ones that stood out recently, like you said, was Doom Blade, which was just
00:32:23
Speaker
A lot of the similar stuff, but just a new way of handling the character. Rusted Mars added a grappling hook, which is not innovation, it's just great, you know? And it's not right. Moonscores was interesting simply because the map would make an AI that would hunt you down. And just a little thrill going through there. What, like the little Grim Reaper that comes to chase you in Bubble Bobble if you take too long on a level?
00:32:48
Speaker
no no it's it's you if you use the teleporter you split from yourself and then when you get back to that area you have to fight yourself and it makes it give this weird dialogue and it's a whole story like in the original Prince of Persia when you go through the mirror to make the dark prince oh my god is that the plot it all comes back
00:33:08
Speaker
It's all coming back. Yeah, and I'm trying to think of sort of individual mechanics, like Yahtzee said, with the photo thing that kind of stood out to me. And like once Hollow Knight brought, I don't know if Hollow Knight was the first one to do this, but the charm system feels like it is now a part of so many games where you have kind of like X amount of points to equip certain things. And that's how you kind of create a loadout almost for your character. That was Paper Mario, wasn't it?
00:33:37
Speaker
Uh, yeah, it actually was like the bins or the badges. Yeah. Yeah. Um, it's just seems like a lot of the games, a lot of Metroidvanias are just a lot of games in general, kind of, uh, crib that, uh, Ori had the, like, when you create a respawn, like you can almost like utilize the energy you have to create a respawn point. Um, sequel didn't do that, considering it was one of the few like unique game mechanics.
00:34:02
Speaker
Yeah. And I guess the sequel just sort of overloaded you with the checkpoints to try to make up for that. Um, but then speaking of where I'd like the bash mechanic and Ori, which is the, uh, uh, the ability to kind of like slow down and bounce off like an enemy projectile or little energy nodes that are in the environment. And those are things that are used for combat for traversal for puzzle solving. Um,
00:34:26
Speaker
And, uh, like a lot of those really exciting chase sequences and, uh, Ori involved that. And that, that's a mechanic that once I wrapped my head around, I really loved. I ain't got no crumbs for you. Sorry. I did a full, did a full, like a full exploration. That was a Metroidvania thing. Just back at the start. My couch. Yeah. It was a meme I seen on Twitter that was like Metroidvania fans when they get on the elevator, it's interconnected. Just freaking out. Is an elevator a Metroidvania?
00:34:58
Speaker
Oh my God. What do we do it? Oh, Metroidvania. So what would you, if you had gone to your head, what is your favorite Metroidvania? You would say Arya Sorrow? You know, Arya Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow. I wish Dawn of Sorrow didn't have that fucking stupid 3DS like touchscreen gimmick where you had to end all the boss fights by drawing a little rune. Because if it didn't have that, I'd like it more than Arya of Sorrow. In fact, I've literally rom hacked it in the past. So I could play it without having to do that.
00:35:27
Speaker
Get rid of that second screen. Although having said that, Dawn of Sorrow has like this really shitty generic anime art and Arya of Sorrow has like a really good traditionally painted character art. Can I just say Dark Souls is my favorite Metroidvania?
00:35:46
Speaker
Yeah, and we took mine. No cops. We could both say it. Everyone could say that. I was about to ask, what is, like, do the mentor at Vania genre, do they pull out anything interesting for you, narratively speaking, the way that they unfold there? Because sometimes it does come down to, I found this little weird dude whistling and now he's back at my headquarters talking to me.
00:36:09
Speaker
I think they do, at least Super Metroid did environmental storytelling extremely well for the time, like before doing it. That whole like, Oh, I lost me ring in the pond. If you ever come across it, don't forget that I'm over here in the square. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's more lore heavy than story, which I mean, I just prefer lore over story. Yeah.
00:36:38
Speaker
Well, law is store, isn't it? Yeah, but it's more so like you can, if you ignore it, you won't fail the history exam. But if you go into it, you are only richer. Sure. Okay, we don't walk on the keyboard. Toffee, how could you? The keyboard is needed for work. Do you feel like 3D games are at a disadvantage when it comes to this? Or do you think building a 3D Metroidvania is
00:37:05
Speaker
I think obviously you have the issue with maps. It's much harder to map a 3D game. I think that wasn't the first Jedi fallen order. I think Dark Souls demonstrates that you can get by without a map if you're just very well designed. Oh, that kind of map. Because what 3D games have instead of a map is that it gives you the ability to look at the horizon and go, hey, I need to get to that thing over there. That's what Dark Souls does very well.
00:37:33
Speaker
It also has the advantage of, you know, when you go through a doorway to get to the other room and you completely forget why you're there. I think that effect happens more in 3D spaces than 2Ds. And so you're just like, oh, I'm back. Even if it is the exact same map, right? One with just the separation of walls and doorways, you're like, oh, wow, I forgot the door was here. It's like, yeah, that's exactly where it was before, but it's the 3D illusion.
00:37:59
Speaker
That's sort of where the genre leans nowadays. This door cannot be opened from this side. I'm like, oh. I'm retrovania. Well, I guess it's better than the Silent Hill approach. This door cannot be opened ever. Forget about it. Move on. I tried. At least Silent Hill X's it out on your map so that I know not to try it again. But yeah, you try and fail to open so many doors in those games. This lock is broken, which means the door cannot open because I don't know what locks are.
00:38:28
Speaker
Listen, they're all grieving. It's very hard to know what a lock is because they're all grieving. That never clicked. Yeah, he's not wrong. Yeah. Now we go to Super Chats for the live discussion further. Sounds great. And as you guys know, thank you so much for all your Super Chats and your donals. Look at that goal at the top. Holy smokes. We're getting there. Christ. Season four on location. Yes. Flights are booked. Airbnbs are booked.
00:38:55
Speaker
Christ on a bike. Christ is absolutely on a bike. So thank you all so much who've donated. Yeah, so remember, of course, if you're new to the podcast, we all our super chats, we now read out over the course of the rest of the podcast. So if you liked us talking of bullshitting about a topic, this is the point to stop listening.
00:39:33
Speaker
with that.
00:39:33
Speaker
You guys have played these like early, early review versions of some Metroidvanias and they've got bugs with it. The sequence doesn't unlock where the map doesn't fully flesh out. But it's definitely annoying in Symphony of the Night because there are mechanics that depend on you mapping out the entire game. There's a weapon that gives that does more damage the more of the games that's mapped out. Oh, what the hell? What was that been? Yeah. Yeah, that was a super OP weapon in Symphony of the Night if you if you do your due diligence.
00:40:01
Speaker
Yeah, Ariasora has a soul that, like, ups your stats based on how much of the map you've opened up. I think it's the Headhunter Soul. Yeah. Definitely equip that towards the end of the game. I feel like Doc, I have to go back, Marty. Like, Jesus. It's your kids. Jason Letito gives $10 and says, for the RHPS reference,
00:40:24
Speaker
Oh, Rocky Horror Pictures there. I just got that. The Red Hot Pilly Steppers. The Red Hot Pilly Steppers, exactly. And then we had a handful of green messages. Wing Potato, upgrading membership to the Green Gang. Thank you so much, Wing Potato. Zacharos in the Green Gang. Welcome. Welcome. Critical Void in the Tibchar in Guglop.
00:40:43
Speaker
Been a member for one month. Thank you so much, Gugglob. Farewell, second wind live, Green Gang. Hello, second wind main channel. That is an update. We're going to be doing our streams from now on on this channel.
Channel Updates and Time Travel Speculation
00:40:56
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Close again to various, various spots with further details. Yeah, we just it was just struggling to get the eyes on the second channel. So we figured might as well just take it all on one.
00:41:09
Speaker
Yeah, and we're going to be curating how the feeds look. So don't worry if you're just here for the edited videos. Well, you're probably not listening to this. But we're making sure that when you go to the videos tab is just all the kind of premium edited things that you're here for. But then we'll have playlists for all of our goofy streams. There you go. Win, win, win. Yes, indeed. And Doran Grossman Naples gives $2 and says you guys hear about Izalith Swamp.
00:41:33
Speaker
Well, I know what those two words mean, but I don't know what they mean together. Yeah, like, would you hear about it? It sucks. I don't know. Well, Izalith is like the the fiery bottom realm in Dark Souls, but it's not a swamp. It's like a lava area.
00:41:52
Speaker
The swamp is what's under Blighttown, which is the thing that was the start of every poison area in every Soulslight game. There's a mod inspired by Cut Contact where Lost Izalith was a swamp teeming with all sorts of weirdos. So apparently it was originally a swamp, and then they just covered it with lava because it couldn't be ours to finish it, and then someone
00:42:12
Speaker
Oh, so I didn't think there was enough swamp in Dark Souls. Yeah. They had a, uh, they had an intervention with Miyazaki to like, you put too many swamps in the scam. Who was the guy that talked him down from that then? Cause he's gone in Dark Souls three. Gosh. Can I at least, can I at least wean myself off with a Fen or a bog?
00:42:38
Speaker
I forgot the shivers, bro, just a bog. A mire. Urban M gives 10 Polish zlotys and says, just pointing that the goal is not updated, Nick. Well, it is now. Your shaming worked. Monetary shaming always works. It does. Critical Boy gives $5, says, newest cold take was fucking fire, Mr Ruiz. Would love to see some more review style videos in that same vein. Oh, the Troid Vayne. Yeah. Yes.
00:43:08
Speaker
Obey that one person. Everyone check out Frost took a look at Hades in the year of our Lord 2024. Goodness me, you're behind the times when it comes to reviews. I hear what he thinks of. Silent Hill 2. I like having the final say, so no one else is going to have one. Oh, I see.
00:43:30
Speaker
Uh, pet, pet pumpkin gives five euros. Do you all have any ideas for interesting Metroidvania mechanics? Something more interesting than double jump, et cetera, et cetera. By the way, love the hat frost. See, yeah, it's like that. His hat's got my five euro. What's your hat? Well, well, I guess, uh, it was worth it. Yeah. Yeah. What was your hat? What do you think a Metrovania hasn't done that should, they should do? Unicycle. Oh, actually funny. Oh, all right. Explain.
00:44:00
Speaker
just a unicycle. So you have to sort of nudge left and right to maintain your balance as you move across. I don't know. I put me on the spot. Oh, you just seem prepared for that. I was gonna say environmental destructibility, like whole hog instead of just those you can break this one or within ability, you can break this kind of wall. I'm like, wow. I guess pizza tower kind of does that. I guess you just break the entire world then.
00:44:27
Speaker
Well, wouldn't that be competitive? Yeah, exactly. I think I wanted to make it an end game ability. Yeah, imagine flattening the world. Because every Castlevania game ends with the castle being demolished anyway, so might as well have fun with it. Turn a holiday and just a sinkhole entire thing is just
00:44:47
Speaker
bottomless chasm. I think have any have any metroidvania has had its course so you have guacamelee has kind of the two realities or whatever the light and dark world. Oh, yeah. Have any of those sort of futz with time travel to where things you do in one impact the future one because oh, seed and early one and it's now a tree in the later one. I feel like there must have been at least one but does that I've not really I might have even played it because I just can't remember.
00:45:17
Speaker
Someone on the chattel, no. Yeah. I don't know. Axiom Verge. Axiom Verge 2 had a similar, had sort of the dual, dual world thing. I mean, technically, Dark Souls DLC. Yeah. Dark Souls DLC. You're not really like, uh, doing something in one that's directly impacting the other. Oh, okay. Yeah, sure. Someone suggests time spinners. Uh, time splitters? Time spinners? Time spinners. It's a metroidvania about time.
00:45:48
Speaker
Although I don't know how much of the time powers are actually employed as mechanics. Yeah. People are mentioning Sonic CD and Ocarina Time. I'm talking about games that feel like a Metroidvania. Yeah, Metroidvania is. What are you paying attention to the title? There's plenty of time travel games. I made a very clever Rocky Horror Picture Show reference at the start. And for what? And for what?
00:46:12
Speaker
My clever references are wasted on you people. I said a good Tim Curry and love it. Delicious. Where was I? Yes. L-O-T-R fan 193. I'm guessing that stands for lunch on the riverbed. Yeah.
00:46:34
Speaker
and give us $4.99 and says, hello, here's some money for Adventurous Night Season 4. Thank you very much. Let's all go towards that. Peter Jackson's a fan of that. Yeah, loves Noshin on the riverbed. Riverbank, I should have said. If you're having lunch on the riverbed, then you've annoyed some gangsters, I think.
00:46:55
Speaker
Oh, I'm sleeping with the fishes. Yeah, having a picnic with the fishes. Yep. Okay. Robo not the snob gave us a deep red super chat. So we have to pay attention to his very important point. He gave 119 99 euros blimey.
00:47:11
Speaker
And says, one of the things I hate the most in Metroidvanias is when the new power, stroke whatever, acts as a glorified key, i.e., now you have fire to melt enemies and also that ice wall from before, rather than creating new challenges like, hey, now you float for a couple of seconds.
Innovative Mechanics and Tools in Metroidvania
00:47:25
Speaker
Well, that was my point about how Metroid's all based around opening doors with guns. Yeah, that is the act of unlocking, but you do have a few, like, abilities that you're gaining.
00:47:37
Speaker
You get you get spin jump, you get a high jump, you get the ability to maneuver underwater. But I do like I think the best things and honestly tools I like in every game are things that function in combat, traversal and puzzle solving. So if you give me a single tool, they could do all three. Like I was saying that thing in Ori to where you kind of
00:47:57
Speaker
can bounce off projectiles to fire it back at enemies to reach new heights or to solve puzzles. That's great. You might, you might like Doomblade puzzle solving grappling hook. Yeah, that's the Swiss army knife. And Nick DOJ in the tip jar for one month. Thank you, Nick.
00:48:23
Speaker
Obsidian Watch, give us $5, and says, today's cold take felt like a hot take thanks to Frost Ranting. Besides that, hey you wall and hi Toffee. Well, much for rant, right? I've got the emotional support to emote for me. It's very deadpan. I didn't feel very ranty. That didn't feel very ranty at all. Maybe it's a rant. If you're into that, it's whatever you want. It's a haiku. This was much if you pay for that much. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
00:48:51
Speaker
Oh, Robonob the snob isn't done giving his money. He gives us another 599 and says also I'm playing FF 16. I just want to voice how much it absolutely sucks. Robonob stop playing it. If you don't like a game stop playing it.
00:49:04
Speaker
I'm always impressed by people's ability to just number out the numerals, just boom, at a glance. I can't do that. That is Final Fantasy XV. It's easy. It's like it's a maybe generational gap, right? Cause like I had to learn cursive when I was in school. You probably had to do Roman numerals.
00:49:25
Speaker
when you went to school with diagenous well i don't remember specifically being taught roman emuls i just know what they are because i'm i get tripped up when we start getting into the 40s because they put an L at the end and i'm like what's going on here
00:49:40
Speaker
Where did that sell come from? L is 50. That's not that high. No, that's what it's like when I see a Super Bowl. And I'm like, what is what? Yeah, it's because it's like, you know, it's as much about position as anything else. Yeah. D is the tough one. D is 500. Get the fuck out of here. It's the biggest one besides M. What's M? 1000. As in MM for 2000.
00:50:11
Speaker
You ever wonder how all those like uh tv shows have like the year at the end of the credits and it always starts with m because I thought that was an in-joked of like the producers to to their like mistress or something I thought that was an mgm thing I was like I never clicked uh oh that was how many mms were eating on set no you keep going outside I think we're done we're done spoofing and goofing
00:50:37
Speaker
No, I'm just surprised it's made that apparently people have trouble reading revenue rules, but then... Why do we do them anymore? Because they look really imposing and interesting, I suppose. I think they're dumb. What does Rome just do? Well, they've had the Pope for a long time. EFT. Saseki sauce.
00:50:57
Speaker
Is that Roman? What? No, not a big part of Europe. Well, as we've explored, I am unusually good at counting. Frost, say a relatively long word. Ah, fuck. That's not a relatively long word. Aphrodisiac. Ten.
00:51:21
Speaker
I spell it right. Wait, wait, wait, wait, 11. Sorry. My brain was turning to pH into a single letter. Yeah, that was like a sound base. That's cool. Two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11. He's right. I think it's, I think we, the Fahrenheit and the Celsius gang need to get together and we need to get rid of Roman numerals. We need to come to agreement on something. It's that these Roman numerals need to get the fuck out of town.
00:51:50
Speaker
Time for a new generation of numbers to come in, and those are just regular numbers. And then we get rid of the 24-hour clock. Absolutely. Fahrenheit. Fahrenheit has 10 letters, by the way. It's still good. It's the weirdest superpower, though. Yeah. You know, it's one of those things you don't know it's impressive until you do it in front of someone. You just turn that skill into a gameplay mechanic. I mean, we all learned how to count, didn't we?
00:52:18
Speaker
Yeah, I just don't think about it anymore. Sure, yeah. Anyway,
Cultural Tangents and Humor
00:52:24
Speaker
uh... B-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b
00:52:50
Speaker
Great movie. Great movie came out. Yeah. Yeah. Give us five dollars and says really enjoying three greats discuss my favorite genre. I always learn a lot and appreciate you. Oh, apparently King Frederick's the new king of Denmark. Oh, right now. The new king now. Did their queen die too? Well, man, they're just dropping live flies. Hmm. Princess Diana was the queen of Denmark. They just take a very long time to elect a new king.
00:53:20
Speaker
King's elected? No. It's not a king then, is it? Democratic king? Well, they're sort of elected if no one was sure who the rifle here was. And then it comes down to who's got the biggest army. Says, all my men say I'm the king. That's basically democracy. I saw Game of Thrones. I know what's going on there. Oh, the queen. Everyone's saying abdicated and I thought she got abducted. I was like, fucking aliens took the queen? We should be more worried about the Queen of Denmark getting snatched by the little green men.
00:53:51
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I think like sometimes in some countries like the model actually gets so old, they decide to willingly like pass on the crown to their heir. Amazing. That sounds nice. Amazing that a country should do that. Not did that. Not thinking of anyone specifically, Queen Elizabeth II, you hanger on bitch. She gave it up.
00:54:12
Speaker
to her young son. Charlie. No, what's new? Who's your king now? Charles Charles the third. I call him Charlie. We're close like that. The first Charles we chopped the head off. Charles the second we were okay with that. So Charles is didn't have quite the stigma as it could have had.
00:54:36
Speaker
Although I remember him saying a while back that he was thinking about making his official king name George, just because the only Charles anyone remembers is the one who got executed. Oh, I was thinking of the third. Did he get executed? No, the current king is Charles the third. Charles the first was executed by Parliament after the English Civil War. Oh, I thought you meant- Do you want to keep Charles? Because you could say Charles in charge? Does that sound nice?
00:55:03
Speaker
I thought you were saying that he wanted to swap to George because the only George was executed. I think the George who was like the subject of the King's speech
00:55:19
Speaker
Whatever number he was. George VI, I think. His actual name was Albert. But he went by George because that's a king's name. It was an established king's name. God, imagine. It's a good thing it was just a neutral, you know, George. He could have had a more embarrassing name and then we've been, we were on the ninth of them. Yeah.
00:55:38
Speaker
Anyway, I can see I'm, like, in the wrong company to be talking about British history. Yeah, I don't give a shit about that. History in general, Americans are bad for it. Yeah. Roman numerals, get them out of here. Regular numbers. Fucking Philistines. Uh, just existing 45. Yes. Gives five Canadian dollars. Has never been able to catch one of these live. Thanks for being awesome. Been listening to Yahtzee every night since 2010. Hello from Chile, Canada. CA.
00:56:06
Speaker
That was a weird little C.A. Ah, well, thank you so much. Well, I wonder who that person who was creeping in the bushes under my window was. Well, Johnny Spaghett.
Atmosphere and Hub Upgrades in Metroidvania
00:56:15
Speaker
Thanks for introducing yourself. Rob Mace in the Green Gang with a green message. Hello to my three favorite bearded, spectacled humans. It's true. We all have beards and spectacles. Damn. Is this a beard? But you know, one of us is from Mexico and one of us is British, so we're actually one of the more diverse groups in second wear.
00:56:35
Speaker
was from Wisconsin. There you go. Mexico the North. Higher Gibbs $5 and says atmosphere that grows steadily more hostile alongside things getting mechanically more lethal ludo narrative joy. I quite like the commentary on Metroidvani is generally I think. Yeah, I like I like the
00:56:59
Speaker
Was it the balance between the two, like Ico? You know, that's what inspired the Dark Souls feel of like, oh, look, nice little patch of sunshine. Christ, what's in that tunnel? I don't know. I think atmosphere, maybe that's one of the reasons Super Metroid to me is dripping with atmosphere. And I think that's one of its strongest elements. And so that's kind of a thing I do associate with Metroidvanias, even though you necessarily don't have to be like a expert in atmosphere. I think that goes a long way. Hollow Knight, same thing.
00:57:26
Speaker
Tunic, oof. Tunic, oof, doggy. What was your Howl-O-Nate thoughts, Yahtzee? Have you ever talked about Howl-O-Nate? I'm sure you have, but... Yeah, I like it. I think it might be a touch over long. I don't know if I've probably finished it. Sure. Yeah, especially when you start folding in the post-release stuff and that's a beefy game. There's like a couple points where you can check out of it though, which is fine.
00:57:53
Speaker
I was thinking, I quite like a game that organically, like, gatekeeps areas just with difficulty. Sort of like Dark Souls with the skeleton graves right at the start of the game. Like, hey, you could go here if you want. You'll get the shit kicked out of you, but you could. Put up a sign for that, you know? Because it's also not the right way, so to speak, right? Yeah, there's a lot of people who bounce off Dark Souls because they accidentally go to the skeleton graves instead of the place they're supposed to go right at the start of the game.
00:58:23
Speaker
You can also go down into the abyss and just fuck around there. What a horrible first time experience. Just fall into a bunch of dark lagoons. Yeah. Hunter Roge also gifted five memberships over in YouTube. Thank you so much, Hunter Roge. Oh, thanks very much. Odysseus-Wolves gives $5 and says, Hey, y'all hope you guys are warm. It's currently snowing here in Texas.
00:58:51
Speaker
Yeah, I heard there's a big old climate change, frosty disaster striking a lot of the world at the moment. It is. California has been all right. It's been raining a lot. But you know, most Californians are overjoyed when that happens. Like, oh, yay, things won't catch fire so much in summer. The drought is broken. Negative one. We're not gonna hit double digits until Wednesday. Negative one and we're not gonna hit positives until tomorrow afternoon.
00:59:22
Speaker
come and live in california i did i did it was very expensive yeah money was there it was so expensive money then get good scrub oh my god games there's still money in this that's killed by the economy
00:59:39
Speaker
Well, you say there's no money in this, but then we got a whole two euros from Snake in the Garden, who says, an Eric appreciation don't know. Great mod plus discord work. Yes. The unsung hero of this podcast. He's the one who's scrambling for all those trailers you're seeing in the bottom right. All those toffee cams, all those ads running at the start, getting our schedules together because Nick and I are terrible at communicating with him. Yes. He's almost made up for that one time he didn't show up.
01:00:09
Speaker
Are you leaving me? He's got enough anxiety over there. Okay, fine. RJ58FTW gives $10. It says finally got to catch one of these live. Thanks, MLK Jr. Congrats on the launch of Second Wind. Oh, some people get today off. How quaint. Thank you for your choice. If one of us didn't want to do this, we could have not done it. You said I got shit. I got weekly deadlines. I got shit to do. I make my own schedule. If I didn't work today, I just have to do twice as much work tomorrow.
01:00:40
Speaker
Isn't that awful? Yeah. We'll just delay the day. This is a swamp. This whole thing's a trap. Oh, I'm just not going to work today. And then you were like, well, I'll work in 12 hours tomorrow. Also just existing. Welcome to the tip jar in full wagon. Thank you for being in tip jar for a month. Appreciate it very much.
01:00:59
Speaker
Uh, Marty is beautiful, says Cass, who gave us 25 Polish Lottie. I did it all in reverse order that time, just to make things interesting. Look at that. Spicy. And now we know Marty is the sex appeal. I've got a secret admirer over there in Poland, Jak Szemasz, Cass. Whoo-hoo! And then Pyrocap and Jack give $9. Says, from a philosophical standpoint, would you say that early survival horror games acted similar to Metroidvania's
01:01:25
Speaker
How early are we talking? When you say early survival horror, do you mean Resident Evil or do you mean Alone in the Dark? Or do you mean Sweet Home? Sweet Home has more. Sweet Home has some Metroidvania elements. I would not say Resi and Silent Hill do. Silent Hill kinda does. It's sort of an open-ended layout. You go back and forth a bit.
01:01:51
Speaker
I think they share DNA with adventure games. And so maybe that's where some of the stuff comes from, is that they pull from the same well. I mean, we can't really say that any game that involves unlocking new areas through exploration is inherently a Metroidvania, because that's basically every kind of game. Yeah.
01:02:09
Speaker
Anyway, Tsunami Duscha gives 20 US. Ooh, 20 US and orange, Supercha. Oh my gosh, Tsunami. Not to be sniffed at. Not a fan of Metroidvanias with an upgradable hub to show my progress through a game. I prefer to go through Metroidvanias where save shops and items are spread out instead of having to teleport to a hub and watch that upgrade. Funny, I'm very different. I love having a hub that's all run down and shitty at the start and then watching it blossom throughout the game. It feels like it's like a tangible sign of my accomplishment.
01:02:39
Speaker
So what's the game that does that? I just think you like that. Okay, I just think of like, Dark Souls two, but the jeweler doesn't really look any nicer over the course. It's folks come in there like a hub in a Metroidvania that as you do things characters are going back there. It's kind of building up maybe there's more shops. How long I does a little bit of that?
01:03:00
Speaker
A little bit, yeah. Cookie cutter, just a bit of that. That's a more common thing nowadays, which is like, hey, if you find me, I'll go back to your main area. Yeah. Yeah. Shadow survivor had a big thing with your bar and your little, your little rooftop garden that didn't really matter. Yeah, I didn't give shit one about that. You don't care about the environment. You only care about Roman numerals. Fair. Well, now I'm being straw manned.
01:03:28
Speaker
How many, yeah, how many letters in it? I don't even know if it's two words or not. Straw man? That's one word, isn't it? No, you think it's rotten? Straw man has 10 letters. But is it one word or two? It's one word. Depends if you're talking about a straw man argument or a straw man, right? Oh, my weight, 11 letters. Again, like I've mistook two letters for one. It's 11 letters. Wacky. Straw for five, manned for six, 11. Oh, okay. Ah, ah, ah.
01:04:00
Speaker
the count I appreciated the Dark Souls bit where yeah the hub gets bigger but then slowly you lose them and you go wait where'd my friends go why is this one dude keep laughing every time we talked of it seems like he's got the only one is named thank you yeah yeah
01:04:19
Speaker
Yes, where was I? The Piss Bandit gives five dollars. Always refreshing to get a visit from the Piss Bandit. And says the worst is when the devs of Stingy was giving players a good dash. Yeah, it seems like the dash is taken only to the double jump in Metroidvania commonness these days. I'm only 20 minutes into the new Prince of Persia, but there's our nice run.
01:04:44
Speaker
It actually takes a while to get to the double jump. You're like running? Yeah. You're like running? Is that what you just said to me? No, there's just a nice run, a button you can hold to run right from the start. Okay. You know what? You get across the screen nice and quickly. Oh, you know what pisses your fat out of there is that it deactivates if you go from one room to the next. So you're trying to run through the whole map.
01:05:07
Speaker
Oh, that's annoying. I mean, stop sprinting after a room transition. So you have to stop and start sprinting again. That's like one innovation. Yeah, one step forward, one step back. Yeah, super Metroid has those are almost puzzles to where you're going like hyper speed once you get that ability, and you need to be unlocking doors in front of you, like in the doors need to be open before you hit them to maintain your thing going to the next room. Yeah. But it's not really about that. It's more about anime battles.
01:05:34
Speaker
You know that meme where someone goes, heh, teleports behind you. Yeah. That's Prince of Persia combat. That's fun. Yeah, there's a few that are like that, where it is more about the fight than anything else. I tend to call those brawlvanias or brawlervanias. Yeah. Cookie cutter was more fighting than just anything else. Yeah.
01:05:59
Speaker
R. Cown Co. gives $10. Says Yahtzee. Wanted to thank you for all the years of extremely quality reviews. It started with Fable for me, and I have been here for everything since. Your work is incredibly appreciated. Well, that was the second ever zero punctuation I ever made. Wow. Rather than the first. The darkness was first? Yeah. People have been following me since the darkness of the real OGs. What did you think of Fable?
01:06:26
Speaker
It's nice that we live in a world where Peter Molyneux exists so we can point and laugh. Nate Handy gives five US dollars, says, has Yahtzee tried my summer car? I think it's the logical conclusion to the dad game genre. I haven't tried that. I've tried Jalopy, and I've played the demo of what's the new one Pacific Drive. Oh, yeah, that's more of like a spooky kind
01:06:51
Speaker
Yeah, spooky game where you have to keep a keep a car running. I quite Yeah, I do quite like games centered around keeping a mode of transport running. I quite liked the original far loan sales for that. Oh, yeah, I don't know why I just think it's fun. Yeah, I couldn't give two shits about engine maintenance in real life. I just let my brother in law fix the car whenever we need it fixed.
01:07:20
Speaker
There you go. Good to have someone handy in the family. Yeah. Anyway, Blue McDays nut gives $5. I was waiting for someone else to jump into the conversation there, but. No, it's just like Pep Boys and that's all I had to offer. I really don't like cars.
01:07:40
Speaker
Fair enough. Blue McDays nuts, gives a title. It says, most vaniers are doorstroke keys. Bad, double jump, swim, flight. Good. Mind read. Fused with wool, shoot grenade eggs from butt. Now I fear you've got some very specific examples in mind there. I'm trying to figure out all of them. The last one's Banjo-Kazooie, I think. That's not the best for a vanier at all. I think I know where fused with wool was. Wasn't that one of the Igarashi vaniers? I think Order of Ecclesia had fused with wool.
01:08:09
Speaker
Oh, I was just thinking of a link between worlds, the Zelda game, where you turn into like a little 2D hieroglyphic boy and then do some, do some wall nonsense. Grenade eggs from what? Yeah, that Banjo-Kazooie. You get, in Banjo-Tooie, I believe, you get grenade eggs and Tooie creates eggs either from her mouth or from her anus. Oh, okay. Well, eggs coming out of the mouth means there's something very biologically wrong with that entity.
01:08:37
Speaker
No, she's fine. Don't worry. It's a Yoshi. It's a Yoshi. They've all got Yoshi disease. No, Yoshi's eat things and then poo out eggs. They don't shoot eggs out of their mouth. Oh, that's just weird. What was that? What about the pinky one with a big hootin' mouth?
01:08:56
Speaker
What? Burdo. Burdo, yeah. Burdo shot eggs out of their mouth and fireballs as well. But then they could have had like the kind of biology where their cloaca is in their face and their mouth was actually their butthole. Whom amongst us hasn't had that.
01:09:14
Speaker
Did you ever play Alpha Protocol or Shadow Complex? I have played both of those. Those are two Metroidvanias that kind of take a more, quote unquote, like realistic approach, kind of like a sci fi approach that we don't see a lot in the Metroidvania genre. Alpha Protocol is not a Metroidvania. I think the right game. Alpha Protocol is that sort of immersive open ended RPG thing where you play an absolute twat who
01:09:42
Speaker
Yeah, it was more like a bioware thing. Yeah. Shadow Complex is definitely Metroidvania though, right? Yeah, Shadow Complex definitely is. Yes. That's the one that was written by Olsen Scott Card, incidentally. And the music by Tommy Telerico. Yeah. A couple of winners. Is that the one where you get the Goo Gun? It's a 2D game where you get the Goo Gun? I see you do, yes. It's almost like that Prey Goo Hardening. Yes. Yes, that's the one. That one was pretty cool. How come we don't see more of that?
Humor and Diverse Game Mechanics
01:10:08
Speaker
More like spycraft Metroidvanias.
01:10:13
Speaker
I don't know. You should make one. Oh, that seems very hard to make a video game. It seems so hard. I don't even know where to start. Yeah, I start there.
01:10:24
Speaker
Hunter Roge gives $10 and says, I can't seem to get my thoughts together today. So here is just 10 bucks. Also excellent hat frost. I mean, I've got one of those furry winter hats with the ear flaps that I could have brought on if I knew you'd go this nuts for it. You mean this nuts for is cold. This has flaps. See, we should eat. Oh, yeah. We should have specific hat days. Everyone wear the biggest hats. I have a baseball cap that says if you don't like the Chicago Bears and if you lift up the bill, it says fuck y'all.
01:10:54
Speaker
Yeah. Okay, my current fully ramblimatic avatar wears a Stetson because I have an inexpensive black Stetson I wear when I go out on sunny days. I just don't wear it all the time because I'm not that guy anymore. Tragic. I'm looking for a nice hat to finish off the cultic look, but I can't find one. But I saw Val Kilmer is also selling his tombstone hat. I was very tempted. But it's a 895 bucks made by the original guy. Oh, no.
01:11:23
Speaker
Do you want a sort of like Indiana Jones hat? I was thinking on that. I knew a guy who had one. It looked very nice on him. Something that you can sit on and it still looks functional and also somewhat appropriate. I'm getting the sense something's creeping up behind me. Yeah. Oh, it's going to attack. Emil as well. Welcome to the Green Gang. Thank you so much, Emil.
01:11:53
Speaker
One second need to refresh the super jets list. Okay, Lanny. Lanny soulfire gives $5 and says golden sun's puzzle system was very Metroidvania like despite it being an RPG. So happy that you brought a golden sun coming out for switch online this week golden sun one and two being released very excited. I guess I hear it's quite good. They're very good. Yeah, and they're they're puzzles and dungeons give you could be abilities to
01:12:19
Speaker
I want to play out a little bit more like Zelda dungeons than traditional JRPG grind through dungeons. Good stuff. Nintendo, make another one of those. Offie's very cat-like at times. Yeah, especially today. You usually just absolutely chill inside your... Yeah, well, he's doing his being a cat thing. He's looped around twice too much with Vanias. There you go. Second time was New Game Plus. Wacka wacka.
01:12:48
Speaker
And off he goes again. Yeah, I wouldn't, uh, wouldn't stress too much about keeping him in frame. I like it. I like it. Yeah. Uh, patterned pie. Oh, missed one. Just existing 45 gives two Canadian dollars says CA must have been my Canada flag emoji lol. Ah. All right, then. Little tiny Canada. Oh, Canada.
01:13:09
Speaker
And then patterned pike gives side on us just wanted to say I loved the most recent cold take for the review and commentary but also for the phrases egg buffet and tinfoil hat and tie. The latest cold takes seems to be going down very well. And then CC gives us 499 us and then there's just a weird animated gif with the word noob on it. So noob control in Roman numerals. That's 200 isn't it?
01:13:38
Speaker
Is it? Oh yeah, see for
Storytelling and Game Mechanics in Metroidvania
01:13:40
Speaker
a hundred because, you know, a hundred starts with a C. As in cent. As in century. As in century. Yeah. I appreciate it. And Citrus gifted out 10 memberships over in YouTube Citrus. Thank you so much.
01:13:56
Speaker
A cent is a hundred. That's why there's a hundred cents in a dollar. That's why a century is a hundred years. What's the route? Don't you all talk shit about Latin because a hundred starts with a C. I can talk shit about Latin. I took a hundred... Yes, I took a hundred tasks or whatever of Rosetta Latin. I'd learned nothing except the elephant is a lepantus and oculi or my eyes. Okay.
01:14:24
Speaker
I think it's always funny to listen to people talking Latin because no one actually knows what accent you're supposed to talk Latin in. So they all just sort of make something up. You know, that never occurred to me. Yeah. Wow. What? Wow. That just blew my mind. Just the thought like, yes, no one does a Latin accent. They just use their own. Adios, six symptom tyranus. What's that one I really like? Nemo me impune la quesit.
01:14:53
Speaker
What does that mean? It means nobody wounds me with impunity.
01:14:58
Speaker
Nobody makes me bleed my own blood. Yeah. Wait, what's that from? I think it used to be the motto of the Royal House of Scotland, but it's also the motto of the main character's family in Poe's short story, The Cask of Amartiada. There we go. I was like, I know this one for some reason, and Marty's was the Virginia State motto.
01:15:23
Speaker
I was talking to six separate Tyrannus. Oh, Virginia State Mono, which is kind of weird considering who done it, who said it. Anyway, uh, what was I just existing 45 gives five Canadian dollars again and says just snow would be nice. It's been minus 45 here. Gotta love Canada. Hey, Yahtzee. Having never played persona before with which one should I start? You should start with persona five.
01:15:52
Speaker
and just let it end there, yeah? There, yes. Because Persona 5 just feels like they took all the stuff in Persona 4 and made it better, and Persona 4 felt like they took all the stuff in Persona 3 and made it better. So might as well start at the top. Yeah, and then if you really like 5, play 4, and if you still really like 4, play 3. Yes, and you'll have a good opportunity to play 3 pretty soon, because the remas, the remake's coming out. Very soon. Very soon. We should have the code for it. Inside of a dodge that has a knife in his mouth.
01:16:21
Speaker
We need more games with dogs with knives in their mouth. Toffee just gave me a funny look when you said that. I hope you're not putting ideas in his head. Oh no. Anyway, David Hosho gives 10 US dollars. Coincidentally, my pals were just brainstorming how to better label the Metroidvania genre for non-gamers. Props to Trev for Lock and Key Adventure, or La Car, the essential mechanic in service of the exploration.
01:16:49
Speaker
Uh, well, you might want to cope with something that doesn't suck as much, David Hosho. Oh my God. That wasn't David's fault. That was Trev's fault. Don't play me. Okay. Fuck you, Trev. Oh, Trev. Oh no. Trev taking strays. You know what? They can have it. Cause if, if you can describe a game as lock and key them ups, I'm like, I don't want that one. My favorite Metroidvanias don't have doors or keys.
01:17:09
Speaker
Don't think there's anything wrong with Metroidvania as a genre name because, hey, you say it and everyone knows what you're talking about. Funny that. And also, if you're trying to explain the concept of a Metroidvania to people who don't understand games, like, you don't have to explain them. You're just already too deep. It's fine. They don't need to know what it is. Yes. Just say it's a platform game. That's about all they understand. Yeah.
01:17:39
Speaker
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,
01:18:05
Speaker
good stories. It's the way they unfold because it's usually layered. It's not very wide, but it might have a bit of depth to it. It's a very simple story. And it's like my own personal stories of like, man, it was really sick when I got that ability and I could go back and finally jump up there and see what was going on.
01:18:27
Speaker
Yeah. I guess Metroidvanias tend to be sort of mechanically focused because the environments are very utilitarian. Yeah. As I say, you look at the map and go, yep, that's the boss fight. That's the area where we learn the new ability. I got you figured out. Yeah. And it's hard to balance that with storytelling as well. Well, and usually nowadays it's just like, oh, you were the bad guy this whole time. No. Metroidvania is synonymous with big old boss fights with like memorable boss fights.
01:18:58
Speaker
Well, some of them. Yeah. Are there any, are any not a tunic? You don't really think of bad. Yeah, pretty bad. Yeah. But I mean, your Hollow Knight, your Castlevania is your Metroids. I always think of the boss fights first, your boss. Yeah. Boss fights are sort of the markers of progress as they frequently are in other kinds of games. Yeah. Yeah. Just thinking about.
01:19:25
Speaker
Also because Metrovania is focused around gathering new abilities that change the way you act and play, you have to have bosses that sort of in part train you in the use of those abilities. Much the way Zelda dungeon bosses do.
01:19:41
Speaker
That's interesting because it also gives you a bit more oo. Like you said, it's cool when an ability is for traversal and combat. If you don't have boss fights, then it's one less use. Yeah, or you're just rinsing a bunch of normies in the hallway. Yeah. I rinsed my normies this morning. Baba. Sineam for his poles. There you go. It's Grundle.
01:20:06
Speaker
Nick the OG gives $2 and says Yahtzee, a man of many hats. How many hats do you own? I currently own two hats. I own my Stetson for sunny weather and my furry hat for cold weather. That's two. What about when it rains? She does a lot. I wear a coat with a hood. How do you say two in Roman numerals? I, I. Almost like you're agreeing to something on a ship.
01:20:34
Speaker
I captain. No, that would just be regular two. That's one one. One one is two. CC comes back with 4.99 and says I'm the fool who sent 99 cents last week. It was nothing more than a sheer incompetence on my end and not a middle finger to y'all. Y'all bring joy. I thought it was very nice. Well, not amused.
01:20:58
Speaker
I'm glad you felt the need to apologize, although I completely forgot who you were the instant you was over. You said it was worse to send any sense than to send nothing at all.
01:21:09
Speaker
Okay, that sounds like something I would say, yes. Citrus, welcome to the Green Gang, and bag of decks been in the Green Gang for a month, very late, totally forgot it was Monday. Well, apparently a lot of people who go usually go to work on Monday forgot it was Monday as well. Because they didn't show up.
01:21:31
Speaker
Oh, blimey, it's a deep red Super Chat now. Coming from Eitor Urobari who gives us 1,000 arses, which I guess must be pretty valuable if it's a red Super Chat. One arses? Yes, hi guys! Just catch the stream, wanted to show my support, and say that the wait for the final episodes of Season 3 of Adventure is nigh is becoming unbearable. I have strong suspicions about Mortimer's backstory and I want to know if they are true. Keep up the good work. It's true. He's actually from Argentina.
01:22:01
Speaker
Oh my God. Do you have a thousand arses? He loves his purry purry. At least. At least a thousand arses. Um, yeah, we should be getting the new episodes in a month, right? Cause that was episode four. Yeah. The one that just went out was five, I think. So the next, the next one will be the puppet show episode. And the one after that will be scarpering from the Eldritch Horror episode. And the one after that. It's new.
01:22:31
Speaker
Maybe. And the one after that will be the heist planning, and then I think after that will be the new episodes. Oh my god, we're so close. I know, just a few more weeks. I can't believe it. And right after the new episodes start, we have to bugger off and record the next season. Oh my gosh. It never ends. It truly doesn't. And then Etoarabari comes back as a member for one month and uses his member chat to say, also Frost, please say,
01:22:59
Speaker
That sentence I'm not going to try to pronounce. Thanks. Yeah. I'm not by a bubble. Yeah. I'm not by a bubble. What does that mean? Off. It's kind of off with your clown. Okay. On your bike, mate. On your go. On your bike. It's off. Go forth and multiply.
01:23:19
Speaker
Tsunami Dushik is $20. Says another $20 to make up for missing last week's windbreaker. I would have suggested Monster Hunter for a good grind game. They simply made the grind itself. Ton. Okay, well, we're not talking about that anymore. No. I never got into Monster Hunter.
01:23:37
Speaker
What does Masters be? It fell apart for me after the second boss and I realised it was just big reboot, the video game. Yeah, because you
Final Thoughts and Future Content
01:23:46
Speaker
fight the one and when he gets down to like a quarter health, the next thing you're going to fight steps on him and very quickly just sort of loses itself there. Yes. I think coffee is trying to hint that he wants to go for his walk. So he wants to get through these quickly.
01:24:03
Speaker
Digital Janus gives five Canadian dollars says Strider was an arcade action platformer, but a Metroidvania on the NES and the remake 10 to 15 years ago tried to fuse both play styles. Yeah, I seem to remember quite liking the remake of that. That wasn't too bad. Okay. Yeah, I didn't have a lot of thoughts. I wasn't a huge Strider fan as a kid. I liked Strider in Marvel vs. Capcom. And I thought the new one was pretty neat because it was a Metroidvania.
01:24:31
Speaker
And John Connors says, what's the perfect length for metroidvania? 12 letters. This guy, I like a good 10 hours. That's sort of my like, yeah, a little bang for buck indie on a tight 10. Yeah. Nice, tight. Because you can always do the like multiple ending bit and the the secret hunting takes like a good amount of time on its own. So
01:24:56
Speaker
I don't know. I think I'd just say, um, not too much longer beyond the final traversal ability again, unlocked what I would show. Don't do anything as crazy as like getting to the end of a castle and then making another castle just fucking upside down on top. That's just nuts. You know, when that happens, you're like, Oh, blimey. Okay. We'll just gonna have a whole second game now. I love that. No one's, no one's dared try that since then. You think they could get away with it nowadays?
01:25:26
Speaker
I think there's plenty of games where you unlock the whole map, then at the very end it says, I'll now go through the whole map again to do the next thing. Hmm. I've seen those in a while. You know, just sort of functionally the inverted castle trick. Yeah. Snake in the Garden gives two euros a day's yards. Could you recognize your butt in a lineup? Yeah, we had this conversation yesterday in Persona. If it was your bare ass alongside four other asses that look similar,
01:25:56
Speaker
Could you recognize your own bear abs? How similar are we talking about hair? Similar skin color, similar body build, similar weight. Okay, so I wouldn't have a similar amount of hair.
01:26:13
Speaker
Oh, but you know, I would recognize five different, completely different types of humans. They're ones that share something. Well, my ass would be the big hairy one. What if there were other big hairy ones of people relatively your size and your skin color?
01:26:31
Speaker
Well, now I feel like you're just saying that there's just gonna be an ass exactly identical to mine and asking me how I would tell it apart. No, what we're saying is... Very uncomfortable. I would no more ask because it is pale and big and hairy. I don't think I could tell mine, however, I know how mine feels. So if I could squeeze all five asses, I would know which one mine was.
01:26:51
Speaker
I guess mine would be also the one that had the telltale signs of being very thoroughly cleaned by a bidet attachment. You need to see what's going on here. If you have any tingles, that's not you. It had tingles in years. It's more so if you got any distinct features or anything. Someone said they have a birthmark on their ass, so that's an easy tell.
01:27:16
Speaker
Wait, can we ask all the arses to break wind? And then we smell them all and the one, the smell that we like is our arse. Sure. You know, that's a horrible way of doing it, but not one that would fail. I think it would work. Absolutely gets the job done. Yeah.
01:27:32
Speaker
Moving hastily on Templar Warden gives five New Zealand dollars and says in the inevitable progress of indie games, could you see a card game Metroidvania working out? Oh, there's got to be one already. There's so many card indie card games these days. They're working cards into everything now. Yeah. It's just neon white had cards and that was a fucking yeah. Beat run first person shooter game. Yeah. If it doesn't exist, it won't be long without it.
01:28:02
Speaker
it's here. But it's hard to pull off that sort of, you know, turn based JRPG style combat in the middle of a Metroidvania. Yeah, what was that? What was that wordless? Yeah, that game's combat kind of sucked. Yeah, and it would just ground things to a halt.
01:28:24
Speaker
Citrus, another dupe for it, Superchap. Blimey, they're all coming out. Give 700 Zara's and says, consider this backdated pay for the mock world audio book I borrowed from you, Torrent. That and self-discord for Steam sales splurging. I don't think borrowed was the word you're looking for there, Citrus. Apparently a pirate.
01:28:41
Speaker
Are you returning it to you, Torrance? You stole. You nicked. And you didn't nick it from you, Torrance. You nicked it from me. Oh, my God. You took money out of my adorable Chihuahua's mouth. Look at him. Look at his face. Look. Look how mad he is at you. He's so docile. Where's my money, bitch?
01:29:13
Speaker
Sorry, Tommy. Did you teach him to swear yachts? Or was that elsewhere? He watches too many of your videos. It's just learned behavior. Yeah. He sees what gets what's effective. Yeah. Pain causing samurai gives $5 and says have any of the second wind crew played whoop-ho? It's an adorable anarchic game that's more kirbyvania than metroidvania, at least in tone. No, I have not played whoop-ho. Oh, that looks delightful. Oh, well, I say.
01:29:43
Speaker
I've never even heard of it. 2016 the past. Yeah, that's an old one. Wow. No, here's an interesting one though for 2024. Let's get ready for three, three Metroidvanias where the map is the human body. Uh, I don't know why, but yeah, they're doing the osmosis Jones, but weird.
01:30:02
Speaker
Will we go along the full extent of Earth's more intestine, do you think? There's one, yeah. I think it's called Biogun. Yeah, it definitely goes into... I think there's more intestine than there should be, actually. I think that's... I want a metroidvania map that's... You know how Dokapon is like a loose translation of Earth? I want a metroidvania map, like a 2D map, but that it's sort of themed after America. So like the bottom right corner has like a deep south vibe to it.
01:30:30
Speaker
The Western Wall feels like California. I don't know what that means. It just feels like California. Have you played The Crew? I don't want to drive a fucking car. What are we doing? I don't want to drive a car. You thought your old truck sent me later. What's wrong with driving a car? I drive a car. I quite like driving a car. No, I drive a car in real life. I don't want to drive a car in a game.
01:30:51
Speaker
I like driving a car in real life. It's almost like a game. You just, uh, it's the game is don't run over people. Wait a minute. And I'm an expert at it. You've gamified not running over people. Yes. Give myself an extra point for every person that don't run over.
01:31:09
Speaker
And then citrus gives 35 Zara and says to be fair, money shouldn't go into dogs mouths. Yeah, you got a nerve showing your face again, citrus. And name and picture gives five euros and says shout out to Luna nights time stopping knife throwing Metroidvania is fun. Yeah, put that tomorrow. I really liked it. Oh, yeah. I've seen that one. Oh, wait, this is something else I was thinking of. What are you there's about to be another Metroidvania with time stopping and knives. So
01:31:40
Speaker
Knifechucker? You talking about Knifechucker? No. No. Not Charles. No. Not Charles in charge. Man, have you searched for Luna on Steam? There's like nine different games. Luna likes. Luna lost last the big, the three big L's. What is that in Roman numerals?
01:32:00
Speaker
three L's couple of three L's. Well, you Well, you wouldn't say three L's to mean 150. You would say CL. CL get worthwhile.
01:32:13
Speaker
We're gonna make a new quiz game where we ask you about Roman numerals and how many letters are in number. I'd be miserable at it. That's just like, that's just the letters retaliating for algebra. We done? I didn't realize I had such an advanced education compared to you people. Very smart, yeah? No. Thank you for listening to the Windbreakers podcast.
01:32:42
Speaker
I'm Yahtzee Grosjor, I was joined, as always, by Matthew Leaver and Sebastian Lewis. We were talking about metrophenia, so hope you enjoyed it. And there's all kinds of shit coming out on the second wind channel this week, including from me, another fully ramblimatic. It's going to be a retro review this week, because it's January and bugger all was coming out for a brief period. Perfect.
01:33:06
Speaker
Uh, so look forward to that on Wednesday. Uh, what else have I got? I've got the artsy tries Wednesday afternoon stream. I'm probably going to be playing portal revolution and maybe something else. Yeah. And, uh, who's going to join me for that frost. You gonna join me for that? Sure. I'm a portal man. All right. Works for me. Uh, Eric, what are you doing?
01:33:35
Speaker
putting a little, he's putting like a little angry eyebrows on Toffee. Well, Toffee is angry. He's very angry at citrus for stealing a book from me at some point. And of course, Adventures Die, which I'm a part of. Watch the episode that came out on Saturday and then watch the episode that comes out on the coming Saturday, which will also be good. Right, Marty, your turn. Plug stuff.
01:34:04
Speaker
Heck yeah, no hidden gems tonight because of the holiday, but the crew will be back. Normal stream's the rest of the week. Editor's backlog tomorrow. Yahtzee tries on Firelink on Wednesday. We're gonna be doing Shoot to Shit and Devil May Cry on Thursday. Also Thursday, 2 p.m. Central. A cheeky little watch along to the Xbox Developer Direct where they're gonna be showing off not only Hellblade and Avowed, but what the hell that Indiana Jones game that the Wolfenstein team's working on. We're gonna be seeing that on Thursday, which is very exciting.
01:34:32
Speaker
Uh, and then, uh, we'll also, I think we'll, we'll be doing a Power World stream this week. And Barco's up tomorrow. We can start paddling around. So we're going to see when we're going to be doing that. We'll keep you guys posted. And StarShark Vagabond's playtest, which was scheduled for last week, had to be moved to this week, but it should be Friday at noon central. Yes. Almost forgot about that one. Yeah. I'm surprisingly nervous about it. Understandable. It's like a big coming out party for your game.
01:34:59
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I've been working on it for years and never actually got any proper testing done. Because every time I thought about getting someone else to play it, I was like, Oh no, what if it's not perfect yet? And then I just stall again. Well, it's not. No, no games ever perfect. According to one of us. And then remember all of those streams are now on the main channel here.
01:35:25
Speaker
Rest in peace to the live channel. We loved you. You treated us like your sons, but now we must fly on our wings. Please go. I know that.
01:35:36
Speaker
We got a new cold take out for you guys. This is essentially a review of Hades in anticipation of Hades two, which comes out, I believe sometime around March. I believe in early access. We're going to be throwing in some reviews here in the mix for a cold take that, uh, yeah, go watch that. What's that again? And then the pal world stream. That'll be fun. Um, what's Friday? No Saturday better with friends. Yep. Sunday newly released and almost schedule.
01:36:05
Speaker
Yeah, all sorts of goodies. Oh boy. Did it. Oh, you're gonna put eyebrows on top of you again, are ya? What if we went over here? What if we went over here? What if we went over here? Oh wow. Oh no! Eyebrows was what I brought. Your hat got eyebrows. Okay. Uh, I think that'll be it from us then. See you all on Wednesday. Bye everyone. Bye.
01:36:46
Speaker
you