Transcript
neocharge: What's up everybody and welcome to Shapes of Gaming, the weekly conversational podcast all about video games that's unedited, unfiltered, and always unhinged. I'm one of your hosts as always, Matt Stenson, NeoCharge on PSN, and joining me for episode number nine we're on is the retro gaming encyclopedia, Bob Harriman, Leon Lionheartley on PSN.
neocharge: How's it going, man? How's your week been?
Leon Lionheartly: You can't get rid of me yet, fuckers. No, man, it's going good. It's been a busy couple of weeks, man. just Life seems to be going a million miles an hour, you know what I mean?
neocharge: Oh, yeah. I definitely know what you mean there. um We recently went to Blackhawk. We went to Blackhawk last weekend. we're this This will go live Thursday. We're recording Wednesday night. And we were in Blackhawk ah last Friday.
neocharge: That was fun. Blackhawk is a small mountain town in Colorado, about, I'd say, an hour northwest of Yeah. um and it's basically like a small mountain town like brecken ridge or you know ghanesan or something like that had a baby with vegas and you can gamble legally there we didn't do any gambling but
Leon Lionheartly: Yes.
neocharge: we definitely cracked some magic the gathering packs didn't we and we were there with a good friend ah ryan bey a good friend and listener of the show so he was in town for an event And he said, Hey, you want to come visit me when I come in town? I'm like, yep.
neocharge: And then I was like, Hey, Bob, you want to join me on a little road trip? And we maybe listen to a podcast and just hang out. And he's like, yeah, sure. Why not? That was super fun, man. I had a blast.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, absolutely. it was ah It was a huge blast. ah Definitely, as I was joking with my wife, we were riding up there. She gave me the, where are you going again? And I'm like, oh, we're going to Blackhawk.
Leon Lionheartly: um and She said, we don't have the gambling money. And I i told her, don't worry about it there, babe. I'm gambling, not at the casino, but with Magic the Gathering. um Because as you are aware, I mean, if Not everybody may be aware, but i hope you are.
neocharge: Bye.
Leon Lionheartly: ah Final Fantasy ah collaboration finally hit. um I stopped, just for a frame of reference, I stopped playing Magic the Gathering probably 20 years ago. At this point, I was maybe a little bit more. um I just had some things in my life. It was getting to the point where I couldn't keep up with that pace of cards.
Leon Lionheartly: I promised I was never going back to Magic because that's how you end up ah poor. And unfortunately... um they Wizards of the Coast decided ah they were go to get with Square Enix and not only do a Final Fantasy set and ah collaboration, but Matt, let me tell you, the artwork in these cards is it's just beautiful.
Leon Lionheartly: Gorgeous, gorgeous artwork. Some of the best the representation of Final Fantasy that I've seen in a long time. um Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to complete the base set ah ah because of the amount of value that's on some of these cards. so I guess there's that part.
Leon Lionheartly: um But yeah, man, we definitely got some ripping and tearing while we were out there.
neocharge: That's a good way to put it. Yeah, ah we ripped some packs. the Yeah, the artwork in the set is gorgeous. And it's from all the Final Fantasies all the way back to 1 to 16.
neocharge: ah And it's just a nostalgic journey. And yeah, man, those ah those Chocobos in the set are going for crazy amounts. So we we found a good pub slash brewery and you had some packs.
neocharge: And all three of us, including Ryan, we sat down and cracked some packs from the Final Fantasy set on Magic the Gathering. Magic Gathering is kind of doing a cap collaboration with a bunch of IPs. They've done Assassin's Creed. They've done Lord of the Rings.
neocharge: I don't know if they've done Star Wars, but they they should if they haven't. It's kind of like the Fortnite of card games. It's becoming... ah Yeah, dude, we had a blast. we We went on just a random mountain drive.
neocharge: ah Very little service on our cell phones. Cranking the music. MBR. We were listening to MBR. Master Boot Record. if ah If you guys like synth heavy metal, um that's the the band for you. We saw them live at... ah ah MagFest, actually. But dude, that feeling, we you know you're in you're with your friends in the car, windows down, cranking some music, just gorgeous views everywhere you're driving.
neocharge: It's zen, man. And sometimes you need that. Sometimes you need a good mountain drive, clean air, good friends, and then crack some magic packs and drink some good beer. So it was an incredible trip and I'm glad you went.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, and I appreciate you bringing me along, man. um there is i will I don't want to end on a downer, but I do want to point this out there for for a list of one of our listeners out there. um You can get these collector's booster packs of this Magic the Gathering set, okay? um um They are, and it's going to sound ridiculous, but hear me out, folks, before you start screaming.
Leon Lionheartly: It's an individual booster pack of 15 cards. it runs They run about MSRP around $45 to $50 MSRP. Good luck finding it at that rate. But they are an entire pack of all my hits, essentially, is that as kids would say, or in the community would say. They're all hits.
Leon Lionheartly: So you're going to get variation in there. Unfortunately, the well Let me just back up on this. when When I was getting these packs, my wife was at the store purchasing them. She bought one pack of these collector one of these collector packs.
Leon Lionheartly: um um A good friend of ours was there and bought a second one and sold it to us. I had the choice flip on those packs. I got to open one and I sold another to a buddy at cost.
Leon Lionheartly: Mine came with a really nice gold full art gold Jumbo Cactar. i mean um jumbo cacar Matt, do you know what this fucker pulled out of his pack?
neocharge: I think you showed it to me. It was the, I'm not sure the terms, but the, the surge foil of cloud strife.
Leon Lionheartly: Yes, exactly.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: The surge foil of Cloud Mercenary. um And the price on that keeps fluctuating. um I saw it go as high as $500 at one point. um It's not up there right now.
neocharge: Dang.
Leon Lionheartly: um But needless to say, this is ah this is the I should have just stuck it to myself. okay It should have been greedy. But... we're not why I'm not like an individual. I like building a community.
Leon Lionheartly: um And the happy ending, I guess, at the end of this is I finally got a friend of mine back into wanting to do magic, like seriously. So, you know, um i created a channel on... This is a leverage. I created a channel into the Discord for our community members.
Leon Lionheartly: ah You are more than welcome to go in there, post your ideas, your thoughts. I'm still playing catch up. I don't understand half of what's going on, but... At the end of the day, it's Magic the Gathering, and this is crossroads of Magic the Gathering and my favorite RPG franchise of all time. So um let's go. um Let's just ah not try to go house broke, man.
neocharge: Oh yeah, for sure. ah These trading cards are getting pretty ridiculous. I cracked some, debt we cracked some Destin Rivals and I had a really good time cracking the Final Fantasy set with you. So if you have any more, I'm down to crack because yeah, the IP is close to both our hearts. ah Final Fantasy is my top favorite RPG of all time.
neocharge: I don't play Magic. I never have. I've always been a Pokemon TCG kind of guy, ah um but it's really cool cracking these packs and seeing the art. So I appreciate you bringing those and ah doing that.
neocharge: So yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: ah Let's see. Thanks everyone that's joined the Discord. As always, we really appreciate it. We've been having some good conversations on there. you have any questions for the cast, always ah in the questions section, ask question and we will read it on the cast and give you our thoughts and our answers.
neocharge: ah And if you aren't part of the Discord, where can where can people find our our Discord link? How can they become part of the Shapes of Gaming community?
Leon Lionheartly: That's a great question. yeah All you have to do is go into your little wo web browser on your phone, your computer, whatever whatever your preference is. um And you're going to go to linktree slash shapes of gaming.
Leon Lionheartly: So that's https colon slash slash l i n k t r dot e e slash
neocharge: Thank you.
Leon Lionheartly: shapes of gaming once again it's https colon whack whack l-i-n-k-t-r dot ee whack slash shapes of gaming go check it out you'll find not only the link to the discord server which you can join freely you will also find the links for all of your ah podcast platforms of choice um so whatever you whatever version you might like, if you need to switch up or whatever, you, you, for whatever reason you're, you're listening to us now and you lose track of it.
Leon Lionheartly: That's where it is. That's where the landing page will always be. Um, so go check it out and join this awesome community, man.
neocharge: Yep. Yep. We got the Twitter on there. We got the Instagram on there. We got the Facebook on there. We got the Discord on there. um We have the YouTube on there. We're actually on YouTube, not video yet. We're working on that.
neocharge: um But that is kind of a consolidation of all the links to everything Shapes of Gaming. We're trying to to get that link a little more custom. So we're working on it behind the scenes. And as soon as we do, we'll let you know.
neocharge: ah But yeah, that's how you can join the community and ah subscribe to the podcast. That helps us a ton. You'll get all the new episodes automatically download every Thursday um morning. We we ah post them. And we had a little ah special one ah this last Friday.
neocharge: ah We did a Claire Obscure Expedition 33 spoiler cast. And boy, oh boy, we had some listeners of the show on.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: We had ah Caleb, Admiral Merps, and Alex, Goatlord Sreobix. on. And we, man, we just kind of cracked open Claire Obscure. and we yeah we did it for a long time. That that podcast was the longest ah spoiler cast we've ever done. 4 hours and 45 minutes.
neocharge: It's filled with passion. It's filled with ah just everything about that game. We had a blast and we hope you guys enjoyed listening to it. And if you got through the whole thing, thank you so much. You are a dedicated listener and we appreciate you very much. um Yeah, that was super fun.
neocharge: Super fun. um Go ahead. What were you?
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, I was going to say, thank you for all the community members out there. um
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: Definitely, we got a couple of messages on that. um ah praising Praising the spoiler cast and the passion that went in there. um And just another shout out, thanks to Admiral Murps and Goatlord Surrealbooks for that. um That was a long night, but this is...
Leon Lionheartly: There's a reason we did that. I'm not going to get too much into it, but let's just say there's a reason we went as long as we did on this versus yeah about two hours or so for the ah the previous spoiler cast. So um just once again, huge shout out to the community members. that's what workedre That's what we love to do. So I love to see it.
neocharge: Oh, yeah, for sure. And we've cracked the seal three times on having guests on the show. And Kayla was actually in Ohio. So we can do this remote. So if you do feel like being on the show and you feel you can contribute to the podcast in any way, let us know. And we're probably going to start having guests more often.
neocharge: ah We're just trying to lay a foundation right now. and get through you know news and everything we're playing. And um we're trying to keep it condensed for everyone. So it's a nice little package you can listen to.
neocharge: ah But we are open to guests in the future. So I have a correction from the last podcast, Episode 8, which we also had a guest on. I said PlayStation purchased Bungie for $3 million dollars or something.
neocharge: I was way off. I had the number right, but I didn't have the actual billion right. It was $3.6 billion. dollars
Leon Lionheartly: Ooh, that's not any better.
neocharge: Yeah. No, it's worse. um And they're they're trying to get their ah ROI with that. Marathon just got delayed. Gummy Bears, the project they're doing is in development. Destiny's kind of slowing down. I'm not on it anymore. i used to be a big Destiny fan. So...
neocharge: ah Yeah, $3.6 billion is a lot. And we'll ah we'll see if that payment pays out for them. So ah yeah, $3.6 billion. Holy shit. That's a lot of money.
Leon Lionheartly: Dude, can you think about how many games and other startup stuff you could do with that? What if we took $3.6 billion instead of spending it on bunch? can just hear me out.
Leon Lionheartly: Give that to another studio. It doesn't have to be first party. And say, okay, we're going to divvy. You could do this at across three and say, all right, cool. You're going to each get a billion dollars.
Leon Lionheartly: And hear me out on this, right? Billion is a lot for development. We're each going to give you a billion dollars. Go make a live service game that's going to make money.
neocharge: Yeah. they Yeah, it's crazy. to To put it in perspective, ah The Last of Us costs it around $200 million to make. two hundred $200 million.
neocharge: That's one-fifth of $1 billion. And they spent $3.6 billion on Destiny. So they spent...
neocharge: what, 16 The Last of Us worth on Destiny. And they're they're kind of coaching them now. So, yeah hey, I love Bungie.
neocharge: Wish them the best. I hope they do well. And I hope that was worth it for them. ah we We want nothing but success for our beloved developers, especially of Halo and you know Destiny and soon-to-be marathon.
neocharge: So, ah state of the draft. we've ah We've gotten some... games release. We've gotten some scores that have hit and I kind of wanted to do like a state of the draft at the end of the month on a podcast. So this podcast is the last one of the month of June.
neocharge: So what do you say we we get into the state of our fantasy draft we have going on?
Leon Lionheartly: You know what? I think that sounds really good because I got some things to say ah about this current draft. A little bit of chest puffing. So let's do it, man.
neocharge: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. ah Let me go. i don't know. I'll just go down the list. Let's see. Caleb picked up Mina the Hollower. That's going to be a good one. A banger. It just got a release date.
neocharge: um October 30th, I believe. ah You picked up a couple games. Why don't you tell people what you picked up?
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, absolutely. um So first off, I want to say, picked up Silent Hill F, which is amazing um this month. If you guys haven't heard, Silent Hill is coming. This is a Silent Hill, but let's put it in 1960s Japan. ah And everything based on that trailer I saw says, ah it's coming.
Leon Lionheartly: like It looks gorgeous, man.
neocharge: Thank you.
Leon Lionheartly: um And then right after the week after... And this is what I really wanted to dive into for us is um I asked you, hey, remind me again on the draft. Is DLC eligible to be to put on there?
Leon Lionheartly: um It's not that I want DLC to be game of the year kind of material, but I do want to shore up my bed. So i I dropped my Dragon Quest HD 1 and 2 HD remake.
Leon Lionheartly: As much as they're beloved games, sometimes you have to put your personal opinions aside on this stuff and picked up Indiana Jones and the Great Circle for the order of the Order of the Giants, which sounds like a mouthful. It sounds like ah old and it sounds like a Japanese anime title.
Leon Lionheartly: um
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: But based on what I saw from the base game and the reviews that came out, um it looks like points jumped between the Xbox edition and the PC edition to the PlayStation. The PlayStation, I believe, got a higher scores.
Leon Lionheartly: So that means with the Order of the Giants ending up on all platforms, that means theoretically I should end up leveling out. Now the other one, Matt. And I'm sorry to hurt some feelings.
neocharge: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: um you were You were there with me that day. um I noticed Wu Chang Fallen Feathers is coming out this year. I also looked at it and said, it has style.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: it has a lot of what I want. Is it game of the year? No, but I think it looks good. um And with a ah fellow or a community member who said, ah no, I already picked that up.
Leon Lionheartly: Knowing damn well that it was not on his his draft list. um So I said, okay, and just played it quiet. didn't say anything, and quietly bid on Wu-Chang Fallen Feathers.
Leon Lionheartly: um And I'm sorry, buddy. i' I'm sorry, but ah it's mine now. And I got it for cheap. So I'm not giving that one up.
neocharge: Sure is.
Leon Lionheartly: um But yes, i needless to say, that's where we're at. um I think nobody else has kind of picked up anything else. um But we do have some games that came out. What are we looking at?
neocharge: ah They did. Real quick. ah and ah Solo. ah Muted static on Discord. and ah He did get some scores. Sorry, man. But FBC Firebreak.
neocharge: ah Not a great draft. He got negative five points on that. It came in at a 65. So... Remedy, not great on that that multiplayer front. Just focus on control and more Alan Wake. just Just stay away from the that games as a service multiplayer stuff.
neocharge: And then he got some good stuff on Liza P. Overture. He got 85, which netted him 15 points. So that's cool. ah And then... mystic ah he ah Mystic Mace on Discord.
neocharge: He's kind of locked. He doesn't have any more bid money. And this is all fake money too, by the way, folks. But he's he's got some good stuff coming out. ah But yeah.
neocharge: Uh, he didn't pick anything up cause he can't. Uh, and then, yeah, I have Death Stranding 2 on the beach that hit 90, uh, which will net me 20 points. And I have nine titles releasing the remainder of the year that all have release dates. One doesn't, which is Metroid Prime 4 Beyond.
neocharge: And that's my top one. um But yeah, i'm I'm looking at probably 20 points for Death Stranding 2, and I'm very, very happy about that. And ah Phantom Blade Zero is my counter pick. We still haven't heard anything about that. I counter picked it because I thought it would be pushed into 2026. So I'm really hoping it is. And I mean, Zero is the the best you can ask for a counter pick.
neocharge: So... Yeah, that's ah that's the remainder.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Yeah.
neocharge: And that's the the state of the draft. ah The link to this, if you're curious and you want to just see it happening in real time, is in the Discord. So we it's just fun. It's something we do every year.
neocharge: And throughout the entire year, we kind of play it. And it doesn't take a lot. No money involved. Maybe yet. might Might put something on the line.
Leon Lionheartly: here
neocharge: Who knows? um But any it's anybody's game still. I'm just going to say that. And the further we get into the year, the more we'll see who the projected winner is right now.
neocharge: But projections are... and Me and Admiral Merps and Fallen Wake on the podium for second and third. So we'll see how it goes, though.
neocharge: You got a lot of good ones coming out. And you, dude, you picked up that that Final Fantasy Tactics. So incredible pickup.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Yeah. um So if you don't mind, I'm going to let everybody know what to expect to see next month ah on this draft. where Where's everybody at? Keep in mind, we're late in the year.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: So most people are pretty much locked in at this point. um Next year when we're doing this, if you're as we're doing this, they may shift. But right now, our projection for next month of July 2025, it looks like you've got, well, correction,
Leon Lionheartly: um we've got Mecha Break coming from Underdog Gaming coming on the very first of July. um i don't know anything about this one, and so I can't really speak too much to it, but you say Mecha Break, I'm thinking Gundam-style game.
neocharge: That's what it is, yeah.
neocharge: that's what it is yeah
Leon Lionheartly: Okay. So, always a solid pick. um You and have, on the eleventh Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 and 4 Remaster. um I didn't play these ones, but from my understanding, they are cherished and they look good. and
neocharge: I did. And the originals got both over 90. So they're they're the best Tony Hawk Pro skaters. And think this is going to be a good pickup for me.
Leon Lionheartly: That's good. You know what else is going to be a good pickup for you? And I kind of almost regret not stealing this from you. um yeah On the 17th, a week later, you'll end up with Donkey Kong Bonanza.
Leon Lionheartly: If you haven't seen it, go check that one out.
neocharge: Oh, yeah. That's... Oh yeah. This is where all my fake money was spent. I basically bet the bank on it. Cause it was announced with the switch announcement in April for July.
neocharge: i had a little bit of a chunk of fake money in my bidding amount and I bet the bank on it. I bet like 34 fake dollars and I beat out mystic on it.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, that's so frustrating when you when you bid the same and then the the dice rolls and you're not in your favor. Yeah.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: But yeah, that's a good pickup, man. well I'm hoping for you. I'm really hoping. I'm hoping it doesn't end up like your other Donkey Kong Country game or Donkey Kong game this year.
neocharge: oh
Leon Lionheartly: um And then on the 24th, another right pretty much a week later, Wu Chang Fallen Feathers picked up by yours truly. I think that's a that's a solid middle-of-the-ground game. That's my strategy, folks, by the way.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm not going for Game of the Year. And then keep betting on game of the year and then end up with misses. I'm saying, what do I know is going to be in that right, strong contender category? um So they that's where I'm feeling with that one. And then at the very end of the yeah the month...
Leon Lionheartly: I'm so excited for this. I'm jealous I didn't get it. It's Ninja Gaiden Ragebound, which is Ninja Gaiden, but in the 2D platformer, like castle that that style ah of game.
Leon Lionheartly: Dude, I'm so excited for that. i could ah that's That's a hard one to to to pick up considering when it comes out.
neocharge: Yep. And that's my pickup. And ah you're actually going to talk about a game in the vein and inspiration of Ninja Gaiden on this cast. And I can't wait to hear your thoughts on it.
neocharge: um Yeah, that's my pickup. And i I think that was one of my original drafts. I don't even think it was a pickup because we draft what we do like seven games and then you can pick up another five or something like that.
Leon Lionheartly: ye Yeah, absolutely.
neocharge: ah So yeah, that was ah an original draft. I think you were you were trying to get that one and I i beat you to it. And here's a really cool thing, folks. We're probably going to do the next draft. When we draft everything, we're going to do a podcast on it.
neocharge: And we'll do it live and maybe on video, maybe on just audio. Who knows? I can't wait. um That's going to be very fun. Because, yeah...
Leon Lionheartly: I look forward to that win.
neocharge: Yeah, we basically just had a Zoom call ah sometime in January and we we did it. So, yeah, ah the draft is so fun. I just wanted to kind of give a state of the draft on the the last ah last day of the month or last podcast of the month. I think it's fun and I think people kind of have interest in it. I've gotten questions on it. So, yeah, draft is very fun.
neocharge: So let's get into the news. What's happened this last week? What do we what do we have? Do you want to go first? you want me to go first?
Leon Lionheartly: I think, ah you know what Speaking of the draft, I think we'll just lean right into this, okay?
neocharge: Cool.
Leon Lionheartly: um You picked up Death Stranding 2. um I've been eyeballing this one. It officially released on the early access for digital deluxe users. So ah this week has been interesting, trying to avoid it.
Leon Lionheartly: But the reviews are in. um And it is looking really good. I have heard um several reviewers out there say that this game is Kojima back in his peak.
Leon Lionheartly: We're talking Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater peak. i i have I have tried to avoid as much as I can in this, Matt. um I did have one thing, quote-unquote, spoiled for me, um and that would be I know where this takes place now, but outside of that, I am in the dark.
neocharge: you
Leon Lionheartly: I do not care. um i go to pick up my copy tomorrow. So but probably while you're listening so this podcast, I'll be on my way to go pick up a copy. um So that's where we're at. Death Stranding 2 is in.
Leon Lionheartly: Let me get a hype check from you on where you're at with this.
neocharge: Oh, yeah. Beautiful. Oh, I can't wait. I'm um'm super excited for Death Stranding 2. I recommended Death Stranding to you. You recently played it like couple months ago, and this is the sequel to that.
neocharge: ah For those of you that don't know what Death Stranding is, it follows Sam Bridges, ah played by Norman Reedus. It's a game by a Kojima, his actual studio, Kojima Studios. It's a second-party game published by PlayStation.
neocharge: And, you know, this is what the PSN page says. Embark on an inspiring mission of human connection beyond the UCA. Sam, with companions by his side, sets out on a new journey to save humanity from extinction.
neocharge: Join them as they traverse a world beset by otherworldly enemies, obstacles, and haunting questions. Should we have connected? Step-by-step legendary game creator Hideo Kojima changes the world once again. Should we have connected, Bob? Because that's what you do. You connect in the the first game.
neocharge: Death Stranding, as I've said on this podcast, is my game of the year for 2019. I couldn't be more excited for this sequel. And I am getting my copy shipped hopefully sometime Today, if as you're listening to the podcast, which is Thursday, sometimes it's ah delayed to Friday, but I hope not. um I'm pretty sure I'll be playing this ah when when shortly after you guys listen to this or when you're listening to it. So couldn't be more excited for it. Love that it's getting better reviews than the original. The original got an 83 and was very divisive.
neocharge: And it's crazy because Kojima, we recently learned that he changed a lot of the game because people liked it too much in the playtests.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: Like he he wants more of a divisive audience. So it's crazy to say like, oh, Kojima changed this to make people like it less. But it's still floating between 89 90s on open critic. Like, dude, Kojima is the goat and you can't you can't argue with it.
neocharge: I am beyond excited for this game.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, Kojima's just got a following and he needs to learn that you're not gonna... You could put out a shining turd on a platter. It could be a game where you just literally shine a turd and people would still read into it and follow him and say it was the greatest thing since mankind.
neocharge: Peace.
Leon Lionheartly: I would probably end up... but Full disclosure, I'm probably one of those people anyways. I'd be like, no, this is amazing. It's a metaphor for something, right? um But yes, Death Stranding 2, reviews are looking good.
Leon Lionheartly: Better than the first one. um I'm all for it, man. um
neocharge: Oh, yeah. If you want to pick it up, um it is 70 bucks for the base edition and it goes on sale Thursday today. 626. If ah if you haven't played the first one, definitely don't pick this one up. Go play the first one.
neocharge: It's the genre. is They consider it the strand genre. It's a very immersive movie like high production, fun as hell walking simulator.
neocharge: This one they say has more combat though. So if you're at the least interested, go check it out. I think the originals, uh, it had, it got a PS five version and you can pick it up for pretty cheap.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: So if you played the first one, definitely pick this one up. Kojima at his finest. It sounds like so.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, absolutely.
neocharge: Hell Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Hell yeah. um Sweet, man. No, um I didn't have that. but I'm going to give you full disclosure. I want to put this out there as a quick PSA to people. and It's not on ah our our worksheet.
Leon Lionheartly: um you Just because you mentioned the additions out there in pricing, um if you listen to our Claire Obscure spoiler cast and didn't play the game and all of a sudden want to want to play it, or if you're like me and you only had the digital version, please.
Leon Lionheartly: GameStop, take it for what you will, does have pre-orders available for their for their Lumiere edition, which what comes with the art book and steel bookcase. um it is They're pre-ordering.
Leon Lionheartly: It's not going to ship until later this year. it says release date is October 31st, but I only bring it up because you said $70. That's how much this one is. I just wanted to put that there as a PSA for our listeners.
neocharge: Thank you.
neocharge: Yeah, because base game at Claire Obscure is $50 and you're getting the better, uh, addition with more things for 70. So that's awesome. Uh, it's so worth it.
neocharge: And if you're curious about Claire Obscure, please go play it into turn-based RPGs. I'm surprised you haven't yet. Uh, and if you want to hear our thoughts on it, we have a four hour and 45 minute podcast breaking it down after you, after you play it, of course, listen to it.
neocharge: Uh, ah something got announced that I've been waiting on the are you familiar with the PlayStation concert Bob
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, yes, that's right. Yes. this is I've heard of it. i am Isn't this ah kind of like a video games live, but for just PlayStation IP?
neocharge: Yeah, exactly. And it's more of a production. And yeah, it goes over the music of Ghost Tsushima, God of War, The Last of Us, Horizon, Astro Bot, Journey, Helldivers, Bloodborne, Uncharted.
neocharge: The list goes on. And it's some of our beloved IPs. um they They finally announced US dates. ah So this was announced and it had overseas dates, but there are final US states. And boy, oh boy, is it coming to pretty much every state almost in 2025 and 2026.
neocharge: So if you're curious, you can go just Google PlayStation Concert. It'll take you there. And then... It's PlayStation The Concert and tickets will go on sale June 20th for the first state, which it looks like Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
neocharge: um It's coming to North Carolina, everywhere, honestly. You can see the list of cities it's coming to. I'm seeing like, man, probably about... 50 to 60 cities and it's coming to Colorado. So I might, uh, it's coming to Denver. So we might have to go there. It comes to Denver, February 24th, 2026 at the Buell theater.
neocharge: Uh, we probably need to go to that because I heard it's really awesome.
Leon Lionheartly: Ah, dude, but you know what the problem is, right?
neocharge: It's right after mag fest.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, so you're a man of culture, you know. i'm I'm interested. Now, we'd be curious if they modify the dates. There is the brand new outdoor amphitheater here in our neck of the woods of Colorado.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: So I would be curious to see if that comes because if it drops at that Ford Amphitheater is what it's called, I will a thousand percent join you on that adventure.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. ah just Just because PlayStation music's great.
neocharge: oh yeah
Leon Lionheartly: It's iconic, don't get me wrong. But I'm curious, are they looking at, and I don't know if you've heard, is it just PlayStation primary IP, or is it anything PlayStation adjacent? Because there's a big difference.
Leon Lionheartly: Nathan Drink in in um so um i'm sorry Uncharted is amazing. But what about Uematsu in Final Fantasy?
neocharge: I don't know if Square Enix will do it. They hold their own thing. But I did see second party in there, Helldivers. So it isn't limited to first party. There are second party. Could be some Kojima stuff in there. I don't know. ah Have you ever been to a video game-esque concert?
neocharge: I go to them a lot.
Leon Lionheartly: No, unfortunately, one, I never know about them because I'm an idiot like that. And two, I'm more of a heavy metal guy anyways. um So that's why Doom still stands the test of time to me for music, that particularly this one this year. But that's a different point. um Yeah, no, I would definitely be interested in going. Let's leave it like that.
neocharge: Oh, yeah. I keep an eye on video game orchestras pretty much all year.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: I've been to Zelda. I've been to Final on Fantasy Remake, found on fantasy rebirth a Final Fantasy Final Fantasy Distant Worlds. That was awesome. They're really cool. Live orchestral music hits different.
neocharge: um And it's it's incredible. Bloodborne is actually in this one, too. So you get a little bit of a FromSoft. Uh, and yeah, if if you guys are curious, it's it, they, ah they say it's the ultimate video game concert experience.
neocharge: Uh, PlayStation, the concert is a cutting edge live music event that redefines entertainment, seamlessly merging the magic of gaming, live music and technology like never before in a way only PlayStation can deliver.
neocharge: Uh, I've seen... ah there' There's like a behind the scenes on this. And this is what really got me interested. So if you if you like YouTube behind the scenes, PlayStation, the concert, ah they they show like the different unique things they do for concerts. And there's some really cool like 3D imaging stuff going on.
neocharge: Yeah, I'll grab tickets. I'll grab another one and you're gone. So...
Leon Lionheartly: yeah You know what? Let's go. ah I'm telling you, if they do third party, can I get can i get a live rendition of Snake Eater, please? Please?
neocharge: Oh, funny you say that because guess what? Last Magfest, the original lady that did that was there and she performed it live. And I listened to it while drinking coffee in the atrium of the hotel that you stay at. So...
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, I just melt it the into place, man.
neocharge: evening
Leon Lionheartly: ah I saw a video on that that one earlier and just shivers up my spine. I literally was like, holy crap, are those goosebumps on my arm?
neocharge: Oh, yeah. If I can dig up that MagFest video, I can show you. And another crazy thing, we were listening to like a little orchestral i the arrangement in the the atrium. And my friend, Ryan, shout out, he looked over and he's like, hey, don't look now, but I'm standing next to Marty O'Donnell.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, oh,
neocharge: And I, of course, I immediately looked and I was like, oh shit, you're right. That's Marty O'Donnell. We're just chilling with Marty O'Donnell listening to a Zelda orchestral track in ah in this atrium of this hotel.
neocharge: I can't wait, man. I can't wait. It's going to be Mega Man themed. It's going to be amazing. So... Yeah, PlayStation the concert, tickets on sale now, and they have US dates. So go check it out, especially if you like live music and live orchestral music.
neocharge: ah I know I will, and we will.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: so Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, sounds like a plan. um All right.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: Well, I hate to do it, but we're going to go from a high note, man. But let's talk to to let's bring it down to more serious realm. um sounds i So this ah I've got my source from Video Games Chronicle.
neocharge: All right.
Leon Lionheartly: um this is I not had it 100% confirmed, but I think it's worth talking about um as multiple sources are talking about it, including GameSpot, IGN, Forbes.
Leon Lionheartly: um And that's Xbox is looking to reportedly... conduct some more like mass layoffs here as early as next week. um And we're recording on the 25th of June, so probably by the end of that.
Leon Lionheartly: um The reason I bring the... Well, you know what? let me Let me just say it this way. As part of the lining of our post-acquisition team structure and managing our business, we've made the the decision to eliminate probably approximately 650 roles across Microsoft Gaming, mostly corporate and support functions, to organize business for long-term success.
neocharge: Thank you.
Leon Lionheartly: ah success My question to you is, how do you feel about this, man? And this is just probably more is coming. But what what are your thoughts on this? Because I got some thoughts, but i want i want I don't want to, I guess you'd say poison the well, if you will.
neocharge: Sure. ah this This topic is usually it's pretty touchy. right These are people's jobs, people's livelihoods, and they're losing their job. And we hate to see anyone lose their job. And there's been an unprecedented amount of layoffs in the gaming industry for multiple reasons. ah And Xbox hasn't really been making the best decisions in the last, I'd even say, 10 years.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: ah And their are employees and their people making their games are suffering from it. ah they're They're chasing a model that I personally don't agree with. and we're seeing that model kind of...
neocharge: fail a little bit. And people are losing their jobs over it, which is the worst thing. And I hate to see people in the gaming industry lose jobs. And I mean, that's their livelihood, right? And it it I hate when I see layoffs. And we've seen far too many layoffs this year.
neocharge: And Xbox... kind of went on the model of let's buy as many studios as we can and get as many much stuff as we can on Game Pass and kind of go quantity over quality and flood the well and make it as valuable as possible.
neocharge: um But they...
Leon Lionheartly: Thank
neocharge: ah didn't really remember the fact that you still have to pay these developers and you still have to pay to make the game and making it free on game pass. I heard you can subscribe to game pass, play the game, ah delete the game and then cancel game pass and you get all your money back if you need to.
neocharge: Don't do that, by the way. I mean, if you want to, you get more power to you, whatever. That's their policy. But that's just a stupid business model. And they've always been like the the value gaming ah central.
neocharge: right And if if if value is what you're looking for in gaming, Game Pass is the best value.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: But I... tend to look at quality over quantity. And I feel like we're seeing the, uh, ripples and waves of focusing on quantity over quality.
neocharge: And unfortunately people are losing their jobs because of it. So I don't agree with the model and the model is creating this, uh, and Xbox is making missteps. Like they're not even making their own hardware anymore. They're doing, they're, uh, exporting it to third party and ROG ally is making their handheld. So,
neocharge: I hate it. I hate that people are losing their jobs. And I think people in charge are making the wrong decisions. ah And your common man, your common developer, your your pixel artist, your ah you know animator, programmer is suffering from it.
neocharge: It fucking sucks.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, you you hit the nail on the head right there. that The common man is the one that's suffering for this. um The point I wanted to make, error and you you really hit that, but I wanted to come at it it from a different angle um because I'm seeing online communities ah talk about this.
Leon Lionheartly: um or not Not the layoffs, but they talk about Microsoft and Xbox, what's going on. And There's talks now about the Xbox ah handheld that's coming into play, and it's going to natively have Steam attached to it, which means then you'll have your Steam library, and you'll have Game Pass, and you'll have access to all of these games, and you'll be able to play them.
Leon Lionheartly: So that means Microsoft is on top of the world. and People are not stopping to think critically about this, which is the developers still have to make their money.
neocharge: Thank you.
Leon Lionheartly: And the paycheck from a um from a Game Pass standpoint is only going to get you so much. And if you look at the numbers that are coming out there, and I'll let you go look look at them from themselves, Xbox Game Pass memberships have kind of they've they've increased But when you compare it to PlayStation Plus membership um a add-ons and the number of Nintendo Switch subscriptions there are, ah they are the third place.
Leon Lionheartly: these are the These are the HBO Max. And I don't mean this in a bad way, but they are the HBO Max of ah video game ah subscription services.
Leon Lionheartly: We always knew Netflix was king.
neocharge: Thank you.
Leon Lionheartly: Hulu was right behind them. HBO Max was good, but it was only good when Game of Thrones came out. It was only good when XYZ else came out. After that, guess what? You canceled your subscription and that was it. The only time you ever had it is when it was included with another package.
Leon Lionheartly: And that's what Game Pass is doing. And unfortunately, that's ruining it. So people who think that Xbox is on top of the world and going to crush ah PlayStation, they're going to mess with Nintendo. I want you to stop and I want you to go Google that. what's you Go look online and look at what's happening to the employees, the common man.
neocharge: Thank you.
Leon Lionheartly: Because if the pixel artist and the sound guy and the developer, the junior developer are not there at a studio. to make the quality games, then Game Pass is going to continue to stagnate.
Leon Lionheartly: And then eventually you're going to see a ah people fall off. They're going to cancel their subscription because why would I do that when Steam still has just as much? Oh, by the way, Steam has my PlayStation library.
Leon Lionheartly: It has my PS Plus library. It may not be every game, but it's enough, right? um So unfortunately, this is that's the point I'm making is Xbox fans, I'm sorry, but you need to put down the copium.
neocharge: ah Yeah, um the war is over. it's It's just over. Xbox has a different strategy, just like Nintendo has a different strategy.
neocharge: And it it really all depends on how you play and what you play and what you want to play. But, you know, Xbox will do day one game pass PC and Xbox. You don't need an Xbox. You just play anywhere, like they say.
neocharge: And PlayStation is more like, no, we're going to have a premium title and we're going to release it for PlayStation only. i like sharing. But if like do Death Stranding 2, the photo realism is nuts.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: And I don't even know if it it I mean, it would play on a PC, right? But there are exclusives for a reason. And it's to sell the actual console. And the console offers a unique experience that no other hardware or publisher can offer.
neocharge: And PlayStation is bringing all these games to PC, but they're they're older games. They've seen the light of day and the launch. And you know I think it's a brilliant business model. Release Horizon Forbidden West a year and before Horizon 3 comes out and say, hey, you can play for Horizon Forbidden West anywhere.
neocharge: But if you want to play Horizon 3 on launch, get a PlayStation.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: it's ah It's a brilliant business model. I still agree with exclusives. I like sharing, of course, but... um when you have to develop for a ton of stuff, the quality kind of degrades.
neocharge: And we saw this with Cyberpunk. Cyberpunk developed for everything, including the PS4, the base PS4 with a spinning hard drive. And what happened? It launched in a mess.
neocharge: And Xbox is going to see this when they have the Xbox Series X and the esbox Xbox Series S. The Xbox Series is... is Very, very underpowered. And when you tell a developer to develop a game for all these systems, usually it's the least common de denominator that holds back everything.
neocharge: And quality, ah resolution, fidelity, gameplay, everything is bottlenecked. And PlayStation's like, no, we're going to develop for the PlayStation 5 Pro and it's going to be the best experience you can get in gaming.
neocharge: And I mean, the scores reflect this.
Leon Lionheartly: Bye.
neocharge: Death Stranding 2, a second-party game published by PlayStation, developed by Kojima Studios. Got a fucking 90, dude. So, yeah. I mean, Clear Obscure got a 92. Microsoft did publish that.
neocharge: ah But Death Stranding looks way more polished. Nothing nothing against Clear Obscure because it's it's still my game of the year. But yeah, Death Stranding...
neocharge: it looks like a very quality product and that's a PlayStation focuses on that. They focus on quality, like your horizons, your uncharted, your God of war, uh, their premium quality, top notch titles, breaking edge.
neocharge: So yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, absolutely.
neocharge: Yeah. Uh, let's see. Did you, do you have any other news? I have a couple more.
Leon Lionheartly: um I mean, I have one other item. So I want to point this out.
neocharge: Okay. Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: I think this is a good juxtaposition or opposite end of the spectrum.
neocharge: Sure.
Leon Lionheartly: um We're seeing this from directly from Nintendo right now. um The Switch 2. ah we We bought ours. um I have...
Leon Lionheartly: I like to, I know it's probably not effective, but I like to, to ah to I don't want to say attack, but I like to counterbalance and and point out and give a reality check um to the discontenders online out there um who say that the Switch 2 is going to be a complete failure.
Leon Lionheartly: There's no games for it. It's too expensive. um They come up with any other reason. um First off, it was <unk> it's too expensive, right? Guess what, Matt? Do you know how many Switch 2s were sold in the first four days?
neocharge: A lot. And I think it's the fastest selling console of all time. was it Was it three or four million or something like that?
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Uh, right now they're sitting at 3.5 million units in the first four days.
neocharge: Yeah.
neocharge: That's nuts.
Leon Lionheartly: Uh, for, current for context, Microsoft, or I mean, Xbox hasn't even sold that many in the last two years of their consoles. Okay. Um,
neocharge: Yikes.
Leon Lionheartly: um Time will tell. We'll see if there's a drop-off like the Wii U. But once this come it comes out, now I hear, well, it doesn't matter because there's only ah excuse me there's only ah one game that's out there that's worthwhile. There's no no other good first-party games.
Leon Lionheartly: But meanwhile, one of the top-selling games, um two there are two top-selling games. One is a third-party game, and that's Cyberpunk 2077. um Obviously, Mario Kart World.
Leon Lionheartly: Do you know what the other one is the other top seller is on the Switch 2 right now, Matt?
neocharge: hmm good question uh i know it's not first party it has to be third party uh oh first party oh so it's an older game that got patched right uh zelda breath of the wild or tears of the kingdom yeah tears of the kingdom one of those yeah yeah
Leon Lionheartly: I know it is a first party game.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: specifically Tears of the Kingdom. Tears the Kingdom is ah is on that that top three list. um So now I need you to go ahead and think about that again because I may go back and play Tears of the Kingdom with a $10 upgrade on a on a console that can really handle it, right?
Leon Lionheartly: um So my question to the community out there, of anybody who doubts the Switch 2 is, what's the next thing that's going to keep it held back? Because as far as I'm concerned... um It's been a smash hit.
Leon Lionheartly: Time will tell, but I did want to point out that the Switch 2 has become the fastest selling console of all time within its first stretch. And it has sold damn near, probably at this point, ah close to 4 million units.
Leon Lionheartly: um So, kudos to Nintendo. You can sell us a piece of property that's basically a portable PS4 Pro, and we'll buy it and say, please give us another one, Master.
Leon Lionheartly: um Good luck competing with that.
neocharge: Yeah, that's that's incredible. Yeah, we bought ours. I'm very, very impressed with the technology and the technical prowess of the Switch 2. But as for games, not very impressed. Mario Kart World is great.
neocharge: It's short. It's a nice little roller coaster ride. Very excited for Donkey Kong Bonanza. The reason I bought this console was Metroid Prime 4. And I think that's going to be our holiday system seller. It was my system seller.
neocharge: But I love seeing Nintendo succeed. ah Competition is always good for the consumer. And yeah I wish them the best. I love my Switch 2. I've been playing it a lot. I'm actually going to be talking about a game I've been playing on it in the What We're Playing.
neocharge: And I definitely highly recommend that you do play ah Tears of the Kingdom. especially on the switch too. It runs and looks like a new game and it's an incredible Zelda, man.
neocharge: It's awesome. I love tears of the kingdom. It's not my favorite Zelda, but it's like comparing cuts of steak, right? It's a really good game. And I think the re-release, I think they re-scored it. and i think it got like a 92 or something and it got game of the year tears of the kingdom did, or it it was either breath of the wild or tears of the kingdom.
neocharge: They're very similar. Let me just say that. Uh, Yeah, I hope you do go back and play it on the Switch 2 because it's going to be an incredible experience on the Switch 2.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, i did I did forget about that. Thank you, Matt. Remember, folks, now, this is not user score. This is a critic score. i want to I want to preface that. But Tears of the Kingdom in the critic score dethroned Claire Obscure Expedition 33.
Leon Lionheartly: Do I think it's right, personally? No. But I also want to will point out that you're talking about a game that came out in 2018, 2019?
Leon Lionheartly: te something like that it's a few years old oh no no no I'm sorry tears came out in 2022 I believe somewhere around there the point is that game from a critic standpoint smashed Claire Obscure which is still my game of the year so at the end of the day I will go ahead I have things to say about tears but I also think it's not fair until I play it further and on a system that can support it so I will report back it's just a matter of when
neocharge: Tears or breath?
neocharge: Yeah. no Somewhere around there. Yeah.
neocharge: Exactly. Yeah. um i put 125 hours into it. I have a good outlook of it. And yeah, I cannot wait for you to play it as a Zelda fan. You're going to love it. I does have some different mechanics, but holy crap. The boss fight at the end is one of the best in Zelda history. Tears of the kingdom came out May 12th, 2023, by the way.
neocharge: So I am very excited for you to play this. It's a wonderful Zelda. um Let's see. So yeah, congrats on the the Switch 2 launch and their success. I hope it keeps selling and I would love to see more Nintendo IP get the treatment it deserves and get to those PS4 Pro ah levels of graphics. Can you imagine a Zelda coming out in like ah i FromSoft, like Soulsborne way. And it's just incredible graphically and a little tough and just a dark, gritty story, maybe sequel to Twilight or a prequel to Twilight in that timeline. can you imagine that?
Leon Lionheartly: that That would be amazing, dude. um i think So that's the really weird thing about these ah these ah Zelda games is I think they're really beautifully done in terms of a timeline. um I think the gameplay is the kind of the part that gets me.
Leon Lionheartly: um But I would love to see that. um Speaking of seeing, I just dropped that to you. Take a look at that as a pre-order um so for games that are coming. um I'll let you take a look at that, man.
Leon Lionheartly: That's...
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: lot like
neocharge: Ooh. Very cool.
Leon Lionheartly: um
neocharge: I'm looking at Woodkid vinyl for Death Stranding 2 on the beach. Just ah went on sale. Woodkid is, of course, the composer. He does all the most of the soundtrack for Death Stranding 2. Kojima actually came to him.
neocharge: Opposed to Death Stranding 1, kind of a compilation of artists, including Low Roar. Just incredible compilation. But Kojima actually came to Woodkid and said, hey, can you make music specifically for Death Stranding?
neocharge: And man, I bet this game is going to have banger soundtrack. I've seen, I've heard a lot in the trailers and I got hooked immediately. So yeah, Woodkid for Death Stranding 2 on the beach. ah Vinyl, $65, $64.98.
neocharge: sixty five dollars sixty four ninety eight And ah yeah, over the course of three years, Woodkid collaborated closely with Hideo Kojima and the team at could Kojima Productions to create a striking body of original in-game music for Death Stranding 2 on the beach. The hotly anticipated sequel to the globally acclaimed video game, Death Stranding.
neocharge: ah I don't do vinyl, but I know we have listeners that do. So go grab that. You can get it...
Leon Lionheartly: through the IGN store.
neocharge: ah through the ign store wood kid death stranding two on the beach soundtrack final very cool very cool yeah
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. All right. um So what else have we got on the news? I know you got some things you want to chat about.
neocharge: yeah yeah a few things so uh little nightmares we got some little nightmares news uh recently actually i'm a huge fan of little nightmares you ever played little nightmares
Leon Lionheartly: I can't say I have. It's been one of those games that's just kind of always escaped me. um So give me the ah give me the rundown, man. What are we what are we working with here?
neocharge: Yeah, side-scrollers, survival horror, um very artistic, has a lot of undertones of a lot of topics in the world. Let's just say that. I don't want to spoil anything.
neocharge: I played one. I played two. ah Three got a release date. And ah they recently said that three is going to arrive in October.
neocharge: ah Do we have an actual specific release date? Doesn't...
Leon Lionheartly: I'm seeing 10th of October, which, oh my goodness, talk about a crowded window, man.
neocharge: Look like October 10th. Yes.
Leon Lionheartly: and Keep going, please.
neocharge: Right. Yeah. I played the original, actually, that platinum. there even there is there Even though there is no platinum, some of these small smaller games don't have platinums, but I got the gold. You have to speed run the game in two hours. It was a nightmare. Ha!
neocharge: Pun intended. And then two had a platinum.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: Two was better than one. Really, really scary game. And then three has been on the horizon, been looming in the distance. One of my drafts, actually, because I think it's going to be great.
neocharge: We finally got a release date for it for October tenth ah Couldn't be more excited for this. Not sure if I'm going to play it on release because of that crowded window, right? That's like eight days after Ghosts of Yote.
neocharge: So, but very excited for it. And that's not the only news we got for Little Nightmares. If you do want to go back and experience the original, there there's a remaster. So they're remastering the original.
neocharge: Original, I believe, came out in 2017. twenty seventeen ah Yeah. So the Little Nightmares Enhanced Edition. And if you pre-order Little Nightmares 3, they're going to throw that in there for you.
neocharge: So you can go play Little Nightmares if you pre-order 3 or pick it up. I highly recommend it. If you played Limbo, Inside, any of those really weird artistic horror games, it's awesome. And it's almost like Claymation.
neocharge: And it's very disturbing, man. Very disturbing. ah I can't wait. i'm a I love little nightmares. so
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Oh man, I'm looking at this right now. How long to be. ah So first thing I i got to check, especially 2020 this year of our Lord 2025, the main story, three and a half hours to be completionist nine hours.
Leon Lionheartly: um
neocharge: Not bad, right?
Leon Lionheartly: that else that's not bad. that And you know what that sounds like? A really good cool off game after after other other major releases in the year. So maybe I can sneak in some time for this, depending on the if I can catch a sale or something. But claymation, side-scrolling, puzzle, action, horror. like I know it sounds like a jumbled set of words, but you definitely have my attention. So maybe I can sneak this in. We'll see.
neocharge: Yeah. ah i was Originally released in 2017, Little Nightmares Stars 6, a young girl trying to escape a surreal and terrifying underwater ship called the Maw.
neocharge: The enhanced edition gives the well-received game 4K resolution, 60 frames per second. And the graphics also feature volumetric lighting and more particle effects. I saw was darker too. So the HDR is a little better.
neocharge: i And they have a comparison video on it and it looks really awesome. So I think it launches alongside with three ah for October 10th. And like I said, if you pre-order a digital copy of Little Nightmares 3, it grants you Little Nightmares, the enhanced edition. So my yeah, it might be a good time to to check it out. I think Little Nightmares 3 might be co-op. So this might be a game we play.
neocharge: on stream because we're we're trying to get a streaming setup going because we have a lot of co-op games we want to play including gears when it comes out so this might be one we put on the the shapes of gaming cooperative ah streaming list so
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, and I do want to say, aside there, Matt, I'm looking at some stuff. um I went to the, ah I apologize if I butcher this, ah Taser, ah which is the developer, ah they had you you go to their website and you see other stuff, right? Here, we're not only Little Lightmares, we're also this.
Leon Lionheartly: um I'm looking at this game right now, and I about nearly just screamed like a girl. yeah Static Institute of Retention.
Leon Lionheartly: um I don't know anything about this game. I don't even know what it's... in It looks like it's first person, but if you go look at this... um you can see the scientist that's in there, that because it looks sci-fi, the scientist that's in there, the model, looks almost exactly like a scientist from the halflife the original Half-Life.
Leon Lionheartly: And then as I start looking at images, it screams OG Half-Life. We're talking ah um Opposing Force, Blue Shift. ah So if this is the kind of inspiration that they use to make their games...
Leon Lionheartly: I'm bringing this back and saying, all right, Little Nightmares, you you've got my attention because as you may very, listeners may not know, is Half-Life is in my top five games of all time.
neocharge: Thank you.
neocharge: Oh, yeah. There's some really cool Easter eggs in there. You can tell the developer crafted it with care and passion. And there's a lot of callbacks to different games in there. So, yeah.
neocharge: Little Nightmares. Amazing. Comes out for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Switch 2, PC. You can pick up 1 and 2 right now if you want. 2 was incredible as well. So, yeah. Couldn't be excited for 3. And it finally got a release date.
neocharge: And that is just another banger on my draft, I think, for October. So, yeah ah
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: we We talked about Game Informer last episode, and we got the cover reveal for the next Game Informer magazine. Did you subscribe to Game Informer?
Leon Lionheartly: Not yet, but it will be very soon.
neocharge: All good. Uh, think they, I think you have tonight to get in on the so early bird pricing. Uh, they said through July 20 or June 25th.
neocharge: So, uh, if you did subscribe to game informer and that subscription gives you like ad free, uh, but digital access to to their site as well. But I subscribe to the digital ah version of the magazine and the physical version of the magazine.
neocharge: the You know, like when you're about to sleep, you kind of have to sometimes eliminate all your screens, take the take the pixels away from your eyes. It's super bright. Sometimes you just have to have some...
neocharge: like printed media, some tangible media. And that's what i always used to use. Game Informer, Nintendo Power, PSN Magazine, ah EGM, all of those.
neocharge: I used to... like read about games before I went to sleep. And then you have amazing dreams as well. Uh, but yeah, I got the physical magazine. They say it's being, uh, shipped and delivered next week.
neocharge: So, and the, uh, the cover issue, the, the cover this month, mortal lands for Bob.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, let's just say i'm I'm filling out my information right now.
neocharge: Yeah. You heard it here on the cast. Bob is literally subscribing to Game Informer as we speak. We are not sponsored, by the way. i am just passionate about Game Informer. I love them.
neocharge: They have an amazing site. They have an amazing magazine. They were swallowed up by GameStop a long time ago, and then they reduced quality and all kinds of ads. but And then GameStop kind of spun them off, and they just disappeared for a while. And I was very heartbroken for that. But then they have recently ah reemerged independent,
neocharge: And ah I think i from what I've seen, they're ah focusing on quality and they have amazing reviewers. And I couldn't be more excited that they have printed magazines again. So if you haven't subscribed, highly recommend it.
neocharge: It's very reasonable price. Do you see the price right now? What is it?
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, i'm i'm I'm fighting with it, so I may have to come back and and do this. Unfortunately, um by the time you guys hear this, ah for the print and digital magazine for the entire year, $48.
Leon Lionheartly: forty eight dollars That's not even the price of Claire.
neocharge: Yeah, that's awesome.
Leon Lionheartly: Obscure.
neocharge: That's 10 magazines, they say. You don't get one like every month, but you get 10 digital and print. And you also get reduced ads on the site, which I got to say, that is very nice.
neocharge: That is very nice. hate ads. Dude... Anytime I go on any news site, it's just inundated with ads. And then you have to click out of it. And sometimes there's ads that like ah come into the center and then they expand out.
neocharge: ah Anytime i'm looking something up for a game, it's just riddled with ads. So ah Game Informer is pretty clean once if if you subscribe. And even before you subscribe, they there's very little ads compared to the other sites out there. And you know you know which ones I'm talking about.
neocharge: So yeah, man.
Leon Lionheartly: We're not going to call anybody out, but you know who you are and shame on you.
neocharge: Exactly. Exactly. Ads pay the bills, of course. ah But I'm more than happy to support Game Informer. I have some people that I was a ah friends with. They recently moved, but that work there. not i'm still... I'm not in touch currently, but ah they have some good people there. Let's just say that.
neocharge: And they know what they're doing. And they have really good reviews and really well-articulated reviews. So couldn't be more excited that they're back. And subscribe to them if you can. It's for a good cause. 5% goes to ah St.
neocharge: Judas Hospital too. So that's that's really cool if you needed another reason for that. so ah Lastly on the list, tomorrow, today, ah tomorrow, now, today for our listeners is the...
Leon Lionheartly: When? is that when Just now?
neocharge: When is... Yeah. yeah
Leon Lionheartly: When? we when You just missed it.
neocharge: No. Dude, there's a sequel coming out. Spaceballs 2. they were They announced it. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I didn't want to put it in the news, but I or i didn't put it in the news, but I wanted to put it in the news because I'll get on a tangent.
neocharge: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: I'm sorry. The floor is yours. yeah
Leon Lionheartly: I've been jammed.
neocharge: Sir, yeah the the radio has been jammed.
Leon Lionheartly: How many assholes are on this ship?
neocharge: Raspberry.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: Raspberry. There's only one man who gives there gives me a raspberry. Dude, I could quote that movie all all day. If you don't know what we're talking about, go watch Spaceballs. It makes fun of Star Wars.
neocharge: It's incredible. It's hilarious. It's a cheeky, funny movie. and It's amazing. And there's a s sequel coming out too.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, do you know, so um I don't want to get us off too much of a tangent, but still. um So the main character for Spaceballs, he's dressed in a certain way. Do you know why?
neocharge: ah he's dressed like Solo, right?
Leon Lionheartly: No.
neocharge: Why?
Leon Lionheartly: No, no, no, no, no.
neocharge: Oh.
Leon Lionheartly: he's just like He's dressed like Indy.
neocharge: Oh. Yeah, yeah. Maybe a the hybrid between Solo and Indy.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, he wasn't allowed to be dressed like Solo.
neocharge: Oh, of course.
Leon Lionheartly: that was That was part of it. So what did Mel Brooks do? Dressed him like Indy.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: That's funny.
Leon Lionheartly: ah which is another Harrison Ford yeah um great yeah yeah performance.
neocharge: and Right.
Leon Lionheartly: So he said, oh, if I can't make him haunt on solo, I'll just make him indie..........
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah. If you know Spaceballs, you know Spaceballs. Man, that came out a long time ago and kind of just makes me want to watch it. Sometimes like those stupid, funny movies are just a good cleanse for a bad week or or a dark Monday, you know?
neocharge: Yeah. yeah So where what what was I saying? oh today ah today, the Capcom showcase is happening. And ah you are coming over for this. We're going to watch it.
neocharge: And they announced a showcase. this is I think this is kind of part of Summer Game Fest. I think this is wrap wrapping up Summer Game Fest.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: And they announced... ah So the Capcom showcase is today, 4 6 p.m. and mst seven six p m yeah est and 3 p.m pst uh 5 p.m cst and the capcom spotlight digital event is scheduled uh for today june 26 4 p.m our time and 40 minute live stream will feature updates on highly anticipated capcom titles including monster hunter wilds resident evil requiem pragmata and street fighter 6 with developer interviews so
neocharge: They laid it all out. they They told us what we're seeing. ah Can't wait to see the summer update from Monster Hunter Wilds. We're getting new monsters. They're keeping that going.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: ah You still need to finish that and I'll help you. And Resident Evil Requiem. I say we're going to get gameplay. I'd say we're going to get some first party gameplay, third party gameplay. Might even say see our boy Leon, who knows?
neocharge: um But yeah, we're going to watch that live. i Wish we could stream it, but we can't. So we'll we'll get there someday. And yeah, Pragmata. I'm very excited to see Pragmata. i I honestly think we're going to see a lot of the gameplay that was already at Summer Game Fest that was ah behind the scenes closed doors.
neocharge: I'm hoping and praying, but I don't think it's going happen that we do see Leon for Resident Evil Requiem. But we'll just we'll probably see the closed doors gameplay that ah people did. And they've been talking about it.
neocharge: ah I can't wait to see it. it It all sounds awesome. And love Capcom. They've been in a renaissance as of late. And yeah, I know you're super excited for it.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. ah Needless. I mean, it's, it's no small feat to say that our reason that, that IP list ah for me. And what I mean by that is just list of IPs that I will come back to time and time again.
Leon Lionheartly: I bought resident evil five. I bought resident evil six. I beat them both. I would have to go look back at my old Xbox achievements because I didn't play them on PlayStation three, but I'm pretty sure I got the Xbox equivalent of platinums.
neocharge: Thank you.
Leon Lionheartly: Um, yeah You can make a bad Resident Evil game and I'm all for it. and but the Flat out. And then to see this pragmata, which is kind of like... of yeah I guess the hardest way to describe it is it's almost like ah this anime-style dead space that's coming along. like you're You're in space, isolated, but you've got this other little...
Leon Lionheartly: that little girl, I don't know what her name is. Um, that's what I'm here for monster hunter. You're right. I do need to get back to that at some point. Uh, cause it's a beautiful game and, kind of like another game that recently got updated.
neocharge: Thank you.
Leon Lionheartly: Um, it's receiving quality of life updates. Um, and I think it's one of those games that six months down the line, you're like, Ooh, let me go check and see how things are looking. And it's, It looks and looks more polished. and There's more features. There's more missions. There's whatever, right?
Leon Lionheartly: um Versus ah Into the Base Game. So I'm all for this. um I did want to say aside, I did not include this in the news but because I don't think it's as relevant um for the Capcom ah compared to something like a Capcom showcase.
Leon Lionheartly: But But have you noticed how developers are now like, you know what? Screw Summer Game Fest. Screw State of Play. ah You know what? Fuck it. We're going to just do our own direct.
Leon Lionheartly: Because Arc System Works recently announced they're going to be doing their own showcase. Friday, so the day after you guys hear this, and Arc System Works really only has one game that's in the pipeline that everybody's excited for. I know they have other games that they're continuously providing support for, but they only have one in the pipeline that I'm aware of that's actually kind of like, hey, we need to really sell this game.
Leon Lionheartly: So i think it's a really interesting... this was a This is just my way of saying, I think it's interesting, and I'm seeing more and more developers do this instead of saying, why wait for Sony? Why wait for Microsoft? Why give them the extra boon when we could just do it ourselves? It's cheap. You just jump and ah get on a camera, you pre-record some stuff, and you put it on YouTube, and congratulations, everybody's happy.
Leon Lionheartly: um But yes, Capcom, I'm going to come over. We're going to talk Pokemon 2. We're going to talk a lot of fun stuff. um I'm all for it. RE9 is probably a near the top of my anticipated games for next year.
neocharge: Oh yeah. Same here. So yeah, I'm excited for it too. um Diana is the little girl in Pragmata. And the the unique gameplay hook is you can hack enemies and there's like a little mini game and you can either lower their defense, lower their attack, and it's all in real time.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep. yep
neocharge: You guys will see it today on the Capcom showcase. Tune in. And ah it's 4 p.m. MST. so Should be good. I don't know if we'll see some surprises. i think they basically laid it all out.
neocharge: Hoping to see some surprises with Resident Evil. So I think it'll be a good event. So that was the news. We had a lot to get over. ah But or a lot to go over.
neocharge: But we're going to go into what we're playing. ah and if we have have time for a main topic, we'll get there. But probably not. We need to catch up on what we're playing.
neocharge: The last three episodes, we've been going through a lot of content. We haven't been able to say what we're playing. And you recently beat a suggested suggested game that we gave on episode eight.
neocharge: And I can't wait to hear your thoughts on that. Did you did you want to lead with that? Or ah what what do you what do you want to talk about? let's Let's dive deep into what we're playing.
Leon Lionheartly: i'm I know you're chomping at the bit. um So I think I could probably start this off and then we'll lean I'll give the entire stage to you, my friend, ah because I know you've got a lot to say.
neocharge: okay yeah
Leon Lionheartly: At least I got a feeling, right? um buts that's a good That's a good aside.
neocharge: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: ah From episode eight, ah you and I and good friend of ah ah Caleb, good friend of the show, we're talking and we were talking about a game or another system.
Leon Lionheartly: um let me Let me put it this way. I have three games that I've been kind of dinking around with. One of them has been my traditional. I've been going back to League, playing with my friends.
Leon Lionheartly: actually actually got on with a friend of the show, Dallas, Caesar Salad. ah finally got a chance to play with him. Been a great time, right? I'm going to continue to play that until I'm in my 60s. Well, you and I were talking, and the Sea of Stars DLC dropped recently.
Leon Lionheartly: ah Sea of Stars is a turn-based RPG, very Chrono Trigger-inspired. um Talking with you and Caleb, I realized that the developer... Sabotage also made another game before Sea of Stars, and while they are not they are very much different in terms of their genre, um in their overall universe, they are connected in their own little way, right?
Leon Lionheartly: I'm going to leave it only at that. That's your only notion. um But I'm going to talk about The Messenger, their first game. this is going to be This is some light spoiler because I think it's important to discuss a few things here to understand the context.
Leon Lionheartly: um But first off, all right, cool. Now that you're ready to leave, this is your that was your warning about spoilers. The Messenger is side-scrolling game
neocharge: It's your warning.
Leon Lionheartly: very much Castlevania or Metroidvania, as people like to call, um inspired gameplay, but with an aesthetic that old-school Ninja Gaiden.
Leon Lionheartly: And I mean old-school 8-bit Ninja Gaiden. Right? um it and it does't And it does not shy away from it. um There is a reference to Ninja Gaiden within the first 10 minutes of this fucking game.
Leon Lionheartly: ah And and it what which's really what really blew my mind about it is it's not only a reference to Ninja Gaiden, Matt, but they call it out and say, no, it's a requirement for us to do this.
Leon Lionheartly: And now that we've done this, we can move on with our lives. um The writing... It is in such a tongue-in-cheek way, but it's not over-the-top like people complain about, let's say, Borderlands.
Leon Lionheartly: um But yes, i platinum this.
neocharge: Yeah, you did.
Leon Lionheartly: That's how much I enjoy this.
neocharge: What?
Leon Lionheartly: it take I think I did it in about... PlayStation, my PlayStation dashboard says it died I played for 20 hours. I don't think that's accurate. I think I'm in more in the 12 to 15 hour range um to do this.
Leon Lionheartly: It's not a terribly difficult Platinum. There's a couple of annoying achievements, um but those are more of a, eh, you follow a guide, you'll be fine. um The big hook, Matt, you know what really got me in this game?
neocharge: what
Leon Lionheartly: Was the switching between 8-bit and 16-bit. and sixteen bit
neocharge: Yup.
Leon Lionheartly: Um, that you did not, you did not.
neocharge: I didn't spoil that for you. I was waiting because this was in our 8-bit episode. And this was one of my honorable modern mentions. And I was like, and I don't know if you heard it. You can go back and listen. And I was like, yeah, and this is an 8-bit game, kind of.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah Yeah, you did that well. ah
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: The transition that's in here, ah the platforming is super tight. ah Unlike other platformers, my problem with Metroidvanias is, let's say there's spikes.
Leon Lionheartly: Well, the spikes within the hitbox kind of extend out from from a wall. So if you think about it in a little straight down line, those spikes tend to stick out. And even though your character model doesn't touch them, you still get hit.
Leon Lionheartly: A good example of this is um Prince of Persia, The Lost Crown. Amazing game. But I think they needed to fine tune them because in platformers, those hitboxes are important.
Leon Lionheartly: In the messenger, they are... beautifully, beautifully done. I never felt like it was my fault. And in fact, the game calls you out because when you die, you get loading screen, you get little mini loading screens and it antagonizes you. You'll get, oh, you'll get messages like, let me guess, you meant to press that.
Leon Lionheartly: Or let me guess, it was the game. Like they antagonize the fuck out you. And that makes me want to beat my head against the wall even more. um But this game, like yeah if I wish I had played it sooner.
Leon Lionheartly: um This is ah an amazing, amazing 2D platformer. um Go check it out if you haven't. Like I said, you can beat it in 10 hours. um If you want to platinum it, it takes you a couple of more hours to do some cleanup duty.
Leon Lionheartly: And that's considering I'm the kind of guy that doesn't really necessarily always read the trophy list. ah So there are there is room for you to quote-unquote screw up. But But yeah, The Messenger, highly recommend it by Sabotage Studios.
Leon Lionheartly: um Do you know who what else they made, Matt?
neocharge: Oh yeah. Uh, before after?
Leon Lionheartly: After.
neocharge: Yeah. Sea of stars.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: but Yeah. Uh, first of all, I, uh, love this game. Shout out to Bo, Bo Rito Supreme on our discord.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: He actually recommended this game to me a while back and said, dude, this is, this is totally your type of game. Go play it. I played it. Uh, for that reason, backed sabotage studios, new game, sea of stars then, ah because of that game.
neocharge: So yeah, sabotage studio makes the messenger and they made sea of stars, which you've also been playing, huh?
Leon Lionheartly: Yep. um I'm playing the DLC. um i get a little bit into it and then I get distracted. um But so the throws of the Watchmaker, um a free, I want to point that out to everybody, free and Sea of Stars is like 20 bucks so online.
Leon Lionheartly: DLC to a turn-based RPG. um This is not... Claire Obscure with parries and dodges that we've been talking about. This is the best way I can describe it.
Leon Lionheartly: is if they You can tell Sabotage who was inspired by two classic 16-bit RPGs. One of them being Super Mario or RPG and the other one being Chrono Trigger. um it would be it's the equivalent of what happens if those two games had a baby. um And it comes out into a beautiful, beautiful 16-bit style, turn-based with great quirky writing. Once again, you can tell the same type of same writers are there because, um and I don't want to spoil any of this, but you can tell there's a certain level of undertone and self-awareness to where the game takes itself seriously, but not too seriously. Right?
Leon Lionheartly: I don't want to spoil much about about ah the Throws of the Watchmaker, but I'm only a couple hours in. um I will say... you Did you play this, Matt?
neocharge: I did. It's actually on my list to talk about. So, I mean, I guess I can piggyback off of this, but I want to, I definitely want to hear your thoughts. It's the most gorgeous pixel art I've ever seen.
Leon Lionheartly: Absolutely. um So i'm playing I'm playing on a yeah little bit easier difficulty with the ah the relics that are playing um because I was trying to understand. i was trying to pick up back up where I was at, right?
Leon Lionheartly: um
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: When I play a game, I kind of forget the mechanics, but I remember how it made me feel. And the base game made me feel so warm and fuzzy on the inside. Ooh. Yeah.
neocharge: Oh. Oh.
Leon Lionheartly: so
neocharge: oh
Leon Lionheartly: But I do want to say it's beautiful. The pi pixel art, the music's still there. The music, it's the same stuff. It slaps. Now, two things I want to bring out is one, the actual cut scenes that are in this.
Leon Lionheartly: are rendered so, so beautifully. um they're not They're just pure motion. there's no There's no audio necessarily with it. You're not going to get the orchestral music with it.
Leon Lionheartly: But my goodness, it's done beautifully. From ah from a studio this size, I tip my hat. Number two.
neocharge: Yeah, it's an indie game.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, go ahead.
neocharge: It's ah it's a full indie game. sabotage There's no publisher. And it was actually on our ah list of top indies we recommend on our indie episode.
neocharge: So yeah, they started the cinematics kind of like an anime cartoon cinematic with... um They added it to the base game ah with an update for free in the Dawn of the Equinox i pack.
neocharge: So go ahead.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: um And then lastly, the last thing i'm going to say about this DLC, because I'm not finished yet, but I'm, I'm at the point where I'm like, okay, I get what's happening and I'm all here for it. Right. um I got far enough.
Leon Lionheartly: Did you catch, I'm going to leave this as generic as possible. So I do not ruin anything for anybody, but it's a simple yes or no question, Matt. Did you catch the final fantasy six, six reference so that was in there?
neocharge: Absolutely.
Leon Lionheartly: Okay. You know what I'm talking about then? Yeah.
neocharge: ah Oh, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: i I screamed and started laughing so hard i was crying.
neocharge: Cause yeah, I've gotten that far. I haven't finished final fantasy six. I know, but I have gotten that far to understand that reference.
neocharge: And I actually, texted Caleb, our our friend and our resident final fantasy expert. And I was like, dude. And he's like, dude, I know.
neocharge: yeah. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: It was so beautifully done.
neocharge: so yeah
Leon Lionheartly: I tip my hat. That's just another example of the inspirations that are coming on there. So if you like old school 16-bit RPGs um with a ah modern feel to them, um please go check out Sea of Stars.
Leon Lionheartly: um The DLCs are all free, so they're not asking for a lot. They just want you to buy their game and enjoy it. And I think that's worth it.
neocharge: Yeah, incredible studio. They just know how to have fun. They want you to have fun. And I loved th Throws the Watchmaker. There's two DLC packs for Sea of Stars.
neocharge: Sea Stars came out in 2022, I believe. It was my indie game of the year. And ah the first pack was Dawn of the Equinox. And the second pack was Throws of the Watchmaker. Dawn of the Equinox was more ah quality of life stuff.
neocharge: And, you know, fixing some bugs, stuff like that. But adding local co-op. for the game. ah And it's it's awesome. And we're going to play some of this today for our listeners ah listening now.
neocharge: And yeah, I loved it. It was so fun. I finished Throws the Watchmaker shortly before you started it. And I got to say, man, as free DLC, I think it scored higher than the base game ah because Caleb picked this one up.
neocharge: And it it's scored higher than the base game. And it's incredible. For a free offering, you get so much content. You get a new world. You get new characters.
neocharge: You get all kinds of new shit, new abilities, all kinds of shit. And I'll keep it vague, but if you love Sea of Stars, it's just more Sea of Stars with a little bit of a twist. And it was fun as hell.
neocharge: I loved it. And I... I get an idea of where you are. We'll talk more off cast of where you are, but this was just an incredible DLC. ah How long did it take to figure out that, and maybe you haven't yet, and this was in the base game very early on. It's a mechanic, but coming off of Claire Obscure, you forget about it.
neocharge: How long did it take you to find out that you can actually pick which character goes in order?
Leon Lionheartly: ah You're talking about for the base game?
neocharge: Yeah, for the base game, going back to Throws of the Watchmaker, I figured out you could actually, like when it's your turn, you can pick any character as long as they haven't gone to break the lock.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, yeah, yeah. So I figured that I i knew it originally.
neocharge: Yeah, of course.
Leon Lionheartly: So then it took me, when I played the dle c it took me, I think it was within, it took me a couple of battles, like 15 minutes. um I realized it and was like, oh, I'm an idiot. I forgot you can do that um kind of a situation. i i get a sense, though, it was embarrassingly long for you.
neocharge: Guess what, Bob? I found out on the last fucking boss of the DLC 15 hours in.
Leon Lionheartly: Ha ha ha ha ha.
neocharge: I was fresh off Claire Obscure.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: So Claire Obscure, you have a specific order, right? Kind of like Final Fantasy ten And it goes in order. On Sea of Stars, because, dude, I was like, how... how are they expecting me to break all these locks?
neocharge: Every enemy has a lock. Every character has an ability that can break one of those specific locks. If you use a specific ability or element, it's an incredible battle system.
neocharge: But I was like, how do they expect me? And I played the whole fucking game in default order when you can actually choose who you want to play. I beat that game on hard mode, bro. Yeah.
neocharge: i am I was so pissed, dude. On the last boss, I was like, there is no way I can do that i get this. I kept dying. And I think I accidentally flipped the stick in frustration.
Leon Lionheartly: and
neocharge: And I was like, you got to be shitting me. Because, dude, I played Sea of Stars on launch 2022, three years ago. And then I'm fresh off a Claire Obscure that has a set order.
neocharge: ah But I got through it. I beat it. I put my list back to 100%. And we're going to get your Dawn of Equinox to 100% today. today So. so
Leon Lionheartly: Let's do it, man. ah All right. So what else you got? What do else you got? I know you got some hot ah stuff to talk about. It's been a couple episodes.
neocharge: It has. It has. we got a lot to we've We've played a lot. mean, man, it's been like almost three weeks we' we've talked about ah what we played. i I want to go into my experience of the Switch and traveling, and I've kind of dug into some of the systems. And, dude, the Nintendo Switch app is pretty sweet.
neocharge: It's a lot like the PlayStation app. Did you know when you take your screenshots on the Switch... ah console, it'll actually show up in the app now and you can copy and then just send it over text.
neocharge: Mind blowing, right? On the Switch 1, you had to scan a QR code. You had to connect to an ad hoc Wi-Fi network. You then they had to transfer your... ah transfer your your one fucking screenshot over that network to your device. And then you could send it whenever, wherever you wanted.
neocharge: Now it's just like you take the screenshot shows up in the app like it always should. ah It's awesome. The, the switch to ah is worlds better than the switch one battery life is awesome.
neocharge: I think we already talked about this and i have been revisiting older games that I waited to play on the switch to actually,
Leon Lionheartly: Mm-hmm.
neocharge: um One of those games, and this is the game I told you I was going to fire up first, and I did, you were there, is The Legend of Zelda Echoes of Wisdom. And The Legend ofs out of Zelda Echoes of Wisdom is another isometric 3D inspired by ah Link's Awakening, and you play as Zelda.
neocharge: not Not the green tunic looking boy.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: Okay. This is Zelda. Princess Zelda. Okay. ah You play as her, which is awesome.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: And the combat mechanic is you can basically become a necromancer and copy any ah enemy that you...
neocharge: beat and then just summon them whenever you want. And you can also summon objects in the world. So if you see something that you can copy, you just copy it and it goes into your copyable abilities, your echoes, if you will.
neocharge: I'm really enjoying this, man. It's making me want to revisit Link's Awakening. First of all, in the Switch 1, Link's Awakening was remade into a gorgeous engine.
neocharge: And it was it was beautiful, but it ran like shit. like It ran almost like a slideshow. I powered through it because I love Link's Awakening so much. It's one of my favorites. It's probably my ah third favorite isometric top-down Zelda.
neocharge: ah The Oracle games being my first, Link's Awakening... Or A Link to the Past being my second, then Link's Awakening third. But i mean that's like comparing filet mignon, right? ah I'm a huge Zelda fan. It's my favorite IP of all time.
neocharge: And yeah, it's making me want to go back to Link's Awakening. um Echoes of Wisdom came out, I think like two years ago on the Switch one. Had the same problems. Same engine, same problems.
neocharge: Only this one... would fluctuate between 30 frames and 60 frames dynamically. And 30 frames locked is okay. 60 frames locked is amazing.
neocharge: But when you're fluctuating, going out of a town, and it dips to... Like 30 frames a second dynamically? No, absolutely not.
neocharge: And I told you, I told you, they're going to patch this game because they're keeping the frame rate unlocked so they don't have to do a lot when the Switch 2 comes out.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: Guess what, folks? I was absolutely right. The patch adds a consistent 60 frames. I haven't seen it dip once. at all, even in the water areas. The water areas were atrocious, and that's where I put it down because it was so bad. It was like fucking with my eyes, man.
neocharge: ah They added HDR. So the colors and the the color depth is more vibrant in ah it pops. And they also added faster load times. The resolution is almost, I think, close to 4K now.
neocharge: It looks like a new game. And they did the same thing for Link's Awakening. it looks like a new game and ah it's kind of bittersweet, right? We talked about this before, but this is how these games should have launched.
neocharge: Uh, but I finally revisited it. Uh, I put it down on the switch one cause it was, it was almost unplayable, but man, it's, It runs and looks almost like Tunic did on PS4 Pro.
neocharge: i And I got to say, I'm having a blast gameplay wise. Super fun. Zelda's, she can't really attack. She's just like a mage. And she has her her wand.
neocharge: And she has her little Navi-like character, Tri. i And the story's awesome. I just got to a critical moment in the story. We can talk about off cast because I know you've beat this.
neocharge: And i am I'm like, okay, I'm kind of thinking I know where this falls in the timeline now, actually, because it's...
Leon Lionheartly: Mm-hmm.
neocharge: It's very nostalgic for other games. Let's just say that other games in the series. ah But yeah, she has a little wand and she's basically a necromancer that can, when you, you kill enemies with other enemies that you summon and man, it's just fun. You come across an enemy and you just like throw out other enemies and you just watch them beat each other up.
neocharge: It's great. And it's, it goes back to the, ah ah the, the, classic Zelda formula of dungeons. And I think I'm on the sixth dungeon, which is more to say than tears, more to say than breath.
Leon Lionheartly: Mm-hmm.
neocharge: Uh, I like when they go back to the original formula for Zelda links, awakening had nine dungeons. Most, most Zelda games have about eight or nine.
neocharge: um So I love to see it return to form. And yeah, it's so fun. The echoes are fun. It's gorgeous. The little characters are amazing. Everything you love in Zelda is here.
neocharge: The Gorons, all of them, the Zoras, shocker, right?
Leon Lionheartly: Thank
neocharge: ah It's in Hyrule. There's callbacks to many things. Let's just say that. And I'm having a blast. I think I'm about 80% or 90% done. I'm trying to finish it before Death Stranding 2. I think I will.
neocharge: And yeah, I'm having a blast. I played it on the plane. I did like 5 flights because like it got delayed when I went to ah Myrtle Beach. And I really utilized my Switch in in travel mode, handheld mode. And man, when you're when you got your Switch...
neocharge: No matter what environment you're in, you're just zoned in.
Leon Lionheartly: Mm-hmm.
neocharge: It was funny because ah I flew Southwest, right? So if you get on it is somewhat soon and before people, you can kind of pick your seat.
neocharge: And I usually like a window seat. I just like watching it. I like at takeoff, throwing on the high wind takes to the skies. And if you if you time it right, ah the the crescendo of the the track will...
neocharge: i go when you actually take off the... do and You know what i mean?
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: ah And I usually do that. And I like a window seat. But I get on the plane and there's just this mom and a fucking crying baby just throwing a tantrum.
neocharge: But there's a window seat. And i was like, is that seat taken? And the ah guy next to her was like, you sure you want to do that? And I was like...
neocharge: I got my Switch 2 and headphones. I don't care. And i the the kid was just a menace, right? Screaming. Dude, I throw my ah got the Beats Pro on. The key to good travel is good headphones.
neocharge: You got to have that ANS, ambient noise cancellation, ANC. And throw your Beats Pro headphones on, Bluetooth to the Switch. you You get just...
neocharge: portaled into a ah different world. And I didn't even know there was a crying baby next to me. I was playing Zelda. I probably played three hours and the plane trip went by in the blink of an eye.
neocharge: It was great. And yeah, I played Zelda echoes of wisdom travel. Then I brought it home. I got a different switch dock. I got another switch dock for my TV up in the living room. Took my switch to docked it in the living room, played it a little bit, looks gorgeous docked on, I have an OLED, a Sony OLED TV.
neocharge: And then when I wanted to really play in my theater room for the experience, like in the dungeons and stuff, and I want my surround sound, I just take the switch to take it off the dock, put it on the other dock.
neocharge: It's an incredible, incredible,
Leon Lionheartly: Yep.
neocharge: design of technology and i ah i mean the switch one had it right but they just perfected it on the switch two so i've been very impressed with the switch two technologically wise uh love revisiting the older games fired up tears of the kingdom fucked around in that runs looks and loads like a new game same with breath
Leon Lionheartly: you
neocharge: I think you're going to have a really good time on Tears of the Kingdom, revisiting it on the Switch 2. But yeah, i highly recommend Echoes of Wisdom. Legend of Zelda Echoes of Wisdom. Play it on the Switch 2 if you can.
neocharge: If you want to slog through it on the Switch 1, by all means, it's the same game. The same game is under there. But if you want the optimal experience and it's it's basically a new game, you're basically going from PS3 to PS4, honestly.
neocharge: PS4 Pro. ah Play it on the Switch 2. i couldn't be more than happy I couldn't be happier with the experience I'm having. ah It's an easy Zelda game. It's not in my top isometric games. I'd say it's probably in the bottom tier, ah but it's an incredible game. That's like saying, oh, it's like just I like my steak analogies, right?
neocharge: Oh, this is a sirloin, not a filet mignon. Still an incredible game. I think it got like an 86 on OpenCritic. ah So I would highly recommend on the Switch too.
Leon Lionheartly: um
neocharge: Those are my... Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, yeah. So that that that's amazing, dude. I'm so glad you finally got around to this.
neocharge: Yes.
Leon Lionheartly: um Because Echoes of Wisdom, for context, that released in October of last year, 2024. So it has not been that long.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: um To finally hear you get the opportunity to play this game, I slogged through it um because I can deal with frame rates depending on the game. This is one of those games that, like you said, it's not difficult, right?
Leon Lionheartly: So because it's not difficult, I can slog through the frame rates. um I think Bloodborne, while locked at 30, is about the limit I'm going to go on certain games um before I finally say, yeah, enough's enough.
Leon Lionheartly: um But I'm so glad you got a chance. I'm curious to see where your thoughts are with this um on where it's on the timeline. um And the reason I say this, do not go look, but it has if it been put on the official it has officially been put on the timeline already.
neocharge: That's awesome. Because I have had heard it's still up in the air, but I'm so glad. And I hope I'm right. And we'll talk after we're done. And I can't wait to talk about it.
neocharge: And yeah, I guess it might have been like a boiling point for me. I slogged through Breath of the Wild on Switch 1.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, what?
neocharge: I slogged through Tears of the Kingdom on Switch 1. I slogged through Link's Awakening on the Switch 1. So I was like, all right, it's the same engine. Is going to be the same shit?
neocharge: Yep. Fuck. I'm done. I kind of maybe got to a boiling point because I mean, you didn't play tears. You didn't play. did you play breath? Right. You didn't.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, well, I completed breath.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But then I was like, come on, guys, you knew you knew the problems that were there with Link's Awakening. Same engine. You have to have fixed this. At least a lock 30.
neocharge: Nope. So I was like, in spite, I got i got through maybe 30% and was like, I hit that water area and it tanked. And I was like, nope, I'm not doing it.
neocharge: i've I've done it for the last three Zelda games. I'm not doing it again. And boy, am I glad that I wait.
Leon Lionheartly: That's good, man.
neocharge: so
Leon Lionheartly: i'm I'm so glad you did that. maybe you know I'm hoping, I will say this much, your experience with Echoes is what I'm hoping will will happen with Tears.
Leon Lionheartly: We will see. ah Time will tell. But I'm hoping that's the same thing for me. um so umm Because i had that exact that everything you dealt with on Echoes is the exact same thing that I help ah dealt with with Tears.
Leon Lionheartly: where i was i And I know Tears came before Echo. But when I'm talking about a 3D versus an isometric dungeon crawler, there's a big difference in in that boiling point. So i hit I hit Tears of the Kingdom and I watch it hit like...
Leon Lionheartly: 15 frames a second when I'm trying to fight. And I immediately said, nope, nope, nope. I'm done. I'm put it away. um Somehow I managed, to Echoes was a little bit different, but I understand where you went you're coming from.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm so glad. um And i'm I'm interested to hear more off the air because I don't want you to just spoil anything because it was definitely on my, if you got past the frames, it was definitely in a very, very cozy Zelda game.
neocharge: Yeah, and I think you will experience the same thing. It's funny, we have a parallel experience with different games. And I think it's way more of a better improvement than with tiers.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: And I think you will go through a similar experience. You got that the Zelda notes now on the app. ah I can share designs with you. ah and Like designs I've made. You're like, oh, i'm I'm at this puzzle. I'll be like, you ah you want you want to see what the...
neocharge: monstrosity I made to complete this puzzle or basically just break the sequence ah with beds. No, that's that's an echoes.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: The bed echo in ah Echoes of Wisdom is OP.
Leon Lionheartly: ah
neocharge: I'm always using it. It's the best. But yeah, that's a little bit of a shout out to Echoes. Yeah, you got the Zelda notes. I've actually thought about revisiting tiers because ah Zelda actually does voiceovers for little areas that they place on the map.
neocharge: ah You got the GPS now. Like you can highlight something on the map and your phone will literally be like, go right to go to the shrine. I'm just like, that's worth $10. I think I would.
neocharge: And here's a cool thing. If you're a Nintendo switch plus or Nintendo switch online plus expansion pack member, which I think is like 60 bucks a year. Not crazy. Still a subscription. Hate it.
neocharge: ah You get it. yeah That's included. So ah those upgrades for tears and breath, the $10 upgrades, $20 total are included. So if you're a Switch Online member currently for $20 month and you want to get these and you don't want to own them, you just want to play them for a year.
neocharge: just upgrade to the switch online plus expansion pack for 60 bucks and it's included in the price. So that's pretty cool. Uh, I'm not going to say that I upgraded to the Nintendo switch online plus expansion pack for a month to get the legend of Zelda Ocarina of time icon only. I'm not going to say that.
Leon Lionheartly: I have a question for you.
neocharge: What? Okay.
Leon Lionheartly: that So if you signed up for it, could you cancel your subscription and get your money back?
neocharge: That's a good question. Probably. do I want to? no
Leon Lionheartly: I'm willing to bet probably not.
neocharge: i
Leon Lionheartly: So listen up, Xbox.
neocharge: yeah Yeah, exactly. right if it's If it's a business model, it'll be like, ah no we'll refund you the money that you haven't used and the time you haven't used. But guess what? You've used the time and you paid for that.
neocharge: So you consumed the product. We're not going to refund you. I don't know why Xbox does that. But yeah for reference, you can sign up for Game Pass. You can play an entire free game.
neocharge: And then like at the end of the month, before it's about to renew, you can cancel it and you get your entire month that you spent back. It's crazy. It's stupid. I don't understand it.
neocharge: But yes, I did get the Ocarina of Time icon for launching Ocarina of Time on the 64 emulated, the store or whatever. You can play the 64 games.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: I might keep it. I paid for a year. It was like 60 bucks. It's not bad. It comes out like, I don't know, what, two bucks a month? No, my math sucks. Five bucks a month.
neocharge: Yeah. $5 a month, and you're getting all the GameCube games that they're going to be releasing. And I have a feeling we're going to get Metroid Prime, Echoes, and corrupt not Corruption. Corruption was on the Wii.
neocharge: But the GameCube is one of my favorite consoles of of all time, I'd say. In the in the top three, easily. and You already have Wind Waker there.
neocharge: You already have F-Zero GX. I mean, do you know the bangers we could get? Luigi's Mansion. ah let's see, Metroid Prime, the original, even though remastered is out, you got Twilight Princess.
neocharge: You got ah the Super Mario Sunshine, even though Super Mario Sunshine is in the ah collection, which I actually, my brother played that on vacation.
neocharge: We fired that up and played some Super Mario games 64 uh and because when we were like 10 or 11 we got a 64 and that was one of the games we played it was kind of like i i don't see my brother a lot uh and got to hang out with them i brought the switch he was like oh the switch too because he's yeah we've always been fans of video games and i was like i got the the mario 3d collection i got it physical
Leon Lionheartly: ah You too, huh?
neocharge: and Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That thing was limited release. You can't even get it digitally anymore. And he's like, you're telling me we can play Super Mario 64 right now? And I'm like, you're goddamn right I am.
neocharge: And so ah we were at the beach in the beach house, sometimes just chilling on the bed playing Mario 64.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank
neocharge: And like he was going through the slide and he was like, I can't get this. And I was like, Let your big bro take care of it. I got you. And I did the slide for him. And it was just really cool connecting with my little bro and gaming with him. And I know he listens to the podcast. so shout out to you, Adam. I had a blast.
neocharge: And just FYI, you really, really need to step it up on showing your... 10-year-old daughter, some good games.
neocharge: Because she was that she was not playing some great games. okay She was playing Roblox. and i Have you ever seen Roblox?
neocharge: like There's this game she was playing called Brain Rot Bridge.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh yeah.
neocharge: and okay this is this is what and I saw it. There were 10 other kids playing online with her. okay She's on her iPad. Not even a game console. Granted, Uncle Matt has bought her all... Zelda has bought her all the Pokemon games, has has bought her some Mario games, Mario Party, all the first party games.
neocharge: Uncle Matt's about ready to buy her a Switch too, so she gets off Roblox. But... This game, it's literally a bridge with GIF images on either side.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: And... You jump and it's kind of like, i don't know if you've seen Squid Games, but you jump and you either fall or you don't. And there's a little audio clip that plays.
neocharge: I don't even know what language it is. I'm pretty sure it's Italian, but it's like you jump and it's like, um but but and I heard that constantly. And she played that for like, I don't know, a total of probably five hours the whole time we were there.
neocharge: And i I sat her down. I was like, Elizabeth, why are you playing this? you want it Do you want to see Mario 64? And she's like, no. And I'm like, i just glare at my brother.
neocharge: And I'm like, you better fix this. And I would rather her... Dude, Bob, I'm telling you this right now, the game I saw, I would rather her play Fortnite. And coming from me, that is a crazy thing to say. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah I love it. I love it. I'm sorry. yeah I'm over here laughing, folks. you can't see the video, but I practically read. That is amazing. I love it ah And you know what? If she's playing those games, that's fine.
Leon Lionheartly: But you got to do your child a favor and introduce them to the classics. um I'm still working on my youngest child, but oldest. but but my oldest he He knows, you know, yeah outside he's a main ah mainly a Fortnite player, or Overwatch, sorry.
Leon Lionheartly: um The beer's kicking in if you can't tell.
neocharge: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: But you know what one of his seminal games is? that he That is not an online brainwrap.
neocharge: What?
Leon Lionheartly: Red Dead Redemption 2.
neocharge: That's good. That's good.
Leon Lionheartly: Exactly. like my my my my my ah My second child, my son, he... um You know what game I introduced him to and he is obsessed with and now?
neocharge: What?
Leon Lionheartly: Half-Life.
neocharge: Very good. That's what I'm talking about. if If you don't know what I'm talking about, folks, just go on YouTube, and I'm sorry in advance. Look up Roblox Brain Rot Bridge and just look at this gameplay.
Leon Lionheartly: I gotta to go look at this now.
neocharge: Yeah, yeah, please do. You can do it right now. ah it's It's crazy. And ah on another on the other side of the the coin, right, we had a ah friend listener of the show in our little group chat.
neocharge: He was like saying that, and he probably sees his, uh, his niece a little more than I do. We're States away. You know, I try and keep in touch. Right. But he was like, Oh yeah, my niece plays the last of us. And she just built a Lego tape of something that's in the last of us. I don't want to go into spoilers.
neocharge: And she was like, thank you for getting me into the good games. You are my Joel.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh.
neocharge: And I'm your Ellie. And dude, i I heard that and I fucking teared up. I was like, oh my God, that's amazing. Because dude, we grew up on games like Pokemon.
neocharge: We grew up on games, all all the n NES games we just talked about in episode eight, our eight bit episode. And i I gotta say, man, we we had math skills. We had critical thinking.
neocharge: We had choice-based combat. ah We had organizational skills. ah with with like Pokemon and stuff like that. I feel like like the games nowadays, they don't take anything. It's literally called brain rot, Bob.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, I'm seeing videos of this and i even my millennial mind cannot comprehend this.
neocharge: Like... Right.
Leon Lionheartly: And I'm an online millennial.
neocharge: yeah, I guess what?
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: There's paid shit in there. And I, I overheard she was paying real money. And I was like, honey, just please play the Pokemon game. I gave you, or just, just sit down with my brother, play some banjo Kazooie.
neocharge: Daddy wants to play banjo Kazooie. Play it with him for the love of God. It hurts my soul.
Leon Lionheartly: oh
neocharge: It hurts my soul. Seeing, uh, Jen alpha. I think they are, uh, play these types of games. You know, teach their own, right? Whatever. But if you're a parent out there,
neocharge: watch what your kid plays and just it at least give them a puzzle game, help their critical thinking skills, give them a game about math.
neocharge: Pokemon is about math. I was doing math as a 10 year old with like, Oh, I'm going do 120 attack. And this Pokemon has 200 damage. so He's going to be left with 80. So I better i get this attack ready.
neocharge: and but And Brain Rod Bridge is like, oh, left or right.
Leon Lionheartly: and
neocharge: And if you're Italian, if you if you choose the right one, and if you fall through, you just start over, left or right, left or right. Like what?
neocharge: I don't understand it
Leon Lionheartly: i I don't either. um you're You're right, though. the the the math I'm a math... From my growing up, RPGs, right? So the math, make big number go burr, has essentially been my life's motto.
Leon Lionheartly: um maybe Maybe try something else. And I'm i'm going to bring this up. I bring this up because...
neocharge: Thank you.
Leon Lionheartly: um I've trained at my kids as best as I can. I can only go so far, right? um So, you know, one of them absolutely loves ah Portal, loves Half-Life, Counter-Strike, not a little bit, but huge into Team Fortress Classic 2, which is okay as an online game. If you don't know anything about it, it's an amazing game.
Leon Lionheartly: it's tra it's It's garbage now. It's the Roblox of ah ah Valve's games, but it originally was an amazing game. um Another one loves, ah like I said, Red Dead 2.
Leon Lionheartly: um The Tomb Raider reboot games. Not the classic but pixelated booby ones, but the ones that were really grounded. Another popular... You know what?
Leon Lionheartly: I actually started, and i'm gonna get a I may get some flack from community, but I want you understand that I teach my kids to to understand there's a difference between art and real life. I got one my last one. I finally found my like youngest son. I finally got him to to play a game that was not a Roblox brain rock game.
Leon Lionheartly: And that was Persona 5 Royal.
neocharge: Ooh, nice. That's what I'm talking about.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah That was the... Still and trying to understand the game um in terms of ah understanding turn-based game and and how ah you know you have different um affinities and weaknesses and strengths and things like that.
neocharge: Thank
Leon Lionheartly: There's some high-level gameplay in there if you really dive into it. But... It was a little bit of, oh, you weren't you're going to play that? Okay, that's fine. I can respect that. For every one of your Genshin Impacts or Zenla Zone Zeros, I can take this one because at least I know Dad has taught you to play a good quality game um over the years.
neocharge: That's amazing. And as most of our listeners know, I'm not a parent. I'm not giving parenting advice. But if I ever had a kid, you bet your goddamn ass he'd be playing or he or she would be playing Pokemon.
neocharge: Okay. You can play Pokemon. Let's go. i got her Pokemon. Let's go. And I just really hope that she finds her way in whatever she does and is successful in whatever she does.
neocharge: ah So, yeah, it went on a little bit of a rant there. like we We kind of went into a rant from like the Zelda travel experience. That was ah interesting.
neocharge: Huh?
Leon Lionheartly: that was good That was good, man. So what else you got? Because I know you've been playing some other stuff.
neocharge: ah I have. What have I been playing?
Leon Lionheartly: I don't know. I just assumed so.
neocharge: Yeah, no.
Leon Lionheartly: Okay.
neocharge: ah it's been It's been a light gaming week. ah
Leon Lionheartly: Okay.
neocharge: just ah yeah like I'm dealing with some life stuff. Let's just say that. and Gaming is kind of being put on the back burner. I'm also ramping up for Death Stranding 2 and kind of preparing my mind for that.
neocharge: Not really investing any time or energy into a Huge game. I could have, but yeah, just some life stuff. And I've just kind of been playing some Zelda, the the Echoes of Wisdom. Then I played Throws of the Watchmaker.
neocharge: And I've just kind of been ah utilizing my Switch 2, which which i bought. and have been really diving into that. So couldn't be more. ill I'll have much to say on episode 10 about Death Stranding 2. We'll keep it spoiler free, of course.
neocharge: And there might be some rubblings. We might have a little bit of something cooking, potentially Death Stranding 2 spoiler cast, maybe. Who knows? Who knows?
Leon Lionheartly: i Who knows? We'll we'll see if we can yeah we can definitely fit into that.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: um I do want to circle back on one little thing because you mentioned it. I'm a physical copy owner of Super Mario 3D All-Stars.
neocharge: Sure.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: Have you looked at the recent marketplace offerings on them?
neocharge: Yeah. It's over a hundred bucks.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, yeah.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I didn't realize it was a limited edition. I knew it was a limited run for the physical, but I didn't realize it was a limited run for the digital as well.
neocharge: Isn't that crazy?
Leon Lionheartly: that's Thank goodness for Nintendo game carts, the virtual game carts, because you can do that if you transfer your data. Otherwise, I know there would be some people some people that would be... i would be one of those that was really mad, but I was smart like you. I bought a physical copy.
neocharge: Yep. The moment I saw that go on sale, think was like 50 bucks snatched. and Yeah. mar Super Mario 3D All-Stars or Mario 3D All-Stars for the Switch has Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Galaxy. And you can play it all with the Pro Controller.
neocharge: I fucking love Galaxy. I hope we get Galaxy 3 on the Switch 2. But yeah, yeah it was it was so fun playing with my brother and it was very nostalgic. And I gave him a talking too.
neocharge: So we'll see how it goes. I know parenting is just super tough and... i I'm not a parent, so like i don't have any place to say. I don't have any experience or anything.
neocharge: um But I have an idea of what I'd do if I had a child. So maybe that'll be a topic for a next podcast.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: so but
Leon Lionheartly: Ooh, I like that.
neocharge: Right?
Leon Lionheartly: Passing on to the next generation.
neocharge: Oh, yeah. Yeah. And what your kids should play and not play. I don't know. ah It's all...
Leon Lionheartly: No brain wrap rage.
neocharge: No, Rain Rob Rich. Please. No Roblox.
Leon Lionheartly: ah
neocharge: Preferably no Fortnite. Minecraft's fine. It's digital Legos. But yeah, i to each their own. whatever However you want to parent, you you go right ahead and do that. i I just speak from experience being a child in my childhood where I am today. I think I made some good decision and decisions and played some good games. So I think that'll do it for episode nine.
neocharge: And I think we're going to get the hell out of here. It's been very fun. And ah yeah, just hang out on the Discord. i Keep talking about those games. And make sure you yeah keep an eye on what your kids plan.
neocharge: So you guys have a great rest of your day.
Leon Lionheartly: Take care, everybody.
