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S2 Ep39: Killer is Dead
72 Plays7 years ago
Join Dave and Jake as they play a Suda 51 game. Oh boy, here we go killin' again.
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Transcript
00:00:13
Speaker
you
Introduction and Social Media Feedback
00:00:44
Speaker
the job killer is dead how's it going everyone welcome to another episode of soapstone my name is Jake and I'm joined by my co-host as always Dave how's it going my Dave it's going okay I'm gonna just slow down just a tad yeah I figured if I if I just get it all out there less likely I'll screw it up by messing up the pacing that's a good point I wouldn't know cuz I never get to do the intro anymore yeah I just I kind of stole that yeah
00:01:14
Speaker
I think we're trying to mix up some things for diversity. Maybe people appreciate this, but we never get feedback anyway, so I don't know. We've kind of just stuck to one format for the most part, and I feel like that works. I have religiously been checking Facebook to delete all the comments that are like, hey, you should let Dave do the intro more. Interesting. That's why I keep getting these ghost notifications. Yup. You can do notifications. Oh, hold on.
00:01:40
Speaker
Stuff about the podcast. This is the only thing people say about the podcast, too, is that you should do the intro more. Not people like your voice. Yeah. Weird. If you're here just for my voice, I'm uncomfortable. Let's just establish that. I'm essentially the beard for your voice. People don't like my voice. They like your voice. But they're like, oh no, I get to hear both of them talk. Yeah. I think that's just our Polish audience, though. Speaking of our Polish audience, Killer is dead.
Overview of 'Killer is Dead' and Its Themes
00:02:10
Speaker
is not a game made by a Polish developer, it's made by a Japanese developer, but that's another country that's not in the United States. I'm even learning, thank you. I like letting you go off on these things and like, I'm not giving you a line back, you're fucking there. I'll make like a full circle back eventually, I'll find a way to loop back. To Killer is dead, a game that we both played,
00:02:37
Speaker
so we could provide some context for this episode. Last quick tangent. Have you watched Parks and Recreation? I've only seen clips of it. I've never seen it. Do you know who Purd Hapley is? I do not, no. Right after this, I'll show you. Yeah.
00:02:54
Speaker
But yeah, SUDA51 game, so you're gonna have excessive violence and titties, or just hypersexualized violence, pretty much. Yeah, like, there is definitely a lot of hypersexualization going on and very little actual, like, sexual content going on. It's all, like, ancillary to everything happening. Like, the main character is
00:03:24
Speaker
Like checking out like hot babes. Mm-hmm. That's pretty much the extent of it. Yeah, there are technically Jiggle emissions throughout the game. Yeah, but again, it's just like weird random bullshit. They added Primarily though. It is like a third person Beat him up. Yeah, you go around with the katana you build up your combo You get to do cool quick dashes and dodges ducks and dives and then you also have a fucking gun arm and
00:03:53
Speaker
yeah you got this like cybernetic vaguely alien looking not even vaguely alien looking gun arm just like attached to your body yeah uh called muscle back that's never explained but they'll give you random tips throughout the game like hey did you know that muscle back can be
00:04:12
Speaker
like transformed into human hands and like got through scanners and like, why'd you tell me that? I'll figure that out when I hit the button prompt. I don't need to know. I don't know. They just added stuff for adding stuff.
00:04:25
Speaker
So yeah, this game kind of fits in with other hack and slash action games like Double May Cry, Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, things like that.
Gameplay Structure and Mission Challenges
00:04:35
Speaker
It's more toned down as far as content, I think, than those games. If you've ever played like 3D games from the late 90s, early 2000s, where it's like, we're just going to give you a bunch of rooms and you'll go through killing enemies in the rooms and that's your gameplay and you'll be happy with it.
00:04:54
Speaker
Like, that's basically what this game is. There's some variance to that, but for the most part it is a linear. You're here for the combat style game. Yes.
00:05:08
Speaker
But I mean, it's entertaining enough as that. Like it's not a crazy long game where you feel like you're grinding out and the combat's not interesting enough. I think it does enough of a good job to kind of string you along with the, I'm gonna use this term loosely, plot. And like other random shit that's going on where it's just, it's a fun, what was it, like nine, 10 hours tops? Yeah, it's not a long game whatsoever.
00:05:35
Speaker
It's sectioned into episodes of which there's 13 if you count the Nightmare Special Edition content, right?
00:05:45
Speaker
but you could stop at any point there and you'll have spent like half an hour to 45 minutes per episode. That's about it. Not even. Some of them are real short. Yeah. I'd say like you're usually looking 20 to 30 on stuff, but some of that gets a little padded out from like cutscenes or small things in between.
00:06:07
Speaker
But if you know what you're doing and you're like, you don't fuck up, I'm sure you'd be quicker too. Yeah. I just don't have that skill. There's also like, this is the type of game where they were perfectly fine giving you some tasks that are just gonna, it's a figure it out kind of task. Um, so an example of one of those is, uh, for the
00:06:27
Speaker
Episode 51, Nightmare Mission, there's a section where it's just, you're in the dark basement, find the way forward, there's a bunch of paths that don't lead to the exit, and then there's one that does. And you're like, all right, well, I guess I'll brute force this, I'll figure it out, right?
00:06:44
Speaker
And there's other sections like that in this game. You're like, hey, find these enemies. They're hiding. Your controller will rumble when you're close to them or something like that. Hope you've got rumble functionality. Um, but, uh, like those, those are all things that couldn't make it take longer. But if you all, if you already have beat the level, you could speed run it pretty quickly. Um.
Combat System and Protagonist Introduction
00:07:05
Speaker
The moment to moment gameplay though, this is pretty handily in that action hack and slash space where you're going to be fighting enemies predominantly called wires, which
00:07:19
Speaker
The protagonist doesn't care. His name's Mondo, by the way. I don't know. Did we ever name him? We've not named anybody. Yeah. So we've named his arm well before we named him. Protagonist is Mondo. He's kind of this really lanky guy in a suit. Like if you ever watch Code Geass, he's like that type of lanky. Yeah. I was going to go for Joker, but Code Geass actually fits even better, I think.
00:07:43
Speaker
Yeah, it's 100% him. He's got like a very long two-handed Kitana that he uses one hand for predominantly. He has two-handed attacks as well in there. They say only two-handed attacks. I wasn't paying attention. I actually realized I wasn't paying attention either. I'm sure a lot of it is actually two-handed. Yeah.
00:08:05
Speaker
There are some things later on where you build up combos, because you would remove the limiter from the katana. I think you can do that twice. And if you get your combo upwards of 40-50, you start having these multi-hits, but you're also jumping around and blade-dancing. So you'll do a cartwheel forward and it'll hit three times. I think at that point it's just one-handed.
00:08:30
Speaker
Yeah, it's got like you mentioned the combo system where you're dealing more damage as you've managed to not get hit. And a lot of times games like this will have like maybe an upgrade or a lower difficulty or something like that. It's like you can take one hit.
00:08:46
Speaker
and your combos are interrupted. I didn't find anything like that. It was just, you get tapped by someone's range projectile, end of combo, start over. Yeah, you can't really switch your camera angle. No. Well, sorry, you can't lock on. You can use the right analog to be like, I want to look over here now. Yeah. But in that moments moment gameplay,
00:09:09
Speaker
It's kind of difficult to do. Yeah. Cause usually I'm trying to get a couple of hits and then like dash back, make sure nobody sneaks up on me and just kind of like lightly taps me. Excuse me, sir. Yeah. It breaks my combo.
00:09:20
Speaker
It does have a claustrophobic camera angle at many times too. Games like this in smaller spaces oftentimes struggle from that. So you can get hit from the side if there's an enemy that you don't have on your screen really, really easily. For the most part, you're using your gun in the form of muscle back.
00:09:43
Speaker
Which has like a couple different configurations You can unlock a
Jiggle Missions and Quirky Game Mechanics
00:09:48
Speaker
drill. Yeah a drill there's a freeze mode which like shoots these freezing projectiles and I charge up like a stunning energy blast mode, which is the one I like used very real like very heavily and what's kind of funny is we've been talking about like the combat but similar to that, but they've mentioned the
00:10:09
Speaker
Jiggle emissions. That's where you unlock some of these gun functions. Yeah, it's like I went through you start off with kind of like a minigun and a little gatling gun and I went through that for the whole game. I did one jiggle emission to see what it was again because it's been years. Yeah.
00:10:30
Speaker
How would you describe those missions? What's your objective there? You're sitting next to a lady who is minding her own business or having a drink. You stare at her and take pictures. I mean, not actual pictures. Did you take pictures because that's not part of the game? I might be thinking of a different game, which we probably should never cover.
00:10:53
Speaker
But you stare at her face, her chest, her thighs. You also get x-ray glasses at a point, too. Yeah. But you essentially build up these points of... What's the points called again? Guts. Guts. Yeah. It's worth mentioning the x-ray glasses don't let you see x-rated content. You still see underwear. You just... Yeah. It's not like... It's one layer x-ray only. Yeah, it's not TSA level x-ray.
00:11:19
Speaker
But after you have enough guts, like you've got enough courage and then you can give a beauty a present. Yeah. And this is something that you've brought from the shop in between levels with your in-game currency, which isn't used for a whole lot outside of like maybe some upgrade slots or buying presents primarily. Yeah. And the upgrades are super expensive. Like most of your money will go to present if you are playing that part of the game at all.
00:11:47
Speaker
But if you want the drill, you have to seduce this lady. And then if you give her enough presents, she's like, let's bang. Yeah. And then you kind of like walk off together. It fades. And then like you kind of like put on your clothes and like leave. And you also you're like, hey, you have this weapon now. Yeah.
00:12:08
Speaker
She gives you some gift. And this game has a lot of cheese to it. So when you succeed on a date, there's actually a voice. You know exactly what I'm talking about. There's a voice. I'll get the clip, but I'll just put it right here so that you guys can experience this as well. I know this is special for you. Use it with care.
00:12:35
Speaker
So that happens. And for that particular date, the one you're talking about, I think it's Natasha or something. Mondo gives you the player a thumbs up at the successful conclusion of the day before walking off. And it's just the stupidest thing. Yeah. And again, it's not one of those things that the game needs or benefits from.
00:13:00
Speaker
They just they have this extra stuff and a lot of it seems to be for shits and giggles. Yeah, which is fine Yeah, it's it has mechanics built around it though. It's like it's it has a It's not just a side section of the game like every time you buy a gift that you're gonna give to one of the beauties as they're called There's like four of them with the the nightmare edition Every time you buy one of these gifts the price goes up and Monda like
00:13:29
Speaker
He pays a lot of money for gifts, and I don't know exactly why. But I'm pretty sure by the third time you buy a pack of gum as a gift, it's like $30,000. Oh yeah. Every time you buy an item, the price goes... It's that same price again, and then goes up like $90,000 at least. Yeah. It's absolutely stupid, but...
00:13:50
Speaker
I don't know, it's part of his character. So Mondo as a character is very dismissive of like violent, he's not a very violent individual. He has a job, which is executioner. And he uses this money from his job to fund his, his audience with all these women basically, cause he's paying $30,000 per pack of gum. Yeah. It's a interesting means to an end.
Character Dynamics and Unique Abilities
00:14:18
Speaker
But you do work for the government, I think, or some section of the government private sector, where you have your boss, Brian, who's this big black guy who's half cyborg, is always smoking a cigar. Like cyborg. Yeah. Wait. There's Vivian, who's
00:14:40
Speaker
I want to say like a slightly English blonde. Yeah. Who's like a motorcycle driver and does something else. You have Mika who is strictly there for comic relief. Yeah. And I'm 99% sure that the English voice actor is the same as Amy Rose. There are a lot of times where she goes like, man, don't mind that one. I'm like, son, I hear it.
00:15:04
Speaker
And they're kind of like the ragtag cast. They usually do not interact on your missions. It's more so in cutscenes. But occasionally, to kind of break up the gameplay, you might have like a swarm of enemies show up and you're like, you're rolling up the sleeves, like, okay, I'm going to get the emergency Brianna with the Katana. But then like Brian or Vivian will show up.
00:15:24
Speaker
Let's use Vivian, this example. Yeah, okay. It goes up on her bike, kind of pulls out her hand, each hand has a gun, and then her arms multiply, and she has like 16 arms. And she's just, it's this fucking bullet storm while she's laughing wildly. It's the stupidest thing. It doesn't make any sense. Again, Suda51, so. Oh my gosh. Is that justification?
00:15:48
Speaker
So yeah, that's her thing and I actually forgot about it when I was replaying this game and it happened again. I was like, oh my gosh. It's just this is a game that doesn't care about whether you are drawn in to any sort of immersion with the game whatsoever. They don't care about that. They realize it's a game. You're playing a game.
00:16:09
Speaker
they will treat it as such and remind you that it's a game at many points. So that's her ability. Brian's is a very, very large minigun. He basically unpacks from like a suitcase essentially. And then he stands like with his arm in the side of the gun and then allows you to use the rest like the main gun as a turret. And it's dumb.
00:16:34
Speaker
It's real dumb, but I mean actually Mika does play a role too. Yeah, so if you ever die throughout a mission Oh, yeah, you actually lose all your health Be like hey, do you want to continue if you want to continue you have to use what's called a Mika ticket? Yeah at which point
00:16:50
Speaker
Mika kind of like jumps out of the sky, sits next to you. She's like, no, you're dead. And she beats on your chest while screaming, mondo, mondo. You have to smash X. Get your heart rate back up. And it's like, oh, you are revived. And then she disappears. So you can just buy those tickets between missions. You're just like, yeah, I'll buy more tickets so that my sidekick will revive me, basically.
00:17:11
Speaker
And in-universe, she also is capable of cooking soft-boiled eggs for Mondo. And that's the only thing Mondo eats. So... Glad we added that in. That's something. But I mean, they also put it into the game and talk about it a surprising amount. Yeah, it's not even just a one-off. No, it's not like, hey, that was weird. The number of cutscenes that have eggs in the game is probably significantly higher than the number of cutscenes that make sense.
00:17:39
Speaker
That's a troubling but true statement. But yeah, those are the main characters, like you said, the core cast. Most of the enemies that you fight, basically you'll have a target for each mission. So starting out, the episodes all have kind of cool names. And if not cool, then at least mysterious names. And it'll list what the target is, give their name a lot of time. Sometimes it's just question marks.
00:18:08
Speaker
But to start it off, it is the man who chose the moon, which is basically the tutorial. It teaches you some basic mechanics. But for the most part, it's you walking down an alleyway towards a guy, like shooting a gun at you, as Mando deflects everything with his sword.
First Mission and Early Boss Encounters
00:18:29
Speaker
Yeah, that you don't get to do it the rest of the game. You can unlock it later, I think, but it's, yeah, like a reflect skill. But I don't think it operates the exact same way. And then you basically get to him and he has this, much like you have this muscle back cybernetic arm, he's got a gun for a hand basically, and you get up there and you,
00:18:59
Speaker
or chasing him basically through this alleyway and emerge just in time to be surprised as he like is waiting around the corner. And then he shoots Mondo in the head. She's like, gotcha. It's kind of like Matrix moment, right? Starts to walk away and Mondo gets back up and like cuts his arm off. It's a violent game.
00:19:29
Speaker
I would still say that that is true, yes. But it's an interesting introduction that doesn't really provide much context or tell you anything. Even with us talking about it now, I don't know what the point of it was. It was just there. Yeah, it doesn't even make any sense. Because that's not like how you revive at any other point in the game.
00:19:51
Speaker
It doesn't make sense. Yeah. But it teaches you that, you know, some buttons do things. And that's basically what that level's for. But I mean, in the second episode, appropriately titled Killer is Dead, you're going through an office building, killing some wires, learning a little bit more about your controls and how to kill things and build up combo. Yeah.
00:20:14
Speaker
You've got like your guard button, which is also your dodge if you're moving. Real quick aside, if you time your block, you can get like a perfect block or something and then do some action afterwards.
00:20:30
Speaker
but it will prevent you from damage. I think you can do that from any type of enemy. But if you dodge at the perfect time right before the attack goes in, you have the option to attack again. If you do, time slows down, you go into like this hyper speed, katana slash, and you get like 15 hits in.
00:20:48
Speaker
Which really helps build the combos. You can keep attacking faster. And it just rewards you. And it feels badass. Yeah, it's freaking awesome. If you played Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, it's really similar to...
00:21:03
Speaker
the time stop there, where you just completely cut something into a million pieces. It's functionally the same thing with a dodge. So most of the time I was using dodges because they were safer than blocks. If you get a perfect timed dodge, then great. I get to like unload on this guy. And if I just dodge, then I don't get hit. So it's safer than blocking. I did that a lot. And then occasionally I'd be like, oh, you had a perfect dodge. I'm like, boy, howdy. That's badass. Yeah, that's what I wanted. That was intentional.
00:21:32
Speaker
But in this particular mission in episode two, you're chasing down another mysterious-looking man who, as it turns out, was an executioner before you. And he basically succumbed to the darkness or dark matter, which comes up a lot in this game.
00:21:57
Speaker
It's your generic evil force in the same way that darkness is the generic evil in Kingdom Hearts. Yes, it is. It's bad. Exactly that. It's just like, oh, this guy has succumbed to the, uh, the deep purple color and that has, uh, that has made him evil. You're like, all right, gotcha. Makes sense.
00:22:16
Speaker
Um, but yeah, you, uh, talk to him a bit, you know, have this, this, this dialogue back and forth. And then, uh, if I recall correctly, uh, Mondo just like lunges across the room at the guy and carves him the heck up.
00:22:35
Speaker
He gets on like a lot of these slashes and then there's like a finishing one. Oh, yeah. But then the guy is still like alive in a cutscene afterwards, where he kind of like talks and resolve things with your boss, Brian. Yeah.
00:22:49
Speaker
It's like an Assassin's Creed moment almost, right? Yeah. You're just like, oh, you're dying, but you still have time for this last... Last thing. And then after he gets out that sentence, blood spews out of all the cuts in his body type thing. Yeah, his throat was cut and he was having a conversation and stuff. He was fucking dead, so... It's pretty silly. But I believe...
00:23:13
Speaker
For a lot of the bosses, if not all of them, you always have the option, not the option, but you get the prompt to hold the trigger button. Yes. And then you say, like, killer is dead. Which is like you're saying, I've killed this first new one at the kill, the mission is complete, and then after you've held it, you release it, and then you're usually beheading things. Yes. Highlander style. It is a full-on beheading.
00:23:41
Speaker
and time basically like the game is always still and silent in these moments so it's just like hold r1 sword comes back killer is dead release hold and release and uh yeah this is the executing move you'll use a lot by the time this is over also before i forget uh jake sent me a screenshot before coming over and it was of
00:24:10
Speaker
The prompt for hold. I forget against which boss. Yeah
00:24:15
Speaker
And I was like, oh, this reminds me of a screenshot I took the other day. And so I show him, it is the exact same screenshot that we both took, except mine says release, which means there's like probably two seconds after Jake took his. But if you look at them, they are identical. It is the same, yeah. It's just the prompt that's different. It's pretty freaking hilarious. Yeah, it's...
00:24:42
Speaker
There's a lot of interesting moments like that that have come up through the game, but the executions stand out as particularly gruesome. And he's just doing his job. Just doing his job.
00:24:59
Speaker
Speaking of gruesome though, episode three is fucking weird. I mean, not really a overbearing statement for the whole game because every single one's weird. It's a good baseline for the game. But when I first played this, it was probably a couple years back. There's like a sale on Steam, got it for like 10 bucks. I'll try it out. I heard some good things.
00:25:23
Speaker
Um, so you go into like this kind of creepy candy like house. Yeah. Trying to help a girl named Alice. Um, I think Elisa is what she gets her name as.
00:25:32
Speaker
Well, initially it's Alisa and she's like, gotta help my sister, Alice. Not the same person, totally the same person. Your parents are weird. Tim and... Timmy. Really? It's like you go through the level, I think you have to kill some things, explore a little bit. But then when you actually have...
00:25:57
Speaker
the dialogue where you meet her, she's talking about being in pain, and like meeting some man on the moon, and like some other weird shit, and you already have like a very creepy vibe to it, like something's going on, something's happening. She's got like messed up mascara and stuff. She was crying, Jake. Yeah, I don't know what that means. Suspicious.
Boss Fight Strategies and Design
00:26:19
Speaker
and then like she's crying and like actively in pain and then she stops and then her head does a fucking 180. The poltergeist 180. The full poltergeist thing and then it also turns upside down and then she says some like weird creepy shit and then she looks up to the ceiling and yells David. Oh yeah by the way the camera at this point
00:26:45
Speaker
Like something else happens with like her body kind of like breaks up into like a bug or something else. She's screaming like David. And I'm like, at this point in the game, I don't know that it's not like a customized steam thing or what. So I'm just like, it felt very uncomfortable for me at the time.
00:27:02
Speaker
But that was a really cool fight because, um, the area opens up. Um, she's kind of like crawling around the room up on the ceiling and you're, she's like shooting bugs at you and you have to like shoot the bugs. And then when she comes in, you can slash her. Yeah. And a lot of these bosses will also have phases where if you do enough damage, they'll kind of be in a staggered state and you kind of do your execution move on a specific body part where you hold it and trigger the user charge of your blood and then go in.
00:27:32
Speaker
rip it off. Yeah, it's your dead space dismemberment move, basically. You're always cutting something off when you see that prompt come up. Like you said, that's usually how you're transitioning through phases and taking off limbs, leading up to the final execution where you get the voice line. That one's always slower paced, but there's a lot of dismemberment in this game.
00:27:58
Speaker
yeah it's a it's it's a weird fight and leading up to it you're getting like her cupcakes and other weird things and she says thank you with the same voice line every time and it's uncomfortable and you're like yeah what am i doing i think though it's probably more uncomfortable ones but like every single mission is
00:28:19
Speaker
Different yeah, like a lot of them outside of like maybe combat like it doesn't have overlapping things, right? Like you're doing something else each time and they try and grab elements and themes from different genres Mm-hmm kind of peppered in and also all the boss fights are wildly different too. That's true. Yeah, so like this one I felt like You were kind of encouraged to use your ranged options more. Mm-hmm Yeah, you pretty much have to just shoot her off the ceiling. I think I
00:28:49
Speaker
And you only have the one gun, like the main mode for that gun, the rapid fire cannon, is I think the only one that will continue to shoot when you run out of blood, which is the ammo. It doesn't shoot very infrequently at that point. Yeah. There's a couple things in the game where you have to shoot something like a circuit board or something to proceed.
00:29:09
Speaker
that's the way that you don't get stuck. Because theoretically you could be out of blood at that point and you're like, ah fuck. But usually when you hit enemies and kill enemies you get blood back. So that kind of powers the arm and you have range options so you can kind of balance between that. Yeah, Brian the cyborg actually I think gives you your sword and the lore it's like called the geku and it is the blood drawing sword.
00:29:38
Speaker
So yeah, there you go. You got a gun that consumes blood. You got a sword that takes blood. Equilibrium, everything's fine. It's like, it's the perfect game of like Mega Man and Zero kind of like merged together. I have shooty arm and I have slashy arm done. Unfortunately, in Mega Man, each character only has one arm. So what are you gonna do, right? Fuck. But yeah, that is that level.
00:30:05
Speaker
and thank you for contextualizing that yeah coming coming off of that level which is uh a woman of pain uh you enter episode four the man who stole the moon which is where you meet david on the moon it's me how are you doing how are you doing thanks chicken to be here um so this is another one of those things where it's
00:30:32
Speaker
It doesn't make sense plot-wise what's going on or why you're doing stuff. But a lady asks, comes in, asks you to kill this man David who's on the dark side of the moon. Yeah. You're like, oh, it had to be the dark side. Yeah. You're like, what are you guys talking about? So you go there. Um, it has some really good music. We listened to it earlier. It has a very creepy.
00:30:53
Speaker
haunting melodic thing, a combination like Luigi's Mansion and something else. And it is a mansion. It is a mansion. Yeah. It's not Luigi's. Yeah. It's just there on the moon too, right? It's like standard moon terrain. You arrive and you've got like your space helmet and then you like get through the courtyard. And for some reason, Mondo takes a space helmet off and he's like, why can I still breathe? He asks that. Yes. That never comes up again. Things are not explained. Things are talked about, but not explained.
00:31:20
Speaker
Oh, but it's a big mansion. I actually like this level because there's nothing fancy about it. You warp between some paintings. Yeah, you kind of like touch the painting, get your art in, Dark Souls style. And you actually have
00:31:37
Speaker
more variety of enemies at this point. You have some of the guys, you have like these giant size, different attack patterns, which I thought was cool. Yeah, and they mix it up like a little bit. Some guys will block and you have to use like a strong attack, break through the block. Games have done that. You know what that is at this point, right? He's blocking, guys. I give up. There's no way past this. Pause game, lookup guide. How do I deal with this? Google's level four bullshit.
00:32:05
Speaker
But this mansion on the dark side of the moon with David the Usurper, eventually you get through and finally encounter him.
00:32:17
Speaker
He talks about you in this kind of familiar way. And Mando's like, what are you doing? I don't know you. I'm here to kill you. I am Mando. And he knows your one secret, your deepest truth, which is that you only eat soft boiled eggs. It does come back up. But it's a cool initial boss fight.
00:32:46
Speaker
Also, this man may be over-sexualized a little bit. Yes, I'm not discounting that, but I was just going to comment, I like his character design, because you see him with a kind of fairly simple golden coronet, and he has this big-ass, almost like Akatsuki cloak from Naruto. It's fucking big.
00:33:10
Speaker
And he's up on like a throne, kind of like clipping his toenails when you literally, literally. And then when he actually comes down, he's like, I guess we do have to fight.
Major Antagonists and Unique Boss Mechanics
00:33:21
Speaker
Imana goes, yes, it is an action game. Direct quote. And he takes off the cloak and he just kind of has.
00:33:30
Speaker
Maybe say gilding. Yeah, that's probably the best way to phrase that. Kind of like, it's not like body armor, but it kind of has like gilding throughout. He's essentially like in a cod piece and then like the gilding kind of goes around throughout his body a little bit. Yeah. It's the ultimate female fantasy. It's absolutely disgusting.
00:33:50
Speaker
No, but he's an interesting boss fight. He's kind of more of a traditional fight for these types of games. He'll charge up some ranged attacks. He'll hit you with some fast melee attacks. He has a scimitar is what he fights with.
00:34:07
Speaker
And this is really where having mastered the perfect dodge just tears him apart. For his fight now, and for any future fight where he may be a participant, perfect dodge absolutely destroys him.
00:34:25
Speaker
Like if you just check, cause a lot of times after you like have attacked him, he'll try to retaliate immediately. And you're just like, I'll dodge again though. And so there's a, there's a sound that plays every time you get a perfect dodge. It's like, like, I don't know. I can't make the sound, but you know, you know the sound, right? Yes. And you're neat. It's I've made like a goose sound for some reason, but it's not a goose sound. Um, and you can just chain those together to tear this guy apart. Um,
00:34:55
Speaker
but where you should be able to execute him as is your right he uh he's able to walk off after your arm starts hurting or your muscle back uh left thirst for blood thirst for blood and he's just like oh i'm just gonna leave i think you also like you managed to like cut his throat you you nick his throat yeah
00:35:19
Speaker
Then he kind of like backs out into like just pure blackness. Mm-hmm. It's like I'll be seeing you Mondo Yeah, also a good voice actor for him too. Yeah, he's got it's a it's a popular voice actor Because if you guys ever play the game, you'll know exactly probably I'm doing that shit. Let me know. Yeah, we don't do research here That's not what we're playing the game and that that's it there's kind of like there's there's other kind of like
00:35:48
Speaker
missions. The next setting is revisited like three times, I think. It's basically Mondo's dreams. And you learn more about him as a kid and... Kind of. A little bit. He eats eggs. Yeah. But like beyond that, also he knew Moon River growing up or something, who's the client from episode four. But like,
00:36:16
Speaker
From me to you, Jake, I don't know how the fuck that matters into the story at all. It's piecemeal stuff, like some of the combat that comes up in those dream sequences, it's interesting and kind of annoying, but I feel like overall it doesn't add too much.
00:36:38
Speaker
What were your thoughts on the dream level? Cause there's like at least two. Yeah, there's, there's two. And I don't want to cover both of them. Yeah, I know. That's why I'm lumping them all together here. Um, it's interesting because I use that term a lot, but because, um, in these nightmare worlds, you actually get a lot more exposition about what who Mondo is and what's going on. And.
00:37:02
Speaker
It's lies is the thing because your dreams are being manipulated by this dark matter person named Dolly. She's like this blind seer with like a blindfold. She's usually the boss of these levels. She has like some cool mechanics in her boss fights, but the information you're learning about like Mando's past, how he grew up with Moon River, stuff like that. It's actually lies. Like it seems like exposition that might matter later.
00:37:30
Speaker
It's all just lies. So it's like the game doesn't tell you anything and when it tells you something it's a lie. It's good to approach from like this game is fun and weird and leave it at that. Do not do any deep dives in my opinion. And this this first intro into his dreams I dislike more than the rest because there's a lot of just walking around slowly going from area to areas that slowly generates around you and
00:37:58
Speaker
That's not fun gameplay. I'm gonna be watching YouTube. Yeah, if you ever like holding an analog stick and like doing something else, you know, it's you're kind of being gated and that sucks. But I mentioned the boss fight here and I do like there's like there's some fights with wires all really easy. Yeah, the boss fight itself with Dolly is actually really cool.
00:38:21
Speaker
Most of her moves don't really matter, but one of them has it where she'll go invisible and there's a bunch of clones you can fight. And if you hit her invisible one, the camera perspective switches to Dolly and you see like her arms kind of in front of her, like first person from her perspective. And then you see her looking at you and you still control yourself and you have to react to her attacks and attack her.
00:38:47
Speaker
while your perspective is from her eyes. Yeah. And that's a bit of a mind fuck. Yeah. Like that's cool. That's actually cool. But yeah, the rest of these areas is not particularly compelling. And that sound means it's time for intermission where we talk about whatever we want to talk about.
00:39:11
Speaker
Freedom! Thank God. Not killer as death. It's the one thing we can't talk about. So that Kingdom Hearts 3, have you been playing that new game that's been taking the world by storm and I hear is super great? Yeah, I think the Final Fantasy crowd really just loves this one. As there is no Final Fantasy characters in it from what I've heard. So why do you think they diverged from that?
00:39:36
Speaker
I don't have a good answer for that because it's my understanding that Square Enix actually leads these games on these games like in association with Disney, but Square Enix makes them.
00:39:48
Speaker
So I have no idea why they wouldn't include their own characters, but. How are you enjoying it though? It's very, uh, some like five worlds in at this point. It's very much a Kingdom Hearts entry. Like if you like Kingdom Hearts one, two, the gameplay, the combat, the disassociative storytelling, this is more of that. Um, but yeah, I mean, if, if you're a really big Kingdom Hearts fan, you're probably already playing this game. You probably already beat this game.
00:40:18
Speaker
you may already have stopped listening to the podcast because I disparaged the game to some extent but uh it's it's solid for what it is it's not going to change anybody's mind about whether kingdom hearts is a good series though okay good then i won't buy it um have you been playing anything yourself recently or no no no still currently on
00:40:42
Speaker
Bits and pieces here, Hades, Dota 2, Destiny 2. I still really want to get back to God of War, so I can give you God of War. Future episode. But Hades, I know that game is on the Epic Games Launcher, which has a free game for now, depending on when you're listening to this podcast. That is true. They actually had a free game previously. They had the Jackbox games.
00:41:10
Speaker
But now, what free game do they have? Axiom Verge through February 21st, 2019, depending on when you're listening to this podcast. Just pick it up there if you've got an account. If not, then I mean you could make an account or you could disregard. Yeah. So I have an account because I wanted to play Hades and just check it out in general.
00:41:33
Speaker
interested to see where it goes, but I will say I have played Axiom Verge. It is a fun pickup for like 10 to 15 bucks. Nice, nice, fun little Metroidvania type. Um, but if it's free, even more, yeah. Um, would you pick it up for free? If it's free, it's for me. So if you want to go through the hassle of signing up, check it out. Yeah.
00:41:57
Speaker
And I have one other thing here I was going to mention. Anthem is going to come out February, so a couple weeks out. Probably have another opportunity to mention it at some point. I don't think I'm going to pick it up at launch, but like you said, you've been playing Destiny 2. I've played Destiny 2. This is another kind of small squad shooter based game.
00:42:17
Speaker
And it might possibly kind of be okay. We'll find out at launch. I just wouldn't jump on the train early. I'm terribly concerned because it's EA and how they've approached other things is with a hot pile of garbage. Yeah. EA still please hire me. It looks pretty. We'll give it that. It's got cool abilities. But I'm expecting them to fuck it up even more than they did the beta. Yeah.
00:42:46
Speaker
We'll see if it comes out good or not, but it's definitely when I'll be waiting for reviews before trying to get everybody to play it. Yeah, other than that, I don't think I have a whole lot going on.
00:43:03
Speaker
But what is compelling is some of these other episodes, going into the next episode, episode six, The Man Who Stole Her Ears.
Comedic Boss Fights and Memorable Moments
00:43:11
Speaker
There's a lady who's a musician who comes in as a client and says, kill this guy who stole my ears, here's her big sound company.
00:43:20
Speaker
and you go kill dudes. Yeah, it's not a terribly exciting level. It's just a corporate tower, basically. Yeah. And then you fight the guy. Yeah, the guy is a zombie, like a zombie DJ, basically. Yeah. That's kind of what it looks like. And there is an interesting exchange at the beginning of the fight where he's like trying to talk to you and it's just like, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah. And like, Mondo doesn't understand what he's saying at all.
00:43:45
Speaker
So Mato just reaches down, picks up these headphones, puts them on, and then he's this well-spoken Englishman, basically. Yeah, you know exactly what he's saying. And he's trying to tell you his plot, or his plan, or whatever. Your machinations. Mato's just like, I don't really care. I'm mostly here to kill you. Yeah. And then he just takes the headphones off, gets ready for the fight. The guy keeps talking, and he's like, no, we're going to fight. The most interesting thing about this, though, is when you complete the mission,
00:44:14
Speaker
And you like show the lady like here's the guy's head to kill that guy. Yeah, and you'll you'll pay us for our time and efforts is um
00:44:23
Speaker
Nope, she was a bird and she flies away. And one of like the running gags of all of these episodes is every contract you get, you never fucking get paid for. Like the person either disappears or is a ghost. Back from episode three, or they're a fucking bird or like some other, there's something that always happens where it's like, Vivian's always like, we need to get that contract signed so we can get paid. And it never fucking happens.
00:44:51
Speaker
And Brian's always like, we'll build the government.
00:44:56
Speaker
As you do. Yeah. The, uh, the next episode here is the tiger that faded into darkness, which is basically, uh, I really actually like the tail end of this episode. The first part's like busy work. You're in Japan hunting down ninjas and it's not super engaging gameplay for me. It's not. Um, you gotta like search for these like Buddha statues, shoot them. I think it's not Buddha statues. They are Tanuki statues. Ah, okay.
00:45:23
Speaker
Which I know because of playing Gomon way back in the day. And also it's a giant raccoon with a hat and like a giant nut sack. So, trademark tanuki. So you shoot those, ninjas pop out, you kill the ninja, get a scroll, collect all the scrolls, move to the next area. TLDR. Because you really want to get to that race with a tiger. Yeah. So this guy is like Yakuza and he has a tiger tattoo that comes alive.
00:45:51
Speaker
after he basically killed like all the people he was with and he's like, all right, let's merge. He jumps on his back as a tattoo, you know, standard stuff. It's weird. But he rides the tiger alongside you as you ride a motorcycle with Vivian and it's like this
00:46:11
Speaker
Don't know you try to like avoid obstacles and attack them with your sword and do you remember? The bike section of Final Fantasy 7. No. Oh It's like that but better graphics. Yeah, but still very simple and cheesy Cuz like you just hit him like a couple times and then it's done like that's that phase. Yeah, it was I don't know
00:46:35
Speaker
But it's just a brief sequence, thankfully. And then you get to the boss fight proper, which happens in this meditation area with a bunch of stones on the ground. It's actually Zen Garden. Yeah. Because it actually has the raking of the sand. It's pretty pimpin'. It is actually a really cool area. And it's a cool boss fight too.
00:46:56
Speaker
He basically starts, you know, in human mode where he just uses powered up melee attacks with his dragon spirit, not dragon, tiger spirit. And you can't dodge the attacks. If you try to do a perfect dodge, it'll still hit you. He's like, there's like this tiger swipe at the same time. Yeah, exactly. He's got that like after image hit, but you can block the attacks. And if you do that, you can just beat him up like real hard.
00:47:22
Speaker
Then later, the next phase, he transforms and he's got the...
00:47:27
Speaker
the tiger jumps out to prevent you from finishing him off halfway. So now the tiger's floating above him like it's his stand. Yeah. That's the best way to describe it, actually. And yeah, you go through this and eventually take him out, though. And he asks for a samurai's death and goes for his ritual disembelllement.
00:47:52
Speaker
Where you stand as his second and Mondo is just like it'll be it would be an honor Basically, you get like a sense that Mondo is a very he has a very a code. He has a code. Yeah so, um, he considers this like a tremendous honor and You get the the killer is dead line when you go to finish him off in his his suicide
00:48:16
Speaker
but it's a really cool fight and a little tidbit I didn't figure out until later. The person who sends in that contract that Brian is like reluctant kind of about, but it feels like it's very personal to him when he sends you off to Japan. Person who sends in the contract,
00:48:32
Speaker
is the Yakuza leader himself because his tiger spirit was being possessed by dark matter, which again comes up many times. And so he set out a contract on himself for his old friend to come finish him off. Him and Brian were friends. Yeah. There's one like 80s photo of them in a dojo and Brian's just like super. They have like the
00:49:00
Speaker
Like the buff handshake thing going on, like super rip of tattoos and whatnot. Yeah. Um, that's about as close as this game comes to plot. So dangerously close to it.
00:49:12
Speaker
All right, we need to scroll down to the next one. Yeah. It is outside of my vision and my memory is bad. So, yeah, the next one is very brief. It's Roswell, Area 151, a giant, there's a giant clone of an alien.
00:49:32
Speaker
And the guy who gives you this one, 151. Is it 151? It's 151, yeah. They have a one in front of it. It doesn't make any sense. Okay. But basically, this is like your monster movie type thing. Yeah. You go kill a researcher who's been transformed into a giant. The initial thing is given to you by
00:49:56
Speaker
The Colonel from KFC is the most accurate way to say that. That's what he looks like. And you kill this giant cookie monster type thing. And the Colonel is an alien and gives you a sun and pieces out. Yep. And I don't want to say more on that because that's the mission. And this is the only time throughout the level where they kind of give you like a time sequence because the building's being destroyed. You have plenty of fucking time.
00:50:26
Speaker
Anytime this game gives you a time sequence, it's just like, don't AFK here and you'll be okay. Lightly push forward on the analog stick. Yeah, but another weird level coming off of that was the Carrier of Love, which I don't know how to describe this level. It's about a train that was going to be decommissioned. Gets infused with Dark Matter by David.
00:50:56
Speaker
David turns it into this like demonic train and the men of the mission brand and Mondo are like this is this is our duty and Vivian's like I understand like acquiesces and you're just like men have always had a romance for steam engine I've got a man's passion on my side it's it's so weird I don't even know
00:51:20
Speaker
I mean, everything in this game is weird. How many times have we said it's so weird? They'll just kind of like focus in on like one niche thing. They'll be like, yeah, let's talk about this at least three or four times. They're like, but why? They're like, I don't know. Sure. We're niche. We're cool. So this is just you fighting over a bunch of train carts, eventually fighting the train itself, which has like a demon in the boiler.
00:51:41
Speaker
So what's cool about it is like the front of the train has like a face, right? Kind of simple like eyes and mouth lines and they kind of glow on the other side when you're talking to the train once you get to the level.
00:51:54
Speaker
Then like these giant snail like eyeballs come out from the holes where the eyes were Yeah, or what look like eyes and then you fight that the holes have eyes That's actually really good But it's just another another weird one. Yeah, it is quite odd and it is fucking cool though to fucking execute the train Yeah Yeah
00:52:22
Speaker
You've already taken out the eyes. You finish the demon inside. Then there's this dialogue between you and the train, and the train is just like, oh, I wanted to work, and it sucks to be taken offline. They were going to take me apart. I'm just like, what am I doing? And there's the execution sequence, like he said. And he executes the train with his sword from 20 or 30 feet away. You kind of just throw an energy slash. It goes through the whole train.
00:52:51
Speaker
Which is not a standard attack at any point in this game. As an aside here, Brian almost dies to a giant snowball. After that, there's another dream sequence, which we kind of touched on already.
00:53:13
Speaker
Um, then we actually go back to the moon. Yeah. To fight David again. It's the only time that they reuse, uh, reuse level assets, I think. Yeah.
Climactic Battles and Final Impressions
00:53:25
Speaker
Um, but like you're actually going there to kill David. Yes. And I feel like you
00:53:32
Speaker
You do it, you assign the mission yourself, right? Yes, he's like, I want the cop, I want a copy of the contract. Basically what he says. He's like, I'm going to execute David. He's found out that David is his brother, dun dun dun. Anime. And he may have killed his mother. I don't know. You can't, you don't know what's real or not in the dream sequences. It's confusing.
00:53:54
Speaker
In either case, he cut his breakfast eggs in half and that's really what upsets Mondo, no last name. This is a cool fight though. There's a little bit of the area, the mansion before the fight with David, but almost the entirety of the level is this ultimate boss fight. And it's very much like a Devil May Cry boss fight because
00:54:22
Speaker
David is this almost supernatural beat, literally supernatural beat at this point and goes to his ultimate form where he's almost got this like, you know the, I was just saying it's a bit like terror blade to a degree. Yeah. And then the, you know, the portrait from the all your base, I belong to us guy. That I can't remember his name for whatever reason, but yes, I do. Yeah. Just the portrait of that guy with the little like eye monocle thing.
00:54:52
Speaker
At some point in the fight, Mondo enters his ultimate form as well, because they're brothers, they share blood. Anime. Yeah, anime. Because they're anime. And his face looks so similar to that portrait. I immediately thought of it, and I don't even know why, but... Yeah, they just fight real fast, and it's another action fight. Yeah, but I prefer the action fights rather than the...
00:55:20
Speaker
mechanical ones. Yeah. So if you consider the train to be more of a mechanical fight, whereas if you have like a person who is your size, um, like the Yakuza boss or fighting David, you're actually like,
00:55:33
Speaker
Dodging and having a concern with like melee attacks like that, which I prefer it feels more intense in the moment Yeah, and it uses the game's mechanics better. I feel like but Ultimately, you'll you'll finish David off Anything else and then kill him But
00:55:55
Speaker
He's just like, you know Like I we have the same blood basically and Mondo starts to just like ultimately succumb to all of his wounds and a dog Yes, and his arm which is like glowing with all this dark matter So when a final act of desperation he he cuts off muscle back his his left arm with his sword and just like well good game see you later and
00:56:26
Speaker
His arm regenerates. Yeah, his arm comes back, but before you even see that, it cuts back to the office and Moon River comes in like the first time she asked for a contract, they got a contract, and says, please execute this man. And Brian and Vivian are both really kind of somber and quiet.
00:56:48
Speaker
And then it cuts to Mondo as he's there with both of his human arms facing away from the camera toward the destroyed mansion as he uses dark matter to rebuild it. You're like, ooh, snap. They think they're getting a sequel. So I guess it ends with you turning evil, technically. Well, it's somewhat ambiguous, but it's kind of nudging in that direction.
00:57:14
Speaker
Yeah, there's probably some sort of lower justification. I think it's that your arm prevents the dark matter from taking hold in your blood, but he's already super susceptible to dark matter. So every time you kill a boss, his arm kind of like is in pain and he almost succumbs to it.
00:57:32
Speaker
But when he finally cuts off muscle back, it stops processing his blood and removing the dark matter. So his like fully powers up, regrows his arm, and becomes evil, rules the dark side of the moon.
00:57:45
Speaker
You can tell that Jake was actually doing research from playing this game while I was off on Jigolo missions and occasionally doing like the side challenges. Yeah, there is kind of a plot here and they give it all to you at the end in the form of just like a journal entries on all the characters. They actually tell you what the symbolism is for things that appear to have symbolism. They're like, oh, the moon turned red in this sequence because that represents Mars.
00:58:12
Speaker
which is uh the god of war oh my god and this is aggression and you're like i get that but doesn't it mean more if you don't tell me that exactly what it means yeah um there's better ways to convey that i feel yeah but again not really the focus of the game yeah um explaining stuff's kind of it's not necessary for this we spent i've spent too much time trying to explain it in this podcast that's not necessary
00:58:43
Speaker
You play this game for the gameplay and for the weird experience it is. Speaking of, we still have one more left if you want to... Yeah. Should we cover it? Nah, you can take this one. That one's fine. Alright, so there is a DLC thing, it's part of Nightmare Edition, episode 51, cause Suda... Anyway, you get it. Called The Man Who Stole Blood. And you're...
00:59:06
Speaker
client is a vampire lady betty betty betty who she goes out on a date with this guy and like they try and suck each other's blood because they're both vampires but he's she's a pure blood vampire and he's something else more evil or um so you go into this very gothic castle fight through some
00:59:32
Speaker
quotes vampires but they're not actually how we imagine vampires. They're wires. They're a wire type thing. Nothing really crazy about the level per se or anything. It does have more effort. You meet your unicorn again because that's a thing. We didn't mention the unicorn. There's a unicorn. You have a unicorn.
00:59:55
Speaker
The boss fight I think was actually interesting though because he starts off in the cutscene as like a normal guy, very distinguished graying hair type thing. But then he transforms almost immediately where he has like a face in his chest and two bat wings. Yeah. And he'll kind of like summon enemies and shoot projectiles at you and also just has like bats swarming around him. So if I got close I took damage, which is kind of weird. But that's another three phaser where you have to like shoot him out of the sky.
01:00:25
Speaker
which means you need to kill the enemies on the ground, get blood, shoot, repeat. Yeah. I'd say more challenging than some of the boss fights. It would have been if my charge cannon wasn't almost maxed out by this point. It charges through three levels of charge, and at the third level of charge, basically one hits all enemies. Oh, wow. Except him. But normal enemies that spawn, you're just like, everything dies. It's the BFG. It is pretty much a BFG, yeah.
01:00:53
Speaker
Doesn't even have to be precise shots because the game does not have great controls for aiming. The level itself actually unlocks around like episode four or five. So I feel like canonically, they want you to do it earlier, which I did. I think you said you did it towards the end of the game. Yeah, I did it after I completed the last mission. But canonically, like you said, it happens midway through the episodes. Because you can date Betty at any point, but yeah.
01:01:22
Speaker
Brian hasn't had his medal replaced by gold, so it's not towards the end of the game. That's another thing that happens. But yeah, it's kind of just a nice little bonus mission. I think it's pretty obvious that they put more time into this level than like any other single level in the game. It's definitely true. It's also a long mission, but that's fine. It's good.
01:01:46
Speaker
That's most of the game. What did you think about it overall? It made me want to... So when I first played it, I think I enjoyed it more. This is a game that has a lot of repetitive sections, and there's a lot of sections where I was like, I wish I could not. Yeah. Going back up in the ground through certain things. There's some really cool moments, and then there's parts where the pacing is just...
01:02:11
Speaker
I'm going to say garbage, basically. It makes you not want to play video games, this video game in particular. But at its peaks, it's awesome. It's like the fight with the Yakuza leader, the nonsense with the train, I think is the appropriate level of nonsense. It's almost like you're playing Cuphead. You're fighting a Cuphead boss, basically. And that's fine.
01:02:38
Speaker
Like, it's absurd, and everyone expects it to be absurd. It's just, when I agree with you, it kind of is weaker in the part, so like the dream sequences, you're kind of slowed down or gated in some way. And it's not... It's like it's trying to be serious there, when that's not really its forte. It's good with like the, give me the action, give me a little bit of the sexiness, give me a little bit of the nonsensical, and just play around with that, because it's supposed to be entertaining and fun.
01:03:08
Speaker
I don't need David plot. No. Don't scream my name at me again, please. Thank you. Thank you much. It's like, I think most, I agree. I agree. Most of the time, most of the time they ride the line perfect and they're like, Hey, this is nonsense. Fourth wall will be shattered by the time you're done with this experience. Cause we just keep talking about the fact that this is a game, but we're not going to try to sell you on symbolism or anything. Other times they try to sell you on symbolism. That's a waste of time.
01:03:39
Speaker
But as a hack and slash action game it is perfect perfectly worth seven dollars and fifty cents. I just thought how much I would probably spend on it now. Getting down to the two quarters there. But really playing it this time just made me want to play
01:03:58
Speaker
Devil May Cry or Metal Gear Rising Revengeance. What about Bayonetta? Ooh, that one's interesting. I haven't beaten Bayonetta. Me either. But I do have it. Yeah, we couldn't cover Bayonetta after this because it's the same type of game. I'm convinced Bayonetta's a better game than this one. I haven't beaten it, so there's no evidence to back that up.
01:04:27
Speaker
it definitely is i feel like it is right i've only played it for like three hours but i know that's already true um but yeah it's those other games just have deeper systems this one has like an upgrade system and there's like nine
01:04:43
Speaker
maybe 12 upgrades total. Well, things you can upgrade, but it's not like you don't have the options for trees. Yeah. It's like your gun will be better. And you're like, thumbs up. Nice. That's cool. I like better gun. But yeah, it's all like ancillary systems. They felt like they just, they needed, they need another layer. They need another layer. It's not, none of those are very deep. Yeah. Yeah. It's all just there to keep you from going to fatigue by the time you beat the game.
01:05:10
Speaker
The one system I really do like in Killer's Dead though, is if you have your combo built up enough and you kill an enemy, you have the option of X, Y, A, or B. And each one has a different reward and you'll do that special type of kill. So you can get health back, you can upgrade your health level or your blood level, or just get the currency to upgrade.
01:05:32
Speaker
So that was cool at times because I'd be like, oh fuck, I've been playing really poorly. I don't have much health. Right. Let me build my combo, murder somebody and then just rain in all that health back, which is nice. Yeah. They have a, they also has a very forgiving, um,
01:05:49
Speaker
There's a lot of safety nets in place. We talked about the Mika tickets for Revives. That like fills you to full health. You can have like, I had five of them. I just bought a couple extra just in case and then like, I died three times in my playthrough. And it tells you how many times you die at the end. I wasn't like OCD about that. And so I barely needed those, but it's a full, it's a full heal in the middle of the boss fight. Boss doesn't get more health or anything like that. It's just,
01:06:19
Speaker
As long as you have these, you will not lose kind of regardless of what your skill level is. And then they have consumable tokens that fill your combo meter to full immediately. Blue tickets, I think they're called. There's a lot of kind of assists. Assists, yeah. That's a good word for it. So it doesn't feel nearly as hardcore as something like Devil May Cry.
01:06:45
Speaker
where it's just like, oh, you didn't maintain a 500 hit combo for the entire level and you let that slip once. That's gonna be a C rating. I'm sorry about that. You know, rough. That's not how that game works, but it is. But you get where I'm coming from. This is a standalone experience, but if you enjoy those games, you're probably more likely to enjoy something like this.
01:07:10
Speaker
Yeah, this seems more like an a bit of an ad hoc mishmash of certain things. It's like, hey, we like this your genre But let's play around with it a little bit. Yeah Yeah, and I think that's what suit it does. He like I'm gonna make a game of this type it will have some like light elements of this type and we're gonna like throw in some sexuality and We'll push it out and we'll release six games in 2012 or whatever. Yeah, I can't think of any
01:07:39
Speaker
I would say no more heroes was a really good game in that hack and slash space from like the suit of family. Yeah. But like outside of that, uh, nothing's really jumping to mind where I'm like, you gotta try this game. Yeah. No more heroes. I mean, would it have been nearly as good of a game if, if it was, if you didn't have the Jack off motion in order to power up your light saber. Yeah. I know very little about that game. protagonist is Travis touchdown.
01:08:07
Speaker
Jack off motion in order to charge up his weapon. You're not wrong. Yeah, but that being said, that's where I think Killer's Dead falls for me. I don't think I could give it much higher than like a seven now. It's like, it's aged. Yeah, it definitely has. But like the art style is so nice. The voice acting is decent enough for how fucking cheesy it is. Yes.
01:08:37
Speaker
It's a fun to play once, get it on sale. And beyond that, I can't give it a hard recommendation. Yeah. Would you give it a soft boiled recommendation? All right, guys, that's enough time we have for today. You can always like us on Facebook at facebook.com slash soapstone podcast.
01:08:58
Speaker
Jake is nodding his head making sure I'm not fucking this up. We're also on Spotify, which is where you're probably listening to this now. Spotify.com slash soapstone podcast. Yeah, I don't know if that's a valid URL. Fuck it. Google it. You didn't know. Let's go a couple pages back. We also got Gmail. If you want to send in personal emails, you can at
01:09:26
Speaker
Soap some podcasts at gmail.com. That's fine. We only pay attention to Facebook now. That's where all of our true fans posted us. Thanks true fans. But yeah, I think that's about it. So until we come back with God of War three months from now. We'll try and find some stuff to fill the time until then. Yeah. We'll talk about politics.
01:09:57
Speaker
Yeah. Nah. We'll see you in the next one.
01:11:21
Speaker
Master, it's been quite a while. When I heard you were here on a job, I came forth to assist you. Huh? I know you? A unicorn? Have you forgotten, Master? I am Takedu. I am your unicorn. Takedu. I'm so sorry, but I'm totally clueless. Master!
01:11:46
Speaker
You lost consciousness after that tragedy. It undoubtedly caused you incredible pain. That tragedy. Master, it is dangerous if you try too hard to remember them.