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 unhinged. I'm one of your hosts, Matt Stenson, NeoCharge on PSN, and joining me, as always, for episode number 10, we made it to 10, Bob, is the retro gaming encyclopedia, Bob Harriman, Leon Lionheart Lee on PSN, and my good friend.
neocharge: What's up, dude?
Leon Lionheartly: We can only go up from here, man.
neocharge: Yeah, yeah, we,
Leon Lionheartly: No, it's doing good. it Doing good. It's been a busy, busy week, man.
neocharge: Yeah. Busy week. Lots of changes. Lots of things going on in both of our lives. ah We hung out yesterday, drank some beers, and now and talked some games. And we're just going to do it again today and record it this time.
neocharge: But we were literally at a brewery and we had a podcast episode. and I was like, we should have just recorded this. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I thought the same thing as i was leaving.
neocharge: so
Leon Lionheartly: I'm like, man, didn't we have the fucking microphone with us?
neocharge: Right, right. We were there with a good friend and listener of the show, Alex. He was on a couple episodes. He was on our ah very long, Claire Obscure Spoiler Cast.
neocharge: And yeah, we just... i hit up a really cool brewery in Colorado Springs voodoo brewing. They have good food, good brews. And ah we crack some packs. Of course, we always got to do that. Crack some magic, some Japanese Pokemon.
neocharge: um We crack some of the Final Fantasy magic. And yeah, just all of the things we love at once beer, video game, talk, cracking packs, and good friends, good times.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, absolutely, man. that's
neocharge: So.
Leon Lionheartly: That's what we call a great evening right there.
neocharge: Absolutely. Yes. And now we're here recording for you all. And speaking of good brews, we're actually drinking some good beer today.
neocharge: are you drinking? What are you drinking, Bob?
Leon Lionheartly: oh um I'm going back to the well of when I'm a man. So when I find something I like, I kind of tend to stick with it. Remember that, ladies. Men are loyal like that. And I went to Duclaw, went back to it and got me some more sweet baby java.
Leon Lionheartly: ah This ah chocolate peanut butter coffee porter, which sounds like a mouthful, but it is a taste of heaven.
neocharge: Oh, man. Yes, I have had Sweet Baby Jesus. I haven't had the Java. I still need to have that. i Yeah, dude, it's an incredible porter. So rich and a dessert beer.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: ah I'm actually drinking something similar. I changed it up a little bit. I am also drinking a porter. And this one is from Crooked Stave Brewing.
neocharge: ah It's in Colorado. It's in Denver, Colorado. So local brewery. And it is the Orange Chocolate Baltic Porter. You ever had, as a kid, you ever have those little chocolate oranges that are wrapped in the orange foil?
Leon Lionheartly: Oh yeah, I got to get them every year for my kids.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: They love those things.
neocharge: Yep. That's exactly what this tastes like. And it is incredible. I love it. ah Rich, roasty, and indulgent. The Baltic Porter layers smooth chocolate notes with a bright citrus twist.
neocharge: And it is delicious. So local brew, um kind of, not in the Springs, but Denver, Colorado. And Crooked Stave, man. you you You've had their rosé. You've talked about that couple times on the cast. And yeah, I'm a big fan of this brewery.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, absolutely. ah Speaking of, you know, a little sad. Our normal brewery is no longer with us. um Just wanted to throw that out there, a little sadness and reminisce. So this one is for what was known as metric brewing.
neocharge: have a moment of silence for that, for sure.
neocharge: that was our go-to man.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep.
neocharge: Uh, that's honestly where we had the idea for this cast.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep.
neocharge: We, uh, we came up with the idea for the cast there and they unfortunately closed down for business reasons. Uh, they said they were going try and move locations and they didn't. So, uh, yeah, rest in peace, I guess. Metric brewing.
neocharge: Um, that was one of my go-to's, one of our go-to's and, we were We were there shortly after they closed. they also They always had really good food trucks and just a good vibe there. A lot of good outdoor seating.
neocharge: ah Man, it sucks. So we're out we're on the lookout for another good brewery and we'll we'll find one. There's a lot around here, but yeah, metric.
neocharge: Damn.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: It always sucks when a brewery closes, but when it's like one of your favorites... It's just a ball-busting experience. just so oh so
Leon Lionheartly: Particularly, yeah. it just Especially when it's sudden. You're like, aww.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: oh
neocharge: Yeah. And they were such cool people.
Leon Lionheartly: You know what?
neocharge: like We were kind of regulars there. They're like, what's up, Matt? What's up, Bob? And you just when you lose that, it's like, you got to start over.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: It sucks.
Leon Lionheartly: It was kind of place where I didn't have to tell them what I wanted to drink. They knew what was on the menu ah in rotation and could call out my beer every time.
neocharge: Yep. Yeah, they actually had a really good ah fruity... ah It was kind of like a rosé, and it was called Vaporwave, and it was one of my faves. One of my faves. They had a lot of good sours there.
neocharge: I'm going to miss them.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: So when we...
Leon Lionheartly: Well, you know what doesn't suck, man?
neocharge: are
neocharge: Games, video games.
Leon Lionheartly: There you go. Video games. ah Music as well.
neocharge: And. Oh, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah. I ah you ah you went to a pretty awesome concert recently. Tell me about that.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. ah So ah I got a hit up from ah one of my yeah good friends, one of my oldest friends, ah who said, hey, you should go check the VetTix website. And for anybody that doesn't know, VetTix is a website dedicated for helping veterans get cheap and or free tickets to comedy shows, concerts, um just events around where you live, right?
Leon Lionheartly: um There's a whole process. ah If you get something, you have to use it. like they they Make sure you don't resell. But... Anyways, my buddy Will hit me up and he said, hey, you know, I can't go Sunday, but they just put out tickets for the ah the Metallica concert Sunday night.
Leon Lionheartly: um You should probably go check that out. or you If you're interested, now's your chance. um And I was like, no, there's no way I'm going to get in. But sure enough, I snagged two tickets. um You know how much?
Leon Lionheartly: I don't want to even brag too much, but you know how much I paid for the for two tickets to Metallica at a sold out show?
neocharge: Get a good deal on them.
Leon Lionheartly: I paid with the handling fees. I paid $15.
neocharge: Whoa, that's really cheap for a Metallica concert. Holy shit. That's awesome, man.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: and
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Oh, dude, it was like a great time. ah ah mile Mile High, I refuse to call it Empower Field Stadium, um they sold out both nights because they played Friday and Sunday.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: um i went to the Sunday show, but they sold out and set a record ah for Mile High um and 175,000 people in attendance across both nights. ah So there was more people at those concerts than you'll find at a Broncos game.
neocharge: Wow. Yeah, that is where the Broncos play. They called it mile high because Denver is a mile high, like 5,000 feet and change.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep.
neocharge: And fun fact, Colorado Springs is actually higher than Denver. We're around 6,500, 7,000 feet above sea level. ah So yeah, we're we're higher altitude than Denver, which is crazy.
neocharge: ah But yeah, man, dude, that's super cheap. And I heard something happen very serendipitous during the concert.
Leon Lionheartly: Ah, yes. Everybody ah knows about this one. I called my buddy, to give you the backstory, folks, I called my buddy up as soon as I got the tickets, who I know is a huge fan.
Leon Lionheartly: um He's a bass player, plays is played professionally on tours and stuff. um And I called him ah the day after the show, and I got the only first words out of his mouth. I didn't even get to say hi. It was, already fucking heard, don't you say anything.
Leon Lionheartly: Because as Metallica comes on stage, um they start playing Ride the Lightning and a thunderstorm rolls in with not just thunder, but lightning crackling through the sky.
Leon Lionheartly: um That is like serendipitous, is is the best way is the way you put it. And I think it's the most apt description, man um and which is great because I'm Metallica. I'm going to go see all day long.
Leon Lionheartly: But really, that's not even the reason I was there.
neocharge: Yeah, that dude, that's so incredible. ah Yeah, the fact that it was an outside venue, they were playing ride from Ride the Lightning, and then a lightning storm happened.
neocharge: That's nuts. ah We actually get a lot of lightning here. ah Did you know Colorado Springs is one of the cities that has the most lightning strikes per square mile?
Leon Lionheartly: No, I didn't know that, but that doesn't, that now you mention it, that makes sense though.
neocharge: And yeah. umhu Yeah, we have a ton of really cool, ah very pretty lightning storms here. And that's actually why Tesla, Nikolai Tesla, did all his experience in the foothills of Colorado Springs. We have a monument to him.
neocharge: He did all his experiments here. And that that man was a genius. No idea where his stuff went. Don't want to get into that. But...
Leon Lionheartly: And
neocharge: Nikolai Tesla, we have a lot of stuff named after him here. And he did he did most of his experience and he had his headquarters here ah in the foothills of the Springs. Because we're we're about, I don't know, 30 minutes from the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
neocharge: So um it's pretty cool. We love it here. But yeah, most lightning strikes per square mile here. So I just, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, man, that's, i wish I wish I would have known that now. Now I'm going use that as a as a, I don't know, it'll come in handy.
neocharge: Yeah. ah Fun fact, that lightning or thunder ah is my favorite element in a game. And i ah like the power of it, but the its power ah dialed down and centered down into one point of contact. So it's like harnessing.
neocharge: It's like the ultimate form of harnessing anger or power because you're direct with it. And Neo Charge, the charge is actually derived from my love of the element lightning or thunder.
neocharge: So every time in a RPG or any magic based game, I usually prioritize doing the thunder spells or the lightning and, you know, Ramu from Final Fantasy uh series is one of my favorites and of course baham it's my favorite but yeah i love lightning and it's funny that i live in the city that has the most lightning strikes per square mile i didn't know i learned when i came here but yeah that's uh my name is actually based off that neo charge because i like the element lightning so fun fact
Leon Lionheartly: Dude, that is some next-level stuff. ah And i thought my I thought my user handle had some deep cuts.
neocharge: Oh, yeah, it definitely does. but Yeah, you just got to be intentional with stuff.
Leon Lionheartly: You know what that makes me think, man?
neocharge: So. What?
Leon Lionheartly: you mean I feel bad for the Gen Alphas out there that have got to create these online handles nowadays. Our generation, we got to snag all the cool stuff.
neocharge: Mm hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: um And now you got Gen Alpha who's like, oh, that username's not in use. Can I add XYZ to it? And they have to use random numbers because our generation took all the 69 and four twenty
neocharge: Yep. ah Originally, it was Neo Charge 7 because I had to have a number. But i think I think it was like five years ago. PlayStation cleared the cache of all their old PSN names that weren't being used for the last like 10 years.
neocharge: And during that, you could name change once. So I snagged Neo Charge with no number. So yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Ooh, that is sexy, man.
neocharge: Yep. Yep. um Where do you think the 7 comes from? the
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, that's going to be a Final Fantasy VII.
neocharge: like Well, you'd think, but no, actually. ah The seven comes from the seven sages in Ocarina of Time.
Leon Lionheartly: Ooh.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: That's good. That's a good one.
neocharge: Which is in my top ten. yeah
Leon Lionheartly: Maybe.
neocharge: Looping it around.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: yeah um For episode number 10, we're going to talk about our top 10 favorite games of all time. We've been waiting on this and we've been wanting to do this for a while. So that is our main topic. As you can see in the title, ah I can't wait to talk about them. We've been gaming for a while and we're probably going to have some pretty, uh,
neocharge: divided lists we might have some that are uh that sync up but we'll see yeah uh before we get into the main topic though let's do a little bit of housekeeping what do you say
Leon Lionheartly: Hey, let's go to it, man. ah So the question is, and still putting it out there, everybody asks, I found you out on Spotify. You guys mentioned the Discord channel. um Go ahead and you can find the Discord and link.
Leon Lionheartly: um It is in our link tree, which is ah at, yeah just go to your website, browser of choice, whatever it is, um and go to linktr.ee slash shapes of gaming. ah That's L-I-N-K-T-R dot E-E slash Shapes of Gaming.
Leon Lionheartly: That's our landing page. So if you hear about this through word of mouth or whatever have you, you go ahead and you go that's the website. It'll send you to the Discord. It sends you to all the socials. It sends you to where you can find the actual streams for all of your podcasts.
Leon Lionheartly: So it is your one-stop shop for everything.
neocharge: Yep, exactly. The Discord is where all everything happens. All the the fun gaming talks happen. We have channels for everything. We have a good time there. Join the Discord. Hang out. You'll get the announcements for all the episodes every Thursday morning.
neocharge: Uh, and then if you go on the, the link tree and do the podcast section, you can use Spotify or pretty much any a podcast app of your choice. 80% of our listeners use Apple and they use Apple podcasts. So you're probably on Apple podcasts.
neocharge: Uh, and thank you.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: And if you subscribe to that helps us and you get, uh, episodes as soon as they go live the morning of ah Thursday. We we get them put them live Thursday at 5 a.m.
neocharge: MST, 7 a.m. EST, 4 a.m. PST. So yeah, you'll you'll just get them automatically downloaded to your device. And if you love what you hear ah or you have any questions, comments, concerns, thoughts, ideas, ah hit us up.
neocharge: Send us a message on the Discord. we're We're there ah daily.
Leon Lionheartly: Okay.
neocharge: We listen. We see everything. And you can interact with us. um If you love the podcast so much, you can leave us a rating. Leave us a nice little review if you want. That helps too.
neocharge: We just want to i reach as many people as we can to build the community and keep talking games in a positive, constructive, ah divisive, and subjective manner.
neocharge: That's why we started this podcast, isn't it, Bob?
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Because you and i we definitely got some divisive ah thoughts on games, but certain games as well. I'm still not i'm still not with you on tiers, but that's ah that's a topic for another time.
neocharge: You will be. You will be.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah We'll see.
neocharge: Especially on the Switch, too, man. it It runs beautifully on the Switch, too. um Another thing for housekeeping, we're going to just ah go over the Shapes predictions results. We did Summer Game Fest predictions, and we never went over the results, but now I think it's the last... ah Last event happened today, the Bandai Namco showcase, which didn't really announce anything new.
neocharge: We don't really need even need to go into that, but we're just going to quickly go into our predictions and if we were right or wrong. So starting, will we see something from the game dispatch?
neocharge: ah We said yes. We both said yes. Nothing. We didn't see anything. So... We were wrong on that, unfortunately. ah Will we see anything from Miho Yo? we but We said yes. I said yes. Of course, we saw so many things from Miho Yo. We were correct on that.
neocharge: Will Liza P Overture DLC be shown? We both said yes. We both said Shadow Drop. We were both absolutely 100% right. That one feels good, doesn't it?
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, yeah, that's ah that's a win right there
neocharge: Yep. but I can't wait to play that, but we're playing another game that we are going to talk about on this podcast before I do. but outer wordss or Will Outer Worlds 2 get a release date?
neocharge: Absolutely. ah We said yes. They had a whole event on it after the Xbox showcase. They gave us a release date. We were both right on that. Uh, will Elden Ring Night Reign show a roadmap or trailer? Uh, we both said yes on that.
neocharge: Unfortunately, we didn't hear anything or fortunately we didn't hear anything on Night Reign Elden Ring, but unfortunately, I know, I know I'm a little biased against that.
Leon Lionheartly: and Fortunately, that's a faux pas.
neocharge: Unfortunately, we both said yes. I i figured they were going to, uh, talk about that. And a lot of Keely shows has from software stuff. on it but nope we didn't hear anything about that so we were wrong will starfield be announced for playstation we both said yes that was one of my predictions i said it was going to release fall crickets we didn't hear anything from that we were both wrong uh will we get anything announced for hollow night silksong yes we both said yes i said yes and i said a release date of october
Leon Lionheartly: And
neocharge: We did get an announcement for Hollow Knight Silksong this year, and we didn't get a new trailer. It was at the Xbox showcase for the ROG Ally X or whatever.
neocharge: Man, i'm I'm still concerned about that game. What about you?
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, absolutely, man. I feel like we got enough to to court ah to quantify that, yes, we got something. um But at the end of the day, what we got was a promise from Sarah Bond that it's coming this fall.
Leon Lionheartly: um And if if ah if I could cash that in for money, I'd be ah well as rich as her.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: But ah unfortunately, no. And between her and Phil Spencer, I do not trust that marketing tactic. So i I'm hoping for all the Silk call Song fans out there. I am not a Hollow Knight fan.
Leon Lionheartly: ah just because it's never been my thing, right? And it's just one of those games you can't get into, but I recognize a quality game, and I feel bad for all of the fans out there because this is what it's been like being a Half-Life fan for 25 years.
Leon Lionheartly: um or So i'm I apologize, and I really hope you guys get it this year um because it looks beautiful.
neocharge: I'm a huge Hollow Knight fan. Been waiting for this for ah but a long time. ah And I really hope it releases this year. One, because I really want to play it. And two, I have it drafted. And three, Team Cherry really needs to release it this year or they're in trouble.
neocharge: I'm telling you that right now.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, absolutely.
neocharge: And I want to i want to see them as a developer succeed.
Leon Lionheartly: They haven't dropped anything in while.
neocharge: So, yeah. Yeah. um Let's see. Will we see a new trailer for the game replaced? We both said yes. We saw nothing about it. um I think this game is in trouble too. Xbox is in trouble all around, which we'll get to in the news. so ah ah Let's see. Will Hello Games show anything from the game Light No Fire?
neocharge: I said yes. You said no. The answer was no. They didn't show shit. So you were right there. I was wrong. Will we get a release date for a release date trailer for Hades 2?
neocharge: I said yes. You said no. The answer was no. We didn't hear anything from that. We got a ah now release announcement that it was going to be on Switch 2 first, but no window and no release date trailer.
neocharge: ah Oh, this next one just makes me happy. Will we see a trailer for Resident Evil 9? We both said yes on this. And of course, that was true. They ended the Summer Game Fest showcase with Resident Evil 9. And oh boy, we're both excited for this one, aren't we?
Leon Lionheartly: ah That's my most anticipated of 2026 right now. um And we're not even halfway through 2025. to see say i'm excited is is an understatement
neocharge: Yep. I couldn't be more excited. I still think there's some more surprises in store for that. I think we might get a dedicated state of play for it, or maybe a an i think ah at minimum, we're going to get another trailer for it that's going to show us some familiar people in the series.
neocharge: ah I still...
Leon Lionheartly: i think summer game I think game awards, man.
neocharge: Yeah, Game Awards would be a good place to do it. And I still think we're going my boy Leon. One can hope. Will we see the Final Fantasy IX remake? I said, no, definitely not.
neocharge: You said, yes, uh, we did. We saw nothing from that, but it's, I think it's still, I think it is in development. I think it's coming. Uh, but we got, we got a solid announcement from square in the state of play.
neocharge: So, uh, we did see that, but we didn't see anything from nine remake. I don't think we'll see anything for a couple more years. Honestly, I hope we see something, but I don't think it's gonna happen.
Leon Lionheartly: No, no.
neocharge: Uh,
Leon Lionheartly: It's Final Fantasy VII time right now.
neocharge: Yep. Yep. This one really surprised me. And I definitely think we're gonna see this at the game awards. Will we see a new trailer for the tomb Raider ah reboot? I said, yes. You said, no, we didn't see anything about it.
neocharge: I thought for sure this was going to be a summer game fest thing. It's probably going to be a game awards thing, which ah we're going to try and be there. I'll be there. You might be there. we're We're going to try and be at the Game Awards.
neocharge: ah And maybe... I don't know. We'll report on it as best we can. ah Will we see a new trailer for the James Bond game from IO Interactive? We both said yes. And thankfully, we did see it.
neocharge: And it looks amazing. It's one of my other most anticipated games of next year. And I know it's yours too.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep, hands down.
neocharge: This surprised me too for the Xbox Showcase, which was... not Not for us, let's just say that. and it I think it was worse than last year's, but it's, will we see anything from from Kojima's game OD?
neocharge: I said yes, you said no. We didn't see anything. You were right, I was wrong. Will we get a release date for Ninja Gaiden 4? Of course we did. Fall, we we got an actual release date.
neocharge: The release date slips my mind. It's sometime in fall, but we did get that. We both said yes, we were both right. Will we get a release date for Ninja Gaiden Ragebound? I said yes. Day of, you said yes.
neocharge: ah we were I was partially right. You were fully right. We did get a release date, but it wasn't day of. I thought they were going to shadow drop it like they did Liza P.
Leon Lionheartly: no Yeah, that would have that would been a sick that would have been sick. Two of them at one time like that.
neocharge: o
Leon Lionheartly: I will tell you Ninja Gaiden 4 is a October 21st of this year.
neocharge: Awesome. And then when is Ragebound? Isn't it August?
Leon Lionheartly: ah That sounds right.
neocharge: but July.
Leon Lionheartly: um Actually, no.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: July 31st is what I'm getting. um which Oh, man.
neocharge: Yep. One day off.
Leon Lionheartly: Wait. Can you believe it's already ju July? That means we've got a less than a month before we get an Ninja Gaiden.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: 2D Ninja Gaiden, by the way.
neocharge: pixel art. I can't wait. The game's going to be amazing. Uh, two more. What we see red dead redemption two on switch two. We didn't see shit from switch two.
neocharge: Uh, we both said yes. We were both wrong. We didn't see shit from switch to the entire thing. They had a direct, they had their own direct, but we didn't see anything in any other events and they didn't announce Red Dead 2. It's coming. I think maybe a few more directs, we'll see it.
neocharge: ah this that dude This was way out of left field and i I knew it wasn't happening, but I had to put it on there. ah You, of course, said no to this and you're a very smart man for doing so. Will we get a Metroid Prime trilogy remastered for Switch 2?
neocharge: I said yes. This is a ah hopeful fan prediction. Of course, we didn't see anything from that. However, maybe the next Nintendo Direct, but and Nintendo's on my shit list right now. So I don't think we're going to see anything. I think they're going port Echoes and we're going to get maybe a port or they'll just release Echoes on the GameCube virtual console stuff.
neocharge: But yeah, i don't I don't think we're getting a trilogy. I want it. I want a trilogy with the mouse controls. But yeah before Prime 4, I don't think we're getting it anymore.
Leon Lionheartly: No, it's Nintendo.
neocharge: Nintendo's pissing me off.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, Nintendo's being weird with their cycles right now. um They're losing a lot of faith where with a lot of customers, including myself right now.
neocharge: Same here. And we're going to get into that in the news. So that was the housekeeping. We wanted to do the ah shapes of gaming. I think that was episode like six or something. We did the predictions and those are the prediction results.
neocharge: um Who won? i don't know. I'll have to count it and I'll put it in the discord. It looks like you may have won by a little bit, but we'll, we'll see. I'll, I'll add it up.
neocharge: Maybe when you're going through one of the news items, I'll add it up and then interject and say who won. But who cares? It was fun. Summer Game Fest 2025 is behind us. um There was a lot of awesome announcements, a lot of things not for us.
neocharge: I'd say 80% of the stuff was... ah Not for us. Let's just say that. But the the announcements that we did get were incredible, very big announcements. And just real quick, what what was your major announcement of Summer Game Fest 2025?
Leon Lionheartly: no I mean, it's a coin flip. um But if I'm going to be honest, it's going to go with the... I'd have two games in mind, but I'm going with the one that actually has a release date this year. And that's for Outer Worlds 2, which is funny because that's an Xbox thing. And I don't even own an Xbox in this house anymore.
Leon Lionheartly: ah Just what what I saw um got me hyped for this game so much. And the fact that we have a release date and we got... You can see the team is passionate. about the project um but it's obsidian as far as i'm concerned they've yet to let me down so but that's definitely my that was my highlight of the entire ah entire event i'm guessing here for you
neocharge: You'd be surprised.
Leon Lionheartly: actually i don't know it was a pretty lackluster uh summer game fest if i'm being honest
neocharge: um
neocharge: it It was. a lot of the stuff wasn't for us, but there were some really fun, unique ah announcements. And I'd say my announcement, I mean, Resident Evil 9, we knew that was coming. That's kind of a given. Super excited for that.
neocharge: But man, Game Freak came out of left field. I love them for what they've done with Pokemon from a gameplay perspective, not necessarily a performance perspective, but Beast of Reincarnation was actually my ah gem of the entire shows.
neocharge: I want to know more on this game, and it looks incredible. And the fact that Game Freak is doing it is just wild.
Leon Lionheartly: they that That's what got me the most out of the trailer. And I should have guessed that, but that was the but that thing that got me. It was, you saw the trailer and you went, Ooh, this looks entertaining. And then it just came pants to that dark screen. And it just says a game freak game.
Leon Lionheartly: i think both you and I just looked at each other like, wait, what is that? Does that say what I think it says?
neocharge: Yeah, yeah, it was crazy. I was like, oh I thought they were on Nintendo's leash. um There was a small clip of gameplay that the frame rate did not look great, but, you know, probably pre-alpha, alpha stuff.
neocharge: You never know about that. It's definitely something I'm keeping my eye on.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: You always got to keep your eye on stuff about that. And yeah. Yeah, that's ah that links up with something I'm going to talk about in the news. So yeah, Summer Game Fest was fun. We watched a lot of the events in person.
neocharge: Had a blast. Can't wait for next year. Can't wait for Achilles' next event. ah We're going to try and be there in person. I i i definitely know I'm going to be there. uh we're we're both gonna try and be there it's gonna be fun i've been to the game awards three times uh and i haven't got to go back since covid happened and one time they canceled it one time there were a bunch of restrictions and now is the time because i still think claire obscure gonna win game of the year and i want to fucking be there for that dude i want to yeah
Leon Lionheartly: yeah Oh yeah, that that needs to be game of the year.
neocharge: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: If it's not, i' I'm calling it rigged.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah. Right. ah it It definitely deserves it. So I'm going to try and be there. I've been like, I'm going to the game awards and then like things come up.
neocharge: Nah, man, it's happening this year. I'll be there. Hopefully you'll be there with me, but we'll see. We'll see. ah Let's get into the news. Let's get into the news.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: news
Leon Lionheartly: So, I was going to say, alright, I guess I'll start it.
neocharge: Go ahead. Let's. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: All right. Well, um I guess this is follow up from last week where that was reported that Xbox was getting ready to lay off um massive layoffs, quote unquote.
Leon Lionheartly: um And that just now broke again today. um Unfortunately, it's not just the layoffs that are impacted, Matt. um Have you heard about this?
neocharge: Yes, I have. ah We have a little group string we've been keeping in contact. And yeah, it's ah another blow to the game industry and it fucking sucks.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. um Xbox has officially went ahead and not only canceled its Perfect Dark reboot, which I could go on about for a while, ah it's closing the developer that started that, um the initiative, which is weird because this came these guys just started 2018.
Leon Lionheartly: and twenty eighteen So it's been right around a full dev cycle, and now we're getting a cancellation. um That tells me either that a this game was in a lot of trouble, or B, um there's bigger issues with Microsoft. and Unfortunately, I think it's ah where it's at, because don't know about you, but I was a huge, huge Perfect Dark fan back in the day.
neocharge: It was one of the greats on the 64. It's awesome. ah I played it, beat it. I was looking very much forward to this one. We got one on the 360, I think, that I never got a chance to get around to.
neocharge: Right? Did you play that one?
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, I played it.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: It it wasn't anything you're right about. The 64 game, should I say, was the best
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah. For sure.
Leon Lionheartly: now But yeah, definitely a moment of silence because this game was announced, what, two years ago? Maybe over at this point. I'd have to check and go look, but just to see it cut out from under its knees. um And in the worst part is the initiative being, um you know, is going to get spun off.
Leon Lionheartly: Well, I hope. but And they all bounce back on their feet. You know, all of the I hate to see people lose their jobs, especially in this time and age that we live in. But yeah, so Microsoft still owns that IP, which means this is another IP that they have their hands on that's going to sit dormant.
Leon Lionheartly: And the community, this is just my opinion, I understand that, but the community is not being serviced with something that could obviously sell. If you released a modern-day Perfect Dark and did not include all of the microtransactions, if you didn't make it a mandatory online game, if you gave us a solid single-player FPS with some kind of multiplayer that's optional,
Leon Lionheartly: you You would do good because look at what, look look ah simply at what was done with Doom the Dark Ages this last year. It's 20-hour romp, but it sold millions of copies and was very well praised outside of its short you know trophy bug.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: But outside of that, the it it was an amazing game. It's in my top games of 2025. So to see this go down makes me really sad. Joanna Dark, um you're the yeah you're the James Bond female lead that I never get to play enough as.
neocharge: Right? Yeah. This is devastating news. I was really excited for this game. And man, you got to think who's next, right? Is it going to be rare? ah Is it going to be, ah yeah who knows, compulsion?
Leon Lionheartly: Mm-hmm.
neocharge: Like they they spun off Tango. ah Tango is doing their own thing, which is cool now, but I mean, Xbox kind of keeps buying up. They were buying up these studios and then they're like, oh, whoops.
neocharge: And they just disband them. So these studios, these healthy studios that were making games, great games, actually, ah and doing wonderful things and having real people behind it with real jobs.
neocharge: Xbox bought them up, and now their Xbox is hurting as a company, and now these small studios hurt because Xbox is hurting. And now people are losing their fucking jobs, and it really sucks. And it, I just, I hate it.
neocharge: And i don't like this model. Uh, Nintendo themselves said, we're never going to buy any companies. and PlayStation used to have the mantra of we incubate our developers and our teams in house.
Leon Lionheartly: you
neocharge: And we really strategically, ah figure out if we're going to buy them. ah They bought Insomniac, which I mean, that was an awesome one.
neocharge: ah They bought Bungie, which is not the greatest move, in my opinion. And I think they did that in response to Xbox buying up all these other studios, Activision and ah all the studios of Bethesda.
neocharge: And they're like, well, We're going to get Bungie. And that's I don't think that's going to work out for them very well. ah I just think you need to create your own studios, bring in talent from other awesome developers, and just you know work with them for a while.
neocharge: PlayStation worked with Insomniac for years until before they bought them. And they used to say, you know we want to work with them. We want to see how they are. We want to develop a good... relationship with them and really have them as partners before we buy them.
neocharge: And that worked. And looks like what Xbox is doing isn't working very well. so And in people's jobs are on the line and they're losing them. And that's what pisses me off.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, no, yeah did this is a classic. This is a symptom of what I've been trying to say for years, but I haven't been able to articulate very well, which is um Microsoft or rather Xbox gaming um buying up studios left and right, making these big purchases.
Leon Lionheartly: It sounds really cool. Oh, hey, we're going to bring in. Now you're going to have this library of suites of IPs and all this other stuff that's going to seem appealing. But Matt, I work in a company that Like I literally at my job, they, and you see this in not just my industry, but other industries where ah an organization purchases a smaller one and they make them part of the quote unquote family. And from a, from a corporate standpoint and a, a capitalist standpoint, I understand. And I kind of get where you're going, but in certain industries, video game development is one of these because it's an artistic one.
Leon Lionheartly: You need organic growth. And if you do not have organic growth, you do not have the loyalty of the employees, you do not have the product anymore because those employees, the that it doesn't have to be the senior lead artist. It has to be his team that he led and and got them to push into the creative field and be willing to work 60 to 70 hours a week to finish a project because they were passionate about it.
Leon Lionheartly: When you do that and say, no, you need to do it because this is now your job and I'm telling you to do it, you lose the organic growth, you lose the loyalty of that team, and then you watch your product get shoved out to nobody that wants it i all a la carte Concorde.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, it's, I, I hate to see it. It's in the it world too. It's happening in the it world. And yeah, Concord, they actually just canceled the, they didn't just cancel the game. They fucking pulled it. You can't get it anymore.
neocharge: We both have a sealed copy because we're crazy like that, but it's kind of just like a relic in PlayStation's history.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: So yeah, I just, I just hope the industry bounces back. Uh, and i really but a PlayStation and made some pretty bad moves too. ah they They put Bluepoint on a fucking God of War multiplayer game.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: where's our panser or Where's our Legend of Dragoon remake? Come on, guys. Get your shit together. ah It's unfortunately some negative news. And...
neocharge: Both sides, including Nintendo, are having some missteps, ah which, by the way, ah we have some Nintendo news, which is really weird. And I don't understand it. But last episode, we, I think, reported on Nintendo ah reported selling five million Switch twos.
neocharge: Did we I think we reported on that, right?
Leon Lionheartly: ah Yeah, yeah. We reported on ah the Switch 2 numbers. I don't know if it was $5 million at the time, but yeah.
neocharge: Yeah, 5 million. Nintendo Switch 2 reported 5 million. um Apparently, it was recently announced that that sales data was leaked test data and was not accurate.
neocharge: ah Nintendo confirmed this through a statement that the 5 million sale figure was merely test data that was made public accidentally. What?!
Leon Lionheartly: Wow. Wow. I, yeah. a
neocharge: Yeah, it says ah Nintendo has seemingly been the target of a data leak that might have revealed some sales data. According to Nintendo, this was an accident and made public.
neocharge: So we still don't know the sales figures for Switch 2. ah Switch 2 was actually, they said it's the best selling console of all time. ah But ah guess it's not.
neocharge: So, and it's not accurate and related to any sales result or projection. Yeah. Yeah, they it was just leaked out. It's false. Well, like, come on, man. What do you believe now? Like, what it's just all the the fake news and the the AI shit out there. It's just like, you don't know what to believe. And now, like hard sales data of a Switch 2 that Nintendo said, it's just like, oh, no, that was a leak. Sorry.
neocharge: What?
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, that that that's the part that kind of gets me, is it was a leak, quote-unquote. um But I do want to, this is a side note aside, but it is Nintendo-related with leaks.
Leon Lionheartly: This is why, folks, listen to me now. This is why Nintendo is shutting off NSO, Nintendo service Switch Online services, for people who are modding their Switch 2s.
Leon Lionheartly: They are trying to plug the holes. They're in panic mode because it was only but five years ago that we had the Nintendo Giga leak. this is why they're doing that stuff. They are being serious because now Nintendo is looking, has they as a company, they have pie on their their face um or egg on their face as the old adage goes.
Leon Lionheartly: And there's no way now you can believe them going forward as a consumer. um The only way I feel any validity with this, and it's just my own my own perception of life, so take that for but for what you will, is ah I go to GameStops and other locations to search for cards and other stuff or I get bored.
Leon Lionheartly: your people are having a hard time finding these Switch 2s, Matt. there's none If you're here in our greater area of Colorado Springs, um good luck finding one at a GameStop.
Leon Lionheartly: They're just not getting them.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: so just keep That's the only thing. and i'm not saying that's going to ah validate that they've sold you know five, six million copies so far. But I am saying that there is something there. But yeah, te leaked data.
Leon Lionheartly: um This makes anything they say yeah from the and they being Nintendo, makes it to where you really can't trust them. You've got to double-check the source, which is where we normally go. It's true the source itself, not through a third-party website that repeated it, that had it translated and mistranslated it, and then echoed throughout on Twitter, right?
neocharge: Yeah, yeah. They corrected it, and they said in the first week, the Switch 2 has sold more than 1.1 million units, like a fifth of what they originally said. In the US alone, um with around 79% of the sales being accounted for the Mario Kart World bundle.
neocharge: and So close to 80% of the sales on week one, people bought the bundle. I wonder why. I wonder why.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: And unfortunately, it shames me to say this, but I still haven't scratched my code because we played Mario Kart World. We beat it. We rolled credits. and
neocharge: it's just, you know, i don't have a lot. i have some local friends. I don't have a lot of local friends that come over and play Mario Kart all the time. I don't think the value is there for me. if you have If you have game nights every night and you're playing Mario Kart all the time, absolutely.
neocharge: Incredible game. In my opinion, Mario Kart 8 is a little better, but we're in like year 10 of Mario Kart 8 and year 1 of Mario Kart World.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: We'll see where world goes. ah But I don't own Mario Kart World. I got the bundle though, so I'm part of the 80%. um But so yeah, and I haven't scratched that code yet because I'm um playing a game now and we got ah another game for Switch 2 coming out and I just finished Echoes of Wisdom.
neocharge: Time, man. It's time.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, absolutely. It's time. um if yeah If I was a teenager again, 15 years old, ah this Mario Kart World would be a lot of fun, especially since we don't have an updated Smash roster or updated Smash game, which I don't think is ever coming.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: um But that's a different point, or that's a different ah if thought. I I would love it. But at my age and not really having friends that are local outside of you and a few others that may actively you want to come over and drink beers and play Mario Kart.
Leon Lionheartly: um because we Let's be real. we We'd want to play Halo. We'd want to play whatever else. It just isn't for me. um But yeah, definitely.
neocharge: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: 80% attach rate ah to the... yeah though I do want to point out that. 80% attach rate now to Mario Kart World. So the question is, how's that going to continue to trend? Because we know the attach rate for Mario Kart 8 is stupendously high. So the question is, how's the world going to look in the long run?
neocharge: Right. Right. We'll see. We'll see. It was fun. It was a really quick rollercoaster ride. I, don't think the values there is for me ah i Don't think the value is there for me, but other people, maybe. And that's just a personal preference. I love Mario Kart.
neocharge: I might change my mind. I might scratch it. I don't know. I do want to play Knockout Tour, but we'll see. so um We're going to end on a positive note for the news, but unfortunately not yet because we do we do have some sour ninten more sour Nintendo news.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank
neocharge: ah
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: um yeah'll I'll just get get right into it. Game Informer got their hands on Donkey Kong Bonanza. They said is it's extremely fun and it's a blast to play, but...
neocharge: i I actually canceled my pre-order because of this one main concern they had. And that was the ah and quote, the only negative I can really say from my hands-on session is that framerate really struggled to keep up with the action unfolding on screen on a fairly regular basis.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: While it's nowhere near as bad as some of the other games we've seen on the original Nintendo Switch, it's slightly concerning that the second major first-party title for the company's new, more powerful hardware can't consistently perform well.
neocharge: However, it is entirely possible that the build I played isn't fully optimized the way the launch version will be for the Nintendo Switch 2. Okay, so I am still interested in this game, but now it's a wait and see. I know you didn't have it pre-ordered either.
neocharge: I had it pre-ordered. I believed in it. I thought we were done with this, Bob. I thought we were fucking done with this, all right? the Just that little clip. that we heard.
neocharge: I don't want to do this again. And I am like, I saw what happened on the switch one.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: i trudged to through the frame rate, incredible games. But then I also saw how tears of the kingdom looks now, how breath of the wild looks now, how echoes of wisdom links awakening.
neocharge: They're different games. They run beautifully. They look beautifully. And We were actually punished for being early adopters or day one buyers, and we didn't play the ultimate version of the game that inevitably exists.
neocharge: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I'm not fucking doing this again, and I'm going to keep my eye on Donkey Kong Bonanza, and I'm going to watch Digital Foundry's breakdown, and if it doesn't hit a fairly consistent...
neocharge: Dude, at this point, I'm saying 60 frames, but I mean, between 40 and 60 would be fine. Dude, if it just, a performance, man. If it doesn't perform well, I'm not fucking getting it and I'm going to wait for Switch 3.
neocharge: i'm I'm there. Nintendo already proved to me that they release games not in their optimal form and then they'll either patch them or charge you for the optimal versions for the next iteration of hardware.
neocharge: I'm not going to do it again. I'm just not going to do it.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, no, I don't blame you, man. hu This is why I didn't pre-order it. um my My Switch... like I've been burned by this by the Nintendo promise, even up too recently, right?
Leon Lionheartly: Echoes of Wisdom was a good example of that. um I thought we were past it with the Switch 2, but... but The thing is, Matt, everything we've seen has been people talking about the upgrades you get.
Leon Lionheartly: um and Mario, you didn't see this, but I did. Mario Kart World, the second I put three people on a screen in docked mode, it locked itself at 30.
Leon Lionheartly: um Which, that was my first red flag. It made me go, ooh, maybe there's something here. And I think I don't know why. i I'm not a hardware electrical engineer. I'm not a hardware guy. i don't do programming.
Leon Lionheartly: um It's not my passion. But come on, really? ah yeah it were This is what we're struggling with nowadays? Meanwhile, we get some beautiful games like Doom that's locked the whole the whole experience.
Leon Lionheartly: Claire Obscure locked the whole experience. Nintendo, please do better.
neocharge: yeah ah Yeah, that's the thing, right? Lock 30 is fine. Lock 60 is fine. But going from lock 60 to lock 30 is not fine. it's what If you see 60 and then you go to 30, it does not look great. It takes about an hour and a half to two hours for your eyes to actually adjust.
neocharge: And we're playing a game that runs pretty much lock 60 and it looks fucking photorealistic.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: Okay. That's there, right? i'm I'm excited for Donkey Kong. It's still on my list, but it it got brought down a rung, right? my The pre-order is the ultimate thing, right? If if I pre-order the game, hands handss down, super excited for it, day one, no question, putting everything down for it.
neocharge: i I really thought Nintendo, because they were talking about technical prowess of their system and everything like that, I think i thought we were past this. Dude, I played Pokemon Violet Pokemon Scarlet, and it ran like absolute garbage.
Leon Lionheartly: Mm-hmm.
neocharge: They were fun games. I played through the performance issues. It did sour my experience. But now, playing them on Switch 2 and just kind of messing around in them, I'm like, fuck, I should have waited.
neocharge: and And now I might like get ahead of the curve.
Leon Lionheartly: ah
neocharge: And if this game... I'm i'm telling you, Bob, if this game doesn't run lock 60, I'm not going to get it. Sorry. I'm not going to get it. Dude, in in like I don't need to be like in the conversation for these games.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank
neocharge: right I can wait. And if i if I have to wait for five years for a Switch Pro OLED, I'll do that. If I have to wait for 10 years for the Switch 3, I'll do that. There are... seven games alone releasing in the next month that I'm super excited for.
neocharge: It's not barren out there. And i I mean, the cream rises to the top, right? So the game that I'm most excited for or that runs the best or...
neocharge: i is like a part of my beloved IP, it's going to get top. And if it doesn't run well, performance is very important, unfortunately. And I saw what Nintendo did with their original Switch titles to the Switch 2, and it really opened my eyes. I was like, fuck, man. Zelda launched broke.
neocharge: And now it's fixed. And now you have to have new hardware. I'm glad I waited on Echoes of Wisdom. It was a game. Zelda. It's like my favorite IP. It was a game I waited for because I knew it was going to get fixed on new hardware. And it did. And I'm so glad I waited.
neocharge: And that experience, I'll wait again. I don't care.
Leon Lionheartly: i I don't blame you, man.
neocharge: you
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: There's too much shit to play.
Leon Lionheartly: there's too many There's too many games. That's it. my My only concern with this is if this is if this is what actually happens. and We don't know because this ah Donkey Kong kind Bonanza is not due for another but two weeks.
Leon Lionheartly: um Right now, it comes out on the 17th of July.
neocharge: It's got to be in Gold Master.
Leon Lionheartly: if the question is, is the, is what, uh, what has been reported? Did they get their hands on a pre like pre early build and it's going to be patched through?
Leon Lionheartly: That's my hope because if not, and we end up with a game that goes from 60 to 40 back to 50, because when you get those jumps in frames, that's when you really notice the performance issues.
Leon Lionheartly: If we get that out of donkey Kong bonanza, I am absolutely scared for Metro prime four. Because that is going to be significantly more intensive or intense than Donkey Kong.
neocharge: Yeah, ah exactly. ah And like I said, it's still on my list. I have my eye on it. I'm not counting it out yet. This very well could be an early build. And I hope to God that it was just an early build.
neocharge: And the polished version is going to release on release date. And I'm going to keep my eye on it. But I canceled my pre-order because... I am, I've, I have PTSD from this man, from the the frame rate bullshit from Nintendo titles.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: And it's like, oh, not this again. I can't do it again. Not another generation.
Leon Lionheartly: Not
neocharge: I'll skip a fucking generation. I don't care. ah So I really hope it was an early build. Very well could have been an early build. ah And I'm sure it'll be available everywhere. Like you said, ah they're going to prioritize getting many, many copies out for us to buy.
neocharge: And I will keep an eye on it. Shout out to Digital Foundry. They go in depth on how a game performs. Performance important for a game. Gameplay is king, right? You can get through performance.
Leon Lionheartly: not just for games.
neocharge: Yeah, of course.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: for all life aspects right you got to perform well uh yeah i hope it's an early build uh and i hope everything gets smoothed over and we'll definitely report on it probably in two episodes episode 12 or 13 we'll report on it i probably won't be playing it because i'll still be playing the game that we're playing that we're going to be talking about
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: ah So I said we're ending on good news. We're going to end on good news. A very beloved franchise that is kind of an indie game.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: One I recommended to you. ah The DLC was finally announced. And that DLC is for Chained Echoes.
neocharge: Ashes of Elrond. ah We finally got a release date for this. And this DLC, we don't know if it's free or not. Probably won't be, but looks really cool. Chained Echoes, incredible pixel art, turn-based RPG.
neocharge: ah Very inspired by some of the greats. Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, Pretty similar to Sea of Stars, different battle system. And there's mechs.
neocharge: ah But we are getting Ashes of Elrond. It's going to be available for Chained Echoes on August 7th.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank
neocharge: We finally got a release date. So i did I wanted to end on a positive note. And I'm very excited for this, actually. ah You played Chained Echoes. You beat it. You platinumed it. And i picked up the awesome physical edition.
neocharge: i this is This had been on my dashboard for a while, and I was always intrigued by it. And I finally played it. Platinum did, I think, a year ago, and I absolutely fell in love with it.
neocharge: It's an awesome game. I'm super excited for the DLC. How about you?
Leon Lionheartly: Dude, this is a this is just going to be like Sea of Stars DLC where it's pretty much going a full stop. i And I think I can sneak it in right in time ah just because Chained Echoes is an amazing... I'm so glad you recommended it. It's an amazing turn-based RPG.
Leon Lionheartly: ah It is different from Sea of Stars where Sea of Stars, you can... ah For the the listeners out there, Sea of Stars is like Chrono Trigger and a lot of more traditional turn-based RPGs where... At the end of battle, um do you your your health and your resources and all of that still matter. like You lose use half of your MP to get through a battle or all of it because you cast ah a powerful spell, you're hosed going into the next battle. You better plan ahead, right?
Leon Lionheartly: Chained Echoes is different in that regard. ah This has got a lot of, I don't want to say Persona-style combat, but what ah But it kind of does. And what I mean by that is every engagement is a puzzle.
Leon Lionheartly: And you need to solve that puzzle. And it has a lot of push and pull with how you do and what what ah what options you take and when you take them um in order to keep certain elements. And I don't want to spoil it too much, but to keep certain elements like a certain bar, a balanced bar in effect.
Leon Lionheartly: And that is important for the battle. The good news is that's how they focus their combat because once the battle's done, you're back to full HP, you're back to full MP, you got your resources, boom. So it's a really good and interesting... It's a very unique approach in that regard.
Leon Lionheartly: um ah yeah To be honest, going to be honest with you, man. Story, not as good as Sea of Stars. But... Gameplay-wise, it's a phenomenal, phenomenal RPG.
Leon Lionheartly: 16-bit, kind of leaning towards 32 a little bit if you're looking at um at just a pixel art still. um But yeah, August 7th, I'll be all over this game.
Leon Lionheartly: ah and like I hope it's free, but if not, they're getting my fucking money anyways..........
neocharge: Yep, same here. You can get on Steam, PSN. It released in 2022. And ah yeah if you liked Final Fantasy VI, any of the old RPGs, you'll love this.
neocharge: Has an awesome twist. lot of cool, playable characters. I like the story. Not as good as CS Stars, of course. Like you said, I agree. And it was made by a few people. So incredible indie game and highly recommended. So check it out.
neocharge: And we're getting DLC for it. this uh august august 7th so cool we ended on a good note a lot of unfortunate negative news but ended on a good note so uh what do you say we get into what we're playing because we're playing the same game and uh we can probably touch on this pretty quick before the main topic because the main topic is definitely the star of the show but we really need to talk about what we're playing and uh
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, I think so. um I don't know how you want to do this because I think you're farther than me. Further, ah not farther.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: um So um i don't know how you want to do this. if ah i I can let you just go and then I'll give you my thoughts from the from there and yeah kind of let you take the stage, man.
neocharge: Let's do that. Of course, anything I talk about for this game, there will be no spoilers. It recently released, and um'm I'm talking about the wonderful, wonderful game of Death Stranding 2 from Kojima Studios. We're back in the world of Death Stranding, and boy, oh boy.
neocharge: ah What can I say? i Like I said, no spoilers. And Kojima was basically like, hey, I heard you like Death Stranding and I know why you're here.
neocharge: So I'm going to give you more of Death Stranding. But wait. And then he just turns it upside down. I'll just say that. ah What can I say about Death Stranding? Death Stranding was my 2019 game of the year. Incredible game from Kojima.
neocharge: It is a third person action adventure ah UPS delivery simulator. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: and And it's got incredible story. is Some of the best storytelling ever in a video game because it's Kojima. It's got incredible production.
neocharge: ah it's It's photorealistic. yeah Like it during some of the aerial shots of the beginning of the game, we were both like, is that real? Wait, that's real.
neocharge: Oh, no, it's not. Wait, that's real, though. And it's like it's tricking your brain because this game great. Gorgeous. And then it pans around to your playable character. ah And you're like, oh shit, I'm playing.
neocharge: Holy crap. So ah Kojima knocked it out of the park with the Decima engine. ah This game is just gorgeous. wherere We're both playing on PS5 Pro, ah both on our OLED panels.
neocharge: And this game was made for our setup. ah It has Norman Reedus. Norman Reedus was in the original. He's coming back. You are... A porter, again, delivering packages in a post-apocalyptic world.
neocharge: ah The story, if I were to even explain it, you wouldn't... I still don't understand it.
Leon Lionheartly: No, we don't have that kind of time. yeah
neocharge: Yeah, no, i'm not going to explain anything. I'm not going spoil anything. Uh... Go watch the first trailer. and So if you if you haven't played Death Stranding, definitely don't play Death Stranding 2. If you're interested in this in this genre or this game, play Death Stranding 1.
neocharge: ah If you have a PS5, there's Death Stranding 1 Director's Cut. um If you're curious about it, just go watch the first trailer ever unveiled for Death Stranding. If you have questions...
neocharge: 70% of them are going to be answered once you play the game. a lot is going to be interpretive. And if you have an analytical, somewhat autistic, checklist-based mind, this game is going to fucking calm your nerves. And dude, this game is a cozy game for me, honestly.
neocharge: Yeah. Like it's very, it's, you know, you're managing all your equipment, you're managing weight levels, uh, you're managing where you're placing your equipment and you just, there's so much preparation and then you go on the journey on the trek. Um,
neocharge: ah And sometimes things will happen. There's combat. That's all I'm going to say. ah But mostly it's more of an immersive sim that makes you really just sometimes put down the controller or pan around the environment and say, this is what video games are all about, man.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, dude, i I sat there for the first... five minutes just staring at that opening scene um because it was so, so beautiful. um But you're you're right. this is So this game is unique into that this is a one of those games you do not want to play it without playing the first one.
Leon Lionheartly: I know we can you you can usually get along ah get away with saying, well, no, it's okay. You don't necessarily need it because of context. No, you need to play have played the first one. There is a recap game.
Leon Lionheartly: gives you a basic ah what happened during the first one, but it's not enough. There is so much context because it's a Kojima game. know Kojima has got a he he's got one of those minds that just you you have to experience everything in order to get the full context.
neocharge: Thank you.
Leon Lionheartly: um I will tell you, Matt, this game is, you're right, it's a cozy game for me. Um, because there's something about Norman Reedus's character. Um, and I got to give it away, but we're going to just call him Norman Reedus for the sake of argument here, where he's got all of this equipment shucked on his back.
Leon Lionheartly: He's got his pockets full with all this extra accessories. And he's just going from point A to point B because that's what he's been told he has to do. And he's truckling trucking along the, uh, the, the wilderness.
Leon Lionheartly: Um, and he's, Norman Reedus did an amazing job with this. um I've seen interviews that says yeah where he said, no, this is the mind of the way Kojima works. He just tells me to say X, Y, Z, and I do it.
Leon Lionheartly: But he does so good. Because when you're when you're crossing a river, or you start to slip, or you're you're going for a long distance, he'll say little things along the way. He'll be like, come on, you got this.
Leon Lionheartly: You can do this. He like peps himself up. I've been in that position. you like I've been told, hey, you got to put 75 pounds on your back and you need to go from point A to point B and it's a six and a half, 12 mile or whatever number of clicks.
Leon Lionheartly: Good luck. um And it's through the rain.
neocharge: Thank you.
Leon Lionheartly: It's through the sun. It's through the snow. so It's cozy. It brings me back into a position. I'm telling you, Matt, I can sit there and just go up the mountainside and I'm happy. I'm in a zen Zen-like moment, which is unreal because you're playing, like you said, UPS s delivery, man.
neocharge: yeah
neocharge: yeah it's ah It's like a sim and everything is like so calculated, like your boots, they wear down. So if you're going a long way, you got to bring an extra pair of boots or the weather dynamically changes.
neocharge: I don't want to get into a lot, but let's say the map dynamically changes depending on weather elements. And it's nuts. Something happened to me. I can talk to you off cast, but i was like, what the fuck?
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: Um, so yeah, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I think I know what it was, but I'm curious here.
neocharge: Uh, it's such an analytical game and it's so well done. It's so polished. It's so precise. Uh, I, this game is still an enigma to me because I don't like SIM games.
neocharge: I don't like item management. I don't like encumbrance in games. I don't like timed missions and I don't like ranked missions and But I love this game.
neocharge: And this game has all of that. And just the the performances. the You got Norman Reedus. You got a ton of ah you know very famous actors.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: Kojima is just a master of his craft. And if you... You got to be patient. You got to have patience with this game. You're not going to go into this game and be like, all right, let's play. Let's let's fuck shit up. All right, let's go. We're going to go the golden path.
neocharge: Nah, man, this game makes you think. And if you don't prepare well, you're going to fail. And that's what I love about it. And if you guys are interested, I'm streaming the whole thing.
neocharge: And you can see half half the time I'm in a menu just fucking with my cargo and my routes. And the other half, I'm just walking. You're just going to watch me walk.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: Or there is combat, right? and there's more combat in Death Stranding 2 than there was in Death Stranding 1. ah But if you're curious, tune into my stream, twitch.tv forward slash NeoCharge.
neocharge: And I'm playing it. just tune in for a little bit. If you eat, if you like even a bit of what you see, go play it yourself.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: And there are some crazy surprises. This game has some of the biggest, uh, and most twists I've ever seen in a story. The story If you ever heard it explained not knowing it, you'd be like, are you guys are you guys having a stroke right now?
neocharge: But if you play the game and really grasp what's happening, you understand it. And looking back and and remembering watching that trailer at the Game Awards and just being like, what the fuck is going on?
neocharge: And then after finishing the game and going to watch it again, you're like... I know exactly what's happening. Everything makes sense. Playing the whole game is like a key that unlocks something in your brain to help you understand the absolute craziness that the story is.
neocharge: And that's Kojima right there.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, absolutely. i just This is the disclaimer for everybody. Death Stranding, one is a little bit rougher, and two is ver but is peak Kojima. this is Death Stranding 2 is peak, so you and you if you've played Metal Gear Solid or Police Knotts or whatever, you or Zone of the Enders, you'll you'll understand.
Leon Lionheartly: But it is difficult to get into... Take it from me who did the same thing. Do not exit off. Try to push through, get to, and this sounds weird, get through the first five to 10 hours.
Leon Lionheartly: Most games it's within that first two hours and you're like, all right, this isn't for me. Give Kojima his time um and trust in this. And then if you hit that five, 10 hour mark in Death Stranding 1, and you'll know what I mean by that that mark because you'll,
Leon Lionheartly: There's a certain point in the game where everything kind of opens up and the story really takes off. If you get there and you're like, eh, this isn't for me, I get it. But trust the process. Trust the Kojima-san.
neocharge: Oh, yeah. um Because we were talking about this, I don't know, even before the we started the cast. And Death Stranding came up and I was like, oh, yeah, Bob, you're a huge Kojima fan. What did you think of Death Stranding? And you're like, I fell off of it.
neocharge: And I like put both hands on the picnic table and I was like, Bob, I want you to put everything down you're doing right now.
Leon Lionheartly: who
neocharge: And I need you to play Death Stranding. And you're like, I got like five hours in. And I was like, Bob, if you ever trusted one thing I ever had to say for the entirety of our friendship, it's this.
neocharge: You will love Death Stranding. Just give it your full attention, your time, and your patience. And you did just that.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: Was I right?
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, God. This is such a good game. I don't know what it is. That's the funny thing about Death Stranding. It is a walking sim. You are delivering parcels. And there is no fast travel. There's none of this other modern-day video game designs.
Leon Lionheartly: But yet, you would love it. You just enjoy it. um Death Stranding... Definitely go play it. on ah Death Stranding 2 on the beach is out. ah all i got it My final thoughts are just go play it, and if it's not for you, that's okay.
Leon Lionheartly: Death Stranding is an acquired taste, um and it's one of those if you know, you knows.
neocharge: Absolutely. It's ah like every other video game. It's subjective. ah But if you get into it and you fall off of it and you're listening to this cast now and you have like questions, you're like, hey, I can't really get this thing right.
neocharge: Feel free to reach out to us. We'll start a Death Stranding channel. Spoiler free, of course. But this game is so special and... I was kind of on the fence about it when I first played it.
neocharge: I really was. I did. I never wanted to put it down. Cause I mean, I loved it, but I was like, are we, are we going to get somewhere? And boy, oh boy, did we, did we get somewhere for sure? i Yeah. Game of the year, 2019. The sequel just released.
neocharge: I am taking my sweet time with it. I'm about 15 hours in. I'm at a the second area. Let's just say that. And yeah, if you're curious about it, go watch the trailer.
neocharge: You're going to get mind fucked. You're going be like, I have no idea what's going on, but it's going to make you think, what is going on? And I'll tell you this right now. If you watch the trailer and you're so confused, it's most of it will make sense after you play the game.
Leon Lionheartly: Still go play the game.
neocharge: So, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Still, please go play the game. it's a It's just a love letter to gaming and Kojima is a master of his craft and is up there with some of greats. Miyamoto,
neocharge: ah just he's ah he's an incredible developer and i we'll throw money at him, whatever he makes. He's just a, makes polished games and I'm having an absolute blast with that stranding.
neocharge: I'm actually going to play it after we record here. So, uh, gonna, gonna dive in.
Leon Lionheartly: Good.
neocharge: So yeah, love it. And we'll keep you tuned. I don't know how tuned we can keep you because it's very It's a game you can spoil very easily.
neocharge: ah It's kind of like, go play it. Let us know what you think. Hit us up on Discord. and Fire it up. I think if you're part of PSN ah PS Plus Premium, I think it's free.
neocharge: Death Stranding Director's Cut or the original Death Stranding. Go play it. Hit us up. Let us know what you think. I will talk Death Stranding all day. So, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, absolutely.
neocharge: Yeah, incredible game. I'm so glad it released and i can't wait to dive in more. i'm goingnna I'm going to spend three figures of hours in this game easily, easily. but I'm going to take my time with it.
neocharge: Might take me about a month and a half. I'm not going to lie. ah
Leon Lionheartly: yeah At this rate, it's going to take me all summer, but that's that's more my problem than anything.
neocharge: Yep.
neocharge: Right. Right. ah Yeah. so that's what we're playing. i finished Echoes of Wisdom. It was great. I finally finished it. It's low on the Zeldas for me, but it was cool.
neocharge: I loved it. And yeah, all into Death Stranding now. Death Stranding 2 now. But I think it's time for the main event. And we are on episode 10. ten And ah we decided, Bob's idea, decided that we would go over our top 10 games of all time.
neocharge: This is from... When the first game console ever released, when we were born, basically, to now. ah these These are the the top 10 games of all time.
neocharge: We're going to through a total of 20 games, and you're going to learn a little bit more about us and what IPs and games we're super passionate about.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: This is the list. This is the... they you know, crown jewel of our gaming experiences. And it's kind of hard to like the top three are easy top five, a little hard top 10, man. I played a lot of games and I'm like, Ooh, I have a list of like each year, what my game of the year was. So I'll probably, uh, reference that, but I have my list and I can't wait to hear yours.
neocharge: You want to go first?
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: You want me to go first? what do you want to do?
Leon Lionheartly: um i'm I'm good either way. I'll tell anyway you what.
neocharge: You go first.
Leon Lionheartly: All right. All right. Fair enough. um I'm going to go first, but going to a couple of caveats to this. okay Like Matt said here, finding the top three, top five, that's easy, right? um The top 10 is ephemeral.
Leon Lionheartly: um This is my definitive list. Like, this is only the definitive bed based on the snapshot in time that I'm in. Um, the bottom half tends to, it can shift, uh, based on games that get released.
Leon Lionheartly: Um, there's a couple of things to note in this is I did not want to, I w I didn't want to be disingenuous to a top 10 list. Um, so it is a single game from an individual IP, I E a single Zelda game.
Leon Lionheartly: Um, I was going to go further down and do a single IP based on ah the genre that it feels in. So ah example, a good example of that would be Super Mario World and Mario 64.
Leon Lionheartly: Both would be eligible for the list, right? Because they're different genres, 2D platformer, 3D platformer. um But as I was going through a top 10 list, I realized, you know oh my goodness, I don't even need to do that. I just need to stick to one genre.
Leon Lionheartly: um Because after almost 40 years of playing games, um there's a lot of stuff in here. okay um i I'm telling you, Matt, when I sat down to to go through this, I banged out the first five, ba ba bam, bam, bam, bam.
Leon Lionheartly: And then within the first the next five minutes, I had 25 games on the list that I had to start through and go, okay, who fits where, right?
neocharge: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: I But yeah, with that with that, those caveats being said, those little note ah notices, ah number 10, Matt, how much PC gaming do you think I play nowadays?
neocharge: um Not a lot, but you used to play a lot.
Leon Lionheartly: I used to be a heavy PC gamer. um Do you know... ah So if you were to give me... where What's a top PC game that you've heard of over the years people talk about?
neocharge: League of Legends.
Leon Lionheartly: Okay, that's a good one. I almost put that on this list, but I was like, eh, I don't want to talk about that too much.
neocharge: Oh.
Leon Lionheartly: Number 10 is a strategy game made by a defunct studio now called Westwood.
neocharge: hello
Leon Lionheartly: Came out in 1996. Real-time strategy game. um This game is a retelling of of World War II where um Einstein actually prevented Hitler from rising to power.
Leon Lionheartly: But World War II still happened. Do you know who the Axis powers were if Germany wasn't in play?
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: The Soviets. the communists. And I'm talking about people are screaming in it. There's one or two people screaming. That's Command and Conquer Red Alert. It is a real-time strategy game, like I said, where it is essentially communists versus the capitalists.
Leon Lionheartly: um It's the allies um ah or ah that they technically call the allies. If you know anything about your lore, this is a precursor ah to ah to to the original Command and Conquer.
Leon Lionheartly: um So when you look at... ah what the original Command & Conquer did and you look at its lore, the original Red Alert is a precursor. it tells a story, the backstory of where Kane came from and how he got to power.
Leon Lionheartly: um So this game, I'm telling you, I put countless in numbers hours on here. If I were to to give you the top 10 video game soundtracks of all time, Hellmarch is on that list, which came from this game.
Leon Lionheartly: um But absolutely, if you like real-time strategy, you can get this game. You can get it on Steam in the remastered version, which includes the original Command & Conquer as well, um with real-time switching of ah of art styles.
Leon Lionheartly: So you can go from the modern to the classic with the press of the space bar. And it'll do it without going into a menu. um So definitely go go give that a check out. But yeah, number 10. I spent a lot of hours on that, Matt.
Leon Lionheartly: I still love this game. um
neocharge: ace
Leon Lionheartly: I will say... Fun fact, Red Alert 3 had a guest that was doing their that was part of their they're like videos in between missions. You know who that guest was?
neocharge: Who?
Leon Lionheartly: Tim Curry.
neocharge: Hmm. Nice.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Very cool. Very cool. I never played it. I have never heard of it, actually. So that's a deep cut. But I'm glad you enjoyed it. How many hours did you put it on?
Leon Lionheartly: I wish I could tell you.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: but um i'm I'm no joke. This is probably a thousand and plus hour game. um I put from back in the day. You can't keep track of that stuff. ah But this is a this was definitely a game that I played every map. I built maps. I did everything and anything you can think of short of playing online.
neocharge: Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. ah Very cool. Very cool. My number 10 is in the same vein. It's not PC. I've never really played PC games. Actually, i on my one of my top games, I played first on PC, which I'll get into that, but this was like 95 when I was a little kid. So I'm not really into PC gaming, but a lot of our listeners are. It's a good way to play, you know, whatever floats your boat.
neocharge: ah This game released on the PS4. I put probably about 3000 hours into it over the course of the game and the sequel. It's kind of a living game across 10 years. There was a saga and this game is actually made from Bungie.
neocharge: And I'm getting a tattoo of this game because ah it holds a special place in my heart. I made friends on this game. I played so many. i played with so many cool people. a lot of my friends, just so many good memories in this game.
neocharge: ah Some of the best co-op for the raids. course, I'm talking about Destiny. ah Destiny came out 2014. I played the Alpha. I played the Beta. I played Vanilla Destiny. I was some ah one of the few in, i don't know, the thousands or something that got to level 30 first. I have the Platinum. The Platinum requires an...
neocharge: crazy fucking hard trophy that you have to go through a raid without dying. Uh, raids, the average death count, uh, is about 250 and they have white mechanics that wipe your entire team. Uh, it's a team of six, uh,
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: Destiny was just incredible. Was incredible. ah they They unfortunately lost their way. They went into the Fortnite ah game ah model, and it's free to play now.
neocharge: But i will never forget the Taken King in Destiny 1 and playing King's Fall, the Raid.
neocharge: Man, Destiny holds a very special place in my heart. I played with actually a lot of people that aren't here today.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: And i had like had a lot of really good memories there. So ah that's my ah most played game of all time. And it'll probably be the it it probably won't get ah crowned because I don't really play living games anymore.
neocharge: Destiny was my first and last living games as a service I've played. And put 2,000 hours Destiny 1 and about 1,000 hours into Destiny 2.
neocharge: ah Warlock all all the way, baby. I loved Destiny and i hate that it went the way it did.
Leon Lionheartly: you
neocharge: And I would be there front and center if they brought it back as a narrative driven co-op, none of the games as a service, multi or multiplayer, microtransaction bullshit.
neocharge: I love Destiny and I had to put it on there because I played so many hours and i just had so many experiences with it. And like they would have just social events that were like timed and the expansions would come out and it would just be everything, just the only thing everybody was talking about.
neocharge: And it was just, man, I didn't play a lot of other games because of Destiny. I was just playing Destiny. Every night, all night, raiding, getting six friends together.
neocharge: Some of the listeners of this podcast were actually on that raid team. You know who you are. Shout out to you. Had a blast. I put Destiny to to bed and mourn for it, actually.
neocharge: But so yeah, it was a 10-year saga, the light and dark saga. Destiny, incredible game. Bungie's pinnacle, I'd say, other than Halo.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, man.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: i would Yeah, you're right. You say that for other than Halo, and I i feel for you, man. I remember the the number of hours I would spend um getting drunk and playing Halo 3 multiplayer with my friends.
Leon Lionheartly: um like I remember just spitting around, jumping in a warthog, and my buddy was on on the back with the turret, and we went like 52 and 0 because we just ran around shooting the turret, and we're a bunch of drunk hillbillies just, yeah!
Leon Lionheartly: I miss those days, so you to have that with Destiny, i feel for you, man. Where they're at now is a different story. um and My only regret is I did not get into that zeitgeist because ah I feel I would have done the same as you and dropped every other game for that if I if i just pushed through um on it.
Leon Lionheartly: But yeah, it's like it's a good game.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: hey
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: Alright. That was number 10 for you.
neocharge: Yes, it was.
Leon Lionheartly: I should have probably yeah clarified that as we got going. All right. Well, um number nine, I got another deep cut for you, Matt.
neocharge: All right.
Leon Lionheartly: All right. um So you remember the old ah video game console, the 3DO, right?
neocharge: I mean, i know of it. I don't remember it.
Leon Lionheartly: Okay.
neocharge: I never played it.
Leon Lionheartly: All right. So there was a video game company, literally publisher, 3DO. um They had a developer called New World Computing that was founded in 1984. They unfortunately went out of business and filed 2003.
Leon Lionheartly: in into to two thousand and three But they in 1999, they released a strategy game, a turn-based strategy, um resource management. Think of it think of it like a 4X game um more than anything, right? A la Civilization.
Leon Lionheartly: um They released the base game. Um, hi and at first the base game was cool and then they released an expansion and then they released another expansion.
Leon Lionheartly: Uh, and then they released another expansion on top of that. Um, and eventually became the pinnacle and that game is heroes of Mike magic three.
neocharge: Very cool.
Leon Lionheartly: Um, I probably put, seriously, this was probably your 3,000 hour game into Destiny. This is probably the most played game I've ever put hours into.
Leon Lionheartly: This is probably, and I'm not joking, and this is not an exaggeration. um My friends that listened to this who knew me growing up, this is a 5,000 hour game.
neocharge: Nice.
Leon Lionheartly: um There is a certain a love to it um simply because it is resource management. you're you're develop You have a hero.
Leon Lionheartly: That hero has an army. You have to build up your arm army, and there's a cycle that goes through. You're building up a town. You're gathering resources. You're collecting magical artifacts. You can cast spells in combat.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Is it the FMV sequences? Are they very much a product of the 90s? Abso-fucking-lutely, okay? um And my only biggest regret is this official got a a an official, and I'm using this in air quotes, type of game that got... um um Sorry, somebody was calling me. I'll get a call to Mac.
Leon Lionheartly: They got an unofficial re-release update remaster, and it was done by everybody's favorite, Ubisoft.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: And let's just say that wasn't panned well. um ah
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: Let's just say the original... It was the second best-selling PC game in 1999. It is a 9.9.5 out of 10 across the board critically. If this game dropped in the open critic world, this would have been a 97. 95 to 97.
Leon Lionheartly: Heroes of Might Magic 3, 3DL, new world computing.
neocharge: Nice.
Leon Lionheartly: You're gone too soon. um But I absolutely love this game. It's easily my most played.
neocharge: Very cool. Awesome. ah That's a while back, too. I think you're going lot more retro ones than me because you are the retro encyclopedia. ah Yeah, mine are a little newer. I have some some cuts ah way back when.
neocharge: But yeah, Heroes of Might and Magic 3. I never played it, but I'm glad you enjoyed it. Glad you enjoyed it.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Uh, my number nine is in the vein of one of my favorite genres of all time. And that's the Metroidvania genre. And this is one of the two that created the Metroidvanias.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, yeah.
neocharge: Uh, Castlevania is one of my favorite IPs of all time. And the greatest Castlevania of all time, in my opinion, is Castlevania Symphony of the Night on PS1. ah What can I say about this game? It's where Castlevania kind of but really evolved and still the PS1 was more into like the polygons and 3D art style, but nope.
neocharge: Castlevania Symphony and I was like, no, we're still going to do pixel art and it's going to be gorgeous and we're going to kind of mix the 3D stuff into it. And boy, oh boy, Castlevania Symphony the Night is one of the great Metroidvanias of all time.
Leon Lionheartly: okay
neocharge: It's one of the fathers of the Metroidvania genre. And it follows Alucard, which I don't want to spoil it. I know it's old, but I don't want to spoil him.
neocharge: ah It's Alucard. He's half vampire, half human. And it's just an incredible game. ah Very gothic. The soundtrack is one of the greats.
neocharge: I have the black label on my shelf because it's one of my top tens.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah, I really want Igarashi to sign it, but I haven't met him. I'd love to meet him. ah But Koji Igarashi is pretty much the father of Castlevania, and he's the one making Bloodstained. Oh, oh my God. Bloodstained is super inspired ah by Symphony of the Night. I would even say a spiritual successor to Symphony of the Night.
neocharge: And yeah, best Castlevania. It's... it's well known to be one of the best Castlevanias of all time. And boy, it was just one of the greats, a classic.
neocharge: ah
Leon Lionheartly: uh-huh
neocharge: And there's a, if you, if you think you're done with the game, you're not. And it flips it, the flips the game on its head. Let's just say that. And yeah.
neocharge: Yeah. Belmont's and Alucard and all the the monster design and everything. Just a gem. And I had to put Castlevania game in here. Symphony the Night, number nine.
Leon Lionheartly: I knew this one was coming for you. um i' I love Symphony of the Night. I have my preferences on Metroidvanias or Castlevania games, ah but this is definitely... I could see why this would be any but anybody's favorite.
Leon Lionheartly: A Black Label. that is That is a pricey gem, my friend. um I know that is not a cheap, I don't know what the current markets are, but I know that's not cheap. And ah that is that is peak side-scrolling, I will admit with that. I will i will concede that point.
neocharge: Yeah. Uh, it, yeah, I picked that up. I didn't pick it up on release. Uh, I recently replayed it in the Castlevania Requiem collection.
neocharge: I played Castlevania Symphony of Night and Castlevania Rondo of Blood that follows Richter, uh, And Rondo of Blood's really hard. And I said, yeah, fuck it, I'm going platinum it.
neocharge: And I platinumed that game, which was a combination of Symphony of Night and Rondo of Blood. I wanted to play Rondo of Blood because the fantastic Netflix anime series Castlevania was doing their next run Castlevania Nocturne, which followed Richter Belmont.
neocharge: And Richter Belmont's one of the most famous Belmonts. and he may or may not be in Symphony the Night. So I think he's in like the beginning cutscene.
neocharge: What is a man but a miserable pile of secrets?
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Throws the wine glass down or blood glass down, I should say. And that's where Symphony the Night starts. So it has Richter Belmont. And if you haven't watched that anime, it's awesome.
neocharge: and I was hoping it would follow Symphony Night, we're getting there. We're getting there. It did follow a little bit of Rondo of Blood. And if you like Castlevania, you're going to like both those games. Rondo of Blood is one of the older ones that came out on the PSP as Dracula X Chronicles.
neocharge: It was in Dracula X Chronicles, but Symphony the Night is peak Castlevania. If you're ever interested in Castlevania, go play Symphony the Night.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, I definitely feel like I need to play that again soon.
neocharge: Yes. ah Requiem. It's on the PS4. It's awesome.
Leon Lionheartly: Okay. Oh, sweet kid.
neocharge: Yep. Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: Well, you said I'd have some deep ah deep cuts, um but I'd like to jump. take it Take a jump in time. We're going to the, and not to the future, Matt. We're going further on this timeline.
Leon Lionheartly: We're going to the year 2025.
neocharge: Oh, okay. I think I know what this is
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, alright. This is the game of the year for me. um Quite frankly, possibly a game of the decade. ah This game knocked another game. a couple of This game shook my top 10 list because i did not know how to fit it in here while... not ah basically making other, finding the justification to cutting off many of the others that I've played.
Leon Lionheartly: um We did a spoiler cast on this for four and a half fucking hours.
neocharge: Yes, we did.
Leon Lionheartly: So definitely feel free to go listen in if you want my deep da ah dive thoughts. um But that's, I'm sorry, Sandful Interactive's Claire Obscure Expedition 33. um Go listen to our thoughts on a spoiler cast.
Leon Lionheartly: ah But this game, it is a beautiful level leather a love letter to how to not only do an RPG... but how you do an overall game design with its mechanics, its storytelling, its controls, its music, its story, everything wrapped up.
Leon Lionheartly: um there are It's a little bit lower on the list because I think there are some things that were a little rough around the edges. um But outside of that, this game had me crying like ah like a big baby at certain points. All right. Um, it, it takes your heart out, it rips it out of your chest, stomps on it, spits on it, and then shoves it back into your chest before it pulls it out and spits on it again. Okay.
neocharge: Yeah, that's a good way to put it.
Leon Lionheartly: Um, but go check it out. You, uh, you can go listen to our four hour podcast, but yeah, man, this one made the top 10, um, for damn good reasons.
neocharge: ah Yep, it's in my top 10 too. And one of the ones we synced up on. And I will pivot and choose another one. But it is in also in my top 10. It was that good. And on the spoiler cast, I said, i didn't think any game in this decade would ever make my top 10 again. And I was like, I wonder if it's like nostalgia or something or nope.
neocharge: Claire Obscura is there. And it's right there with me as well. ah I'll pick another one though. But yeah, good choice. Holy shit. It's going to win game of the year. I'm going to be there. I'm probably going cry and clap at the same time.
neocharge: And man, this this game hit us on in ways that we didn't know we could feel. And it's just, it's fun to play too. And the story's incredible. And man, Sandfall just knocked it out of the park.
Leon Lionheartly: Did they ever? her They fucking nailed this.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah, awesome. Yeah, that was definitely on my list too. But we'll pivot. And my number eight is the other side of the Metroidvania.
neocharge: And that's Metroid Prime.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah I knew that was coming.
neocharge: Metroid Prime.
Leon Lionheartly: Ooh, really?
neocharge: Which is not... technically not a 2D side-scrolling Metroidvania, originally release released on the GameCube and recently had a remaster ah release that is phenomenal on the original Switch, ran 60, 1080, which is awesome.
Leon Lionheartly: Hmm.
neocharge: And i will actually be playing Metroid Prime Remastered this, I think, October on camera, on mic with comments for Metroid database. Shout out to Ryan Barrett.
neocharge: And he asked me to to play Metroid Prime Remastered. And I said, fuck yeah. It's one of my favorite games all time. So i recently played this game too. uh, came out on the GameCube like decades ago. And, ah I played the remastered version and I loved it so much. I played it again on hard.
Leon Lionheartly: you
neocharge: and played it back to back because there's, there's certain like scans you can, you can miss and then you can get them when you go through again. And i finally 100% in that game. I never got to 100% it on the GameCube when I was a fucking teenager.
neocharge: And, uh, I finally did. And dude, Metroid Prime 4, what can I say? Very, very inspired by, course, Metroid. You are Samus Aran, the infamous bounty hunter, and it has everything you love about Metroid, if you like Metroid.
neocharge: I think they got a lot of inspiration from Halo. ah Doom, the recent Doom games, 2016 and on to Dark Ages, got a lot of inspiration from Metroid Prime. ah Incredible map system.
neocharge: Just, you're a fucking space bounty hunter landing on this planet. One of the best soundtracks of all time. It's in my top 10 easily.
Leon Lionheartly: That's
neocharge: And um yeah, if you're interested in it, I will be playing it on stream. ah The remastered version on my Switch 2 for Metroid Database. The ah biggest fan site of Metroid out there.
neocharge: So I love Metroid. And Metroid Prime is my favorite. my favorite dread dreads up there too, but it's only one IP and dread is that Metroidvania 2d side scrolling.
Leon Lionheartly: that
neocharge: Uh, but I think prime just hits me, man. It hits me. So Metroid prime.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, Prime is ah it's a good... It's a it's an amazing 3D shooter.
neocharge: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: let yeah i know I know there's a lot... I'm going to but somebody out there. It's not a shooter. Metroid Prime is ultimately a shooter. um And it is a solid... It's a good one. It was a good... I remember it being a good Mary of first-person shooter and Z-targeting.
neocharge: Yeah, yeah. It's definitely a first-person shooter. And it's weird because first-person shooter is one of my least favorite genres. So I was so hesitant and ah cautious when it came out because it was going from my favorite genre, one of my favorite genres, Metroidvania, to a first-person shooter.
neocharge: And I was like, oh, what the fuck you doing, Nintendo? What's retro doing? and Then I played it, and I fell in love. And they knocked it out of the park.
Leon Lionheartly: That's good, man.
neocharge: So, yeah, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: I'd love to hear that. Metroid Prime, shout out. I gotta to go play the remaster some more now. Thanks.
neocharge: Oh, dude, it it's the prettiest game on the Switch, and it runs beautifully.
Leon Lionheartly: Easily.
neocharge: I don't even think you need the Switch 2 to play it. I just want to play ah to have the back paddles for Metroid Prime Remastered. I want to see how that goes. ah But yeah, dude, easily the the prettiest, best-running game on the console, Metroid Prime Remastered.
neocharge: Check it out.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Well, so for my number seven here, bud, um I got a couple of, the I have a certain, I'm not going to give you the the IP yet, but I had two versions of this IP, right?
Leon Lionheartly: And i I tend to flop, ah go back and forth on which one I like more. Okay. ah Now, I had option and I sat here and I thought about and I thought about and I thought about it and like, all right, well, if I'm doing a list and I know where I would normally side, but then I thought, well, you know what? Let me think about everything.
Leon Lionheartly: the The memories I have of the game and then let me look at where it fits and look at the genres because I don't want to overload. Otherwise, it'd be just all RPGs all day long. Yeah.
neocharge: e
Leon Lionheartly: So, Matt, you mentioned Metroid. What's your other... You've got two other ah yeah um IPs that are your absolute favorite.
neocharge: Yeah, Zelda and Final Fantasy.
Leon Lionheartly: and yeah
neocharge: Which one?
Leon Lionheartly: It's Zelda.
neocharge: Yeah. yeah
Leon Lionheartly: Specifically, in this case, I'm sorry if it's on your list, but at number seven, I gotta take Ocarina of Time.
neocharge: Oh, yes.
Leon Lionheartly: ah
neocharge: It's weirdly not on my list, and I'll tell you why when we get there.
Leon Lionheartly: Okay.
neocharge: Awesome.
Leon Lionheartly: ah
neocharge: i'm glad I'm glad this one is on yours.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, this game completely redefined.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: So you take Mario 64, which defined what it felt ah what it meant to move in a 3D environment, in a 3D platformer. And then Miyamoto said, hey, kids, did you like that?
Leon Lionheartly: Well, I got a game for you. That redefined re redefined three d environments, but in an adventure game. um the the inclusion of z targeting uh that came into there the music the storytelling uh the the sense of true sense of exploration i am convinced that ocarina of time that's the vision of what miyamoto was going for when he was going for zelda because he he when he developed when he came up with the idea He got it from walking along in the forest outside his home as a kid.
Leon Lionheartly: I think that's the 3D realization of what he was looking for. um The characters are goofy. The side story characters are amazing. um Like you said, the Seven, for the Seven Sages earlier.
Leon Lionheartly: game is so critical to Zelda that it is the... this game is so critical to zelda um that it is the the crux of the timeline where everything kind of splits into three. um Nintendo has kind of said, we really shouldn't have done this, but they did it and they opened Pandora's box ah of, kind of, uh, canonicity.
Leon Lionheartly: Um, I remember playing this game, On the N64. I remember playing it on every edition of release that came out on a console. I played it on the 3DS. I played it on every the the the the virtual consoles. I played it.
Leon Lionheartly: This game, I could go back. um Before the ah the discovery of speedrun glitches where like you can beat the game in 15 minutes, I remember looking at a Nintendo Power um and looking at the the world the recorded their recorded world record of speedrun and thought, hmm,
neocharge: Thank
Leon Lionheartly: I could actually beat that if I really wanted to. um That's how much I intimately knew about this game. um But yeah, Ocarina of Time, there are multiple modern day versions, so you do not have to break out the 64 and work with that tri-controller thing that they did at the time.
Leon Lionheartly: um But if you haven't played this game... I highly recommend it. um It is an absolute blast. ah You get to live your wildest dreams as a Link, but in a 3D environment.
Leon Lionheartly: um And my only regret the only thing I got to say is had some bad frame rates at the time when you were doing certain actions.
neocharge: Sure did. But we didn't know what 60 was at the time. So we didn't have that frame of reference, right? So we were like, oh, this is awesome. But like, once you go 60, you never go back.
Leon Lionheartly: and Yeah, legit.
neocharge: Yeah, man, Ocarina of Time. i It would be on my list, but it's not my favorite of the IP. It's my second favorite.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh.
neocharge: um But i I can't like the, yeah. I don't want to spoil anything. that I'm going to talk about, but yeah, Ocarina of times is a fucking classic.
neocharge: It's a incredible would love to see a remake. I just would just buy the best version. Uh, Ocarina of times is just an absolute classic. One of the best on, ah the 64 for sure.
neocharge: yeah. Yeah. Let's see, I'm on number seven, right?
Leon Lionheartly: seven yep
neocharge: Seven. ah I'm gonna go to the 64 as well. And I'm gonna throw out a game that was one of the best 3D platformers on the 64. I would rent this game when I was like 10 years old.
neocharge: First got my 64, saw it, I was like, but who's this bear and bird?
Leon Lionheartly: oh
neocharge: And I would rent it from the local game shop or video shop. Couldn't beat it and before I had to return it to the rental.
Leon Lionheartly: Thanks.
neocharge: And I never was able to beat it until it released on the 360. This is Banjo-Kazooie. I'm a huge fan of 3D platformers. I love them. I wish there were more. Astro Bot will hopefully revive the genre and put it back in the limelight.
neocharge: ah Banjo-Kazooie. What can I say? It follows a literal bear and a bird. ah And it is level-based and three d action adventure platformer.
neocharge: ah One of the best. One of the greats. ah Made by Rare. And dude, if Xbox just... just got their fucking shit together and made Banjo-Kazooie remake in Unreal Engine 5, do you know how well that would sell?
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, dude, this would be an amazing seller.
neocharge: if I'm telling you right now, Bob, if it was an exclusive on the next Xbox console, I would fucking buy it. um It is a system seller for me.
neocharge: It won't be. And I'm glad we don't live in that world where I have to make that choice. But dude, they're sitting on this IP and it's so incredible. If you know, you know, if you played it, it was heavily inspired by Mario 64 and it was one of Rare's greats.
neocharge: ah And I really wish ah rare the developers of rare actually like left because they weren't weren't doing a lot at Xbox when Xbox bought rare or absorb them or whatever the hell happened.
neocharge: And they made their own studio called Playtonic Games. And then they created a Banjo-Kazooie spiritual successor. Not as good as Banjo-Kazooie, but it scratched that itch slightly. It wasn't great.
neocharge: Called Yooka-Laylee. And it was a... a chameleon and a bat.
Leon Lionheartly: you
neocharge: It's really good. I mean, if you like Banjo-Kazooie, you'll like Yooka-Laylee. It's not on the par of Banjo-Kazooie, but it's cool. It's great. ah It's a little unpolished.
neocharge: then they did a spinoff, the Impossible Lair. ah I like that too. But yeah, dude, Banjo-Kazooie is one of the great 3D platformers on the 64 era with Ocarina of Time.
neocharge: And... probably up there with top three on 64 for me, for sure. And it's in the my top 10 easily, easily. So loved Banjo-Kazooie.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: ah
neocharge: So I recently, well, not recently, I had never beat it on the 64 because I didn't, as a kid, I didn't have time to beat it because I had to return it to the game store.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: Right? Crazy concept. ah But i it came out for the 360 in like 09 or something on the Xbox arcade. And I finally beat it. And I finally got to the end part and was like, holy shit, I finally did it.
neocharge: Yeah. And yeah, I 100% of the achievements or whatever on the 360. But yeah, Banjo-Kazooie, dude, classic. I could not have that my list.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. You know you know what we need? This is good I'm going to say this. This is why Microsoft needs to get off their ass and give us the Rare Replay on the PlayStation. ah Because while Banjo-Kazooie is not my favorite 3D platformer from the 64, at least of that genre or that that style, the one that I really like is in the re Rare Replay as well as Banjo-Kazooie.
neocharge: All right.
Leon Lionheartly: And that's Conker's Bad Fur Day.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: But... Both of those games, cra classic. and so it's It's rare at its peak. like Let's be honest. It really is rare at its peak, and I'm so sad they're not they're not available on a modern console outside of the the the Microsoft way.
neocharge: Do you know another incredible game on the 64 they made?
Leon Lionheartly: They made several.
neocharge: and
Leon Lionheartly: They made GoldenEye, they made Banjo-Kazooie, they made Donkey
neocharge: Where?
neocharge: Donkey Kong 64. Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: Kong 64. Yeah, they made all of them.
neocharge: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: Really, they kind of gave so Perfect Dark.
neocharge: Perfect Dark.
Leon Lionheartly: rare So Rare was part of the Dream Team ah that Nintendo had back in the day.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: But yeah, shout out to Banjo-Kazooie, man.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: um Even my wife loves Banjo-Kazooie, and she's not really a gamer. So like that just gives you the the sense of impact that game had as a grown-up.
neocharge: yeah Yeah. Talk about a game dev that was suffocated by a greedy publisher. Fuck.
Leon Lionheartly: a
neocharge: Anyway.
Leon Lionheartly: Amen to that. All right. ah Speaking of greedy publishers, I'm sorry. This may seem a little out of field, but I'm not exactly a fan of them lately. They're slowly coming back into the limelight because they recently announced the remaster of a game the out of their library that I wanted so badly that I predict i willed it into existence back in January when I drafted it.
Leon Lionheartly: um And that's from Square Enix. um Matt already knows where this is going. Anybody that knows me more for than 30 seconds knows where this is going. um my My damn internet handle was was ah in ah subsequently PlayStation ID and everything else was was the source for this game. okay um Everybody loves Final Fantasy 7, and I understand that.
Leon Lionheartly: But I have always been that Final Fantasy VIII is the superior game. um and i don't It's for my personal taste. Taste is everything. um But what can I say about this game that I haven't said over the last 25 years um of my life?
Leon Lionheartly: um You play as... but So instead of being yeah instead of being a personality that's saving, trying to save the planet like Cloud did in 7, and I draw a lot of parallels because they were they were both very similar in that style.
neocharge: Thank you.
Leon Lionheartly: These were the sci-fi era. This was the sci-fi era of Final Fantasy. You are just a kid. You are just ah a dude that wanted to... become a military a member of the military and be a mercenary.
Leon Lionheartly: You do not want to get wrapped up anything. You don't care about people's drama. You have no interest in anybody's ah personal opinions on anything because in his real ah he he's a pure nihilist at the end of the day. um And that's from Squall himself, the main character, and ends up getting wrapped up and into a story that while...
Leon Lionheartly: in modern days people think is convoluted. If you actually look at the whole history, this game, I'm telling you, Matt, if there's a see if there's a Final Fantasy game that could be broken into three parts and not have to say, oops, sorry, this is an alternative storytelling, it's Final Fantasy VIII. There is so much going on in this world that had to have been cut. 50% of the game was cut because they couldn't fit it.
Leon Lionheartly: This is a four disc game and 50% of it was cut because their ambitions are so high.
neocharge: Thank
Leon Lionheartly: Okay. Um, I could go on and on about this game. It is the reason I'm even called Leon on, on the internet. It's, um, I plan on, but it's probably my next tattoo is to get, uh, is to get the, uh, the Lionheart tattooed on my arm.
Leon Lionheartly: Um, and i will say Zelle is the other reason is the other internet handle I used for a while. Who's a sub character in there. Um, so, That's how much of an impact this game had on me.
neocharge: That's awesome, man. Yeah, I know you're a huge fan of this game. I'm surprised that it's this far down your list, honestly. ah I'm a massive fan of Final Fantasy.
neocharge: However, I played like two hours of this game and couldn't get into it. I I'm not saying it's bad in any means. Final fantasy hits every time. Uh, I just, I couldn't grasp the concept of the systems.
neocharge: And i did play this at a very young age and I haven't gone back and I would love to, this is a game that I really do want to revisit. Uh, but it's just the time thing. Right.
neocharge: And I'm, I'm hoping they eventually do a ah remake like they did for Uh,
Leon Lionheartly: Uh-uh.
neocharge: ah but it sounds like they're skipping it and going right to nine, which is unfortunate. ah But yeah, I mean, this is classic Final Fantasy. It was one I unfortunately skipped.
neocharge: And it's kind of cool to have that ah difference. Like, you love that one. I love the other one. And ah yeah, I never got into eight.
neocharge: I want to, and i don't i think it's I think it's going to be a great game. I think I'm going to love it. It's just... it It came out on PS1. I have the black label of that too. And it's, ah I just, I don't, I can't find the time.
neocharge: Can't find the time.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah There's an enhanced edition on the PlayStation 4, so if you ever do get the time, um I'll be happy to sit down with you because you it's if you think you could break Claire, you haven't seen what can be done in Final Fantasy VIII.
neocharge: So.
neocharge: Oh, that's very cool. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: you if you put If you put forth the patience, that game will become an absolute... You will break it, and you'll break it over your knee, and then it'll be like, please, can you do it harder? um it's It's charming in that regard. um And then, of course, just like Claire, anytime you think you've broken it, they throw something else at you, so...
neocharge: Very cool. There are games. I am ashamed to say I haven't finished resident or, uh, Final Fantasy eight is one of those. um
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: my number six, I was just reading it now. Um, it's from one of our favorite IPs and I didn't want to take yours, uh, but it's the same protagonist.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: And honestly, it's my favorite resident evil of all time. It's one of the more action oriented resident evil, still a lot of survival horror in there came out on one of my favorite consoles of all times. And that's the game cube.
neocharge: And I'm core. I'm of course referencing resident evil four, uh, ironically, like all these games I'm talking about just had like release it, like remakes come out.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: Like the universe is like, Hey, you know, your top 10, we're just going to keep, we're just going to remake all of them for you. I'm like, all right, cool. Let's do this. Uh, Yeah. Resident Evil four follows Leon in Europe and it's a it's a deviation from three.
neocharge: i It still has survival horror, but it has some pretty awesome action sequences. And I just loved that game when it came out. I have the original GameCube. They re-released this game so many times. It's on the Wii. It's on the PS2. It's on the PS3.
neocharge: It's on the PS4. ah And they recently released it on the PS5 as a remake. We got the remake, which is incredible. I played that game six times. the For the platinum.
neocharge: ah Back to back, I think. Yeah. Because, I mean, it's new game plus, right? And you you have to... You just keep playing and you just keep progressing and you can like blast through that game in two and a half hours if you know what you're doing. You have like sequence skips and stuff like that.
neocharge: I got in the weeds on that game. But then to get S plus rank, you have to start all the way over and do a new game, not a new game plus, and just like have the accuracy and have the time And I challenged myself.
neocharge: Leon's one of my favorite protagonists in video games. And i still think we're going to see him in Resident Evil 9 because there's a lot of callbacks to his original game, um which I'm sure will be talked about in this list.
neocharge: But yeah, Resident Evil 4, man, bunch of action sequences, sequences very fun gameplay. ah The remake is very fun as well. And I just couldn't, I had to have a resident evil on this list and resident evil four is one of my favorites. I have a poster of Leon from resident evil four hanging in my game room.
neocharge: And it's one of the few posters I have for now. I'm going to, I'm going to put more gaming posters up. Uh, some changes are coming and I'm going to like deck this place out with more gaming posters.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Yeah.
neocharge: I'm excited because I have a roll of just 20 gaming posters, including a fucking awesome metal gear solid four. When I'll show you, uh, But yeah, Resident Evil 4. Love my boy Leon.
neocharge: Couldn't couldn um leave him off the list. Can't wait to see him in Resident Evil 9.
Leon Lionheartly: me don't I'm going to give you the don't give me hope meme.
neocharge: Yeah, don't give me hope.
Leon Lionheartly: cause yeah le ah Leon S. Kennedy is the other half of the reason why I have the internet handle I do nowadays. um
neocharge: Hell yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: um'm um i i had a feeling girl you were going to go with four. so
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: um Absolutely beautiful game.
neocharge: Sounds like we both have good taste.
Leon Lionheartly: I've played it so many times. Yeah.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: ah
neocharge: Four is classic.
Leon Lionheartly: Um, well, I guess that's halfway through, man. Um, we're, we're at the top five.
neocharge: Yeah, we're on five.
Leon Lionheartly: Um, this is the list that pretty much never shakes for me. Um, these are the top five games that if if something were to take its place, that means I've had a, uh, I'm doing a six hour podcast spoiler cast on this thing.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: Okay. I I'm at the lunch table or the, well, sorry, not lunch table. I'm at the brewery talking about this thing nonstop. Okay. Um, Number five, as you know, i am a huge, huge fan of the Blue Bomber himself.
Leon Lionheartly: um I have multiple complete-in-box copies of ah many of his games. And while I did think about it, and i was like hey and I know a lot of people prefer...
Leon Lionheartly: the the traditional lineup of the n NES games, there is something about the music, the aesthetic, the feel of the SNES era. And I'm not talking about 5, 6, or 7.
Leon Lionheartly: I'm talking about the X series. And people love 2, 3, and all of those. so But there's something about Mega Man X himself, the original, that started it all, that Still, to this day, I can hear the startup music in my head on on command.
Leon Lionheartly: um I can hear the level music on command if I want to. I can tell you how to i can tell you a each location of every secret item and where to get them so you can get the Hadouken later in that game.
Leon Lionheartly: I can tell you how to do it off the but ah back of my hand. okay um This game is... probably one of the reasons why I like Metroidvanias, if I'm being honest.
Leon Lionheartly: If it was not for the Mega Man series, I'm not entirely sure I would be into the Metroidvanias because 2D platforming is nice. But when you get to do it with a fucking canon, that's that that's where ah that's where where where it changes.
Leon Lionheartly: um But yeah, Mega Man X has always been on the number five. um If anything ever knocks us off that list, I'd be really impressed.
neocharge: Yeah. And we are going to an event that is Mega Man X inspired. I love Mega Man. Didn't get to play a lot of the older games, but I did get to play some of the X games.
neocharge: ah Just gorgeous pixel art. Some of the greats on the SNES. And e s and a that's that's a good one. I love that. Love that. a lot Some of our listeners will love that too.
neocharge: So, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, yeah. I can think of a few.
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mega Man is one of the classics. One of the greats. Good one. Good one. Uh, let's see. I'm on my number five. I can't leave this IP out of it.
neocharge: ah It's a turn-based RPG. Most people don't really see it that way. Came out in Japan in 96, US in 98. um This game didn't, but the IP did.
neocharge: And this game was honestly the pinnacle of the series, in my opinion, for the Game Boy Advanced. Had a nice little clear green cartridge. This is Pokemon Emerald.
neocharge: I'm a huge fan of the Gen 1.
Leon Lionheartly: Ooh.
neocharge: ah but Gen 3 is one of my favorites, and Pokemon Emerald. So Pokemon Ruby and Pokemon Sapphire came out ah for the Game Boy Advance SP.
neocharge: got it We had a backlight and a flip-up. It was mind-blowing, right? You didn't have to have the little worm light And I played the shit out of Pokemon Ruby and then Emerald came out.
neocharge: Pokemon used to release the two games, right? Red, blue. And then they would have a third game that incorporated everything from the two games in one game. So you had red, blue, yellow, gold, silver, crystal.
neocharge: And then we had Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald. ah Rayquaza was the title Pokemon on the box. Still one of my favorites to the day to this day. It looks like a Japanese-inspired green long dragon that controls the fucking weather, Bob.
neocharge: And...
Leon Lionheartly: Ooh.
neocharge: Yeah, yeah. ah So the the lore is kind of like you have Pokemon Ruby. Groudon is the title Pokemon of that. He controls the land and creates all the land masses. And then you have Pokemon Sapphire, the blue one, and that is Kyogre.
neocharge: He controls all the water. So they all created they they both created... the world of Pokemon, but then to balance them, you have Rayquaza and he controls the atmosphere and all the weather.
Leon Lionheartly: Bye.
neocharge: So just, man, we had a remake of this on 3DS Pokemon Omega Ruby and Omega Sapphire. ah they haven't got around to doing the Emerald remake yet, but dude, GBA pixel art.
neocharge: I was like a young teenager playing this game. It was Pokemon, I loved Pokemon Red, loved Pokemon Gold, and just Emerald had the the Battle Tower. it's just It's just Pokemon Pinnacles. A lot of my favorite Pokemon are from Gen 3, too.
neocharge: ah takes place in Hoenn. the region, Metagross, it's like a metal spider, ah all kinds of good Pokemon in Gen 3. So yeah, Pokemon Emerald is my favorite Pokemon game of all time and is in my top 10 games of all time at number five.
neocharge: So if you haven't played Pokemon, what the fuck are you doing with your life?
Leon Lionheartly: You're like me. You played it, but you can never really get into it, even though you recognize how good it is.
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: um
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Emerald, that'sinar true i I had a feeling you were going to go with somewhere in that i array. i would have I wouldn't have picked Emerald on the first guest. um But yeah, definitely. Pokemon, it's the number one IP of all time for a reason.
Leon Lionheartly: like
neocharge: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: There's a reason that it is.
neocharge: Yeah, gold gold is really close there.
Leon Lionheartly: Emerald.
neocharge: Real close. Like, I had to pick one, and Emerald kind of takes up the tech technology a notch and is on the Game Boy Advanced rather than the Game Boy. ah Gold is real close, though. Because, yeah.
neocharge: So.
Leon Lionheartly: That's, that's true. That's true. i could see that, man. Oh, Pokemon Emerald.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: I know I got some listeners out there who are just, like who are going love to hear that.
neocharge: Oh, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Uh, well, so number four, all right, I'm going to show, I'm going to do this, Matt. If I tell you who, what's the pinnacle or what's the, uh, progenitor of first person shooters, what's everybody's answer?
neocharge: Halo.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, I could see that. Some people would say it's Doom.
neocharge: Oh, yeah, Doom.
Leon Lionheartly: Some people would say it's Wolfenstein. um Every one of them did something to ah two advance the genre um in their own way. I think Call a Duty helped with multiplayer, right? Goldeneye helped with its ah co-op or its couch co-op multiplayer.
Leon Lionheartly: um Couch multiplayer? I don't know how you would call that, but the point is ah there was one game that
neocharge: right
Leon Lionheartly: Not only was it a first-person shooter, it was an environmental storyteller. um It had platforming, like you would with a Zelda game. okay It had storytelling that if you really tried to go down the edge and try to listen to the story, you you were you thought you were playing a Kojima game. um i This game is so near and dear to me that my son, i forced my my middle son, I forced him to play the game, and he came back and said, Dad, I'm so glad you made me play this game.
Leon Lionheartly: um i have it I have one of its symbols tattooed on my fucking arm.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: um And that's going to be the original Half-Life um from Valve.
neocharge: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: If it was not for this game, we would not have Steam. Because this game launched Valve into the stratosphere that they are in today. Um... This game, I'm telling you, if you want to talk, all it is is you are literally a science worker at a research facility underground who wakes up and is running late to work that morning and just goes and does what he's normally supposed to do when a science labt or a science experiment goes off the rails and you're and you're shoved into this world where you're now fighting extra-dimensional space creatures.
Leon Lionheartly: You're fighting aliens. You're fighting the U.S. government.
neocharge: Thank you.
Leon Lionheartly: um You're fighting all these. You just want to survive and get out. You were just there to do your fucking job that day, and you got launched into to where you're at. um and This game was so good. they created ah They created three different expansions for it, and um they are amazing, too.
Leon Lionheartly: um And the great thing about those expansions, Matt, is you don't play as the main character from the original base set. You play as they give you a perspective because they say, hey, this is an event that happened at this facility.
Leon Lionheartly: um But you weren't the only person that that was there. There were other people that are there. And these expansions give you perspective of both different sides of different ways of how things happen.
Leon Lionheartly: um And absolutely they're phenomenal. um It then launched into Team Fortress, which was a mod of that. ah launched it which you've launched this evening. Half-Life is a critical game in the industry.
Leon Lionheartly: If we didn't have it, we would not be where we are today.
neocharge: Very cool. Good old Gordon Freeman.
Leon Lionheartly: Mr. Freeman.
neocharge: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. That's another ah classic. One of the greats and yeah, it created, it made steam who they are today for sure.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: For sure. That's a good one. And you have a tattoo of it. You are not lying about that. Uh, so yeah, very cool. We're, we're, we're getting down to it, man.
neocharge: We're on number four.
Leon Lionheartly: We're getting there.
neocharge: Yep. And, uh, number four is, ah from one of my favorite IPs of all time, I'd say. ah and yeah,
Leon Lionheartly: Hmm.
neocharge: yeah It is in the vein of one of my favorite time periods. And this IP definitely goes back and explores time periods. And it's about pirates.
neocharge: And I but fucking love pirates. And I love rum. And I love everything about it. And it's one of the best pirate sims out there. talking about Assassin's Creed 4 Black Flag.
neocharge: This is my number four.
Leon Lionheartly: The best one. The best one.
neocharge: Easily. The ship combat as follows Edward Kenway. He's one of the assassins. It is part of the huge Assassin's Creed universe. If you know, you know. I'm not going to spoil it.
neocharge: and don't want to I know it's an old game, but i don't want to spoil it It came out in 2013 for the PS4 and 360. It was one of a one of the launch... It was either launch or launch window games in...
neocharge: Man, this was like a step up in graphics. It was in the Caribbean Sea. ah And it just, if you like pirates and you want to be a pirate, go play Assassin's Creed 4.
neocharge: This hasn't been remade yet, but there are huge, heavy rumors that it is being remade. And I will be there day fucking one. Everything will be put down. I would love to revisit this game.
neocharge: I played it on the 360. I played it on the PS4. Didn't platinum it on the PS4 because it had some bullshit, ah really hard multiplayer trophies that required just crazy skill against players, real players. And I didn't want to deal with that.
neocharge: ah But it's easily one of my favorite games in the the Assassin's Creed series. It's up there with Assassin's Creed 2. And Edward, his character building throughout the entire game, he he's just like this greedy pirate and then gets sucked into this crazy, awesome world of Assassin's Creed and the and what it is to be an assassin and like joins the Brotherhood and like yeah just the ship combat and the ship exploration and the graphics at the time.
neocharge: it's one of one of my favorites and Assassin's Creed for black flag. Uh, just an amazing game. Highly recommend it. If you like pirates, go play it. Maybe wait for the remake.
neocharge: Just God. It's awesome. He's one of my favorite assassins too. It's just his character development throughout the game is so cool. And the, the set pieces, it's just an awesome game. I love it.
neocharge: And I love Assassin's Creed too.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah You know, the Assassin's Creed I was not into originally. like I played the third third one, um and i but I wasn't really into it.
Leon Lionheartly: And then I saw what they did with 4, and I was like, wait, you can be a fucking pirate now? And I was sold. So I agree with you. Assassin's Creed Black Flag is the pinnacle of the AC series.
Leon Lionheartly: um I know that's a very divisive statement, but this is coming from somebody who was not of an Assassin's Creed fan and jumped in and went, oh my goodness, this is what it can provide. Um, I love to do in that dude. Remember running, ramming other ships and you're just like, you know what? Screw it.
Leon Lionheartly: I don't need the cannons and just ram the ship ahead on.
neocharge: Yep, yep. You can dive down to get sunken treasure. Anything you think of what pirates did, it's in there. And they delve deep, man. It's the best pirate game ever.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, absolutely.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: Well, here we are, man. Top three.
neocharge: Top three.
Leon Lionheartly: um These are, if you tell me my top three, these are the top three in this specific order um all day long.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: um I got to go with this. You said it earlier. going to, there's no, just take this bandaid off. This is the prequel, if you will, to Resident Evil 4.
neocharge: Thank you.
Leon Lionheartly: um And that's Resident Evil 2. um What can I say about this game? ah Dude, Matt, before the internet gave away all the secrets of a game and you could look them up on launch day, I didn't know that there were certain secret modes within Resident Evil 2.
Leon Lionheartly: So I beat that game so many times. I unlocked the Tofu survival mode and thought, wait a minute, that's a fucking joke, right? Because you had to beat the game no less than six times.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: um i I played this game so much, I knew every angle of it. um This game, the os so this is what I'll say. The old school one is the tank controls, and I understand why somebody might not enjoy them.
Leon Lionheartly: So if you cannot get past the tank controls, Capcom released the Resident Evil 2 remake, and And i don't want to say it's a superior version, but I do want to say it is a damn, damn good version of Resident Evil 2.
Leon Lionheartly: ah he gives everything. It's a love letter to the original while expanding upon some ideas and bringing it into the modern world. Um, But yeah, this is where Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield got their start.
Leon Lionheartly: um I could tell you anything and everything about this game. At least from the gameplay-wise, I played it so much. And Ada Wong is my girl. She always will be.
neocharge: Oh yeah. Uh, this was Leon's breakout game. Uh, it's probably my, my second favorite. Honestly, the remake is awesome. It goes on a third person behind the shoulder like four did, uh,
neocharge: The tank controls in two, just like one and three little tough. Uh, but two has just an awesome story, different playthroughs. You can play as Leon or Claire. Uh, it's, it's pinnacle survival horror resident evil for sure.
neocharge: For sure. Yeah. That's a good one. I love it. I knew you, I knew it was going to be on your list. I knew it.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, you knew it, right?
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah. And at top three don't really change for us, honestly. Like my top three have been like this, for a while for about a decade now. But, uh, my third one, uh, is more recent than you think.
neocharge: And it's, uh, It was one of the new IPs from PlayStation for the PlayStation 4 and Guerrilla Games deviated from something they are very ah used to doing, which is Killzone.
neocharge: And they gave us this fucking awesome post-apocalyptic third-person action adventure where you're using an elemental bow and arrow to fight robot dinosaurs.
neocharge: as Aloy. And I'm of course talking about horizon zero Dawn, uh, horizon forbidden West is the optimal game.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: It's the, it's the more technologically advanced game. It was my game of the year. Horizon zero Dawn was my game of the year. This came out in 2017. Uh, just a new IP from PS4. PS4 had some banger new IPs, including death stranding.
neocharge: Uh, But yeah, Horizon Zero Dawn. I was sold on this game. I went to PSX and played it early that year. ah Robot dinosaurs. And you have no fucking clue why you're in this world.
neocharge: And then they explain what's going on. And you're like, holy shit. This is the coolest, most original fucking awesome story ever.
neocharge: And Zero Dawn creeped above Forbidden West because it was just that impact of the story ah that hit me. our Forbidden West system ah is the more technologically advanced...
neocharge: better playing game. It's incredible, but zero Dawn man holds a special place in my heart. Uh, one of the best I, one of best original IPs on PlayStation. It is, it is my favorite original IP of PlayStation up there with uncharted and God of war. Uh,
neocharge: But man, it's a, it's an awesome game with Aloy and just everything is explained why things are going the way they are.
neocharge: It's just fun combat. You have a bow and arrow with all kinds of elemental arrows uh, chipping away at these, uh, machines and it's just so fun.
neocharge: So, and, uh, I, I say God of war, uh, God of war three is up there for me too. I forgot to mention that, but we're in our top two. So yeah, God of war three is incredible. Uh, I love God of war, but horizon, my favorite IP on PlayStation.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: It's in my top three and it's crazy because it hit my top three like a decade ago. Uh, so, it It cracked it. I love Horizon. haven't got around to playing the remake yet or remaster because it was on the heels of Forbidden West. and I don't know. It's special to me and I really want to dedicate my time to that.
neocharge: And i fired it up and it runs beautifully. It looks beautiful. And I would, I would dive back into it. Uh, but I already like experienced it. Right.
neocharge: And some of those games you don't, you don't want to touch. Right.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: So yeah. Horizon zero dawn.
Leon Lionheartly: that's so That's a good choice, man.
neocharge: So good.
Leon Lionheartly: I agree with you. Horizon is the best Sony, original Sony IP that has come out in a long time.
neocharge: Mm.
Leon Lionheartly: um I'm sorry. God of War is a great, and I like what they did, But the story that's enriched and the intrigue and the world building and the gameplay with Horizon, there's you there are certain games that come along, and that this game should be on my top 10, but you can only have so many slots.
Leon Lionheartly: the Horizon is one of the few games that come along and it resonates with you in a certain way where you go, wow. whole. Wow. That's why Claire's on this list, because it resonated with me in a certain way.
neocharge: yeah
Leon Lionheartly: um And yeah I definitely agree. um Zero Dawn is one of the... the I understand that Forbidden West is technologically ah better playing game, but Zero Dawn is where it started.
Leon Lionheartly: And it holds a special place for that reason.
neocharge: Yep, exactly.
Leon Lionheartly: Well, Matt, you know, it's funny you mentioned this. You know what game is an original of its of its ah of the start ah the of what it became? And it resonated with me so much that while the sequels later on arguably are probably better, it doesn't matter because the original is where it all started for me.
neocharge: It hit you, right?
Leon Lionheartly: You talk about the story and the oh my god.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: That's this game. Yeah. ah PlayStation 1, stealth action espionage from the Kojima god himself, and that's Metal Gear Solid.
neocharge: Yeah. Hell yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: um I knew a kid in and high school that I went to school with. He tried to write an English paper about the story.
Leon Lionheartly: he got He got told he had to cut it down because he got to 23 pages.
neocharge: Oh, I bet.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. um yeah If you don't know Metal Gear Solid, then I don't know what you what you're doing listening to this podcast. I'm sorry. I don't mean to be mean. I don't mean to be condescending. um But Kojima is where he's at now because of, quite frankly, this game. I know he has police s knots and Zone of the Enders, um but this game launched him into the stratosphere.
Leon Lionheartly: um This game, i don't want to say too much because... yeah There are certain things about this game that if I told you and kind of somewhat explained, it would ruin the impact of what could happen.
Leon Lionheartly: Um... i remember I played this game so many times. a I know it so well. um I get two and three are more popular, but there's something about that original and the story, the way it kind of changes every time and you think you know what's going on and then, oh, you're like, oh, shit. Psych.
Leon Lionheartly: Plot twist. um That's Metal Gear Solid. um And I think the underlying themes of ah that it's trying to say, um which I guess I could say without really spoiling it,
Leon Lionheartly: um which is about legacy and you're in your ah ah in your immortality, if you will, but the legacy that you drive on and being an individual, living your own life. um they were They resonated with me really, really deep, man.
Leon Lionheartly: um So much that's kind of why I joined the army. i
neocharge: Wow.
Leon Lionheartly: was tired I was tired of doing things that people told me I had to do um or that I should be doing. So I said, fuck it, I'm going to do something different. And hu lo and behold, I became a soldier.
neocharge: That's awesome. Yeah, it's one of the greats. ah i My favorite of the series is the remake of one, Twin Snakes on GameCube. ah But one is where I think like Kojima skyrocketed, like you said.
neocharge: And man, ah what can I say? I have the black label. You were there when David Hayter signed it. ah It's one of my favorites too. Not my top 10 though.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah i I get it.
neocharge: But yeah. I don't know.
Leon Lionheartly: I totally understand. Yeah.
neocharge: That's why I was like, dude, you haven't played Death Stranding? Aren't you like a huge Kojima fan? Do you know like it's a Kojima game? you you've You found out.
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: Yeah, Metal Gear Solid. I knew that was on your list. Very good. ah Number two, which, man... Oh, dude, this is so hard.
neocharge: Like not number one and two, three, even top five. Like it's so hard picking your top 10. And I really i hate picking favorites. I really do, because all these games offer unique experiences. Like I didn't even talk about Uncharted 4 or God of War 3.
neocharge: Like these are up there, too. And I love them so much. Uh, but it's so hard to pick that list. Uh, not the top three though. My top three haven't changed. My top two haven't changed in a while.
neocharge: Uh, and number two, i mean, shit, you, if you know me, you know, I absolutely love this game. We recently got a remake as well. It was broken up into three parts.
neocharge: Uh, it's one of my favorite IPs of all time. Other than my, it's my second favorite IP of all time. Other than my first IP, which is on the, the number one spot. Uh, but I'm court, of course I'm talking about cloud strife, Barrett Wallace, Tifa Lockhart, Eric Gainsborough.
neocharge: We're talking about final fantasy seven.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Yeah, yeah. I mean, walk way I mean, what can I say? Like Final Fantasy seven is just one of the greatest games of all time. One of it. I originally played on the PC.
neocharge: ah I saw it in a GameStop and I was like, oh, yeah, Final Fantasy. Let's check this out. ah And I played it on the PC. Didn't even know you could change the graphics settings, so I played it really pixelated on my Windows when I was like 11, 12, 13 old or something like that.
Leon Lionheartly: Holy crap.
neocharge: And i fell in love. It was one of the first games I ever... One of the first RPGs I ever played. I think it was the first RPG I ever played. And i think that's really serendipitous. That's awesome.
neocharge: But dude, it's just a grand adventure. you You start out as Cloud Strife, the mercenary for hire. He's with Barrett Wallace. You're just... you're in Midgar, you're going to bomb this reactor and the entire, you think the entire game happens in Midgar, but then it's like, please insert this too.
neocharge: And they're like, oh, okay. And then, ho, world map fucking opens up and you're like, what the hell is going on? And you see Midgar is just like a little spot on the map and you're like, holy shit.
neocharge: And you start as a mercenary for hire and then you find out so much about why you're the way you are, your history, who all's involved,
neocharge: And you meet one of the greatest villains of all time, in my opinion, Sephiroth. And he has some pretty crazy motivations. And i'm I'm definitely not going to spoil this game because ah the third part of the remake is coming out. Reborn, I think it's what going to be called.
neocharge: um Final Fantasy VII Remake was my game of the year. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the second of the series, was my game of the year. I think those two games complement the original.
neocharge: The original is still my favorite. I have the black label of this. I actually have the misprint. It's one of the rarest copies out there. ah And dude, Cloud Strife is my favorite.
neocharge: character of all time in video games. He's my number one. I have just a, just relate with him so much. Uh, I can't say why because it's a spoiler for the game, but, uh, we're, uh, we all have our, uh, issues in life.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Let's just say that. Um, um, Yeah, I relate with what happened to him and just the story. It starts so small, but so grand when you think it's so grand. But then it like you're like, oh this story is awesome and it's huge. But then it gets gigantic.
neocharge: And you're like this person trying to save the world. And all the characters, the whole cast, I can name them off first and last names. Red 13, one of the greats, Vincent Valentine, Yuffie Kisaragi, if I'm pronouncing her name right. Sid Highwind, Kate Sith, just...
neocharge: incredible it's my favorite final fantasy game of all time uh final fantasy is final fantasy is my second favorite ip of all time i could literally take an entire podcast and gush about this game and tell you why you should play it uh go play the remake if you haven't and if you love that you'll love rebirth and you'll be super excited and uh whatever year reborn or whatever the next one comes out.
neocharge: It's going my game of the year. i already know it. ah Rebirth came out in April and I was like, this is my game of the year. Nothing's going to top it. ah And it didn't... it was it was It remained my game of the year.
Leon Lionheartly: Man.
neocharge: And Claire Obscure is actually heavily inspired by this game. So Final Fantasy VII, man. It's just shit. It's like neck and neck with my with my top one.
neocharge: ah It's just neck and neck. Those are... all the way up there. They'll never, but but never be touched. So that is my second. We are.
Leon Lionheartly: and
neocharge: Yeah. Yeah. You've played it. You love it.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, i love I love Final Fantasy VII. I think it is an amazing game. um there are are from a personal I have my own personal, like, and why it's not on my list. But ultimately, at the end of the day, i I really do enjoy this game.
Leon Lionheartly: I think if it wasn't for VII, we wouldn't have a lot of the RPGs that we have today um in terms of ah moving to the 3D realm, right?
neocharge: it.
Leon Lionheartly: um There was Beyond the Beyond and things like that, but nothing really hit until VII struck.
neocharge: Yeah, exactly. like It was the first entry into 3D for Final Fantasy. like We went from pixel art turn-based with Final Fantasy VI to ah it's kind of a turn-based hybrid. I guess VI was a little hybrid too, but it was just 3D.
neocharge: It was unprecedented. I think the jump from SNES to or the first PS1 from my... or the first p s one from i PS1 was the first one or ah or Sega Saturn to Sega dream or Genesis to Dreamcast.
neocharge: I think that was the biggest jump in gaming history. We went from pixel art 2D two d to three d models. And it just blew your mind when you first saw it.
neocharge: And Final Fantasy VII was one of those games, including Ocarina of Time on the heels of A Link to the Past. ah Just, I think, 98 was, then like the late 90s was the best time for video games, hands down.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, yeah. i i would I would absolutely agree with you on that one.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: um And the reason I say that is because of my number one game came out in the mid to late 90s.
neocharge: Oh, and... Nice.
Leon Lionheartly: um Anybody that knows me know he probably knows this game but or knows that this is no surprise, right? um We talk about Claire and Final Fantasy VII, inspiring Claire.
Leon Lionheartly: um People talk about so a certain... aspect of the gameplay, Matt of Claire, with the dodge and parry mechanics. Dodge and parry mechanics are not unique to RPGs, my friend.
Leon Lionheartly: They have a progenitor, an origin point. um This game is the love child. People talk about Chrono Trigger being the love child of multiple great minds within the industry coming together.
Leon Lionheartly: This one I think is better. than Obviously, I think it's better because it's ah number one on my list. I think this does it better. This is the love child of what happened when you mixed the old Square, not Square so ah Enix, but Square Soft team and combined them with the Nintendo team to create something.
Leon Lionheartly: We have names like Yoko Shimomura who wrote the music for this. You know what she went on to do?
neocharge: What?
Leon Lionheartly: Kingdom Hearts.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: We have Kensuke Tanabe. We have Miyamoto, the the man himself, involved with this game.
neocharge: Oh. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: um There are many people that came along with this. to And this was right before Square became Square Enix.
neocharge: It's a match of two of the greatest developers of all time, right?
Leon Lionheartly: um And that's...
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, absolutely.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: um And that's that's coming together. i have a ah roof copy of it. I have a custom case thanks to you. I have the guidebook from 96 that talks about this game.
Leon Lionheartly: um This game, when it re-released onto the Switch and they did a remaster, was my game that year because like I love this game that much. um And that's Super Mario RPG's Legend of the Seven Stars. Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: This game is... What can I say? I know anything about this. This game was fun. It was great because you're like, oh, it's a Mario game. It's an RPG game. Let's see what happens. And you literally start the game going to save Princess Peach from Bowser. The first five minutes of the game is typical, we're going to go do this. And then it gets churned on its head.
Leon Lionheartly: I don't want to spoil too much, but then eventually it turns on its head and now all of a sudden Mario is stuck in this grand adventure to help restore... The Star Road.
Leon Lionheartly: The Star Road, as in the same Star Road from Super Mario World. um So this thing references other Mario RPGs. There are references to other Nintendo properties in here. There's Easter eggs to things like um as um sorry so a Link. You can find Link in the game if you know what you're doing.
Leon Lionheartly: he's He's sleeping. um
neocharge: And Samus.
Leon Lionheartly: You've got... f Oh, Anne? Samus as well. You have Star Fox references in here. You have F-Zero references in here.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: um This is what happens when developers are allowed to have fun. um I can tell you, this game is one of the only games that I think is the it is the closest to a true 10 out of 10, objectively.
Leon Lionheartly: And I mean that because the music is great. I've never come across all of a sudden crashes on me. therere a the you it's old It's old school 16-bit, but even then, I would never talk about the frame rates ah in that generation, um which, by the way, are still solid.
Leon Lionheartly: um The only thing that came up with that game that I do not like to this day is one part of a game design, and that's getting... um Remember the 1,000 jump ropes in Final Fantasy IX, Matt?
neocharge: uh
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. yeah How about doing 1,000 jumps? Yeah. in a row, or I mean, a hundred super jumps, I'm sorry, a hundred super jumps in a row where you have to press the timing perfectly and you're in a rhythm and you got to do it and you got to do it and you got to do it. And then you know what you get? You get an, you get an okay accessory.
Leon Lionheartly: Some argue it's the best. I don't think so because you don't need it to beat the game. Um, I can, I can tell you where to find every secret item.
neocharge: ah
Leon Lionheartly: I can tell you every secret trope about this game. Um, there are references upon references, you know, you can fight the power rangers. Um,
neocharge: What? No.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, they're not called the Power Rangers, but you can fight the Power Rangers.
neocharge: Wow.
Leon Lionheartly: And they all have their own little personality. um I could go on and I could make a podcast about this game, um to be quite honest. um But yeah, this is this is where a lot of RPGs get their inspiration from.
Leon Lionheartly: With timed hits and the way they do their exploration and music and saving. Like everything about this game influenced some sort of an RPG later on down the line.
Leon Lionheartly: um And that's why it'll always be number my number one.
neocharge: Yep, and recently got remade for the Switch.
Leon Lionheartly: Yes, it did. Yes, it did.
neocharge: Yeah, I hope it gets patched. That'd be cool. Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: a i You know what? I got to fire it up on the Switch, too. how I might do that now.
neocharge: Yeah. Uh, incredible. Yeah. It's your favorite game of time. I, I got you that case and yeah, this is never probably going to be topped for you. Uh, you gush about this game and I love it and it's a mesh of Nintendo and square Enix.
neocharge: Uh, and what can I say? I've played it. Uh, never beat it though. It's really tough. It's really, really tough game, but I, I love that you're super passionate about it.
neocharge: And that's your number one.
Leon Lionheartly: Yep. yeahp
neocharge: Number one. ah My number one, like I said, it's neck and neck with Final Fantasy VII. But it's my favorite IP of all time.
neocharge: I played it when I was very young. I played the games before it when I was very young. And this game, I feel like, perfected the genre. It went dark and gritty ah from Ocarina of Time. It's heavily inspired by Ocarina of Time.
neocharge: And not like I said, in this in the IPs, Ocarina of Time and this game are neck and neck. ah it Follows Link, of course. And it took Zelda down a dark turn in the veins of Majora's Mask.
neocharge: And I'm, of course, talking about The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess. Originally released on the GameCube. And then it was remade. i It launched on the GameCube, optimized, and then they ported it to the Wii.
neocharge: It was a Wii release title. And then they remade it for the Wii U. And I'm waiting for them to remake it for the Switch or potentially the Switch 2.
neocharge: ah Third person action adventure following our boy Link ah needs to save Zelda in the world of Hyrule. And i think it just took heavy inspiration Ocarina of Time Provence.
neocharge: it was more modern, uh, beautiful game. Uh, probably doesn't hold up today, but I, it probably does. And a big twist. And one of the reasons it's, uh, my top favorite game of all time, because it's in my top IP of all time, Zelda, uh, is you can turn into a wolf.
neocharge: ah Because when you go into the Twilight Realm, you turn into a wolf. And ah I know it's so cliche, but a wolf is my favorite animal. I am Digital Wolf on some of the gaming platforms other than Neo Charge. A lot of my handles for emails, Digital Wolf.
neocharge: I'm a huge fan of wolves. Love the... the animal and my favorite IP of all time. i will never forget Uh, they showed the trailer for the legend of Zelda and they showed him turn into a wolf and I lost my shit.
neocharge: Uh, I got it on launch. I got it for the game cube and the, we played it immediately, fell in love. And this game just holds a special place in my heart.
neocharge: And It's probably because after I went through what I went through when I was 20, I was recovering.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah. Yeah.
neocharge: And this game is part of why I fought for my life to play it. If that's weird. I fought for my life, of course, for friends and family, right?
Leon Lionheartly: yeah
neocharge: Primarily. But i was like, holy shit, i I get to play this game. I did it. I survived one of the most deadly fucking diseases on the planet. at 20 and now I get to play this game and I really related to what link went through in twilight princess.
neocharge: Uh, it might not be the best game in the series. It's very divisive if it, if it it if it is the best game in the series, but these lists are, uh, specific to us and if it holds a special place in your heart for nostalgic reasons or what you were going through at the time, ah this game holds it and will never be topped.
neocharge: And I played it three times. I played the remake. It's just, it's Zelda. And yeah, what can I say? It's my favorite IP of all time. Favorite game of all time.
neocharge: Twilight Princess. And it was inspired by Ocarina of Time, which is easily second favorite Zelda of all time. ah very Some very unique dungeons.
neocharge: And it's a huge game. And it's fun to play. It still looks good to this day, I think. It's not an RPG. People say it's an RPG. Zelda is not an RPG.
neocharge: It's a third-person action-adventure full stop. Okay?
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you.
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Thank you. It's action adventure.
neocharge: It's not an RPG. I've played many RPGs and I played Zelda. Okay. Uh, yeah. And it's super dark. A lot of what happens, like it dives into death, which was very prominent on my mind at the time because I had survived. Uh, and yeah, I, it's just, yeah.
neocharge: Twilight princess is, uh, my top favorite game of all time. And it won't be, won't be topped. If that ever releases on switch to God, I'm there day one, man. Um,
neocharge: Yeah. you haven't played it, go play Ocarina of Time first because it it is inspired heavily by Ocarina of Time. ah But that last boss fight on Twilight Princess, no spoilers.
neocharge: Holy shit. It took Zelda and took it to 11 and put it in the next generation with ah like what it was. I'd say it's the best GameCube game cube game it released on GameCube. We ah But it was like the best game on the GameCube and was like our the last of us on PS3 to what GameCube was.
neocharge: And it just was optimized. So, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Planet the Sisters, man. Loved it. You played it. You beat it multiple times. I know you're a huge Zelda fan. one of the greats.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, absolutely. this is I'm i'm so glad um not surprised. at and This is a very, very solid game. um ah I'm glad that it's near and dear to you. That's a good example of what I mean by these top 10 lists.
Leon Lionheartly: our day It's about the meaning that comes into play and what what it holds in your heart. i mean You're right. That story is dark. i I don't want to spoil the yeah, some of the themes and things that go in there, some of those cut scenes, I'm like, wait, this is Nintendo?
neocharge: Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Like, that's kind of like not Nintendo publishing, but, or allowing on your platform, but this is Nintendo developed.
neocharge: yep Yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: Are you sure about that? Um, yeah This is definitely... i know I know why people absolutely love this game. um i can i I see why it's absolutely your favorite.
Leon Lionheartly: and then there's if it ever takes it If it's ever taken off the top of your list, i would be I'd be shocked. Like, royally shocked ah that that ever happened.
neocharge: yeah It has one of the best soundtracks. ah Just, yeah. It's an incredible game that is amazing. Yeah, so dark.
neocharge: And you're like, holy shit! Because I was 21, 22 at the time I played it. Coming off some shit in life. Let's just say that. i don't want to go into details, but yeah.
neocharge: It was a
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: an emergence game for me.
Leon Lionheartly: Uh-huh.
neocharge: And it was my favorite IP of all time. I loved Ocarina of time and it just, yeah. Hit me different, man. Hit me different. So yeah, there they are.
Leon Lionheartly: Well, hi there they are, the top 10. Obviously, this this ah list is subject to change because Claire ended up on my list. So there's a this can happen at moment's notice.
Leon Lionheartly: But, you know, well, speaking of...
neocharge: Yeah. um I was going to say, I just, I really hate picking favorites.
Leon Lionheartly: What's that?
neocharge: I really do. Every game offers something unique. I didn't even mention Bioshock. Like, God, just, yeah.
Leon Lionheartly: All right, so let me put you on there. Bioshock, Fallout, Civilization, Goldeneye, Wild Arms, Octopath Traveler, um and that's not even touching anything that's Sony-related IPs, Directly-related.
neocharge: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: You could have the Ratchet and Clank, you could have the Crash Bandicoot, you could have the Spyro, you could have the... like There are so many games, and that was the problem going down this list. ah was
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: wait How do I sort this? like Maybe if we...
neocharge: Right? dead Dead Space. Super Mario Galaxy.
Leon Lionheartly: Yes.
neocharge: like Final Fantasy IX. It's in the same vein. Final Fantasy XVI. I don't care. I love XVI.
Leon Lionheartly: Fantasy X.
neocharge: yeah Oh, Final Fantasy ten Shit. Pokemon Gold, like I was saying.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah.
neocharge: Borderlands 2.
Leon Lionheartly: Mm-hmm.
neocharge: Come on, that's your other tattoo.
Leon Lionheartly: Yeah, that's the other tattoo I have on here. Borderlands 2. um Halo. We mentioned it earlier, but Halo 3 is one of my favorite shooters of all time.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: like
neocharge: Right.
Leon Lionheartly: That's where it becomes really hard, and I took this list at the angle of, all right, what holds the low? Where do I have some of the best memories playing?
neocharge: right
Leon Lionheartly: um And yeah, that's kind of but's that's where we ended up. But yeah, that's the problem with these top 10 lists. um But that's why the top three never change, or haven't changed. i'm not going to say never, but haven't changed in 20 fucking years.
neocharge: Exactly. Exactly. And like I mean, Hey, you guys see how hard it is for yourselves. Throw your top 10 in the discord. Let's hear what you have to say. Let's have a conversation on it. We want to hear from you guys.
neocharge: Your top three are easy. Your top five are a little tough. Put your top 10 in there and see how hard it is. Okay? It's, ah like I said, each game offers such a unique experience and it has such they're such unique stories. I'll tell you what, I didn't have it in any of my top, I'd say even 25, PvP.
neocharge: tvvp No PvP games.
Leon Lionheartly: Mm-hmm. huh
neocharge: They're all narrative-driven, single-player, usually third-person action or RPG. So I do know that about myself. But yeah, have picking the top 10 was very, very tough.
neocharge: We did our best, and I hope you enjoyed it. And yeah, that's going to put a put a pin in it for episode 10. Did you have fun? That was fun. I liked it.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, absolutely, man. I love it. um I love it. Yes. Like you said, I want to hear people's top 10 lists. I love this kind of a thing. I love because you're going to get it in perspective. That's what's the great thing about video games is they are so subjective.
neocharge: Yep.
Leon Lionheartly: Um, that I would love to see people's list. Cause I can, I, we could see a smash brothers on there for all I know.
neocharge: Mm-hmm.
Leon Lionheartly: And I would love to get that perspective because that tells me when you get, when I tell you, um, give me your top five, um, that tells me the kind of games and the idea of where you come from. So that way, when I'm talking to you later and I say, Hey, I think you may really like this game.
Leon Lionheartly: I can give you a recommendation on it. Um, but yeah, man, that's,
neocharge: Exactly.
neocharge: Exactly.
Leon Lionheartly: Oh, that's a, that's a good one on there. That's a good wrap. I could probably continue to talk about it. Um, but yeah, they I'm so glad we did this and, ah maybe we'll do another top list or something.
Leon Lionheartly: Maybe we'll come up with something crazy, crazy or later down the line.
neocharge: Yep. We're only on 10 and it only goes up from here. And we're not planning on stopping anytime soon. So um we really appreciate ah all of you listening. And ah thanks for sticking around. Like we said, we really want to hear your top 10 games. so So throw it up in Discord. If you're not part of Discord, please join. It's a fun little community. We just pretty much talk games all the time there.
neocharge: ah Yeah, we've had fun. We've ah drank some good beers, talked about some amazing, incredible games. And ah thanks for hanging out with us.
Leon Lionheartly: Bye, everybody.
