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Episode 1
14 Plays4 months ago
Introductions, HI-Fi Rush, Borderlands and TGA, FF7 Rebirth and Dragon Age Veilguard, and the state of gaming in 2024
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:01
Shameer Mehdikhan
All right, what's up, everyone? This is Detroit Game Stairs, episode one. Well, technically episode three, but it's been a while since we were last doing this. So ah a little bit of background information. My
Origins of Gaming Passion
00:00:13
Shameer Mehdikhan
name is Shamir. And, you know, I've been a gamer my whole life, really into anime.
00:00:18
Shameer Mehdikhan
do some fiction writing on the side, really interested in mental health. And that's my day job. But you know as I've gotten older, I've wanted to kind of you know spend more time talking about games, talking about the things that motivate me, inspire me. And I found myself hitting up my buddy a lot on the phone and chatting. And we thought, you know why don't we try and make this a little bit more ah professional and you know just throw it up online. So that's why we decided to put this together.
Gaming Community Evolution
00:00:46
Shameer Mehdikhan
Yeah, and similar to my buddy Shamir, I've loved gaming since I was a child, very sentimental to it. And you know I just think it's about time we start talking about it in a space that um we can get a lot more conversations going. And I feel like it's a great time more than ever to talk about it because it's so important in modern society. so Yeah, and I feel like you know growing up, we had like our crew of gamers. you know We grew up on you know Halo, Call of Duty, all those shooters, 360, PS3.
00:01:12
Shameer Mehdikhan
as we've gotten older a lot of the people that we used to play with are too busy you know working and with family or this or that but you know we still find some time to game here and there and if if we're not gaming we're at least keeping up with news so uh yeah and you know seeing that this is the end of 2024 we thought it would be good to start off by just talking about what games we've been playing this year what games we're excited about you know what's going on in the news place and uh Yeah, you know what we're excited for.
Hi-Fi Rush Impact
00:01:40
Shameer Mehdikhan
So yeah, maybe I'll turn it over to Arjun. So tell me, when you look back at 2024, what gaming stories or games really, you know, really grabbed your attention? Yeah, it's been a kind of an exciting year. I'll say that for sure. I mean, it's one of those years where it took me a while to get back into gaming. I'm always on and off. There's always an ebbs and flows for me and my life because
00:02:00
Shameer Mehdikhan
job as an engineer. um But honestly, like one of the games I got into this year was Hi-Fi Rush and Borderlands 3, one being very old and one being very unique for the Microsoft platform. And honestly, everyone has heard about the studio getting shuttered down. and then getting some life and getting resuscitated back to life there. So, you know, it's really interesting because I used to be an Xbox fanboy for so long and then things changed, um you know, the way Microsoft decided to kind of approach their gaming strategy. And I think Hi-Fi Rush is such a great, great game. It's so artistic. It's so creative. It was made by a very small team. It's not very long at all. It's not very hard, but
00:02:45
Shameer Mehdikhan
It's there's enough packed in there where when they shadow drop this game everyone was quite surprised and I didn't have a whole lot of faith at Microsoft at the time because a lot of the games that I cared about like Halo and Gears really weren't coming out anymore and I know I can I kind of sound like the typical, hypocritical Xbox fanboy because those are the games that were coming out on the initial years of the Xbox One. And then I said, I want something new. And then as soon as something new came out, I was like, I don't want this. Yeah, I didn't play it for the longest time until I had to harass you to play it. So that game was great, honestly. I beat it in a pretty short period. It was on my mind. It hooked me really quickly.
00:03:23
Shameer Mehdikhan
I love the game mechanics. I love that there was some depth to the story, but it wasn't so complex. I feel like that depth really like gradually like, you know, spoiler alert, the game has been out for Game Pass for such a long time. So if you haven't played it, that really you should you should go play. like What's your excuse? But no, ah I was surprised like near the end of the story, like when Chai, the main character, has to you know kind of, I remember there was that scene where there was like that force field, you actually have to be really introspective, and I was like, well, like what is this? like There's a whole character arc and everything. I thought it was just like your your typical like idiotic like male stereotypical figure that you see in Family Guy and American Dad and everything, but there was actually a nice character arc that Chai did not expect that at all. And they even addressed that later towards the end of the game, where when you talk to one of the other characters,
00:04:13
Shameer Mehdikhan
they say try you've grown up like you've really changed and that's over a span of maybe seven hours and it feels so quick but it's like it feels like it's earned yeah and it actually felt like even though probably in game world like not that much time had elapsed but it's it's a sign of a good story where you feel like it's been a journey I like it's been a hero's dream like these guys have been we empty these robots forever. And by the end of it, like it felt cathartic, like it felt earned. you know and when you And it's been a while since I've played it, so I don't remember the final boss, but I remember there were some really good boss fights in that game. Yeah,
Merits of Hi-Fi Rush
00:04:44
Shameer Mehdikhan
the boss fights were kind of off the chart, and I feel like this is one of those games that are perfect for like a boss rush mode.
00:04:49
Shameer Mehdikhan
I think they actually just made, ah well I don't know if it's a Bosch Rush Mode, but I know they added some DLC stuff. like yeah free updates of Yeah, and they definitely had some of those modes where you could like, you know, try to quickly finish levels, get higher scores, ah better performances on your like the combats and stuff like that. Very similar to like what they did with Final Fantasy 16 and Devil May Cry, where you're trying to earn a better score. And I feel like A lot of games are also doing this for the streaming yeah like um an era now. like Everyone loves to watch games on Twitch, wherever. And they're like, yeah, I want to see, how do you add replayability into these games? And I feel like they did it. But it's it's nice that they were able to make that work, because I feel like this is the type of game I would play on my 360, like in a modern age. But they were able to still have those modern sensibilities, like that work for the streaming age. yeah So it was kind of like a nice blend, like even
00:05:38
Shameer Mehdikhan
And now I think about it, like the gameplay wasn't this like crazy phonetic action at first, but then as you got more and more into it, then that craziness came in, you know, then like that layer to the combat came in. And so you got a little bit of the best of the both worlds. Cause I feel like nowadays games are so hectic and there's so much to learn and you know, and you really have to be very good at gaming to do good in modern games. Right. But.
00:06:05
Shameer Mehdikhan
So hi-fi rush to me seemed both approachable, but also complex. Yes, exactly. there like It was easy to get into, and it could be as easy or as complex as you wanted it to be. you know And that's why I want to talk a little bit more about the studio too. you know I think it was a disservice that like I'm sure Microsoft had to go through a lot to figure out who they wanted to cut, who they wanted to lay off, and if they wanted to go piecemeal by going to every studio and saying, you're going to lose a percentage of percentage here, or you'd just shut her down one studio. And obviously, everyone is kind of going through tough
Microsoft's Gaming Strategy
00:06:34
Shameer Mehdikhan
times, or especially but Software companies in general, but you know, it's just sad because this was such a divergence from the games They typically created at Tango games work with all these horror games and to see this and to kind of branch out Like I kind of look at this as I look at Pentamint right that studio saying here's a small um Set of resources. I want you to go off and do your own. yeah Well, I feel like and I know we've talked about this before but when you look at all of Microsoft Studios, right like
00:07:00
Shameer Mehdikhan
Some of those studios, you would think maybe they would have canceled them by now, like, you know, uh, you know, when it comes to state of decay or hell blade or things like that. But I think a lot of these studios actually have multiple projects cooking. So I, when I, when I first heard the news about high-fi rush, it just made no sense to me at all. Right. But now that I think about it, I feel like they did the calculation on how much more profit they can make from high-fi rush to the game development time, they felt like that wasn't worth the investment. They didn't have other projects that were on the back burner that were maybe halfway through because they just released their other games like Ghostwire Tokyo and things like that. They probably looked at how popular Evil Within it is and Ghostwire Tokyo is and then they're like, you know what, it's not going to be worth the investment. While some of these other studios, you know, and I know we've talked about Hellblade and before and how we feel about it, but they got some other stuff cooking, right? So then
00:07:50
Shameer Mehdikhan
If those games are halfway into the development, then it might not be as worthwhile to cut the studio. So I think as an outside as a gamer, when we see some of these decisions that Sony or Microsoft or other people make, it's really hard for us to fathom it. But we have to keep in mind that they know about their secret projects. They know about how far along those are are in development too, right?
00:08:10
Shameer Mehdikhan
It just sucks as a gamer because it's so rare just across all of media, whether it's books, TVs, movies, whatever. It's so rare to get something that's new and fresh and it lands. Yeah, because everything feels.
00:08:25
Shameer Mehdikhan
like repeated or recycled, right? And high-fi rush, even it felt like a worthy spiritual successor, right? As opposed to
Financial Viability of Games
00:08:33
Shameer Mehdikhan
just recycled content. Exactly, right? Like I said, as fresh as new. And a part of that comes back to Microsoft's strategy and, you know, not to go off too much on a tangent, but the fact that they're already behind Sony and obviously even Nintendo in terms of brand IP.
00:08:47
Shameer Mehdikhan
everything that they have, it's more of they can't take as many risks and they can't take that many more chances. But they have been very open and free with a lot of their developers in-house studios. So it's not like they haven't went to some other studios and say, go ahead and try and make your own thing. Obviously, what was the game ever? What was the Everwild or? Oh, you're talking about Rare with Everwild? Rare. yeah And they're still giving them opportunities to like, do their thing without shuttering them. It's just that At the end of the day, bottom line is like you have to be able to make money from this project eventually. And this wasn't a game that was greenlit with a sequel in mind either. They just started contemplating it after the game was released. And it would still take years to create. So that's just way too long. The juice probably isn't worth the sweep. I think it's like a testament to how how much people love that game because
00:09:32
Shameer Mehdikhan
I remember when that game came out in 2023, I was like, man, people are not giving this game the respect it deserves. And people aren't talking about this as much. I feel like it's just the Xbox fanboys who were talking about it. Everyone's shooting them down online. But clearly it was a very loved game. It had a ball of the IP that was canceled and forgotten. you know Someone swooped in to save this one. yeah And they I think I even read an article somewhere where ah the the company that bought the team, they don't actually think Hi-Fi Rush 2 is going to be financially viable, but they were like, this is too good of a gem for us to let it die, right? Which goes to show you that
00:10:07
Shameer Mehdikhan
you know, sometimes what you see in the internet isn't always reflected across,
Industry Evolution
00:10:11
Shameer Mehdikhan
you know, hyper stuff yeah especially other studios and other developers, because we don't know what people in the industry are thinking of their peers. Right. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's, that's definitely the case. Um, I just think that like, again, I don't want to say it's a shame, but it was probably a very tough decision. I think as an Xbox fan board, like that's one thing that really made me lose my steam this year. Like when I go into, you know, when I reflect back You know, I've I started off with the original Xbox and then 360 was my next one. And then I only switched over to PlayStation when Killzone came out. So I've always had Xbox like dear to my heart. And we've all been through the Xbox fanboys in the last couple of generations. But this year in particular just left me with so many mixed feelings because I'm oddly optimistic and nihilistic about the future. Right. Because
00:11:01
Shameer Mehdikhan
I feel like my identity as an Xbox console owner has dramatically changed, right? We don't have, I mean, Xbox console exclusives are gone forever, right? The console wars are pretty much dead. i don't I'm not trying to be hyperbolic when I say it, it's just because the three have decided to be in different lanes, right? They're competing in different ways now, not the way they used to, right? And especially the news of, you know, HiFi Rush and that studio, when we finally had something where I was like finally, you know,
00:11:31
Shameer Mehdikhan
Microsoft is proving themselves. It just leaves like a bitter taste in your mouth, even though there's so much to look forward to in 2025. Well, to kind of put it a little more into perspective, when some of these consoles that came out that were at their peak of like popularity, we were at an age between in our teenage years where we said, okay, we loved what they launched with, which was like Halo, which was like shooter games, maybe some RPGs and some things that were kind of all over the place. We've now grown up to a point where we can't play games that are 20, 30, 40, 50 hours all the time. So like you said, what we like changes along with every generation that comes in. I don't want a constant bombardment of laugh the last of us, 25 hours. I got to call a places position all the time, you break bloated games, I'm sorry, but yeah
00:12:14
Shameer Mehdikhan
I was happy with the fact that I could play a game so quickly and blast through it and get in so quickly just as well. And that's what grabbed my attention. And that's why I want to go back to this game specifically, is that not only from a mechanics and an artistic perspective, they did great with the music selection, with the art direction, they did great with like just overall trying to think about how they can encapsulate one full story and end it within that full game. Yeah.
00:12:37
Shameer Mehdikhan
Yeah, you don't have to worry about like DLC, right? Like it was like an arctic ending. You've got an ending. You don't have to worry about, Oh my God, what's going to happen next? exactly If there's room for it to tell another story, but it
Mobile Gaming's Rise
00:12:48
Shameer Mehdikhan
did what it needed to do in a span of one game. And I remember like, I still remember how hyped I was and I messaged you as soon as I got to that part of the game when they had.
00:12:57
Shameer Mehdikhan
the prodigy playing and then you go out to fight all those robots guys and they're like in chef's gear. I mean, that's just so creative. Like, yeah, oh man, that that was like chef's kiss. That was so good. It was good. So now, and I know you haven't been able to play everything in 2023 and we were supposed to talk about 2024, but you know, we're talking about leftover 2023 games.
00:13:18
Shameer Mehdikhan
How high do you rank high five rush in your 2023 list? Um, I mean, honestly, pretty high. Um, if I had to like actually give it a score without thinking a little too much about it, maybe like an 8.5. And for me, that's pretty high. Um, it's like top three out of what you played in 2023. I would say it's like top five for sure. um And again, i in 2023, I played maybe about, ah or I beat a total of maybe seven games. So the sample size is very small for me, but it's definitely up there. It's not something that I would, I would actually go back and play it, especially portably, which is what I did. So I have the ROG Ally Axe, and I ended up using Game Pass, the cloud version of the app on it. And honestly, it was super smooth. I couldn't really feel the latency, couldn't feel the lag, and playing it portably was just a different experience. I could lay in my bed on my couch, I could have a podcast on,
00:14:04
Shameer Mehdikhan
And that honestly is so transformative. I say it, but you have to really feel it. How hell the gaming is the truth, man. And I know I was debating between the Steam Deck and the ROG Ally. I know you have everything, but I only have the ROG Ally. And yeah, the ability to play Game Pass on that was a game changer for me. And even just streaming off your Xbox, the latency is pretty good. Compared to when I was trying to stream off of the you know PS Plus apps, because I don't have the portal. and That wasn't as good, but the Xbox connection was flawless. I remember playing all of Jedi Survivor, and it was almost as good as playing on my TV. Yeah, and so they even have options now that if you do the cloud version of streaming, let's say like on ROG LI, they have options to reduce the latency based on the hardware you have. I didn't know that. Yeah, it's getting better and better. They keep improving that technology. And so maybe I'll pivot here.
00:14:53
Shameer Mehdikhan
The game that I've been playing right now and that finally has its hooks into me is Borderlands 3. And again, playing that portably is so much different when I
Future of Portable Gaming
00:15:00
Shameer Mehdikhan
tried to play that through a console. I could no longer get into Borderlands. It was a game that I loved growing up. It was one of my favorite franchises. The humor was hilarious. The writing was peak, I thought at the time.
00:15:10
Shameer Mehdikhan
um And it really resonated with me at ah at an earlier age. Borderlands 3, I just couldn't really get to it, you know, playing it on a TV anymore. But when I played it portably, it meant something different because again, I was able to kind of focus my attention or multitask quite a bit.
00:15:25
Shameer Mehdikhan
And I'll be honest with you, Borderlands 3's writing is not so good. Mechanically, again, very, very sharp, very on point. But its storytelling, its main protagonist and antagonist are just not there as it used to be. So the fact that I can watch a football game, the fact that I can listen to a podcast in the background and really just churn out the side quests, because this is still that atypical kind of, hey, you have to hit these side quests before you can progress to the next phase and the next phase.
00:15:54
Shameer Mehdikhan
So, I'm starting to finally like it, but I would have not liked it if I wasn't able to pay for it. Yeah, isn't it interesting how that is? I got Prince of Persia when I was on sale for the PS5, and it was like 25 bucks, and I totally regret not getting it for my Nintendo Switch, because like if I got it for the Switch, I wouldn't beat it by now. Yeah.
00:16:09
Shameer Mehdikhan
But it's just something different about when you're plugged in on a console, like it demands your full attention. And if you have other people in the household as well, it's like you are it separating yourself from everything around you. And I feel like that's why mobile gaming is on the rise so much. And you look at Japan, and you look at China, you look at all these places like people just it's harder for them to find that time and that energy and that commitment to really to sit down with like a game and a TV and just, you know, isolate themselves.
00:16:38
Shameer Mehdikhan
Now, I think, don't get me wrong, I'm not like one of the crazy people who are saying, oh, console gaming is gone forever. There is always going to be a place for that. There is always going to be people who want to separate themselves and really just invest into the best graphics, the best experience on a massive screen. Just like there's always going to be people who go to a movie theater. Whether or not it's as successful as it used to be is another question. But I love movie theaters. I'm always going to go, you know even if it's 2060, right?
00:17:05
Shameer Mehdikhan
and so but It's nice having that you know variety. It's nice having those options. this And some games really are just way better playing mobile. So let's talk about that a little more. um you know Because I am ah actually really fascinated by that. In the previous console generation, PS4 and Xbox One, everyone said, there's no longer going to be a next generation, right? Everyone thought that ah we peeked out at all the ah gains we were going to get from a console. And that the next generation really made no sense. And guess what? Lo and behold, we got a PS5 and a Series X.
00:17:35
Shameer Mehdikhan
But talking about portable gaming now on CES 2025, apparently they're going to release the SteamOS versions or license out to third party vendors for hardware. And now there's talks about, so there's talks about having SteamOS on the Legion go.
00:17:52
Shameer Mehdikhan
Okay, there's a specific version of the hardware that's going to be so good. That's going to be so good. I know. And it's crazy because the CMS is great. Do you think it's going to come to ROG? I think so. I think there's going to be a point. And I think now that Microsoft is investing in a potential handle, they've already basically said they're years away. That's the future. They want to move away from console. Exactly. And they're now saying, well, we might also want to make a portable, lightweight version of it for third party vendors as well. So I think I don't want to say that we're not going to be having any more console generations. I think there will be a couple more, but I think, like you said, horrible gaming is on the rise. and it just The thing is, Microsoft's pivoting. like That's one thing about Microsoft is, they as much as you everyone hates on them, Microsoft is really good at analyzing trends and and predicting where the market's going to be.
Gaming Hardware Futures
00:18:39
Shameer Mehdikhan
Sometimes a little too early. Too early. that's that's what That's what I was going to say. Like x Xbox One failed because of DRM in part and Kinect and all of that stuff, right? But everyone buys games literally now. So many people I know only buy games digitally. We still buy the hard copies, right? We still, will you know, go sell them and sell the discs and stuff. But a lot of people I know just buy it digitally and Microsoft saw that coming. yeah They saw the trend transition of mobile. They saw the transition of cloud gaming. They saw people not wanting to be limited on the devices. they i mean I think Game Pass is going to work out for them eventually. ah so And so they they see these things. They see where the trend is going. But a lot of times, they they're too early. why
00:19:17
Shameer Mehdikhan
They don't do it properly, right? because And for a lot of time, it's kind of like the difference in Microsoft and Apple, right? Microsoft is really big on being the first. yeah AI, whatever it is, Microsoft is usually trying to jump on things very early. And if it doesn't work out, they cut their losses. Yeah, they cut their losses. like you know There's been talks, and I'm sure there's already some games that already do this, but in-game ads and video games, I think there's some examples already, but Microsoft has been pushing that front, and they really want to get into there.
00:19:45
Shameer Mehdikhan
And then that's going to be a huge revenue source. I mean, it's it's annoying, right. But for certain games like, you know, for free to play shooters and things like that, I can totally see that be a huge income source. Yeah, but, you know, so like that being one, and then like you said, kind of looking at portable gaming in general, it's the, what worries me the most about this, I think is that the pivot going back. Cause I think what, what Val did with the steam deck, right? Which was great. That brought a lot of popularity. And then Nintendo really hitting the mark with the switch, you know, they had that half baked idea with the Wii U and it just, it fell flat. And then they said, here's the switch. We've gone all the way. we're taking We're consolidating our resources from our portable gaming sector, which was the DS and the GBA. And we're taking stuff that we had with the Wii. We but combine all those resources so we focus on one platform. And what worries me now is that PlayStation potentially might want to do another portable handheld gaming device.
00:20:37
Shameer Mehdikhan
But the thing is, how do you then consolidate all of your resources? You either have to make games that are very scalable, which could take a lot more effort, especially from first parties, when we already know that games take five to seven years to create. now For example, they just announced Intergalactic, the heretic profit, which has been in development for four years, but there's no release date.
00:20:54
Shameer Mehdikhan
like and this is what's because Nintendo is so good at this. They constantly take, and I've actually been analyzing this over the last several weeks, they take all their old franchises that they've been releasing since GBA, like Mario and Luigi RPGs, and every three to five years they're always on point and they release a new sequel, sequel, sequel, a new Zelda, a new Mario Kart game, a new Mario Kart game. It's just business as usual. They know what the people want and they deliver it. So I guess two things that I thought about. I think for any successful business strategy, you need to know your audience, right?
00:21:23
Shameer Mehdikhan
And that's what I think made all of these so successful. Nintendo knows your audience.
Audience Balancing Issues
00:21:28
Shameer Mehdikhan
They know exactly what the Nintendo fanboy wants and they constantly deliver it. And that way you build momentum, you don't lose momentum.
00:21:36
Shameer Mehdikhan
And to me, the reason why Steam is so successful, successful successful even though I'm not a huge PC gamer, I've PC-gamed enough to know how frustrating Windows can be. And just simplifying and unifying everything in a storefront like Steam that's reliable, that's what that audience wants. yeah And they and the sales and all those things. They know that audience. So you know for, I think,
00:21:58
Shameer Mehdikhan
If I'm pivoting back a bit with Microsoft, their struggle is going to be knowing their audience because they're constantly trying to change their audience and grow their audience. right And their true audience is their hardcore gamer core. But they're straddling this line between keeping them happy enough, but also pivoting to new audience members. And so that's going to be their challenge. And with PlayStation, you brought a really good message, a point. It's really going to be their development cycle.
00:22:25
Shameer Mehdikhan
right and We'll see what happens. But I think you know what you're going to see is probably pivots to more double A. you know You're not going to be able to have all these triple A's. And I think Sony is probably realizing that as well. They're probably trying to get a branch out and get funding in other places, whether that's making movies, TV shows, taking over Elden Ring and making it a Netflix hit. And then finding these double A successful hits And then with the triple A successful hits, you, they have so much brand recognition. I think it's still going to take a very long time for those to come out and it's unfortunate side effect of
Nintendo's Innovation Focus
00:23:04
Shameer Mehdikhan
their business strategy. I don't see that speeding up yeah unless AI can just revolutionize any everything. I still see all of these major studios taking five, six years to develop stuff. And it's hard because if they make a sync secondary studio, so they can have two things cooking at the same time, like in Samia,
00:23:19
Shameer Mehdikhan
How are we guaranteed knowing that they're going to be of the same quality? And so then you run into that problem as well. Um, I think in terms of scalability, I think I could totally be wrong. This is total speculation here, but I think about how the general, how, how little has changed between the generations. And I think it's because in a way technology is kind of peaking, right? And if you think about the PS six, right?
00:23:45
Shameer Mehdikhan
Let's say it shoots for 8K or something like that, there's still going to be people using a 1080p console. like As long as they don't screw up like the Series S did with having different amounts of RAMs, I think it wouldn't be as hard as we might think to have scalable operations.
00:24:01
Shameer Mehdikhan
like series s really if they had two extra gigabytes of ramp i think it really would have helped the scalability between the s and x line i'm not an engineer you might you'll probably know better than me but i feel like from what i've seen on youtube and stuff that was one of the major hindrances yes and i think sony is a little wiser than that. And so if they were to do something, they would probably find a way of having different skews or they can just go the whole PS beta route as well. I don't think they would do that, and especially if Nintendo's pivoted away from it. yeah But you never know. Yeah. I mean, again, it's interesting because
00:24:37
Shameer Mehdikhan
With Nintendo they they always have a Shigeru Miyamoto everyone says we're more about innovating and being creative and in this space rather than pushing technologically what we can do and their IP really fits it so they make very i hate to say it's very cartoonish types of games very kid-friendly games like a Mario a Kirby a kid Icarus that you're not making it super realistic. yeah So no matter whatever generation comes out, it can look like potentially a 16-bit game. It can look like a 2D HD game, and it still invokes all these emotions from people. And I also want to go back to like what Square Enix is doing recently with Dragon Quest, the 2D HD remakes of Dragon Quest 3, 2, and 1, and how people now want a Final Fantasy 1 through 6 remake in the 2D HD style, rather than
00:25:23
Shameer Mehdikhan
remaking it in this full blown hd style like rebirth and final fantasy seven remake because a it takes forever to get out and b becomes so bloated and i know you played final fantasy seven rebirth and b in it yeah and there's just thoughts about that there's sections of that game that are so bloated that if maybe you played it as a 2d hd remake you would be cutting through a lot of that know instead of walking around in these barren spaces.
Nostalgia in Gaming Experiences
00:25:45
Shameer Mehdikhan
So I do think that's going to be very interesting to see what happens in the next couple of years. But this is why I'm excited for Nintendo. I used to be so excited for hardware launches. I'm no longer excited for hardware launches. I'm excited for games. yeah So whatever a new game comes out for the next generation, I know Nintendo is going to push the limit yeah to what they can do on the next system. I don't care that the hardware looks slightly different, that they're stupid Joy-Cons and that they're infrared sensors. I don't care about any of that anymore.
00:26:11
Shameer Mehdikhan
And that's what's changed my opinion on gaming. Well, I feel like with Nintendo, the sum is greater than, you know, the parks, right? You know, when you look at the technical specs of the Nintendo Switch, it's not that much. But when you look at how much Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom were able to accomplish, it's amazing, right? And that's because For them, like it's a tool. right like They really do see, like just like someone would see a you know a pencil or a paint or anything like that, that's how they see their consoles. That's the creativity behind it and why people love it. And going back to what I'm saying, it's it's about knowing your audience. right And you know maybe this is going to sound kind of philosophical, but you know I think about why nostalgia works. right And I feel like for all of us, there are certain things we want to get out of a gameplay experience or a story. right like
00:26:57
Shameer Mehdikhan
Heroes journey you want to see the hero win at the end, right? Or we just want something like a cathartic release. We had a stressful day We just need to get some anger out or some energy out or or whatever, right? Or we want that adrenaline rush, you know And for every generation there's gonna be certain things from that generation that allows them to have that outlet and that's gonna be What follows them, you know, like anytime I know that I I need to get that adrenaline up and I need to play something, right?
00:27:23
Shameer Mehdikhan
I'm gonna play shooter. That was my generation. We hop on Halo, we hop on Call of Duty, we hop on, you know, those type of things. But you you see like the newer generation, right? And I feel like those adrenaline rushing games might be different. right It might be action adventures, you know, like you see so many of the souls like and things like that. And that's why to me, I think it's smart to use both nostalgia and innovation like what Nintendo does, because they know that that audience that loves 2D platformers, they're not gone. And even if they haven't gained in 10, 15 years.
00:27:56
Shameer Mehdikhan
There's something primal that you're tapping into. And if you just invoke that same format, you can bring that back up, right? Those memories. And those people are going to convince younger people to play. Yeah, exactly. And that's how Nintendo just works so well with having Tears of the Kingdoms and that Echoes game. What was it? Zelda Echoes of Wisdom. Yeah, that came out, right? It's both nostalgia and innovation.
Industry Roles Comparison
00:28:20
Shameer Mehdikhan
Yeah, and and I find this more funny because like I see a space carved out for Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo to all coexist within the current industry. Some people say, well, Microsoft's mind, they're out of Sega. They're no longer going to make hardware. They're going to just become a publisher and then release all their games on every possible platform or as much as they can, like PlayStation, because yeah a lot of fans are potentially upset that now their games are coming out to PS5 or whatever. But you know I see a space for all of them. I think Microsoft will continue to do what it's doing, but they're all about Choice consumer choice making sure everyone's happy in the ecosystem But that they are not limited with Sony with someone that's maybe potentially in first place They say we're gonna limit you because we want you to keep coming back and buying your product And then with Nintendo they said we don't want to compete with any of you We just want to coexist with our IPS because we feel like there's that niche that that's specific genre that's not been
00:29:11
Shameer Mehdikhan
there's unlimited potential that can yet to be tapped by anyone else but us. I feel like Nintendo wants to be the lifelong friend. Sony wants to be the premier like HBO experience, you know, like as smooth and fancy as can be, right? And Microsoft just wants to know a little bit about everything. They just want to be involved in every part of everybody's
TGA 2024 Announcements
00:29:36
Shameer Mehdikhan
lives.
00:29:36
Shameer Mehdikhan
Yeah, I definitely see it that way. It's interesting. I'm um more excited than ever to see where some of this is going. And that's why, again, I'm starting to to get back into gaming a lot more. And I think Borderlands 3 is a great way to kind of get me into what I used to love as a kid. And I kind of want to take a look at a couple of other things because now that I'm talking about Borderlands 3, obviously the TJ, the game awards, happened recently and there's quite a few games announced. This is probably one of the best TJs as of the last couple of years. And one of the games announced there was Borderlands 4. Like we had known it was coming, we hadn't seen anything about it, and there were some teases in the summer, but really it was about mafia, and from 2Ks everyone kind of got a little disappointed. And then the Borderlands movie came out and it was trash, but seeing Borderlands 4,
00:30:19
Shameer Mehdikhan
it kind of hits the spot where the way they edited the trailer it's just like there was some things about it I didn't like that the main characters again and whatnot kind of look a little silly horrible and kind of psyched and but they they knew their audience you know what they want like I think the style shading graphics look amazing. You know, it was high energy enough. Like yeah they know what the people wanted and they delivered. Yeah, exactly. And that's exactly what it is. They hit on all the points that like make it really nostalgic. So that plus there's a couple of other game announcements I'm going to really rattle down quickly and then ask your mirror kind of like his thoughts on some of them on the ones that right here. that I'll highlight. So there was the new Witcher game, Witcher 4 essentially, that was with some text really at the bottom running pre-rendered on an unannounced RTX GPU, which is probably the 5,000. So it was really interesting for them to put it when it was pre-rendered. They didn't really have to do that.
00:31:05
Shameer Mehdikhan
Okay, a new Elden Ring game called Elden Ring Night Ring, PBE spin-off, they had Intergalactic, The Heretic Prophet by Naughty Dog, which they had some funny teas in there to first announce the last of us to remaster for PC. That was really funny. Mafia, the old country, which I think is and interesting that 2K is about to release three bangers all in the same year with GTA VI, Mafia, and Borderlands.
00:31:28
Shameer Mehdikhan
You know, that's really interesting to see that this is probably the most profitable year ever, fiscal year. Then you get a Okami sequel by Hideki Kamiya coming back to reform the k Clover Studio that once was there that made those games. Onimusha coming back. um Then you have Project Sentry by RGG Ryuga Gotogo, who've made all the, um, like a dragon games, as well as they're making Virtua Fighter now, split fiction.
00:31:54
Shameer Mehdikhan
um And then the auto worlds too. So yeah, if you want to talk about any of those well a couple thoughts So some of those games really are gonna get a lot of people hyped But you know, I didn't really play them growing up like onomashu, right? but I think for the industry as a whole like take note at what Japan is doing, take note at what Capcom is doing. forur They are finding a way of taking their old IP and still making it work for modern sensibilities to bringing things back. And it doesn't feel like it's in a way, I mean, it's kind of forced, but it doesn't feel super artificial. it doesn't It's actually like
Witcher Series Narrative Shift
00:32:29
Shameer Mehdikhan
bringing up hype. It doesn't feel like we're beating a dead horse, yeah right? They're not setting these high expectations. And I feel like with other franchise and you know,
00:32:36
Shameer Mehdikhan
I can't go a whole podcast we talking about Halo because Halo is my favorite game of all time. you know But I will admit that you know in some ways it feels like we're beating the dead horse. It's not dead. I played a lot of Infinite so don't get mad at me. so sorry I think I played like two, three hundred hours so I'm a big fanboy. But i can I can sense the general feeling that people have. But that's why you've got to space things out. you know Gears of War had enough time on the back burner that look at how much people are excited for you know there no Gears of War.
00:33:04
Shameer Mehdikhan
so i think and Like as an industry trend like look at what Japan is doing and look at how they're able to bring their IP back successful Yeah, so I think that's amazing in terms of what really caught me at the show You know me Halo is by far my favorite game, but Witcher is very close up there I never thought I would like a game as much as I liked Halo and Witcher was oh so close absolutely fun love with Witcher 3 and ah You know, I've debated on whether or not I'm going to finally get a desktop PC because right now I have my old razor blade from like five years ago and the batteries probably could explode at some point. ah But after I saw that Witcher 3 trailer, I just found myself getting so hyped and I was like, oh man, I want to play this in amazing graphics. Maybe I got to try and get that new 5000 series when it comes out. um So by far and away, I'm excited for Witcher.
00:33:55
Shameer Mehdikhan
um I really I'm not a huge fan of the massive backlash that you know I've seen online in some forms in some places when it comes to what Siri looks like and this and that I mean I'll admit when I first saw that trailer and 1080p and you know bitrate wasn't great I did feel like she looked kind of strange, but after I rewatched the trailer in high fidelity It looks like a next-generation version. She had a lot of people commenting on her actual Human and physical anatomy and I don't see anything wrong with this a person looks great looks like a female human beautiful Yeah, I'm like where does it wrong? with and Again, like I can kind of sense because I did feel like kind of an uncanny feeling when I first saw the trailer But I think it was because it was low bit rate when I watched it in a good bit right? I was like, oh this looks terrific. Yeah and and The story is about Siri. Like if you're a winter fanboy, you know that it's about Gerald but meds so much of the book so the games It's all tied into the story of Ciri and why she's special and why they they kind of close off Geralt's story by the end of Witcher 3 so if you haven't really played it then you wouldn't know but like that's this is the lead up to the next story. So if you if you did another Geralt story you would just feel like you're beating a dead horse and you have to go somewhere new. And CDPR already has said that Geralt's going to be in the game somehow in some way so whether he's like training, helping, mastering, mentoring, whatever he's gonna be there. They're not gonna just throw him off the
00:35:19
Shameer Mehdikhan
they the ship and his i'm pretty sure his voice was in the trailer to remind us that hey I'm still around so so to what I what I love to play another game with Gerald Absolutely. I love Geralt. He's one of my favorite video game characters of all time. But at the same time, I recognize that for the writers of the story, eventually you want to do something new, right? Like you don't want to have to keep writing the same story a hundred times. You want to find new ground while respecting what is your story roots and why people came to your story in the first place, right?
00:35:50
Shameer Mehdikhan
And I'm sure from a writer perspective, they're going to be far more excited to see, okay, what's the perspective of Siri after all of the events of Witcher 3, where she was such an important person? I'm thinking this is after Witcher 3. Yes, this is definitely after Witcher 3. Yeah. And I feel like that's an interesting place to build the story, right? And knowing um the Witcher series, I'm sure we're gonna get the play as Geralt because Witcher 3, you got the play as both. yeah So there's that's what I would anticipate. That's what I would too. Maybe some random scene or a thing drawn out where he's at a bar drinking and for some reason people attack him and that's like a five minutes thing?
Naughty Dog's New Projects
00:36:25
Shameer Mehdikhan
Sure, why not.
00:36:26
Shameer Mehdikhan
So by far and away, that's what I'm the most hyped for. um Second, and I know this is kind of a contentious topic right now, but I'm excited for intergalactic, you know, because, yeah, I know, you know, some people might hate me for it. But, ah you know, I have to give it to Naughty Dog, you know, they really do come up with unique universes and unique ideas, right. And After there's been so many stories told in the science fiction space and the fannie space fantasy space, it's hard to come up with new stories. in yeah I mean, the one disappointment I personally had
00:37:02
Shameer Mehdikhan
was, man, we got to stop making 80s in everything. 80s is always a thing in everything. And it's like, if you're trying to find a new aesthetic, why are we always just remixing the 80s? Well, but let's not take it out of context. They said their inspiration for the game was Akira and Kawaii Bebop. And you have the red jacket, obviously, etc. So after I saw that, I was like, all right.
00:37:22
Shameer Mehdikhan
i i'll see you know um but that was one thing i was like okay this this did kind of remind me of garage the galax fer and that's for so i do feel like they could have tried to differentiate the art stylead a little bit because
00:37:38
Shameer Mehdikhan
I'll Again, I'll give you, I'll give you that. Something nostalgic. Yeah. As soon as you see those colors, as soon as you see those brands, see. you're tapping into a whole reservoir of people's memories. And the first thing they're going to think is gardens. Yeah. I'm not going to lie to you. Guardians was the second thing that was on my mind. The first thing that was on my mind was concord failure. And I'm just like, I thought this game was over. There's no other resurrecting.
00:38:03
Shameer Mehdikhan
It's like, come on, if this is a trailer you made, like you could have been a little bit more thoughtful of your brand placement, your color selection, just a little bit more, because now you're, you're walking up a mountain, you're walking up a hill, you didn't need to have that, right? Because you could have chosen, you know, what imagery you evoked, right? So that was one thing. But and when I saw that, I mean, I gotta, I know people are always giving Neil Druckmann a lot of hate, but as someone who's an aspiring writer myself, I was like, man, I wish I could come up with this many, like fantastical worlds, right? And They're all pretty different. right You look at Last of Us, you look at Uncharted, you look at this. like It's amazing how different all of those IPs can look, even though they have the same trends. and Even when you look at other studios, what other studio is going from Crash Bandicoot?
00:38:48
Shameer Mehdikhan
right all the way over to intergalactic so it's a very big change they've already announced that this is going to be their deepest most intricate game ever so probably in terms of combat and based on the ids we saw at the end of the trailer so i'm excited about that i'm not really hyped about what the story could be because it's taking place on a potential one planet i also don't know that yeah that plus the the likeliness of the in-game characters to the actors i find that really kind of unsettling are they the same person yeah so they're the acts of kamal najiani's faces there you got lado salamanca from man that's the future though that's the future and but i like honestly i'm not going to play blast of us for one i like that the characters don't look like the voice actors i just like i feel like that little
00:39:31
Shameer Mehdikhan
campiness that little like the way it's uncanny valley. Yeah, exactly. And so we'll see how this comes out. But I know these actors so well from so many other movies and shows that I don't know if I'll be able to bring that out now because you got come on who was in a super a Marvel movie. You got this girl. I mean, I gotta give commasal love. I love that guy for Silicon Valley. You got this girl that's now the main protagonist that was in Sabrina the Netflix remake and I can't get that shit out. Well, that's what we're to ah working. I guess that's the trend of what we're talking about these these deep primitive things that you're and that are embedded in people's head, right? Like you can't un-shake that, you can't change that, right? You have to be conscious of that, and because that's a part of knowing your audience, right? Like when you have those actors pop up, your audience is going to remember certain things about them, right? And as a good writer and a good producer of a fictional piece of work, that's something you have to keep in mind, right?
Storytelling and Social Change
00:40:22
Shameer Mehdikhan
It doesn't mean it's always a negative thing or a positive thing, it's something you should be aware of.
00:40:26
Shameer Mehdikhan
Definitely yeah, and and I think what's gonna be now really interesting is Trey Baker basically said as much that he will be in Naughty Dog's next game So will it be his likeliness finally? oh well that would be something That would be very interesting to see and I guess you know one thing one other thing I have to talk about kind of elephant in the room and Maybe another contentious topic is all the vitriol and all of the backlash you're you're seeing online about you know the gender and how there's you know a certain type of um Agenda that people are pushing in their narratives and things like that and that's actually makes me think of the game I wanted to talk about today which is Dragon Age right and especially after playing Dragon Age I think what really struck out to me is that You know, if look, if there's any place where you're going to try and push an agenda, it's going to be in literature. It's going to be in fiction. Right. So it's this is a story as old as time. Right. When you look at past generations, past civilizations, people use fictional stories as a way to tell, you know, things about their lives, to show people other perspectives. Right. And to change society.
00:41:28
Shameer Mehdikhan
And if you think about it, like a lot of the biggest changes in society coincided right with fictional pieces that made people think about things differently, like Uncle Tom's Cabin or all the stories we heard about slavery and prohibition and all of those type of things. So to me, you know if it might get annoying for some people, but in when it comes to media and fiction and entertainment, this is what you should anticipate.
00:41:56
Shameer Mehdikhan
Sorry about that, we're back. So as I was saying, you know in fiction, that's where you're going to see people trying to push an agenda. And it might be annoying for some people, but it comes with the territory. And for me, the power of a story is the fact that you you allow someone to hop into someone's perspective. right And if you're trying to change people's perspective, you should know your audience. And you should know that these are people who are going to have resistance to being forced in someone else's perspective.
00:42:25
Shameer Mehdikhan
So if you're going to afford do that, if that's what your agenda is, you've got to bring your A-game. You've got to make sure that whatever you're telling is so good that even if the person is against this or doesn't want to see it through that perspective, it builds empathy. And now pivoting back to Dragon Age, you know that's one of the things that really struck out to me because you know there's a lot of backlash about the one character, Tash, finding the gender gender identity and things like that. And to me, the reason that struck out to me so much is because the writing was so poor and with Dragon Age across the board there's parts where
00:43:04
Shameer Mehdikhan
There's actually pretty good writing and other parts where the writing is absolute trash, and it's the worst writing I've ever seen. And that's why I think you're seeing such disparate reviews where a lot of critics are saying, wow, this writing is actually pretty good in these characters or lifeline. And people online on Reddit are like, what are you smoking? This is this is like two-year-olds talking to each other. This is so artificial.
Character Arcs in Gaming
00:43:24
Shameer Mehdikhan
And I spent a lot of time really digging in and analyzing what went wrong, right?
00:43:28
Shameer Mehdikhan
And so when you start off the game, I feel like one thing that Dragon Age does terribly is exposition, right? A lot of times the characters will repeat back what someone just said. They'll be like, all right, we're going to these runes. And then the next thing you see, the other character is saying, oh, yeah, we're going to the runes to do this. And it's like, no one's going to talk like that. And as soon as you do that, it's jarring. You automatically break the fictional landscape, right?
00:43:51
Shameer Mehdikhan
And the character interactions too, it it does really feel like there's HR department that's watching. And because people don't get angry at each other, there's no tension. And tension is always very important when you're writing a story. When you take that tension out of these characters interactions, it deflates the world, it deflates the stakes, and then you're really wondering, why am I spending my time here? Because, you know,
00:44:13
Shameer Mehdikhan
everything is happy land, right? And it again, it makes it feel artificial. So it's like the the writers for Dragon Age spent so much time and creating these, and I know you haven't got to play you know the game, but they have, each character has its own character art. And in ah in a way, they're like different games because they have you know their own antagonists, they have their conclusion, all these types of things, right? So they spent so much time making you fall in love with these characters or care about these characters.
00:44:42
Shameer Mehdikhan
But every time there's a moment of terrible writing that just pulls you out of the game um It reminds you that this is not a real place. These are not real people, right? And so that's why it's so John and so The reason I brought that up while I'm talking about, you know, if you're trying to have an agenda in your story You know for that character tosh it just felt so out of place because in one moment I'm talking about the world falling apart, right and the next moment this this The character is getting mad at someone because they're wearing a dress and then suddenly pivots into, I'm struggling with my own identity, which seems out of place for the context of everything that's going on around these characters. So instantly that seems fake and artificial.
00:45:26
Shameer Mehdikhan
And then right after, like, you know, later in the story, you say the most generic line to this character, and suddenly they're able to solve the crises that they have with their gender identity. So if the gender identity is so problematic that you have to focus on it before you can save the world. But at the same time, I can solve your issues with five words that anybody can say. And that so automatically, that's bad writing. Yeah. Right. And then I get what the writers maybe were trying to do, where a lot of times you try and put yourself in that character's shoes, right? And you might even bring your own real world experiences to make it feel real. But you got to realize this fantasy world, the rules of the modern world that we live in do not always apply to a fantasy world. I think that's something I picked up from one of Brandon Sanderson's podcasts. So you have to tailor
00:46:16
Shameer Mehdikhan
what you're going to write to that fantasy world. And that's why I felt like that art writing was so artificial, it fell flat. And that that's why, again, if you're going to try and push an agenda, I'm not saying it's right or wrong to do that or I don't agree with it or not. I'm not trying to get into political things here. But if if that's what you're trying to do, bring your endgame, right? And so I say that because I think right now, because people have had these experiences with other forms of media where they've been seeing stories that are trying to you know change their viewpoint or their perspective and some of them really just weren't told well. Now there's that automatic placebo effect there's that automatic filter where they see something like that they're like no don't do this because you're just going to ruin the story you know and they just automatically expect
00:47:01
Shameer Mehdikhan
that if there's some agenda being pushed, it's at the expense of the writing quality, right? And so again, knowing your audience, that's something that Naughty Dog knows it's going to be up against. So I do hope that whatever they're trying to do, even if they're trying to do something, I don't know if they are, I mean, you know how the internet is and they see a woman with a bald head and they start freaking out, maybe there is no agenda there, right? But if, you know,
00:47:25
Shameer Mehdikhan
If Naughty Dog is trying to show a certain type of perspective, right, then you got to bring your good writers. Yeah, that's fair. I mean, you know, honestly, I didn't realize how passionate you would have been about this specific game in Dragon Age ill feel yeah hard because I think you did play Inquisition. I think you made a beat in it at the around the time I beat it, maybe potentially 10 years ago.
00:47:44
Shameer Mehdikhan
and you really it wasn't that decisive for you but like from a nor from a narrative perspective I think it hit a lot of different tones for you being a writer you know you can kind of see how it helps you formulate different stories and I think like Bioware being known for like that deep narrative storytelling it's like well what could have gone so wrong with this because of how decisive it was. I'm so happy you brought that out because for me and again I think I might get some flack for this but I've always considered Dragon Age as bigger tier fantasy for me like and I'm not saying Dragon Age is terrible right it's just for me You know, things like The Witcher resonate with me so much. You know, Lord of the Rings resonates with me so much. Some of Brandon Sanderson's works resonates with me so much. Dragon Age hasn't always resonated with me on that same level, right? And I think a part of it is because each of the games is trying to create its own identity. And there's, you know, specific things that follow through, but Dragon Age Origins is very different than two, which is very different than three, which is very different than four, right?
00:48:38
Shameer Mehdikhan
um Now, I will say with this new game, the reason why, and again, my comments are surprised, but it's one of my favorite games of the entire year, is what they really nailed is the setting. And I feel like Dragon Age has been building to a lot of world changing events, right?
00:48:56
Shameer Mehdikhan
And this game really had a lot of things that impacted the world. um Even when you think about the history and the lore, we learned so much about the the history and the lore of Thedas that my mind was blown. I was like, this is such fascinating stuff, right? And so I know that when I've written stories, sometimes I feel like in the back pocket, I got these, you know ah you know ah you know, bullets that are coming because I got some amazing scenes coming. I got some amazing twists and information, right? And I feel like with this,
00:49:25
Shameer Mehdikhan
with the newest game, there were some big reveals on how the world works in Dragon Age. And so because of the strength of those reveals, it kind of ballooned up the overall game for me, right? And it's almost like saying they had so much good stuff in their back pocket cooking that regardless of how much they screwed up on Dragon Age, it was still going to come out as an okay game.
00:49:44
Shameer Mehdikhan
um So that's why it's it's a game I have such conflicted feelings about because when I think about the setting, when I think about the changes to the lore, when I do think about looking at all of the characters as a whole and how fleshed out their stories are, pretty good writing. right But when I think about the character interactions and things like that and how fake it can seem and sometimes forced,
00:50:06
Shameer Mehdikhan
um and how artificial the communication can seem because there's no tension there and no one gets mad at each other then i'm just like what happened there and i think again going back to knowing your audience for me I was able to go into Dragon Age, knowing why people hated it, and seeing it more as an action game. Right. And so for me because it didn't have all the RPG elements but I was okay with that, you know, because I saw it more like an action game just like Final Fantasy 16. I was okay with it. But if you go in there and you're expecting Baldur's Gate three.
00:50:39
Shameer Mehdikhan
right then you're gonna be so angry you're gonna say this is the most trash game ever right exactly it all depends on your expectations and you know I'm kind of curious know your thoughts have two questions for you really based on kind of what you've seen and now knowing that by or isn't putting any more resources to Dragon Age they're not making any DLC and expansions Do you have any hope and faith for the next Mass Effect game? Oh, absolutely. I'm sure they' gonna there's going to be parallels there. And two, do you think this should have been nominated for anything at the TGAs? I think so. i I mean, I think I'm still debating on what my favorite game of the year is, but Dragon Age is up there. um Right now I'm debating between Dragon Age and Blacksmith Wukong. I think for me, this was a slow year. There wasn't a lot of options. I just got into Indiana Jones and I'm really liking it. It might get in the top three too, probably will, but
00:51:28
Shameer Mehdikhan
You know, really, it's a hard choice for me between Blacksmith Wukong and Dragon Age. problem Probably give it to Blacksmith Wukong overall. So because of that, objectively, I think it's a pretty good game. In terms of what it could have been nominated for, this year had good RPGs. You know, if you have Metaphor Refantasia and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, that makes it hard for Dragon Age to do very well, right? Because there's huge fan bases, right? what For Atlas and for Sequoia Enix.
00:51:56
Shameer Mehdikhan
And Bioware fans have been so burned that a lot of them have left, right? So I think that's what makes it hard from that perspective. Now in terms of expectations for Mass Effect, you know, to me, the biggest problem with Dragon Age was the inconsistency, right? I know there's good people who work there, right? Because I can tell based off of some of the things they've done, right? And how they've built up the lore and things like that in Dragon Age.
00:52:17
Shameer Mehdikhan
that for Mass Effect, I would be excited to see what they do. And I would be excited for another Dragon Age game. But you've got to make sure your consistency is there from the from the top. And one thing I don't think people talk about enough for Dragon Age, it's actually a very polished game. Like in 2024, there's not a lot of games that come out that polished, but I played the whole of whole game and barely had any bugs, barely had any frame. I mean, I had some frame drops, but it was understandable because there was so much going on in screen.
Dragon Age RPG Mechanics
00:52:44
Shameer Mehdikhan
yeah um So I think there's, I think Bioware is still a very capable studio, right? But they just got to work on their consistency. Yeah. And I think, you know, what I have some faith in, and again, I haven't really played the game itself that much, but I've seen a lot of the gameplay. I think combat wise for the next Massify game, it's going to be there. They even had it for Massify. Man, the combat was so good. Like, I, sorry to cut you off, but I, this is what I've been meaning to tell you for a while. And I wanted to tell you on the podcast, but Playing Dragon Age made me really think of Destiny. Because like in Destiny, I remember I would grind for hours with story, side stories that had no content at all for like little pieces of, little fragments of stuff that would make my gear just a little better. And in Dragon Age, you're constantly getting pretty significant improvements to your gear. You can actually build quite a lot of different classes. And even though they're fairly similar, you know if I switch one weapon for the other other, I can actually see a noticeable difference.
00:53:41
Shameer Mehdikhan
It's, you know, each side mission you do always almost always ends up with a unique piece of armor or an upgrade for something you already have. So from that perspective, like this is the first time in a long time that I've been addicted to the loot grab and I've actually been addicted to, you know,
00:53:58
Shameer Mehdikhan
Leveling things up and so for me now when it comes to mass effect, I think they're gonna nail the action I'm gonna I think they're gonna nail the loot and things like that because they'll probably expand on what they have exactly I think you know again the people the thing that people like the most in my opinion and I don't know Generalist for everyone is her mass effect on drama. I think the combat was great I know a lot of my friends have talked about that. I think they're going to have very deep RPG mechanics in the new Massify game. And I think if they can bring back old characters, they really, like you said, have to just nail the writing. And are they setting the game up for a trilogy, a sequel? They did do that for Dragon Age, but they didn't have that intention. They really wanted to get that out of the picture because it was building upon an existing world. But with Massify, now that you're almost soft rebooting it in a sense, do you set it up for further sequels? And I think what Bioware really needs to figure out for the next game is as a studio, and this sounds so cliche to talk about goals and like, what are you at your core? But Bioware really needs to ask themselves, are you an RPG studio? And that sounds like a strange thing to say, but they've drifted in so many ways and it feels like they've experimented. Like in a way it feels more like
00:55:07
Shameer Mehdikhan
We don't think about this as much, but Japanese like RPGs don't normally have as much choice and consequences as Western RPGs. and And yet we give Western RPGs so much crap when they don't have the same choice and consequence because it's audience expectations. And Biware has toyed with that too much. And so now they really need to define their identity.
Bioware's Identity Shift
00:55:25
Shameer Mehdikhan
Do they want to be your standard Western RPG that has a lot of choice and consequence and all of those type of things? Or are they trying to be more like an action-adventure like Blacksmith Wukong? Are they trying to be more like a JRPG? like What but is your idea? Yeah, I think there's some of ambivalence there from the studio, because i'm I'm sure a lot of people already know this. And for all those that don't, a lot of the ex-bioware leads that worked on Anthem and the old Massify games have all left. And they've all started their own studios now. and They're working on these, like I think it's called Exodus. A lot of the ex-bioware leads are working on stuff like that. So they're no longer in the same studio they once were 10 and 15, 20 years ago. So you're right. There's, I think, a little ambivalence. And I think their games are going to continue to evolve. And I actually think there's going to be very heavy on the action
00:56:07
Shameer Mehdikhan
And I don't think, I think Mass Effect will still have that old essence, but any new IP they make going forward, I don't think will be like that anymore. And who knows if the studio will even exist within another five or ten years. And you know, I don't mean it as like a negative thing, like we're doomsayers because Bioware doesn't want to make RPG games, like, you know.
00:56:27
Shameer Mehdikhan
I personally didn't really like Baldur's Gate 3 because it was too hardcore of an RPG for me. I played it. I had a good time with it. But, you know, it was too much for me to invest in how that whole system worked, right? And after Baldur's Gate 3 really Proved this is how you do an RPG, right? We can debate all day long and how good of a game it was But when you look at what its genre is and what an RPG means Baldur's Gate set, you know the bar, right? And so if you want to invest and you want to be an RPG, you know, that's the bar, right? Is it worth it for a buyer were to try and do that or are they gonna pivot? So it's interesting you say that now because now that the bar has been set so high in in
00:57:09
Shameer Mehdikhan
2024 and 2023. And you look at now, again, what it comes down to is making money. So Baldur's Gate made a ton of money, right? Insane amount. And as of right now, we don't have a whole lot of indication, but Dragon Age isn't selling well. So do they have to change and pivot to something and lean in more to the action? And that's not necessarily a bad thing because look, I mean, some people might really love Baldur's Gate and they want to play Baldur's Gate until they die. But I like, you know, I think variety is the spice of life, you know?
00:57:36
Shameer Mehdikhan
I am totally fine with a game that doesn't have to be a hardcore RPG as long as you're telling me that's what it is, right? Because if I want that, I am going to go to Larian Studios. But if I want a different experience, I will go to a different studio, right? I think they complement each other. They don't have to substitute each other.
00:57:52
Shameer Mehdikhan
right um And so for me, if I were to decide not to really be a big RPG house and they decide to be more action adventure, not really lean into the choice and consequence, maybe they'll even just make one
Balancing Innovation and Tradition
00:58:04
Shameer Mehdikhan
ending. right There's just one way that things play out. I'm okay with it. Just tell me upfront, this is what I'm getting. And I think that's then you won't have as much backlash. you know people won't freak out. And since we're talking about RPGs, I feel like that's what the team at Allowed has done well. You know, the internet has talked so much about what they thought was going to go on with Allowed, right? And I think they did kind of screw up with their original trailer and they showed us a vision and they were doing something different. And guess what? That happens when you're making something, fair right? it's a part of the creative process right but ever since that first trailer every time they showed it about or they talked about allowed they've tried their best to be very clear about what they're doing yeah can you imagine if about came out and they never commented on the fact that there's no romances yeah then if people played the game and they couldn't romance people they would lose their mind right they would be so upset but now that we know there's no romances
00:58:53
Shameer Mehdikhan
you know, that's not their goal. That's not their intention. Yeah. Or the fact that the original trailer kind of showed off a more dark and gritty world. And now it seems a little more colorful and palette and it's just a little different. And it's like, okay, well, well, there was an adjustment period because again,
00:59:08
Shameer Mehdikhan
you sold someone certain pictures and ideas and now you have to pivot somewhere else. so People are going to have to react to that. They're going to have emotions. that You got to have answers for it too. Yeah. um If you want the game to be successful. So really like good communication. And I feel like that's why other games like Helldivers, Baldur's Gate, that's why the community likes them so much because You have good communication. And if you actually look back at most of the games that have not been successful in the last five years, I bet that a lot of those games just really had bad communication. I mean, some of them were just probably terribly made like the King Kong game. But other ones that really flocked or we expected to do good and they didn't do good. It's because they didn't really properly convey what they were about or they were just not complete. Yeah, and don't get me wrong, I don't, sometimes you want more of the same. When I have, like as an example, a Gears of War game, it's coming out every two years. I want a little more of the same, but when I go ah with a break of a five to 10 year gap and I go, I want this franchise to reinvent itself a little bit, I'm okay with it being a different game.
Collaborative Game Development
01:00:06
Shameer Mehdikhan
I'm okay with Gears becoming a slightly more semi-open world game. It was going down that route and it could add a little more variety, like you said. um But when you're like, so you got to kind of sometimes pick and choose what you want and you got to listen to your audience.
01:00:19
Shameer Mehdikhan
right And I think it's nice when the the development puzzle is very collaborative, when you're not so secretive about it. The one thing I get upset about is yes, when a game is announced four years in advance, and I look at Witcher 4 and we know that that game is far away, but they're doing it on purpose because they want their audience, they want their shareholders to be excited, and maybe they'll take some of that feedback and the lessons learned from...
01:00:41
Shameer Mehdikhan
What was the game that they just created? Cyberpunk as well and take all it together and say we'll meet slightly more collaborative and give people what they want. Think about these other games like Baldur's Gate. They had an early access for so long. That's true. CFD is basically released as an early access and everyone hated it for now. People love it right because They listen and they did what the community wanted yeah cyberpunk right everyone hated cyberpunk and now it's like people have forgotten how pissed off they were about cyberpunk Why because they gave us an anime we loved and they fixed their game and they gave us what we wanted in the game So now we're happy so it's about communication It's about knowing what that audience member want and what your audience wants and giving it to Right? Yeah, that's fair. And you know now, slightly pivoting a bit, because one of the things I wanted to talk about is the games I played in 2024, and I really enjoyed it. I know we've been talking quite a lot about RPGs, so I have to, of course, talk about my experience with Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Oh, man. Let me take a little swig of this before I hear that. Yeah, so i you know I'd say I'm a pretty decent gamer. I probably get through at least.
01:01:46
Shameer Mehdikhan
you know five, six games a year, if not more. Last year, I i pretty much got to at least eight or 10 games. So I do game a decent amount. But for a long time, I kind of pivoted away from gaming because it was really hard for me to get through Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. And I was so excited going into the game, um and especially after I read all of the reviews and how glowing they were. And then when I actually played the game, I was like, man,
01:02:12
Shameer Mehdikhan
How are people not complaining about the pacing of this game? How are people not going on and on about how bloated it is? Well, let's talk about the first thing.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Critique
01:02:20
Shameer Mehdikhan
I don't want to interrupt you here, but you now said both Final Fantasy Rebirth and Final Fantasy 16, which are games that maybe vary between 30 to 80 hours. But you were able to get through so quickly Dragon Age, which was existing. So talk about a little bit the differences that allowed you to like.
01:02:34
Shameer Mehdikhan
focus and hone in more on Dragon Age and what like Final Fantasy it could do better going forward. So the reason I felt like it was way easier for me to get through Dragon Age is because there wasn't as much resistance to things being accomplished. you know So for instance in Dragon Age, each of the missions are pretty short, pretty focused,
01:02:52
Shameer Mehdikhan
Like, for instance, if a mission starts in Dragon Age, a lot of times it's like, okay, we have to go meet this person and you know he's going to join your team and he's going to be your new party member and then you're going to fight out of some dungeon. That's a pretty standard, you know, format for the level, right? So I anticipate that going in. Well, in Dragon Age, sometimes I would meet that character immediately in a cutscene.
01:03:13
Shameer Mehdikhan
Or I'd have to do a very short five minute something to get to that character. And then the story would progress and the comment would progress. Now the pacing and the level structure for Final Fantasy 7, it felt like I was actively working to actually get anything accomplished because I can't really fast travel until I unlock these locations and I have to really like go through so much distance in order to get to their location while probably finding a bunch of random enemies I've fought a million times or I skip them. Then I can unlock a chocobo, which I can can let me go to places faster, but then I have to do a bunch of side quests to do that. So then that's a huge time suck. Then when I finally get to the point that I need to be at,
01:03:51
Shameer Mehdikhan
I have to normally find some character in a town which will take a while um Then I have to go through a bunch of conceits then finally when the story starts progressing in that level Then I have to go to a different perspective of all the scenes of the event from a different character of the party use their special abilities and literally go through the entire level but in a different part of the level and ah until I reunite with my teammate and then I have to fight a boss and it's like And then finally, at the end, I get like a kernel of this story is moving forward. But it's like, I just feel like I just ran a marathon to get there. Yeah, it's that's exactly it. Because I remember playing Final Fantasy 7 remake back during the pandemic. And there were so many moments where you're like,
01:04:32
Shameer Mehdikhan
in some factory you're with one person and i'm getting to point a then it pivots to the other group who's not with you and they purposely separated and then you get there and then it's the boss man it's like why did it was seven hours some of the art of separations are so artificial like i have literally seen cloud jump around like he is a god yeah and for some reason he cannot meet up with everybody else because you can't jump over a few rocks. I've literally seen him do this in cutscenes. He wants a whole game and he can't just jump over the rock. And I have to pull something in order to climb up. I'm like, bro, we can just jump. And that's why, like, in Final Fantasy, at least with Seven, it's so video gaming. and By that, I mean, eight they, again, they
01:05:14
Shameer Mehdikhan
hold you down and they're like, hey, this is just part of a video. I'm like, no, you don't have to do that. You don't fool yourself in the believing that this is a real world. Like, you know, you're playing a video game where you're playing Final Fantasy seven. And so.
01:05:29
Shameer Mehdikhan
And so for me, that's one thing that really just slowed the the forward progression of not Final Fantasy. Now, different people want different things. you know For me, like Dragon Age gave me a lot of a dopamine rush. you know like Constantly, things were happening. It was like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. For some people, they might feel like that's chaotic. That's erratic, right?
01:05:46
Shameer Mehdikhan
They want to kind of have a slow burn, right? And so then they might be turned off of that. As opposed to, you know, Final Fantasy 7 rebirth, like what I'm describing as a negative, some people might love, you know, like they want to explore the unbeaten path. They want to talk to all these characters. They want to chase chickens and collect them in a radio pen in order to progress the story forward, right? And that's because it helps them really fall into a fantasy land. And that's because We don't think about it as much, but each gamer comes to video games to get something different. Some people want that escapism. That's what they really, really like, right? They want a massive world that they can feel like they live in. For me, that's
Personal Gaming Preferences
01:06:30
Shameer Mehdikhan
not why I game. Like, I like that. But the main reason I game is because I want to see interesting characters do cool shit.
01:06:36
Shameer Mehdikhan
and a world that's interesting and different. right I'm really narrative focused. I really want to look at the character art. That's why when I normally play games, I don't play side quests because I'm like, why am I playing this optional content? like I want to see these characters change. there's's I want to see these people grow. like Why do I want to fall in love with a random person in a village? yeah I want to see my character change. There's not that many games where a side quest will be so deep and impactful to the overall game. And I figure forgot what game I was just listening to, but there are like some games
01:07:07
Shameer Mehdikhan
but yeah it's just not that often so you like you said i'd rather just skip there and mainline the whole game yeah and just not have to worry about this constant graph which is a very typical thing of found a fantasy and you have the gri so ah You have to really immerse yourself in that way.
01:07:21
Shameer Mehdikhan
and Another ah unpopular opinion, but my favorite Bethesda game is Starfield, and people hate but at Starfield. Why do I like Starfield? What other people saw is a con I love. Like, I love the fact that I can literally just open up a menu even though it's a convoluted menu and it sucks, right? But I can just press a button and go exactly where I need to go. I don't want to wander around, and I don't want to find random stuff. I don't want to find a random cave and go in there and find some cool loot. Like, I just want to get there, you know?
01:07:47
Shameer Mehdikhan
That's the type of gamer I am. That's why Starfield spoke to me. But other people obviously hated that, right? Because Bethesda's audience are not people who want to just get from point A to point B. Bethesda's audience wants to take the scenic route. They want to get lost. They want to explore. I agree. Yes, the the audience wants that. That's the type of audience they have. But they also set expectations that this would be a deep space, explorative game that you could do these things. And reality when it was fast traveling to point from planet is like but yeah was that my my point proven it's because they didn't properly communicate what they are right like they sold people that this is even more expensive than every game that you want if what they shouldn't have done that they should have said we're doing things differently exploration is going to be different in this game and you shouldn't expect to find the same type of exploration and find that you got another games right
01:08:39
Shameer Mehdikhan
Um, you have a thousand worlds, but really it's more for the visuals and the ambience. There's not going to be much to do on those worlds. Exactly. right and and And what now what everyone thinks of this game is a very subpar game
Game Ratings and Expectations
01:08:50
Shameer Mehdikhan
potentially. It's actually probably a very decent to good game. I mean, if you look at open critic, like in meta critic, it's in the mid eighties, like people ask like a game that's in the mid eighties is trash, but a lot of games are eights, you know, we expect them to be nines and tens, but they're actually eights. Like to me, Final Fantasy seven is an eight.
01:09:07
Shameer Mehdikhan
You know, I like the game. I can trash on the game all hour and you might think I hate the game, but I really like the game, right? And I give it an eight, but nowadays an eight just doesn't feel like it's good enough. Yeah, that's the thing. um And don't forget, I mean, I'm just going to say this, I didn't give Dragon Age, Vowgard a nine, but that that has the lowest scores on that.
01:09:26
Shameer Mehdikhan
Yeah, yeah. um And, you know, I think the metacritic on that's an 80. So, yeah you know, IGN was an outlier. um And it's interesting, like, with with Dragon Age, I agree with so much of the IGN review, but also so much of what I write read on Reddit. That's why I think I I think Dragon Age is one of the few games where like all of these opinions have some truth to it. The people who really liked it, the reasons they liked it, I get it. The people who think it's the worst RPG ever made, I totally get it. I can't disagree with either camp. you know and interesting it's It's about what you want out of a game. yeah
01:10:02
Shameer Mehdikhan
um which is why like it's more like you know You can listen to so many reviews as a game comes out, but like at the end of the day, you just have to play it. If there's enough that there that speaks to you, regardless of the score, either you pay with your wallet and you say, I'm going to try it out or wait till it goes on sale, or you don't play it at all. Or you play it on Game Pass. Or you play it on Game Pass.
01:10:21
Shameer Mehdikhan
And it's hard for you to put your opinion out on a game you haven't played. you know I feel like there's a lot of people out there that will say that a game sucks or it's really good. It's like an echo chamber. Yeah, it's like an echo chamber. And it's like there's Nintendo games that always get the brownie points because they're just saying it's Mario. It's Zelda. It's like, have you played the game? It might not be as good as you think, or maybe vice versa. So I'm happy you brought that up because to me, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is not a 92 or a 93. I think objectively, the pacing is terrible on that game. It's so bloated, right?
01:10:51
Shameer Mehdikhan
And because it's the second part of a trilogy, it's not very cathartic. Like, you don't feel... Like, Hi-Fi Rush ended, you felt like it ended. In Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, from the beginning to the game to the end of the game... So it feels like nothing really happened. How much has really happened? Yeah, not much. Because this is only gonna be the act two of three of the original game, and I'm just like, alright, like, I've put in a hundred hours.
01:11:16
Shameer Mehdikhan
What can we start moving? Yeah, like I don't know if it was a mistake to split this game in three parts and I understand why because the scope is so big to know that there's no definitive ending every game and then to open up even broader because I mean spoiler alert There's a multiverse parallel universe type shit in this game. It just makes it that much more I mean in hindsight, I think monetarily it's probably gonna work out for them I know there's sure reports that maybe it didn't sell as well as they expected but you reuse the same platform and you just crank it out sure you'll make your money But, to me, if, again, since we're talking RPGs, I have to take about Baldur's Gate III, if people are playing Baldur's Gate III for hundreds of hours, right? You know, you can't tell me that we couldn't make all of Final Fantasy VII work, remake work in one game, because we have games that are 100 to 200 hours. Exactly. And there's so much bloat, especially in Rebirth. Like, so many side quests that you just don't need to do. They didn't need to pack it with 30 to 40 hours worth of side quests. It was just fetch quests. Like, you really don't need that.
Focused vs Exploratory Narratives
01:12:15
Shameer Mehdikhan
Yeah and even the original structure of the game like look I know there's people who love Final Fantasy 7 right but the original structure of the game like to me that's not the type of narrative I like. I don't like narratives where basically the party knows that they have to end up at point B and they're going from point A to point B but then they have to pass through like 10 lands on the way and in each land something new happened. Some people really love that like
01:12:40
Shameer Mehdikhan
One piece. People love one piece. What is the general premise? We're just getting the one piece. But they go to so many different places, they experience so many different stories. It's the journey, it's the story. right That's not me. like I want a very focused story right and different lanes. And maybe a conclusive ending. yeah And so that's why with Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, when I was playing it, I was like, oh great, we're going to this land just for this character's backstory. Oh, now we're going to this land just for this character's backstory. And on top of all that, when the game was releasing, now it's probably in a much better shape now on the PS5 Pro, but we can't ignore the fact that from a fidelity perspective, it does look like garbage. Like I hate the fact that that was something ignored and it got a 92 on open credits. Oh yeah. But now, all of a sudden, the PS5 Pro version is coming out, and they're like, oh my god, this is so good. What were we looking at before? I'm like, no, it's because you're biased. You're biased. You weren't actually telling the truth. You weren't being objective. You just love Final Fantasy, so you're talking about it. And look, I love Final Fantasy. Crisis Core is one of my favorite games of all time, right?
01:13:41
Shameer Mehdikhan
Even though I never played the original fincy Final Fantasy Final Fantasy 7 like the themes the imagery were So huge for anyone who grew up in the 90s like we all knew about Final Fantasy 7 Even if we didn't play Final Fantasy right and it's impacted so much of my writing Even though I never played it because so much so much of fiction in general borrows from Final Fantasy So I absolutely know it's a legend and it's one of the greatest games that have ever come out and But if we're going to be objective about this review, you know, and if your job is to be objective about it to help inform, you know, monetary decisions and people buying it, then you got to be able to tell subjectively how you feel about it and objectively what the game is exactly. and and And you got to look at that on a holistic standpoint. And I just think that like, where the game stands, I think it had a lot of issues graphically. And that should have been just
01:14:33
Shameer Mehdikhan
noted a little higher in these reviews. And I, you know, I hate to name drop people, but I always go back to this, you know, Ryan McCaffrey from IGN with Halo Master Chief collection that gave it a nine when it released. And that was a horrible game at launch. And he even admitted himself. Yeah, I was biased when I reviewed it and I wish I could have reviewed it again. I mean, it's hard. It's hard to know when you're biased because we love things like I love Halo. Like I know I'm going to give ah Halo games like 10 out of 10 because I just love itself. Right. So that's why I try my best to say, okay, objectively, here's what I think is working and not working in the game.
01:15:04
Shameer Mehdikhan
You know, is that a prom for you, right? um Subjectively, I don't care. You know, like, that doesn't bother me at all. That's why I love the game. So, well, at least, okay, so let me ask you this question. Because this game was a time exclusive on PlayStation, we now know what's coming on PC. Are you okay now with the fact that Astro Bot won Game of the Year?
01:15:22
Shameer Mehdikhan
Overall, and it being a Sony exclusive, what are you talking about? So for me, I bought Astrobot. I played it a little bit. um I think in this year, Astrobot's the safe choice. It makes sense. I get why you know it's the game of the year, but a platformer is never going to be my game of the year because I already said, like for me, I'm about narratives. I'm about character arcs. I'm thought' about character interactions, those type of things. Astrobot, a platformer is not going to have that. right so it's just not something that interested me. Like, am I going to play Astro Bot? Absolutely. Am I going to enjoy it? Absolutely. I'm having fun with it. But it's not what I think is the pinnacle of gaming, because that's not what I look for in games, right? But that's a different opinion than a lot of gaming journalists and you know the general media, right? Even gamers. And so it absolutely makes sense to me objectively why it's Game of the Year. Subjectively, I can never have a platformer being a Game of the Year. And I think that's how some people feel about racing games.
01:16:17
Shameer Mehdikhan
You know, they'll say racing games can't be game of the years because for them what they look for in a gaming year by definition can't be in a racing game right because it's a simulation, right? And they're like, no, like when I play games, I'm looking for characters and narrator and like narration. And this is a simulation. Exactly,
Square Enix Storytelling Challenges
01:16:34
Shameer Mehdikhan
100%. And like, it's hard for me to look at something like a Mario Kart or a Forza Horizon being Game of the Year. But for someone else saying this was the most deepest a game I've ever played in a long time. So that's why like, and I picked this up from like, you know, from fiction writing, like you got to know your genre and you have to grade it within that genre.
01:16:51
Shameer Mehdikhan
And within the genre of a platformer, Astrobot does what a platformer is supposed to do very well very well. It excels. And so because of that, it deserves Game of the Year because it it's in their genre, it does what it does incredibly well. right And so that deserves awards.
01:17:08
Shameer Mehdikhan
Yeah, that's a fair point. And i again, I agree. It's the safe choice. I mean, I haven't even played Final Fantasy Rebirth and just seen gameplay videos of it. I would say I would pick Astro Bot over it. You know, it's just, that's just where I'm at. I mean, the gameplay was fun. Don't get me wrong. I had a great time fighting the enemies.
01:17:24
Shameer Mehdikhan
you know everything but yeah it's it is I think it took me what six months to get through that game and it took me three weeks to get through Dragon Age yeah that's you know because for me to sit sit through five to six hours of Dragon Age was not that difficult but for me like to get through five to six hours of Final Fantasy 7 was so hard because I would play six hours and I'm still in the same chapter that's cool it Imagine watching a five-hour movie to be like nothing happened. And there's like one part in the game where you're literally a cat on top of something that I don't even know what kind of animal it is, but it's a robot. and
01:18:00
Shameer Mehdikhan
The gameplay was so slow, and it was like, oh my goodness, can it just move forward? And I'm not going to say it's inexcusable. It's a creative choice to say, um we're going to put these sections. And they're almost making this game as if it was an old school RPG. yeah But I think this is the promise square. The next is that they have high expectations of their games and go, hey, we made an ADR RPG. It should sell 10 million copies. You can't do that, but then put in these archaic mechanics and expect everyone's going to like it.
01:18:27
Shameer Mehdikhan
ah Yes, I have to admit that we have smaller attention spans today than we have ever had in like, but you have to factor in for that, like people want these dopamine rushes, you know, and like games like like that old school gaming in the 90s and 2000s, you weren't constantly getting dopamine rushes the way you do in modern games, but you're selling to a modern audience, right? So you have to find a way of either, you know, sticking with what you do really well, or finding a way of Being innovative, and I think that's partly why Final Fantasy VII Rebirth didn't sell well, because there's probably a lot of people who tried it and they're like, oh my goodness, this game is really slow. I'm not getting a dopamine rush. And then they're just going to go back to playing Alden Ring. Yeah, and that's 100%. And I honestly think they're kind of struggling now in some sense, Square Enix specifically, because the pivot to Final Fantasy XVI being more action oriented, I think was a good, maybe a safe choice to some degree based on market analysis, saying what do people like?
01:19:19
Shameer Mehdikhan
But it was more like a 30, 35 hour game that says, hey, we're slightly more linear. We still have this grand story, like a Game of Thrones type of style, you know, storytelling. And maybe we see people getting into this a slightly more than we would on a Final Fantasy 7, where the the story can be so convoluted, where it can maybe not make sense. But you also had similar struggles with 16. So which is why I think that game also didn't perform. Well, I think what's, I mean, all right.
01:19:43
Shameer Mehdikhan
maybe another unpopular opinion and I have to kind of check my own bias because I know I come from a western audience and I know Japanese um you know just storytelling indifference is going to be different right so for me to come in with the western lens and be like oh the Japanese stories suck right you know it's not really the right move because the whole way they tell stories might be fundamentally different right and so for a Japanese audience it makes perfect sense but I think Square Enix as a whole like sometimes the writing is just not great like yeah when it comes to the villains in Final Fantasy 16 oh my goodness like the second the last villain I was like this is the most cliche bad guy he's just being bad to be bad and it's like black and white no gray it's hard to believe that this could ever be a person who would become evil it feels as video gaming as video gaming can get and for that game
01:20:34
Shameer Mehdikhan
it seemed odd to me because they were trying to kind of be like Game of Thrones and they were trying to have these realistic characters in different nations who are kind of engaging with each other and there's po political backstabbing all this type of stuff so for me I was like okay like this writing is kind of making me think as Japanese Game of Thrones And then I have these like cliche video game characters, which are as cliche as it gets. And I'm like, man, what are they doing? you know And so I think as a whole, like Square Enix is so good with setting, with world building, with characters, right like protagonists. like It's amazing how iconic the the main characters and the parties are from Square Enix games. Their worlds are so fantastical. you know
01:21:17
Shameer Mehdikhan
And they're so interesting. I get to ride around on a bird. That's such a cool idea, right? um But I think Square Enix might want to look into, hey, we're really turning this out to a Western audience, right? um Maybe we should look at our writers, right? I think that's a good point you made. i mean What was the game that came out prior to this from Square Enix? It was a very cliche, very cliche written game about that African-American girl that gets transported. Oh my goodness. Yeah. um It was project for Spoken. For Spoken. The writing that was horrible and they actually had a lot of western writers on it. But my point being, what is Square Enix good at? The setting is interesting, the comic is interesting, the characters are unique and memorable, but the writing was trash. Yeah, it was trash. And so I think like and the way I look at this too right now is like Capcom and all these other Japanese films that are having their cars on.
01:22:12
Shameer Mehdikhan
or Renaissance, where they're coming back, they're bringing older games, and they're pivoting forward, and they're finding a modern approach now to it. And they need to really take a chapter out of those books. And they have to really look at their competition and say, we have great IP. But what do we need to do? Because they're so, I think, so afraid to change the formula that they're like, if we change this now, it's never going to be what it once was. And I think they need to embrace that. I think it's OK that these games can be different. Yeah. I absolutely think. Well, it's about evolution. You know like you have to think about how are you evolving.
01:22:42
Shameer Mehdikhan
and look at Nintendo, right?
Nintendo's Evolution with Zelda
01:22:44
Shameer Mehdikhan
Like with Zelda, they know what works with Zelda and they knew what they could tinker with and what they shouldn't and they knew what they should evolve. Exactly. They went from a classic dungeon crawling game to an open rural game. Like who would have thought of that? Why is that? Because the core, they know the core of Zelda, they don't change that. But the things that need to be evolved and improved, they they do it. Don't get me wrong, I don't think Zelda is perfect because I think that combat system, yeah it's the same moves that you've been using for 20 years. And so for people who are good at Zelda, they love it because they have that muscle memory. But I'm like, man, it's literally the s way swiping attack and the guard block and everything that you've been doing for decades. exactly so some things are so still So there are some things that maybe you can evolve, right? But you know that's what you're going to know.
01:23:28
Shameer Mehdikhan
know your your games in your studio well enough to know hey this is what people like about us and this is what we need to evolve and jinker with and I think Square Enix also if they're struggling they need to really sit with themselves and figure that out yeah because you know the the last thing that I wouldn't want is a company that well established that has a legacy all of a sudden has just gone out of the the gaming industry you know so I can't imagine like no Square Enix oh my god you know I love Western RPGs but you know There's just something so heroic and unique about those JRPGs. They just stick with me. Kingdom Hearts, this collaboration between JRPG and Disney characters, that was like my most fondest memory as a child. And that's why I love anime, I love JRPGs and things like that because
01:24:12
Shameer Mehdikhan
they're just unique like the things that they chinker with the worlds that they describe like they're they're just so different yeah and it's not what you would expect because a lot of what we see in the west a lot of it it comes from you know fantasy roots that come from jr toklin it comes from christianity roots when you're talking about you know demons and things like that and so over time like it's it's kind of felt redundant and repetitive because a lot of those roots are roots are all branching from the same 100 and for japan i'm sure there's roots that are branching from the same stuff over there, too. But because it's so different from what I'm used to, right? Like, it's just always interesting. yeah Yeah, that's
2024 Gaming Landscape Highlights
01:24:52
Shameer Mehdikhan
fair. That's a fair point. So, well, yeah, honestly, like, that's kind of a lot of what I wanted to talk about. Is there anything else that you wanted to get at? Well, last thing I just want to talk about was just 2024 in review, you know, I think
01:25:06
Shameer Mehdikhan
To me, after we got off of the high of 2023, 2024 to me has been kind of a slower year. um You know, my top standouts, I, you know, I haven't really like in Dragon Age. I love Blacksmith Wukong. I thought some of the controls were clunky and I need a little more polishing. um But again, just getting immersed in Chinese mythology. It was so fascinating. And the gameplay was really fun too.
01:25:29
Shameer Mehdikhan
So that was another top pick for me. fes Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, in spite of me crapping on it so much, still really high up there because, man, the world is just so fascinating. Cloud is such an iconic character. Aerith is such an iconic character.
01:25:46
Shameer Mehdikhan
that just having all of that put together is going to get me hyped. right So I still really like that game overall. And I think it's because these are things that I love so much that I get so passionate about because I want those studios and teams to just do better right because that's what I love. It's like a love-hate relationship.
01:26:03
Shameer Mehdikhan
um Maybe for another time we'll talk about Hellblade because I think going into Hellblade, that was a game I had very high expectations for. I actually enjoyed the game overall, but it doesn't really feel, you know, sick. I don't know if it's appropriate to call it a game because it felt more like a narrative experience, emulator you know, and it did not meet my expectations, you know, but, you know, that was higher up there, but I maybe make it, you know, my fourth game.
01:26:29
Shameer Mehdikhan
um And then other than that, you know, I'm just getting through Indiana Jones. And after that, I'm going to play some more Hammers. Yeah, I mean, that's ah that's a fair thing, too. Same for me. I've gotten so many games in my backlog that I got, especially during Black Friday. I'm super excited to see what Xbox comes out first party-wise and second party in 2025. We have a lot to look forward to in terms of fable and avowed and all these other games. And same with Nintendo, launching new hardware. And I'm just super excited for the next Mario, RPG, or open-world game, and everything else they announced. So I'm more concerned about Sony as a whole. They're saying that they're going to have things starting in 2025.
01:27:03
Shameer Mehdikhan
Every year after that, they're going to be releasing probably bangers, but I'm still not. I'm more concerned than the fact that they're not revealing a lot of information. We haven't had a showcase in years. no And I'm more excited about actually Microsoft for once. Right? That's something. So I guess in closing, if we had to give a letter grade for 2023, what would you say? 2023 or 2024? Sorry, 2024. 2023 is an A, so 2024. Yeah, 2024.
01:27:27
Shameer Mehdikhan
since we're not counting let's say backlog games and stuff i would give it like a solid b same i give it a b the the highs were high and the lows are kind of low but they balance out for me you know i'd probably be leaning more towards a b- because silent hill is in my lane astrobot is in my lane you know legend the new zelda game was in my lane so Even though there was objectively good games, there just weren't the games that interested me. So probably I would look more towards the B minus, you know, potentially a C plus, but I'm actually really kind of liking Indiana Jones. So that's kind of, you know, ballooning that up for me. Um, all right. And, uh, you know, it's near the end of the year, so we kind of want to do a year in review and maybe next time we'll.
01:28:11
Shameer Mehdikhan
talk about 2025 and what we are really looking forward to and how we think it's going to shake out. Yeah, it's fair enough. So let's get talking to you. All right. See you.