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THE BEST GAME OF 2022 - Add to Party 1.3.2023
4 Plays2 years ago
This week we go through to find the best game of the year (of games we played).
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:14
Speaker
Welcome to Add to Party, a Friendship Simulator masquerading as a new show. I'm your host, James Hartwell, and I'm joined by Charles Umont, and I'm joined by Andy K.
00:00:27
Speaker
Welcome back to the new year. 2022, let's throw it in the trash. It's gone, baby. It is gone. That's right. I only live in the future. And by living in the future, I constantly judge the past.
Reflecting on 2022 and Game of the Year Criteria
00:00:44
Speaker
Now it's time for us to judge 2022 and decide what was the best game of 2022 that we played.
00:00:57
Speaker
reflective now. I don't know if we're talking about the new year. I'm gonna go get a drink quick. Well, you know, I think it's really important for us to also talk when we talk about game of the year.
00:01:15
Speaker
What's our own personal criteria on Game of the Year? Because everyone has their own thing. Some people are just like, this is most fun. Or some people are just the most impactful. Some people say music score, which I think they're wrong entirely.
00:01:33
Speaker
Um, but you know, there's things, everyone has a different criteria basically. And we, you know, I think we should talk about that when we argue because it will be more fun to poke holes at people based on knowing that what they're judging it on.
00:01:47
Speaker
I'll start with you, Charles. What is your criteria for what? And also, we'll explain the rules for how we're doing this in a minute, too. Just so you don't think we're just going to jump right into this. I have created a system by which I mean I stole it from the besties. It's really beautiful, though. Another great podcast. But Charles, go ahead. What is your criteria for Game of the Year? Ooh, I want to hear this.
00:02:15
Speaker
I need to add a factor for games I may not like, but everyone else likes. Oh, you know, to to keep me from just having a say, I do factor in general public reception to a game and attitude towards it. I call it the contrarian category.
00:02:47
Speaker
And, you know, but for me personally, the thing that is most important is the lasting impression a game gives me. You know, it is a little pretentious because not every game is meant to do this, but, you know, games are art. And, you know, when I play games, I like to think about what it's trying to say. So there are like simpler
00:03:04
Speaker
Uh, I don't know. I'd like to call it the grounded.
00:03:11
Speaker
simpler, I put in quotes, games that may, you know, may have been really fun or cool, but I don't like to rank them as like game of the year necessarily. So fucking bad. You're on a gaming podcast now.
00:03:28
Speaker
You have to think of a title for what our game of the year award is to keep that in the back of your head. Well, we can't choose ultimate game of ultimate all time or whatever it was. No, no, no. We're adding ultimate. OK, let's say our alpha. Alpha. Oh, there we go. You know, the alpha game of all time. All the ultimate omega game of the year. Sigma. Sigma is the new thing, Charles. That's true. Yeah. But, you know, we can't use that. That's cheating.
00:03:57
Speaker
Everyone uses that. That's for misogynists. Yeah, but not misogynists. Yeah. But back to my original thing, too, I do want to say so smaller games like I would say a Mario sports game, I would never put I would likely never put as a game of the year contender, even though they might be really fun.
00:04:23
Speaker
Sports might be valid to you, Charles. Absolutely not. But that's what but that's what popularity, the grounded effect comes in. The ground forces me to. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Oh, that's me. Over the year, too. What about you, Andy? How do you judge game of the year? Hmm. Hmm. I think I might just have to piggyback what Charles said. It's just what had a lasting effect. Um.
00:04:52
Speaker
I don't know, something that makes you feel, that makes you think about it after you're done. And I don't know if that always involves fun. But it stays with you. It's sticky. It's a sticky game. And that'll be my game
Game of the Year Bracket Begins
00:05:08
Speaker
of the year. But James.
00:05:09
Speaker
There's plenty of movies I've watched that I will never watch again, but I think are great movies. Yeah. Yeah. And I think games can also have that experience. I think absolutely. But what are your criteria, James?
00:05:27
Speaker
I think Charles kind of said it was that impact is maybe the best way to describe it for me at least. I'm looking for the experience that surprised me most. Ooh, surprise. And that's a very general term because
00:05:44
Speaker
That doesn't mean it's new, right? It can be someone executing so well on an existing idea or a new idea or like a narrative. It's just that kind of idea of taking something and putting a twist on it that I don't expect or I haven't seen before, right? That it allows that this has excelled in such a way that it
00:06:09
Speaker
Again, to your point, too, any stickiness, right? It's like I'm looking for that experience that goes, I feel enriched for having played this, you know? Yeah, that's very, very fucking what's the word hipster. Yeah, I'm looking for games that speak to my soul. Yeah. Listen, just like that album in the chipmunk album, dude.
00:06:36
Speaker
Just let it sit in your soul. We're not going to talk about that for 10 minutes, but if you don't know what that is, someone found an old recording of Alvin and Chipmunk singing rock songs from the ladies early 90s and slowed it down to 116 speed and it's incredibly sound. It's incredible. Then you just want to be on every drug while listening to it. I've searched in myself a lot and it was all thanks to Alvin and the Chipmunks.
00:07:05
Speaker
Thanks. Anyway, so how I have devised stolen this this our way to pick game of the year is I pulled Andy and Charles to tell me the games they played this year because played. Yes. Well, I mean, in terms of played and also can speak to to a certain extent. Oh, sure. Sure. With the idea of game of the year conversations in mind. I also added mine in as well. There's overlap, obviously.
00:07:35
Speaker
And I narrowed it down to 16 entries, which we have put into a single elimination bracket format. No ranking or seeding really matters for it. However, what we'll do is we will go through these eight. We will go through the first eight and then the next four.
00:07:56
Speaker
to end up with to go to end up with four winners. Sure. And then those four winners will be paired off with God of War Ragnarok and Elden Ring, which are consensus favorites for game of the year. Oh, didn't really seem didn't really seem like it was worthwhile to just put them in the middle there. I mean, that's fair. They would just. And then and then we will take those six or rank them into our top five and drop one. Mm hmm.
00:08:23
Speaker
And from there, we will have our top five, including the game of the year. Yeah, this is important. OK, it is. People need to know what we think. Oh, they're going to have their game of the year trailers and they're going to put add to party in those like cute little leaves. You know, if you don't if you don't think I might spend some time to send a frame certificate of winning this to the PR office. Oh, I love it. I mean, I
00:08:53
Speaker
And if it's Elden Ring, I will be in Japan in a couple months. There you go. Listen, and then when they say won over a hundred Game of the Year awards, one of them, one of them is that party. That's how they can inflate that number. There you go. Can we sign it?
00:09:12
Speaker
Maybe. Oh, OK. So without further ado, we will begin this process starting with our first battle. Pokemon Legends Arceus versus Xenoblade Chronicles 3. Let's go. Now, James, are you the only one that played Arceus? Charles, did you play Arceus? No, I get to be I get to be the
00:09:35
Speaker
Yeah, you didn't play Xenoblade either. So yeah, there you go. This is what I love about this format is to is that I think a lot of this is going to be one person played it one. The other person played the other one. And we're trying to sway the third person who didn't play either, which actually makes it fairly amusing. Make your argument and then I will make it wrong. OK. And I'm also I may push us for time because we do have a lot of these to go through.
00:10:06
Speaker
Pokemon Legends Arceus came out early in 2022. This was the first foray into Pokemon existing in a 3D open world, abandoning its 2D or 2D.5 experience. It was very ambitious. It was an isekai for some weird reason.
00:10:29
Speaker
And it gave a lot of people hope for like, Hey, you know what? This was a good first try for the Pokemon company to go in there and try something new. And we wanted to like, let them go, Hey, you're iterating on your formula. You're changing it. You're making new things happen.
00:10:45
Speaker
Um, scarlet violet also came out 2022. Um, and we talked a lot about that and how they kind of fell on their face. Different teams made those games though. So, uh, I chose Arceus over scarlet and violet, despite the fact that, uh, I would say scarlet advice, probably more fun than Arceus, but Arceus I think is a better game.
00:11:05
Speaker
Mm hmm. Just again, that new and novel thing, right? All right. And so that's why I think, you know, it's it's the it's a franchise incredibly stuck in their roots, branching out, trying something new. That's that's my that's my spiel for why I should win this battle, at least. Andy, tell us about Xenoblade. Well, I'd first like to begin highlighting a poll quote from your argument. A good first try. Just want to point that out.
00:11:35
Speaker
Xenoblade is the third try. Well, Xenoblade 3 is the third in the Xenoblade series, the first classic RPG, second
00:11:52
Speaker
don't put gacha in my game. And then the third, this was a game that I was scared to play, was only intrigued because I heard it hinted at Xenosaga. I don't know if it actually did. And this was one of the first games in a very long time to get me to play for more than like four or five hours at a time.
00:12:10
Speaker
I think I played for eight hours straight, which is pretty impressive for anything to capture my attention like that. I think the story is very interesting. It pushes against a lot of norms. The battle system is insane, but a lot of people like it. It's been nominated for a lot of best games of the years, have a bunch of other different places.
00:12:32
Speaker
It's great and it was able to pull me into a game which I would say is high achievement and I think therefore better than Arceus, Charles.
00:12:43
Speaker
You know, after listening to both of you, I've had enough of attention span to remember the first couple seconds of each of your arguments. And I like JRPGs more. So Xenoblade 3. Let's go. All right. Xenoblade 3 takes the first one. All right. Garbage. I have not played these next two either. So this is going to be fun. OK. But I know Andy's played both. Yes. Andy, you're going to take Stranger in Paradise because I only watched people play Stranger in Paradise. That's fair.
00:13:13
Speaker
Uh, so our next, our next fight is tunic V stranger in paradise. So, uh, we talked about tunic earlier this year, at least I did. Um, it came out and this is probably the purest love letter to old Zelda games that has ever been made.
00:13:34
Speaker
You play as a fox who wakes up on a mysterious island, you are given little to no instruction. Other than to explore this world in this kind of 3D isometric view, very Zelda-like again. You have a sword, you have a shield, and you kind of go out there and try to figure out the mystery of this world. The mystery of this world is presented
00:13:54
Speaker
through an instruction booklet like you would get in the old days. However, that instruction booklet is also written in a language you don't understand. So really, you're piecing out all these mysteries of exploring and trying to figure out even the systems of the game while you're doing it. And it's so satisfying when you just realize
00:14:19
Speaker
when you just realized these things was like I could have been doing this the whole time and it was always there but I didn't know about it until I figured out this puzzle between the instruction booklet or just kind of progressing the game along. It is one of those games that like when you load in like the new game plus
00:14:39
Speaker
it's like suddenly you're just awash that you now suddenly know everything. Where it's like you can completely do this different than your first playthrough because now you know every piece of information you didn't know when the game started and that changes the entire way you play. It is possibly one of the most ambitious and successful games that I've ever seen that's taken
00:15:06
Speaker
like taken like a love letter slash, you know, twist on a formula and executed on it so well. This year also had another game, Deaf's Door, which replayed a Raven, who is a like a Grim Reaper character that also very similar in this vein, also an excellent game, pales in comparison to Tunic. So that is fantastic.
00:15:31
Speaker
Not that I'm voting for Tunic, although I will be. I mean, that's the thing. You can vote for whoever you want to vote for.
00:15:39
Speaker
While Stranger in Paradise, the Final Fantasy, I think it's an isekai as well. It is. Well, isn't that? Yeah, it is. It is. I think it's Final Fantasy's answer to a Soulsborne type game made by Team Ninja, the studio behind Neo Ninja Gaiden. And it's a goofy, stupid game that shouldn't be as good as it is.
00:16:08
Speaker
Uh, it just takes the class system that you'd see somewhere else, but uses classic Final Fantasy. And, and you can switch in between classes in combat and make your own custom combos. And it is so satisfying and is so nostalgia filling. And the story is so dumb.
00:16:26
Speaker
and played in a hammy, fun way. It knows what it is. It revels in it. Yeah, the whole chaos thing. Like, it knows what it's doing. It's not that it's bad. It's just self-aware. It's camp. It's fantastic. And way better than I thought it would have been. And I feel like it kind of got a bad rap.
00:16:48
Speaker
that it didn't really deserve mainly because of the chaos! And I don't think people gave it enough jams from what I kind of read. But still, an excellent game. It didn't play super well when it came out, but that got fixed in later patches. Oh, it might have, yeah. Yeah. I had fun with my time with it, but I will just say Tunics better game. It's incredibly clever. It's incredibly satisfying. What a treasure.
00:17:14
Speaker
Charles, you want to jump on the winning team or? That's it. Listen, Andy was never going to be a good defense lawyer with this attitude. I can't. I can't. Switch his size, even when his job is to defend the other side. I mean, stranger in paradise is pretty good. Is it better than tunic though? Yeah, I guess my vote doesn't matter on this one.
00:17:44
Speaker
Who swayed you more though, Charles?
00:17:46
Speaker
Oh, Strangers in Paradise did. Oh, really? And you love Soulsborne, so that does make sense. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the other thing, too, is just, you know, I understand tunic as a whole and the way that discovery should be enchanting and fun. But to be honest with the way it's described, I don't I don't find that fun. Like the of being like you knew you could do it already if you knew it because
00:18:17
Speaker
For me, I am curious when I play new games, and I do want to try new things, and I want to explore it. One of the main fun things is just to be told, hey, you could do this all along. It bothers me.
00:18:31
Speaker
And I'm not going to say this is bad game design because they're doing this intentionally. It's not bad game design. This is part of their thing to be fun and to explore. But I don't find that to be charming. Interesting. Fair enough.
00:18:53
Speaker
All right. Next we have the battle of the narrative games immortality versus the quarry. Charles, do you want to go first with the quarry? No, no, no. Let's keep we going with the top to bottom. OK.
00:19:08
Speaker
Uh, I was the only one who played immortality. Um, I talked about it again, not too, not too, uh, distantly in the podcast, but immortality is, oh God, I'm blanking on his name. Oh, I don't remember her story guy. Oh, it must not be that great. Quiet down over there listening. That's it. Don't let it speak.
00:19:34
Speaker
Immortality stretches the definition of what a game could be because I and I have said this, it's not super close to me. I mean, it's almost a point and click.
00:19:48
Speaker
Um, it is a game where you're, yes, I know Andy. Uh, but it's not really a point and click though. That's the thing. The game was presented to you entirely through this menu of film reels where you go through and watch these live action FME videos about this mystery involving this one actress who was in three movies that were never released. Um, and you're trying to figure out the mystery of what happened to her.
00:20:17
Speaker
There are twists and turns in it. It is not as straightforward as I am describing it, but to say too much more would be a spoiler. Actually, that's a good question. How would we want to handle spoilers for games on this? Because we're going to talk about God of War Rag and Rock later, too. Don't spoil it. No spoilers.
00:20:38
Speaker
OK, OK, so I won't I won't spoil the story, but essentially you go through you scrub through these FMV videos going back and forth. And as you do that, you will find mysteries and clues that you can then click and zoom in on and will take you to another film reel that that will be unlocked based on the context sensitive item you click in the game. But you can click on anything.
00:21:04
Speaker
It's not like it's just a highlighted thing. You can click on anything and the game somehow knows how to put that to the next scene where it's like if you click on a flower, it will then take you to a flower in another scene. That's interesting. It's a very interesting experience. It's unsettling in some points.
00:21:25
Speaker
The end narrative really kind of plays with you as the player and how that is involved. It narratively is we talked about this with the game awards. I think is narratively the best narrative that came out this year, even above God of War Ragnarok. And we'll talk about that later. But yeah, it's I think this is a fantastic game, even if it's barely a game, in my opinion, and more of just an experience. Right.
00:21:55
Speaker
Charles the Quarry. Listen, for the past decade or so, horror has been, you know, moved around with the fad. You know, it's it for early 2010s or so, there was it was like more like torture porn type of things with like Saw and everything else. And there's been slasher movies and all this other stuff. But I think the future of horror films
00:22:23
Speaker
should be games like the Quarry, right? Because the Quarry and all these games by, what was it? Is it super massive? I think it's super massive. Yeah. Yeah. All these games by super massive. They fill a very particular niche of game that is really not like not really filled anywhere else.
00:22:46
Speaker
There are people like Quantic Dream who do these choice-driven games, but this is strictly a horror. Supermassive is focused strictly on horror-esque genre, and it's really fun. I think with the Quarry, that's probably their best one so far. They had other games like the Dark Picture Anthology games, but for some reason, I don't know, they probably used the B and C teams on those games because Quarry is much better.
00:23:13
Speaker
Even with the Devil and Me game that came out just early in December, the core is still so much better. It's written better. There's more memorable characters that are actually likable. It has Brenda Song in it, and people love Brenda Song, including me. And there's something about a game that has
00:23:38
Speaker
It has about 168 different endings, depending on who survives, what happens, and all this other stuff. But I really enjoyed actually some of the winking and nodding to tropes. For instance, there's an instance where a certain character could be the last one left.
00:23:58
Speaker
And the chapter, even though it's not necessarily the end of the game, well, where the game would normally end changes and says final chapter and it says final girl, which is a horror movie trope in the sense of there's always normally like one last person left and it's normally a woman.
00:24:16
Speaker
the version, and it updates itself on this. So I feel like with the quarry, it's very lovingly made. It has a very specific niche, and it's been very fun to explore. And it kind of makes you want to deep dive and go, I want to play this again because I want to see all these other branching paths. And that could be a lot more hours that you pour into this game just for replayability.
00:24:46
Speaker
And so in terms of impact, it stuck with me a lot more because it's like, oh, I wonder if Emma dies this early or, you know, if Caitlin can live, what happens if Josh does this and all this stuff. And it's really fun to just kind of branch and explore and think about what could be done differently. I will say in terms of that impact thing, Charles, and that stickiness rate of how it like
00:25:11
Speaker
I agree like that all those endings that those are the best part of those until long games, right? I think does it have like how Detroit being human had that thing where you can like jump backwards, try play different decisions quickly or there is a mode where you can do that. The normal mode doesn't.
00:25:29
Speaker
But like there's like a director mode, actually. And that's the other thing about the game. It comes with a lot of different things. Like there's a theater mode where you can set the parameters of the characters and then just press play and you don't have to do anything. Oh, oh, yeah. I remember I saw that. That was very clever. Yeah. So you could just kind of see like what those stats would like affect for the player for the characters if you didn't touch it yourself. So you just watch it play out and you could just mess with all the parameters or do specific things and
00:25:59
Speaker
see what happens. I will say one last thing on immortality is I still think about the ending of that game now. I can't say anything because it'll ruin it. But is impacts or it will challenge your perspective as the player slash viewer of media?
00:26:26
Speaker
and in a way that I have not seen anything else ever done. I like the quarry. I've watched people play the quarry. I think immortality is something special.
00:26:40
Speaker
So, which one? That's you, Andy. You're a highbreaker. Yeah. So, I played the quarry. I agree with everything Charles said. I, through my own decisions, I lost a character I was very invested in and it was very painful.
00:26:57
Speaker
Um, and I, I still feel that pain when we've played it since. Um, but I will say from James, how you described immortality. I think I have to pick that it just, it sounds, it sounds so interesting in terms of like something new to experience.
00:27:17
Speaker
I think what the quarry does, it does incredibly well, incredibly well. But you're navigating a slasher film, right? Maybe not slasher, per se, but in that type of thing. And it does it the best. It's the best you could do it. But immortality sounds new and interesting to me. So I'm going to choose that. I'm sorry, the quarry.
00:27:38
Speaker
I feel bad. I mean, like, so I did randomize. I moved a couple of these around because I'm like, I didn't want like two heavy hitters to like go against each other in the first round. But like immortality, the quarry was one that just came up in the random. And I'm like, that is an interesting fight. Yeah, that sucks that they were paired together so quick. Yeah, they're both. Well, I haven't played in mortality, but the quarry is very good.
00:28:03
Speaker
Very good. God, the graphics are so good. It's mind blowing. It's my begging you to. You can be immortality in a day. Just play it. Is it on PS5? I don't know. I hate playing on my computer. It's. Is it? I'll look later. I'm begging you to play. This is like when I begged you to play Outer Wilds and then he did. The Wild was excellent. James, you're so right. Big game pass game. Screw you.
00:28:33
Speaker
Screw you. I haven't played Outer Wild yet. I'll get to it some very good. I have a feeling I have a feeling I'm going to play Pentanence and have the same argument with you guys in a couple of weeks. But we'll get there. That's it. That's it. You got Pentanence already. I haven't played it yet. Oh, that and like Citizen Sleeper are kind of my gaps, which I know are supposed to be very good games, but I just didn't get to them.
00:28:58
Speaker
So all right, immortality moves on to the next round. And here we have Kirby. Oh, this is we don't need neon white. It's correct. Andy played Kirby. I played half of Kirby. Charles, did you play Kirby? Nope. Did you play neon white? Nope. Andy, did you play neon white? No. OK, so it's just it's Kirby. OK, it's just Kirby. It has to be.
00:29:23
Speaker
You got to explain the game, Andy. Kirby was perfect. This is specifically Kirby and the Forgotten Lands, I think, is the full title. Correct. Correct. And it's just it's the next mainline entry in the Kirby saga, and you play as Kirby whisked into a world destroyed by capitalism.
00:29:44
Speaker
And it's brilliant. It's so much fun. I know there was the whole jokes of because with the gimmick this time is you can inhale large objects and then control them and use their properties to solve puzzles like eating a whole car.
00:30:00
Speaker
or eating a traffic cone or eating a oh, you can fill yourself full of water and just it's it's just a gimmick. But the whole the whole thing that makes it refreshing and fun and fun is the way they lay out the levels. This isn't 2D. This is 3D exploration.
00:30:17
Speaker
It's the kind of thing where they hide different things, optional things to find in the level so you can decide your own difficulty. It's just insanely cute. And I loved and became obsessed with the message of it. And then we all remember my I just became obsessed with Kirby. I built a shrine to him. I built a model kit. I have little stands a friend has seam lines that you can see from the air.
00:30:44
Speaker
You cannot, you monster. We can't even joke about that, James. Those steam lines destroyed me. But I love Kirby and I was amazed. I was probably a little bit too obsessed with it, but it brought me a lot of joy and it was great. I think to give a slightly less fanatical
00:31:10
Speaker
explanation of it. I played half of it. I didn't drop off for any particular reason. I think I just had another game I wanted to play and I never got back to it. I probably will at some point, especially considering what I've heard from a lot of people, but it's a Kirby game, right? You inhale things, you use it to fight cutesy animals. It's a bit of a 3D 2.5D platformer kind of deal. This one I wouldn't call 2.5.
00:31:39
Speaker
Well, they have they have parts that are kind of like flat, right? Didn't they? I mean, I'm thinking I remember. Yeah, it's well, 3D is 3D platform. I made this one fun was it was full 3D. Yeah, that actually that's the point, right? Yeah, they they took Kirby. They put him in a full 3D world. That sounds like Kirby 64, I think. Have they done that? Honestly, that's the only one I could think of was Kirby 64. Yeah.
00:32:06
Speaker
And it's really they took all the lessons of like current game design and apply them to Kirby. And I've heard it also has like a very like interesting difficulty curve. Like after you beat the game, it opens up like the nightmare bosses and things like that. And they are challenging from all intents and purposes, which is not what you usually think of in a Kirby game. You think of Kirby games kind of being like, you know, easy, right? I was watching someone play Kirby Dreamland.
00:32:33
Speaker
Um, a couple of weeks ago and it was like, you could beat that game with your eyes closed if you wanted to, but it doesn't mean it was bad, but it does mean it's like how that kind of difficulty curve for Kirby is. And they've actually found a way to elevate it, but not take away what makes Kirby special. That's a good way of putting it to is that it introduces difficulty in a way that keeps it challenging. If you want the challenge, I think that was probably one of the reasons I engaged with it so much.
00:33:06
Speaker
I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll martyr myself for neon white.
00:33:12
Speaker
Neon White is a weird-ass indie game that came out this year. It is a first-person 3D platformer where you are given cards that have effects that allow each gun's rate, but you can use them to traverse levels in a quick way. The whole point of this game is to beat a level as quickly as you can.
00:33:41
Speaker
And there are different like, it's like bronze, silver, gold, ace, metal, depending on how fast you do it. And the whole point of the game is trying to figure out how to beat these levels faster, how to figure out shortcuts to move through the levels quicker, how to use your weapons and cards to improve your time, and is addicting in a way that I really can't explain unless you play it.
00:34:08
Speaker
Every moment of that game reinforces the idea that you are here to replay it and to replay it faster. And you feel good too. It's a puzzle game. It's set up as a puzzle. And when you solve the puzzle, you get the Ace Medal. So you keep wanting to go back and solve the puzzle.
00:34:29
Speaker
of how to beat the levels faster. The kinetic movement of it is good. The momentum, it feels good to play. There's also a weird visual novel part of it for the story that makes no sense. I skipped through a lot of it, to be honest with you.
00:34:47
Speaker
because every level of the game was so fun to play. That being said, I think I would still give it to Kirby over this game. I think Neon White is a new and interesting game, but I don't think it's so it didn't it didn't stick the landing in every place it needed to to beat something where it's like Kirby taking off on the next level. How say you, Charles? Just say Kirby. Kirby's the best. You know,
00:35:17
Speaker
thinking about it I actually would well okay here here's what I demand of both of you oh your votes oh I'm voting Kirby Kirby okay it doesn't matter I watch your opinion that's the whole point of the fucking podcast what would you what would you know knowing each
00:35:40
Speaker
Um, knowing each, um, I think it was a much more better explanation of all the, all the stuff that makes the game interesting to neon white and his impassioned plea to emotion is not enough for me. I had to come in and help Andy.
00:36:01
Speaker
You know, I would much, you know, this is what I, you know, I don't know much about these games. I need this description to actually tell me what's so great about the game. I told you joy. It's joy. Joy. Listeners, I'm doing this for you. I'm trying to demand better explanations for you.
00:36:24
Speaker
Don't be sorry. Be better. Yeah, exactly. All right. So Charles is going for Neon White, which I appreciate, Charles. I do. Neon White is I don't think any game on here is bad. And there are no games on this list that are bad. Maybe Pokemon Legends. But but yeah, I do appreciate giving. I think you would like Neon White if you played it and it plays great on the Steam Deck. I played it mostly on the Steam Deck.
00:36:58
Speaker
Next, we have Sifu, the fighting game versus Dying Light 2. Andy, did you play Dying Light 2? I did not. Did you play Sifu? You bet not. Okay, so Charles and I played both these games. Which one do you want, Charles?
00:37:17
Speaker
Um, that's it. I technically have not finished the fifth stage of Sifu. Oh, really? So I, uh, yeah, that's it. I, I, I treat Sifu like a game I could just come back to and pick up. So, um, I think I would be better talking to dying like two. Okay. Uh, all right. So Sifu, I think slow cat did slow clap makes Sifu. Uh,
00:37:45
Speaker
Yeah, it doesn't matter. Slow Crap, Absolver. Oh yeah, that's right. The Absolver devs. That's exactly why this game is so good. If you never played Absolver, Absolver was this weird kind of always online MMO martial arts game.
00:38:02
Speaker
that was fun but didn't really have it was missing something. I think Sifu is their second attempt at that and their better attempt at that. Sifu is a martial arts action adventure game where you play as the disciple of a slain master by your brother.
00:38:22
Speaker
Um, and you have to progress through five action, you know, karate martial arts, movie stages, and do some of the best martial arts combat ever put to a video game since probably jade empire. Um, and if you don't know what jade empire is, that means you were born too young. Uh,
00:38:46
Speaker
But yeah, it is a game that feels good to play when you're playing it, when you figure out the systems and you're playing it well, you feel like a martial arts master. It has a very interesting mechanic where when you fail, you die, quote unquote, but you come back to life in age older.
00:39:07
Speaker
And as you age older, you get certain benefits in terms of damage, but your health goes down. So it's kind of interesting. The game adapts to you and tries to help you, but also takes things away to make it harder for repeated failure. There's people who can beat the game without dying once you stay age 20. Or there's people like me who strategically died five times on the last stage and ended up going into the fight at age 25 and ending at age 65.
00:39:36
Speaker
So it's it is probably I can't think of a game that's gotten the martial arts combat better than Sifu and the the whole idea of being a martial artist. You you feel good playing it. And just the art style and the sound design is
00:39:57
Speaker
Not unique to Sifu, but it is incredible. Every stage feels like a painting, every fight scene feels designed and thought through, and the whole environment changes during boss battles to become even more scenic. It's just a beautiful game. Charles, Dying Light 2. That's it. Let me level with you listeners. Dying Light 2 falls flat on its face with its ending.
00:40:26
Speaker
Yeah, I did. Well, let's put that out of the way. What's the story but the journey itself, right? So let's talk about that. Dying Light 2, if people aren't aware, is a open world parkour game that has zombies in it. And the way I'm describing it that way is because it's very important for you to understand how important it is to light parkour movement in this game.
00:40:55
Speaker
because it is the main way you traverse the world. And when you get good at it, when you get used to the controls, which doesn't take that long, it is fun. It is so fun to just run around, you know, leap over buildings, take a like air duct that is pushing air out so that you could pump up your parachute to lift you up in the sky and then traverse halfway through the city before going back and jumping onto roofs and running again.
00:41:24
Speaker
It is incredibly fun to explore an abandoned city. And then if you want to make things interesting, you fight zombies. And the zombies are there. There's a lot of zombies on the ground that are really slow. But the different zombie types that get added, the day-night cycle, where more interesting mutated zombies come out, are more likely to come out at night. And all the zombies get more parkour-athletic.
00:41:52
Speaker
Those are interesting and very heart-pounding, I would say, sequences when you're being run around and chased by athletic zombies. It absolutely raises your heart rate a little bit as you go because you're just like, okay, I need to jump on this, do that. Oh my god, there's a zombie right there. All right, keep running and you just keep going. It's like this constant puzzle until you feel like you're safe and it is
00:42:19
Speaker
very fun. It is enjoyable to just go around and do that. And, you know, the story up till the ending was pretty, pretty good, I would say it has Rosario Dawson in it. Yeah, that's right. She actually, it seemed like she actually did not phone it in.
00:42:39
Speaker
Yeah, she gave a shit. Yeah, you know, a lot of celebrities don't necessarily get it, but she did. And so there was a lot of fun times there. And, you know, I, you know, I said the ending is bad. The reason why I say it's bad is because they rushed the ending. That is it. If they actually had time, if they decided to give time to that ending, it would be satisfying, but they don't. They rush it.
00:43:04
Speaker
And so I give that less of a problem of a bad mark than I would normally just because the bones and structure were there and then they had to just release the game. So it is still a bad mark, not as bad mark as I would say for like a bad written story altogether.
00:43:26
Speaker
I think Dying Light 2 famously was delayed like four times. Oh, wow. And then they were like, you're not getting a fifth. It's coming out. But yes, if you just want to know what it feels like to just find a city as your playground, play Dying Light 2. Get used to it. Just see everything throughout the city. Ignore your story. Just run around it. It's a fun playground. The parkour is excellent to the point where you can actually get to places
00:43:55
Speaker
that the game, like you would get other skills and like stamina upgrades that would make it easier to get to certain places. But if you're good at the game, you can get there whenever you want. And that to me says that's a well thought out system where it's like they reward skill and then the upgrades only just take down the skill ceiling to make it easier. What are your votes? I still think Sifu's better. What do you think, Charles?
00:44:24
Speaker
Um, I would actually say seafood as well. Oh, because I was going to say in my expert opinion, I was going to say seafood. All right. It sounds like it did something right. Not that dying light didn't. I don't want to frame it like that. But I would also say dying light, too, is not.
00:44:46
Speaker
A gigantic upgrade over dying late one. Oh, sure. The map is bigger and more interesting, but I don't think they did anything different than like dying late one. Would you, Charles? They added a glider. They smoothed it out. I would say it wasn't different. I think they fixed the kinks. Yeah. Well, congratulations, Sifu. Hope you don't go up against Kirby.
00:45:14
Speaker
Uh, this is interesting because I don't think either of you played either of these games. Tell me more. Did either of you play vampires drivers? No. All right. All right. Either of you play power wash simulator. All right, James, I watch. I'm going to play it. I'm going to. I'm going to. I'm going to look at gameplay for both and I will speak to defend one of them.
00:45:40
Speaker
Power wash is probably easier to defend because vampire survivor requires a little explanation. You know what? Good point. That's it. Well, let's say whatever you guys want to do. I can be a judge. I can do both, honestly. No, I want to defend power wash. Okay. Okay, baby. You go defend your power wash. Listen, all right. It's a moment for me to connect with crony. Give me this. All right. Vampire survivors is a...
00:46:11
Speaker
2D game where your only inputs are up, down, left, and right in diagonals. That's it. You play as one of, I think, not like 35 characters at this point.
00:46:25
Speaker
And your main goal basically is to survive on several, one of several maps for 30 minutes. And you do that via gathering upgrades. There are, you get six weapon slots, and you get six kind of like bonus or like,
00:46:46
Speaker
I don't know, what would you call them? Like stats slots or something like that to a certain extent. Ability slots. There we go. And if you match the right weapon to the right abilities, you can evolve those weapons into even more special weapons, which can then also have other evolutions too. The game has actually gotten surprisingly deep with more releases. And you say, but if my inputs are only the movement, how do I use the weapons? You don't. The weapons use themselves.
00:47:15
Speaker
Your your job is to basically either build up a build where you can stand still and kill without joking upwards of 80,000 monsters in a 30 minute time span. Wow. I just did two the other day that required me to kill 100,000 on one level. Holy cow. Remember state of emergency.
00:47:41
Speaker
How many enemies can you fit on screen? Basically, yeah. It's very pixelated, it's pixel graphics, it's very early 90s, but there is a charm to that, it's very Castlevania inspired.
00:47:58
Speaker
And it's just like a serotonin factory. Like the best way I could describe it to you is it's that you get the same kind of joy out of it you would get out of a clicker game.
00:48:10
Speaker
Sure. Um, where you're just kind of watching numbers go up, but it requires just that barest amount of input and decision making from you from like making weapons and doing dodging and trying to move around the map to get like health upgrades and stuff like that, that it keeps you engaged. Like those 30 minutes fly by every time. Um,
00:48:31
Speaker
The game is ridiculously cheap. It was for the longest time, $1.99. I think it's $3.99 now. They have also released it. It's $3.99. Otherwise, it's a whopping $5. Yeah. And it's currently for free on iOS and Android. Why is it free?
00:48:52
Speaker
because it is ad supported, but you only have to watch an ad if you've been playing a level for 10 minutes and die and want to get a revive. You can watch an ad to get a revive, but you don't. That is not the only way to get a revive. There are mechanics in the game, either via ability items or power ups that give you revives anyway. So you don't have to do that. Cool. So this it is a cheap.
00:49:21
Speaker
free game depending where you play it on. It plays great on Android. I've heard it plays great on iOS as well. And it's just so simple. It's such, I heard someone else describe it. It just goes to show that if you have an idea that's so perfect,
00:49:40
Speaker
that everything else around it is almost immaterial. And just this idea of like, you just have to move and survive for 30 minutes on this map is such a simple idea and they execute it on it perfectly. It is addicting in a way I don't think the next best game I can compare it to is like Bloons Tower Defense. Oh, sure. Yeah. Yeah.
00:50:09
Speaker
It's just that kind of weird addiction to it. It's so fun. It's so fun. I have I've come back. I think I started playing that game in like March. I'm still playing it. Well, I come back to that game all the time. Yeah, it sounds super interesting. Yeah, Charles. I mean, play for free on iOS or Android now. See what you think.
00:50:34
Speaker
Power Watch Simulator. Who wants to give it a crack? Me. Listen, I have seen about 15 minutes of this game. Jesus Christ. And it was when crony when I was I think it's when I was obsessed with crony. She was playing this game when you started being obsessed with no.
00:50:55
Speaker
I am no longer obsessed. Oh, OK. I am subscribed, but I'm no longer obsessed. She did play through Kirby. I watched a bit of that. But power wash simulator. So as I understand you, you play, you it is a self insert. You insert yourself into this world as a first person game. And you are tasked with cleaning.
00:51:17
Speaker
a dirty room. I watched crony clean a subway and what you do is you take your power wash. I think there's different
Narrowing the Elite Eight to Top Contenders
00:51:26
Speaker
nozzles and you can like turn the nozzle and you just clean dirt. It's kind of like it's literally just power washing and you see it go from super dirty
00:51:35
Speaker
to clean and one thing I was actually impressed with power wash simulator is that it's smart enough to know what you're cleaning so it can give you a percentage of how clean like the light is and I'll tell you when the light is clean or when the column is clean or so you're constantly hitting um these these small metrics so you constantly feel like you're improving or you're doing good
00:52:00
Speaker
And crony loved it. She had a great time. It is perfect for streaming, right? You just get it's it's mindless yet you have all these hundreds of dollars thrown at you in the chat to say their name and She says it but she plays it in her own time. I don't know if she does maybe she does I believe crony I believe her um, but it was a super interesting game. I would say though I
00:52:27
Speaker
I just, is it something? It feels like it's something you need to do while you're doing something else. Does that make sense? Like, it feels like you have to be like watching a YouTube video or something. Like, I don't know if it's engaging enough, but certainly more engaging than vampire survivors. So there we go. I think I would actually argue the other way around where
00:52:52
Speaker
Power Wash Simulator was the game that I turned off my brain to play. That was a game where for me, and I have played every level of Power Wash Simulator and beaten it.
00:53:07
Speaker
Yeah, I think you hit it right on the head, Andy. It's a game that just rewards you. Yeah. That you're just constantly progressing and doing better and you feel in control because you're just making things cleaner. You see your progress as you go. So it just ticks that little part of your brain where it's like, I did something.
00:53:29
Speaker
I made the world better by cleaning. Yeah, and you're constantly told it. And I think it even does like a little pulse. Oh, yeah, there's a little thing. Yeah, it's super satisfying, which now makes me want to play it. Maybe I'll buy any. I'm very honest with you. It is.
00:53:46
Speaker
one of the more soothing games I've ever played. Why don't I have this? I will say like the last one or two percent can really drive you fucking up. Yeah, I was watching her clean like subway tile and the subway level had a lot of those. Yeah. I'm like, what the fuck is not clean in here? Yeah. Can this be on PS5? Anyways, Charles, how do you vote?
00:54:17
Speaker
Vampire survivors. There we go. That's fair. What about you, Andy? Grounded answer. It's published by Square Enix? Yeah. Oh, it's on PS5. Oh, let's go. Andy, what are you voting for Powerwash? Oh, no.
00:54:33
Speaker
Vampire? I've heard so many excellent things about vampire. I think it should download it on your phones. Yeah, I also as much as I love power watch simulator, I think vampire survivors is a better game. Yeah, the thing that actually tipped me over is
00:54:51
Speaker
I have seen general other people talk more about Vampire Survivor being even a game of the year contender itself. And while everyone likes Power washing simulator as this cool down game, no one pays to bat for it for games.
00:55:07
Speaker
I have never I mean, I beat the game and I have not gone back to it. So it's not. Yeah, it doesn't. It doesn't have that lasting impact or it's like I want to go back and clean more. I was like, no, there are at least more levels. I might go back, but I will never clean the same level twice.
00:55:22
Speaker
Because I won't get the same satisfaction, re-cleaning a level. They will be doing, AGDQ is this weekend, starting January 6th. Well, starting next week, starting this Saturday, this Sunday, whatever, it starts on Sunday.
00:55:41
Speaker
Yes, it starts on Sunday this next week, and there will be a power watch simulator speed run, which I can't wait to see. I can't wait to see. But all right. We are all 57 minutes in this podcast and we have not gotten through. Oh, my God. All right. Let's crush these. Yeah. All right. Who played Horizon? I did. Charles and I did.
00:56:07
Speaker
You played Tiny Tina, right? And I didn't play Tiny Tina. Andy, did you play Tiny Tina? No. All right. Horizon. Tiny Tina. Yeah. Horizon Forbidden West is a sequel.
00:56:26
Speaker
Now, Horizon Forbidden West is a good game with good mechanics. You play Aloy, you go to the western part of the trashed world, and you continue her story. And it's good. I like her story. I like playing as Aloy. But I think Horizon Forbidden, the Horizon series lives and dies by its story. And Forbidden West is the biggest setup for a third game I have ever seen in my life. Oh, wow.
00:56:58
Speaker
They tried to really do like a Mass Effect 2 thing with it where they built, you had like this base, you built up your companions and all that. It was good and it was fun. I just don't think it really iterated on its original formula in any special way. I think it, again, Horizon Forbidden West is still a great game. It's still a game you should play. I just don't...
00:57:22
Speaker
This is weird because I don't know enough about Tiny Tina to say if it's better or worse than Tiny Tina's. I just know that like I have issues with Horizon Forbidden West that are probably going to keep it out of being in like the top five. But I still think it's a great game that everyone should play. I just want them to do better, if that makes sense.
00:57:42
Speaker
Um, again, right. It plays ALA. You fight, um, robot dinosaurs and animals. Um, and you, and you explore this, you know, post-apocalyptic robot animal dinosaur world. And it, it does that well. It does that great. It's fun to explore. It's fun. The, the missions are good. They've actually did a pretty good job of making the exploration of the world better. I will say that. Um,
00:58:07
Speaker
but I think the ending of it leaves you in such an unsatisfying place that it really soured me on the game. Oh, I don't know. How do you, how did you feel about Charles? I know you're in defend tiny Tina, but how did does, does your opinion of forbidden West differ than mine? Nope. Not at all. Yeah.
00:58:27
Speaker
All right, Tiny Tina, go. All right, Tiny Tina is a sequel. But no, no, but they did something different in there. So this is the new this is the Borderlands game to be. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Tiny Tina's Wonderland is is a slight swerve on the Borderlands formula.
00:58:47
Speaker
Basically, the setup is that it's actually a D&D campaign that's being narrated by the titular character Tiny Tina, as voiced by Ashley Burch of Life is Strange and actually Horizon fame, and this game.
00:59:09
Speaker
So the Borderlands formula is still there. It is a looter shooter type of game. You know, you fight people, find better guns, equip better guns. But in this game, because it's D&D, it's crossbows and spells instead of grenades. And your melee weapons are actual melee weapons instead. So it's like axes and great swords and all this other stuff.
00:59:34
Speaker
And the same type of humor is there, the narration, the jokes between characters, all the quips and fun stuff is there. The one thing I think it's different from the normal Borderlands, though, that sticks out is that you traverse an overworld game board and you walk around between levels and you zone into zones.
00:59:57
Speaker
So it's not like one continuous world necessarily. I know borderlines wasn't necessarily a full continuous world either. You kind of move from one end of the map to another end to get to a new zone. But in this one, it's connected less from that end of mappiness to an overworld instead.
01:00:16
Speaker
But it's honestly very enjoyable. And even for me, who gets bored of the same things a lot of the time, Tiny Teenage Wonderland made it feel a little bit more fresh, a new fresh coat of paint and a different type of setting. It's not necessarily about the whole.
01:00:32
Speaker
thing that's going on in Pandora. It's just a fun D&D setting where their skeletons, Will Arnett voices the bad guy and he sometimes narrates himself to get stronger if you beat him, which is kind of fun in general. And to be honest with you, it is definitely a fun thing to do with friends and even by yourself, but I definitely recommend it to do with your friends.
Debating the Top Spot: God of War Ragnarok vs Elden Ring
01:00:59
Speaker
Because you just run around and explore and shoot people and just laugh at the silliness of it all. Girls, who are you voting for? Horizon. I've watched people play Tiny Tina's and it made me not want to play Tiny Tina's. I think I'm just tired of the Borderlands formula at this point. It didn't seem so different that I wanted to play Borderlands again.
01:01:23
Speaker
Yeah, I'd vote for Horizon 2. Andy, did you get swayed one way or the other? I'll vote for Horizon. I really liked the first Horizon, and I know I'm going to play the second one eventually. Tiny Tina, I was kind of turned off of as well. I cannot give you a good reason though, so I don't think it's like a valid criticism from me, but something was just off-putting about it. I don't know what it was.
01:01:49
Speaker
Maybe I felt like maybe I don't know. It's not fair. I didn't play it. So I can't judge the tone correctly of it. But the tone was. All right. And an hour and four minutes. We are now at the last of our sweet 16. Well, I mean, that should go by faster. Yeah, the next one. Well, the top the top five are going to take a minute, but we'll see how long. So we have TMNT Shredder's Revenge, which all three of us played together.
01:02:17
Speaker
Yeah. And return to Monkey Island, which only Andy played only. I have done a lot of these. So, Charles, take Shredder's Revenge, Andy, take Monkey Island. OK. All right.
01:02:31
Speaker
Everyone wants you to go back and remember your childhood. Maybe you weren't so fortunate enough to, you know, play arcade games and, uh, or like, you know, be lucky that your relative got you a game and you got to play together and play an arcade game. But imagine what you think it would have been like. And that is exactly what TMNT Shredder's Revenge is.
01:02:55
Speaker
It's exactly what you think the ideal arcade experience would be if you got to play it now. And you can by playing this game, which is very cheap and doesn't take that long to finish. But as you play it, if you even had a remote experience playing arcade games, you know, either in the actual arcade or with your friends when you got a Nintendo,
01:03:16
Speaker
or a Sega, whichever. It feels fun again. And it takes you all the way back. There's some nice little like quality of life improvements for you to play. So it's not like it's meant to suck all your quarters out. But it's
01:03:34
Speaker
It's just a great feeling as you play. You feel good as you beat things. It is it is definitely beatable. It's not meant for you to die hundreds of times, even though we did because we're just bad gamers. But the you know, the nice reminder of like.
01:03:55
Speaker
Not everything has to be that deep of experience. Some things can just be about the fun. And even though my main requirement is impact, there is a place for things that are fun, simple, and take less than three hours. And has a new Wu-Tang song. Oh, yeah. That's it. And everyone came back. Wu-Tang Clan came in here and made a great soundtrack to the game.
01:04:21
Speaker
It's so good. You could tell that the developers of this game did it with a love for the property and everybody that got to be involved was just like,
01:04:37
Speaker
Hell yeah, I want to be part of a TMNT game. And they did. They got to do it. And they got to make something they're proud of because it's a great game. That's it. I'd recommend it if I have four people to play with and X amount of time. I'd just be like, yeah, let's go connect and we'll just play it. I'd play it again. Yeah, I'd play it again. It's not much of a time commitment. And it was fun. And any Monkey Island. Tell us about how tell us about why you made Ron Bill Gilbert cry.
01:05:06
Speaker
I did not. I retracted my criticism of the art style, and especially after playing it, too. It does not give mobile game vibes. It's a different level of it. But Return to Monkey Island is Monkey Island.
01:05:24
Speaker
It is it is just more Monkey Island. What is Monkey Island? I was just going to say that being an adventure game, point and click, not first person, third person, harking back to the scum days of Maniac Mansion and then the Monkey Islands following that and like some other stuff.
01:05:46
Speaker
But you just guide a character around. You talk to people and you gain clues. You pick up items and then you either combine them and then you use them on stuff and you move on to a new area, talk to new people and repeat. And not to make it sound drab, it's actually a very fun formula. The games are very funny. It's endearing. You're laughing the whole time. But
01:06:14
Speaker
No, it's nice that they made Return to Monkey Island. It's just more Monkey Island, though. And that's not a bad thing. But it's not like Monkey Island for a new generation, if that makes sense. But it doesn't need to be. Ron Gilbert asking for a new defense attorney. What's wrong with just more Monkey Island? Nothing.
01:06:34
Speaker
But I don't know if it's a monkey island that would convince people to like it. It wouldn't bring in new people at all. I don't think again, a game doesn't need to do that. And it's actually kind of special to have something made that honors the old way of playing. Granted, the puzzles aren't as nebulous. So I guess that's modernizing it, right? You're not doing the chicken pulley puzzle anymore, but it's
01:07:03
Speaker
It's good. And actually something that we should be thankful that we have. Maybe that's a reason to put it on here, that we had some guy be able to return to a property and pour so much love into it to create something that genuinely honors what was before it. And we get to experience something new. I can't say fresh, but something new. And that's pretty special.
01:07:27
Speaker
My vote goes to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. My completely unbiased opinion is someone who grew up with a drawing of all four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles over his bed. I vote for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I vote for a monkey. No. Get out of here. All right.
01:07:50
Speaker
All right. Now we are to the elite eight. Let's see how long it takes. Uh, hopefully it's not that bad. Uh, first up we have Xenoblade Chronicles three for the tunic. Um,
01:08:03
Speaker
You're not going to re-litigate these. No. But what I would say is if you have a strong opinion as to why one should win over the other, speak up. Andy, you and I are kind of the only ones who wouldn't have your opinions on this. You're the only one who's played both.
01:08:21
Speaker
I would give it to Tunic. I would give it to Tunic. Xenoblade is an excellent JRPG, like genuinely excellent. But Tunic was just such a joy and it's it brings something new and clever, literally something I don't think has ever been done before. And it's such a joy to learn with it. So Tunic does something different. Sorry, Xenoblade. You do what you do well, but. All right. I would also go Tunic. Yeah. Charles, that.
01:08:47
Speaker
Yup, yup, yup. Tunic it is. See ya. Get rekt. Next, this will be a divisive one. Kirby, move on. Immortality. Kirby. The Kirby. Kirby. Andy is going to work Kirby. Kirby. I think Kirby is a fantastic video game. Again, I've only played half of it, but I still do think it's a fantastic video game.
01:09:11
Speaker
I think and I've said this several times that I think immortality stretches the definitions of what you can call a game. But I also think of an interactive game is the only way you could tell the story. Sure.
01:09:27
Speaker
And I don't at the end of the day, it's a very good Kirby game. Immortality is immortality. I don't think you could ever do another immortality. Sure. I would go for immortality. How dare you? How dare you? How dare you? Charles, what do you got? Well, here's the thing. I would normally vote Kirby.
01:09:52
Speaker
Oh, my God. But Andy voted against the quarry. So immortality. No, no, no. I get an override button. Everybody gets an override. I'm not hiding it. There is no way that Kirby's not moving on. Yeah. It's not. This is this is the fairness of the record. We can't have Kirby.
01:10:18
Speaker
All right. Next we have Sifu the vampire survivors. Let's replace one of those with Kirby though. I gave a very impassioned speech about why I think vampire survivors is a unique and serotonin filled game. I think Sifu is still a better experience.
01:10:42
Speaker
You know how satisfying it is to beat the shit out of one particular person? Yes, yes I do. When you pick up the fucking steel rods.
01:10:51
Speaker
Like, oh, the absolute like, oh, you made a big fucking mistake being a part of this fucking evil garbage. You just beat the shit out of one person and you feel it. There's like the impact feels good. The sound feels good. And then the music works as well. Just like the fucking I don't know what it is. Just some chords that are playing like the. Yeah.
01:11:13
Speaker
And you're like, get the hell out of here. So you feel like you are hit like it is. You feel like you are the the character on the screen beating them up, even though you're just sitting there in the dark with your controller eating Doritos. Yeah, it sucks you in. Yeah, I so Charles, I think you and I see food. Yeah. OK, Andy, what's your vote? Doesn't matter. Go on. Good.
01:11:42
Speaker
I'm so mad right now. I'm not actually that mad. But lastly, I really don't know which way this is going to go. Horizon Forbidden West. That's not how the bracket system is. Horizon Forbidden West versus Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Shredder's Revenge.
01:12:06
Speaker
I don't know. It's the Horizons. Horizon is a better game, but I enjoyed Shredder's Revenge more. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. I don't know. Do you? Charles, you would be the next one. What tips the scales for me is just a general attitude towards both, I think. And this is not fair to TMNT just because they don't get to have as much coverage. But I'd say Horizon.
01:12:36
Speaker
That is the that is why you're playing against the big boys you have yeah, I'll go I'll go horizon Oh, I was gonna go TMNT. You can still go to you. It's just despite spite us Andy. I'm you guys All right, hot five though. We'll just have to kick something out. That's what no well so now We have our final four and now we have to rank
01:13:05
Speaker
these games and drop one of them with God of War Ragnarok.
01:13:10
Speaker
and Elvin Ring. So what we, I think what we should do is let's start, we'll get to litigating God of War and Ragnarok in a second, but out of, I'm presumptively going to say we're not dropping God of War or Elvin Ring out of the top five, right? No. Okay. Yes. So tunic immortality, seafood and horizon. Who are we dropping?
01:13:37
Speaker
Um, I think we do have to drop Horizon. Sorry. Horizon, you're not a bad game. Okay. It's just, it's just always comes out at the worst. Literally. Yes. It's a curse of Horizon. Like it's, yeah, I'm sorry. Should have won game of the year, but Breath of the Wild came out. Oh boy. All right. So now, now our top five.
01:14:02
Speaker
will consist of tunic immortality. God, we are such fucking arthouse nerds. Sifu, God of War Ragnarok, and Elden Ring. What should go in the number five slot?
01:14:18
Speaker
Oh, I'm too tilted. All right. Repeat them again. Tunic, immortality, Sifu, God of War Ragnarok, and Elden Ring. What should go into the number five slot? I feel like immortality should go into the number five slot. That's what I was thinking because it's lucky to be there.
01:14:42
Speaker
You know what? Yeah, I'm fine with that. All right. In mortality, number five, number four, uh, tunic, Sifu, God of War, Ragnarok, or Elden Ring. So it's going to be tunic or Sifu. I think Sifu.
01:15:05
Speaker
I am really torn on this. And I think, Charles, what would you, are you going to put Sifu at number four or Tunic at number four? Putting Tunic. Andy, you said Tunic at four? No, I think Sifu. Sifu at four. So I'm the deciding vote. I love both these games. I'm going to put Sifu at four.
01:15:29
Speaker
Um, only because Sifu is nothing new. It is just excellence, which is not enough. Um, are any of us going to rate Tunic over God of War or Elden Ring? Speak now. I didn't like Elden Ring, so I'm going to put Tunic above it. Charles and I are going to put it at three, so it doesn't matter what you want.
01:15:57
Speaker
All right. So now we have to decide between God of War Ragnarok and Elden Ring. Our first trash. So put it in. All right. All right. Hold on. So we have to litigate these two. Charles, did you beat Ragnarok yet? Nope. Okay. So I'm the only one who's beaten Ragnarok. Charles, you and I have beaten Elden Ring. How far did you get Elden Ring, Andy?
01:16:21
Speaker
Um, I fought a jumping cat, but the one of the underground watchers and that was it. And then I tried. Oh no, I try going to a castle and then a guy jumped off a bridge and there was a bunch of people shooting arrows at me and I liked bloodborne Andy. What's that? Oh, I love bloodborne. All right, whatever. All right. Um,
01:16:47
Speaker
This is now my full playthrough review of God of War, Ragnarok. I will not tell any spoilers. I will, however, make the vaguest of hints about some things just because I need to convey emotional impact.
01:17:02
Speaker
Uh, God of War Ragnarok is an excellent game. Um, gameplay wise, it is an evolution of God of War 2018. They stripped out a lot of the bullshit that made 2018 not so fun. Um, and they kind of refocused the system in terms of gear and your weapons. It also helps that you start with your chaos blades immediately in Ragnarok. Um, instead of being the big reveal halfway through in 2018, sorry, play the game.
01:17:32
Speaker
We all knew you were going to get it. Yeah. So it feels good. The story is the reason you come to play God of War Ragnarok. And I have said before, I think immortality has the best narrative. God of War Ragnarok is the 1B to immortality is 1A.
01:17:50
Speaker
The beats in God of War Ragnarok hit on so many levels. I know people hated Atreus in 2018. They really went out of their way to make this game.
01:18:05
Speaker
make you understand his thought process. He's still kind of a shitty teenager and you still kind of get mad at him, but you also kind of understand and the places that go in the story and with him makes it all make sense, especially considering his past and where he's going in the future.
01:18:25
Speaker
I think, but really it still ends up being Kratos' story. And at the end of the game, there are story beats that not only recontextualize the events of 2018, it gives meaning and fulfillment to the entire God of War franchise.
01:18:45
Speaker
And as someone who's never played the first three God of War games. Oh, I just I know the whole story. I know everything that happens. But there I cried. There was an emotional impact from a the acting is great. Christopher Judge in his seven minute award speech did a fantastic job and conveying through honestly, not even like speech. Right. Just acting.
01:19:13
Speaker
emotional resolution to Kratos' story is so fantastic that I don't want to take it away from anyone. In the same way, I'm begging everyone to play immortality. If you give a shit about God of War, like the lore of God of War and Kratos, the ending of this game is required viewing for you.
01:19:38
Speaker
Um, it, I desperately waiting for Charles to finish it so I could talk to him.
01:19:44
Speaker
Um, but yeah, I think the, the gameplay, um, the world of, I think the world of Ragnarok is not as good as the world of 2018. I liked the open world in 2018 a little better. And this one you're kind of jumping more between the different realms. They feel a little more contained. Um, whereas 2018 felt a bit more sprawling when you went through mid guard, mid guard is now kind of very small.
01:20:12
Speaker
With all frozen over but I still think despite that it is an excellent game
01:20:21
Speaker
Elden Ring, Charles, go. Earlier in the podcast, I was talking about impact and how, if something leaves a lasting impression. I think we've talked about this a lot in all these other games that we played. And I wanted to bring up that, for me, Elden Ring has given me the most lasting impact
01:20:47
Speaker
of all the games I've played in this entire year and even a couple other years so far. There's something about an open world action game that when executed properly can sell you on the thought of adventure and then have it be this rewarding experience both in-game and socially.
Exploring Elden Ring's Social and Solo Experience
01:21:14
Speaker
I think personally playing Elden Ring not just went by myself when I was like excited because I just needed to play it and everyone is working so I can't talk to them about it. But as soon as they're off work, we're getting on a call so that we can all talk about what we're doing while we're playing the game and still be playing separately. We're not even joining each other's worlds yet. We're just talking separately.
01:21:37
Speaker
There was one time that I was in a far East land and James and Alex were in the far West lands and we didn't intersect for like two to three days. And we were just exploring different areas. And we would just talk. We would talk. We'd be like, Hey, did you find this while you were there? No. What were you talking about? I went all over that place. I was like, no, this is right here.
01:22:00
Speaker
It was incredible. I can't think of another game we've had that experience with where we were just excited to be in the world and talk to each other.
01:22:10
Speaker
Yeah, and it was just this like this, you know, this both social and like personal experience of just going through the world and knowing that the stuff that you find is notable and gameplay impactful because the things you get that you find all over the world are not useless baubles, but things that can affect your gameplay if that's what you want to do.
01:22:35
Speaker
So because they give you so many chances to respec, you could find new spells or weapons that you think are cool that even if you couldn't do it, you go back, respec, now try it out. Oh, I didn't like it. I'm going to respec again and go back to my old build.
01:22:49
Speaker
You just get to experiment and try everything. All the rewards are about updating your gameplay in some way or another. If you're bad at the game, all the different helpful mechanics like summons and spirits and finding cheap runes all over the place. So if you can't kill things, just scrounge for skulls to level up. Are all these different ways that if you're bad at this game, you can still play the game and progress?
01:23:17
Speaker
Like, um, there was one day I spent the entire afternoon in the Eastern land, cause I, in a cannon, in a canyon, far down, I saw a fucking building and a path and I went, how the fuck do you get down there? And I ran, I ran with my horse.
01:23:34
Speaker
all along the canyon, up and down, going, is there a cave? Is there a cave? Is there a cave? I found caves. They did not lead down there. I still thought that was fun. The type of joining sign going, there's a cave. Go in, kill everything. There's not another door here. Where is it? And then finding out that the method to go there isn't even there. It's in the western half. I was like, no, goddamn way.
01:24:01
Speaker
And like, you know, again, like that social excitement too of like, there was a time when our friends were saying like, there's this huge underground area. And I was like, what the fuck are you talking about? I've never seen it. They're just like, yeah, it's around, it's around somewhere. I was like, you bitches. And I would just run around and just try to find it until I finally found it. And I went, this is incredible.
01:24:26
Speaker
It's just this level of excitement, a joy of exploring and knowing that all the exploring you're doing is still meaningful. It doesn't feel like you're wasting time like, oh, I just went here and I found
01:24:38
Speaker
this stuff that I can't use and it really didn't progress me in the story at all. Now, everything is meaningful because it either gives you a new option for gameplay or you just level up with experience. And there's so much stuff to explore. I felt bad logging out of the game finally because I was like, I just want to keep seeing what's around here.
01:25:03
Speaker
And so I just didn't want to leave. And so I think this is why Elden Ring had the biggest impact. I still like to think about it. I like to listen to the soundtrack half the time. They have such a good musical score with everything, exploring new areas. There's one time you get teleported to a city and you see enemies in front of you.
01:25:28
Speaker
and they're playing the trumpet and the soundtrack for the area is with trumpets. And then you kill them and then the trumpets are still playing like, oh, these enemies aren't actually playing that music. It's just a soundtrack for the thing. But that's how good they like synced it up that you like you see the enemies raise up trumpets and then the soundtrack kicks in and you're like, yeah, it's all part of it. Hmm. It's so good. It's like, yeah. Also underground Star City is beautiful.
01:25:58
Speaker
Where is that, Charles? You just have to find it yourself. I think two. One of the things that came up is when you start the game, they constrain the map.
01:26:10
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And and not only in just like areas are grayed out, they zoom the map in so you can only see the part that you've explored. And I remember we all start the game with a pretty good sized map. And then as we explored, it started getting bigger. You go, oh, wow, there's this whole other area. Well, certainly that's it. No, there was another one and another one. And the world of Elden Ring is so ridiculously large.
01:26:40
Speaker
and full of things, not random things, specifically and intentionally placed things, that it feels almost MMO-ish, right, of how they went in and crafted a world for people to live in. It's ridiculous. I don't think, I am hard-pressed to think we will get another game that will exceed Elden Ring.
01:27:05
Speaker
Because I talked a lot about Tunic being a love letter to like old Zelda, right? Elden Ring is kind of like the final evolution of like a Zelda game. And Miyazaki has talked about that, right? That the Soulsborne idea came from Zelda. So it's just, I'm sure someday someone will make a game better than Elden Ring. But for right now, I don't know how they could do it.
01:27:35
Speaker
Mm hmm
01:27:36
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, that excitement of like accidentally getting caught in teleportation trap. And then it sends you to the city or taking a random teleporter and finding yourself in a tornado dragon town in the middle of the sky, which that's not the real name. I just love describing as that. And it was so cool because I'm not wrong. I'm describing it as tornado dragon town and you'll get it when you see it.
01:28:08
Speaker
Andy, do you want to make any sort of impassioned speech about Ragnarok or Elden Ring? No.
01:28:15
Speaker
hated Alden Ring, but the way you guys talk about it, it's supposed to be good. I think you're more mad that I didn't like the game. Like, why can't I enjoy it? Well, I think if we get you to play on PC with like the gross, they will you put a controller still? But also, there's a there's a moat. There's a mod that makes the co-op a lot more seamless and better. And I think maybe that might be the way to
01:28:44
Speaker
See, that's the thing, though, and this is self-imposed, and I've been yelled at about it before. But one thing that's intriguing to me about Elden Ring, at least as I'm understanding, is just the loneliness of it, right? It's this adventure that you go on by yourself, and that's very interesting to me. You don't have to, though.
01:29:05
Speaker
No, but that's that is what I would prefer. Um, like, and that was one thing that was fun to me about Breath of the Wild is like, I just like the ideas of adventures of going on your own, and not having like the annoying talking sidekick, right? And I think would be me your friend. That's okay. Fair way to put it like that. Thanks.
01:29:27
Speaker
But it's interesting you called it as the final evolution of Zelda, because I remember when I played Skyward Sword, I was in love with it, but I hated Fi or Fi, but everybody did. And then it just made me dream of the Zelda where you could explore yourself. Like that's the perfect because you've always had a fairy in Zelda. And to have a Zelda where you explore by yourself. So I think that's something I just want.
01:29:51
Speaker
And Elden Ring, I wanted that. But I didn't rage quit because I wasn't playing with someone. I rage quitted because I don't know. Maybe I'll go back to it. I almost sold my copy, but maybe I'll go back. You guys love it. I have a second copy. Oh, that's right. That's right.
01:30:09
Speaker
Oh my God. I have I have four copies of this fucking. Yeah. And, you know, and Andy, if you want to play like alone, like don't join the world. Yeah, that could be fine. I would be all for us like not maybe not playing together, but if you want to be on a call. Mm hmm.
01:30:30
Speaker
Sure. And I'll like, and I'll like, cause I'll build a new character just to play by myself and just play along. So you can at least get that social experience. Yeah. That's what it reminded me of just like playground talk. Yeah, it was absolutely playground talk.
01:30:48
Speaker
Like there just be times when like James would just be like, oh, I just ran into this guy fucking again. Did you guys kill blah, blah, blah? And we're like, well, I don't know what you're talking about. Oh, you'll see. There was even one night the cats get how many heads. Oh, yeah, that's it. There's one. There's a we had to fight two bosses at once.
01:31:15
Speaker
And I was like, James, I'm not about to deal with this. I don't want to respect, like there's a way where you're like, okay, if I respect, yes, this will be easy. I don't want to respect. So I'm calling in the front. And we just like split up in one V one, a boss each. And we just dealt with it. It was like, there's just, there's that fun and it's built in the game. It's part of the game. You can do that. So like, I mean, maybe that atmosphere will help spur you on.
01:31:44
Speaker
Yeah, I mean maybe I'll revisit it, but I have enough games I want to play that I will never play so it's just like where does it fall on the list? I don't know but just every time I hear you guys talk about it. It's just like man Yeah, I I mean I have a lot of ideas of what I'm going to do on that flight to Japan One of them is just to play Elden Ring
Crowning Elden Ring as Game of the Year
01:32:09
Speaker
Well, I'll say though, I think from everything everybody's been talking, unfortunately, Elden Ring is game of the year.
01:32:16
Speaker
I do believe Elden Ring is the inaugural add to party game of the year. I was trying to think of something like the party's full award or something like that. Oh, yeah, there you go. Oh, yeah. The party is Ford spot award fifth spot. Yeah. What game I know you play. Yeah, I also like the idea because then we end up at this top five. So it's like the the full party, you know. Yeah.
01:32:44
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, I like that. Yeah, but yeah, it's just a rundown our list at number five immortality over. Number four, we have seafood. Number three, we have tunic. Number two got a more Ragnarok and number one.
01:33:06
Speaker
Elden Ring, again, completely unbiased as I go to bed every night under a framed cloth map of the lands between that I received as an anniversary present with my partner. Unbiased. That's right. Thank you for sticking with us on this extra log episode of Add to Party. A lot of information. Think of it as making it for a break.
01:33:33
Speaker
That's true. Yeah. We took a couple of weeks off there because honestly, there was nothing to talk about and I was tired. Um, and also my doctor, I was kind of sad. Uh, so not to bring down the mood right at the end.
Closing Remarks and Humor
01:33:47
Speaker
Uh, golden rings. Great. Woo. That's what your dog would be saying if he were alive.
01:34:00
Speaker
But we all talk about that on another episode of Add to Party. The Friendship Simulator masquerading is a new show. I've been your host, James, completely unbiased, despite the many fandoms that are framed above my bed. Hartwell joined by Charles Elden Lord, you might be joined by Andy.
01:34:30
Speaker
Just legit. Kirby was robbed. This is fake. Oh, the big lie. This was the big lie. I was waiting for you to get there. I was waiting for you to get there. So, the big lie, okay. Oh, stop the steal, guys. Elderly doesn't deserve it. It's Kirby.
01:34:53
Speaker
What will 20... What will 2023 hold? How could we even get any mad? We didn't pick Kirby. We'll find out this year on Add to Party. Have a good night, everyone. Have a good night. Good to be back.