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PAX & Silent Hill are back! - Add to Party 06-30-2021
9 Plays4 years ago
Originally recorded live @ twitch.tv/addtoparty on 6/30/2021
This week the boys discuss PAX West being in person, Silent Hills news, Sony buying studios and not indies, and review round up of Mario Golf, FF7 Remake Intermission, & Scarlet Nexus.
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Transcript
Podcast Comeback and E3 Recap Issues
00:00:15
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 Jamot. And I'm joined by Andy K.
00:00:27
Speaker
Good evening, gentlemen. After after technically two weeks off, if you've been listening to the podcast or one week off, if you watched it live on Twitch or the VOD, I suppose. Yeah. Our E3 recap episode was destroyed in terms of audio quality. So I just went, yeah, people will live.
00:00:48
Speaker
All those hot take and oh, wait, no, our guesses were there. The results were not. That's true. Yeah, I will recap. Andy did win that. I won. I thought Charles won his bonus point. Oh, no, sorry. Charles won. Excuse me. Charles won at the switch wouldn't be revealed. That's right. So the Charles won. But Andy had the most correct predictions.
00:01:11
Speaker
And I don't even remember what they were. It was just they're in the past. They're in the past now lost to subpar recordings. And that's OK.
Charles' Move and Extreme Heatwave
00:01:21
Speaker
Other housekeeping note, I am currently in the middle of a lightning storm. So this the stream may just die suddenly, in which case. Good night, everyone.
00:01:30
Speaker
I'm wishing for your safety. OK, yeah. If you notice on the podcast feed that this episode is much shorter than you expect, that would be why. But yeah, no, it's been so Charles, your move is now complete. Instead of sitting on boxes in one state, you're now sitting on boxes in another state or in this current instance, the floor. Oh, I guess better for your posture, maybe. I don't know.
00:01:58
Speaker
That's why I did order a new computer chair. So that's exciting. I won't dox you, but you are in the Pacific Northwest, so you were subject to the once in a lifetime heat wave. Yeah, that was the worst thing in the world. At least it wasn't the weekend you were moving. Well, I mean, the worst of it wasn't during the week I was moving. It was already there, though.
00:02:27
Speaker
There's nothing there's nothing worse than working in light or moving like doing an apartment move in high heat and high humidity. Oh, God. Absolutely. It's already miserable. But to be subjugated to that. Well, I'm sorry. I'm glad you made it through. How hot was it? Like, was it really that hot? It was at one point projected to be over 110.
00:02:53
Speaker
I believe I believe Portland, Oregon, hit one hundred and sixteen degrees, making it the hottest place on Earth, literally hotter than anywhere in Africa, in the Middle East. Really? One hundred and sixteen. I feel like we've gotten hotter than that. Well, yeah, we have. But in that moment, it was the hottest place on Earth. That's wild. And by no means to diminish it, that sounds miserable, especially in the humidity. I am so sorry. Yeah.
00:03:22
Speaker
Historic highs was was basically in the headlines and was like, oh, goody. I also saw like all the roads are like buckling.
00:03:36
Speaker
Let me tell you, it was the busiest malls ever post COVID. That's it. I was in the mall for a total of, I don't know, 17 hours over the weekend. And I visited. At one point, my family and I were just sitting in the mall, sitting for a couple hours, not moving, just enjoying not being hot.
00:04:00
Speaker
How many movies did you see? I was going to say, did you go see Fast 9? No, no, I actually asked. I was like, do you want to go watch a movie? And they're like, no, I just sit in the food court. Charles, don't take this wrong way of your family or psychopaths when you could have had the real family, which is Dom.
Fast 9 Movie Humor
00:04:20
Speaker
And I don't know who are the other ones. Ludicrous.
00:04:24
Speaker
Tyrese Well, remember that this this that movie the plot is Dom did does have another brother and he abandoned them So it's not about family anymore
00:04:38
Speaker
Oh, he was family and then he wasn't. So apparently family is a binary stage. It's never complicated. That's right. But I'm sure John Cena will be back as family by the he'll be at the cookout drinking Corona's.
00:04:57
Speaker
Is this the one where they go to the moon? They do. In fact, well, I don't think they go to the moon. Tyrese and Ludacris do, however, get into a rocket powered car and fly into space. Oh, my God. That makes me so happy.
00:05:14
Speaker
Oh, they know. I didn't see it yet, but I did hear there was one scene where Tyreese like goes, he like looks at his coat after shootout and there's just bullet holes all in it, but he's completely untouched. And they literally mug. They literally go, this isn't right. We should be dead, right? But this goes beyond luck.
00:05:37
Speaker
I wonder if they're too self-aware. Has it jumped the shark? It made $70 million, so I'm betting no, it hasn't. Okay, well, they're fine. We all win here. That's right. And you know how we continue to end? Not with the story I have up, because that's actually the second story.
Pax West Health Precautions
00:05:59
Speaker
Pax West is in person. Oh, feels great to say it. Nature is healing until the Delta variant comes by and cancels all these plans. Oh, my God. Please, Delta, stay away. Get vaccinated, everyone. Yeah. Pax West earlier a week before last.
00:06:17
Speaker
announced that they would be having an in person event. Tickets also went on sale this week. I'm not sure if they sold out. I'm gonna assume they did. Let's see together. You can buy tickets or days are sold out. But the individuals are there.
00:06:34
Speaker
Oh, OK. They did say they did say that they would be reducing the amount of attendees this year. I have to imagine that plus the fact that people are probably I know a lot of people said I'm not really ready to jump into the deep end immediately, which is a completely reasonable thing to say. But the three of us are going to jump in the deep end.
00:06:56
Speaker
for journalism. We're vaccinated people. We're reasonably cautious. We do trust each other to also be reasonably cautious.
00:07:09
Speaker
Yeah, I'm going to be. They will be requiring people to wear masks during the basically indoors the entire time. Zero tolerance. They'll be doing temperature checks on the way in to the convention center. Also, amusingly, how strict they are about that mask mandate. If you have a cosplay that includes a helmet that covers your face, you cannot wear it. You have to be visibly wearing a mask. Wow, they're taking it serious. I mean, I love that.
00:07:38
Speaker
I think we should be very clear here. Every booth is going to have probably a mass giveaway. So we should definitely hit up the game that we actually like. So we get their mask. Oh, that's a good call. That's wonderful. We're going to need those for the Delta.
00:07:56
Speaker
That that that fucking blows up from this convention. Oh, my God. Yeah. So, yeah, where's your money on on which game booths will have like special neon light up mask, you know? Oh, well, is there going to be like a razor booth? Is there going to be like gaming hardware? I think hardware. Yeah, hardware companies are going to try so hard. I feel like.
00:08:24
Speaker
hmm what are companies with like mascot characters that would make like cute masks like I feel like Sega might have some cute masks square might square might like I was thinking like a chocobo and stuff
00:08:36
Speaker
Yeah, a chocobo or a slime for Dragon Quest. Oh, slime. That would be good. So I'll get a square mask. Well, we can all depend on Sony not being there because they don't want to turn up anywhere, apparently. Well, I mean, they haven't announced who will or will not be there yet. You have to imagine that they decided to have the event because they had commitments from exhibitors that they will be going. So.
00:09:04
Speaker
But who knows? So we'll see who shows up. I can almost guarantee Nintendo will probably show up, which means, hey, there might be some cool Nintendo stuff there. They did announce a lot of E3. I doubt we'll see dread or breath, you know, anything like that. But there might be some new Nintendo stuff.
00:09:22
Speaker
And I'm sure a lot of Indies, which is I think one of the most fun parts about Pax is just getting to see and talk with all the indie developers. I think that's cool that they're enforcing masks like no tolerance. It'll make because there's a lot of people flying into there. All the exhibitors and stuff. I think everyone should feel safe. I don't think anyone should feel compromised for this. Well, Andy, I know you think everyone should feel safe, but maybe Pax wants to exclude certain people.
00:09:53
Speaker
And they updated their attendee terms of services when added the proper attire requirement, appropriate attire or attire that could attack detract from the event overall. And people have kind of taken that to mean no more a hago shirts and hoodies and most likely masks.
00:10:13
Speaker
Oh, was that? Oh, was that a thing at? Oh, God. Oh, yeah. Have you ever seen an anime conventions? I have, but I didn't know packs. I mean, it's everywhere, Andy. Interesting. Yeah. Here we go. This is the one. Yeah. Shit like this. So.
00:10:36
Speaker
All right. So it's infinitely more worse than it's in color. Yeah. Yeah. There was there was there's a black and white one here. I'll just try to all our listeners at home. If you don't know what I go is, don't look it up. Yeah, it's your life and purity. Exactly. Live your life. I'm not going to spell it.
00:10:59
Speaker
I didn't know this. I at least maybe I didn't pick up on it at PAX. But, you know, it's interesting that we have to target that. I was thinking it was more like, you know, people like wearing political messages on their shirt. I mean, that's also probably part of it, too, right? They want to try to stay apolitical.
00:11:19
Speaker
You know, Seattle is fairly liberal, but you do also have to remember that I would say, you know, most of Oregon south of Portland is actually basically the West Bible Belt. You wouldn't think it's really. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, so it's.
00:11:37
Speaker
Oh, no, people enjoy religion. No, listen, Bible belt, you know, quickly, that is not used to represent those of faith. I know, I know. Just trying to just trying to ruin your brand. And I just. Listen, I'm accepting of people who are loving and peaceful, but oof, oof, duh.
00:12:00
Speaker
Yeah, so we will see. We will be there and not wearing the hangout mask that Charles lovingly got us for Christmas this past this past year. But you're bringing it, right? Oh, I'm 100 percent bringing it. Monster. It's only funny if we all wear it at the same time. So, you know.
00:12:20
Speaker
Yeah, well, it is very to the public. I have worn it within my building to do laundry. And I have not I don't think anyone's gotten close enough to realize what it is. And for that, I am thankful. But people have seen me in it. And I just hope they don't know. I hope they don't know. They didn't need that. But I needed a mask. I was washing all my other ones.
00:12:44
Speaker
But yeah, well, that's exciting to see that Pax is back and they're taking it seriously. And let's hope to God the variant doesn't grow from here till now or from now. Yep, yep, yep. So but moving on from good news to good news, you thought things that you thought were good news, but were actually bad news.
Konami and Bloober Team Partnership
00:13:06
Speaker
We have Silent Hills news. Well, well, kind of.
00:13:10
Speaker
So Konami and Bloober Team has announced a strategic partnership. This is amongst rumors that Silent Hill is currently in remake or something of that nature. Bloober Team, if you're unaware, recently developed the Medium, which released on Xbox. They've also created Layers of Fear. And one more that's escaping my mind. But yeah, they're a good horror team.
00:13:38
Speaker
they polygon I just saw polygons article oh wait oh I misread it probably polygons article I misread it I thought it said horrible developer
00:13:56
Speaker
Oh, yeah, they also developed the Blair Witch game. I heard that was OK, right? And Bluebird team is really good at atmospheric horror. Like they do a good job of kind of like doing scary and disturbing things, but mechanics are not really their strong suit. Yeah, they're kind of just you just walking around and experiencing things and maybe, you know, picking up stuff, but you're not.
00:14:21
Speaker
You know, it's that classic kind of like, you know, you have to chase and hide from the monster kind of stuff. Medium did have some combat, but it was still also kind of a chase and hide thing. So yeah, medium was pretty good. Yeah, it was just was missing that extra level of gameplay. It was a it was a I don't want to say adequate because that's almost too rough. I mean, it was it was a perfectly fine double A game, right? It didn't exceed double A standards, but it didn't, you know, betray them either. So.
00:14:51
Speaker
Well, it sounds like Silent Hill would be a good fit then. I mean, Silent Hill was never good at combat, wasn't it? I mean, people seem to be more interested in Silent Hill's story, right? The story in the atmosphere. And then you just hit things with a crowbar sometimes and it just controls horribly. But that's OK. Silent Hill is like lives on the on how well they did Silent Hill to.
00:15:18
Speaker
Like I feel like the other ones everyone was like, you know, these other games are acceptable But they're not nearly as good as sign Hill 2 story was and it's just like yeah
00:15:29
Speaker
Yeah, for many, that's their favorite game. Silent Hill 2 is really important to them. I played a little bit. I've somehow walked my whole through my whole life without the ending being spoiled. But I bought it. I still have to beat it. But it's supposed to be very good. I beat Silent Hill 1. Silent Hill 1 made me pee myself. I think I talked about this. But that one made me pee myself. Silent Hill 2 didn't. Wait, when did you play it?
00:15:58
Speaker
Well, when I peed myself, I was young. It was when you're in a diner and something crashes through the window and I was like, well, I have released. I can no longer hold in my.
00:16:08
Speaker
and the but I beat it later as an adult and I have this problem with horror games where when I play them I feel like it needs to needs to be late at night with the lights off and I don't know why but for Silent Hill 1 that made it very difficult because just the atmospheric noises and the graphics and everything just oh it's so unsettling
00:16:34
Speaker
to not have like the security of light to make you think you know what's behind you. But when all of your senses are focused onto a Silent Hill game, it's too much. It's too much. So kudos to them. I hope the Bloober team does well. But I thought the publicly released wording of this collaboration was bizarre.
00:16:55
Speaker
like it felt it felt like it went through many edits because they describe it. James, if you can scroll to the top, they describe it as a strategic cooperation agreement. Who says that? What does that mean? People focused on Pachinko.
00:17:15
Speaker
Yeah, like and that's what it makes it seem that they are collaborating, but it's not going to be what people want. And then they can go point back to the legalese of how they presented it. That's what this seems like right now. So it seems like it's going to disappoint everyone.
00:17:31
Speaker
I wouldn't read too much into that. I have to because they said one other thing. I forgot what it was. But I think it came from Bloober, because I think that is Bloober said something to about working with them. And I don't know. I don't know. Konami, just bury all your IPs. They're done. They're gone. Just sell them. So there you go. That's a better way of putting it. Just sell them.
00:17:55
Speaker
I mean, this this article does point out that Bluebird, you know, Konami has been kind of hinting that they've been licensing out their IP to other developers. This goes into the rumors about Blue Point making Metal Gear Solid. Right. And now Blooper potentially working on Silent Hill. So who knows? Blue Point would do a good job. Well, yeah, that's Blue Point. But we already got a Metal Gear Solid remake.
00:18:23
Speaker
Yeah, now it's time to remake the remake, Andy. Did you know, granted, I haven't played it, so I'm going off of interviews, but they redubbed everything to remove accents? Yeah. That's why. Was it racist? Was it? Wait, which? Like they redubbed Mei Ling and they redubbed. Who's the weapons expert? Sigan. It's the lady, right? And Mel, you're a solid one. She's a weapons expert.
00:18:52
Speaker
I thought it wasn't. No, I thought it was the black guy singing. Oh, maybe you're right. Yeah, I don't remember. Regardless, I remember reading about it and then David Hader put up a stink and then David Hader like took a pay cut to get other people back, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:19:07
Speaker
But I remember they had to re redub at all and Mel your solid one. I think that dub is legendary. I think it's one of the finest ever produced. So I disagree, but continue. Really, really. Yes. Really. What's what's better than that? Well, I'm sure there are, but I'm curious any rockstar king.
00:19:27
Speaker
They do a good job. Yeah, they do an amazing job, Andy. As does Metal Gear Solid. You listen to Sniper Wolf tell her life story as she bleeds out in the snow, OK? She should have bled a little faster. Heart wrenching. It was fantastic. I love the Metal Gear Solid job. Well, you know what's not fantastic? I want to hear it. Tell me about it. Sony's approach to Andy's suck it, I was right, Charles.
00:19:54
Speaker
Wait, what are you talking about?
Indie Developers Critique Sony
00:19:56
Speaker
Oh, so indie developers have lashed out at Sony's publishing methods and reporting a $25,000 charge for platform visibility about that. I was like, I was like, I didn't I didn't see this on the I just added it because I forgot to put I remember I saw it and I forgot to put it on the dock. But yeah, some indie developers have off the record, decided to
00:20:22
Speaker
Or actually, you know, wait, one guy who decided to burn some bridges, which is neon doctrines, which is an indie studio of a game I don't quite know, basically said that, you know, Sony's not great with Indies, which I called months ago at this point. That was their big thing with the PS4.
00:20:43
Speaker
Yeah, that was the big thing. Now that's Microsoft things and now Sony's thing is they don't give a shit. Is this Jim Ryan again? It could be. Honestly, this this this one could be Jim Ryan. Come on, dude. Like good guy, Sony just doesn't exist. I mean, it doesn't. Microsoft's not a good guy either. Right. But this is OK.
00:21:09
Speaker
I guess $25,000 Yeah, just to get to be a featured indie on their store. Yeah, and then
00:21:22
Speaker
It's just very they make it very difficult to get any kind of marketing done through Sony. They he, of course, didn't say Sony. He called a Platform X, but he also said Platform X doesn't have game pass. And I would I would be hard pressed to think that you would say Nintendo is not killing Indies right now, so.
00:21:45
Speaker
that's interesting yeah it also kotaku also did some digging into this and that $25,000 marketing sum can sometimes reach his heart high as 200 grand the whole point of indies is that they don't operate at that scale
00:22:01
Speaker
Yeah, Sony doesn't give a shit. Like, literally, I thought they had wasn't Shuhei like the lead of it. I thought they had like a whole department that collaborates with Indies to like elevate them and make them an important part of the platform. It just sounds like they're selling pieces of their platform. They're not featuring. I think I think Shuhei took that job to be like, we're not doing shit within these shoe. Hey, you want to you want to just work on your pet projects and get a paycheck and go do it here.
00:22:30
Speaker
Is this real? Yeah, like this has been verified. Well, Kotaku, I mean, you say Kotaku is very tired that these marketing costs can reaches up as two hundred thousand dollars for Indies. And it's basically, yeah, it's it's it's kind of saying what everyone realizes is that Sony is not focusing on Indies, doesn't allow launch discounts without their approval. So basically, Sony has to approve that you can discount your your game on launch.
00:22:58
Speaker
Interesting. Yeah. Huh. I wonder how long it's been that way. I would imagine probably through the end of PlayStation four when it like really started taking off. Maybe that's what it was. Who knows if it wasn't the same before. Right. I'm only operating at what we were told. Who knows how it goes on behind the scenes.
00:23:20
Speaker
It's just sad to hear because that's not what being at least another. I'm just kind of reading the game, the article as we go to another another indie developer, Matthew White, who's the CEO of White Horn Games.
00:23:38
Speaker
basically said that they can again name names, but they did a very interesting color segment pie chart, which being their hypothetical revenue breakdown, plumber without a wrench. Red takes up the majority of it. The proficient sergeant takes up green takes up the probably the number two spot
00:24:02
Speaker
And then a mix between Nolan North and Gabe. Each something about 3% sales come from Steam and PlayStation, if you read between the lines with Xbox. And I would expect Steam to be higher, interestingly enough, because I feel like PCs or indies thrive in general. But maybe that adoption rate is just so low.
00:24:25
Speaker
Yeah. And I thought Nintendo's platform has become not good for Indies anymore. It's not good for Indies because there's a million pieces of shovelware. It got saturated in the beginning. It was good. And then Nintendo opened the floodgates kind of like steam did with like, you know, green light and all that stuff. And now there's mountains of garbage.
00:24:43
Speaker
I heard the I heard the comparison that the Vita store shut down and Nintendo went, all right, all you visual novels get on in here, you scam. They got to go somewhere. That's right. Steins gate coming soon.
00:24:59
Speaker
Yeah, so I don't know that way to way to ruin it more, James, given my carefully constructed image of Sony. I do want to see how long it how long this has been like this, because I feel like well, it was big. It was at the beginning of the PS4 is a big push on Indies.
00:25:18
Speaker
wait on watch this pricing scheme this model no i think like in terms of making their platform attractive to indies i remember well no i know that i'm saying like this is what i'm more concerned about like yeah how long has this been here because uh yeah no it's interesting and it doesn't seem like well here's the thing right if you're a business
00:25:37
Speaker
you're going to go with what works. And something like where you can say that Kotaku verified that sometimes the some of the marketing some could go as high as 200,000. It doesn't make sense to charge that if you know no one's going to give you that money, right? Yeah. So if it's going to go that way, like how long has it been that you could actually reach that high to charge? It's it's a little weird. What does indie game even mean anymore?
00:26:01
Speaker
not affiliated with a major publisher. Right. But what what what which of these games are forking over two hundred thousand dollars just to be featured on a platform. Stardew. That's mine. Well, Minecraft's not India anymore. Stardew could afford it. If you were starting if they were if they were had that sliding scale, right? I'm trying to think of what Andy could bear that cost. Maybe a PUBG, maybe.
00:26:28
Speaker
I just... I don't think PUBG is on PlayStation.
00:26:34
Speaker
I just I don't know. It just something feels weird about it. Two hundred thousand. I can understand charging like a triple a studio to get like a front page feature or something. But I don't know. That just seems weird. Or maybe the definition of India is different because I don't when I view it, I don't think it as these, you know, couple people teams being able to fork over that much money. Yeah. So.
00:26:59
Speaker
Who knows? I don't I don't maybe I don't know if they're characterizing it correctly in terms of using the word indie or if my definition of India is different. Is medium an indie studio? Is blooper an indie studio? Blooper wasn't an indie studio. Yeah. Well, I think there's still an indie studio. Right. And then does that mean they could afford twenty five thousand dollars to fork over? I don't know. What does indie mean anymore? It's become so I know that part of it.
00:27:27
Speaker
The indie title has gotten blurred in terms of lines. Yeah, I mean that used to be like super meat boy and brave right or braid like what is indie now? I don't know. I don't know. You could make an argument from software as an indie studio because they don't have a defined publisher attached to them. Oh, that's true. People pick up their game.
00:27:48
Speaker
Yeah, but I think also being in the studio means that you release your games without a publisher. There was a big thing about this recently with Devolver Digital releasing some games and calling it indie. But if Devolver Digital is releasing it, is it really an indie game? So I don't know. It's it's one of those things where it's very blurred and nobody really knows the meaning anymore. But Andy here, let me let me refresh your your hope and Sony.
00:28:11
Speaker
Can you please? Because they bought house Mark.
Sony's Acquisitions and Speculations
00:28:16
Speaker
Not a bad decision.
00:28:18
Speaker
It was weird that when Returnal came out, we even noted it. We were like, oh, they're not owned by Sony yet. Yeah, I honestly thought so. Yeah, really, it's just checking off a box along with their accidental tweets. Yeah, we'll get that in a second. But PlayStation announced this week that they have added Housemarque to their PlayStation Studios brands, most recently having released Returnal to pretty good fanfare. Charles, did you beat Returnal yet?
00:28:48
Speaker
No, no, no. I actually, in between moving and stuff, I was like, let me play a few levels of Returnal. And let me tell you, you need to shake off some cobwebs because I died within the first three rooms. That was my experience, too, when I tried to go back to it earlier this week. Andy, did you beat Returnal? I forget. I will play it when it has a save feature. My PS5 still crashes in rest mode.
00:29:15
Speaker
So it's so weird for that stupid design decision. There's no defense. I still stand by that. There is no never had never had that happened to me. Yeah, I'm still like 50 percent of the time it crashes. I would maybe see about getting a warranty repair on that, Andy. Yeah, I would, too. Well, I've looked it up. It's a common issue.
00:29:37
Speaker
And it's nothing. Right now, there's nothing we can do. Is it a one out of three customers? Because it's looking like that right now. I don't know. I just know it's a common issue. Like when I read articles, especially on Returnal, I'll go into the comments and tons of people are talking about they cannot play the game because the PS5 crashes in rest mode. It's just it was an enormous oversight. I have no idea why they thought that was OK.
00:30:04
Speaker
weird oh well we'll see i'm assuming it'll be fixed with software i don't know but so you know that's a pretty i don't think there's a ton to talk about here other than like charles is saying when they released return we went huh they didn't already own them um
00:30:19
Speaker
But Sony Japan had a little bit of an oopsie. Oh, yeah. And they tweeted out an image instead of saying welcome housemark. It says welcome blue point to the to the family. And let's be perfectly frank. You don't just make
00:30:39
Speaker
dream graphics. It's not like, welcome to the family, Rockstar Studios. I mean, if you said like, in the same vein of saying, it seems weird that Housemarque wasn't owned by Sony, it also seems weird that Blue Point isn't owned by Sony. They quickly took down the tweet. Neither side has confirmed or denied
00:31:09
Speaker
its existence or we'll talk about it blue point or sony that is however there has been some speculation that uh tomorrow we may get the date for the state of play that's upcoming uh the rumors are july 8th for the next uh the sony state of play and then which i don't know that's a thursday so maybe we'll
00:31:30
Speaker
We'll play with the timing of the podcast because it seems stupid to do it right before what is potentially going to be a big news story. And then, yeah, and then a lot of rumors about, you know, Blue Point making a Metal Gear Solid game being being revealed at that state of play. It's like, hey, we own Blue Point also Metal Gear Solid.
00:31:51
Speaker
Were they saying because I'd hate for blue point to only be a a remake studio, but were they talking about? Oh, they're excellent, but that means there's a lot of excellent talent and I'm wondering is this a remake a melior solid or a new melior solid? Just curious because I'm not as familiar with the rumors. I mean
00:32:09
Speaker
Demon Souls was, I guess, a remaster, right? They didn't play with the controls at all. But I feel like you could do that kind of same thing with Manogre solid where you're really not changing too much. Maybe you're modernizing a couple features here and there. But like, it's just kind of, you know, the templates there, it's just like, let's make the movement and aiming feel better.
00:32:32
Speaker
the the
00:32:52
Speaker
Yes. Who is the who is in Melgars solid one? No, no one. There was no one. No one we were talking about. That's it. I'm looking at the codec list. There's Meryl Deepthroat, Colonel Campbell, Naomi Jim Houseman, Mayling Otacon, Natasha Romanenko. Natasha. Yeah. Because she tells Snake it's bad to smoke. I remember when you're trying to find the lasers or something.
00:33:19
Speaker
Oh, yeah, that's OK. All right. All right. Sorry. Back, back, back, back. Yeah, it doesn't melt yourself. One of my favorite. I would love a remake. I don't I don't want Kojima to ever work on it again. I don't think we ever need a new one. Let it lie. But bring on the Kojima rumor around the water cooler these days is still the Microsoft and that potentially it might be an episodic game.
00:33:45
Speaker
Which would be crazy if so, but like on a Final Fantasy 7 scale or You know life is strange scale I mean who knows right, but I if I had to imagine it it would be more life is strange sure
00:33:59
Speaker
I mean, I would never count Kojima out to do anything because he loves to experiment. Yeah. I'm sure he'd be like, I wonder what would be what would it be like and what are the problems would be if I made an episodic game? And I'm sure it'd be great. I'm sure you'd get money for it somehow. Jeff Keeley would ask him what's going on. He'd show it off at the next game awards. You know, whatever. Just not be exclusive to Xbox, please.
00:34:26
Speaker
Yeah, Andy, I if he signs a deal with Microsoft, it's going to be exclusive to Xbox. You just play game pass and play it on your PC more than likely, though. I guess if it's on the PC, I'm fine.
00:34:36
Speaker
And I mean, this is not a story, but they just recently xCloud to everyone on PC now. So you can run console games on on PC using the xCloud servers, which have been upgraded to Xbox Series X specs. So cloud gaming is is here, Andy, you could play a cloud gaming Kojima Microsoft exclusive on your computer.
00:35:02
Speaker
Do I need to own an Xbox to play that console game? No, you don't just need to buy a game pass for 1299 a month, I think. Game Pass is stupid. I still don't know. It's incredible. I mean, it is incredible, but it's stupid how my brain can't wrap around it. It's like for games. I know. And Sony doesn't seem to want to fight them on it. So whatever. Maybe this. Come on, Sony.
00:35:27
Speaker
He used to be such a Sony fanboy. Can I defend them or just edit them? Oh, is that what it's called? Yeah, so I'm a Sony pony, but it's it's.
00:35:37
Speaker
You know, you fall into this weird loyalty to a company, which is what the company wants, right? They spend millions in marketing to create this feeling in me. And I don't like to look back on it. I don't like to challenge it. I'm reconciling myself in my 30s that I have loyalty to
00:35:59
Speaker
Large faceless companies. Large faceless companies. And it's like, what the heck is that about? Jim Ryan ruined everything. Sure, he did. It's all Jim Ryan's fault. The day we interviewed Jim Ryan, that never happened. Oh, I had a hard hitting journalism there. I will not hold back. You will. Andy, you're a coward. I am a super coward. I can't confront people. I can only talk about them behind their back.
00:36:25
Speaker
Well, I continue on people if you'd like. When we run into, let's say game representatives at PAX West, I'll just be like, excuse me, excuse me. Why did you ruin everything? You know, that's actually an interesting point. I wonder if I could try to get a meeting.
00:36:47
Speaker
You know what? I mean, I really, I really doubt I could. Oh, yeah. Right. You know, you might as well just ask and that would be funny. Can you get a press pass? Can we go on the floor before everyone else? I doubt we could get three, Andy, but let's go. And that's it. No, we get one. It's a miracle.
00:37:09
Speaker
Hey, that's how Destructoid started. It is. They started the blog so they could get into E3. And now we have a wonderful corner of the Internet. Rooster Teeth did something similar. Oh, did they? That's wonderful. Yeah. But I'm going to save my tangent that I was going to use before we continued our delightful banter, which is let's continue talking about people behind their back. Oh, let's go in. And the Final Fantasy remaster sucks.
00:37:37
Speaker
Yeah. Okay.
Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters Critique
00:37:40
Speaker
Oh, so is that what it looks like? Right? I never got this. This is the comparison screen. So if those of you on podcast will have to imagine it. So in the original game pixel, right, and then they did a 2013 rerelease where they basically did these kind of weird
00:37:58
Speaker
smooth pixel versions. That was wrong. And now a new version, it's more blocky, but detailed pixel versions. It's some it's kind of like an image. It's kind of like an upper as version of the originals was maybe a way to think about it. And I'm OK with that direction. I think it could still do some more polish.
00:38:22
Speaker
Yeah, I guess the intention is that they're trying to recreate how the pixels were meant to display on a CRT because the CRT's resolution and just the technology of displaying, it would basically like crunch the pixels. It would smooth them together and you would actually get very different details and representation than if you look at the pixels, you know, explicitly. So I guess the redesigns are to represent that, which in theory makes sense.
00:38:51
Speaker
Maybe that is how you do an HD upgrade of a 2D game, is you try to recreate what it was meant to look like in CRT. Instead, what you get is the smoothing filter turned down. It's still not great. It's still not great. And for viewers of the live screen or the VOD, if you can see on the screen, it does look different.
00:39:16
Speaker
Things blend together. They're fuzzy. But with that, there's more suggestion to what they represent, especially like in background detail and such. So I get what Square is going for, but they're still not doing a great job, at least in my opinion. But it's not as bad as what they did back in 2013.
00:39:37
Speaker
Uh, yeah, I mean, my my issue with it is and, you know, I knew that I had unreal expectations, but I was hoping, you know, it was kind of that that HD 2D, which they're doing for Dragon Quest. Yeah, I think at least in that vein, which is kind of taking the games and bravely defaulting them.
00:39:56
Speaker
No, excuse me. Octopath traveling. And that is just a wonderful way to do it. I know. And they chose Dragon Quest of all things, which I mean, Dragon Quest is the most popular game in the world. It means more in Japan than to here. And God bless. But I mean, really, it should have been Final Fantasy six. I'm sorry. There's like two there's like two games that get holidays in Japan. It's Dragon Quest and Monster Hunter.
00:40:25
Speaker
No one cares about Final Fantasy. I really know. But I think it should have been. That's how you do remasters of these games. That's not the direction they're taking. It's obviously a lot cheaper to do what they're doing here. We'll see if they're successful. I don't know. The trailer was literally nothing.
00:40:44
Speaker
Oh, yeah. They did also leak there was like, like a leaked in the showcase or something like that. The details of it escaped me at this exact moment. But it sounds like four or five and six will be released this July. Also, wow, that was quick.
00:41:02
Speaker
Weirdly, still only coming to steam and mobile. So not to. That doesn't make sense. Well, it might be better if you do play it on mobile. OK, that's that smaller screen. You won't see all that smoothness. Oh, that's a fair point. Right. It's not big enough to really notice. My Galaxy S20 Ultra agrees to disagree. Stop compensating.
00:41:30
Speaker
Oh, I have a 30 90. Oh, curious. All we have right now are character sprites, right? Like that's really all we know. If it's put together as a package, maybe there's something special. Maybe it is a really good way to age it up.
00:41:48
Speaker
We'll see. It feels more like a repackaging than than like any kind of substantive upgrade is really. That's actually a that's a fair way to a fair way to put it. Yeah, we'll see. Because all the Final Fantasy like seven, eight, nine, those rereleases were just changing the character models and saying, have fun. Like that's all it was in terms of a graphics redo, as far as I understand. And then they added like the speed leveling. But so maybe that's what we'll get here. Hmm.
00:42:17
Speaker
That's all they need to do, because File Fantasy 9 is the best file fantasy. Oh, shut up. And it's getting a TV show. Who wants a TV show of nine? No, nine is a what's his face? Does he think that Zidane Zidane? Yeah, I don't know. People say those characters are endearing.
00:42:42
Speaker
Doesn't endear me. I mean, Vivi's cool, but that's not all a Final Fantasy nine. Everyone really, really like that. What's her name? The Rose Knight or whatever. She's your favorite. Come on. It's I wish I could see what you see. Is that basically my problem?
00:43:04
Speaker
It's so patronizing. And obviously, I'm exaggerating a bit. I beat the game. It's just I genuinely do wish I could love it the way other people do. I just don't see it. I still need to go back and beat it just because my third disc was damaged. And I even tried to do that thing where you use like two pieces without the scratches. Yeah, that didn't work either. So I did. I never got to that third disc. And so I barely understood like
00:43:34
Speaker
I don't know what's so great about Kuja. Did you did you have the disk grinder? The little hand cranks. I did. Yeah. Oh, yeah. But that that was that infuses the Zillennials. Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. All of my PS1 discs, if you look on them, they're all resurfaced. I did it to everything. But that happened to me with Legend of Dragoon and it did not save it. Same with Legend of La Gaia. I have a not working copy of Legend of La Gaia because Andy.
00:44:02
Speaker
I will let me tell you a rumor for you to manifest out into the world. And I I've got a lot of energy to give. There's rumors that Legend of Dragoon might be getting a remake. Yes. I am curious if that game will hold up. I don't know. To middle school, Andy, it was fantastic in the environment of, you know, the games at the time and the the mechanics that was pushing. I thought it was wonderful. I really wonder if it holds.
00:44:32
Speaker
I mean, it was really it was PlayStation's Final Fantasy because they didn't have Final Fantasy, which is really weird to think about now because they're so closely associated in terms of branding. I think they even they even advertise it on the back of the box that like it's Sony's effort to be Final Fantasy. Yeah.
00:44:56
Speaker
Like they even break here. Well, it's the weird thing about it, right? Wasn't I thought Legend of Dragoon came out around the same time as eight? Or was it or was it after seven? No. Legend of Dragoon was on PS1. I know. Seven and eight. PS1. December 2nd, 1999 was Legend of Dragoon. Let's say Final Fantasy 7 came out in 97.
00:45:22
Speaker
Oh, all right. Yeah. On the back of the box, it says three years in the making with a development team of over 100 members. Well, Japan Studio made it. So maybe that was kind of like Sony's attempt to own the brand, as it were, instead of Square owning it. Yeah. Oh, that's fine. Legend of Goon was great. Give me more of those characters. Predictable story, as it were. But I like the battle system. Oh, the battle system was great. Yeah, it was a good battle system.
00:45:52
Speaker
You know, it doesn't have a good battle system. Oh, who are you burning?
Mario Golf: Super Rush Disappointment
00:45:58
Speaker
Mario Rush Supergolf. Oh, no. Yeah, I'm disappointed. I love Mario. Yeah. And I've been playing it since it came out last week. It's it's challenging and not in the good way. I was just going to say, let's explore that. Let's open that up. What does that mean, James?
00:46:20
Speaker
Yeah, so I think so. You know, there's obviously online battle mode. You know, you can play golf. This is actually probably Nintendo's most stable online game yet. So kudos, Nintendo. And, you know, that's all fun. The mode where you can run around and bump people at the same time. That's fun. It is a little chaotic and I think it leaves you in this kind of scenario where you're you can really fuck people over. But.
00:46:47
Speaker
the mechanics of the game are not I don't know they're not an evolution of the previous Super Mario golf game they're pretty much kind of just exactly what we had before which is you know not bad some people like that but I think when you have games like everybody's golf out there that have really just kind of like
00:47:05
Speaker
Nailed down the the golf formula and added on to it. This game feels a little dated. Right. The single player mode is also based around your me, which is always weird to me. I don't know. I don't I've never had a real attachment to me's.
00:47:22
Speaker
And you have to traverse a hub world to go from like challenge to challenge, which is the most annoying thing in the world because you only move so fast. And I'm like, I just want to golf. Yeah. Yeah. It's yeah. Yeah. And a lot of it, too, is you can get stuck in scenarios where you're basically just shooting a ball into a into a mountain and you can't do anything about it. I don't know. It's just.
00:47:49
Speaker
For $60, I don't think it's that great of a game. It also only has five maps, although they've said they're going to support it with DLC and more maps in the future, which is nice to low five maps. Yeah, it's only five now. Like and you and you and you can unlock them all.
00:48:07
Speaker
pretty quickly as I mean I just grabbed the Waluigi and just played each course all 18 holes and as soon as you finish 18 holes the next one unlocks and so forth and so forth before I even went into the single player just because I wanted to play it.
00:48:23
Speaker
So, okay. All right. It's, this is a funny thing to bring up, but you know how we, you know, Nintendo gets a pass for a lot of its failings in general. And also in almost in the similar vein, I don't think we necessarily talk too much about like their dev teams and how, like, what are rockstar groups of devs, right? We're like, dev team X from Nintendo is working on Breath of the Wild 2. Are we excited? Like we don't know that.
00:48:52
Speaker
Like, yeah, it's kind of weird because you know, the pattern for all these like Mario spinoff games, depending on who develops them, you're kind of like like just like Mario Party, right? Like they didn't create nearly enough maps. Things are a little weird. And then they then like the support just isn't there. That being said, Mario, this game did just come out. So we can't complain yet about that. But it just seems wrong. Did it was it developed internally?
00:49:20
Speaker
is it that weird Andy that we just can't melt we can't name these things I thought their sports games they always farmed out hold on let's see they're made by Camelot software planning
00:49:36
Speaker
Yeah, they yeah, they also made tennis aces, which yeah, so their last game was aces and they made Mario start Mario Sports Superstars, Mario Tennis Ultra Smash, and they made Mario Golf World Tour, which was the last Mario Golf game that came out. So like I said, it didn't feel like crazy, like different than that last Mario game, but it's also.
00:49:59
Speaker
I don't know. It's not what I kind of hoped for from a Mario game. I'm wearing a golf game switch. It's still fun and I'm still playing it, but I don't know how it's kind of one of those things where it's like it's going to run out of steam real fast. Is five a normal amount for these games? No, I would say.
00:50:17
Speaker
, and
00:50:30
Speaker
I don't know. It's it's also something where I think it's more fun with friends than by itself, which, you know, that's how Nintendo wants you to play things, which is weird considering their awful netcode. Yeah. So I don't know. So let's let's move on from that to Final Fantasy intergrade.
Gaming Experiences: Final Fantasy VII and Ratchet & Clank
00:50:51
Speaker
Andy. All right. I will leave the podcast for a minute. Oh, I have it either. You don't have to go anywhere.
00:50:58
Speaker
Well, how much have you played, Andy? I have played maybe an hour. Jesus Christ. And then Ratchet and Clank came out and I've been playing that since then. You chose to play Ratchet and Clank over a Final Fantasy Final Fantasy Seven fan boy. The cry every five minutes. Defender of a super old game fan boy. I played it and it was very good.
00:51:27
Speaker
I don't know. I don't know why. It wasn't even that it didn't click either. I think I just really wanted to play Ratchet and Clank.
00:51:35
Speaker
To be fair, Ratchet and Clink is both beautiful and excellent. Oh, excellent. I beat it. I just put it and wonderful. I can't wait. I can't wait to play it again. And to be fair, I'm also approaching intermission as me beating that and then replaying all of seven, seven remakes. So maybe I'm kind of thinking of it in my mind as a larger game than it is.
00:51:57
Speaker
Interesting. Also, I want Yuffie to take off her cloak. Just take it off. Oh, that man. You really saved it at that last. Yeah, that's what I was like. I was like, Whoa, this is going to be a change. Just take off her cloak. What I mean. OK, fine. In the game. That's not a spoiler. She literally it's in all the screenshots. She wears a stupid cloak. Does she have that giant fist hand in the regular game? I don't remember the metal glove thing. Yeah. Oh, yeah. OK.
00:52:25
Speaker
But I will say, the reason it frustrates me more is that there is a new Play Arts Kai figure of her released. A Yuffie figure released that could go with all the other ones I bought, but she's in that stupid cloak and I can't take it off and show her classic but reimagined outfit. I want that stupid cloak gone. I'm not spending $150 on a figurine for her to be in that stupid cloak.
00:52:51
Speaker
So I I who don't care about anything and have already spoiled all the endings and everything for myself. Sure. Can tell you that the cloak does come off by then. Thank God. Thank God. There's your one spoiler, Charles. I hate that. You son of a bitch. Do you? You know, I just had a lead, right? Like keep it on for 30 minutes. That's fine. Take off the cloak. I will say
00:53:18
Speaker
that there are interesting things done with the story that make it worth playing. Like it's not just kind of like throw away where it's just like you don't have to play this game to really see where the story is going. And maybe later they'll maybe they can change that later. But I would definitely say this is part of the based on the story elements I saw. This is part of the Final Fantasy seven remake experience and definitely should be played to get the whole picture of the girl.
00:53:44
Speaker
Yeah, I'm excited to see where Deep Ground fits into all this because they don't normally fit. Yeah, if you follow the other games. So also I hear that the side quest game they put in there is like really good. The Golden Eagle or something like that. Oh, is it Fort Condor? It's Fort Condor. Fort Condor. Fort Condor. Yeah, it's in there. And apparently it's very good. It's perfect. I love Fort Condor in the original.
00:54:13
Speaker
So yeah, they just build it out a lot. And it's a lot of fun. And the Yuffie's battle mechanics are really cool. Otherwise, literally no reason for me to turn it off other than Ratchet and Clank came out and I really wanted to play it. Yeah, I haven't started Ratchet and Clank yet, but I have it sitting on my on my on my PS5 ready to go. Yeah, it's I want to play. I want to play it soon. I did start playing Scarlet Nexus.
Scarlet Nexus Review
00:54:43
Speaker
I was thinking about, I was gonna, so there's a bunch of games I want to get, but I'm not getting them until I finish Mass Effect. All of it, all of Mass Effect.
00:54:54
Speaker
I maybe you guessed at me saying Scarlet Nexus. So I read Detroit had just I didn't read the whole review, but literally there they the the byline called it basically anime comfort food. And that is exactly what I want in a game. And I'm so curious as to what you think, because I was looking very hard at that game. But I'm pulling a Charles in a similar way of I got to beat the games I'm working on right now. I can't get. Yeah. I would say the thing with Scarlet Nexus is
00:55:24
Speaker
So it's not full motion cutscenes and everything. So a lot of the cutscenes are presented in kind of like a visual novel, but like with just a touch of motion. So they're like they're putting the 3D models into 2D floating frames to talk kind of back and forth and they move those frames around.
00:55:44
Speaker
like Valkyra Chronicles, or have you played that? Sure. Yeah, I haven't played that in a long time, but that sounds fine. Right. You get that more out of the more budget JRPGs or whatever. Do they not do it well here, would you say? I'm going to see if I can get a video up to show you guys.
00:56:04
Speaker
I don't know. I'm honestly kind of skipping through the story. And I don't know how much of this I'll play because here's the thing. The combat is fantastic. And every moment that I'm fighting things, I'm having fun. But but when I am not fighting things, I want to pull my hair out. Oh, no. And I don't know if that's actually here we go. There we go. So here's a here's an example of the kind of the cut scenes.
00:56:33
Speaker
Oh, they're not all like this. There are some that are normal cut scenes, but there's a lot of this. Also, you have a phone and you interact with that phone a lot. So you're kind of text messaging.
00:56:49
Speaker
So a lot of it's kind of getting revealed through these text messages and stuff like that. But that's kind of similar to like tales, right? There's a lot of that kind of stuff. Yeah. So I don't know. It's I get a lot of guilty crown vibes out of this game. OK. Mixed with maybe fire force. That's just because pyrokinetics plays a big part into it. I don't know.
00:57:12
Speaker
I I want to like it. I want to like it, especially because the combat so fucking good. Yeah, that's what it looked. It looked like a excellent combat dressed in just, you know, comforting generic anime tropes, which is fine by me. It's just a language of, you know, story that I just like.
00:57:33
Speaker
I have heard I've heard tale of some cutscenes being 20 to 30 minutes. If they're good, bring it on. I love cutscenes. I guess. I mean, I watch anime when I want to watch it. Fair, fair. Does that mean you don't like? Do you like Kojima cutscenes? I I.
00:57:53
Speaker
Oh yeah. Like is a strong word. What? No love is what the word is. I appreciate Kojima cuts in that I'm along for the ride. And you know what parts of that ride, maybe I'm in a tunnel and it's kind of boring and other parts of the ride. I'm going, going through a scenic Valley.
00:58:15
Speaker
I drink every second of it. I love Kojima cutscenes. Even in Death Stranding. Go, go, go. If there's a save point in a cutscene, I'm excited because it just means I'm going to learn more. And I just get to drink of that creativity. James, how did you? How dare you? I don't know. I I'm watching the combat in the video that we're watching right now. And I'm like, man, I want to play it again.
00:58:41
Speaker
I just don't want to sit in more cutscenes. Interesting. It's it's very it's it's it's almost devil may cry as combo based where you're chaining these psycho kinetic attacks with sword slashes. It's it just feels good while you're playing. It looks cool. Yeah, that's too bad.
00:59:02
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I'll keep trying. Maybe I'll hit that sweet spot with it. Yeah, play. It's excellent. Oh, yeah. Ration. I have no doubt that it will be when I get there. But this has been another episode of Add to Party. And hey, I made it through the whole episode without the lightning storm taking me out. Yeah, thanks. This has been this. This has been James Hartwell, the the unstricken.
00:59:26
Speaker
Yeah, that's it. This is Charles Yamat freshly moved. And this is Andy K, newly disappointed that I don't have my next JRPG to play. Charles, was that a picture like falling off the wall when you said that? No, something felt something dropped behind me. It was for the fridge. This is the timing of that just seems so perfect. Yeah. All right. Have a good night, everyone. Good night, everyone.