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Keeping up with the Soaps
46 Plays2 months ago
Join Dave and Jake as they talk more about Elden Ring Co-Op, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, and Jake's initial impressions for Monster Hunter: Wilds in this week's episode!
Intro:
- Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards - Dark Star Theme
Outro:
- Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards - Quiet Forest
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Transcript
Introduction and Weather Talk
00:00:24
Speaker
How's it going everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake and I am joined by my co-host as always Dave. How's it going today Dave? It is going so well.
00:00:34
Speaker
It's well? ah we've already made this joke. And we just like that back into the rut. And just like that back into the rut of describing the rut for how we talk about our intros.
00:00:47
Speaker
What's going Just like that. No, it's just been like a decent weather today. It's finally not insanely cold and windy. Now it's just windy and normal-ish temps for Pennsylvania, which I'm fine with.
00:01:03
Speaker
I'm hoping it stays like this because I would like to go outside once or twice or just know that I have that option. Yeah.
Spring and Tree Maintenance
00:01:11
Speaker
Yeah, we've we've entered the... ah Occasionally we open the windows for a period of time, kind of like air the house out a little bit.
00:01:16
Speaker
that's That's always nice. um And we've reached the important season where I start thinking about justification for not um pruning and doing other things that i'm going to have to take care of as spring starts to kick up um It's a sign of the season.
00:01:36
Speaker
you know so Just got to get a pair of head trimmers and then just have a steady hand and then make everything. Rectangular. Right, I guess, cubic rectangular prisms.
00:01:49
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. Rectangular prisms. I think that's correct. um Yeah, I have no excuse, actually, because I have an electric hedge trimmer wireless. Even it's like it uses a battery and ah that is literally the approach I've used in the past. It would be like, oh, there's some weeds here or something unless they're, you know,
00:02:06
Speaker
apple tree sprout with like ah weeds or something. You could just use the hedge term. you Gone. Very convenient.
00:02:19
Speaker
I'll have to do that some point. I'll clean up leaves, but people don't care about that. We don't care about leaves. We did have um I have ah I was about to say I have arborists on call. That's not correct. They came to my house and they like, hey, we helped the previous owner. Do you want any association with us whatsoever? Because you have trees on your property.
00:02:38
Speaker
I'm like, yep. I don't know what a tree is. So you guys take care of it and I'll periodically just funnel money to you. um And they came out and they like cut a bunch of branches off of ah trees and I'll be honest, I didn't pay the most attention to exactly what they were doing. And that they they gave me description of the work. They're like, hey, there's a spruce or some sort of oak back here. We're going to be doing this and this and this.
00:03:04
Speaker
I'm like, cool. That sounds good. Do it. I trust you guys. um And then after they were all done, I went outside and i was like, my driveway has so much more clearance now. And like, there's not any like branches that are like barely touching the roof or they're going over the roof anymore. And like everything that they made did made sense.
00:03:25
Speaker
and But I didn't realize how bad things were. Yeah. I'm like, yeah, I guess if that came down, it would have just like hit the roof. Well, I'm glad that the conversation went that way
Urban Trees and Their Benefits
00:03:36
Speaker
instead of I went outside and I couldn't tell what they did at all. Yeah. Why did I pay them?
00:03:42
Speaker
I guess like two extremes. They either just didn't touch the trees or i don't have trees anymore. But no, it was really good. I recommend them.
00:03:55
Speaker
They're all over the place. I guess I could mention their name if I remember what it was. Bartlett. That is Bartlett Arborist. So they're cool. They're all over the place. If you have trees on your property, call them up.
00:04:07
Speaker
even if Even if you live in an apartment like Dave, He has trees nearby. Just call him up. Say they have permission.
00:04:18
Speaker
Don't worry that it looks like I live in this unit, but you can definitely cut down on this whole whole row of trees that's meant to separate like a field and kind of like a small shopping center. ah Exactly.
00:04:31
Speaker
i how How do you feel about trees basically being ways to separate things? Mm Like, it's kind of like, oh, hey, you're not going to be able to see my super rich mansion. Like there's trees in the way.
00:04:46
Speaker
But yeah, it's essentially used as a fence for things similar to like graveyards or anything. just kind of a it gives it a perimeter.
00:04:57
Speaker
Yeah. It's obviously a very natural perimeter. Yeah. yeah It's weird to think that we're moving around nature to be like, you're here now. Don't let anybody see this shit.
00:05:08
Speaker
I mean, it's I think it's a good idea, obviously. Right. Like if you're anti tree in urban areas, that's kind of like a hot take trees literally like improve the air quality.
00:05:20
Speaker
They reduce the temperature like dramatically during the summer. um There's other like upsides to it. And then they look like it looks like it's not just concrete sprawl. Right. That's the reason that they bring trees into these urban areas.
00:05:34
Speaker
um But I mean, it's only it's only really upsides. I think I think the reason they do that is partly because even unconsciously or subconsciously, we acknowledge that in some way creating a massive like mass of concrete and glass and then metal and just having that be the only thing there.
00:05:59
Speaker
So the only things that we can interact with are pigeons and people. And who wants to do that? We kicked out 99% of the plant residents. We allowed one to stay ah and its roots will slowly destroy our concrete nearby.
00:06:12
Speaker
yes um Trees are good for that. I'm i'm i'm a fan. i mean Ideally, you have like a pretty decent split. There are some cities that do it a lot better. like I went to Toronto um some years back, and Toronto has like a series of parks basically like in the middle of the city and it's just a stretch like it's just a park connected to a park connected to a park have like dog parks and all that stuff um and it's awesome like it really
00:06:44
Speaker
Improves the vibes ah for the city. And it's also kind of like a flex, because I feel like if you're like, we're doing urban development and we need it's just parking lots and super centers and malls and skyscrapers or whatever the crap.
00:07:04
Speaker
Um, that's fine. But that's you just doing that because like you need business and money and all that stuff. And then you're like, no, no, let's put a park here. And that's going to make us no money.
00:07:16
Speaker
We don't even need it. We don't even need it. Just put a park there. It feels like a flex. Well, I think in certain simulator games, maybe even just The Sims as an example, ah putting in a park just nets happiness for people because I think there is always going to be something calming about nature and just being outside where I think you're just kind of away from the noise of everything else.
00:07:43
Speaker
Like, I don't have any active noises outside of nature. talking you on headphones, but there's still like ambient things because I lived in an apartment. There might be a car going by outside, what have you. Yeah.
00:07:55
Speaker
Yeah, people need that. No touch grass. And you need your grass to touch. Yeah, and you need grass to touch. Even
Elden Ring Co-op Adventures
00:08:01
Speaker
New York has Central Park. so um Is that located on like one of the the outskirts of New York?
00:08:08
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, Center Out. it's It's Audi Park. Only people with fucked up belly buttons are allowed to hear.
00:08:18
Speaker
Yeah. But no trees are good. I like trees. um And yeah, ah they do create leaves. That is the downside. So an apartment might be better for that sort setup.
00:08:30
Speaker
But so you like trees. How do you feel about shadow of the earth tree? It's a good DLC. and we We talked about it pretty recently, um but we've continued to play a little bit, at least our our co-op campaign. Right.
00:08:47
Speaker
um And we made a little bit more progress. Killed a certain big snake guy. i'm Completely optional, by the way. The second big snake guy, I guess. Major boss in the game.
00:09:02
Speaker
Orochimaru was pretty early on in the base game. Yeah. um Yeah, and like changed up our builds. You you changed up your build, I should say.
00:09:12
Speaker
how are you feeling? and I regret that. How are you feeling about the state of the build and shadow the tree? So basically the the dynamic that Jake and I have been having is Jake's been doing some range magic stuff and I've been up in there.
00:09:29
Speaker
um Being up in there, though, Obviously, like if I fuck up, I'll take a lot of damage and die. And then Jake gets targeted and does not have the skill set to do close range magic efficiently.
00:09:43
Speaker
I was like, oh, well, what if I just become the tank? Right. Because I wasn't dealing. i think they had a lot of physical resist. I'm like, OK, let me just be literally the meat shield. I'll just stand in front.
00:09:55
Speaker
um So I tried to. do that and using a shield huge ah way too strong I think throughout the game yes but you had the the full I think I have this right Veritasium that's the this and that's like that' very I'm making a joke that's the YouTuber but it's something close to that it's the ah the green Power Ranger from the Verdigris yeah Verdigris yeah It was just fun to essentially just hold up the shield and then it hits you with something and you just see like a little bit of stamina go down. i was like, cool. ah
00:10:37
Speaker
This is much better than my health. Yeah, there's like we were we were talking about that in the episode because I think the first first approach she had just like the floral overloaded massive armor and the shield. You're just like, I am the wall, right?
00:10:53
Speaker
I am the wall. The wall. um And like, that's fair. But if you don't get hit in these games and you're just like blocking with the shield, then your armor actually doesn't do anything.
00:11:09
Speaker
And I do kind of think there might have been a better way to balance that out. Like, I know that um other games have that into consideration. I'll talk about it once we get to Monster But...
00:11:20
Speaker
um Yeah, you could just be a naked guy with a paw on your head and like a giant great shield. And as long as you're blocking, it doesn't matter, right? You're you're not taking damage.
00:11:31
Speaker
um Any damage that would chip through if you don't have a 100% absorption shield absolutely would like do more damage to you if you're not wearing armor.
00:11:42
Speaker
But you're still probably taking the lion's share of the damage out of the equation by blocking it. And then some of the late game shields in Elden Ring in particular are like really good.
00:11:54
Speaker
um The fingerprint shield in the base game and the vertigrass shield in the DLC in particular is just... It's insane.
00:12:04
Speaker
It's really, really good. and yeah It's just unfortunately a very high stat requirement. It is, yeah. In strength. But yeah I think it it's still fun to like kind of change up the approach because we've each separately beaten Elden Ring and the DLC.
00:12:22
Speaker
So it's... I mean, we've definitely kind of gone back to some of the this is our comfort play style. Some like quality built. Just hit them and then occasionally heal.
00:12:34
Speaker
um But it is fun to change it up and try their stuff because things like the the lion claws or whatever they're called. giving me like a full on anime move set.
00:12:45
Speaker
Very funny, if nothing else. Yes. Yeah. Also, I want to share one anecdote of experience we had with that before we move on. But we were looking for certain things to enhance my meat shield build.
00:12:59
Speaker
So we went into this one. They're not called dungeons or like, um,
00:13:07
Speaker
I'm forgetting, but we went to like a little crypt somewhere and Jake's who going through clearing stuff. And because I'm so overloaded, I can only walk slowly.
00:13:21
Speaker
Yeah. I can't even run. I think you were right. Those are called dungeons because the legacy dungeons are the cool gotka the ones. I actually like like dungeons. Good design. Dungeons.
00:13:32
Speaker
Uh huh. but like i couldn't roll i couldn't walk fast or anything so jake suggests i literally switched to a dagger so i could have quick
Gaming Habits and Strategies
00:13:44
Speaker
step that was your idea that was your idea i'd take full credit um but having that quick step and then just seeing like this hulking armor person just kind of like do these little shimmies uh-huh Because it was present in Dark Souls 3.
00:14:02
Speaker
And there was the. um ah The Farron like Wolf Woods. I can't remember the name of it, but where the covenant for the ah watchdogs of Farron is. And it's near the Abyss Watchers.
00:14:15
Speaker
That entire area is just slow moving water. But you could take a dagger and the the weapon art was just like dash forward repeatedly. And unlike some of the other weapon arts, I think it works the same way in Elden Ring.
00:14:28
Speaker
Even once you run out of FP, the resource, your mana, basically, you could still do the little dash. um At least that's the way it works in Dark Souls 3. and It works the same in Eldritch as well, thankfully.
00:14:41
Speaker
Yeah. It's hilarious. You turn into like a little, not like a cricket, but some sort of hopping insect. i get like ah Like a frog, sort of. You leapfrog over and over again. um Which is very funny because your character could barely move outside of um of that. What was ideal about that is we're like, OK, this is the first real run of the pure defensive build.
00:15:04
Speaker
Then we got to the boss of the dungeon who had in his like sort of phase two, um he had a grab attack that like healed him tremendously.
00:15:16
Speaker
um And so you have to pretty much dodge the grab attack. Or else we just didn't put out enough damage to kill this boss because you were pure defense.
00:15:27
Speaker
I was just casting spells. had offense whatsoever. Yeah. We definitely were stress testing what's capable and possible in Elden Ring at this point.
00:15:37
Speaker
um But yeah, if you can move around and dodge, it is a little bit easier. Some of these bosses... um I think that'll probably remain true as we make our way through the rest of the bosses in the DLC. There are certain things you might not just want to stand there and take.
00:15:51
Speaker
I'm going to go full naked build, maybe a Perry shield or Perry dagger. Ooh. Got to get the misery cord. That's what we got to go back and get you a misery cord. Um,
00:16:03
Speaker
We're going to, with an absolutely ridiculous strength score, you'll start being the, it'll it'll transition into a dex build. We pick up this.
00:16:15
Speaker
And then I get rivers of blood. Oh, hell yeah. Okay, this is good. mean, it's just value, right? It's just a quality item. it's it's It's fine. ah But yeah, it's been nice to play. It's been intermittent though.
00:16:28
Speaker
mean, obviously there's been some other games been playing throughout. I'm still doing path of exile too passively. ah yeah. um Dota too. Very seldomly. Mm-hmm. it has to have a two in the name.
00:16:39
Speaker
Basically. It does. Even magic gathering arena. like, I don't know. I wish there was a second one. Right. And you're like, yeah, it doesn't seem right. Um, about you? Have you been playing anything recently? Uh, I was going to make one last, we should really move past Elden ring, but I'm going to say magic is mid. I, I, the way that I've been doing it, it's very, very samey for me to set up Terra Magica, then just cast over and over and over and over and over again.
00:17:06
Speaker
um I just wanted to call that out.
Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 Impressions
00:17:10
Speaker
I don't think this is the way that the game should be played necessarily. um Because even a traditional magic build, you have to dodge the boss and find windows and stuff like that. But Dave's taking care of all those problems for me.
00:17:22
Speaker
So I'm just sitting here nine to five casting spells in Terra Magica. um Jake sets up his little Cabana cherry sipping his FP thing.
00:17:33
Speaker
i'm just running around being like, hey, big dumb idiot hit me. aha Exactly. it is funny, though, and I don't mind going through like that. All right. End of Elden Ring talking about other stuff.
00:17:44
Speaker
um I have made a lot of progress in Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. um it is a really good game um i have some notes basically it did a lot better than the first one as far as sales selling over uh two million copies in the first two weeks um and its player count is over twice the peak player count for the first game on steam um so it's it's getting recognition um but on top of all of that let me just hit my desk real quick on top of all of that like it's also just a really good game and anytime that i'm talking about it with people i'm just like
00:18:19
Speaker
Bethesda sucks, yo. That's basically what it comes back to. Because who are the competitors in this kind of open world RPG space? um And I don't know.
00:18:30
Speaker
It just... It has so much care in it. And it's clear that they... cared a lot about the real life history. And it's so immersive.
00:18:42
Speaker
Like NPCs will just throw in other words in other languages in the middle of what they're saying, because this is like in Bohemia and a lot of other languages and things are going on at the same time. So they're like some people will just like speak German for a couple words and go back to English.
00:18:59
Speaker
And they do it in such a way that you still get the gist of what they're saying. Right. In the same way that like if someone interleaved words, you would still be able to understand them for the most part. but like it's so much more immersive for that because they just put all of that effort in.
00:19:15
Speaker
It sounds good. Is this have they only done those two? I don't know if the developers made anything else in the past, but this is definitely what they're known for. um Because when you first told me about Kingdom Come Deliverance, I had never heard of it as a thing, but really like the idea of you literally start as ah nobody and you suck is suck at everything. And then have to literally build your your stats up in something by doing that thing a lot.
00:19:45
Speaker
Yeah. Which I like from, you know, the Skyrim model, but like if you're doing a fuck ton of archery, yeah, I would like have that level up and be better at it. Mm-hmm.
00:19:56
Speaker
Yeah, the difference like with because they they have perks just like Skyrim or the Bethesda games. But the difference is like when you're doing something in a Bethesda game, if you're using a sword, if you're using a bow, you start out good with that.
00:20:07
Speaker
It's still going to you know do good damage or whatever. And then as you unlock perks, you become absolutely broken. Right. That's the the progression tier. It's like, oh, well, you have stealth and you max that out. OK, every time you crouch, you turn invisible for a second. So like people literally won't find you.
00:20:24
Speaker
um And this one, like, the perks are still helpful. And eventually, with effort, you can get to the point where you are just really better than everybody else. But if you just show up in a fight and you don't have a gabison and you're not wearing your armor and you're just wearing, like, your noble's clothes or whatever you're doing to try to get better deals from merchants, you can just get cut down at, like, three hits on normal difficulty. Like...
00:20:50
Speaker
It doesn't take a lot. mean, it seems like you said, very immersive in that. Like, hey, if I'm being hit with a sword and i'm not wearing armor. Yeah, you die. Yeah.
00:21:02
Speaker
Conversely, if you are wearing armor. So my character, like i've I've been maxing out a bunch of skills. The first thing I grabbed was alchemy because it was a good moneymaker for me. Recommend that for me. Literally.
00:21:13
Speaker
ah Very good moneymaker. And it's immersive. like Unlike Skyrim, where you're just clicking items to like go into a potion and you just hit like the create button. And this one, it's like you're following a recipe.
00:21:24
Speaker
ah john I'm playing on PC, Master Race, all that stuff. like You can just take pictures of the book recipe. And just put that on my other screen. So I cheat a little bit for convenience.
00:21:35
Speaker
um And I just follow the recipe on that screen so I don't have to look over at the book in the game. But it's like, OK, yeah, grind the chamomile and then put it in the cauldron. Like, OK, start with water. Put the chamomile in the cauldron.
00:21:47
Speaker
Boil for one turn of the hourglass. Add the other ingredients. ah Now you have to broil it, pressing like the bellows. And now distill once it's all done.
00:21:58
Speaker
um It's more effort, but. I don't care because it's just so much more immersive than click items in a menu and then get potion. But I think if they're like putting that focus of detail as the the focus of the gameplay and people want that, that's great because I know like a lot of major studio games will just have There's throwing a lot of action and stuff at your face where if you look at the nitty gritty of those types of menus or interact with items or item crafting or interact with NPCs and their storylines and dialogue.
00:22:39
Speaker
If you really do an AB comparison, a lot of those can feel very vapid. Yes. Yeah. They're optimized to the point of like, There's not depth to them sometimes, or it's just, it's not engaging anymore.
00:22:55
Speaker
But like, I want to say for the record is fine for certain types of games. Absolutely. Yeah. Again, shout out to Astro bot. It is. i had a friend play it two days ago and i'm like, I'm not going to tell you anything here. um And you know, they played a couple levels and they found it intuitive and fun.
00:23:15
Speaker
And it's just very, fresh mechanically like each time. But yeah, it's not meant to be immersive in the sense of I'm going to be a part of the world. It's just I'm going to appreciate all the things that they put in.
00:23:31
Speaker
Yes, right. um But and for this one compared to like Bethesda, it does seem like some of the systems just feel they feel more developed, right? Like I want to talk about thievery for a second and how stolen items work.
00:23:45
Speaker
In Bethesda games, you can steal pretty much whatever you want, ultimately culminating in literally disrobing guards of their weapons and armor that they're wearing and selling it to fence.
00:23:59
Speaker
right But nobody else is like particularly interested in stolen weapons, is is my reference. Maybe you gain the ability through a perk to sell stolen items to standard merchants at some point. um But that's kind of it.
00:24:10
Speaker
And if you're caught, then they take your stolen weapons or they take your soul and stuff. Cool. If you're caught, they take your soul and stuff in this game as well. But if you steal from someone and say, like you took armor from a chest that they had and then you're just wearing it.
00:24:27
Speaker
they'll identify that you're wearing the armor that you stole from them. They're like, wait a minute. That's got my initials down here in the corner. Like this is, this is, this is grandpappy's armor that he passed down to me.
00:24:41
Speaker
Um, and they'll call you out on it and like call the guards. Um, or if they're a neighbor, they may be able to identify it, but if they're in the same village, they'll have an idea that it was stolen.
00:24:53
Speaker
Because it's like, I'm pretty sure I saw someone with that. I don't have enough of confidence to like outright accuse you and just run and grab the guards. But I can immediately identify that you're trying to sell me stolen goods. Because again, I'm pretty sure that's grandpappy's armor for old Jim Bob down the road.
00:25:09
Speaker
um So there's literally an incentive to go to neighboring villages to sell your stolen goods from a different village because it'll be harder for them to identify that they're stolen.
00:25:24
Speaker
And also, you can improve the chance that they won't be able to identify that they're stolen if you mix in legitimate goods in the sale. So you're like, OK, I got a bunch of swords and like a little bit of armor here.
00:25:36
Speaker
And like the armor's stolen, but the swords aren't. You kind kind of like you mix it all together, um like you're laundering gear. and ah And then they'll just accept it.
00:25:48
Speaker
like It's much more likely to go through as a legitimate transaction. And Yeah, so a lot of people, if they're not friends of the guy, they'll buy stolen goods anyways, but they're like, I'm only giving you half. Like, this is clearly you just, like, stole this from some guy's house while he was sleeping.
00:26:04
Speaker
I'm only going to give you a half, ah but their friends won't buy it at all. That they're doing that just because I know anytime I've played a video game or people have played video games, There are certain like interactions with like a shop where it's like, I'll buy your one magic sword here and I'm going to sell you all of my cheese.
00:26:23
Speaker
ah and It's like, yep, cool. lucky And it just feels very like it's there to be a shop where you're like, oh, it you realize it is a video game in that moment because there's not much in the way of interaction with a lot of games and merchants.
00:26:41
Speaker
Mm hmm. Yeah. now RPGs are getting better with it. You would say that. get but Closer to realism. Bethesda RPGs aren't necessarily. Others are. Right. This is an example of one of the ones that is pushing.
00:26:56
Speaker
Interesting mechanics in RPGs. And I really like that. um I think there needs to be more of one. You should be able to kill NPCs. A good portion of them.
00:27:07
Speaker
um And then there should be consequences for that as well. Yeah. It's weird to be like running around being a menace and everyone's like, hello.
00:27:18
Speaker
Hello, adventurer. Yeah, I don't worry I don't i' I don't have firsthand knowledge of it, but I know that's one complaint of avowed, which came out not that long ago. And I wanted that to succeed. It's an oblivion oblivion obsidian game. There we go.
00:27:35
Speaker
We've landed there. But that was one of the gripes. You are the protagonist. You are not supposed to be killing townspeople if they piss you off.
00:27:46
Speaker
So you can't. um This game does. And sometimes there are like side quests and things. like There's one where... um ah There's basically like two bards or poets and they're trying to like manipulate you to get you to do all of their chores and stuff and um There were several points in this where I was just like I'm gonna kill them.
00:28:09
Speaker
I'm gonna kill these NPCs And if you don't there's a nice little payoff at the end and stuff like that if you follow it all the way through but you also just can you can be like actually I am no longer working for you.
00:28:22
Speaker
See you in home. Goodbye. And it's just entirely up to you. i love that. Player choice is important. So I recommend it. I think it's going to be one of the top games for the year.
00:28:35
Speaker
Well, I've heard something similar about a valid to where it definitely had some cool ideas. I definitely like some of the world aspect, but then ah some of it is just kind of that generic triple a RPG of like, we've we've gone through the checkboxes.
00:28:52
Speaker
Here you go. Yeah. Yeah, i hear I hear that the world building is is really good because it's part of like Pillars of Eternity series, which is really well received for that. But um
Free Game Bundles: Are They Worth It?
00:29:03
Speaker
and the combat's supposed to be pretty good, too.
00:29:05
Speaker
But um I don't know I might play it someday, but there are a lot of Bethesda or geez, Obsidian games in that space. um that i haven't gotten into just because they're like they're very dense um and so it is on game pass we'll see if i get to it before it rotates out that's my current take on avowed but there's a lot of good games to play right now i need to peek back at game pass every so often I actually ah launched Epic or I Googled free games on Epic to see what it was. And of course it was like something I had no interest in that probably could get $5 somewhere.
00:29:45
Speaker
um It is really funny how like they're still doing that because I mean, they're they're operating the free game giveaway, like at a loss to bring people into the platform.
00:29:56
Speaker
And it's just subsidized by all like the Fortnite money that um Epic gets. But like they literally are giving away free games every week.
00:30:06
Speaker
And most weeks, the overwhelming majority of weeks, I don't even log in to get a free game or two free games. so Do you remember when Humble Bundles were like at the zeitgeist of like, that's how people got games?
00:30:22
Speaker
It was like a that's where a lot of my Steam library came from. Because, you know, typically you're like, oh, I want to support um this specific charity or, oh, I want to get this game. And I guess these other things will be a bonus.
00:30:35
Speaker
But then there are some humble bundles like the itch.io type stuff or like the thing where had just a bunch of, oh, we made an RPG and here's a PDF about the RPG rules. And I'm just like, I i don't want, don't give it to me even for free. ah Yeah, I mean, the itch bundles at least, they're Yeah, they were like, here's a thousand things.
00:30:58
Speaker
And the issue with a thousand things is it's sometimes difficult to pick out exactly what you're interested in. It's kind of like when they had those plug-and-play consoles where like, hey, there's like a thousand games on here.
00:31:11
Speaker
And you're like that's a ah high number. That's impressive. And then you play one of the games, you're like, hmm. are Are the other 999 going to be like this? I don't want to disparage them too much because like there are definitely good games in those bundles.
00:31:28
Speaker
But like if you're going into it looking for AA or aaa experience or something like that, none of those games were meant like that. These are games that were probably designed in a much shorter time span.
00:31:40
Speaker
um i I would honestly be more keen if they literally paired with certain indie studios to be like, hey, we want to shine a light on this.
00:31:51
Speaker
Yeah. it I mean, this does seem like some of them are indie titles. Yeah. But I want something that's like an indie darling. Like, hey, just want to double check. Has everybody had a chance to play Hollow Knight or Undertale or like games that have had impact where it's like, hey, if you are interested in video games, this is probably one you should check out at some point.
00:32:14
Speaker
We're going to give this to you for free. Right. Yeah, I mean, there there are some that are there. I don't know if they made it into bundles or not. I'm sure they did at some point. But it's like just to not map misrepresent what itch provides, I looked this up real quick.
00:32:29
Speaker
um Because they have the one-offs like Buckshot, Roulette, things like that you might have heard of. But they also have Celeste. They also have Deltarune. like like there are really good doki doki literature club club like there are really good games that have come out on itch and i'm sure they were included in these bundles but when you're in a mix with you know 99 sorry 999 other games it's a little harder a little harder to stand out and so i might have struggled to find celeste if i got it in one of these bundles for instance um
00:33:01
Speaker
But yeah, you really need good um like the gaming community for that stuff. I feel to be like, hey, which games are good in this genre? What are people thinking? What are people feeling?
00:33:12
Speaker
You go on to Reddit, you go on some message board. go on a discord maybe and then you use that feedback to then inform a decision of oh i hear that celeste is a really good game i'm going to look into that right but if somebody gave you like a package of 1000 things it'd be like some of these are good please you're like ah it's hard to look through them um it's an it takes work to literally just sort through them and that's that is the trick with the bundle that large but On the other hand, it was really nice that so many contributors were willing to like throw their games in for like one of these bundles. Because I think
Monster Hunter Wilds: First Impressions
00:33:49
Speaker
the one that I got that was really big was the um the itch bundle for like racial justice equality some years back.
00:33:55
Speaker
um And so these people aren't really making money. When you're one of a thousand contributors to a bundle, like... It doesn't really matter how the split works. You're not really making money off that. This is you kind of doing your part.
00:34:09
Speaker
So the sentiment behind it is very good. From a pure games acquisition standpoint, that's kind of what we're arguing about, you know getting the games that you would actually play um and put more time into.
00:34:21
Speaker
um But yeah. I agree with Yeah. On the other hand, I don't need more free games. Like I said, where I started, Epic hands them out and I don't even pick them up.
00:34:36
Speaker
I have too many games to play already. And for some reason, I'm adding to that backlog as early as yesterday. ah Yeah, I was very surprised because we hadn't talked about it at all. And usually I have, i mean, we talk at least once a week.
00:34:52
Speaker
I usually have a good idea of like, oh, Jake's excited for this game coming up. u But do you want to share your experience with Monster Hunter Wild so far? Sure. That was one of the games I bought.
00:35:02
Speaker
Oh, no. So, yeah, Monster Hunter Wilds. I'll preface this because I know that we have friends of the show and special guests even ah that are very into Monster Hunter.
00:35:15
Speaker
I am a Monster Hunter casual. there Monster Hunter traditionally is split into the mainstream games and then like the mobile games. And the mainstream of the mainstream games, those are the ones that I play.
00:35:27
Speaker
So I played Monster Hunter World. um I played ah Monster Hunter Iceborne briefly, which is just the expansion to World. um and then Just nothing else, nothing else in the series until Monster Hunter Wilds dropped, which is really the um mainstream successor to Worlds or a world um And as far as the difference, right? So assuming you played the these two games, ah Wilds is very pretty.
00:35:57
Speaker
ah Worlds was pretty, too. But like this is kind of leveled up a little bit. um And I have a pretty good graphics card. I have a 3070 or something like that. And i if I wanted like a pure, yeah always above 60 frame rate, I would probably need to drop some settings.
00:36:16
Speaker
um But it's not really because the game's unoptimized, as far as I can tell. It just is really good looking. um ah so So that's a note. ah They have a million accessibility settings, almost like too many, because like 10 frames, there's like 10 windows of just ah pick this accessibility setting, in this accessibility setting, etc.
00:36:36
Speaker
When you make a new character or a new save um and you log in for the first time, um you get basically torrent from Elden Ring. you have ah You have a Chocobo that you can ride around almost all the time.
00:36:51
Speaker
Like you can jump off of it for combat and stuff. but it will auto path to whatever you select on the map, um ah which is really nice. Like it'll track the monster for you. If you remember worlds like or monster in a world, you had this whole process of like gathering. You're like, oh, here's scat from the monster here, like gas marks on a tree.
00:37:12
Speaker
And then you had to use your um your scout flies to like ah get evidence around the monster. Then you could finally hunt it. And that was like a recurring thing through the the whole game. um That's gone entirely.
00:37:26
Speaker
It's just like your little chocobo, which is called a sacred, I think. I'm going to call it a chocobo. um It'll just path to the monster. Like it will auto path to the monster.
00:37:38
Speaker
You don't even you could put the controller down and arrive at a monster that you're hunting. I mean, that seems like a really nice improvement in both areas, just because much as it was fun to, there was a degree of immersion to like literally look in the area and collect enough poop and let your flies smell the poop. Now, I think this way.
00:38:00
Speaker
This is good poop. East. Yeah. i
00:38:07
Speaker
Yeah, you still had to run around or you had to essentially zone transition at certain points where you could. um Like older monster hunters, I don't to even think there were really mobility options so much.
00:38:24
Speaker
And then in with rise, they gave you these. going to forget the name of it, but basically these like zip line. Yeah, you get like a shot that you could like. move around a lot more in the world, but it seems like they are just streamlining the, Hey, we're, we don't, the focus should be the exciting monster hunt and fight, not the, i have to, I have 50 minutes. I'm going to spend 10 of those minutes going here and exploring around and,
00:38:52
Speaker
And to be fair, you still can. ah like you can Basically, your your Chocobo will path to whatever your your current target is. But if you just go out in the world and you don't have a selected thing on the the overworld map, um then it's just you controlling it. You can speed it up, slow it down.
00:39:09
Speaker
um But you have that hookshot thing you described still. So while it's pathing to whatever, generally what I'm doing is I am playing literally Pokemon Snap. And I'm just looking to the sides. I'm like, oh, I'll grab some honey and I'll grab ah like a tree nut or something like that. I'll grab all these other things while this is just pathing me to the destination with a little hookshot doing all of my resource gathering. And it's very funny. You don't have to. You could just AFK basically instead. But That's cool. You can do that while mounted.
00:39:40
Speaker
Yeah. um The other the other accessibility or honestly, gameplay impact thing is previously in Monster Hunter. Anytime you want to change your gear, you had to go back to your tent.
00:39:51
Speaker
um That's still true in this one. But your little chocobo has a side pouch that holds your secondary weapon. So all and you can just ah jump back on it in combat um like you can just call it. It does the whole torrent whistle thing or whatever.
00:40:08
Speaker
um And so I have the hunting horn is my current secondary. ah bust that out, give me and the rest of the group buffs, and I just switch back to charge blade. um is there a little bit of downtime? Is that DPS efficient? I don't know.
00:40:23
Speaker
But it's really cool to have that versatility um where previously you had to literally go back to a camp to do that. Yeah, and typically, at least when I was playing world, you have one weapon where it's like i play this weapon just because it's very resource intensive to go out and get other stuff, refarm those monsters to be able to build that.
00:40:45
Speaker
Yeah. um And that system still in place, right? You need to make the different weapons. um But. You could, ah what one idea is like you could have a ah status element secondary, right?
00:40:58
Speaker
Like you could have a sleep charge blade and then like just your highest damage charge blade. And then um try to like use those together based off whatever you encounter. put them to sleep then wake them up wake them up exactly after setting the bombs by their face uh-huh charge blade is probably a bad example for this because as you're swapping you're literally losing charge so it's like it's probably the worst swap weapon but this is the life i've chosen to live um Would you say there's any negative experiences or downsides yeah with wilds?
00:41:30
Speaker
Yeah, it's made by Capcom. so ah and So the downsides are things like they have the cosmetics vouchers still where it's like there are minor things you can change about your character makeup, whatever, I guess, without them.
00:41:44
Speaker
But if you want to, like, change your character's voice or something like that, um you have to use these ah these vouchers. um The Steam DLC page Basically, you can just hit like add to a account or whatever and get one for yourself, one for your Palico.
00:41:59
Speaker
That's your freebie. That's your sample voucher. But if you ever want to change your character beyond that one, you're either making a new character or once they actually open up the shop, spending actual real life money to change your character.
00:42:13
Speaker
And this is trash. there's theres There's no good... skin you can put on that that's just consumer abuse basically ah question to that end because it could possibly not be destructive if if you switch characters do you still have access to the same box of stuff as far as like weapons gear items or yeah treated as like a new save slot entirely.
00:42:36
Speaker
Yeah, they're save slots. Okay. So you're not going to be distributing stuff between your characters. um There's no trading or anything like that as far as I can see. And there hasn't been in the past.
00:42:48
Speaker
um Because yeah, Monster Hunter is basically, oh, I need this resource. Let me go farm it up. Not like, let me get my... ah friend who no life's this to drop it for me right have you have Rathalos pieces yes yes wing by yeah I just I just need the set don't really want to fight Rathalos at all um so that's a downside um the multiplayer is still it's better than it was in world I think But it's still like stupid.
00:43:16
Speaker
Like there's no reason for it to be as complicated as it is. We have solved playing multiplayer games with friends like two decades ago, like 20 years.
00:43:28
Speaker
um But basically the system is if you're if you know each other's friend codes, which is the end game concept, you can add each other who friends or you can invite someone through your Steam friends list. So that's one nice thing that puts you in ah link party.
00:43:46
Speaker
Um, which is not the same thing as being in a squad, which is a guild or a lobby, which is you're like sharing the same world. But I don't understand why lobbies are still a thing at all, because if you go out and you set up a mission, um, it'll prompt everyone else. It'll be like, Hey, new quest.
Exploring Monster Hunter Wilds
00:44:03
Speaker
Um, like this person is, ah going off to hunt, whatever. Right. The one nice thing that they have is if you actually are just running around in the world and you're in a link party, just think of this as a party for other games.
00:44:18
Speaker
um If you start fighting a monster just instantly, like everybody else in your party gets a quest and they can just join you. um They'll spawn like the nearest base or whatever and then can like run out and join your fight.
00:44:31
Speaker
um So that's neat because you could kind of just be playing organically, going through the story and stuff. And as soon as the fight actually breaks out, that's when the friends jump in. But you're not going to be co-oping through like the cut scenes. You have to see those individually.
00:44:47
Speaker
Are they skippable? Cut scenes are skippable. Yeah, this is actually i think that was the first thing I called out on the game and the people in Discord didn't appreciate it as much. i was like, Dave saw the end credits. How many times was it?
00:45:00
Speaker
Three. Yeah. And it wasn't like, oh, did Dave beat at the game three times? No, no, no. um There was an issue with like the game crashing for one instance. And I forget what the other one was. it like didn't count, I think.
00:45:13
Speaker
Yeah. like you You made it through end credits. And then for some reason, when you loaded it up again, it made you do it again. Yeah, I think that's right. But... It was like very long. Like it was a, Hey, here's everyone who's ever worked a monster a hunter ever.
00:45:30
Speaker
Yeah. And their dogs, cousins, friends of friends, things about the grocery store. it was just, you're just inundated with all this shit. And it took like 15 to 20 minutes and you can't skip it. Yes. You can't be like, Oh, I want to resume gameplay. I don't need to know this specific key grip for this part of the audio. Um,
00:45:52
Speaker
for all that It was essentially an hour of just credits for me. And that was really the... Not nail in the coffin. I've always hated that. But that was like the most egregious example.
00:46:03
Speaker
But again, it's one of those things where it's like, hey, we're going to remove player agency because... we We don't have a good reason. yeah That is Capcom, though. Sometimes they just make decisions like that.
00:46:16
Speaker
Where like, you realize that this is just worse, right? There's no reason that unskippable cutscenes make the game better. i I think there's some exec at whatever various companies for that. John Capcom, yeah.
00:46:30
Speaker
If we're spending all this money to have them animate this cutscene where like a big... dragon comes out oh okay i want them to see it they have to see it they have to appreciate this monster that we put all this effort into or whatever they think the story is and why they think that's important yeah no that is that is fixed that is an improvement um and the servers have been more stable than they were for world launch so so far it's very positive I will say on like my Steam's friend list right now I see four people playing.
00:47:07
Speaker
Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah, it's it's not surprising. ah It's very much, if you were a fan of World, like this is a game that's worth getting. um New monsters, your familiarity with the weapons carries over, but that's true of all Monster Hunter, apparently.
00:47:24
Speaker
i was like, okay, let's see what they've changed with the charge blade. And like all of my moves are the same. And I'm like, excellent, excellent. I can can get back into this. they they Oh, well another thing they added was a a wound system for monsters.
00:47:36
Speaker
So if you hit a monster in the same place repeatedly, it will like create a wound basically. And there's a little visual tell, but you can tell something really obviously if you hold left trigger um for like a controller.
00:47:48
Speaker
And then if you hit ah right bumper one or one, all weapons have a special like wound pierce attack. um And it's just like a normal sort of attack, usually with some forward momentum.
00:48:01
Speaker
And if you hit the wound, your character just goes like Super Saiyan, basically. And ah they'll do a very... cool looking weapon attack to do like a bunch of damage to the monster and break the wound. Basically, you remove the weak point, um but it does a bunch of damage.
00:48:19
Speaker
um And in the case of charge blade, you literally just like attach the axe to the end of it and the axe starts spinning, which it's not normally capable of doing. And it's just like that the Giza's wheel.
00:48:33
Speaker
Yeah. ay And you're just holding it there against the monster, basically saw Blade attacking the thing. um And it's awesome.
00:48:45
Speaker
It looks so cool. ah There's even like a buff afterwards where the blade continues to spin. So as you're just attacking the monster, there's like the... ah ah What is it? The anime sort of hits where it's like it slows down basically to multi hit and then the move carries through.
00:49:03
Speaker
It looks very cool. It's it's very Japanese anime. um I don't know what all the effects are for the other weapons, but a it's a cool little additive system because you could actually focus on creating wounds on the monster.
00:49:16
Speaker
If you have somebody in your team who's like really good at breaking them and doing a bunch of damage that way, it can kind of like help the co-op. So. um and It seems like it's just a a net upgrade pretty much for Monster Hunter.
00:49:29
Speaker
Yeah. No, so far that's that's been the case. So um it is expensive. ah I think it's $70 retail. It's less expensive on Green Man Gaming. I got it for 16% off.
00:49:40
Speaker
um So I'm not a fan of $70 games. If that is above the price point for people, I completely understand. It's definitely worth waiting for in that case. But yeah, it's fun.
00:49:52
Speaker
I'm enjoying it. Also, I will say, I think it's interesting that they have a release on PC. Whereas when Monster Hunter World came out, it was like PS4. Yep.
00:50:04
Speaker
Do you want to the PC version? You have to wait. Yep. This is cross-platform out the gate, too. That's huge. Yeah, if people will pick it up on PS5. I guess PS5. You can play with them on PC or whatever.
00:50:19
Speaker
I'll definitely check it out at some point. um But it's going to be way after the hype has died down. Yes, that's fair. Just because i have some other things on my plate right now and I'm not in the mood for that.
00:50:33
Speaker
But definitely did enjoy playing in world. All little cute animations, Palico stuff, collecting resources, getting cool gear, using one weapon attack over and over. um But no, it's still a fun franchise.
00:50:50
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah. How the cooking animations? If you're getting buffs, I will say that that could be a nerf. This is we could maybe end on this. Oh, no. no That is that is a nerf is they have the cooking animations, but you do the cooking either in your your portable barbecue or your tent.
00:51:06
Speaker
The Palicos do not cook for you anymore, um which is a massive shame. Like it's a loss. if If you're hearing that and you're like, all right, Jake's overreacting.
00:51:19
Speaker
Even if you've never played Monster Hunter, I want you to go onto YouTube and look up Monster Hunter World and then just Palico cooking cutscene. And you're like, holy fuck, this is well done, wholesome, and food looks good.
00:51:36
Speaker
it just becomes part of the ritual of like buffing before you go out on a Monster Hunt. That was always just... Again, just very wholesome. Yeah. And I think it added a lot of character color to it.
00:51:47
Speaker
There is one mitigating thing, which is there are more sort of animations for your Palico. So like when yeah I complete a hunt, it always goes to cut scene mode sort of like in in these games. And there are like hunt completion animations now. And one of them is like you like give your like Palico, I think like a high five or something like that. And there's another one where you just like pick them up.
00:52:07
Speaker
You're just like holding the cat up in the air. And it's just very cute. Yeah. um So that's really awesome. I literally called, like I was just sitting in there in town or in the camp doing whatever.
00:52:19
Speaker
And I had to like call my wife behind me. I was like, look look up here. Like my cat's just sleeping up here. It was just on top of a wagon curled up and sleeping. um Very cute. they They know what they're on about. um Yeah, that's it. That's everything in gaming.
00:52:35
Speaker
Oh, OK. Well, thanks for hopping on, Jake. It's always a good to have you on as a guest. Yeah, i appreciate being here. um There's other news and jazz like that, but we figure like a little shorter episode, you know, they get people back into monster hunting, right? We're given more time back to you guys um and we could circle up with the rest later because we know essential. This is the only place people get the information like this.
00:53:03
Speaker
um And honestly, i think the majority people haven't even picked up Monster Hunter Wilds because they were waiting for our take. So good to get that out there. My
Conclusion and Streaming Invite
00:53:13
Speaker
early impressions.
00:53:14
Speaker
so Also, going to be streaming Monster Hunter Wilds on Twitch this Sunday at 3 p.m. Mountain Time. And i'm I'm searching, like, how do I Twitch?
00:53:26
Speaker
Why do I Twitch? I mean, if you play Monster Hunter before, I'm sure it'll be your thing. yeah If you haven't. There's plenty of footage online to see if it would be your thing.
00:53:38
Speaker
Twitch being one of those examples where a big new game that came out, a lot of people are going be streaming it, talking about their experiences. So if you're Monster Hunter curious, check it out. Yeah, why not?
00:53:51
Speaker
But that's all we've got for you today, folks. If you have questions for us or comments on the episodes, feel free to send them into the socials. in the description. But as always, we'll see you in the next one.
00:54:03
Speaker
Have a good week.
00:54:28
Speaker
Thank you.