Game Scoop! 848: A Marathon and a Sprint

12:10Daemon Hatfield:There's five classes in it right now, but three of them are from the first game. I was a little bit when you start the game you only want classes unlocked and you have to play to unlock the other classes but the first two classes are from the first game and you start out with I think just most of the same cards

12:29Mark Medina:I hear there's a lot of overlap there so it's almost like you're playing the first game for a little while

12:34Daemon Hatfield:yeah so I guess that was like I kind of wish they would have maybe started out with a new class what did you think? I know you said you also you beat it on your first run

12:41Sam Claiborn:yeah so I was going to abstain from this game because the early access But honestly, the thing that drew me in, apart from Damon talking about it and, you know, everyone in the world talking about it, is I really like the placeholder art that currently exists in the game. So, like, there's, like, card art or, like, story art where it just very clearly is placeholder art of MS Paint. Someone just, like, drew what they want to make good art of.

13:08Daemon Hatfield:You don't run into it that often, but yeah.

13:10Sam Claiborn:But I think it's so charming. And part of me is a little bit sad that it'll be gone when the game hits 1.0. But apart from that, yeah, I was like, okay, maybe I'll poke my head in for just a run just to see what it feels like. And then I immediately made it to the end boss and I beat it on my first run as an ironclad. I was like, well, now I got to play some more. And now I've been waking up early every day, like three hours before work and just like getting as many runs in as I can. And I'm having a blast. To the point, though, about having a different class, I kind of felt that way originally.

13:43Sam Claiborn:Like, oh, I wish we started with someone a little bit different. But I think starting with the ironclad is going to be always like, it's like Magic the Gathering. When you start someone with a red deck, you know, very straightforward. It's all about trying to just increase your strength and make number go up. I think that's a thing that a lot of people can understand. But I think the game is very good about showing you how you can break it with the ironclad. And I think as you unlock more complicated classes, you know, silent after that, and then you get the other fun ones. you start to realize you can break the game in some interesting ways.

14:18Sam Claiborn:You just need to rethink how you go about breaking it with each particular class. So I think starting off with the Ironclad into Silent Pipeline is probably the smartest move from just a game development and game design intention perspective.

14:34Daemon Hatfield:Here's what I like about it. Visually, it's much improved over the first game. I love Slay the Spire, but I've said on the show, I'm not a big fan of its art style. and in that game the enemies there's not much animation at all the enemies just kind of go they just kind of bump into each other now they've sort of it's the same art style but it i don't know i don't know how to describe it it just looks more visually appealing to me now everything is a little bit more rounded i think it looks a little bit more cartoonish in a good way and now there's lots of a lot more uh animation idle animations with enemies and they have attack and death animations they don't just disappear when you kill them there's a lot more character with each character to it a lot more polish and item and stuff looks it just looks a lot better to play then these there's two new classes in there right now they're both really fun the third class you open up is the necro something the necro binder necro binders that they're called she is a really really fun class she has this like spirit hand creature and the way that works is uh your creature will take damage before you do that's cool and dies if they die it'll it'll be uh resummoned next turn with one hit point.

15:40Daemon Hatfield:So as you're trying to deal damage to the enemy, you also have to buff your spirit animal because they're going to take the damage for you first. So that's really fun. And then the Regent is another new class where he has a separate... There's the energy that you spend to play cards. He has a separate currency that you also have to build up to play certain cards. That's cool. There's just other things you have to think about. He's an alien, like a royal alien from another planet who's carried around. A royal alien! Yeah, who's carried around on a throne by little creatures. That's very cool. Okay, that's a good Flugtag bike.

16:12Mark Medina:That's true.

16:13Daemon Hatfield:That would be. Anyway, yeah, so Slay the Spire 2 is out. And I just think it's interesting. It's such a success story. Marathon has tapped out so far since release. It's topped out at 88 ,000 concurrence on Steam. Hasn't even made it into six figures. Slay the Spire 2 over the past week has topped out at 575 ,000. Oh my God, that's incredible. 575 ,000 concurrence on Steam.

16:37Mark Medina:It's Silksong numbers, right?

16:39Daemon Hatfield:That's the only thing comparable. It's been the fourth most played game on Steam behind PUBG and Counter-Strike 2 and Dota 2, right? Those are the venerable. They're always there in the top three. It's at number four, and it's in the top 20 most played games of all time on Steam.

16:56Sam Claiborn:And it's not often that the greatest game ever made gets a sequel and it's just as good. Boom, there, I said it. Quote me on that.

17:05Nick Limon:Are you sure? because we did just get Silksong. So it's like, it just...

17:09Mark Medina:I thought the Bionic Commando sequel was pretty underwhelming. Yeah, that's true.

17:17Daemon Hatfield:That's true. Yeah, I know. I love to see it, especially in early access.

17:21Sam Claiborn:I'm just lamenting I can't play it on my phone when I'm like walking to work. I'm hurting, but it's better this way.

17:29Nick Limon:Play it on your Steam Deck while you're walking to work.

17:31Mark Medina:I mean, that doesn't... That is worth mentioning, not to pour cold water on it, But like if it's locked to steam, that's why the steam numbers are insane. Right. Yeah. I mean, we're not seeing the marathon numbers for consoles. Well, they're not going to be higher than 88 ,000.

17:45Nick Limon:No, they did quote and they said that most people are playing marathon on PC. So you would have to assume that the split is probably like maybe 40 or 50 on PlayStation and like maybe, you know, 20 or 30.

17:58Mark Medina:And imagine Silksong though, because that was a console game.

18:01Nick Limon:Yeah. Well, the thing that's actually.

18:04Mark Medina:Yeah.

18:04Sam Claiborn:the thing that's going to be exciting for megacrit specifically is once this game does hit 1.0 and nintendo switch like bro we're going to see these numbers again on every platform i would assume uh yeah i think this is going to be the big thing and one thing that i haven't got a chance to play myself but i've seen a lot of people play it just you know streaming the game or whatever is the multiplayer aspect it's cooperative and um what you know earlier this past year i played through the Slay the Spire board game with a group of three friends. And it is basically just an adaptation of the board game back into the video game.

18:40Sam Claiborn:So it's an example of video game, adaption to board game, adapting back to video game. And I think it's really clever and it's a very fun way of playing the game. It just maybe will take a little bit longer than a standard run.

18:53Daemon Hatfield:Yeah. So Sam, what do you say when you see a card game like this be so phenomenally popular? You usually aren't a fan of card games, although you did end up enjoying Blotro.

19:05Mark Medina:I liked Blotro, yeah. This looks really boring to me. I don't understand that, but I also know it's very easy because I can see them out of people that are not using strategy guides or videos that we're making and the amount of people playing this game. So I think there's some appeal to the kind of toy-ness of it, right? Like it's like, it's fun and natural and easy to get into. I think Blotro is like that too. Although I liked looking up stuff once I got into Blotro to be like, what are some like crazy things that people do in this? I don't know if this game has that. Oh, it 100 % does.

19:34Daemon Hatfield:It's not easy.

19:36Mark Medina:Mark better figure out what those video headlines are then.

19:40Nick Limon:These four builds will break down. Trust me, it's not easy at the end of every headline.

19:48Sam Claiborn:You'll never believe the four ways you can break Slay the Spire 2. Exactly.

19:53Mark Medina:Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

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22:41Mark Medina:And talking about these games back-to-back is Pokemon Erasure, because Pocopia is an amazing game and it's all I didn't play.

22:49Daemon Hatfield:Okay, listen, I want to play Pokemon. This is what happened to me. Last Saturday, I told Kingo, all right, it's Saturday. If you're good all day long and you're nice to your sister and you eat a good dinner and you try harder at your baseball game, we'll get the new Pokemon game tonight. I was looking forward to playing it, but he didn't do any of those things. He wasn't listening. He ate a bad dinner. He took two hours to eat dinner. So I was like, okay, we're not getting it. So I didn't get to play Pokemon.

23:14Nick Limon:you got stuck by the kid rules you said eat your carrots i want to build something uh it's such a

23:22Mark Medina:good game to play with him and for you because it will introduce you to the fun part of pokemon which is just like what the hell is this little monster i unlocked and what can it do for me that's what this whole game is for pokemon and the pokemon games i think have strayed from that a little bit just because there's so many and it's so diluted and playing through it through them is just this endless sequence of talking to npcs about the same topic about pokemon and why they're good for you i sure love pokemon yeah this game is not that it is like immediately like solve problems like explore and the exploration is fantastic build whatever you want drop your crap anywhere you want infinite inventory uh anywhere and it just like gives you free reign and the more you play the missions which are really fun the more skills you get to mess with the world and it's just fantastic and like my world's just a big mess just a big just just a big sloppy mess of just like this pokemon's like my home would be a lot better if i if i got this and then you have to kind of figure out how to solve that and when you do that you just drop it you like you could build them a house and like make it all badass and have them move in but you're like listen there's 300 pokemon to get to eventually you're just gonna you're gonna have a stool in the ground and a bird perch and then i'm moving on and then you just have this like trash scape and it's so fun and stupid and great and i just like i i just finished the second area which is huge and like there's whole parts of it that i don't understand what it's like what i'm supposed to do with them like this whole lava area that i didn't get any pokemon out of it i don't know how to do anything with there's all these mysteries there's like things that the the central mystery is that humans have disappeared and it's funny and crazy how the pokemon think about that and handle it they're just like they're like some pokemon don't like humans some of them really want to find them and like that's your ultimate mission but then there's like little like apocalyptic messages left like it's smart and interesting and cool and like it's just such a good implementation of pokemon and i think it's perfect for you and kingo so make sure that he you know has has an easier set of ground rules this game is also food today yeah this game is

25:29Daemon Hatfield:also a big hit to what two million copies sold and at launch like yeah this is like yeah another system seller probably the first real system seller since exactly mario kart world yeah and

25:39Mark Medina:it has to be because it's locked to switch two just if you didn't know like you can't you can play this on switch one by streaming it to your switch one from a switch two which i don't even know what that means or how that matters like a co-op thing who cares but you need a switch two to buy a copy and play this game and this would have been a huge christmas seller of the system but they didn't need that this is like a momentum game for nintendo right like as soon as people stop talking about the switch sales then a thing like this happens so i think it's really interesting oh and by the way the game looks really good like it's polished as hell and like it's just it's drawing these frames from like as i said i leave all this garbage everywhere like you walk on top of a cliff you're looking down like all the pokemon are just walking around where you left them playing with your garbage it's it's amazing like it's it is a switch to you know showcase

26:22Nick Limon:they got my i like this game i like this game because i don't uh i like pokemon but i don't like the pokemon games yes so then it's nice to be able to play a game that's what pokemon go was right yeah exactly 100 and so i like to be able to play a game where i see all the pokemon that i like but i'm not bogged down by the because i have tried i tried every year pokemon za pokemon on Scarlet and I'm just like they never shut up I can never shut up these games they never shut up

26:53Mark Medina:and it's turn-based until recently and turn-based is a little bit of a slog yeah I did I did like

26:58Nick Limon:the combat in ZA but I would just wish they would let you do it yeah instead of talking to you

27:06Mark Medina:constantly yeah this game is fun yeah and it's really cute like how the loop works it's like you get a clue that it's like if you have a you have items that you can make grass with or water things or move things around or manipulate things or break them. That's the tool set you get. It's very Breath of the Wild in that sense. And then you use those to make a little habitat. So just like a four or eight square environment that might attract a Pokemon and a clue. So it's like, you need a tree that's high up in the shade with grass under it or like flowers or something like that. You build that, you build a couple of them and like a Pokemon appears and all the Pokemon are like, hey, they'll point out to you.

27:48Mark Medina:The grass is shaking up there and something pops out. You don't ever evolve those Pokemon or get more of the same one or anything. It's always a new one that you've brought out. And they all have personality. They're all funny. They talk to you in different ways. There's like a DJ boombox Pokemon that's like really funny that comes out and there's a whole quest line for it. It's great. I just have no notes for this game. It is such a good builder's game.

28:11Daemon Hatfield:The game's existence is strange because it's made by Game Freak and Omega Force. Omega Force being a division of Koei Tecmo. Game Freak has all its other regularly scheduled Pokemon stuff it's working on and has Beasts of Reincarnation coming out later this year. And then Omega Force mostly does Dynasty Warriors, not this. So it's just weird that this... Well, they do Dragon Quest Builders.

28:34Nick Limon:But also strange, not Dynasty Warriors. Yeah, I think it was one of those things where it was like, that Dragon Quest Builders game looks really cool, but nobody cares about any of those characters because it's, you know... You'd have to be a Dragon Quest fan. So I think it's just like Pokemon Go, right? Because they made their original... They made that original game. I forget what it was called. Niantic. They had another game. And then they just... Ingress. Remade it with a... Ingress, yeah. And then they just remade it with a Pokemon thing. So it's like, it's funny that that has now worked twice where it's like, hey, take this game and make it into...

29:12Nick Limon:So hopefully Red Dead 2 will eventually see like Red Dead Pokemon. No, Red Dead. It's like ultra realistic.

29:18Sam Claiborn:Or ping pong. Not ping pong. Ping pong.

29:21Mark Medina:Yeah, it's totally. Oh, that'd be so good. That's such a dumb, stupid, great idea.

29:26Sam Claiborn:A Marty Supreme era ping pong game.

29:29Daemon Hatfield:Yeah. Okay. I also continue to play Resident Evil Requiem. And I've made it through that open area with Leon. Oh, what did you think? Yeah. So I'll comment on that. I don't consider this a spoiler. We're gonna talk about some mid-game gameplay stuff, no story stuff, so I don't think it's a spoiler, but just a heads up. I thought that part was fun. I don't think it's quite as good as the hospital section, but people in the Facebook group were talking about how it's boring, it's terrible, but no, I don't think so. It's got a cool - I never thought it was terrible.

30:00Mark Medina:I like how you can snipe zombies in the distance to get more CP, and the more you kill, you stop running from things, you start just expending as much ammo as possible and killing them so you can unlock stuff. Like it's really smart. I think it's great.

30:13Nick Limon:The Resident Evil Requiem revenge tour. You get to just go through and kill everything.

30:17Mark Medina:And you haven't got, I don't know what the sequence of things are. And people keep on thinking, I'm talking about the end game, which is like another area that you get to, but there is a sequence of events in Raccoon City where people are like, oh, the second half of the game is the part that Resident Evil fans don't like. That is such nonsense. Yes, this part's in that. There is fan service for like three hours before this and around this where it's all it's doing is saying remember this from resident evil here it is and look how awesome it is that leon knows about that yes and reacts to it what are you talking about that that's the bad part of the game that is the best part and it's

30:55Nick Limon:in the second half yep sorry reacting to the b-roll the part where he just shoots those like t-virus trank darts at people just casually is the coolest thing in a resident evil game ever It's so good. Yeah.

31:08Mark Medina:But I do like the stacks of buildings where you're like, okay, the zombies crawl up from the bottom. They fall down from the top. They carry explosives. They're just doing like really high damage things, but you are a high damage character suddenly.

31:23Daemon Hatfield:Yeah. It's really cool. The militarized zombie area. Yes. It's reminiscent of Day of the Dead. Yes. The third of Romero's zombie films. And there's really cool set pieces. Like these buildings have like fallen over. so you're walking over windows so you can shoot the glass. The glass part is so good. Did you do the part in the gas station

31:43Mark Medina:that's optional?

31:44Daemon Hatfield:I don't know.

31:46Mark Medina:There's just a gas station you have to go in and get a generator going in. You would know. I don't think it's optional. That's where you get the gas can. But it's between the objectives so you have to do that to get the gas can. But then the gas can stuff is optional. You can do a bunch of gas can stuff to open up some areas to return to like that locked box. But in that, there's all these Leon quips in this part. And the best is when the best chainsaw part is in this part too. Because the guy comes to the chainsaw, he's like, you must be the town lumberjack. It's such a callback, right? That's funny.

32:22Mark Medina:And then that happens. And then there's a long sequence where you can, pun intended, chain the chainsaw kills together. But you have to, I died a lot just to get that right. because you have to plan out because you he'll plant the chainsaw in a zombie that'll come back to try to hug you and you do a one one hit kill and you if you wait that out or handle it then you can pick up the chainsaw again you can pick it up again again while just sweeping around on

32:48Sam Claiborn:the ground you know you have to time it right it's so dueling chainsaw is one of my favorite sequences oh yeah it's so good and a little fun like easter egg is technically that gas station is the gas station from the original Resident Evil 3.

33:03Mark Medina:A hundred percent.

33:03Sam Claiborn:But not in the remakes. You never go there in the remake version of RE3. So it's just like a very fun, like, what if scenario. It's where Jill blows up the gas station.

33:13Mark Medina:The whole part is that. And I feel like that if people are like, this is not traditional Resident Evil, are really upset with these areas and what they're doing, it's like, can you appreciate that? That it's like a constant deep cut? It's really smart.

33:25Nick Limon:Yeah. I also question that, like, this isn't Resident Evil. What is Resident Evil? Every game is so dramatically different. I know they think that it's like, you know, it's very like conserve your ammo and stuff like that, but also there are several mainline Resident Evil games. The most popular being Resident Evil 4 where that is not a thing. So like, it is Resident Evil. It's Resident Evil 4.

33:50Mark Medina:So anyway, I'm looping this game right now and the way that you want to do that is this, and Mark made a

33:56Nick Limon:very popular video about this by the way which is my idea uh but uh it was sam's idea it was a nick nick is actually the one that made and wrote i was gonna call this out yeah nick kind of wrote the bones of it which i was like once you beat the game there's just like every other

34:11Mark Medina:game i'm not spoiling this there's just a bunch of challenges you can do right and you replay it like an arcade game and i'm replaying it that way but the funny thing about this one is that you the second replay is best to do on easy and then you do a run where you don't use healing items or a few other things that I won't talk about but if you do it that way then you then you unlock the hardest thing to unlock because you have enough CP to unlock it which is infinite ammo and then you can play in insane mode for the first time with infinite ammo so those are two really fun

34:42Nick Limon:arcadey loops for the game it becomes this weird roguelike where every time you're like you're playing the game and every time you're unlocking like bigger and cooler stuff.

34:52Daemon Hatfield:So smart. Well, I was telling Nick, like you've been in less than three hours? Yeah. Well, I did it in three hours and five.

34:57Mark Medina:We did the speed run in the thing I'm doing, which I might get by accident.

35:01Daemon Hatfield:I've just, I've been playing it for weeks. I know. How can you do it in three hours? It's insane.

35:06Mark Medina:I did it that way too, but it's because of the easy mode that makes that possible. Also

35:11Nick Limon:skipping cutscenes and running past zombies.

35:15Sam Claiborn:Well, skipping cutscenes actually doesn't, they pause

35:17Mark Medina:the timer during cut scenes but if you play it back to back after having just played it for your weeks long playthrough everything in the grace mansion is like really fast and fun and you can decide like whether you you you'll uh do some of the extra stuff and not or not it's fine and you can not kill anything because it's easy mode you can just run through it you know i think

35:39Daemon Hatfield:you regenerate your life i think there are a few things it's doing as like first first of all i i don't i can't think of another resident evil game that has this many callbacks and references to earlier games in the franchise. And also, after you leave the open area with Leon, there's a really dumb on-rails sequence. I think it's dumb. Nick liked it, but I thought it was...

35:57Sam Claiborn:It's cool the first time. After that, I'm like, alright, let's speed this up.

36:01Nick Limon:It's really stupid. He's got a really good one-liner at the end of that one. It's short enough.

36:06Daemon Hatfield:He always has a good one-liner. He went to the John Wick, Keanu Reeves School of Acting, I think. Then you go through the segment at the Raccoon City Police Department. Not a spoiler. It's in the trailers. that segment's really cool so many callbacks and then you go through the orphanage go underground finally you're in like the the umbrella spoilers you end up in an umbrella laboratory yeah yeah

36:28Sam Claiborn:white sterile lab

36:29Daemon Hatfield:and then you have to battle human opponents Resident Evil I can't remember fighting human opponents in a Resident Evil game oh yeah also the boss of that

36:37Sam Claiborn:I let out a cheer when that boss fight happened I thought that was one of the coolest things I'd seen in a Resident Evil game ever the mini boss yeah the mini

36:46Mark Medina:the mini boss yeah that was yeah so i didn't get that that was a reference until i watched some of our videos and then i was like hell yeah because i remember that so much and i couldn't relate to it so much i didn't realize that at the time it was great well so you got rpd is so cool because

36:59Nick Limon:it's like the safes are all still open and it also canonizes leon as the as the character you play us because he's like i guess you're talking about that puzzle was weird i'll mention it was in the

37:10Mark Medina:trailers i don't care i love that puzzle is weird part that is weird i kind of i let out

37:17Sam Claiborn:looking at this puzzle from like 20 years ago 30 there's one moment where you go to investigate the desks that are there where leon had his welcome sign in r2 and there's a nice call back to martin

37:30Nick Limon:and i was like oh god yeah i've got a little teary we made a comparison and like all of that stuff we made it with remake and all of that stuff is there it's great i love i like it a lot

37:40Daemon Hatfield:There is a locker, though, that says it needs a key, and I didn't find that key. Oh, man.

37:44Nick Limon:Don't get me started.

37:45Daemon Hatfield:It's part of Barry's scavenger hunt.

37:47Mark Medina:You need Barry's scavenger hunt. You should try to solve that before.

37:51Daemon Hatfield:Well, now I'm past that part. Another run me.

37:55Mark Medina:There's a couple things. I'm like, do I need to beat the game before I can unlock these? And it wasn't the case. And unfortunately, I did figure that one out, but there was one I didn't. The briefcase in that area, I didn't figure out. But I figured out that one, which i just had to walk around so much to get it to work but it's basically yeah you have to find a picture that shows you where a location is yeah we have it covered anyway i'll i'll leave this

38:18Daemon Hatfield:uh topic by letting know where i am the first room where the guards come in the human guards clear that out and then you go around the corner and then you're in a room where there's like a gap and the soldiers are on the far side of the room yeah having a little trouble i stopped there i was like okay that's enough for tonight you can cheese that by going up on the balcony i know You go up, but they can shoot from under you.

38:39Mark Medina:Yeah, you go back to where you started.

38:41Daemon Hatfield:Oh, and then you go back? After that.

38:42Mark Medina:Yeah, that's what I did. Just because I wanted to use my rifle ammo, and I was like, you know, this will be fun.

38:46Sam Claiborn:Okay. There is also a destructible piece of the environment that you can unleash something on there. Okay, that's good to know.

38:53Daemon Hatfield:Whoa! That's great.

38:54Mark Medina:I forgot about that. I didn't know that. Well, I didn't know that until after I played that section, because you don't see it. But yeah, you have to go to the other side of that bridge to do that.

39:03Sam Claiborn:You should be able to shoot it from when you first entered.

39:06Mark Medina:Then do that because that's really fun. Okay. Yeah. All right. Chaos. Yeah. Okay.

39:12Daemon Hatfield:Yeah.

39:12Mark Medina:And we should have an episode where we talk about the ending because there is a really cool sequence of hints at future as an evil and stuff.

39:20Daemon Hatfield:Yeah. We'll do when I'm, when I'm finally done with it, we'll do a spoiler cast.

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41:16Daemon Hatfield:Okay, Project Helix, the next Xbox. First details coming out of GDC. reiterating once again that it will play PC games and then a bunch of specs that don't mean a lot to me I'm not as big of a tech guy

41:32Nick Limon:It's next gen stuff

41:34Daemon Hatfield:They've got a custom AMD chip and they're leaning into AI for their own upscaling FSR right? Or FSR Next I think they're calling it I don't know Is anybody getting excited for the next Xbox? Is it meaning anything? Is it doing anything to turn the tide?

41:50Mark Medina:I think the thing today was a really exciting thing too where they um i don't know this is an xbox yeah i don't know if this is an indication of what where they're going but they removed the this is an xbox campaign from visibility and in some locations so ijen reported on that uh that in conjunction with you know announcing a new console and being like hey we're making a box that can do console games is like that's all getting away from that was it who is it shamus likely that the shame is gonna be like wound down

42:18Daemon Hatfield:or whatever they also said yeah they also said you know they're celebrating 25 years of xbox this year i said this is we're setting this up for the next 25 years so to your point yeah i think

42:27Mark Medina:they're trying to say all good news i think and then also the the coupled with the playstation news of um kind of getting out of the pc because where they're publishing their games like there could be an era of exclusivity that feels different than before where it's like you can play a bunch of pc games and you're supposed to blah blah blah they're gonna have all that but like they might be more reluctant to put stuff on switch to and which is not as much as common but they might not put stuff on the PlayStation and like what's that gonna look like for Call of Duty and uh you know Elder Scrolls and stuff like it's still all that stuff I know is annoying for consumers to think about and it all sounds expensive but like as a journalist I'm like that's so exciting to cover all that as a consumer I have a lot of worries like everything just sounds like the future sounds expensive but they might solve that in some way and I don't know what that is they have to

43:15Daemon Hatfield:yeah unless like ai can can bring the keep the cost down i'm not talking about yeah i like um content generation i'm talking about using it like upscaling like fit like faking their way to higher fidelity graphics using ai that sort of thing i mean honestly and this is in the middle

43:33Mark Medina:of the controversial statements to say about ai but new york times had a piece today about how silicon valley is using ai and you know there's still a bunch of coders coding things but they're just doing it with prompts and they know what they're doing. They know how to check it and like how to make sure that that worked, but they're saving eight hours, you know, by making a half an hour of prompts to, you know, have things write code that's going to come to games, right? So that just the programming side of things, you still need someone that knows how the game works and to test it and do all that stuff.

44:04Mark Medina:But like some of the conservation of actually programming, I'm not talking about artists being replaced and stuff like that. That's all. Unfortunately, that's happening too. Like I'm not, I'm just pointing out this other thing is happening where like the conservation of resources and just sheer coding is going to come is the next thing. And maybe that's going to make games cheaper. Is it going to make jobs go away? Like that's the unclear thing stone, right? You could actually make a lot more games. That's probably good, right? Like what if you could make, you know, the Capcom amount of games at Bethesda?

44:35Mark Medina:That'd be nice. Yeah.

44:37Nick Limon:Yeah, I was watching a game dev video where the guy said like a very popular method that game devs use. I think it was probably more earlier games, but probably still used now, which is the bear claw method, right? Which is where they figure out, okay, there's some sort of like bug in our code. And so we have to keep like shrinking until we find out where that bug is. And so, you know, they'll change things or whatever. And they're like, nope. Okay, so this is good. So now we can like kind of, he's like, now we just type in, you know, the, a lot of them use Claude and they just look at my code.

45:11Nick Limon:Do you see any irregularities? And it'll be like, yep, this is gonna cause an issue. And so they're able to just go straight there now instead of having to manually find it, which is, yeah.

45:20Mark Medina:And again, there's two discussions about AI here. One is that it's gonna ruin everything and come for jobs and squash creativity. This is a different thing. This is a productivity use of it where we all agree that games are too expensive and we'd like to play more video games. So this is like when Photoshop came to Lucasfilm, it changed Lucasfilm's ability to make special effects. It didn't replace a bunch of people at Lucasfilm. There wasn't a bunch of people editing photos. It was a tool from outside that made it so they could make more special effects. This is a tool from outside that makes it so you can make more game code or make games with fewer bugs.

45:58Mark Medina:That is a possibility here. That is an outcome that is not evil. we are already seeing companies pre-lay off people to be evil so i don't know where this is going but

46:08Nick Limon:it's worth thinking about yeah yeah the whole mega crit thing that nick was talking about earlier with slay the spire that i i can't remember if they've commented on it or if people are just saying it but their whole emma's paint thing feels like a direct like comparison to bouldersgate 3 where they were like yeah we used a bunch of gen ai art to like do placeholders and they're like we didn't do that. We literally made placeholders in MS Paint. So you get to just see those now, right?

46:35Mark Medina:It's for the culture to feel out what do we accept as art versus what do we accept as a tool. And that's what we're figuring out. And by the way, GDC is about that this year. Like the events that are sold out are about these, you know, not sold out, but the ones that are filling up are about like crazy tools. Yeah.

46:52Daemon Hatfield:There was that panel about the Google's AI game generator. it was completely full

46:57Sam Claiborn:the Nintendo IP destroyer yeah

47:03Nick Limon:as far as the next Xbox goes I agree with all the tech jargon it's breaking the next generation console will have next gen features we that's not exciting what I want to know is like for one how much is this thing going to cost compared to the you know competition what they even consider competition anymore because there's the Sony thing where they're you know They're pulling their games off PC because of the Steam Deck, not the Project Helix. But also, like, yeah, allegedly. But also, just like, I know there's a lot of chat about exclusives and stuff like that. And they'll end up walking that back.

47:41Nick Limon:But at the end of the day, this thing has to sell. And their games have to continue to sell. Which is why they're in the position they're in now. So I don't get super hyped from, you know, an Xbox CEO telling me that the next console is going to be great. I need a little bit more than that before I, I think, oh, yep. They've turned this around. This is going to be great.

48:02Sam Claiborn:I, I already have a next generation Xbox. It's called my bad-ass PC.

48:09Nick Limon:Yeah. I'm I use it every day. Oh, but there was the Xbox mode for windows 11. That does look kind of cool for, for Xbox.

48:17Mark Medina:I think that's applicable for handhelds too, right? You correct?

48:20Nick Limon:Yeah. It's, it's their Xbox full screen. they're just calling it now Xbox mode where you turn on your PC and you're in the Xbox UI which is which is cool for Xbox people but if you're on your PC what can you do then you just

48:34Sam Claiborn:play the Xbox games you've bought on PC it's very much like big picture if you're familiar with that at all it's just an elegant user I would some would argue it's not elegant but I think in theory it's something that you can navigate a digital storefront and interface on a PC using just a controller um and that's kind of how it's optimized the the big drawback uh for pc gaming is is i

48:59Nick Limon:have it hooked up to my tv just like a console my gaming thing but for one it needs a pin because it's a ig and own machine and i can't turn that off so i still have to i have a wireless keyboard so i type in the pin and then the thing just opens in steam big picture mode that way the moment the pin is typed in i set the keyboard down i pick up the controller and i never have to touch the keyboard again and so that's what people want people want to be able to go and use this thing like a console they want to be able to pick up a controller and and play it uh and that's what

49:29Daemon Hatfield:the xbox mode is is trying to do for people well okay so speaking of steam machine you mentioned uh sony walking away uh walking back its exclusives that it's putting on pc we had talked a little bit last week that maybe uh the idea of this next xbox playing pc games and then also being able to play PlayStation games that came to PC. That was the reason why. But here we have another theory today. This is Peter Dalton, who was the head of technology at Bluepoint, which was recently just shut down by Sony. He wrote on Twitter, I read an interesting take on why Sony may be pulling back from pushing PC releases and instead focusing more heavily on exclusives.

50:06Daemon Hatfield:Some people frame this as a response to Xbox, but I'm not convinced that's the real driver. A more interesting possibility is the rise of a Steam-based console ecosystem. Consoles largely exist because they provide a cheaper, simpler alternative to gaming PCs. For most households, a dedicated gaming console is easier to justify than building or maintaining a high-end PC. However, if Valve releases a new Steam console that provides a console-like experience while still giving players access to the entire PC game library, that could become a very compelling option. In that scenario, if Sony were releasing all of its games day and date on PC, the Steam console could effectively offer the best of both worlds, simplicity with the full breadth of PC gaming.

50:44Daemon Hatfield:It would be quite ironic, after decades of traditional console competition if Valve ultimately ended up winning the console war. So that's his take.

50:52Nick Limon:Yeah, I don't think PlayStation saw Valve. I think they saw them as another revenue stream, but that's why they put their games on Steam, but they didn't see them as competition because PC gaming will always have a few drawbacks compared to console games. Yes, console games have drawbacks too. I don't want to hear it. Anyways, but yeah, with the existence of this device, It does make them a direct competitor now, and PlayStation is not playing nice with the other competitors, as we know. So this definitely seems like it is in response to that.

51:26Sam Claiborn:I think that's a very fair perspective as well. And I think it's not only competition for PlayStation, but I would argue also Microsoft and their project Helix. I think its biggest competitor is going to be the Steam Machine. and i i would be very surprised if helix was priced like all that much differently from a steam machine um i think it i think it's going to be a very similar parallel to what we see with the rog xbox ally x versus the rog ally x just the xbox coat of paint that's on it um so i think that microsoft cannot afford to be more expensive than a steam machine whatever price it ends up being and i don't know if it can physically be cheaper than the steam machine so very curious to see how this all shakes out i think it'll be more expensive the steam machine has already kind

52:17Nick Limon:of said that it's it's like you know kind of a mid-tier it's kind of it should be about ready

52:22Daemon Hatfield:to go they're just waiting on like yeah yeah uh current world economic situations to settle

52:28Nick Limon:somewhere you know yeah yeah the biggest question i have with all of this the the reason i feel like xbox is still you know there are much smarter people trying to figure this stuff out but like when you buy a playstation 5 right playstation gets a cut of every game sold doesn't matter if it's first party or third party you buy it on their console they get a cut steam same way right steve you know you you buy this you're only unless you're jailbreaking it you're only getting access to steam so then steam is getting a cut of everything but if you buy a project helix right and then you say i'm never gonna buy an xbox game i'm only gonna buy from the epic game store or steam they're selling you a device that they're not getting any future revenue streams from which

53:14Mark Medina:is like it's so weird maybe we don't know a steam app might live on it under a consideration that

53:20Nick Limon:you know they get a cut of things i don't see why steam would do that when they have their own console. Why would they tell Xbox, yeah, and any game sold on your device, I don't see why they would do that.

53:32Mark Medina:Yeah, that is a big question mark. Xbox makes a couple hundred bucks on each console too, though, so there's that calculation. I have a, the problem I have with this theory, just real quick, is that I don't think PlayStation even thinks about Valve. I don't think about you at all. Yeah, I don't think about you at all situation. I don't think Japanese top-down like old-school electronics companies really care about even Microsoft at some points like they care about Nintendo and they want to go after Nintendo and they want to think about that but I think the way they think about software is very very different and the way they think about hardware is very old-school and you know they'll continue to innovate and do their thing but I don't know I don't I think they might look at like what they why they pulled off of the steam ecosystem already is because like the sales are bad what what can steam do for us is how a i think sony of japan looks at steam what can they do for us can they

54:35Nick Limon:make it they're not making us enough money i don't care you're taking it as purely it didn't make us it's not worth devaluing our brand putting exclusive on other consoles we would prefer Yote and Soros and Wolverine to just stay because we're not making enough money there anyways. And that it's not about competition. It's just about devaluing their own brand.

54:57Mark Medina:The thing that's hurting Sony in the long run is that they don't have as much, and I hate this term, IP as Nintendo, still. You would think when they became the most popular Sony's ever become right before Last of Us kind of came out and there was like PlayStation All-Stars, that by now we'd be like, look at all these PlayStation franchises everybody cares about. they were doing local roco and pat upon like all this stuff was just coming out all the time it really narrowed to and they had yote that's new right but like it's really narrowed to uh oh it's not narrowed but it's just it hasn't blown up but i think as much as i would have expected them to and i don't think of them as you know besides astrobot and stuff being cute like having as many competitive things they own they can't like easily make a theme park or a racer or

55:40Nick Limon:or all stars like nintendo can the the big difference between the two is that like nintendo Nintendo doesn't forget about its IPs, right? It's still always going to make Zelda. Oh, sorry.

55:49Mark Medina:And I forgot the second half of my point. Microsoft solved that by buying everybody. Yeah. Yeah, they did. And Sony, you know, spent a little bit of time doing that with Budgie, unfortunately, Bluepoint. Um, and so, uh, yeah, I just think that that puts them in a little bit of a weird spot if they're going for like, we're, we're gonna be a console maker that makes AAA games. You can only play on PlayStation. Like, I hope that they have some kind of, you know, ability to become a, you know, we saw the last Sony conference. It was all Capcom. It was all Konami. Like, that's their key for it. Some of those partnerships.

56:22Nick Limon:Yeah, they just abandoned their, like, why isn't somebody working on Uncharted or Infamous? Like, it's so weird that they just, Uncharted's over and they moved on to Last of Us and that's it. somebody other than Naughty Dog can make an Uncharted game. It's very very silly. Where's Carappa?

56:44Sam Claiborn:Bring him back. Gotta believe. Where's my boy?

56:48Daemon Hatfield:I think another good point when you're considering PlayStation being worried about the Steam Machine is that the Steam Machine is not going to be sold at retail or on Amazon. You have to really know about the Steam Machine and really go seek it out yourself. There's many more hurdles, much more friction involved in getting a Steam Machine than getting a PlayStation.

57:09Sam Claiborn:Well, you can't buy a Steam Deck from GameStop, or at least you could when there were shortages, so I'm curious to see because I believe they were a licensed retailer, but that came after launch.

57:20Daemon Hatfield:Yeah, I think as of right now, the Steam Machine will only be sold from Valve right now.

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58:41Daemon Hatfield:okay sam tell us about the panel you went to that was on donkey kong bonanza

58:47Mark Medina:sure thing let's bring it up in still storage so uh i went to a panel at gdc and i wanted to talk just briefly about like what these are like and why they're fun to go to and and what what you see at them and nintendo does one every year and this one was a uh on it was called Constructive Destruction, Fusing Voxel Tech and 3D Action Platforming in Donkey Kong Bonanza with Kenta Motokura, the producer of Donkey Kong and director of Odyssey, I believe. And then Tatsuo Kurihara who programmed it. And the programming matters here. Because what this was about is a presentation to game developers about how they came about with this game.

59:22Mark Medina:So what they started with was there was one rock in Mario Odyssey which was deformable. And I guess we can just move through the slides. I'll just say next slide. So let's see the next slide. I don't either. Yeah. So next slide is this one. So this is the, they had a cheese that they made in a level where you can destroy this cheese. So this is a Hammer Brother, for people listening, destroying cheese. And when you think about it, that's what voxels are. And voxels are basically 3D pixels that can be destroyed in certain ways. By Hammer Brothers. Yes, in this case, Hammer Brothers.

59:58Nick Limon:Specifically by Hammer Brothers.

59:59Mark Medina:So they get this idea and Odyssey. Next slide. And they think, well, maybe we can build a game around this. And then they talk about Donkey Kong and they talk about where we're going to go from here. So then they make this prototype still in the Odyssey engine, which has a Goomba with two hands that destroys in voxel environments. And that's the next step. So next slide. And again, so Nintendo would never show these prototypes. This is another slide of the Goomba beating stuff up. And the assets are from the game. It's Goomba from the game and then the hands are from this like Olmec enemy in the game.

1:00:36Mark Medina:Next slide. So there's that's what I was just talking about. There's the hands and then where everything comes from. So again, this is Nintendo showing us how they built a little playground and then decided on what they were doing next.

1:00:48Daemon Hatfield:Was this talk being given in Japanese?

1:00:50Mark Medina:A great intro in English. Giving a great they can clearly speak English very well. And then they switched over to Japanese. And I have a picture of what the panel looked like in a second. Next slide. So then there's stuff like this that they show, where this is clearly a tool in-game that's being shown to say, okay, Donkey Kong's standing on mud. How much of this mud is wet? How does that affect its destruction? How much of this mud is dense? How does it affect its destruction? Not really readable, but you can see they had to make these tools. So then Donkey Kong walks around and smashes it. Next slide.

1:01:28Mark Medina:Another thing here, this is the material properties I was just talking about. It's kind of showing, see, there's the obsidian panel. And what is that? That's probably harder than the other panels. And there's also a thing on here, which is not destructible. A lot of the game is not the metal stuff. Next panel or next slide. What values? Yeah. So as mentioned, there's the wetness value. That's the mud and it gets a little drippy and weird. Next slide. This is cool. So this is showing they also had a tool that overlays like in any point, what is actually destructible. And again, the boxes aren't destructible or they're destructible in a very specific, just two polygon way.

1:02:04Mark Medina:And they might go in and destruct other stuff. But, you know, this is, again, just showing Nintendo showing their tools, showing their dev tools, right? That they had to make for this game. Next slide. And I promised some of us at the end. This is showing how many voxels are in this level. So they backed out their camera. 347 million? Yeah, 347 million 3D pixels are destructible and adjustable in this level. Running on a game that's running on a phone. And the point here was that it's on Switch 2, right? They tried to do this on Switch 1, and they just really couldn't work it out. And when they pull out, they're very proud that things scale this way, so there's still a texture when you pull out this far that looks like zebra or giraffe pattern on the level, even though what we're looking at is a level that's backed out so far away that it's just a tiny speck in the distance.

1:02:54Mark Medina:All right, let's see what we got next. And this is going great, Jobra. I really appreciate this. This is showing what's destructible and what's not. And just kind of, again, another dev tool. Next up. Okay, so this is showing, basically, you can make a testable level before you make your game. And this testable levels, they put a bunch of their materials together, made a little obstacle course. and you can see this stuff would not have made it into the game itself, but they just kind of build these almost like Mario 64 levels, right? These little playgrounds. I just like seeing Nintendo and build this stuff.

1:03:30Mark Medina:This is the special stuff for me. It's like seeing this game that never existed that came out. So if you're now watching this on YouTube, maybe skip to this section and you can check it out. There's just a couple more. Next up, again, like those rocks are not there's rocks that are structural and rocks that are, but you can't tell the difference what you're playing. That's what they're saying in this slide, which is really cool. Next up. And they call that the trappings. This is what the panel looked like at the front. There's also, I don't know, a thousand people behind this area. Like I was up front here and it was really fun to watch them go through this stuff.

1:04:02Mark Medina:And they had jokes and they had the audience all give thumbs up like Donkey Kong at one point, stuff like that. And I think the final slide is next, which is another. Well, let's skip through these. Well, this one, this one's just showing that in Donkey Kong, when they designed anything, it had to be filled with stuff. In Mario Odyssey, you could just build a polygon and walk across it. But in Donkey Kong, you had to fill it with something all the time that could be destructible. I thought it was cute. Next up, let's skip past this. We're almost there. These are just cool slides. And this is the final one.

1:04:33Mark Medina:You never get to see what it looks like when the team gets together and takes a group photo at Nintendo, right? And you can just see a couple things about the youngness of this crew and how into it they are. and again like this window behind the scenes at nintendo is totally unique and what's makes gdc special so i just wanted to share that like you know sometimes you hear about this conference and it's not as exciting as ces or e3 or whatever but this is why it's fun to go to it you get to see this and damon and i have been to these about like old games like doom or nba jam or whatever

1:05:02Nick Limon:which i think it's cool because like there there are so many games like you know you play bethesda game or you you know and you kind of see behind the curtain all the time right like you you glitch through the floor you can just turn the camera and see through a wall and stuff like that and you don't get that in nintendo games just because of how polished they are so it's weird to be like somebody made this game like they did use dev tools and stuff like that they talked about um

1:05:30Mark Medina:that exact example they were like oh yeah we're okay with some clipping in this game because we think it's fun they were talking and they showed what they meant which was like an enemy was kind of destructive and going around stuff but if like the edge of its shoulder went through a wall like

1:05:42Daemon Hatfield:it doesn't matter it's like spinning and doing crazy stuff yeah like acceptable levels of of you know bugginess is fine in this game it was cool cool kind of makes me want to play donk kong bonanza again yeah also i'm starting to get really excited for the mario galaxy movie

1:05:58Sam Claiborn:yeah it looks pretty good it's gonna be a good time i think i'll watch it in japan

1:06:02Nick Limon:oh there you go after after the first movie like i i have no fears about this movie like we were all like kind of worried we're like are they gonna be able to pull it off is it gonna suck blah blah blah and it's like now that i've seen it it's like okay yeah i'll just take more of this

1:06:18Mark Medina:it's fine i can't wait for the dark empire strikes back ending they pull out of the galaxy

1:06:25Nick Limon:mario's missing dude if they make it where bowser is mario's father i'd be so into that

1:06:32Daemon Hatfield:That's impossible. Charles Martinet is Mario's father.

1:06:42Daemon Hatfield:Okay, that brings us to video game 20 questions. Our suggestion this week comes from Zach from Washington State, who says, I sit here digesting a meal from Taco Bell, listening to the latest episode of the only video game podcast questioning my life choices and staring at a pile of sauces. This got me thinking about the varying levels of hotness and the progressively more difficult games that could match. So here's what I've come up with. He's got five possibilities. You three will choose. You will choose your level of hotness that you want for a video game 20 questions this week. There's a mild option.

1:07:14Daemon Hatfield:Diablo.

1:07:15Sam Claiborn:We got to go Diablo.

1:07:16Daemon Hatfield:There's a mild option, a hot option, a fire option, a Diablo option, and a Verde option. No way, dude. Verde, that's interesting. Verde is not hot. You have to pay extra for Verde. Verde is something a little different. so if you choose Verde you're getting an option that's a little different

1:07:32Mark Medina:that's cool if this is Taco Bell I'd be all in on Diablo but let's try the Verde because Nick's here and he's going to help

1:07:37Daemon Hatfield:Zach says love the show I've listened to every episode since around 2015 recently my daughter was in the car with me and asked if I had met you all I told her no and her response was well you should you listen to them so much

1:07:49Mark Medina:we'd be happy to meet you

1:07:50Daemon Hatfield:where does he live? Washington State

1:07:53Sam Claiborn:we could do a game scoop tour

1:07:55Daemon Hatfield:up there yeah we can do that pax west okay so you guys want the verity option yeah let's do better okay joebert the verity option is what has been chosen let me just help myself out and uh make

1:08:07Sam Claiborn:sure i've got some info here wait does joebert have an asset or something he always has an asset to play when you when the game is revealed oh yeah that's right i always go diablo man i don't know it's just like i like the taste of the diablo sauce to talk i know because we're coming we're

1:08:21Nick Limon:coming off two losses i think and i hey i just as a sauce diablo is very good it has a good

1:08:27Sam Claiborn:wait i might have lost it is the sauce is the the heat of the sauce relevant to how difficult

1:08:35Daemon Hatfield:the game is or how difficult our challenge is how difficult he he thinks the challenge would be got it got it okay so okay that's why we're not going because like you know we're not going to

1:08:43Nick Limon:get you know some i don't know i can't think of it i think we're on a bit of a i think we're on a

1:08:50Daemon Hatfield:My opinion is that the fire sauce would be the hardest one to get to. But you could get to all these.

1:08:55Mark Medina:So maybe we should have gone Diablo.

1:08:57Daemon Hatfield:We got to.

1:08:58Sam Claiborn:No, we can get better there. Yeah, let's do it. There's not a higher reward. No, there's money on the line.

1:09:05Mark Medina:I mean, it made me think about talking about.

1:09:06Sam Claiborn:We're on Polymarket. I got a lot of calls on this one. Oh, God, can you imagine?

1:09:13Daemon Hatfield:Okay, so with the Verde option chosen, let the questioning begin.

1:09:19Nick Limon:Okay.

1:09:21Sam Claiborn:is this I mean is this game from the 70s 80s or 90s yes well yes okay well yes it is it is that means it's like 99 or 2000 or something 99

1:09:36Nick Limon:or it's like just still existing in some form that like hmm

1:09:43Mark Medina:is this game from the 1995 and later period yes

1:09:48Nick Limon:okay oh wow okay uh it was this game developed in japan yes was this game featured on the nintendo 64 no is this a ps ps1 exclusive yes it is okay that's fine japan playstation exclusive dang

1:10:08Sam Claiborn:we're in my zone okay so now it's something a little bit different so i'm thinking but it's

1:10:14Nick Limon:It's not going to be Final Fantasy 7. It's going to be something like...

1:10:18Sam Claiborn:You're jumping flashes. You're croc, Legend of the Gabbo.

1:10:23Mark Medina:Is this in any of the PlayStation... Well, is this on the PlayStation Mini collection?

1:10:29Sam Claiborn:No. Maybe like a Vib Ribbon.

1:10:32Nick Limon:Yeah. Man, I kind of want to... I guess nothing from Square Enix would be out of the box, I don't think.

1:10:44Mark Medina:Do you think this game might have not gotten a port to the United States? I wouldn't pick a game that was not released in North America. Nice guy. Would you call this game having an artsy or quirky art style? No, I don't think so. Okay, that's great. That helps us eliminate it a bunch.

1:11:05Nick Limon:Is this an RPG? Yeah, yeah. Yes. Oh, no, maybe it is a RPG. I know that's not really going to narrow it down a ton. What's it called?

1:11:18Sam Claiborn:The Monster Rancher?

1:11:22Mark Medina:Monster Rancher? Is that a thing? Is that Dreamcast?

1:11:25Sam Claiborn:No, that was on PlayStation where you put a music CD and you get a monster based on the CD you put in.

1:11:30Nick Limon:I don't know if it's right. And then Xenogears. Yeah, I would say that's... Tradition. Gradia.

1:11:37Sam Claiborn:To your point, Mark, I think the PlayStation era, RPGs were I would argue just regular RPGs it wasn't like a PlayStation Last of Us where it kind of has RPG elements in it so let's see RPG

1:11:51Nick Limon:no when I think of PS1 I think of Legend of Dragon Final Fantasy very traditional he laughed though so maybe it's based on a license

1:12:02Daemon Hatfield:the Verde option

1:12:04Nick Limon:a little bit different that's why I know it's not like Final Fantasy 7

1:12:09Mark Medina:Is this based on a license?

1:12:11Sam Claiborn:No. Is this game from Squaresoft? Nope. Okay. That's 10. Just got to eliminate that off. It's good to get that out of the way. Yeah.

1:12:21Nick Limon:It's not Brave Fencer Musashi, guys.

1:12:23Mark Medina:Is it like an Atlas game or something?

1:12:26Nick Limon:Hmm.

1:12:28Mark Medina:Is this developer still around? I don't know. Okay. That's a freebie. I don't know. We're not going to get this one.

1:12:35Sam Claiborn:Okay.

1:12:36Mark Medina:Is this the first of its name in a series?

1:12:40Sam Claiborn:so it is a series and it's first of its name maybe it's like a Mega Man Legends or something because that's kind of weird it's not a Mega Man traditional game that was before that was a port and it says exclusive to Playstation do you play as a human

1:13:02Daemon Hatfield:yes

1:13:03Sam Claiborn:okay

1:13:07Sam Claiborn:RPG where you play as a human there's a little bit of a pause there though he had to think about that

1:13:13Nick Limon:I'm also trying to I'm also thinking about the you gotta meta it why did I pause

1:13:22Daemon Hatfield:because Mega Man

1:13:23Sam Claiborn:he is part human he's a humanoid he's a boy Mega Man's a boy he's a robot

1:13:31Nick Limon:he's a man

1:13:34Sam Claiborn:he's literally a robot he's a cyborg

1:13:36Mark Medina:I'm a human.

1:13:37Sam Claiborn:He's a cyborg. I don't think so.

1:13:39Mark Medina:That would imply that he has grown skin and stuff. He's all metal, isn't he? Alright, so someone get Dr. Light on the phone.

1:13:47Nick Limon:I've never gotten that close to him.

1:13:49Sam Claiborn:What type of humans are not humans? Let's see. There's like mischief. No, that's not a... That's not exclusive. Okay, you play as a human. It's an RPG. PlayStation 95 and later. A little bit weird. not a usual game that makes me think it could be a spin-off or just an unusual game period

1:14:15Nick Limon:Nick you got us in this mess is this a

1:14:18Sam Claiborn:how did I do this? you guys wanted to go back there I wanted to go Diablo

1:14:23Nick Limon:no you said if this were Final Fantasy 8 I'd have it by now

1:14:27Mark Medina:I think I forced the video

1:14:29Sam Claiborn:is this an RPG set in like a traditional fantasy setting? You know, swords and magic?

1:14:36Daemon Hatfield:Yes.

1:14:37Sam Claiborn:Okay.

1:14:40Sam Claiborn:See, I'm helping. Legend of Dragoon could be of, I don't think that's, was that square?

1:14:48Mark Medina:Could it be a super deformed like crazy, like super cute RPG thing? Does anything like that exist? Cute? Hmm, I don't, I don't.

1:14:59Sam Claiborn:Pope La Croix Chrono Cross is Square that's kind of weird yeah that is Square was Legend of Dragoon Square I didn't really like that game so I always forget I can't remember I don't think that's I think it might be Square

1:15:11Mark Medina:he said the developer is not around anymore no I said I don't know he said he didn't know y 'all would know if it was Enix or Square

1:15:21Nick Limon:I know if Legend of Dragoon is a Square Enix

1:15:26Sam Claiborn:game is the issue yeah i always forget because i just don't care about that game uh what else fantasy setting yeah maybe it is something like an arc the lad or like is this a turn-based game yes turn-based how many questions are we at 14 that's 14 all right could be a suikoden yeah that's a konami we do know it's a Japanese developer we would know

1:15:58Nick Limon:if Konami is still around I think they are this is just something super weird I'm surprised it's not based on a license I was hoping for some weird license game I'm trying to think of it's like an RPG in a medieval or an RPG fantasy setting but it's weird

1:16:17Sam Claiborn:is it Oh, maybe it's

1:16:21Nick Limon:.hack? That was PS2. I think that's PS2. Is the game... That's like an MMO, but it's not.

1:16:28Sam Claiborn:Is the series still around today?

1:16:32Daemon Hatfield:Yes. It's still relevant. That's 15. And I will say, you guys are not thinking Verde enough.

1:16:38Sam Claiborn:We gotta get weirder. The series is still around today? Japanese developer, started on PlayStation. first of its name. We don't know if the dev's around.

1:16:54Nick Limon:It's the Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.

1:16:56Sam Claiborn:Yeah.

1:16:57Nick Limon:Protector of the PlayStation. Actually, Nine Kingdoms.

1:17:00Sam Claiborn:What? Human. You play as a human.

1:17:04Nick Limon:Kind of. Yes. With hesitation.

1:17:09Mark Medina:Does this game have cartoony or anime graphics?

1:17:13Daemon Hatfield:I mean, that's a little bit hard to... I don't want to answer it.

1:17:20Sam Claiborn:I refuse. Is this game primarily polygonal?

1:17:26Daemon Hatfield:No.

1:17:26Sam Claiborn:So maybe Sprite. Oh. What? What? So maybe it's like a Sprite-based, turn-based RPG. What if it's just a collection?

1:17:39Mark Medina:Maybe it's the Final Fantasy collection.

1:17:41Sam Claiborn:No, it's not Square.

1:17:44Mark Medina:But what if it's a collection of older games? Because that would be...

1:17:49Sam Claiborn:like ported i mean that is weird ask me if it's a collection is it a collection it could be

1:18:00Daemon Hatfield:what if you were to use it in a certain way it could be

1:18:06Nick Limon:what is happening nick this is so verde it's a turn-based rpg that could be a part of a collection

1:18:16Mark Medina:okay it sounds like it's a uh card rpg or something there's something like that that uses the playstation i or something like skylanders this is ps1 there's there's no

1:18:28Nick Limon:playstation i on the ps1 yeah this is this is before all the weird stuff like a yug well it's

1:18:33Sam Claiborn:not an ip though so it's not like a yugioh forbidden memories like bayblade remember that yeah oh i love bayblade um but uh what are we at you got two questions and a guess do we want to figure out like pixel art sprites pixels like sprites that collection thing is so weird i don't

1:18:52Nick Limon:i can't if you want it to be i can't even begin to understand what that means maybe it's a maybe

1:18:57Mark Medina:it's like a a show on a disc or something or some collection like that oh it's a demo disc demo disc there you go there you go yeah wait what that no that's too insane that that's too

1:19:10Sam Claiborn:It could be a demo disc. It could be that.

1:19:12Nick Limon:Is this a PlayStation demo disc volume 2 1998 edition? Can I play Tony? Does this game feature other games?

1:19:21Sam Claiborn:Okay. Am I allowed to ask a medical? Are demo discs on the table? I think you have to.

1:19:27Nick Limon:I think you have to.

1:19:29Daemon Hatfield:I only pick games that were released in North America. Okay. So it can't be an entertainment thing.

1:19:39Sam Claiborn:I mean is a demo disc a game that's released I mean why would that be a collection

1:19:43Mark Medina:only if you wanted to it is a collection yeah that part just

1:19:47Sam Claiborn:that's because maybe the game is featured

1:19:49Nick Limon:in a demo disc I've never been more excited to find out what the answer is I'm excited too

1:19:55Sam Claiborn:I'm excited too ask me two more questions one question and a guess two questions and a guess okay there's like a Landgrisser there's Ark the Lad there's Alundra it's not relevant though to this day, so that eliminates those. Never mind.

1:20:14Mark Medina:Did this game exist as just a playable PlayStation disc sold in stores? Well, but

1:20:23Daemon Hatfield:I don't think you want to burn a question on that. I only picked those kinds of things.

1:20:27Sam Claiborn:I don't know. It's still relevant to this day.

1:20:32Nick Limon:But there's no downloadable stuff on PlayStation, So anything you would buy, you would have to.

1:20:37Mark Medina:What should we ask about the accessory thing? Could it be accessory based?

1:20:41Nick Limon:I can't think of a single PS1 accessory.

1:20:45Sam Claiborn:I mean, there's just weird controllers, but that's about it. Like it's a collection.

1:20:50Nick Limon:If you also, what's what's tripping me up is that it's a series that's still going today.

1:20:54Sam Claiborn:Turn based fantasy RPG. What if it had retro games inside of it? Yeah, I mean, that's certainly possible. I'm trying to think of like a PlayStation 1 game that has that. PlayStation Animal Crossing.

1:21:08Mark Medina:Oh, what if it's like a early, is there like any LAN games or connected to the internet things where you could download stuff? Like it'd be called like the PlayStation Channel or whatever.

1:21:15Sam Claiborn:Not PS1.

1:21:16Mark Medina:No, he wouldn't pick that. Not that I can think of.

1:21:18Sam Claiborn:PS2 was the only network adapter for that. I mean, like Einhand.

1:21:24Mark Medina:I can't think Verde enough for this. I just can't pull this off.

1:21:28Nick Limon:My brain doesn't go Verde enough for this. All right, let's get two questions and a guess. We can just give up. We can just give up, too.

1:21:35Sam Claiborn:Does this game ascribe to the Liv Moss motto of Taco Bell? What?

1:21:41Nick Limon:Did the most recent entry in this game come out in the last three years? Well, hold, please.

1:21:51Sam Claiborn:Also, there is a possibility. It's pretty relevant. Let's see. Turn-based fantasy RPG, turn-based. I mean, it could be like a Shin Megami Tensei, a Persona.

1:22:07Daemon Hatfield:this is this is how long i have to scroll on this series there's a lot of them what okay last the question was this is the most recent from the last three years yes it's is there was there a

1:22:20Nick Limon:east game on the playstation but like super super long running if you have to scroll that much maybe it's like Atelier were those on PS1 I don't even know I think I was PS2 what is the first one even called I don't even know

1:22:40Daemon Hatfield:one question and a guess yeah

1:22:45Nick Limon:I think I'm out I don't I bomber man this is bummer me I know

1:22:51Sam Claiborn:have we said the name of the game no No, no. Oh, gosh. Gosh. All right. What's a last? Is it a Disgaea game?

1:23:08Daemon Hatfield:No, Disgaea first appeared on PlayStation 2. Your Verde option, something a little different, is RPG Maker. No. Oh, God.

1:23:19Sam Claiborn:Oh, I was there the whole time. It's just RPG Maker.

1:23:22Daemon Hatfield:If you use it to make more than one game, it's a collection.

1:23:26Nick Limon:Yeah, you're right.

1:23:27Mark Medina:This is the worst bridge troll riddle I've ever had in my entire life.

1:23:32Nick Limon:That was the Verde option, though. I'll accept that.

1:23:36Sam Claiborn:I would argue this ascribes to the live Moss motto of Taco Bell. Okay.

1:23:40Nick Limon:Yeah, it's not a game. I want to live less. We should have thought about that. Not Moss.

1:23:45Sam Claiborn:It is a game because you do make the game and then you can play it. No, I understand.

1:23:50Nick Limon:But I mean, like, now the comment you're not thinking Verde enough makes sense. Because it's like, this isn't a game. It is a game, but it's not. It's a game where you make games.

1:24:02Daemon Hatfield:You play as a human. I consider it's you. It's yourself making the game. Yeah, that's fair. Also, the characters are just humans. The developer is Kusuo Kagaku. Like a guy, a dude. I have no idea. I wanted this game so bad when I was a kid.

1:24:20Nick Limon:So they're still making RPG makers?

1:24:21Sam Claiborn:The most recent one was 2024. I'm pretty sure they've been featured on Humble Bundle. You can buy like 40 of them.

1:24:27Daemon Hatfield:I think there's just always a new RPG maker coming out.

1:24:30Sam Claiborn:I'm glad. Really?

1:24:31Daemon Hatfield:And Sam, your question, does it have cute anime graphics? Well, it's just pixel art. But then what's confusing is that I'm reading from the Wikipedia entry. In order to allow players to create their own graphics and animations for RPG maker, a second program on the same disc called Anime Maker is included, which creators could use to design graphics and import them into their role-playing games. That's impressive. That's why I didn't know how to answer that question. Okay.

1:24:57Nick Limon:Cool. That was a fun one. That was good. Even though we lost, I still had fun.

1:25:02Sam Claiborn:Yeah, that was a tough one. That was certainly better there.

1:25:06Daemon Hatfield:Here are your other options. Your mild option was Little Nemo the Dream Master. Oh, wow. Hot was Boktai. The sun is in your hands. Oh, love it.

1:25:14Nick Limon:I would have never got any of these. Fire, the one I think is the hardest,

1:25:17Daemon Hatfield:This is Godzilla 2 on NES. Okay, that would have been tough. Yeah, I would have got that. Wow. And then Diablo, which I think we could have gotten because of Sam, is Panic Bomber on Virtual Boy.

1:25:28Mark Medina:I wouldn't have got that, but that's great.

1:25:30Nick Limon:That's cool.

1:25:31Daemon Hatfield:I would have got Boktai.

1:25:31Nick Limon:Those are all kind of hard, though. Boktai. Why is it mild like Mario 64?

1:25:36Daemon Hatfield:Jobber, this footage is driving me crazy. We've got to get this down. This is literally making me insane. He's making a game. I've got to invert my eyes. No, Jobber.

1:25:46Nick Limon:You're playing RPG Maker, man. He's got the fire out.

1:25:50Mark Medina:Just set the sound already. He's cycling through the sounds.

1:25:55Sam Claiborn:Can I just see an overworld real quick? Just scrub through. Let me see some exploration. This is World of Longblaze playing RPG Maker. There we go. This is what I needed. It's a video game.

1:26:05Mark Medina:Just select the sound. Well, nicely attempt.

1:26:12Daemon Hatfield:Thank you for the suggestion. Zach from Washington State. viewers, listeners, if you have your own suggestions for video game 20 questions, email them to me at the email address gamescoop at IGN.com. Alright, that's all the scoops that we have for you this week. Thank you, Nick. Thank you, Sam. Thank you, Mark. Thank you, Jobert. Working behind the scenes to make this episode possible. My name is Damon. This is IGN Game Scoop. And we're out.

1:26:44Nick Limon:It's a super powerful robot evil, it's a super powerful robot evil, evil robot.

1:27:28michigan hubble

1:27:41Bye.