Game Scoop! 850: Konami's Own Antiques Roadshow

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I'm your host, Damon Hadfield. Yes, there are going to be multiple scoops this week. I'm joined in studio by Nick Lamone. I'm back, baby. Sam Claiborne is here. Why on a Monday? Why did you drag us in here? I will get to that in just a moment. And back after a couple of weeks away is Justin Davis. Scoop. People were worried about you, Justin. They were wondering where you were. You're back. I'm still alive. I'm the one that should be saying I'm back. He's like Jon Stewart. He only works Mondays. Yeah, and it is a Monday. We're recording earlier this week. We've got a great show for you. We've got another really fun announcement from Konami, making good use of their IP. I don't know if you guys have seen this one yet. Oh, I know about this. In particular, I think Justin is going to be excited for this. They're opening up their antiques. And also, we've got Yoshi P from Final Fantasy saying, am I so out of touch? No, it's the children who are wrong. Am I unk? No, the kids are. The children are growing up too fast, is what he was saying. Yeah, and they're making the games too slowly. But first, we are recording on Monday, because this week, Nick and I are going to Boston for PAX East. And we're going to do a live GameScoop there. It's going to be a little bit different, though, from what you might have seen in the past. We don't have a panel. We're going to be, where is it? We're going to be at the. We're going to be at the Trolley Sour House there at the entrance of PAX East. Oh, my God. Oh, boy. So, yes, we will be giving out sour gummies. We're also going to be doing a whole GameScoop show there. Yeah, that's going to be on Thursday at 1 p.m. If you show up, you could get some prizes, some fun gifts. Some giveaway stuff happening there. And then Friday, there's also going to be. I've heard that IGN does do other podcasts, but Podcast Unlocked will be there on Friday. And I'm going to be helping produce that as well. Same time, same place. Trolley booth. Same chances for prizes at the Trolley Sour House. Well, it sounds like mouth-puckering fun. What's your favorite Sour Bright crawler? That's the worm. I'm a big fan of the red-blue ones. Well, yeah, probably. Probably. That's probably going to be my favorite, too. But I'm going to try them all. You can't even stop me. It'll be me and Nick, and then we'll be joined by Miranda Sanchez from Unlocked. So if you're there on Thursday, 1 p.m. at the Trolley booth, come by, say hi, for some fun and games. Not fun and or games. I've planned fun and games to happen simultaneously. But what if I want to have only games and no fun? Then maybe it's not for you, Justin. Maybe games are just not for you. It actually says that when you walk into PAX. You must be willing to have fun and games. Yeah. I want only. I want only fun, no games. Yeah. Remember when we did a Game Scoop with Seth at PAX East six years ago, and then the world collapsed? I was just going to say, yeah, the last time I went to PAX East was with you and Tina and Seth was there, and it was in late February 2020. And kind of a big event happened just a couple weeks after that. Is this what happened? They unleashed the T-virus at the convention center? He got you guys cartridges. And there was really good retro game shopping there. We had a good time. I think this is us doing that. That was great. But yeah, if we are the harbinger of world doom, then you're set up well again. Yep, that's true. That's true. Although I should point out, I did not get sick at all last time. I've been drinking my emergency to prep my immune system. And I'm excited. This is my first PAX ever. I've always wanted to go. And finally making it happen. Thanks, IGN. Nice. There you go. You're going to have a blast. And hopefully it won't be 10 degrees like it was when we were there. It is going to be cold and rainy, which is not a good combo. Not my favorite combo. You'll be inside. I prefer to get a little bit colder so we could have snow. But we'll see. Yeah, snow and cold is cool with me. Okay. Okay, headline this week. Younger generations are struggling to connect with the Final Fantasy series because it takes so long for new games to come out, Yoshi P. says. Nick, who's Yoshi P.? Naoki Yoshida. He is the creative director of Creative Business Unit 3. They made Final Fantasy XIV. A Realm Reborn and so on and so forth. He's partly responsible for that game being a giant success. He also most recently made Final Fantasy XVI and also oversaw the remaster of Final Fantasy Tactics, the Ivalice Alliance. Where's the P come from? I don't know. Okay. That's a good question. I've actually never thought about it. He's Mr. Final Fantasy these days, right? He's a very nice guy. Yeah. Very charming. Go ahead. Go ahead. Just what he's talking about is there was a news story about this recently, right? Of like some games are taking so long to come out now that kids like Dragon Quest was like this too. Of like kids are going through their whole childhood and never getting to play one of these games. And so they're not able to connect with them like we were able to when we were kids, for example, where there are video games coming out every couple of years in a series, right? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it cuts both ways. Like we're sparing the generations of Kingdom Hearts, but they're also not getting to play Final Fantasy. You take that back right now. I just heard a gasp. Did somebody hear a gasp? Oh, some hard, hard pro-clutching happening. But jokes aside, and I think that wasn't a joke. That was just true. But Kingdom Hearts, it is a really good intro to Final Fantasy and action RPGs and stuff. And it is funny that, you know, for the, I don't know, like, you know, seven or eight year gaps in which you should play this as a seven or eight year old. You're not going to play these games. But yeah, this is totally true. But then we all remember they put out two giant Final Fantasies in one year, like two years ago. That's true. Which was pretty amazing. No one made them do that. They chose to do that. That's true. Two giant Final Fantasies. Which ones? Rebirth and 16. Oh, yeah, yeah. They're like six months apart, right? Oh, that's right. Oh, my gosh. Three months apart. Yeah. Yeah. But what's a little bit strange about this argument is that Final Fantasies are already, like, you know, Drockway or these other franchises have things that like, you know, oh, I can't wait to get more slime. And like, hear the music again and do this and do that. Whereas like every Final Fantasy is like kind of unconnected to begin with, like super different from a gameplay perspective. Obviously, they don't have story connective tissue between them, like completely separate, unique stories. So it's weird, Justin, because last week, Mark was on this show saying that you thought that Final Fantasies were direct sequels and he argued with you about it. Got it. He told me what you thought. That's not a joke. Actually, that was a conversation that happened last week. OK, I'm pretty sure it was the exact opposite. Like, for what you just said. Yeah, I was I thought it was weird. Usually, I think it's whatever Mark would sound like Mark is wrong. That's what is the fighting words. But he did agree that Final Fantasies are not sequels. OK, so Final Fantasy seven was nineteen ninety. Eight, seven or eight. It's seven or eight. It's one of the seven, seven, eight. It's one of those. But then Final Fantasy VIII. truth will be known was right there eight or 1998 or the ps1 generation that's one thing yeah and then final fantasy yeah i know final fantasy 9 was 2000 correct so they're right there the three giant final fantasy 10 like 2001 10 2 video video games are cooked man they can't make them anymore final fantasy 15 came out in 2016 final fantasy 16 came out in 2024 yeah it's an interesting new dimension i mean look we've been talking on scoop for a long time about like video games are so time-consuming and expensive to make that they have to sell a million billion copies and a game can sell eight million copies and still be a failure right when it takes you know 2 000 people seven years to make it but like honestly like this new dimension of like you know the young kids and the youth not being able to get attached to these franchises and form these kind of like you know i am really a big fan of this thing because it comes around every couple years it's like i just hadn't really thought about that till i started seeing it seeing these reports and i think it passes the smell test it makes sense and it makes me sad yep so i have yoshi p's number here let me call him and then nick you're gonna call uh koshin nakanishi who directed uh resident evil requiem and we'll do a three-way call and we'll just have capcom tell tell square enix how they're doing it yeah how they do it bro capcom will release more games don't tell square enix just cut your games like in half well well like final fantasy 16 i i really like that game but i think once it gets into act 3 and you're like 50 hours in it's like all right i think i'm ready for this to be over i think i think a lot of what people enjoy about modern final fantasy tends to peak after it's act 1 which is approximately 30 to 40 hours in and i think at that point that's probably a contributing factor to the games taking such long uh times in their development cycles and and i mean look at clear obscure right exactly and that's a 30 hour rpg 30 hour being like that's if you really wrench it of all of its content and juice i feel like 30 to 35 hours is a sweet spot that's games don't really need to be longer than that yeah you would think the creator of final fantasy 14 would be like we always have a new final fantasy it's updated yearly it's ready for every generation and please look forward to the release of decidia duodecim coming to your mobile devices sometime this year maybe one game a generation could be 100 hours but like that's it that's all you really need well i also think like i half jokingly but like what's tetsuya nomura been doing like make let that man make some more video games it's been a minute and he because back back when he was making him say what you will about uh his his taste i i personally enjoy it quite a bit you 15. uh i did enjoy 15. no he did not he didn't know that was hajime tabata okay uh he was well now it's complicated okay all right because tetsuya nomura was overseeing final fantasy versus 13 which then became final fantasy 15 that was taken over by hajime tabata okay okay but tetsuya nomura did final fantasy 7. okay and he's still making video games somewhere uh allegedly he also did kingdom hearts kingdom hearts 2 and supposedly kingdom hearts uh four he also did kingdom hearts he's he's done oh that's what's happening is that the kingdom hearts games are behind a soft lock of but we don't have we don't have like the data whatever prompted yoshi p to even make this uh guess as to why younger fans aren't connecting with final fantasy we don't have the data that shows like final fantasy rebirth and 16 90 of copies are to gamers 35 and older something like that right we don't we don't see that piece well i think what they're looking at is the uh sell-through rate of plush chocobos and that's just plummeted yeah well um the comments on our article are all like oh yes that's what it is it's the length of time it's not that the games are mediocre now but what they're doing is they're taking his comment and saying no that's not why i don't like it anymore but his comment was really it wasn't talking about the readers of of this article right it was talking about younger gamers yeah so they're just conflating them i i have a long long as a man who abhors all things final fantasy i have long thought that perhaps this is the thing that qualifies me as an unk because maybe it's just destined for to be and only resonate with a certain group of people uh namely young men and they're like 28 to like 40 years range that happened with halo yeah and it's like maybe it's just a time and place thing and maybe it will come and go it makes me sad to say but like yeah maybe final fantasy's just for like my generation and then it's done the kids today their brains are all cooked because they don't play anything you know but they grow up on roblox and minecraft and then they graduate to fortnite and then they're never ever going to play final fantasy 7. this is my most like old man coded opinion is that like you know that's what it doesn't have it doesn't have building or shooting in it and then and then they get a disposable income and then purchase crimson desert and then spend 120 hours playing that game yeah and then they say this game's great i don't understand what you're talking about i i think i think we talked about how long these games are we're like would it would final fantasy 16 be you know one ounce a worse game if it were 30 hours shorter and then like in fact it might actually be a better game and like i realized that they'd have to rework the scenario and yada yada like these really big long gigantic games like part of what makes that experience fun is when it's an open world and when you have freedom to go north south east or west explore wherever you want feel like you're having a you know an adventure that you authored a little bit versus you know an adventure that's being guided like if it's more linear like a final fantasy it's like they can start to feel very very very much like a game you know it's like you're going to start to feel very very very long we get it like you like crimson desert justin jeez i actually do like i do kind of like this um but there is so the the comebacks are not super common in video games especially when they a game comes back and becomes popular with younger generations but i would argue that uh an rpg from 1988-89 just like final fantasy one uh had a big resurgence that's the zelda 2 rpg which uh had a resurgence for beth the wild where all these kids started playing zelda and it's just like you know it's like it's like you know it's like you know it's like you know it's like you know it's like you know it's like you know it's like it's like it's like they were not playing zelda at that young until that game came out right and that was a way that the game was reframed after a little bit after minecraft right a little bit after uh you know kind of accessibility ideas to reach younger audience and then because there's these perennial games like mario kart which is just going to stay a younger played game forever and i got we went best generation of smash brothers right now but it doesn't really matter because everybody's still playing the last one yeah but but the uh but for for me it's just like it's like i'm like i'm playing the last one yeah but but the uh but for for zelda i really did have to have a comeback so it's possible to bring like there's enough elements of final fantasy which i think are universally appealing and great but i don't think it's a gritty game of thronesy final fantasy 16 no i mean but how good is nintendo at this right like zelda zelda zelda's a great example because zelda is just as old as final fantasy almost exactly down to the year right and then it made a generational game one of the greatest video games ever sold made that sold a million billion copies whereas like square enix is a great example of that and then it made a generational game one of the greatest video games ever sold made that sold a million billion copies whereas like square enix doesn't seem they seem a little bit more stuck or like what does it mean to make a big mainline final fantasy game and what is it and how do we reinvent it and sort of get to the core of that experience while keeping it you know relevant and interesting to another generation and they haven't quite managed to find as bold of a way forward as nintendo managed to find with zelda i think they were close with this amalgamation of something like rebirth and 16. if you take the the grittiness of something like 16 and it's more entry-level style storytelling and combine that with something that is a little more demanding gameplay wise like rebirth because i would argue 16 is relatively straightforward it's a pretty simple action brawler game whereas rebirth has this very interesting hybrid action turn-based rpg at its core that i think is super duper unique um but honestly a lot of me also for for the past few years has also been thinking uh final fantasy tying itself so heavily to its numbered entries might be to its detriment once you're 17 games in now you know at least 17 main mainline entry games it makes me wonder if the next one we get will be the final fantasy you know something some sort of not reboot of the franchise because it's every game is kind of a reboot to some extent but just something that loses the numbered branding for it because i think maybe that's like mark they'll think i need to play the last 16 of them in order to be able to play the last 16 of them in order to be able to play the last 16 of them in order to enjoy the new 17 i i don't know but i do think i'd be curious to see what the reception was like um and i'm sure these numbers exist for stuff like stranger of paradise you know a final fantasy dark souls like game which rules by the way if you haven't played it highly highly highly recommend that game but like how how something like that fares compared to something like 16 a mainline final fantasy game it got me wondering what game franchise has the like a final fantasy 16 like you know whatever i've been in this business my entire adult life so it doesn't seem weird to my ear it's just like yeah it's final fantasy 16 but if you take a step back and look at it from like you know an outside in perspective it's insane it's like it's the 16th sequel and it actually has that in the title right and like has any other game ever done that before rpg maker probably yeah no they don't put the number of the title like that that is a good question like what's the highest number of the title in the title like that that is a good question like what's the highest number of the title in the title like that that is a good question like what's the highest number of the title in the title like that that is a good question like what's the highest number of the title in the title like that that is a good question like what's the highest numbered sequel in a video game series i'd like to i think it's final fantasy like did something reach 20 like i don't know dynasty warriors maybe yeah is there nick is there any mainline final fantasy you don't like uh i'm gonna be a little bit controversial i don't really like nine very much you son of a bitch uh yeah i think nine i think it's it's just too slow it's too slow the game there's so many of final fantasy 2 is right there you don't need to do this ai says that final fantasy 16 is the highest numbered sequel in video games okay obviously we can verify it with human sources it's ai justin it's right yeah mega man is gonna get up there i i my pitch to get everybody back into playing final fantasy is just make a game about tifa can't we all agree on tifa yep now i'm listening go on not sam knows what the kids want yeah yeah that seems like a pretty safe bet the bouncer but with tifa you know it's a fighting game 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your new iphone i want i should get um justin and nick's thoughts on crimson desert in a sec but since resident evil requiem was mentioned i'm doing it i'm in the basement i have not healed oh i'm not healed i'm not crafted have you worked but how many hours i don't i don't know it doesn't have an in-game timer i don't think so if you check your stats to make sure you didn't screw up i checked my stats yeah and then i upgraded my health for in the parlor and i was like oh i hope i didn't mess with everything and that was okay yeah it was fine i don't what are you talking about so justin to catch you up we've all beaten resident of requiem it's very replayable you can unlock things like infinite ammo if you do things like play it again without healing uh no crafting beat it under four hours this sorts of things so that's what i'm doing i'm doing a no heal no crafting run right now uh but i did upgrade my health in the parlor and i was like i hope i didn't screw myself over but nope so for everyone who's wondering you can you if you're doing a no health run you can upgrade your health that's allowed steroids are fine but the herb not so much don't yeah got it say no don't partake don't partake of the air and you're doing a no health run you can upgrade your health that's allowed so you're i think you're through the kind of hard part because you know after this it's like you just shoot everything leon for a couple hours and then you're in the medical facility and it's pretty easy to avoid the zombos in there i can tell you exactly where i am am i'm in the sewer where they're dumping the bodies into the blood yeah i'm ready i'm ready to do that on my second run yeah i'm there too i love it if you also you can also set up a big cp payoff there too by doing the final challenge which you have to activate at that part so if you want to read about that and then do that part you basically have to leave your game on for like 15 minutes yeah it seems complicated the doll in marion's empty cell you can't take it no yeah you have to trigger the the circumstances to get a different doll later on okay but uh i mean check the ign games guide for it because it's a very solid guide we got there first it's the game is just right at the start the game is just really fun it goes down smooth i hardly ever immediately restart a game after i finish it and i'm i'm just having i'm still having so much fun with it even on yeah it feels like an arcade version of it right yeah exactly yeah the resident evils i mean they're not not my cup of tea as i've said but i do really respect them a lot for uh for exactly what you're describing of like it's just got this old school you know infinite ammo when was the last time you heard a game talking about that cheat and like unlock it's just so fun yeah big head metal gears like that too yes exactly and we talked a little bit about crimson desert last week mark uh was on and he actually enjoyed the game a lot as well and so justin you said you were enjoying it i like it um i i should say so we're recording on a monday i was hoping i was gonna have a couple more days to play and i was out of town so i just got home so these are night one impressions of like i played i played um on a sunday and i didn't know how hard m the game was i know it's rated m but i'm like i think i think i'm okay with like my 12 year old watching some violence but then um they're just throwing around c words constantly oh wow they really go to the deep end on bad words for that one yeah and like i'm like i'm sorry you can't this game's too grown up for you um anyway no i mean so i there's we ign gave it a six out of ten and i agree with that six out of ten and but i like it anyway i don't know it's a little bit hard to explain i think having your expectations kind of set of like i understand i'm going into a six out of ten experience and then like am i gonna get enjoyment out of this and the answer is yes um think of the context that for that that you have to like set up though it's like hey just you want to play a real piece of shit yeah sure i got some extra time no it's like it's what you're i'm not saying that's what crimson desert is i'm just just making a joke about the way he set it up yep no it's absolutely like you need to be in the mood for like a big open round world f around like i want to play a game where i'm going to chop down trees and harvest lumber and get iron and collect bugs and collect flowers and just accomplish nothing for like a whole night and like you know and then elements of it are going to be really janky but then elements of the exploration are going to be really rewarding and i'm going to find something behind a waterfall and it's like it's just that kind of game um so i really like i'm actually really impressed with the combat i think it's very um snappy and responsive and smooth and then it couldn't feel more different than the non-combat which is like cliff controls like a tank and like it's completely crazy like even doing something i had to walk up a spiral staircase and he's just like oh just like slowly turning to walk up this staircase and it feels so different than how it feels when you're fighting you know these armies of dudes that like i think the combat's really good and i think the sense of exploration in the game and the world design and just general immersiveness feels good like it's kind of like a take it slow kind of game of like i'm just gonna walk around town and i'm not trying to like check off missions and do stuff as fast as i can but just like immerse myself in this game world i'm having a great time but um i can't believe i thought for sure everyone was um exaggerating how nonsense the storyline is they're not like did you talk about this last week no not really this is this is not an exaggeration this is literally what happens and this is the opening 20 minutes of the game so if you don't want to have this spoiled for you skip ahead but the game opens and your character dies and then they're brought back you don't know why or what happens you're just alive again and then you get a little thing pops up that your quest is to go into a tavern and arm wrestle someone you don't know who he is or why you're doing it and then you win the arm wrestling match and then the quest changes the quest pops up and the next quest is go outside and give a coin to a beggar it doesn't say why so you go outside because cliff is an inherently good person justin it literally feels bugged i'm like am i missing story like what's going on and then you give a coin to the beggar and then it says the quest changes it says go down into the sewers and you go down into the sewers and there's a woman who's like what's going on there's a woman down there tied up and you rescue her and she's like oh thank you so much for rescuing me and then she disappears into like dust and petals like she's like a magic woman it's completely insane awesome and like you you can't and i'm and it's not like this is cloaked in a central mystery or anything like that like as the game progresses people are like oh you're back because they all knew that you died but that's like basically the end of it no and i i honestly can't believe it i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my god i'm like oh my that's how the game opens it's so baffling and it feels like and if i'm being really generous to the developer pearl abyss that feels a little bit like a fever dream and i think maybe it's supposed to feel that way like is it supposed to be mysterious like why am i back and what's going on and who is that woman and why did she disappear but instead it just comes off as weird and and completely crazy and like once you kind of just you have to just shrug that off and be like this world is really beautiful and i'm you know and i'm collecting bugs and i'm collecting quests and i'm collecting loot and like you just can't you have to kind of enjoy this game on that level and meet it at that level i mean look at this footage that we're watching now like the combat's really beautiful and fun um but man what a what a strange weird game um i i do i do like it um i like it but i agree with the six out of ten it's hard to go much higher than that and nick how did you find it uh i'm like 10 hours in right now and i played the game pre the patch that dropped today plus i played a little bit after the patch dropped this morning or last night um i find myself i'm i've i've come to terms with the fact that i don't like it particularly much however i am playing it for what i'm justifying as academic reasons i need i need to understand and i think i do understand why people like it because i do think it's wide net that it casts is really interesting i think one it's one of the most expensive looking video games i've ever said are seen um i think it's one of the most expensive looking video games i've ever said and expensive as in it looks very nice it looks very cutting edge in terms of its graphical fidelity and all the physics and particles it's it's it makes great use of my pc hardware and it's nice seeing how far i can push my pc in some really meaningful ways that you know 4k 240 hertz it's very very fun and cool uh i like exploring the worlds i like the possibilities of what i might find however it seems like yeah it all feels not connected in any meaningful way like there's no almost like there's no intention behind all of the things that you can do just the fact that you can do these things but there's nothing intuitive about how it goes about showing you you can do these things you know right leading up to launch i saw a lot of like instagram reels and tiktoks getting served to me saying how this is a finally a grown-up version of breath of the wild and i i had to pause at that a little bit i i like took that to heart to some extent i was like well this is how a lot of people think about it and i was like well this is how a lot of the world is framed like people who are not you know uh people who are not at ign people who are not me and people who are in the content creator space so my peers to some extent and this is how they're framing it like do they view breath of the wild as a childish game uh it raises a lot of questions but it has me thinking well why why is it that this is a grown up version of breath of the wild is because they say the c word like eight times within the first 10 minutes of the game is it that the game doesn't explain anything and i think that's what a lot of people like is the fact that it doesn't explain anything but i think the beauty of something like breath of the wild is it also doesn't tell you how to do anything or say how to do anything it teaches you intuitively how to do these things and i this doesn't really do that in fact you kind of accidentally discover you can do a lot of things because of a lot of the systems within the game currently as of uh march 23rd 2026 are broken and just kind of don't work in any meaningful way and i think that's one of the reasons why i think that's one of the reasons why i think that's one of the reasons why i think that's one of the reasons why i think that's one of the reasons why i think maybe better now it's supposed to be a little bit better now i played it again this morning i was like nah he still doesn't feel great he is a little more responsive but uh i i was telling damon this earlier i was watching one of our other co-workers before the game had come out uh one of our uh gameplay capture people they he was playing the game and i was like wow that looks beautiful like what a gorgeous looking world i cannot wait to play this game and then i got the game i bought it loaded it up and i was like oh my god i'm gonna play this game and i was like oh my god i'm gonna and within three seconds of me touching the analog stick and seeing cliff move i just said out loud oh no he does not move correct it's like i i know making a video game is very difficult but when you make it clearly you're inspired by so many games that feel good to play and then you make a game that does not feel good to play lesson failed you you got it wrong up front back to the drawing board yeah it fights you every step of the way with the controls he's very heavy and very tanky and if you've played you know our red dead redemption 2 it's a similar ish vibe of like it takes them just a few too many frames and like a half second too long to kind of turn around and like you know really puts an emphasis on animations instead of letting you cancel out of those animations and just go on and do the next move and next thing so it doesn't feel i like look it it absolutely does not pass the test of like oh man i can't wait to wrap up game scoop and go play more like i like the game but i like it in spite of itself um it's kind of you touched on something pretty important there nick which like i think that this is it's kind of like empty calories the game 100 i've been saying that in my head 100 and like by the way like i like empty calories yeah chips are great fries are great yeah i eat a lot of doritos and so but like that's that's what it is you know where like it has a million and one gameplay systems of like you know you can steal cattle and then when you steal cattle like you know you can steal cattle and then when you steal cattle you have a wanted level and then you can go sell those cattle and like you can do all this stuff but then the cattle sell for like 10 copper and there's no reason to ever engage with that system in the game ever and like you know that that is a small example of the entire game is kind of like that like damon so this is a world with thousands of npcs in them and it tracks your reputation with every single npc individually like you can pet a cat and then your reputation with that cat goes up by plus five or greet a vendor and your reputation with them goes up by plus five and like those are two actually maybe not great examples because you do have a reason like you can have the cat as a pet if you get them to max level and like everything you just never know what's gonna then you have the cat as a pet then you can get armor for the cat and it just goes on and on and on and on but there's kind of like there's not really a lot of ultimate point to a lot of it that i've seen so far um i don't think there's a lot of ultimate point to a lot of it that i've seen so far um but as i said before the world is beautiful enough that i'm willing to kind of keep playing it and i am i am interested in um in the combat scenarios and uh you know that continues to be fun and interesting for me there's some interesting stuff in the skill tree so it's like i think there's fun to be had and and i suspect that this might be like a really good game in like a year but that's what a lot of people are saying it might be really fast though i mean they're updating it so rapidly you know for weeks and weeks leading to launch there was a completely non-existent inventory system and nobody playing this game could store anything all their quest items filled up their menus they couldn't drop them it's like so broken and it was fixed in like a day which makes you think like well if you could have just done this the whole time like how was there not the feedback to do that and then also it's impressive how fast it's being fixed the same thing's gonna happen with controls right like they're working on fixing those like pretty quickly um there's some other stuff too like they've really nerfed the game a lot and i think that's a really good thing to do and i think that's a really good thing to do and i think that's a really good thing to do and they've really nerfed some of the challenges that we were like really expecting to be able to be stuck on they just said okay you don't have to do that anymore yeah so yep it's like what that that it's heartening that they're moving that quickly through this like but what does that like say about this like what a crazy game yeah like that's never happened before in our in our lifetimes this is not a thing that normally happens it's not an unusual remark i mean for as long as video games have existed people have always justified like it gets good after 10 hours and i genuinely believe that this game does get good at the time i think everybody's saying that a lot of people are saying bosses are getting longer and you finally unlock magic after 60 hours that's not good the game feels a little more tolerable to me at the 10 hour mark but i just wonder like is that ever a good justification and i granted everyone has a special game to them that does genuinely get good at the 10 hour mark or whatever but like i don't know if that's the thing i want to see is this what you're doing oh about this final fantasy seven would like to have a word with you yeah if they patched and fixed every single thing all the bugs all the jank if they made cliff you know control like the witcher three right if it was that snappy and that good which by the way they never will but like if they managed to clean all of that up like that out of story yeah well that's the thing like they can't patch a personality into the game and like it so that's that's like the absolute peak it could ever be for me is like that's like the absolute peak it could ever be for me is like the absolute peak isn't eight you know and and as of now my initial impression is like i completely agree with that six you know one of the patches today is that they changed the c word to cupcake it reminds me a lot of these bloody cupcakes it reminds me quite a bit of something like genshin impact in that i liked playing genshin impact for 20 hours because i like seeing what was in the world i liked the magic system and i just like to poke around and like see if i can climb stuff and at 20 hour mark i realized i ran into the friction point where the game wants you to spend money and i feel like i'm gonna in 10 hours from now i'm gonna get to a point where i was like all right i think i saw just about everything i need to in this i think i'm good and then i will put it away until some update comes out where people like no no it's for real it's like really good now and then i'll play it then for another 10 hours and then be like cool but you'll have forgotten every system and it won't matter because they're reviewed but that's always the problem but it won't it won't matter though because none of it's tied together in any meaningful way it's just i will enjoy it feels like a game that's in a movie that someone is just playing in the back i was like yeah that's what video games look like all right just are you playing on console yeah i'm playing on the xbox series x and i'm playing in uh quality modes which is 30 fps um yes it does look very good it's very it's very sharp so i i don't know i don't know if that's um you know just an artistic choice or if it's missing some kind of anti-aliasing if there's some bugs there i'm not quite positive but it's very noisy i have a hard time kind of telling what my eye should be drawn to or what should be paying attention to um but it is very beautiful and i'm not experiencing any you know frame issues or or you know bugs or issues on on you know a base console it's been fine um damon there's a really funny there's different there's just so much bath we can move on but this is my last anecdote of just like i'll go through these stretches of like man that was really fun that was really good and then like just the strangest weirdest thing will happen that like cancels it out and what i did was um you can switch your camera angle but one of the camera angles is right behind cliff's head and the back of his head literally takes up the entire screen you can't see anything but the back of his head half view yeah and i'm like how did you like and then because it's zoomed in and then the next zoom in is first person but it's like that angle why does it exist why did you work on this game for nine years and then that's one of your camera angles and then like that might have been one of the reasons why the camera angle didn't work and then you're like that might have been one of the reasons why the camera angle didn't work and then like that might might have been one of the reasons why the camera angle didn't work and then like that might have been one of the reasons why the camera angle didn't work and then like that might have been one of the reasons why the camera angle didn't work and then like that might have been one of the reasons moment immediately follows something that was like super dope and super cool and like that's kind of the crimson desert experience in a nutshell that camera button is pretty impressed i was like damn you can really play the whole game in first person if you want that's cool for happy for the people that's exciting for it it's an interesting game it is very interesting people people who play i'll report back next week yeah everyone who plays it feels some sort of way about crimson desert i have not played it at all myself i don't think sam has either yeah i'm gonna get it started this week though i just said out of a lot of work to do with pacopia and so i'm trying to get through that and that game's amazing and it's lots of systems that make sense and all touch each other yeah that's gonna be my playing game that's gonna be my playing game oh is it multiplayer well let's talk about it on our our pax game scoop there you go that's a good idea miranda has been playing a lot of it although she switched to crimson desert before me i love it i love pacopia so much okay want to be the one who's always in the know about the game the score the plays here's a tip the apple sports app just pick your favorite teams and get automatic live updates without even knowing their schedules and when your team scores it shows up right on your iphone lock screen making it easy to check in anytime so rule the group chat and download apple sports for free on the app store or find it on your new iphone the lemonati has spent decades keeping lemon on top and lime in the shadows their lemon agenda has infiltrated everything even our music that hit song named after the color of lemons not a coincidence big lemon has been pulling strings in the industry for years think about it but now seven up is fighting back with their new lime lemon soda now lime comes first seven up flip the sip okay well if crimson desert is a very expensive looking game let's turn our attention to a game that does not look expensive but is very exciting to me justin do you hear this new konami announcement do you know what i'm about to bring up what if i told you the announcement was made by konami and jupiter okay oh no i did see this okay yeah anyway yeah the pit cross cross s konami antiques edition i like that they're calling it antiques is a little mean i know what antiques am i an antique gamer i'm into antique gaming but more look at this list the list is not in alphabetical order at all it's just randomly listed over protectors on there oh there's i i've i've paused the video right at that moment because there's so many random things on here so oh well maybe i'm getting ahead of myself this is pick ross it's the the puzzle game where you um you uncover pixel art by counting numbers on rows and and ruling out places where uh mark could be i love these games justin does pair loves these games they've made a million of them and now they're doing licensed tie-ins there's one for sega i looking this up i didn't even realize capcom has one and s and k neo geo has one also so i'm gonna that's gonna be my other playing games nice anyway this konami one over 80 titles stuff like ye are kung fu twin b uh stinger russian attack double dribble man just all everything on here metal gear is on there jackal blades of steel gyrus gradius ii there's so many kid dracula parodius sunset riders axley it there's a lot of deep it's just a perfect like you know picross is what they made literally 20 that were not themed and not licensed just like hey here's another pack of 500 picross puzzles buy it and then i'm like okay i'll just i'll buy it every single time but like tying it into like you get the classic music and then the art that you're making is little pixel art from these games instead it's just such a perfect you know peanut butter and chocolate marriage of like mix this nostalgia with the puzzles instead of like instead of making some generic cactus with my picross puzzle like i'm making the gradius ship instead like it's great yep it's just it's it's just a perfect thing do you believe this all started on just game boy yeah mario's picross which is why it's so a little bit wild nintendo hasn't done their own version of this since then right well there's some i don't know quite the relationship maybe i should have looked at it before but like the rights yeah nintendo owns picross but they don't know but jupiter is an independent company so yeah they make picross but nintendo owns the word picross and so there's some relationship there between this stuff definitely appears on switch that's where it appears yeah i think they're all exclusives well it will but but jupiter was making them on the ds before right yeah yeah yeah i love this series yeah i know it's great it's super rad and i i buy them all and then i play them until they get hard and then i stop pro protector 2 return of the evil forces finally got mega protector for those listening is i think that's a big part of the story i think that's a big part of the story i think that's a big part of the story i think that's a big part of the story i think that's a big part of the story in i do think i consider you can i consider myself a real picross connoisseur not as much as pair pair is the real picross sicko yeah i think he literally plays them all yeah like i've i i really like the picross games and i played almost all of them and they did they went through a long phase where every single picross game was adding like oh we're going to add color picross now we're going to add um the multiplayer picross and we're adding the the giant ones like the whatever they call the 40x40s and then they just stopped and before they stopped they stopped adding new features like 10 games ago before you go out and think like oh this is a you know a tetris medios or pushmo killer it's more like sudoku than the other logic yeah you have to yeah it's literally numbers and boxes and finding an adjacent box yeah i've never played a picross i love them they're they're logic puzzles like sudoku is a good analogy if you want to start with picross eskanami antiques nick it's out april 30th oh man i won't be doing any plane travel by then though i know you'll be back from japan then too right yeah i'll be back from japan we need shirts that say i'm a konami antique that'd be a sick shirt honestly they should make that be great no gradius ship okay let's check in with the listeners hey listen howdy listeners remember you can always reach us at the email address gamescoop at ign.com just like our friend charlie gadsden in san diego did charlie says i saw everyone's friend wario 64 tweeting about a sale for trails in the sky first chapter from 2025. it piqued my interest so i watched the trailer enjoyed it and finally looked it up on ign.com as one does and to my surprise i did not have a review for it despite having uploaded gameplay videos of the first few minutes i get it doesn't review every game that's released anymore like they did 20 years ago but after that i'm going to go check it out and i'll see you in the future but after sinking over 10 hours into it on switch 2 it seems like this is one that flew under the radar this jrpg bleeds smart aaa production values and not just in terms of visuals it has unique combat that feels fresh snappy and challenges the player to keep up in the same ways xenoblade does it both boasts voice acting a zoned open world with seamless transitions in and out of towns and a final fantasy 7-esque materia system that takes center stage what how does this work can we commission justin to come out of review retirement for one last dance crazy that this game is getting slept on explain justin i mean justin has all this time to play total games you might as well so the the trail series is near and dear to my heart i actually have not played the trails in the sky remake but i've played almost all of the other games so they're they're long jrpgs you know the 40 50 60 you know the longest ones are maybe these 80 hour jrpgs but what makes them interesting is that they are all interconnected so like there's and then there's these sub series there's trails in the sky one two and three and then there's trails of cold steel there's four of those and they're you could start with cold steel one you don't need to have played trails in the sky but if you do they're in the same continuity and take place on the same continent and then some characters will show up like i i don't think it's much of a spoiler like the the playable character who you play as in trails of the sky shows up as an npc in trails of cold steel and you can find out what they're up to now and like what adventures they're going on and even minor npcs like some shopkeeper someone will show up you know game to game or you know a prince or someone like that and so it's i described it on ign it's a little bit like the marvel cinematic universe but in jrpg terms because they're all interconnected and they tell these individual stories but it's also building up to one kind of like big final crossover event which i think nihon falcom is um i think they've sort of announced that the final games are going to be the final ones like you know the series is like finally wrapping up after multiple decades and what they were finding i don't agree i think trails in the sky is extremely playable the original trails in the sky but they they thought it was getting getting a little bit old and a little bit dated because the franchise has been around a couple of decades. It's like a, it originally came out on the PSP. I played it on steam, but it's like a PS one era, kind of like more old school looking RPG. And that is like the starting off point was starting to feel a little bit off putting to like younger gamers or newer gamers or gamers that were trying to get into the trail series now. So as kind of an experiment, they remade the original trails of the Scott trails, uh, in the sky that, you know, they did a full remake ground up remake, um, you know, with new visuals, new, everything, new combat system to make it feel more modern, but retell that story. And if it went well, they're like, okay, they're just going to keep doing the remakes now and remake all the older games. And it seemed like it did go really well. It sold well. So I suspect we'll probably start getting more of them. So are you going to review it or not? I'm actually not a bad candidate to review it because I have, I'm very, very familiar with the games and, you know, familiar with RPGs, but I really think they're going to put out like a final fantasy version of this. What do you mean the final game? Like they'll actually do that. Yeah, I think so. That's interesting. It's like they're big. It's like they're big adventures event. That's pretty cool. Yeah. And they're really, they're, they're deeply, deeply satisfying to sort of like have some character. Like again, if you don't play them in order, it's fine. Like you're not going to be completely lost, but some character that was in eight games ago, show back up and have the continuity and lore sort of respect that. And then just the fan service element of like, oh man, like what's this guy been up to it? Like it's so much wish fulfillment of these games that you played and loved. And then they end and then you're like, well, I'm never going to see these characters again. And then to find out, you know, what happened to that corner of the world or what happened to this town or what happened to that character and they, and to have them come back a decade later and sort of get to spend a little bit more time with them. Is it's just great. It's the best. They're really, really good. I believe they have the remake sequel of this announced and that's coming soon as well. I've never played a trails game, but honestly I was this close to pulling the trigger. Cause like our listener, I, I also saw that Wario 64 tweet and I was like, I think I'm going to do it for this. Like I always do the thing where I buy like two JRPGs to play on a plane and then I just fall asleep or watch something on my phone. So I don't know. I think that's the end of the trails universe. The original trails in the sky. If you know the non remake version, but the original game, it's not like it's that old school and clunky and impossible to play. It's just, you know, it's an old school RPG. It's an RPG from the early two thousands. Right. And, but on the steam version, it has some quality of life features. Like it has a fast forward button. And so like at the end of every single battle, just like fast forward through the results screen. Like, I think I ended up saving 10 hours doing that. Because my steam playtime was 10 hours shorter than what my in-game clock playtime was. Right. So this is, this V roll here is the original game. You can see it's looking a little bit old, but I don't know. I mean, I know like Nick, I know you and I think it looks great, but I'm just saying if you're, you know, Spelling of Sharazard. Yeah. If you're, if you're a different, uh, type of gamer, this might start to feel a little bit too old. I think that's Charizard. That was okay. Interesting. Is this wild that Neon Falcom is 45 years old. Yeah. And they make beloved games, but, you know, I think you could ask people to list their favorite Japanese developers. That would be pretty far down the list. They're just not as well known. There's some Ys fans out there still. Yeah. Ys is their other big franchise. They just got, uh, Ys X Nordics, like the, the super deluxe version of the Ys game from last year. That just came out. So Justin, why do you think we didn't review it? It just, we didn't, didn't think we had someone on staff knowledgeable enough and with, with, with enough time. Yeah. I don't know. So to be clear, like I haven't talked to our, you know, head of reviews, I'm not a hundred percent sure. I could guess that, you know, very long game, um, which makes it expensive to review, uh, if you assign someone on staff to it or freelance. And I could also guess that very, very long running franchise, right? Like maybe we imagine that, Hey, who's ever going to buy it is buy it. Like we like to review games where there's like this groundswell of interest of like, Hey, we can really help a lot of gamers out. And a lot of people really want to know our opinion on this. And, and like, uh, you know, I don't, I don't know, And like opinions on the Trails games are kind of pre-baked in, I would guess. But I haven't, you know, I haven't talked to anybody about that yet. So I'm not positive. Cool. Justin about to throw all his weight around and be like, I need a review in two days. Make it happen. No, I'm not. I'm not a bad person. I'm honestly, because like I said, I know the games and love the games really well that I would be a good candidate to do it. I think it has a 90 on Open Critics. So it has been very well reviewed. Y'all about to get me to drop, what did Wario say it was? 46 bucks or something? That's one of those, I mean, what Justin was talking about, like not jokingly, that's like with a niche series like this, that's a self-fulfilling type of review situation where like you're going to give it to the Trails fans wherever they are. And it sounds like that's always consistently good and they're always going to try to get more people to get on board with Trails. So that's a recipe for a good scoring game. Want to be the one who's always in the know about the game, the scores, the plays? Here's a tip. The Apple Sports app. Just pick your favorite teams and get automatic live updates without even knowing their schedules. And when your team scores, it shows up right on your iPhone lock screen, making it easy to check in anytime. So rule the group chat and download Apple Sports for free on the App Store or find it on your new iPhone. The Lemonati has spent decades keeping lemon on top and lime in the shadows. Their lemon agenda has infiltrated everything, even our music. That hit song named after the color of lemons? Not a coincidence. Big Lemon has been pulling strings in the industry for years. Think about it. But now 7-Up is fighting back with their new lime lemon soda. Now lime comes first. 7-Up. Flip the sip. Okay, extracurricular activities. I recently just watched something for the first time. Something that some people might consider a classic. All right. Shrek? No, not Shrek. Austin Powers. Shrek 2. Although Shrek I find almost unwatchable now because the animation is so bad. It's just such an ugly, ugly movie. Funny movie, but an ugly movie. Anyway, Kingo is doing baseball. Any guesses what we watched? The Sandlot. No, I think the dog will be too scary for him. He has a thing about scary animals. Well, clearly it's a league of their own then. Angels in the Outlaws. Yeah, we watched Rookie of the Year. Oh, yeah, we watched that. Yeah, but I had never seen it. Do you know this movie, Sam? No. Is this the one where his arm gets stuck? A 12-year-old boy slips and hurts his arm. But no, it turns out he can throw a 100-mile-per-hour fastball. So he gets hired by the Chicago Cubs. He plays the pitcher for the Chicago Cubs. That's great. It's a very silly, fun movie. My kids liked it. I'm not going to say it's on the same level as Home Alone. But like Godfather 1 and 2. No, yeah. But it's a very. It's a sweet, cute movie. The kid is likable. And Daniel Stern is in it being funny. Daniel Stern doing funny stuff. He actually directed the movie, which I was surprised by. What? Yeah. I don't know if he's directed other movies, but he directed it. Totally. It's a fun movie. Gary Busey is in it. He's the aging pitcher that gets replaced by the kid. Right, yeah. He has almost nothing to do in the movie, but he's in it. He's very mad at the kid up front. At the beginning. But then at the end. Well, no spoilers. John Candy. We do. We. Go ahead. The funniest part that I'll share with you here is Daniel Stern is with the kid. They're at like a swanky party because the kid's like famous now because he's the youngest pitcher out there. They're at this party and Daniel Stern is trying to tell him like, there's lots of benefits to being a famous kid. Here, I'll show you. And he like leads them over to these two women. They're standing there and Daniel Stern's like, excuse me, ladies. And then they stand there for a moment. And he says again, excuse me, ladies. And he gets them to move out of the way so they can play a pinball machine. It's great. It was great. I think it was a rollerball game. Do you know which game that would be, Sam? Yeah, rollerball is a ladies and gentlemen on rollerblades playing a, you know, battle to the death type game. It's Williams, early 90s. It was great. It's funny you brought that up because we just watched this within the last six months for a family movie night. It looks great. You know, and our family has absolutely no connection to baseball and they liked it, too. Yeah, it's early 90s. Super cute. Yeah, this is when he's telling the pitcher he's. Saying pitcher has a big butt, Sam. Yep. Ah, okay, okay. It's great. And then another extra cracker activity I forgot to share last week. We went to Disneyland a couple weeks ago. There's the rollerball. Yep, that was it. Yeah, this is exactly. He walks up to these ladies. Excuse me, ladies. Daniel Stern is very funny in this movie, I have to say. Excuse me, ladies. Oh, it's perfect. Okay. I love it. You know the thing? We went to Disneyland, we did Star Tours, and guys, it's all new. All new scenes on Star Tours. Really? Yeah, if you haven't ridden this, this is a virtual ride where you fly through different scenes in Star Wars and they're interchangeable, so it's different every time you ever really know what you're going to get. However, there's like an intro and then there's a scene one and then there's an intermission where a famous character tells you you need to go to this planet to meet this person. And then there's a scene two and then there's an end. These big scene one and two. These big scene two are completely different that I'd never seen before, so I want to tell you about it. If nobody, if people take this seriously, think it's going to be a spoiler, feel free to say it. believe they're showing these lines moving this fast it's so painful to see this and it's never like this anyway scene one was awesome you go to the indoor the crash death star from rise of skywalker you land in that ocean i did that one oh well it was new for me okay i thought you were about like they they did oh you can witness the gorman massacre from the first person no that's cool because you're like you're in there these huge waves and then you go into the death star and then jesson yeah you you see you see the the alien from the trash compactor which i understand is from the first death star but apparently this is a problem on on both death stars and these things just unavoidable pestilence things just get into the trash maybe it's part of the trash compactors like organic recovery of goods right they use the that comes with the compactor yeah to make sure everyone understands what you're talking about it's a ride where you're watching a screen and then the ride is right moving around and yeah and so it changes like sometimes you get stories from episode you know the original star wars and sometimes you get stories from the you know from the prequels or whatever and like there's a really cool reddit post from a guy who spent an entire day at disneyland and i think he rode star tours 44 times and that's all he did was just loop through star tours and then he did stats on like you know like he he basically cracked the code of like you know if you get this scene you can't get you know a prequel scene after it because it would break the continuity right so it's like they'll mix they'll mix scenes from star wars eras but not always like if you get a kylo ren scene then you're guaranteed to get like you know a sequel series scene after that and so he he broke down exactly how like it is random what scene you get but not completely random basically oh yeah it's in 3d now i forgot about that yeah yeah it is and they used to have paul rubens as a custom bot for it yeah do they not do that anymore they have that but but it can you not do the original experience or anything like that no because it's r2d2 and c-3po fully animatronic that replaced it so there's no way to like wheel out that bot when i saw it they had like piped ahsoka into like a few things last time it didn't feel very natural no then my other second scene tell me if you saw this one uh justin it was crate the salt planet from last jedi no i haven't done that one that was cool too because you fly down you know how they get on those like salt skates and stuff like that and you're like oh my god i don't know how to do that you're like oh my god i don't know how to do that you're like oh my god i don't know how to do that whatever they call them and then try to like that's cool the red try to buy people time while the first order is there yeah you like fly through that and then you destroy one of their next generation ad ads whatever they're called that sort of thing so anyway that was cool it was all it was all new to me that's great i love star wars how are they allowed this is pod racing this is nuts how what how are they filming this this is crazy yeah i'm not supposed to but yeah although on disney plus now for the 70th anniversary of disneyland they have ride throughs of like all the rides that you can watch now took them forever to do that because my kids have been watching this stuff on youtube for years like they can just watch rides anyway the final thing i'll say and i go ahead justin oh i just know you can finish because i have another a different disneyland thing final thing i wanted to say is that the live action moana trailer is out i don't want to give it any airtime it's horrible but the number one comment on the ign version is is moana 2016 with dlss5 on moana 2016 with dlss5 on and that that's all right whoever made that comment a plus yeah all right go ahead justin oh just another little disneyland just star tours having different variations the millennium falcon ride also has small variations right at the end and i learned that like there's like a short version a long version of the speech that what's his name o'connor whoever the little pirate guy is that you take the mission from and he talks to you at the end of the mission and you get the long version if the ride needs to take longer to like reset off yeah that's it and so it's like he's adding up the damage like this is damaged and this is damaged and this is damaged and part of the version that you get isn't just how you performed on the ride but if it needs to take longer to get you off it that's great isn't that clever yeah very cool i you know we go to disneyland a lot i really appreciate how well run the park is and you appreciate it more when you go to other some other theme parks and you're like hold up these guys disneyland hasn't figured out dude six flags magic mountain it's like a bunch of 13 year olds operating rides drunk it's so scary yeah exactly it's fist fights like 100 at knott's berry they had to like install a rule where kids cannot be there by themselves they have to have a chaperone oh my god yeah yeah yeah it's like total lord of the flies yeah there's a theme park in iowa called adventure land that was like the place when i was growing i went there growing up but now it's like now every parent just drops their kids off by their by themselves and they had to set the same rule it was just like they were just running wild in the park and like taking it over okay that brings us to video game 20 questions our suggestion this week comes from josh who has a anecdote to share first hey scoop i had a rare gaming discovery recently i wanted to know if the scooper has recently experienced something similar as a dad in his 30s things like this don't happen often anymore to start i had a rare gaming discovery recently i wanted to know if the i had never played a resident evil game i'm not interested in the horror genre and largely look past any titles that might fall into that category with the release of resident evil requiem a buddy of mine was going off about how excited he was and how good so many of the games are he convinced me to give one a try so i purchased the remake of resident evil 2 my friend mentioned this was a scarier but really good title in the series and a fine starting point as soon as it started i immediately disliked the experience but i stuck with it and after a while i have to admit i am absolutely loving it and i've started looking at the other titles in the series so my question is has anyone on the panel recently discovered something gaming related you thought you wouldn't like or possibly hate but ended up loving and sam that belatro would count for you right yeah absolutely that's a really good example i was just gonna say no why would i ever subject myself to something i don't want to play but yeah now that's no i did that with metal gear at one point too i had to play you know peacemaker for work and i hated one two and three and then i really liked peacemaker and then i liked five a lot after that so you never liked you never liked it at the time but i haven't revisited yeah i mean there's been all genres like that that i've gone to and i love death stranding yes the piece exactly peace walker yes isn't that weird but yeah i mean that's the thing that's a very tasty one that's a that's a good one it is but it also fixed a bunch of things it has the fulton recovery system so it's like really fun to collect stuff in it but it also taught me how to play metal gear i still don't like playing one two and three one is better than two and three i think one's great i'm trying to think not like there's never something that like ah i don't like this thing and i don't like it i don't like it i don't like this thing and then you know i played a game and it won me over and changed my mind i'm i was absolutely obsessed with pokopia and i put dozens of hours into it and it's not that i thought i wouldn't like it like i was confident i would like it but like i'm not a pokemon guy yeah and so i think i talked about this on the show a couple weeks ago of like if you're a pokemon sicko you'd probably lose your mind over this game because you can talk to them and they're all really cute it's all callbacks i can tell it's callbacks and references to the other games i haven't played and like the whole game is like a post-apocalyptic version of pokemon one which you know i don't have any nostalgia for and so i can enjoy it just as a game i think it's a really interesting great game but i feel like it's like a generational game for people that like grew up with that with that kind of pokemon love in their blood anything come to mind nick uh i got two quick ones um i oddly enough i think it's the original resident evil stuff um because i was a fan of the original resident evil 4 back in 2000 2004 or whatever that whenever that came out and like i had played every resident evil up to that point like apart from the original um i played two never three so there was always just like this mindset that i had that once the two remake came out i was like should i replay some of the old ones i was like nah i don't think i'm gonna like them very much and then for the podcast uh is it still fun i was like okay i'm gonna finally do it and i was like well i was wrong the original is fantastic the remake of the original is fantastic and i never thought i'd like the original three but i loved the original three that was so much fun and uh i revisiting a lot of the classic games now that i am less squeamish than i was back then has been really fun and um the more i guess out of left field was probably the east series i just i always thought bump combat looked kind of boring and so um i started checking out the i liked it for the first playthrough the rest was kind of meh but after that i'm all in on east now i'm like slowly working my way through that entire series now that series is kind of like trails it's just quietly been going on for decades now it's heraldic it's it's stoic in it in its legend status it's pretty i'm waiting for this to happen with souls likes because i haven't liked any of them well that's what well yeah that's what i was gonna say probably elden ring for me i went into it expecting to not like it i just dabbled with souls games i just didn't like i don't like the i don't like being locked into animations i don't like just slamming my head against brick wall bosses over and over and over again running back to bosses i just it felt all very like unfriendly to me but of course i ended up absolutely loving elden ring and it being one of my favorite games of all time okay that brings us to his suggestion for 20 questions and he says hint i have never played this game even though i like redacted and with that let the questioning begin but what's the redacted thing he likes oh it's i think it's ponies Oh, you're going to get me one of these days. justin you gotta ask the first question we gotta we gotta shake it up okay uh it's not going well is the redacted thing that he likes uh horror games sports games or i don't know racing games no oh no and he did just tell you that he doesn't like horror games well but except now he does okay is this from uh before the year 2000 no year 2000 or after is this game made in japan no no uh is this game made in the united states no oh what else is there is this game multi-platform yes that's five like plat 2000 on did this game sell more than uh one million copies yes that was a very i think i think that you just knew that you have the top of his head can you read the anecdote again i have never played this game even though i like redacted cupcakes dark souls even though he loves elden ring yeah except this game is made in europe i think it's a role-playing game could be clear obscure although that wouldn't like never played it's like it's only been a year so you're okay it's it's not quite reached never played status um yeah was this game made by made or published by ubisoft no i just said that because i'm assuming it's made in europe uh was this game is this game playable on a nintendo system no oh okay xbox xbox playstation or pc it's not donkey kong 64 did this really originally come out in the xbox 360 ps3 era no oh ps4 era no that's five we just hit questions i'm sorry that's sorry that's 10 oh shoot damn ps5 era yes okay so it's more recent is this the game is this game the first of its name yes first of its name could be expedition i maybe i was wrong maybe it is um well wait the games that you mentioned earlier justin you said horror sports or racing is this this game come out last year no is this game an rpg or a shooter no what what what else is there well okay okay okay it's a i'm sorry let's see it it falls under the increasingly broad category of rpg so it's a playstation game uh so it's a a third person action game with rpg elements probably is the vibe could begin could begin impact maybe he's not a fan of gotcha games we just hit question what 14 shoot we fly i'm still still thinking about where the game's made i was assuming it was made in uh europe but it could be from china or korea yeah or you know obviously there's other countries but like what did we eliminate us we eliminated us and japan oh we did do yes okay that makes sense okay okay got it so it could be black myth did that come out last year two years ago that was two years ago why don't we just ask if it was designed in asia sure was this question designed in asia asia yes that's 15 is this a gotcha game no shoot i mean that's not a bad question though could be an mmo could be could be could be uh black desert online one of those other south korean mmos is this a korean developed game no that's probably black myth does that mean it's black myth could get that getting pretty close to black myth sounding to me but didn't that come out last year is it i didn't play isn't it a isn't it a like sort of a boss rush style souls like game maybe it came out two years not a souls like game but it's more of like an act like a devil may cry to some extent when did it come out that came out nobody knows that came out uh not last year but the year before which was okay what about where winds meet that was last year where winds meet was last year yeah it's it's probably one of those um what question are we at you have two questions and a guess let's see oh boy like i mean we could really nail it if we asked if you play as a monkey or an ape of some sort yeah do you play as don't don't do ape of some sort that includes humans maybe fair enough do you do you do you play as a monkey yes uh is it black myth do it it is black myth there you go i hesitated for a second i was like oh no it's enslaved odyssey to the west yeah black myth wukong and the only reason i said no when you asked rpg i i was just thinking souls like in my head but it's like an action rpg just like all these games are yeah yeah very pretty game very also very boss yeah very cool bosses uh it's the first time i played a video game that made me want to go back and reread some old uh world literature yeah i played this for a bit i liked it but got distracted and never went back to it do you finish it i finished it i didn't get the secret ending because then i looked up what you had to do to get the secret i was like i ain't doing all that i was like i'll just fill in the blanks for us damon i just watched the mitchell video oh um i have never played this game even though i like souls likes that's all uh it's not quite a souls like however it does have a lot of shared dna i'd say if a souls like had a baby with something like bayonetta or devil may cry okay which is do you have a good company to be in do you have a stamina meter uh no no there's no stamina okay i'll allow it then well i guess you have like a i think there's like a guard gauge which i think might be referred to as a stamina meter but not like a did you see that b-roll was that like ah now i don't now i don't remember but i there's nothing in the game that necessitates you need to walk because you've been running for too long okay do you dodge roll you do dodge roll i'm just like look you're the one that played it and i didn't but this looks incredibly souls like to me so i feel like it's sus to say that it's not it's not a soul it's not a souls like okay all right okay it does have a lot of elements of it though okay do you have to go back and collect your souls once you die i don't remember actually no i mean besides the fact that you dodge roll everything and collect all your souls when you die and it's super hard dark is it what i think it was it was pretty challenging right it's a it was a pretty tough game i think near it once you get past like the snow-covered mountains it starts to get a little bit easier but everything from up to that point is pretty tough also this okay this has been nick's fuzzy memories of a game i mean it's 2024 it's it's steeped in years ago sam is years ago and it's your steel trap that's why you're here steeped in chinese myth so it's like one of those things where i'm just not intimately as familiar so it all is just like it's just like what happened in this game again yeah yeah they announced a sequel to this yeah it's like a completely different character again i've only read like the first black myth or i'm sorry the first like sungoku journey to the west journey to the west novel that and that was back in like middle school yeah i think i read it in college i remember the tiger shroud the tiger the tiger is like trying to beat he burns an entire palace in the and you know sungoku covers himself with the shroud or something i was like this all rings vaguely familiar and then after that i was like i have no idea what's going on here and then i was like i have no idea what's going on here and then i was like i have no idea what's going on here and then i was like i have no idea what's going on here and then i was like i have no idea what's going on here and then i was like i have no idea what's going on here no idea what's happening yeah i think we can all agree this is a souls like like one of the greatest final bosses i've seen in a video game at least in the non-secret ending i think it is so clever may i spoil one small thing of the last boss in this you spoil it for me but let's just feel free to jump ahead if you don't want it a quick spoiler for the last boss of black myth wukong so fast forward uh like 10 seconds if you don't want to hear starting now uh but basically you have to fight the true version of yourself so you fight yourself and there's a part where if you walk away from him to heal he'll freeze you grab your healing jug heal himself and then continue the fight so you waste the heal it is the coolest thing in the world i loved it so much cool well nicely job and thank you for the suggestion josh in an undisclosed location viewers listeners if you have your own suggestions for a video game 20 questions email them to me at the email address gamescoop at ig.com and that is all the scoops that we have for you this week thank you nick thank you sam thank you justin thank you to joebert we're working behind the scenes to make this episode possible if you're going to paxi's you're going to be there on thursday come by the trolley booth at 1 p.m for some live scoops and some free candy my name is damon this is ig and gamescoop and we're out you i don't think we've won 20 questions since january i was gonna say justin today's the day it all changes in in the streak yeah i missed a couple weeks didn't i i think last week we got one that we probably had for the third time and we still didn't get it it's just a game that's always present in damon's mind so he picks it all the time i'm sure well i don't even remember it was it was narc oh yeah yeah but then the week before that justin give me give me give me give me give me some clues give me okay well the theme they had five options and the the listener had been eating taco bell so we picked like a mild option and a a fire option and there was a veriday option they chose the veriday option oh something a little different and okay there we got about halfway through and i was like you guys are not thinking nearly veriday enough um give me give me a few clues from that one sam asked sam after you don't want to open this one up if it was a compilation of games and i told him it could be we managed to distill it down to a turn-based pixelated rpg where you can play as a human mm-hmm and it could be a compilation or it can't be okay so it's the ps1 it's the ps1 disc that had final fantasy tactics we we actually brought that one up yeah and then there was something else final fantasy wait there was a couple but we didn't do it we didn't do it yeah we didn't we didn't do it yeah we didn't do it we didn't do it yeah it was not square enix but you're thinking of anthology and chronicles the chronicles came with chrono trigger yeah right yeah it was tactics and chrono trigger is that what it was no that was final fantasy 4 and chrono trigger and then anthology anthology was five and six they also had a one and two compilation yeah there was a one and two but one and two was on the gba or was it on the ps1 it was on it was on the gba for sure as dawn of souls final fantasy went into dawn of souls anyway okay this is how it was going for us yeah anyway it was rpg maker oh that's rude it's verde i still think about it there was a moment where we were showing a looping animation of fire on screen and david was like joebert please get this off of the screen it is literally it is literally making me go insane it was like showing a fire animation you could put a tribute to a character just over to we were trying to guess the sound it was making a little fart each time a scream all right joe should we start this show okay was he just waiting on us we were waiting on you this is the ploy is that he tries to get all the goods before the show so you can use it for the post show now we have no more goofs for the show yeah get it all out of first it goes from game goofs into game scoop yep that's rpg maker hp lovecraft's rpg maker driving damon insane like this is the sound effect they're gonna choose like this is the b-roll he pulled up when i revealed the game this is the b-roll you're saying that like it's joebert's fault this is just the game this is rpg that's all it is fade out yeah you can have a fade yeah you're making an rpg i'm not lying i do love that the graphics just say 20 20 yeah my graphics are let's cook this up 21 want to be the one who's always in the know about the game the scores the plays here's a tip the apple sports app just pick your favorite teams and get automatic live 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