What's up everybody welcome TaiJay and GameSoup. I'm your host Damon Hadfield. Joining me today is Nick Lemone. I'm back baby Solo Dolo. And that's it. That's it. Four-fifths of your regular GameSoup crew are here in Germany but Justin went home early and Sam got sick. Too many sausages for Sam, famous carnivore, Sam Claiborne, so shame. You've got just the two of us but that's fine. We still have a great show for you this week, very special episode. Coming from the show floor here at Gamescom where Konami has a booth right behind us and Castlevania Belmont's Curse is very prominently featured. Lots of free advertising for Konami appearing in every single video that we've shot from our studio. I mean at least it's a cool game. At least it is a very cool game. Spoilers. So I might have gotten hands on with it. Wait did you? I did. You didn't even tell me that. No I did it earlier today. I had to like well I'm not doing anything for an hour. Let's go see if I can get it. Get in line. Okay well we'll be talking about that. Sam also got to play it. I actually haven't played very much here at Gamescom. So here here at Gamescom it's the biggest gaming show in the world. Mm-hmm. By a large margin. Gigantic. If you remember if you've been to E3 or PAX the largest attendance for E3 was 70,000 people. Gamescom is more like 350,000 so much bigger than that now. It's crazy. Even the convention center is bigger than anything I've seen in the States. It's like eight gigantic halls. If it were empty it would take a long time to walk from one end to the other but now that it's full it takes forever to get through them. So the halls are filled with booths and they're really fun like cool booths this year. It reminds me a lot of the old E3 where it's very extravagant. Yeah very over-the-top. Like it's truly aspectical in the way it's like dang I think I would actually come to this as a consumer like me. General general fan. It is open to the public. Lots of consumer here and there's some IGN and Game Scoop fans hanging around our booth outside right now. There's hordes of them. You just can't see the all. There's hordes millions. There actually are and I've run into a lot of Game Scoop fans have stopped me this week. So I always love running into fans you know if you ever see us out and about don't hesitate to say hi. Guten Tag. Love saying hi to Scoop Nation. So in our in our home this is all seven I think we obviously have Castlevania which also it's just crazy. It's so sick to say that we're sharing a hall with Castlevania. Just that in the year 2026 a cast a 2D Castlevania game has a gigantic cool booth at the biggest gaming convention. It's so sick in there. Konami has really turned things around. Good on you. Good on you Konami. That's their Xbox is in our hall too. Yeah. Here's a war E-Day, Fable, Alien Isolation 2 I think is at their booth. Yes that's correct. They're also showing off some they've got Forza and Halo Campaign evolved. Nintendo is also here so I wanted to talk about Xbox and Nintendo both here at the show and also on the fact that PlayStation is not. It's a little unfortunate. I think that in recent years they have been skipping Gamescom even though they have a big game Wolverine coming out in just a couple weeks. Yeah but dope. Would you want to get it hands on a bunch of people at a big game? Nope okay. Damn haven't they'll buy it anyway. I mean I guess there's yeah I'm not worried about Wolverine but a couple years ago what I can never remember. What's their most famous failed multiplayer shooter the famous one that Concord Concord yeah yeah yeah they skipped Gamescom you know like the week that Concord was out and then what you know I'm not saying that if Concord have been here it would have been a success but if you got a new multiplayer shooter shooter coming out you could have hundreds of thousands of people go hands on it right here in a controlled environment where you make the ideal experience with people who want to play a hundred percent agree. You would think maybe you'd want to do that but no what do I know. Anyway Xbox is down here oh by the way we've picked our our we've each picked our five best favorite games of the show and we're gonna be revealing those here in a little bit and we don't know it's a secret from it's a secret to everybody. Please be excited. We don't know what we've picked so it is yes it is possible that we've doubled up another hour and actually ten. It's fine we'll all live. It's gonna be okay. Xbox. Some interesting quotes from Austin Sharmer was here. Okay. Actually shot sorry for the first time she did an interview with the BBC and I this is an interesting quote let me run this by him. Please. This next generation talking about project helix. Right right. This next generation we have to be thinking about efficiency and affordability alongside performance. All of the industry needs to start to innovate on affordability and efficiency that is something that we have not had to do but with the crisis that's currently happening in hardware and components it is absolutely something all of us need to be thinking about and innovating on and giving people more choice in terms of how they play their console and how they purchase their console. So I think this is very interesting talking about how they need to innovate on affordability because hardware has gotten very expensive their new Xbox 25th anniversary console is $900 and it's power wise it's the same Xbox Series X that was released for $500. It just comes in a cool 90s. It's 9 through $100. So it's too expensive but then previously back in the Sarabond days they said the next generation console would be very premium. It seemed like that was before AI was causing price hike so it's maybe back then their whole idea sort of set it apart from competition was to create a more premium. I mean a $900 Xbox may have been the premium version back then. Yeah but now they've they've wisely she's realized no like this is not sustainable right scalper snatched up this $900 25th anniversary console as soon as it went on pre-orders and they're selling them on eBay for $1500 what happened $2000 oh my goodness that's too much but they're not you're not going to buy you're not going to sell a new console at scale at $900 or $1000 that's not so that's good but what I wanted to ask you is she says we need to innovate on affordability and efficiency and I'm not sure what she means by efficiency I guess in the way that you are kind of leveraging the ability of the console to kind of really take advantage of the architecture I always kind of liking it at least isn't my assumption I think what she's getting at is liking it liking it back to the efficiency that a lot of developers notably had at the end of the PlayStation 2 era right you know when a new console comes out everyone's still kind of trying to figure out what makes this thing tick but then over years and years and you know even in the instance of the Xbox 360 a decades worth of development developers really get to know the architecture they get to know what makes this thing tick and they're able to really take advantage of it and I'm hoping that's what it means because I think that's what that's the era of games that I think leave their mark on a lot of players that the games that people really remember fondly and like you know shadow of the classes this is one game in the late PS2 cycle that I think everyone is just enamored with because it was such an interesting use of the hardware and because it came last it also leaves the most lasting impression oh comey also oh comey yeah okay and then it's also interesting that she says provide choice in how they play their console and how they purchase their console I think they're thinking about you know larna get that clarina ready release in it print to own you know something like that you know well they used to do that like in the Xbox one days I believe it was the one and I might have been 360 I forget but during my best by time right a Microsoft had a whole incentive program to lease an Xbox and you would do a monthly down payment and all these different things ultimately you would pay off the Xbox over the course of like a year or something and I believe if you did the napkin math and you ended up paying slightly more for the Xbox because you know it's like basically in with interest but that kind of feels like where we're headed especially if you look at Apple Apple has just adopted a leasing program for MacBooks iPads iPhones and you name it so I think I think clarina is going to be rolling in the dough very soon okay that's what I wanted to cover with Xbox now this Nintendo their booth is in a hall down the hall yeah it's across the way their lineup is strange it's mostly games that are already out and then some ports of other games like metaphor refundatsio and then they're going big on call duty actually black ops for right yeah believe this is a one of the places that you can actually get hands on with black ops for or I'm sorry no call of duty modern warfare for that's what it is modern warfare for yeah okay not to be confused call duty for modern warfare but they have this new fire emblem coming out it's not here and it's not here and I get maybe maybe a tournament strategy game doesn't demo well but at least have some like signage a statue or some cosplayers you know some let people know this games coming on well also like again I think they've seen we've seen signage of it I believe there's pictures of it in Japan where they're like by the way this console is going to get more expensive in one week yeah and you would think they would have like hey just as a heads up this is going to get more expensive you should buy it now you want to buy it right now say 15 euro let's give you a reason here's a game that comes out in two weeks yeah yeah or whatever so that's interesting and then what really blows my mind is that the ocarina of time remake is nowhere to be seen a game that's supposed to be out in three months yeah I mean I think there's just one of those things where I think I need to stop thinking like a child like you know a child before E3 where I'm so like an insult to me no no no no no not not in that number guards that no no I'm what I'm saying is like you know when I came to games calm I'm always like ooh what's gonna be the big reveal and then you know I let my imagination run away from me and it's like oh I wonder if they're gonna do like a title card or some sort of like oh maybe this is the first gameplay look and then no announce an intendo direct and I always end up like over estimating and then I let myself down when it's like why would they do that they have a whole digital platform of an intendo direct where they can just kind of own the conversation entirely around an ocarina of time announcement you know yeah but this is where you could you know you get your your most dedicated fans who willing to come out this committee
and let them have hands-on for it, they become evangelists for it. - Yeah, make it back into the world and tell everyone how great it is. - A word of mouth. - I mean, that's literally what everyone's doing at these booths, right, that's how this works. I don't know, I think it's weird that this game is out in three months in Nintendo. Aside from that, very short teaser trailer reveal, isn't saying anything about it. And this is sort of, Nintendo doesn't go to TGS, which is next week, I think. So this is kind of the last big con event to sort of get people excited about it, get them hands-on with it, and they just skipped it. - Do they have anything coming in October? - Nintendo. - Yeah, nothing big, 'cause it's Fire Emblems this September. And then, yeah, October, maybe that's where they just like, you know, a direct day, and it's out in a week. Enjoy. - Yeah, I mean, all signs point to mid-November, but yeah, anyway. Okay, best of show, we have five picks. I'm gonna let you go first. What did you, in this-- - Just start from, is this ranked? - Mine or not ranked? - Okay, mine or not ranked. - Mine or not ranked, there are no rules. - So I think we'll just get the ball rolling with the thing that's over our shoulders is Castlevania, Belmont's Curse. - Okay, so you played it today? - I did play it this morning. I played a 20-minute demo that was a public-facing demo here at Gamescom, and I was a little bit like, you know, I don't know. I don't wanna be let down, you know. I tried not to get my hopes up too high with Belmont's Curse, and after my time with the demo, dude, I was sold immediately. My initial concern was that it wasn't like a Metroidvania, and that it was just a more traditional Castlevania game, which rules, by the way, but I always want like, you know, I want my Metroidvania. I want to get reason to retread ground I've been before with new weapons and new abilities, and I wasn't sure if that was actually here, other than like finding upgrades in a linear path that, you know, like the way any other player would, but they have this whole Arcana system, and this whole Tarot card system, where you can basically, there's like different bosses and mini bosses scattered throughout the map that are all objective-based, and you can, once you kill them, basically acquire their soul, all, you know, Dawn of Sorrow, or things like that, and they give you like a new ability that you can play around with. So in the demo, you start off as Rose Belmont. - Rose Belmont. - She's the daughter of Trevor and Sypha, from the Netflix anime, if you're familiar with that, which rules, by the way. And she starts off with a fireball, but after I beat the first boss, I got the Holy Cross thing, the Cross Blurring. And I was like, okay, this is cool, and then later you learn, you get the ability to whip and pull yourself towards objects, and not only can you do that with things that are hanging from the ceiling and stuff like that, but you can also do it with any enemy in the game. - Cool. - And also, if you swing while you're mid, like whip towards them, you have a unique animation, like basically that's writing the momentum of your whip pool, and it changes based on weapons, and it rocks. And I said, weapons plural. I was concerned that you would only have like the sword that they've shown off. In my time in the demo, I found a Kestis, is that how you say it? It's like the gauntlet thing, and it basically turns that whip pool animation into an uppercut that she follows into the air, and you could basically air damage a dude, and it is so sick, so fun. There's secrets, there's wall chicken. - Yep, wall chicken. - I'm all in, I cannot wait to buy this game day one, 100%. - October 15th, did you play a boss fight? - Yeah, I beat the boss that got me the cross boomerang, but my time ran out before I could get to the second boss. - Yeah. By the way, some people are prickly about, if it's Sipha, Sipha, I don't know which one it is, but I mean, I think they say Sipha, Belnades. - Yeah. - Spanish, Sipha, Sipha. - Well, they have the voice actors from the Netflix and Netflix series, who plays Sipha/Sipha, and then actually plays Dracula. So that's cool. - Yeah, that rules. - That's really cool. - But what the interesting thing is in the show, Dracula is much more sympathetic. He's much less of the bad guy. - Yeah, I mean, these-- - That's not a spoiler. - They paint him as a tragic figure for sure in the show, and I mean, I don't know. - I just don't know if he's like the main bad guy of this game, or-- - Well, they do say this takes place, you know, within, you know, a generation of Trevor and Sipha, from that Netflix series. So, assuming they do mention, basically, at the top, you know, the game is set in Paris, and Paris is like burning behind you the entire time, and they do make mention that Dracula is currently dead, at least at the beginning of the demo. - Well, who wants to place bets? - Somehow Dracula returned. - What is a man? Okay, we need to take a quick break. But stick around, there's more Game Soup coming up here on Gamescom Studio. (upbeat music) - Welcome back to Game Soup here on Gamescom Studio 2026. All right, it's time for my first pick for the best games of the show. I'm gonna go with The Witcher 3 Remastered. - Yeah, that was on my list, too. - This is a, I mean, also Castlevania was on my list, too, so there's no more-- - We're making great time. - Yeah, that's true. We're being very efficient. Yeah, this is a, it was a big surprise. I think at the end of opening our live, we knew that the big reveal of songs in the past, the DLC was coming, but the news that they're remastering, The Witcher 3, throwing in the deal, the previous deal's expansions, and making it a free upgrade. And the fact that it's out next month, it was like, oh, well, this is great. The Witcher 3 is a game that I've played a lot, and I've started multiple times, but I've never finished. So, it's another great excuse. - Are you gonna start it back again? - Yeah, from the top, or are you just gonna load it? - I don't know, it's, it's also one of those games it's so hard to return to after months or years. - You know, I talk-- - Why do I have all this grease in my inventory? - Every single person I talk to about the Witcher 3 is like, yeah, I've restarted this game like 12 times, like it's a badge of honor. I'm like, just playing a game, but I get it. - I don't mind it. - You know, it is tough to load into an open world RPG when you're 15 plus hours in and just, you know, it's the Gandalf, I have no memory of this place. You have 40 different objectives that are on the screen. You have, you're suddenly over and encumbered, and you're like, all right, this is too much. I know, I'm stoked for this, man, I genuinely, like we all knew the song of the past DLC was gonna be shown now. Oh no, they were not coy about that. One thing that they were not upfront about was the announcement of this remaster. And it rules, man, I didn't think the game particularly neat it visually. I didn't think we'd ever get it because they did semi-recently. I think like 2023 or so, add the ray tracing to the game and like, oh, okay, that's the next gen version of the game. But one thing that we've learned since the game's announced, since the remasters announcement, is that they're actually taking from the community and officially like bringing in mods that people have made. You know, I've previously played with the Witcher 3 HD reworked textures, which is basically a 4K up-res of every single texture and asset in the game. And it's so comprehensive and beautiful. It's basically like the must-have definitive mod. So it's nice that CD project Red has such a good will with the community that they can kind of incorporate all that, build the mod load order for me so I don't have to accidentally crash my game because I did something wrong. - Yeah, I mean, well, it's such a smart move 'cause songs of the past is DLC for, by, I guess, by the time it's out, a 12-year-old game. - Correct. - So, you know, get it looking nice, get everyone back into it, you know. - It gives you just enough time to play through the base game, Hearts of Stone, the Blood and Wine. And then hopefully by the time you're done with Blood and Wine and Geralt's firmly in retirement, you now have the DLC roughly like knocking at your door that gets Geralt back out of retirement. - Yeah, and to prefer it for free for all existing owners, just that's such a generous move. Plus since it's been more than a decade, you have a whole dinner other generation who's come up who probably hasn't played it. And now's a great time to get the full package before you get the DLC next year. So it all just-- - It's so sick. And one thing that was really cool, I thought was very cute, is in the trailer, they show Geralt with a chain, like, you know, a scorpion-esque chain that he can attack monster with, which is a callback to, like, the original books. And just a thing, and the original game, if I'm not mistaken. And one thing that was very cool, make sure you watch IGN's Max Goulville got to interview the games create, one of the devs on the team, plus Doug Cockle. And Max got Doug Cockle to say, get over here in the voice of Geralt. It's actually on our social channels as well. It's very cute, very fun. - Pretty good. - Check, good interview, too. - All right, that is the Witcher 3 Remastered. Time for Nick's next pick. - All right, my next pick, you all know this is coming. It's gotta be Final Fantasy VII. Revelation, at O&L, we got a trailer, look at a new trailer for the game. It was a trailer centered around the weapons, not the physical weapons that you hold in your hand, but the creatures slash monsters, known as weapons from the original game. You know, this is a thing that was kind of wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Is this gonna, are they actually gonna include this in the game? We see a different version of the weapons than we've ever seen in Final Fantasy VII. In rebirth, they're very like whale-like monsters that were very docile and peaceful, mostly because Sephiroth hadn't been awoken yet and threatened the life of the planet. But let's just say things don't go quite according to plan at the end of rebirth. And so now suddenly these monsters, these guardians of Gaia, aka the Earth of Final Fantasy VII, have awoken and now they're trying to fight back. It's almost like, it's about environmentalism or something like that. - Yeah, something like that. - And in the original game, Ruby and Emerald are infamous for being some of the hardest super bosses in Final Fantasy VII. Ruby can wipe out your party within 30 seconds as can Emerald who can do 9,999 damage to all three party members at once. And there's also a timer ticking down because you are underwater, so you need to have very specific gear to breathe.
underwater. And it's just really cool to see them in such high fidelity. What do you think of this sort of tears of the Kingdom of Style parachuting? Mechanics. It's pretty impressive. So one another reason why this game made my my list of my top five games, calm games is I got to I got the great pleasure of finally interviewing Naoki Hama Gucci, the director of Final Fantasy 7 Remake, rebirth and now revelation. And one thing he talked about was you know at the added verticality that they're trying to build out you know rebirth was very much a you know an expansive horizon that you can go through the original map and it's very dense and like you know it's there's a lot to see and do and it almost infamously so at this point I had a lot to do but he just talked a lot about how he's adding him and the team are adding a lot of verticality to the game you know I don't want to go into the specifics but I highly recommend you check out the interview that I got to do with him. I I thought I did a pretty good job. I'm sure you did. I know you and a lot of fans are excited for this. I don't know if I'll play it. The only reason uh-huh I played through all the part one uh-huh and then I played through a lot of rebirth but then got distracted by something else and now it just seems really daunting to get back into it. So now there's this the other third was out I'm like man I give you a pitch. Sure sure so you can play rebirth on basically any console now yep and you'll also be able to play revelation on any console at launch but they've also retro actively updated the game to include the you know infinite health and infinite basically 9,900 999 damage and you could also throw the game on just like it's non-scaling difficulty so I would say just mainline it yeah I can do that well and I think you could do it in like 20-ish hours. Yeah I should do that because I also enjoy Queen's blood. Oh well see if you get distracted and then it starts inflating your play time to 50 plus hours. That's okay. And it's coming back in the revelation. More more Queen's blood. Yeah more Queen's blood and new mechanics that have been teased. Okay okay all right your pitch worked I'm on board. Okay this is my next pick switching gears a little bit. Nope not that gears. Do Mega Man dual overrun. Hell yeah. So it's interesting this is sort of the first big gameplay reveal and when it first when that footage first came on screen a lot of it said well it looks it kind of looks like Mega Man 8. Yeah like at least our style and style. Yeah that were that's the previous game that is most reminiscent of and there's even a boss from Mega Man 8 in Astraman from Mega Man 8 shows up. Yeah yeah. Which it's just a little bit odd it's kind of a deep cut. Mega Man 8 isn't you know I like that game I owned it but I famously remember using my sister's Toys R Us employee discount to buy it but I don't think it's a particularly well beloved entry in the franchise. I didn't even right. I couldn't even told you if you were been like what if Mega Man is Astraman from I wouldn't have been base. Why must we fight? Dr. Why are we? Dr. Why are we? Anyway it just it just seems a little bit random. And I would argue it is kind of a Mega Man game. Yeah Mega Man they don't really a lot of Mega Man fans don't really like eight. I like eight quite a bit because you get flame man who has the sword when you kill them and it's a little blade and it's sick. I think it was the first one that had voice acting too. Yes. At the time I was in it. And it had an opening anime cut scene. It was so sick. And here's Twinkle girl. This is the one robot master showing off so far. The way they framed it I was like is she like a new rival and the way they presented her is like this is the new rival to Mega Man. I was like oh it's like a new protoman analog and it's like no just a robot master. Well I know you're not going to believe this Nick but the robot masters they've gone haywire and are ricking havoc. But they've just been designed to help humanity. I don't understand. And what it twinkle girl her whole thing is she wants to be like a performer. And then so all of her like her her theme and attacks are based on like fireworks. So that's Twinkle girl. You know it's a very clown man coded. Who is from Mega Man 8? I think we're on to something. Maybe the director of this game is just a big fan of Mega Man 8. We did also I think is this the first time we got a glimpse of the new protoman or the protoman in this game because they show him like in the title card at the very end. And they don't that I don't think they've overtly been obvious about this. But you can you can choose to play as Mega Man or protoman. What's up what's up with is like is that the dual override where he does the Drake like sprite can. Yes so that's that it's the override mechanic or you can like overpower yourself for brief time to become more powerful or faster or something like that. But the trick is that after you do that you're you're weakened for a certain amount of time. That's it. You have to be smart when you use it. Risk versus reward. That's exactly it. Yeah so it'll be curious to see if like will there be obvious sections in each stage like if you look at any guide or walk through from the game will they all say use the override at this point or is it we're really going to have freedom to I mean I think that's the thing that's beautiful about Mega Man as a platformer is everyone struggles at different parts of a stage in general and it's just giving you an extra tool set that has its own kind of parameters around it it's just going to help even the playing field. Yeah and there was this is the first mainline Mega Man game that isn't just numbered you know it's Mega Man 12 they're calling it dual override so I don't know it's just a little bit interesting I think they wanted to reintroduce Mega Man to sort of make it a little bit bigger part of Konami's or not Konami's Capcom's you know library of games but now that you've like jumped the track soft with the numbered if you want to continue the series it'd be weird to go back to Mega Man 13. Yes or you know you have to keep coming up with new names for it. It has this new system called built form there's built for survival so you can set up a set up you can give Mega Man a custom chip okay start like a load out kind of like a load up very very simple load up built for survival is a custom chip that creates a barrier against one instance of enemy fire so it's a shield oh nice and you get a bonus e-tank nice there's that and then built for firepower is a custom chip packed with auto charging that helps you check attack more efficiency so you don't have to hold down the button to charge plus the power to unleash double charge shots at once. I think he's gonna be the people who are like I you're not a real Mega Man fan unless you beat it without using this sort of support system. That's the whole thing. You don't have to use them so yeah I'm sure there'll be purists who scoff at it but they're also probably you know Mega Man games are typically pretty challenging. They're very tough. These are a little ways to help people mitigate if it's too tough for them. I don't think I've ever beat the the yellow bosses at Mega Man 1 the the one with the the blogs you have to pause. You didn't not not without pausing doing the trick on it yes we pause the game and unpause it really fast. That's that exploit is in the game that's that's fair that's fair game. I'm excited for this one this one's coming next year although when we were all watching it together I'll all of IGM who's here was watching the Owen L presentation the biggest reaction that this part of the show got was the pragmatis skins. You all said I was crazy. Well you all said pragmatis not a Mega Man game. Well tell you what now it is. It has Mega Man skins in it. They're very very funny. Yeah it was very cute. That was very cute. All right Mega Man dual override time for Nick's next pick. All right this one was a surprising one to say the least it was actually announced just before Gamescom but still playable here at the show floor. I'm talking of course about Tara Nigma and everyone's like wait why do I know that game you know if you're a North American scoop fan which I know you all are and you know the other the other countries fans in other countries like there's just one scoop nation. Yeah we're all one scoop. We should all be so lucky but this is a classic action RPG that never made its way to North America you know. I also did an interview with the kind of one of the people responsible for this remaster/port. He said it's not really a remaster more so that it is just a port with some quality of life features that have been very clearly added to the game if you're familiar with it but TLDR this is a the third entry in a sort of spiritual trilogy that from Quintet who did act razor if I'm not mistaken. That's not part of this trilogy but that's where scoop scoop nation would probably know them from. They started with Soul Blazer which did come to North America. It is a fine game, illusion of Gaia which is also fine just a little better. That also never came to North America if my memory serves correctly. Maybe I'm wrong please correct me I would like to know that because I'm just I didn't actually research that part before I got on scoop today. I'm pretty sure that's the case so and Teranigma is the one that you know never came out in North America and it's the one that everyone's like oh this is like what the other games were aspiring to but never quite hit the high bar that this one did and I'm happy to report that it is beautiful sprite work incredible music with a soundtrack that features a track from Yuzo Koshiro who apparently he forgot he even produced a track for this game because he did it during like his freelance era and yeah so make sure you check out my interview with Martin Lindell for the Teranigma port. It was very exciting to see retro gaming alive and well and he was definitely very much of the scoop nation ilk of like oh I love retro gaming my goal with creating this game was preserving the original experience I had playing through this game. So there's like a delightful little CRT effect and pixel scaling and it's really cool I highly recommend checking it out. All right we're going to talk a little bit more about Teranigma I have some more to say about that but we need to take a quick break, stick around, there's more games scoop coming up here on Gamescom Studio.
- Welcome back to GameSoup here on Gamescom Studio 2026. We're just talking about Teranigma, which is the Super Famicom game released in the 90s in Japan and palatiratories, but not North America. - Correct. - And now that wrong is being righted all these years later, it's getting a worldwide release. So Teranigma is an Enix game. - Yes. - And in the year that it was released, 95 or 96, Enix had closed its North American offices, so there was no one to- - That's probably it. - Release the game. - But if you look at any list of, you know, the best Super Famicom games that were not released in North America, Teranigma's probably at the top of those. - Here's the 30 JRPGs you never heard of. - Yeah. - Kind of thing. - Teranigma's at the top of the list, along with another game that until a couple years ago had not been released here, live a live. - Yes. - That's cool. That's cool. That Square Enix is doing this to preserve these games and make them accessible today. - Very cool. - Okay, my next game, we think we each have a couple games left. My name, my next game is Crimson Desert Enhanced. - I'm surprised, but I forgot to put it on my list, but I'm intrigued. - Well, here's my thinking, the game is not even, I think it's a five-month-old. And now the Enhanced Edition is here. - It's officially 2.0. - It's 2.0 already, and this game has received a lot of updates and fixes over the months. There's been a lot of talk about this game, it's a little bit of a polarizing game. Some people, I think it's a six. Some people love it to death and to put over 300 hours into it. It's their game of the year, and they think it's one of the best open-world action video games ever made. - Yes. - So, Nick, my question, is it time for me to play this game? I haven't played it. - You know what, I think we need to, I think we owe it to both of ourselves to jump back in and give it a shot. - Or jump just jump in for the first time. - Jumping, give it a shot, and I'll jump back in and give it a shot, because the thing that really is impressive to me is there's even like story reworks. Where everyone's like, oh yeah, if you start, apparently there's like a very streamlined process of starting a new game where you get to keep a lot of your upgrades, and it's like very, not an issue at all, but they say from moment one, it's like, oh yeah, this is vastly different, experience story-wise, and it's like a meaningful difference, and it's just kind of nuts. - Yeah. I mean, on one hand, it's cool that they can be so agile, and update the game so quickly and regularly, but on the other hand, the developers didn't, neither didn't know these things were problems, or they weren't able to get to them before release, you know, I don't know, my vibe is that they were like, just released, and then we'll like, basically build the bridge, as we try to cross. - We're gonna vi-check, we're gonna vi-check. - Kind of like almost like a semi-early access release. I don't, this is just pure speculation on my part, but that makes it seem less like an auto-a-work, like a desk-stranding, whereas I'm pretty sure when desk-stranding and desk-stranding to launch, Hideo Kojima was probably pretty happy with everything in there. - I mean, it's the closest I've ever seen to a single-player offline game, feeling like a game as a service, live-game model. Like it's so unusual to me, it's really cool, because I do think it's like kind of fascinating that they're breathing new life into the game constantly, even though some of the Crimson Desert community is complaining that it keeps breaking their mods. - Okay, yeah. - So what, you did try it at launch? What was your sort of experience then? - At launch, I kind of got about 10 hours in, I was like, I understand the appeal. I just thought that there was so much latency between my inputs and what cliff did. He felt kind of clunky to control, not as fluid, but I actually started a new game, maybe like a week before I came to Gamescom, and I got a few more hours in, and it was a significant difference between my original experience and now, and honestly, seeing this, because they've streamlined this new game plot process, I'm probably gonna just start another new game, and just really give this game a third shot. - I have yet to play this game on, I think now with the enhanced addition, it's time. - Yeah. - I will check in. Crimson Desert enhanced. All right, next next pick. I gotta go, a little bit of a sleeper for me, but I'm very impressed, especially after your interview with the devs, is Tides of Annihilation. - Yeah, that was promising. - I'm excited for Tides of Annihilation for one weirdly Nick reason, in that it looks like the Final Fantasy VIII, that we never got, like the, you know, famously Final Fantasy VIII from Tetsuya Nomura, I had this very brooding, proto-noctis-looking protagonist, who was the king in this, you know, hyper-realistic city, and it called Insomnia, then, you know, all of the story details and all that stuff eventually became Final Fantasy XV, but in a way that kind of lost a lot of its emo boy, kind of edge, that a lot of fans, especially Final Fantasy fans, were looking forward to, and this does really look like a lot of what we were, kind of originally promised with that versus 13. If you ever go back and rewatch a lot of original gameplay for that, this kind of looks like it's doing Devil May Cry in that same domain, and that's another reason why, like at the combat looks so fun, and I really like the system that they're doing with this kind of, I don't recall quite what they called them. They're like familiar or something like that? - The Knights, yeah. - But they're all like Arthurian Knight theme, which I'm a sucker for, I love, like, you're telling me I can have Gala Had at my side, and he's like, looks sick as hell, he's like, kind of assisting me in a Devil May Cry style combo. I love the spectacle of this game. The game looks gorgeous, and I would argue they have one of the coolest booths here at Gamescom, they did a great, they did a good job of presenting this game in a positive light. Now, I think in your interview, they also talk a bit about exploration, and the only other question I had about the game is like, what's it look like in between battles? - Yeah, I saw her finding a chest, opening up for some loot or something like that. - I'm in. - I think it's gonna be pretty light. I think the focus is definitely on the action. It's a character action game. With a really unique premise, it's a destroyed London and the heroin Gwendolyn, she has the power of King Arthur, and yeah, as you said, can summon these Knights to her. So it's a unique premise. - Looks really cool. - As long as it feels good, you can talk about Game feel a lot on the show. - I didn't get a chance, they do have this playable here on the show floor, but the line was way too long, so I could not get in. - I mean, there's a lot of action games coming out of Chinese developers today, and this seems like it could be another really good one. We've arrived at my final pick because the others were overlaps. Do you have one more unique pick? - If I do, you'd have to roll it, because I currently can't remember if I covered all of my games. (laughs) - It's been a long couple of weeks here at Gamescom Studio. - This is my last thing I'm filming here in Germany, and I definitely need a rest. Anyway, my last pick was gonna be, it might be a surprising to you. Rainbow Six Tactics. - Whoa, I get it though. - The first single player, Rainbow Six, since Vegas 2 in 2007, and I love the Vegas games, and I also love Tactics games, so this seems like a no-brainer. - It's a match made in heaven, and I think right now we're in this kind of, almost like something that Harkens back to when XCOM Enemy Unknown first came out, where it's like, oh wait, Tactics Games rule, why were they gone for so long? And this isn't the same, we have, what's the Star Wars? - Zero company. - Zero company. And now this, this looks so good, and I love that it's leaning into the hero shooter, like archetypes that they've developed with Rainbow Six Siege, and applying those hero shooter elements of what makes each character unique, and applying that to gameplay format that I'm way more excited to play. - Yeah, this seems like a, why didn't this happen sooner for a situation? - It's been way too long since we had a single player Rainbow Six games, so that's really cool. I'm excited for that. That's coming next year at 227, and you mentioned Star Wars Zero Company. We actually reviewed that this week, Dan Stables, and given a nine out of 10. - Wow. - Everybody's really happy with this. I've actually been playing Zero Company before I came here, and I was enjoying it a lot. So yeah, it turns out taking XCOM and just skinny it with Star Wars works out pretty well. - Match made in heaven, that sounds great. Sign me up. We've got a lot of games to come back home through. There's so much. - I know, I have. - I'm a little scared. - I have my Wolverine code, which is waiting for me. I'm just waiting for me at home. - Bro, say. - Get me home. (laughs) - And I also like another game that's coming out soon. I like it. You'll be hearing more about that soon too. We have a lot to talk about. Did you have any other games you want to shout out? I have an honorable mention, a weird one. - You go first, I gotta, again. - Here's one that I don't know if I should be excited for, but the game is so weird. - Hit me. - Shoah, American story. - Yes, why are you interested in it? - Well, it's just so weird, so the over the top. - This is set in an alternate late 80s where Japan bought up most of the United States, effectively colonizing it economically and culturally. And so we play as this woman, Choco Chigusa, a girl brought back from the dead. - Of course. - And it seems like hack and slash with RPG elements. And she has these wild attacks, very patriotic attacks that invoke the American flag. She wears very short shorts. And the whole thing is made by a Chinese developer. So it's the whole thing is just weird. - Yeah, I don't think, I think it's best to not question it too much. I think it's not being, it's intent is not to be taken seriously. I think it's more just a celebration of American patriotism and the overtopeness that it can potentially be every now and then. And I think this looks silly and interesting. And I'm glad games like this are still getting made. They also might quite possibly have the biggest booth here at Gamescom that has like,
a like Japan-esque Golden Gate Bridge. - They have space area or a clear hair clone and what's the driving game? - Outrun? - Outrun, yeah. - Am I crazy? Scoop fans might know this as well. Does this game have any sort of connection to this game that came out? I think like 2023 called Wanted Dead, which was a character action game as well, where you played as a German woman with a robotic arm. She had a katana and she was a part of this elite force of like cops and the game is like six hours long, has incredible combat, but it's just the most baffling design decisions ever. Like it is a game that doesn't get good until you beat the game and then carry all of your abilities back into a new game and you finally can use all your combos and stuff like that. It has a karaoke minigame where you, there's only one song to karaoke in the entire game and it's 99 Red Balloons. - Oh, okay, well, at least a bit to good song. - But that's the only song. - It's more arcade, that was like a fresh unchecked. Wanted Dead also had a bunch of weird arcade games. So I wonder if there's something, some sort of shared developer DNA that I don't know. - I mean, I'm open, I'm open mind of this game. It's just, it's just really weird. - Yeah. - The existence of it is weird. - I will check it out. - I mean, I like flying heads and splirting the lights. That's good. Okay, in our final minute here, let's check in with the listeners. - Hey, listeners. - Listeners, remember you can always reach us at the email address,
[email protected], just like Matt did. Said, "Howdy, David, I know it's a long shot "because there were so many great game announcements "that games come, but I'd love it if you give a shout-out "to the one I'm most looking forward to." Worms Galactic Tactics. - Dude. - Another tactics game. - I do like my worms too. - A 3D, so this is a 3D worms game. 3D isometric X-com-like tactical roguelike in the Worms franchise. Every part of that sentence makes me so happy to be alive. And they even hinted at the end of the trailer that they might be doing a refresh or remake of the original Worms WMD, which is one of my most played co-op games in college. Incredible. Yeah, I guess I missed this, but I like Worms. - Worms is fantastic. - Just making it 3D, the levels are still fully destructible. So that sounds great. - Yeah, this is one of the, I mean, Worms in general is one of those games that I do at my annual land. Somebody inevitably picks Worms. And it's just one thing that, you know, when you're in the room with a bunch of your friends and you're all, you know, accidentally maiming yourself while trying to kill each other, it's just so much fun, it's such a blast. It's so silly and it, again, just creates such memorable stories. It's such a good series. - Yeah, there are a lot of Worms games. I don't think they're all great. - No, not all of them. - But the best ones are really good, especially my real introduction with them was when they came to Xbox Live Arcade. I think there were two releases there. - Yes. - Whichever ones those were, those are both really good. So I appreciate that. Yeah, that's another tactics game to put on the pile. And then finally, this is Sam Mangun in London, England. Since I'm a long time listener for years, I was hoping, you know, of an update as to when your podcast will adopt the ability to toggle video on and off within the Apple Podcast app. Features have been out for a while. So I was just wondering when IGN podcasts would adopt it. And we'll do that just as soon as we're able to. I know you can watch videos on Spotify now. And we use, it's our distributor. We use megaphone to distribute our podcasts and they've acknowledged that they will be supporting Apple Podcast soon. They say this year, we're just waiting on when that is. - I look forward to the, that's what Nick looks like. Oh, I didn't expect that, all right. - There was a really funny comment about you on, - Oh, I've seen it. - It's really good. I almost like G-Chat it to you and I stopped myself. - Oh, I screenshot it and G-Chat it to everyone. - It's, it's very funny. Anyway, that's our show. And that's, I mean, that's about a wrap up on it. - We did it. - Everything here at Gamescom. - We did it. - It was a good show. - But honestly, one of the most impressive Gamescoms I've ever had the privilege of being a part of IGN. - Yep, it's a long week, but that's because there's a lot of great games here to get through. So lots to look forward to playing. Anyway, all good things must come to an end. And sadly, that includes Gamescom. This year was our biggest Gamescom studio yet, but it wouldn't have been possible without a lot of hard work from a huge team working across the multiple continents. So a huge thanks to everyone involved. And a huge thanks to Colmesa for putting on another great Gamescom and entrusting us to produce this show. If you missed any of Gamescom's studio, you can find it on IGN. Plus lots more gaming coverage year round. So from all of us here, thanks for watching. We'll see you soon. (upbeat music)
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