[MUSIC] >> Blow and welcome into the ringerverse, your Nexus feed for all things fandom. I am Ben Lindberg, Senior Editor for the ringer and your host here at ButtMash, where we will not be revealing all the Disney locations in Kingdom Hearts 4, even if Valve already did. I will be revealing our guests for today. Ringer deputy art lead Matt James Howlett. Hello, Matt. >> Hello. Hello, Ben. Happy to be here again. >> As Gene Gray says to Logan, we'll see you around James. We always do. And rejoining us for this episode is one of our favorite outside games media members, Polygon Zone Giovanni Cohen Colantonio. Hello, Q. >> Thank you. Thank you so much. For a second, I thought you were mispronouncing my last name. And then I picked up on it, and I was like, I see what you did there. >> That's beautiful. >> Well, we have much to discuss, including Cohen of Blood of Dawn Walker fame. But first up, we had two countum, two Nintendo directs this week, the rare Nintendo double D. On Tuesday, a 40th anniversary Zelda direct, in which we got a good look at the Ocarina of Time remake on Wednesday, a broader September direct, but all manner of upcoming games. But we will also be sharing our spoiler free reviews of two AAA $70 games that are already out, both of which feature resilient tortured protagonists with a flair for detective work. Marvel's Wolverine and the Blood of Dawn Walker. And also, since we had double directs, why not double butt meshes? The Ring of Vers is a family much like Team X, not too much like Team X. That would be bad. And I will be back tomorrow with the rest of that family, the Midnight Boys, in a Midnight Mash crossover event, to dive a little deeper into Wolverine, and find out what Van, Jomi, and Steve thought of the game. So let's go straight to Nintendo, and then Wolverine, and then Dawn Walker. We did our butt mash 40th anniversary Zelda episode months ago, but take your time Nintendo. It is still the 40th anniversary year. If you were hoping to hear about a brand new Zelda game, I'm sorry. If you were expecting a trailer for the movie that's coming out in seven months or so, no dice. But if you wanted to see some more of the new old game, that we now know is coming out in less than two months. I've got good news because Nintendo has finally fully lifted the lid on the Ocarina remake. We got to see it all, we got the Aegean Uma demo, and people have opinions about the appearance of this game. Joe, what's your opinion? I get why there is like a strong feeling about it, right? Because obviously, just people love Ocarina. It's widely considered one of the greatest of all time, right? I consider it like one of the greatest games of all time. And I think it's always jarring bold, bold of you there. I know, I know it's like saying the Beatles are your favorite band. It's like, yeah, okay, cool. Yeah, cool opinion going on in there. Yeah, but you know, like I get it, right? Like there's always going to be strong opinions when you feel really, really close to material like this. And you feel like a connection to this artwork that is so entwined with the game. So I think like a lot of people, I did have a similar reaction at first where you see this art. It is, you know, it looks realistic at first glance, right? And it just kind of, you saw like the same joke over and over, right? People are like, Nintendo hired this fan. Oh, it's unreal engine, you know, and everyone was just using the same like canned joke immediately. But the more I sat with it, the more I looked at it, I think people are oversimplifying a little bit like what this what this art direction looks like. And I think that's not to say that anyone's wrong or anyone is right. I actually think there's really, really valid cases to make about the art looking great. And the art looking bad. And I think there's like a good reason that you would have wide opinions on that. But I think where I stand now is, I just want to see it in motion. I want to like actually see it in the context of the game, see how it feels in the vibe of the game. I actually really love the environmental work going back through that trailer or looking at some of the environments. Like they look like they're out of a storybook, right? It's just like the lighting is so warm. And I don't know, it just they said it in the direct, but like we wanted it to feel nostalgic and it kind of does, right? It has that like fairy tale like reading a book as a kid feeling to it. And I think that's wonderful. The character models a little weirder. And I think this is where it kind of like makes sense that people would feel mixed because the character models like kind of have a doll like look, which I think is really cool. But I don't think it's really what the environments are doing. The whole game had a dollist that I think I'd be like, oh, yeah, that's, that's awesome. But I do kind of feel like there's a clash between like the really great environments and these like uncanny weird dolls. And I almost just wish they'd gone all in on the doll thing. That's that's kind of where I stand right now. Yeah, people are speculating that maybe it's Miyamoto's love for Japanese Marionette figures that that was an influence here. I could see that I get what you're saying that that link maybe looks fine in isolation, but also looks a little out of place in the surroundings because I agree that I do like the environments, the great deco tree looks amazing and super atmospheric. And you know, I guess it has sort of a fablish mossy kind of look. And there's something slightly non Nintendo about it, which is maybe what people are responding to, but I wish I had a hotter take because I do feel that it largely looks great. And and maybe it is just whenever the design of something familiar changes anytime you change the UI of a website or whatever. People are pissed because things look different things are in a different place. And then you get used to it and suddenly you love it and you wonder why it wasn't always like that. You think saying that it looks great is the hot take. Yeah, it feels like it, right? But like then what you're saying, like remember when they brought Spider-Man to the PS5 and the PS4 and they changed Peter Parker's face in it. And the internet exploded and discussed that they will change his face. And you know, everyone got used to it. I thought you were going to bring up when they shrink the puddles because that went to an even larger track, but you can put puddle get aside for a second. Yeah, it changes hard, man, like people people need time to adjust to things. And and I think that like a lot of people having trouble with the look of this game, I get it because environmentally, this is a level of kind of like. I don't want to say realism, but maybe detail that that Nintendo typically hasn't shown in its triple A games. You know, we'll talk about the new Kirby game that was announced, but that Kirby game looks like what you'd expect the Kirby game from Nintendo to look like. And we're seeing that like a day after seeing these incredibly detailed Ocarina of time remake environments. And you'd be hard pressed to believe it was the same, you know, company putting out those two games if you didn't know any better. And I think that's going to I think we're at the point where Nintendo for the first time has the capability of of delivering environments like this. And it won't be the last time, but it is going to be a tough adjustment for for people to kind of view that level of detail as something Nintendo like, which I think will be increasingly easier and easier over time. That's what I was getting at when I was saying that it's sort of unintended. It's like links to Nick is too detailed, you know, there's too much texture there because people hanging on that hat, man. Yeah, you're, you're accustomed to Nintendo. Kind of like pulling back on the detail a bit and going with a more stylized look because at least in recent generations, the Nintendo console has never been the fastest processor and the, the prettiest graphics. And so they compensate with a distinctive design. And here it does feel a little bit like, okay, we have more horsepower here at least PS4 caliber horsepower and maybe we're running wild with that a little bit. I think the the feedback that maybe the characters or particularly link looks a little plastic or shiny, maybe that is what people are picking up on when they're saying, oh, it looks like an unreal engine fan remake or something. I get what they're saying part of that I think is that some of the screenshots were when he was wet and it was raining. And so he was especially glistening, but, but there is something to drive that boy off. Yes, yeah, there is something to that, but I think when we get our hands on it and when we acclimate to it, I think people will probably be impressed by it. I think so too. I'd be surprised. And I'll say, like, this is the exact same thing that happened with Starbucks this year, right? Like that was another day and that people felt very strongly about the art style for Starbucks. They revealed that and then I think same reaction immediately people were like, this looks awful. Oh my god, it's, it's so jarring. And then, you know, people sat with it and we're like, well, this kind of is fully realizing. Nintendo is like old puppets that they use to advertise this game, right? And like, you can see them using the tech to be like, hey, what if we fully realize some of these ideas where we were working with like real crafts and things like that. And we can do that now. And I think you see that in our carina as well. We're like, again, like this, this doll like look and the shyness and the plastic scene, this of the faces and whatnot. It probably is in some way, like an old Nintendo vision that they wanted to accomplish on some of these games, right? And now, I mean, even super like the old Super Smash Brothers games.
like their action figures, right? They're literally like little plastic toys. So I think it is very Nintendo in a lot of ways, but I agree. It's just going to be a period of adjustment to be like they can just do that with high fidelity now instead of, you know, really a couple of polygons. So yeah. Yeah, it's as if the infamous 2000 space world demo of Link fighting Ganondorf in a what was at the time hyper realistic style that got everyone excited for that design and then led to the initial backlash to the wind waker, which now everyone agrees, oh, this was wonderful and it aged incredibly well. But it says if we're in an alternate history where the GameCube or whatever was capable of this kind of realism and so it's almost like a twilight princess approach to ocarina, which again, it's it's just sort of strange. It takes a little getting used to, but I think on the whole will pay off. And you know, we're talking about the visuals and leading with that because that's what we can see. And we have not actually played the thing. However, we did watch it being played. And that is perhaps just as revealing because we didn't really know the nature of this thing. There was a lot of speculation about will this be a beat for beat remake? Will it be a modernization? Will it be ocarina meets breath of the wild in some way? And on this podcast, we assumed that it would be pretty faithful to the original. And it is, but it looks like a bit of a hybrid somewhere in between in that they have updated it to an extent. And they have added some modern trappings and quality of life improvements, modern trappings like jumping. Yes. I know. It's, you know, if you wanted to say that Nintendo has has last some of its original nature, some of its spark and creativity, I guess you could focus on Anuma bragging about how there's a jump button now. And also you can fully rotate the camera around you. You know, it's 2026, but, but I get it because I like that part. They were like explaining like, you couldn't do that because there was only one control stick whose fault is that Nintendo? Whose fault is that? It's also like the first thing they talked about. Like I went back and looked at that video and it was like, they were like, here's the game. Look at the camera. It's like, well, this is like the most important thing that they had to get over there. Yes. And there was a little nod to we know that this is not unusual now. But obviously we're going back to 1998 here. And if you're a purist and you say, do not tamper with maybe the greatest game of all time, it should be exactly the way it was. And you should be stuck with the camera getting in weird places and Link should only be able to jump if you move him toward a gap. Then maybe you'd be upset about that. But I think that will be welcome because I went back and played Majora's Mask recently for that game's anniversary. And by the way, I'm already bracing myself for if we get the Majora's mask remake in this engine, what that would look like. And the weirdness of the many masks in that game. It was creepy enough at the time. In fact, maybe it was creepier with N64 era graphics than it would be with more modern hyper-realistic graphics. But who knows? Yeah. Anyway, it was jarring to have to go back to the days of z-targeting and just not being able to look at things that I wanted to look at. And we may remember obviously what Ocarina was like to play back then. But probably the majority of people who will be playing this will not. And so it is actually important to say, hey, this is new. And also Nintendo is not remaking this solely or even primarily for us for people who have played this game before and just want to revisit it. They want to introduce this game to a new generation of players who never went back and played the original. And yes, obviously there's tie-ins with movie ambitions and theme parks and all the rest of it because Nintendo is not just a video game making company anymore, even if it still is primarily. But this is about expanding the tense. And that will be really interesting to me. I think because you look back at the sales figures for these classic Zelda games. And they paled in comparison to Breath of the Wild, which was the big breakout for that franchise in terms of mass appeal and then tears the kingdom to a lesser extent. And so probably a lot of the many more millions of people who played Breath of the Wild will now say, okay, I'm going to go back and play Ocarina in this game. Maybe I've never played it, but I've heard that it's incredible. And you could imagine them being a bit disappointed potentially by the smaller scope and the linearity. And so they did sort of take care to set expectations in this direct for that audience to say, hey, this is not Breath of the Wild exactly. This is more of a traditional Zelda adventure with a fresh veneer. This is the thing that I'm really curious about because Ocarina, like one thing I love about it is that it is like the foundation, right? I always talk about it as like in literature, you have your foundational texts from like which all stories form, right? Like the Canterbury Tales is something, right? And like Ocarina is like the Canterbury Tales of like 3D adventure games. So much of what it does is the foundation that every single game has copied since. And if you're remaking it one to one, which I think is the right move, you know, I think like, you don't want to mess with it too too much. I think there's a case to be made of like, well, why remake it at all then? I think that's fair. But like, you know, I get wanting to do the respect for remake. You are just going to have stuff in this game that is like, this is every game, right? Like, this is just what every single adventure 3D adventure game feels like. And I'm really curious to see how that like breath of a wild audience going back to that game that's very, very traditional. And like, I don't know, are they going to respond to it? Are they going to be like, this is kind of boring? Like, what's the big deal about this? And I think the one advantage that it has, and I was reminded of this when I was saying this to a colleague, is that like, don't forget the Ocarina's storytelling, like, is surprisingly very good. Like a really well-directed and put together game. And if they are bumping that up, that might make up for it a little bit. Yeah, it's a little like when we talked about the Halo remake on this podcast. And we're like, well, this is good. It's still Halo, but that hits differently than it did 25 years ago. And so many games built on that foundation that if you didn't play it at the time, well, maybe you had to be there to understand just how groundbreaking it was. But it's still timeless and incredible design that holds up. And that's certainly true of Ocarina. And also, I want there to be a continued home for dungeon based more linear and finally crafted Zelda games along with the open world evolution, which is maybe the original vision of the franchise coming to fruition. So I hope that this does hit and that it is good. And it's interesting to see some of the things that they kept consistent. For example, they have maintained the loading screens when you go to different areas, which presumably they could have done away with because that's the way it was. But then they're also adding an objective screen and a tapestry that shows you what you've accomplished in your adventure. So it is a little old, a little new. And one nod, I think, to the breath of the wild era of the franchise is that we get our big look at Hyrule Field, which everyone who plays this game in 1998 remembers being breathless. Oh my god. Yes, it's huge. And then you go back and you play it and you realize that wait, actually, this was kind of small and pretty empty by modern standards. But this game seems to have something that I don't think the original did, which is just this big sort of this jaw dropping moment when you go to Hyrule Field and you get almost a breath of the wild Greek plateau type fate like pull away to, oh, here's this great scope. Even if the actual field is not bigger than it was in the 90s, they're sort of presenting it as if it's the breath of the wild huge open world map. So again, does that then make people disappointed when they realize that actually this has pretty tight boundaries? We will see, but hopefully they'll appreciate it for what it is. And we now know when it's coming out November 5th, which is of course a mere two weeks pre GTA 6. And this is not a shock to me. I think we kind of had an inkling that this was Nintendo's big holiday season game. And that's there only so many weeks on the calendar and that it had to be pretty close to GTA 6 and Nintendo's never afraid to do its own thing. And GTA 6 is not on switch to and one would imagine that the two week buffer plus the lack of overlap in the audience. That makes sense to me. I don't think that this is going to cannibalize the audience or anything. Christopher Dring labeled this video games barbenheimer. The The ocarina remake into GTA 6. Really? Maybe it will be. I don't know. I think it's distinct enough audiences that having them go two weeks apart is perfectly fine. Although that was the one week in this many months long stretch leading up to GTA when we did not have a button mash episode scheduled. Now we do. So no weeks off here at wish forever, but that's fine. We enjoy podcasting. And also if you want to pick up a 40th anniversary edition switch to, well, you can't because it's sold out everywhere, but it will be restocked at some point. So that's I guess one commonality with GTA 6 is that companies are viewing these games as system sellers. And Nintendo is obviously trying to cash in with the Zelda edition switch to and controllers and the GTA 6 themed controllers have gone on sale and are already sold out. So these are cultural events. GTA 6 more so obviously than a remake of any game however great. But these are the kind of games that can break through and that can maybe convince you to pick up a system if you haven't yet. It's such a smart bit of counter programming from Nintendo because like, you know, you know,
know that it's like switch owners who just don't switch to are going to be like seeing GTA come out and be like, we don't have that. Like, maybe we should go buy a PlayStation to play GTA 6 and they're like, no, no, don't worry. We've got the ultimate weapon that's the weapon to surpass Metal Gear. It's the awkwardness time remake. Like what a, what a power play. Yeah. Yeah. People are hypes, including Sam Altman who tweeted that this is the best news in a long time and that he will be unavailable for the two days after this game comes out, which seems like good news because if he takes a couple days off and that's two days he's not spending on making a new model that may kill us all or just rip off existing games and make people declare the traditional game development is dead shout out to GPT 6 Astra. So yeah. Now what we did not get at the September Direct was probably as big news as what we did get, but we will talk about both. So people were hyped because September Directs are traditionally a time for big announcements and unveilings and there was a lot of leaking going on and a lot of reports about big name sequels in the works. And given the expectations, perhaps this was something of a disappointment, there was a ton of news, a ton of games on display and endless sizzle reel, every game that ever came out for any other system is being ported to switch to or just stealth dropped on switch to and there's DLC for everything and there's remakes and remasters. But in terms of new announcements, very thin on the ground here. So we got two big ones basically two new Nintendo announcements, one of which if you are clued into the rumors and reporting, you were already aware of we are getting Metroid ravenous on January 28th and we are getting Kirby and the world beyond Spring 2027. And it's interesting because as a lot of people have pointed out the concepts for these Metroid and Kirby games seem sort of reversed in that Samus is consuming her foes and Kirby is exploring an unfamiliar world. At the very least we got so many Truman show memes out of the world beyond trailer when it turns out that there is a world beyond. It starts very traditional. It looks like we're in a happy go lucky Kirby adventure and then it turns out that there's a hole in the world and there's another world beyond that that we will be exploring. So the big thing hanging over all of this is where is everything else, where is 3d Mario, etc. And we can get into that. But thoughts on Metroid and Kirby, you know, psyched out of my mind for both of them. First of all, I think that like the you know, when the Metroid crime for kind of like cycle was starting up and people were like starting to get a little like, I don't know about this one. I hope this game's not a huge disappointment. It was like, it kind of is fine if it is because we have the 2D Metroid series now which is like filling the role of Metroid. You know, Metroid crime for isn't the only Metroid game anymore. And I'm really glad that they are continuing to trust Mercury Steam with the series. I think they did a phenomenal job with Metroid Dread. I mean, I really, really do. I thought that game was fantastic. And I think people forget that like that was like a game of the year nominee. The year came out. Like that wasn't just like cool Nintendo game, but like it got a lot of critical praise, you know, like on the award circuit, which was surprising. It's the best selling game in the series. And when you were on to talk about Metroid Prime 4, we talked about how Metroid has sort of an outsized profile among long time hardcore gamers, but hasn't really been a big mainstream hit. And you would think that one of the Metroid Prime games would have been the standard bear for the series. But no, it's it's Metroid Dread. As far as I know, Metroid Prime 4 last I check still had not sold a million copies. So that continues the slump. But because this appears to be a sequel to Dread, that is, I guess the best bid that Metroid has for mainstream attention. Yeah. And then similarly, I really do think Kirby, like Kirby in the forgotten land. I hope it's landworld land. Problem land. Kirby in the forgotten land. Yeah. This one's world. That one's land. Got it. Yeah. Just pick one. Just pick one. That game was fantastic in 2022. And I think in a year that wasn't dominated by Elden Ring, because it came right after Elden Ring. It was the first major release after it. I think we probably would have been talking about that even more and still did talk about it a lot. Excited for the direction they're going in. I trust that team a lot. I think it's more interesting than the 2D games that it's stalled out before forgotten land. We had Kirby Star Allies 2019, which I think was kind of like, what more can you do with Kirby? It feels like this concept is done and it's great to see them figure out a way to escalate, forgotten world a little bit, like it doesn't look like the same game. And I think that's exciting. The thing that I thought though coming out of this direct, which the direct itself, whoa, what a boring good thing to watch. But it's surprising how much like Nintendo has put together like a killer 2027 so far. And like, you don't realize it where it's like Metroid. That is a that is a sequel to like a, again, a game of the year competing game. Kirby also kind of a sequel to like one of Nintendo's best-reviewed critical games of the Switch era. Xenoblade Genesis. Again, Xenoblade 3. Game of the Year nominated game that was like big on the, big on the circuit. Like that's, that's a big deal. And then Pokemon, which, you know, who knows, right? Like these games are a wild card, but like, it's going to be huge, undoubtedly, right? That's going to be like probably the best-selling Switch game by, by this time, next year. Hopefully, I don't know when it's coming out. So like, just those four games alone, that's like a pretty impressive lineup. And when I see people be like, oh, there's no Smash Brothers, there's no Mario. It's like, do they need it? Like, we are not living in an era anymore where Nintendo lives and dies off of like having a mainline Mario game and a mainline Zelda game on a console. I just like think this direct kind of like put that picture into perspective where it's like Nintendo is not like a two-trick pony anymore. They have several levers that they can pull that are, that are, you know, huge in that same way. And they're not in the business of giving us like huge lead times on titles anymore either. You know, like, we're on a need-to-know basis with Nintendo. And we need to know about a new game. They'll tell us, but, you know, they're not going to give us like a teaser trailer of the new 3D Mario game like a year and a half before it comes out. Like, they're very regimented and now and the way that they reveal and release games. Yeah. Or either they'll tell us or the Brazilian games rating boards will tell us because that's how we found out about Metroid ravenous. And, you know, we found out because we're reading gaming news constantly. Most people were not aware of the fact that the Brazilian games rating board inadvertently linked the game's name and rating months ago. But Nintendo has had a bit of a loose lips problem lately. And, you know, some of the Thunder has been stolen from the Ocarina reveal from the Star Fox remake. Again, many people are, many people are unaware of these things. And it's not as if they landed with a thud. Like, Ocarina has been huge. You look at the view counts and the concurrent viewers of the direct and the trailer views and all the rest of it. It's pretty much second only to GTA 6 in terms of the hype that it seems to have generated. So maybe it ultimately doesn't matter, but you know, it's got to be pissing off Nintendo to no end because they like to be so secretive. And suddenly, it seems as if they have sprung several leaks. And that's maybe why this direct seems slightly disappointing to some. Because even though what you're saying is true geo and I've loved a lot of switch to games and I love Bonanza and many other games, I think a lot of people are impatient for the flagship games and franchises. And it has been a really long time since Mario Odyssey. And it's pretty long even into the Switch 2's not that old life cycle to not get a 3D Mario game or even a hint of one. And so because there were rumors flying from some quote unquote reputable leakers, that there's a new smash in development, that there's a new star fox adventures, a new 3D Mario and Mario. And producer Devon, I know is devastated that we did not get the Nintendo's sequel reveal, which was rumored as well. All these things may still very well be in development. Some of the leaks were hey Nintendo's working on this, not Nintendo's going to unveil this this week, which in a way, I mean, I could be a Nintendo leaker or pretend to be one, right? You heard it here. Ben Lindbergh of Buttommash says Nintendo is working on a 3D Mario. I'm pretty confident that that call will be vindicated eventually. But yeah, I mean, they are holding out on us. And it is a little out of step with what they've done historically, even with some Zelda games, get announced or tease years and years in advance. Personally, I don't necessarily need to know for certain that a game exists many years before we can play it or find out anything else about it. It's not as if we have a shortage of other good games to play. But you could say that the Switch 2 has kind of been depending on the JV Squad a little bit when it comes to, you know, it's Metroid, it's Splatoon, it's Donkey Kong, it's a tear down from the true heavy hitters. But that only maybe makes you more optimistic, at least if you're in the Switch 2 ecosystem, because hey, all that stuff is still come. I mean, we don't typically get more than one mainline 3D Mario in a console generation anyway, other than I guess Galaxy 2. So, okay, we're backloading it a little this time. So what, right? That just means maybe the supply of
first party Nintendo bangers won't peter out the way that it sometimes has and switch to sold like hot cakes out of the gate. And then obviously that slows because so many people bought it immediately and then tariffs and all the rest of it. But then you'll maybe get a second win when when the 3D Mario does come along or the really ultimate smash sequel comes along. So that would be the glass hat full interpretation. Yeah, the only thing I was I was surprised about because I agree. Like they just don't tease stuff that early anymore. You know, they they used to and it backfired so many times and I think they backed off it like Metroid Prime 4, the infamous example of that. It's like we're in the logo reveal and then it was like whoops. Whoops. We have to restart development on the whole game. Sorry, everybody. We do this one up. Sorry. We got to put a big empty desert in this and get right back. But like the thing the thing I was surprised about is I did think we would get a little bit more of like, hey, here are some of the like interstitial games coming in 2027. Like these are our tent poles, whatever. Only because this is the first direct that happened after the price of the switch to bump them, right? Like it's more expensive now. And you would think that this would be a direct to be like, hey, don't worry. Like all of these big games are in development. You know, even if you just reveal one like right, like Animal Crossing is happening at some point. Well, here's Tom Nook's face, right? And I was a little bit surprised about that. But I also think that like in Nintendo's mind, I kind of wonder if the other stuff they showed in this direct, they thought was filling that role, which was ports, right? It was being like, yes, your relation is coming. You know, percent of force coming. I almost wonder if that was the strategy of like, this is the system seller stuff like buy this instead of a PlayStation. I think I think you're totally right. And like there's an avalanche of ports hitting switch two right now. And they have to kind of, you know, be good partners with all of the people porting their games and promote all of these ports that, you know, if you're a console gamer that has a PS5 or an Xbox, like, you know, this isn't all that exciting to you necessarily. But if you only have switch two, like a lot of this stuff is pretty exciting. And once I think we get deeper into next year, there will be less of an avalanche of ports. People will have had enough time to figure out the switch to architecture and all the sweet sauce to get these ports looking good, like all the Capcom ports have been looking. And then, and then I think we'll start to see, you know, more of Nintendo's kind of what they have to offer in the future in these directs once these ports are out of the way. Yeah. It's a little less exciting than it was during the original switch generation, where everything from the Wii U got ported. And it was as if those games were new because no one had a Wii U. And so too many people had a switch or a PS4 or whatever for these games to be new to people. And so for us, it might be yawn. I played this years ago or at least had the opportunity to play it years ago. But for people who just had a switch and just have a switch to, hey, okay, you just got access to a whole generation of great games. So that's exciting. So we kind of knew what was coming. We kind of still know what's coming. We just don't know when and how exactly. But everything is proceeding as we have foreseen to some extent. And hey, there's a new fire emblem game coming out next week. No, it'll probably be big too. And both these games look promising, you know, Samus is maybe a tad too talkative for my taste in this trailer. But I didn't mind what you said. Yeah, I didn't mind what I was saying. You know, it wasn't it wasn't other M Samus. This was more of a well-defined Samus with an edge, which I guess is slightly reassuring. And, you know, we're getting new Castlevania and new Metroid in the span of three months. Yeah, both franchises 40 years young. So Metroidvania fans are feasting these days. So a lot to look forward to. And we still don't know what the light sexual content consists of in Metroid. So I didn't catch that. Yeah, I mean, according to the Brazilian games rating board, my source for all gaming information. It's bored. It's the war. It's all the more of the game. It might be. Yeah. I bet to mention, by the way, the huge innovation, of course, in the Ocarina remake is that you can now hum into the Switch 2's microphone to use the Ocarina, also Nintendo's selling in Ocarina Remake themed Ocarina. But you can use your Switch 2 and just hum into it. So being able to carry a tune is now a competitive advantage in Ocarina. Sorry to anyone who has trouble with that. But a lot to look forward to. And also, a lot to play right now. And we should talk about a couple games that came out this week and also last week. First, Marvel's Wolverine, the headliner, developed by Insomniac, published by Sony. Sony may have broken up with today. Oh, Kojima, who's taking his talents and his unseen for some time games to Xbox, which by the way, I wonder how all the laid off folks and people at downsize studios feel seeing Asha Sharma brag about bringing on fizz and Kojima in addition to OD. Hope the game is good. That's all I say. It makes me sort of scared that Sony was willing to part ways with Kojima. They must have had a reason for that. Well, he wouldn't make it a live service game. So maybe that was why. Yeah, it is funny because, you know, everyone's like piling on Sony for so many reasons. And this is just added to the pile. And it's like, oh, another blow to the reputation of Sony. Meanwhile, Xbox is speaking of these. Yeah, they should add a question mark to the end of the smoking creators. Yeah, rock in a hard place. Anyway, best of luck. First, we capitalized the letters in Xbox. And now we're adding a question mark to the end of it. Yeah. I know you're not the biggest Kojima fan in the world. Matt's, but if and when we see fizz and we will discuss it on, but mash, but Sony does still have Insomniac, which has been the golden goose. It has been the best purchase of the many studio acquisitions that Sony made for what seems to be a bargain basement price in retrospect. Insomniac keeps turning out hits, but will that streak end with Wolverine sales wise probably not, but critical reputation wise. Maybe we have one such critic on this very podcast. Giovanni Colantonio who reviewed Marvel's Wolverine for polygon. And shortly before we hopped on the mic, published a review with the provocative title, which you may or may not have actually written yourself. Marvel's Wolverine is the biggest disappointment of the PS5 era. Now that is actually a pretty bold claim, but the metacritic rating, as we speak, is 78 ish, which by Insomniac standards. That is quite low. I guess that would be the lowest rated Insomniac game in a decade since Song of the Deep. And this is a much more anticipated pricey game than Song of the Deep. Obviously. So this is about as big budget and AAA as a game gets this side of GTA 6. We have all played it. We have all finished it. We will not get deep into story spoilers. We will have a subsequent podcast episode devoted solely to this game. But Geo give us your capsule review beyond the headline. Oh boy. This is one of those games where I would love to have been a fly on the wall to find out what was the conversation behind the scenes of what this game is going to look like. My issue with it is maybe not what is going to be a lot of people's issue with it, because I think a lot of people are going to complain about like, oh, it's so linear. And it's such a old scope. Go broke. That was your review. Am I right? Yeah, that's what I said. Yeah. That's what it was. It was like. Yeah. But I think there are going to be people who kind of feel that it's antiquated. This linear action game thing that it's doing. This very straightforward game. That part of it I like. Like, I wish that games were like 15 hours story driven games max a lot of the time, right? Like I like a really focused game that just like gives you its ideas and has you played with them until they're done, right? It doesn't like do them over and over and over again. That part's fine. The part that is I think like weird to me is that it just feels like they were more interested in making a God of War game than making a Wolverine game. Like, the story of this game to me is like in just the same as like so many of Sony's first party games where it's like, you have this guy. He's really angry and violent. And he feels pretty bad about it. And this game is a deep look into him feeling bad and sad about who he is. And like, he has trauma. And we're going to unpack his trauma. And like, I am all forward, like nuanced, like smart emotional storytelling in games. I think that's great. The problem is that like, if all of your games are about guy who kills people and you're just like, you just that's the only thing you're going to make games about. The only thing you're going to do in games is kill people really brutally. And you want to tell really mature stories. It's just going to be the same story every time because you're going to have your player reckon with like, what am I doing? Like, goes to go tie does it. Sarah's kind of did it earlier this year, right? Like, this guy's a jerk, you know, like, we have to reckon with the fact that this guy's a jerk. God of War does it. It's just
monotonous and I think seeing it in a Wolverine game with like these bright colors and the comic book characters and like this silliness and then to have it just kind of be like also melodramatic and ridiculous in that sense. It just stands out I think in a way that it doesn't in other Sony games. It borders on self parity at times that aspect of it. There are good things about it. I think the combat does is like fun. It's shallow. It's very shallow. It's too shallow to even like support a game that is 15 hours, you know, but like you know their ideas and it's it's got some sick satisfying action and gore and all that stuff and I'm down with that. I just think narratively it's it's very confused and trying way too hard to like be taken seriously to be a first party Sony game that deals with these big themes. And I think that the X-Men and Mutants of it all suffers for it. I just feel like that aspect is so boring and underplayed and and I don't know they just it just doesn't come together for me. It's it's really strange and it's hard to put my finger on exactly where where it goes wrong. But I'm curious if have y'all did y'all get a chance to play it? We did. We finished it and Matt I suspect you're somewhat higher on it than Geo. Well, I tend to be higher than everyone on everything but I don't disagree with anything that that Geo just said especially like I think that the for me the narrative at the end of the game when all is said and done the narrative doesn't really land the plane for me. In addition to it being kind of like a well-trodden tropes that that you know you just talked about I also think that just like it doesn't really come together at the end which is a bummer because I feel like some of these performances are really good. But I do think that my main my main obstacle in recommending this is simply the price tag of $70 because I think if you paid $30 $40 for this and you're a Wolverine fan, you're a Marvel fan I think you're going to have a fun time with this like the combat feels good and would I want to play this combat for 40 hours of a game like no absolutely not is the skill tree like not even really that much of a skill tree but kind of like you can choose one of four things to unlock at a time. Yes and regardless I'm going to spam the square buttons no matter how many abilities I unlock. So you know the word that you said that that I keep coming back to a shallow it is a shallow experience but I'd be lying if I said like I didn't have fun with the combat it was I'd like seeing the characters I loved unlocking new suits even though there were I want to talk about this because in Spider-Man like you can throw on any spider suit at any time be like hell yeah in Wolverine there are sections where you're like walking around like a realistic setting in public and you're like I got it I got to take this suit off this looks ridiculous. I got to put it like it's real because you cannot lock a couple costumes that are animated Wolverine from and those are very from the cartoon and from Marvel token and they look awesome yeah but it completely breaks my immersion in any sort of serious cutscene for team grays like wearing like some of these more spandexy ones when you're yes or the around Tokyo like you can't even wear like a brightly colored like sweatshirt in Tokyo without feeling like you're sticking out and like or nearly naked Wolverine with wires hanging off him everywhere and meanwhile I'm having a heart to heart with Jesus but I was you know so I whenever you got into like oh this is just a bad guy error with bad guys this isn't like a city I'd be like now it's time to break out the ridiculous Wolverine suit because this feels anyway yes there that's just an example of like how how some of the things don't really connect in this game tonally right it's but like I do think I still do think that that Wolverine fans are gonna have a fun time with this and I think that like on an insomniac scale is this a disappointment like yeah I think it is but at the same time like it's still a game that I had had a fun time with yeah yeah I know what you mean because I also had the impulse to put on a costume just the more nineties and neon the better but then that totally clashed with the narrative and the storytelling because they don't really lean into just the silly aspects of mutants and Wolverine and all the rest of it it is pretty gritty and grounded for the most part but yeah I I'm largely in alignment with both of you I might split the difference I would say first of all as far as the length Matt you somehow finished this game and and 100% did it or came close in 10 hours and when you told yeah when you told me that I was like it's weird okay short game for a short king and then I was like well it took me 16 which was about what it took you Geo somehow you speed ran this thing and I always am slower with I don't know what happened I really know I don't know but there were times when I was kind of wishing it was a 10 hour game honestly coming away and I was in our 16 and fighting the umpteenth wave of reapers that was indistinguishable from previous reapers or sentinels so I think the only quipel I would have with the headline of your piece Geo about how disappointing it was is that I think it was more or less exactly what I was expecting so maybe I had pre lowered my expectations just based on the footage we had seen and everything that had been revealed and it was interesting you wrote a good piece about this for Polygon that there was this toxic soup of pre-release gripping about Wolverine and it was taking flat from all different directions some more legitimate than others and so yes you had your usual kind of grifting and grievance and culture war and sweet baby and woke and characters aren't hot enough you know that don't forget the face is weird which is the same as the face we've been dealing with this week yeah I mean look these are virtual characters I had I had to break it to you people but there is a little inevitably uncanny valley happening here but there was that strain of attack which I tend to discount and then there were people who were kind of jumping on the footage that insomniac had released or what had been shown it states a player whatever making it look like what it is which is a very familiar linear action game with a lot of the hallmarks of an era of AAA prestige gritty games that now feels somewhat dated and a lot of that was based on here's a gift with an animation I didn't like which okay you're you're leaping to conclusions but having played the whole game not entirely off base either because there's not an original bone in the body of this game I mean that's that's the sad reality here and so if you go in expecting what it is and and are content with that then you'll have a good time and and I often did you know there were times where the combat was just viscerally satisfying there were things I liked about the characterization of Wolverine and the Logan Jean Grey relationship and we can get into more of that with the the Midnight Boys and the whole Marvel aspect of things but a lot of that I enjoyed and of course it's insomniac so it's perfectly polished tuition in fact literally there are mirrors everywhere which is very quite a flex it's like mirror-mogging every game that somehow just like hides your reflection because it's too hard to render here there is a mirror everywhere there is a shiny reflective ray-traced surface everywhere especially playing on PS5 bro not to brag but congratulations again yeah it worked beautiful and yet it had this just okay this looks cutting edge and then the game under the hood feels like the most traditional version of this game that you have played 15 times before it does and and and that comes down to the combat which it feels very wrote and you know I kind of the violence just it wore off on me I didn't even notice when I was impaling people with my claws because a lot of that like when we saw the first footage it was like wow we were really focusing on the blood and the gore and the impalements and everything and that quickly just diminishing returns and you get desensitized to that and you're not even noticing because there's so much going on yeah but it it is just kind of an an old-fashioned brawler for better and worse and it is very linear and it is pretty repetitive in its level design and its enemy variety or black thereof and all of those sort of like award-bait prestige aspirations that we're so familiar with from this generation of games and just all the very video gamey elements where yes you have the conflicted protagonist and you're gonna like literally punch your bad memories away and then also wallow in them and they're gonna make you sort of sad and like there's a physical manifestation of your inner turmoil it's just very on the nose you know the way that that's presented and then like lots of other stuff just in terms of I don't know like the trails that you track people by center what you know it's just like all the kind of as you said it's almost to the point of self-perity geo where it's just like both
it. It feels like it's a Marvel Wolverine reskin of several other games that you've played before and it's just what if we put Uncharted and God of War in a blender and mashed it up and hey, here's Wolverine and lots of like scripted events that are very clearly scripted so that you know, you're running through a scene where it's supposed to be like, whoa, everything's happening around you, but you're so highly aware of how precisely choreographed it is and how this explosion is supposed to happen when you get to this point. And then there's a lot of the heavy tips and hinting, which maybe you can turn some of that off, but lots of, you know, why not press this then you're getting that prompt for the 10th time in the game or like QTE sequences, which are very forgiving. I like pressed the wrong button routinely and just kept going. Okay, you can hit RT instead of LT. That's basically the case game. Save difference. Smashable experience points, crates, and you know, just like, got a lot of that stuff. I got so many crates then that I did do that. I ran out of things to spend the currency on two hours before I finished the game to I reached max level and unlocked everything and then just kept leveling and not getting anything for it, which was weird. But also, yeah, like it has a pretty simplistic skill tree and ultimately I did just sort of mash and spam the same combos and you know, it's not that challenging a game on the default difficulty level at least. So there's just a lot there where I felt like, yeah, I'm getting exactly what I thought I would get. And maybe it's on me that I was expecting more and maybe this would have hit harder a decade ago. And now it just feels like the time passed for this game to really get the reception that in some way I could feel like a little like left in the past as you guys have been saying, like it does their elements of it that do feel like like a PS4 even PS2 game at times. And I think that like, you know, in the game, there are these several different forms of the game, right? You have the stealth section, you have the beat 'em up section, you even have like, I guess this is a rooftop chase section, right? And none of them are really outstanding on their own, but you are like going into a challenge where you're like supposed to traverse this surreal setting in a certain amount of time and you're like, why is this in the Wolverine game, right? And like that, like that's the game I know. Yeah. It's just like a series of different kinds of video game gameplay things tether together. Similar in some ways to like, I recently played resonance, a plague tell legacy. And that's a game that has several forms of gameplay and none of which are particularly strong, but they're at least, you know, paced well. You know, and I feel like Wolverine is kind of trying to do the same thing. Like they know that the combat isn't all that deep. I think, so they figured they would mix up the, it just doesn't quite work. It doesn't gel in in any way that either strengthens all of those different elements or makes one of them, you know, interesting enough to hang your hat on. Yeah, it almost feels like the game in Somniac would have made between like sunset overdrive and Spider-Man. You know what I mean? Like it almost feels like, oh, we're coming off of that game. Like we learned a lot about kind of like movement and like action and attitude. And like, you know, now we're going to try to make something a little more like cinematic. And then that gets built out into like a really polished open world Spider-Man game that like is dials up on the fluidity. Like it, it almost just feels like out of the timeline in the weird way. I will, the one thing I will, I'd like, I think Matt is totally right about though, you know, when you say like it's still a fun time. And I do think that like one thing in Somniac still does really well. And I think maybe that's what you're responding to is like on a pure game feel level, I think like in Somniac just knows how to make a game that feels like, yeah, ice, right? That feels like the action, even though it is shallow and repetitive and I just hit square and all this stuff, like it also feels satisfying to like hit the pounce button to like slam into an enemy from afar. And then like you just can work that into a combo really quick. They're doing this like momentum based combat that I think is really interesting when you're trying to like build your rage bar. So you kind of want to continue pressing the attack and just keep moving and moving and moving so you can spend that rage. And it just makes the game feel really fast and brutal in a way that just again on a pure game feel level, I think is really strong. And that's where that studio shines. And there are also just these moments where like, you know, there's this mission early on where you're in this like model city and there's all these small like empty houses and you can just like tear through things, right? You're like shaving the siding off of walls and things like that. And that part of the game when it's doing that, I think is like great, right? And when you really feel like, I'm a dude with knives for hands who's also an animal. That stuff is really, really strong. And so I definitely see where like, if you want to come do it for that, you know, and you want that kind of Wolverine experience, I do think it gets that part right. I think where people will ultimately differ is on stories, on, you know, maybe the pacing of it, all these little like fine details that don't come together that I think are going to be make a break for people. Yeah. Looks great. Runs great. Has that first party PS5 exclusive haptic feedback implementation in the dual sense, which I always enjoy and does really bring it home. But there is then that discordance as you noted, Geo between the gameplay and the story and the conflict because there are these scenes where Logan goes feral and he kills a lot of bad guys. And then he's like, he wakes up from the trance and it's like, what have I done? And it's like, dude, where have you been? We've been doing that in every single scene and every single set piece in the game. We have left a trail of bodies behind us. What makes these particular bodies different than any other bodies, right? But, you know, that's something I guess you get used to in video games, at least violent video games. But there is always going to be that a lute of lute narrative dissonance to a unearth of phrase that we might have used in the era when there were more games like this. But I do think that ultimately it is just like incredible cutting edge tech in service of a pretty dated structure. And if you're okay with that going in and just want to have a fun time but mashing and seeing some some good Logan story telling then you may well be satisfied. But it never quite transcends that sadly. And I feel like a trader to my cause kind of because as you were saying, Geo, like I want to support the idea that it's okay to make linear games and games that are not super long. It's not as if they did a suicide squad kill the justice league with this game or something like, you know, I appreciate that it's a single player self-contained adventure. And I want companies to make more of those. And so I'm kind of wondering, well, am I saying that an open world game inherently has a higher ceiling? Or am I just saying that this game, I mean, literally a higher ceiling if you're web slinging from skyscrapers, right? But the other thing is that like, were they constrained by who Wolverine is as a character? And just what the systems and verbs and mechanics would inevitably be if you want to be true to that character? Because it feels kind of obligatory. It's like, well, Sony has insomniac insomniac has a Marvel license. Hence we have Marvel's Wolverine. And yeah, like a Wolverine game is going to be bloody and violent and a brawler and close up combat. That's who Wolverine is. What else could it be really? But it's also sort of inherently more simplistic than say Spider-Man where you have ranged attacks and you have close up combat and you have web-based attacks and you're much more agile and mobile. There's just greater possibility, I think, with that character than with Logan. So it's like, it wouldn't really have made sense for this to be an open world game like Spider-Man. I feel like this fits the character. And talking about tortured characters with trauma, I mean, it's Wolverine. So like, yeah, guys got some baggage to work through. That's, that's who he is. It would be weird. Otherwise, it's just the way that they present it. I guess I'm not sitting here saying, I wish that they had done it like this exactly. I don't know that I'm smart enough to say I could do a better job with Wolverine than Insomniac than literally Insomniac. Something about it just maybe it feels like a Wolverine game just is kind of coded for an earlier generation of gaming. It's possible. But Ben, I don't think you'd need to worry about that linear game versus open world narrative because we have already this year two potential game of the year candidates that do have a very linear structure like 007 first light and Resident Evil Requiem. Those are fairly linear games that are pretty successful. And especially when you look at first light, it's, it's, there are parallels to draw between Wolverine in that, you know, there are different types of gameplay in that game. And it is a very linear story based experience. And I think that that game is pretty much more successful than Wolverine in doing that. So I'm not too worried about the form of linear games versus open world in in 2026. You're right. Yeah. And there were aspects of first light that felt under bake two like the driving sequences, which similarly in Wolverine are pretty rudimentary, you know, you're on a motorcycle.
occasionally more or less on rails. But I think you said in your review geo, like there are hints of, oh, maybe this could have been a bit more expansive or inventive. Maybe you could have leaned more into the detecting and tracking and spy aspectable because Wolverine has been anything and everything over the life of that character. And so maybe it could have been other incarnations of Wolverine that lent themselves to other styles of gameplay. But then maybe it would have felt even more of a mashup of too many things that wouldn't all quite come together. The one thing that is frustrating to me about the linearity and maybe this is just an inherent limitation of the linearity or maybe it was about the level design. But because the whole gimmick of the game is Wolverine is unstoppable. You can't kill him. He will tear through anyone and everyone. And yet there are so many invisible barriers or very visible barriers in the game because it's just like he he will transcend any wave of enemies you put in his way. But also, oh, this is outside of the mission area. I can't go that way. And I don't want to push through these 15 people. That that would be great. There are a couple cars parked blocking this street. So I guess we can't go that way, you know, which also felt like a little bit retrograde just, you know, it's not bushes. It's not shrubbery, I guess blocking our our path, but it is more or less. And maybe there was a more elegant way to push us down a path without just like somehow I'm stymied by this not very high wall for whatever reason, even though I can clamber up anything else. So that was semi frustrating. Also, speaking of the costumes, lots of great costumes, also lots of different claws you can unlock. And I got to say, I cannot tell the claws apart. I mean, only a few games. Barely in the menu, it's like, okay, this one is made of bone and this one is reflective and this one is more curved or whatever. I can't tell the difference when I'm facing people or it's metal or it's old. And that's a little shinier than another one that that, you know, sorry to impure in the work of whatever graphic artists that in some the expent years of their life coming up with different claws, but you're in the menu. Yeah, but in gameplay, I think those solely, solely exist for photo mode. Like I truly think they were like, yeah, you look great in photo mode and they probably do. Does that help give them that? Yeah, in the gameplay, I'm like, I can't see. It's the same thing with like the Star Wars Jedi games, like they let you like customize the lights every night. Oh, you're hilt and like, oh, this little detail on it. And it's like, I can't see that ever. I always feel the same way. Yeah. Okay, well, there is much more to say about this game and I will say it's along with the midnight boys very soon when we're back with another episode and we'll dive a little deeper into the Logan lore and the insomniac Marvel tie-ins and the shared universe that they are sort of tentatively constructing. Not that there's a lot of connective tissue here between Wolverine and other Marvel insomniac games, but you know, we'll see. I'm sure there will be updates. There will be DLC. There will be patches. I got an update that downloaded and then I googled Wolverine patch. Turns out that leads to a lot of results that do not pertain to the downloads that got added to my console. As you know, if you play Marvel's Wolverine and patch maybe makes an appearance, we will see. So, you know, we're a bit down on it, I guess, given just the pedigree of the studio and the expectations and the money that obviously was poured into this thing. And it clearly is a labor of love like these people care about Marvel and Wolverine and tried to make the best possible version of this game that they could. It just feels a little bit like it is out of the past. Much like Wolverine himself. So perhaps that's appropriate. But wouldn't be surprised if at least some of the midnight boys disagree. I do want to talk about a game that came out last week that we couldn't cover them because we didn't get pre-release codes for this one. But we've spent a ton of time in it since the blood of Don Walker, which is an action RPG from Rebel Wolves and published by Bandai Namco for Windows PS5 and Xbox. We made up for last time somehow Matt played like how many hours of this game did you play in an incredibly compressed period? You played like 36 hours in a three-day span. That's like almost every waking hour. It turns out that that was my steam counter. Oh, that was your steam. And I had a game idling for, you know, that's like that. So at the time it was hours or something. 22 hours. Okay. We're up to 36 now, I think. Okay. All right. So you got there eventually. And I have technically rolled credits. Yes. But I would not say that I have finished this game at this point. No. And when might you ever say that? It might take several playthroughs possibly to say that you've finished this game. But it is worthy of the investment of time. So Rebel Wolves, this is a studio with a lot of Witcher 3 legacy, of course. So we will very soon be able to play a remastered Witcher 3. Or you can play this game, which has a lot of the creators of the Witcher 3 working on it. And obviously has a lot of Witcher 3 DNA, but also does its own thing. And this is a vampire game. And these are not sexy vampires. These are not twilight vampires. These are old ugly scary vampires called vracier. These are dried up old world emperor Palpatine post unlimited power vampires. Think the Baron from what we do in the shadows or Dachiana from interview with the vampire season two. And this it has a kind of kingdom come deliverance to setting sort of a medieval European setting, extremely atmospheric, somewhat scary. In fact, as a game encountered, I was initially quite worried that I might not have the stomach for this game, but it's not ultimately too terrifying to play. But I really like this game and really admire and respect this game. And maybe it is the contrast playing this back-to-back with Wolverine. Obviously, they are very different games. But this feels like a game that obviously is inspired by a lot of earlier games and has a lot in common with them. But also does some things that feels really original and boundary breaking. And I want to credit that. And Geo, you wrote about that and how this does sort of shake up the open world's models. So what did you mean by that? Yes. So the thing that I really love about this game is actually the thing that like apparently people hate about it, which is I can't I can't fathom. Like I live in a different universe as people sometimes. But this game has a timer. And what that means is that, you know, you have a you have 30 days in game days to take on the final boss and save and save your family. That's like the premise of this game. Your family's been kidnapped by this evil vampire named Berencis, which is a very funny name for an evil villain. Yes. Amazing names in this game, Brad. I had that same thought though. It's like, does anyone remember the the Josh Hartnett vampire movie from like 20 years ago, 30 days of nights? It's sort of sort of the same premise in a sense. Literally, you get past the prologue in this game. And I'm not really giving much away here, because this is this is the premise. And a menu screen comes up. I took a picture of it. And it just says time is limited. You have 30 days of nights to save your family before the Berencis's coronation. It is up to you, which quests and activities to complete before confronting Berencis choose wisely. And this is going to be I think a fun speedrunner game where people do the breath of the wild. I'm just skipping straight to the final boss and beating this thing immediately. You have to be good in order to do that, which I was not to be clear, but a ton of flexibility, a ton of customizability in terms of how you approach this thing within the constraints of here's how much time you have. Yeah. So the time system basically works where like every time you do a quest or like there were a couple of other things that trigger it like gaining a new ability. You have to like take time to learn it. You take a chunk of time. And every day is split up into day and night, right? And like every you only have a certain amount of time. And that means that you can't do everything in one playthrough. Like it gets rid of this open world problem with the checklist of like, I have to do everything in this game. Oh my god, I'm so exhausted, but I like feel a compulsion to do this because you literally can't. And sometimes you go and do a thing that's like a dumb like go help this guy find sticks. And then he's like, thanks for doing that. And you get like nothing for it. And you're like, yeah, yeah. Why did I waste the day doing this? Where am I? My family? My vampires. They helped this guy pick up sticks. He gave me an egg. What if I did that? And I love that aspect of the game. Like I really, really love it because like again, so many open world games are so like, we just want you to play forever. And we want you to feel a compulsion to do the checklist, like the Ubisoft thing, right? Like anytime I play a Ubisoft game, I end up doing the checklist. And I don't even want to like the game. Let's call it the Crimson Desert thing now. Please. Yeah, please. The Crimson Desert thing. I did not do a lot of the checklist in that game because I did not want to play it more personally. But you know, like Ubisoft, I remember the division when I played that when it came out. I like hated it. I didn't like it at all. I have 100% of the game because like the checklist is just really convenient. And the whole time I was like, why am I doing this? I hate all of this, um, and this game gets around that in such a
where it's like, no, be more thoughtful about what you're doing. Like, there's a, there's a looming threat in this game, you know? And I think about Breath of the Wild, it's a game that I love, but I talked to so many people who were like, I've never beaten it. I just like, got to the end, I could have beaten again. And I was like, ah, I'm going to go do more quests. I don't, I'm not ready to be done with it. And this game like does not allow you to do that. It wants you to feel a tension of like, there is a real threat in this world. You, you have to take care of this thing. It's not like you can just walk around and like goof around for the whole time. And to me, that's fantastic. And I wish more games did this. I wish more games like, you know, actually added that friction and made you feel like, no, man, like, there are stakes to this thing. And like, you are wasting your time if you are doing things. And like, since then, people have modded it out and been like, oh my god, I need to make the timer longer. Let's get rid of the timer altogether. And it's like, I just think you're missing what's cool about the game if you do that. Like it's like taking jumping out of Mario. Like the jump is Mario. You that's not the same game without it. And I think the timer is this game and it's what makes it really special to me. Absolutely. And just to clarify for people who might not be familiar, the time thing is not literal time. It's not a ticking clock, right? It is, it is like a resource. It does literally have a ticking clock sound constantly. It does make me anxious. But you decide, okay, I'm going to spend one unit of time on this activity or three units of time on this activity. So it, because when I heard, you know, that there was like a time limit on saving your family, I was like, that sounds horrible. Yeah. But as you said, like the way they're doing this is, is really fantastic. And I did have that experience that you're described not with breath of the wild, but with, but with kingdom come deliverance to where I was like, I don't want to leave this world. And I have no particular, like, the friction is what makes it worthwhile. I think. Yeah. Yeah. Two degree. It's different. It's a different kind of friction, but, but certainly that, that friction is, is what makes it interesting. And I, I just, I'm someone who, when I play an open-world game, and this is why I get fatigued with it, I do want to do absolutely everything on the map. Like I, I am such a compulsive completionist when it comes to that. And having that, like, restriction on me, like, I am right now, like, five days away from the, the 30-day limit in this game. And I have done, like, everything I could possibly do, I feel like I've been really economical with what I've been doing. And I think I probably have maybe 75% of the map uncovered. And I don't have time to go explore the rest of it because I'm focused now on, on shorting up things before the big battle comes. And it feels like a completely unique experience to have to kind of manage all of this. And you're right, Joe. It really is like the heart of the game. And it's so successful in, in doing this unique thing. And I can't stop thinking about this game, I am so eager to finish it and it drives you towards like really wanting to see that end because you've been building towards it. Every decision you've been making has been building towards this. It's really fantastic. Yes. And I am the first person to hate a timer and to bounce off a game because of a timer give me jet set radio future over jet set radio the original. I just want to grind around and see the city and enjoy the music. But this game, it, it works for me. And I bounced off Majora's mask when I played it as a kid. And that moon, moving over my head, it was just, it was too much for me. And I couldn't stand the three day cycle. And then you go back now and you realize, well, wait, you can slow down time and it's actually pretty forgiving and it's fine. But back then, it really just, it made me anxious. And so I thought the same thing coming in here and one thing that's important to point out is that time doesn't pass when you're just exploring. So you can just wander around at your leisure and see the world. It's when you trigger a quest of some sort, then you have to make that calculation. You're never in charged time units without being warned about it. Yes. You always know what you're getting into. And then you have to make that calculation of, is this worth my two units of time of the eight or whatever that are allotted to me during the day here? It's a little like Star Wars Zero Company in the sense that there is a temporal aspect to it. And you can miss missions if you choose other missions and just run out of time. But it revolves much more around the time mechanic. And ultimately, I think you don't really have to rush. I mean, 30 days is enough for you to really experience the game and feel like you saw a lot of it far from all of it, at least, and have a satisfying experience. So you don't really have to stress about, oh, am I going to get to the end of the 30 days and not take on Princess and it's just game over or whatever. But I think that aspect is really important. If you stripped that out of it entirely as some popular PC mods do, I just, I think you would lose a lot. And so I would encourage people not to do that, not that you have a choice on console. And just so much of it just feels really inventive. Like a lot of it is just the story and the writing and the voice work. That's carrying a lot of the load here. I'm just, I'm really into this setting. It's super atmospheric. The characters are all super distinctive and just will imprint themselves on your mind. I love a lot of that. And that is really what's what's carrying me forward. But then also little things like, okay, you have a day night cycle. That's not new. But this is a real divide between day and night because you are more or less your the titular Don Walker, your human during the day, your vampire red night, more or less. And so you have an entirely different skill set in the day and in the night. And you heal different ways and you have different outfits. And you can set presets to minimize some of the hassle of going from day to night and that transformation and people in the world react differently to you depending on whether you see them as a human or a vampire and you react differently to them. And so a lot of that is like, oh, maybe I should have done this quest during the day. That didn't turn out so well at night. And so I think there's a ton of replay value here. You can play it completely differently and you could take a totally different path and pace through the game. So. And the choices matter. The choices matter. Yeah. And so you feel like, okay, this was one particular playthrough. I kind of need to play this game again to understand the breadth of what is on offer here. So that's all impressive. And also I love little things like when you're in vampire mode, there's this shadow step ability, which is like a little light teleporting. So you can just sort of night crawler teleporting. Yeah. It's, you know, it's like, you don't shout back like laslow in what we do in the shadows. I guess here it would be wolf, but it's sort of the same. And now I'm going to miss the shadow step ability whenever I have to climb a ledge in another game instead of just teleporting to the top of it or just like you can shadow step to a wall or a ceiling and suddenly you're walking on the wall or the ceiling. And that's just a cool little gimmick. It's just it makes it feel different when you transform. And it's just you feel like you actually have new and different abilities in the game plays differently. And I just find that a lot of that, even though there's obviously a lot of Witcher in this game, it really does set it apart as a standalone entity, though obviously Rebel Loves is hoping that this will spawn a franchise of its own. It also has like a little bit of that Elder Scrolls jank that I've like come to love and be like I really like when a game is like a little bit mechanical and busted sometimes. There was like a really good mission I did where I was like sneaking into like a prison or something. And like I like got to the top and I was like, you know, shadow stepping in. And then I just like couldn't see that there wasn't a floor and just like plummeted through this building as a vampire like through the floor like into the middle of the prison. And there was like a guard there. And the guard just like all these NPCs just have like their pre-can lines and he just like turned his back to me, you know, and just like a very mechanical Skyrim win was like, I don't give a shit about anything. And I was like, there's just so so funny. And like when I first started playing it like the first hour of the game, I was like, oh, this is a disaster. Oh my God. And then like that charm really like came in and I was like, oh, this is like, this feels like a kind of like old school like the Elder Scrolls these kind of lines are endearing. So I don't like your face when you're just walking through the town like all right, bro. The very beginning of the game, you're like, dad is like making a soup at the stove. And if you go up and talk to him, he just goes, everything's gone to shit or something. So yeah, I thought I had killed my mom because I mixed a potion wrong with like two dashes of whatever it was instead of three. And I felt really bad about it. And then I read that evidently, it doesn't actually make a difference whether you mix that formula correctly or not. So I was feeling all this guilt that I didn't need to. But a lot of a lot of choices do have consequences. And it does feel like it's not full on Kingdom Come Deliverance too, where like to make a healing
potion. You're getting out the mortar and pestle and you're mixing it yourself laboriously. It's not that sort of simulation experience, but there is an aspect of that. And I know what you mean by just that kind of unintentional humor. It's like, there's this dramatic moment early on where I go to my house and it's abandoned and my family is missing. And it's like, where is everyone? And there are three sausages there for some reason. And I was just like, I guess I'll pick up three sausages. Why not? Maybe those will come in and deal with it. The three sausages will remind me of my missing three siblings. And there's like lots of little things that, you know, I played on PS5. I gather that there have been some performance and stability issues on PC in particular. So you may or may not have encountered that. There have already been patches and hot fixes. So that's probably on the mend. Some of the interface stuff is a little, it could be streamlined more. I mean, you know, there's a lot of dialogue and it's all voiced impressively. But sometimes I do kind of just want to skip to the next line. And you have to do a double button press to do that. It's like, I guess they don't want to be to like bring up the option to skip it. But that option will like, if you don't press that, be a second time, that option kind of like fades away. It goes away very quickly. And then you have to do the double press again. Yeah. So yeah, that and like the map and the menu, I do wish you could just kind of open up the map without going through the menu and selecting the map because you will be looking at the map a lot. So some of the interface stuff could maybe be better or like, I keep finding that as I'm sprinting around the world, the text that pops up when I pass an item, it always appears like as I have run by. And so I'm just like, well, what was that? Oh, wait, it was like too low in the screen. And now it's already behind me. And so now I have to go back and see what it was. Little things like that. And the landscape looks good. But the facial animations are are kind of Bethesda-ish. So that leaves a a little bit to be desired certainly too. But you know, otherwise, there's only little nitpicks. Like also like when you are on a wall walking up and they have to turn a corner and you can end up like walking like parallel to the ground and then have to like drop and from like a foot and then the character has to like reorient itself within a foot to be standing on the ground again and just like doesn't it's a little it's definitely there is some jank there. And there are things all over the game that are a little janky. And yeah, I think that you know, you've mentioned Bethesda and like that kind of stuff just I guess it's I think we just have nostalgia for that that Skyrim Jank, you know. Yeah, you know, but I think somebody companies like try to really like take out the the the technical I don't know like I really like when a game kind of feels like a program, you know, and you can feel like, oh, you can see how they like designed these things on paths to move. And like, you know, you see these can lines that like there's just something fun about seeing that craft. And sometimes that gets lost when it's like, oh, no, we want everything to be very immersive. We don't want anything to feel like offer out of place. We don't want you to feel the mechanism of the game. And I and I get that and that works for like story driven games. But in an RPG like this or like Bethesda game, especially like I really do kind of want to feel the hand of the creator in some times, you know, and be like, oh, I can I can see how they have put these like this world together. And it's like fun to see it. This like emergent chaos happened from these systems kind of like budding up against one another like the I kind of think that the bugs are a feature in the other swirls. Like that's what kind of makes those games fun to me. Yeah. And I feel that a little bit here just like a little bit. But the bones of the game have to be good because Starfields was janky too, but also Starfields was just ultimately pretty boring. And because you couldn't feel the hand of the creator. And so once you get to this play through, you really start to get to start. I'm sure. Yeah. I just have to play the latest version of it. And it will fulfill Todd Howard's vision. But no, it's like because so much of that game was procedurally generated, it lacked that personally tailored touch. And so it was harder to forgive the jank. This game because it gets us on board in so many other ways, we're willing to make allowances for that or even find it endearing. And there's a lot from a production standpoint that is impressive, like the voice acting, like the writing, like the score, which is excellent also. And just really helps with creating this sort of spooky atmosphere that really worked for me. And you know, one other thing we could talk about because you will be doing a lot of it is the combat in this game. And I will say that I found it fairly unintuitive at first. And there is certainly a steep learning curve because a lot of it is, okay, yes, it is ultimately at heart parrying and swinging or raking with your claws. If you're in vampire mode and you have the witchcraft human abilities versus the vampirism abilities. But mostly it is kind of parry dodge attack. But the wrinkle here is that you get a visual indication of which direction the attack is coming from. And then you're supposed to counter your block. You have an omniblock so you can just block anything, but it really saps your stamina. And so you're supposed to anticipate which direction the attack is coming from, counter that, and then be able to respond immediately. And I had a very hard time with that at first just because it's, you know, there's a lot going on. And the icon is not big or very visible. And I just, it was hard for me to keep track of when this is coming from this direction. That means I have to press the stick in this direction when I swing. When it clicks, I think eventually it can click. And then it's very fulfilling. Almost in a kingdom come or for honor. It's like sort of way mode kingdom come deliverance to. Yeah, right. So yeah, it does feel a little more like you have a hand in the combat. But at first and for a considerable amount of time, I would say I found it pretty off-putting. And there's a lot of combat. And also a common complaint we've had in a lot of games recently is repetitive enemies. You will be fighting so many wolves. So yeah, they really need to fuck off. There's, it took me way too long to realize that you can escape a fight if you and it's, it's super, they don't want you to do it. But you can hit like the y button to like disengage combat. But then you still can't like run at full speed while things are still tracking you. It's fairly. There are issues with like the targeting. The targeting is not good. Yeah, it's another thing I meant to mention about Wolverine. You know, you have that sort of standard walk-and-talk Sony game model. By the way, this is I think also the lowest rated on Metacritic Sony first party game of this generation too. But you have that, which was like cool at first because it was like, ooh, storytelling in my video game. But now it's just like it feels heavy-handed. It's just like, I can't walk fast now because you want me to look around and interact with the scenery or whatever. And it's like literally pointing you in a direction where you don't want to go sometimes. And it feels super directed like that. And don't forget there's a fence in the middle of your Don Walker's not like that. There's a lot of freedom and latitude afford to. But sometimes it is it's kind of the opposite of Wolverine in that it's not as polished as Wolverine. But the possibility space is so much more vast than what Wolverine offers 100%. It was fun to play this off of Onimusha where I was like, dialing in the parries. And I got to playing Don Walker and I was like, oh, y'all are not ready for this Onimusha parry lifestyle. Oh, yeah. I play Wolverine after Onimusha going from demanding parrying to I can press this button in the general vicinity of when this attack comes in. It'll be fine. I felt like I was playing on super ultra easy mode after Onimusha. Yeah, to quickly just say to extrapolate on one thing that you said earlier, Ben. Yeah, this game, the combat probably better if you're not very near sighted. Look, I just can't see, I just can't see the icon very well. Yeah, like I really, really have to be like sitting particularly close up to. And maybe that's maybe that's just means I need my glasses prescription topped off a little bit. I think maybe they're a little too weak. But I can't see that. What are you talking about? Yeah, or just hey, that should be patchable. And maybe it already is just make the text bigger a common complaint too. But yeah, and look, it really it works for me. And if you're also if you're worried about half the game being at night, and is it going to be too dark or something, it's not that dark. Themedically, it's dark. But visually, it's not. It looks like a movie that's shot like night. Exactly. It's going to say it's not a walk where you need to carry a lantern around or a big glowing ball. You can see perfectly fine, which you know, it doesn't seem like nighttime, particularly all the time. But I actually had trouble at first remembering like, wait, am I in vampire mode? Is it nighttime? Because it does. It's a night time or it's a cloudy today. Right, exactly. But ultimately, I think that's a wise choice because you know, near sighted or not, you don't want to be just sort of stumbling around because you can't see five feet in front of you for much of this game. So yeah, look, I'm more of a mean quest guy. I think then I'll get around to beating it someday. Obviously, if it's an open world game, you always want to take some time to stop and spell the roses. But I do
You always beat a game at least a game that I like, like I don't feel like I have gotten the full experience unless I get to the end of the plot. And so this hurts me because the plot is great and propulsive, and it does push you to focus on the main quest because there is at least a little bit of time pressure. So I really appreciate it. And I could imagine the blood of Don Walker to perfecting this model and maybe like being elevated to oh, this is like game of the year instead of I mean, this might be some people's game of the year. I, you know, I don't know that it will be Ollie Welsh, your colleague, Joe, who has been on this podcast with you just wrote about how it's maybe kind of a weak game of the year field still pre GTA just in terms of the type of game that traditionally wins. And I think this game could have been that kind of contender. And for me, maybe it is, but there are enough nitpicks that you could probably knock it down a peg or two and maybe it won't be as prominent in that conversation, but it probably should be for just how well it, it innovates on that familiar model in contrast to Marvel's Wolverine. Ollie Welsh redeemed, by the way, I feel like when he said that, first of all, I think he got misinterpreted a little bit of the people who said like there's no game of the years. He's like obviously talking about the critical field redeemed from Marvel's Wolverine game that again, people thought was going to be like a game of the year lock and like, you know, another one that landed a little bit soft, he's, he's right. Yeah. Yeah. It almost felt like maybe they felt the weight of those expectations or played it a little too safe. Like, okay, we're in Samniac. We have to have a game of the year contender and he was what past game of the year contenders in this mold have looked like. So let's just paint by numbers, repeat that formula and it will work, but it doesn't work as well. The last thing I'll say about the blood of Don Walker, can I just stand up for Brensis for a second here? Will anyone, Brensis, the villain and nemesis of that game that you devote your entire time to taking down? I feel like Brensis had a point at the beginning of the game where he's like having a family to steal their blood. I mean, not that specifically, but he was provoked at that point. If they had just accepted his rule, then he wouldn't have had to kidnap anyone. I'm just saying no, but literally, he actually says this and when I'm using the same justification as the blood sucking villain, maybe that's a bad sign, but he's like, he's like, wait, you guys have it goods. What's so bad? Because initially, I was kind of confused because it's like everyone feels like they're laboring under the yolk of vachiric, vachiric, vampiric occupation. And it's like, well, wait, what's so bad about this, actually, like you have to go to mass, okay, as someone who was brought up Catholic and brought to mass every week, usually against my will. Okay, that seems somewhat onerous, especially if they drink your blood at the mass, which is not what happened when I went to mass. But I went to mass, we drank someone else's blood, at least figuratively or literally depends what, what sect of Catholicism you subscribed to, I guess, or, but, but, or Christianity. But in this game, it's like the vampires come in. They heal everyone's illnesses, plague, gone, everyone's, everyone's fine. There's no war, there's no conflict, great health care system, great health care system. The only downside is that every so often, they're going to kill your mom, they're going to try to kill your mom because she's a little weak, maybe a little, if they have to cold the bird from time to time, I mean, you have to sacrifice this must be made right? I mean, her, her blood was basically like water. So, you know, what was Brent's supposed to do? But what the point is, everyone's like, ah, you know, I got a, I got a donate a little plasma here, is that so bad? Given, given all the perks and the upsides, you can do for your country, right? I was on Brent's, his side, at least initially, I'm like, look, look, look at all he's brought to this town. I mean, I heard that you're a bunch of immigrants. You know, like, just, you don't want to be a blood donor. And so we're, we're going for a violent revolution here that's going to get everyone killed in your town sacked because you couldn't stand to, to go to mass every so often and make a little, just a little sip from time to time, I mean, there's this great short story you're going to love. I think it'll be a real blueprint you can use to building your perfect society. It's called the lottery by Shirley Jackson. And I think you'll really like the ideas that they put forth in that one. Just saying, Brent's has made some good points, some pretty persuasive points, but, you know, didn't stop me from trying to take it down. It's just, I'm just saying that honestly, you're going to know we're joking about this. But like, it is a really strong point of the game that like, the villain is not just like, oh, the big bad vampire, right? Yes. Yes. There is depth there. There are things to agree with him about. There are definitely things to disagree with him about as well. And, and I also appreciated that there are times in the game where they, they kind of fill his backstory a bit for you and, and kind of humanize them to a degree. And it would be so easy to just have a have a big bad vampire that you have to get. You may have, look a little scary, but he may have claws. So all the protagonists have claws of the games we're talking about today. So that's, that's not so bad beauty goes deeper. Look below the scary surface and look to the, the soft, cuddly, Brent says inside he's just been misunderstood all this time. By the way, we all really like this game. Where would we put it in the pantheon of vampire video games? Because sometimes we do kind of a cursory top five when we talk about a genre that we haven't really discussed in depth before. And this, it almost feels to me like when we talked about Assassin's Creed and Blacks and Flag Resinct and talked about pirate games and how they're actually fewer great ones than you might expect. I think you could probably say the same about vampire games, especially in recent years, like a lot of them do date back quite a ways. So I don't know. I mean, to me, this is definitely in my, my five and probably pretty high on the list. Yeah, this, this has got a top three. It's got to be top three. The one I'll give a shout out to you because I think there are obvious ones that people would point to where it's like vampire, the masquerade, vampire with a Y that came from a great fact that was, that was kind of neat. One that I will shout out that I thought was really, really strong last year, actually, there's this indie game called Cabernet as a vampire game. Really great. Three right alongside this, I'll, I'll give the shout out to that one. But yeah, I mean, I think this maybe isn't the best vampire game. I mean, Symphony of the night. Well, yeah, that's top five would be all Castlevania, so certainly not as vampires survivors. Well, I was going to say, I mean, look, that's a fun addictive game, but is it a truly great vampire game? There's no vampires and vampires survivors. That's right. Yeah. So you probably have to put this like right behind Red Fault, you know? Oh my gosh, yeah, honestly, like, you know, like as you have Kane, Soul Reaver, I mean, we're going back a ways, right? It is a vampire game, but I also think that it's not like the most vampire, vampire game in the sense that like there are like basic things about being a vampire that like it's a little weird for a vampire game to not have some sort of stealth attack out of the shadows to people, you know, like there, there isn't that like like you can just at night time when you're a vampire, you can just walk around the town and someone will be like, oh, but like you can just walk by them and it's fun. Yeah. Like don't judge a book by its cover. Yeah. Kind of games that are more about being a vampire because this game is about family and obligation and freedom and the vampire thing isn't really the main focus of it. So yeah, it's not fully leaning into like that that brooding like Dracula kind of, you know? Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Or blood, blood rain, I guess in more of the action mold again, going back a bit or speaking of Skyrim, the Skyrim don guard DLC don guard, not Don Walker, but you can certainly get your vampire on in Skyrim as well. So I mean, yeah, with the exception of I guess vampire with a Y, which is, that's been a wild two of these, these are games that date back quite a ways. So yeah. That yeah. I'll say yeah. There we go. That was probably good. Maybe we'll get up. Do you think there's, um, do you think there's a woman named Don Walker who's having a really weird month right now? God, I've been making this joke in my head since I've played it absolutely. Just like, why do we think I suck blood? What's happening? Yeah. Well, this may be the best vampire game of all time. And hey, Castlevania is about to be back. So maybe we're getting a vampire resurgence because we haven't had enough vampires in popular culture over the past decade or so. That's what we've all been saying. Okay, this has been good fun. We have covered a ton of ground, always happy to talk to you both. Thanks so much for coming on and, uh, geo good luck with your mentions and, uh, weathering anyone who comes at you.
And criticizes the Wolverine take, though, I get the sense that you have read the room and people will if anything be holding you up as a standard bear. Yeah, people people don't seem to be disagreeing too much so far, but we'll see when the game comes out. Yes, I will say like there's a lot about the the basic mutant X-Men framework that still resonates today and that you could map on to current events in interesting ways even if the game. So I know the game definitely does not go out of its way to draw those parallels explicitly, but if you want to read that subtext into it, of course, X-Men has always represented that right to various minority groups and oppressed groups over the years. I'm sure we will get into that more next time with the midnight boys, but for now, thanks as always to Devon Romaldo for producing this podcast to Arjuna Ringo Pal for green lighting, not just once a week, but mesh, but twice a week, but mesh, now we're just trying to keep up with the rush. You can, of course, contact us at
[email protected], but mesh will back in but a day. And until then, I can dem you to the light. [Music]
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