Dead Space Remake, One Piece Odyssey and The Best games of the first 2 months of 2023 Ft. LitUnPay

what's up and welcome to the Single Player Experience Podcast. As always, I'm your host, Sebastian Malden, and in this episode we're going to be talking about the best games so far of 2023. And I know what you're saying, like, man, chill. It's only the first two months of the year, and I get that completely. But that said, this has been the absolute stacked year for video games so far. 2023 has been, for video games. So for a topic this big, I had to call in the big guns. So my guest today is none other than Lit Un Play. In case you didn't listen to the previous episode I had with Lit Un Play Lit is a very good video game reviewer and a video game streamer. He knows all about the dopest indie games and he plays the hottest triple A games of the year. So who better to talk about the top game so far of 2023? So in this episode, lit and I are gonna be talking about the Dead Space remake one Piece Odyssey and other games that blew us away so far in the first two months of 2023. But that's not all folks, because Lit is also gonna be telling us why he's so excited for tours of the Kingdom and he is going to take on the pro nerd trivia challenge. We got all this and more coming right at you right after the intro. DJ start the intro. Mine. Hey everyone. Like I said in the intro, I have a very special guest joining me today. He is an absolutely amazing streamer and video game reviewer. This guy is amazing, and I'm not just saying that because he's also a Philadelphia Eagles fan. today we're gonna be talking all things video games and what he has been playing. So my guest today is the one, the only Lit, unplayed lit. How you doing today?

Woo, woo. Thank you. Thank you. I am doing well. Thank you for that Greater than

life intro, man. Always, always. Every time you're on the show, I gotta do that for you, man. I

appreciate it. I appreciate it. You make me feel like I'm at home.

you are. You are. This is home now for you, Thank you. Thank you.

you know, we, we, eagles gotta stick together and Oh, yeah. Especially this week. It's been, it's been a tough

week for us. Oh yeah. Yeah. As, as we're recording, we're off the hangover of the Super Bowl, or should I say we're mourning the, the loss that happened at this year's Super Bowl. Tough. Yeah, absolutely. Tough week. But enough about that. We don't want to relive that right now. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So Li what have you been playing?

Oh man. All right. Let me, let me give it to you. So this year I've actually been pretty good on keeping on top of what I've been playing. I made a list on Gigi app and I updated as I finished a game. Um, so let's see, why don't, let me, let me pull up the list real quickly. But I believe the first game I finished this year was, uh, voice of Cards, the Okay Beast of Burdens. Um, for the lovely listeners slash viewers that have never heard of that game, it is a really cool r p g made by, uh, Yokota, the creative Mind behind ni Automata. And also the music is done by kk, the beautiful composer for the Niro Automata game. So right off the bat, you know, story and music are just like lit. I get it.

I'm lit.

I love it. Yeah. Uh, no. Phenomenal game rpg and it has this beautiful card aesthetic to it. So, You know, it's your traditional r p d, like final Fantasy. You have your party, you attack, you heal, you use items, but it's all centered around this card aesthetic. So your characters are cards, the items you use are cards. Beautiful game. It's available on Steam, on Nintendo. Phenomenal game. Um, other than that, I also played through Debt's Door. Uh, beautiful game, beautiful indie that I had but had never played. And I finally decided, Hey, it's about time. Um, I played an amazing r PPG called One Piece Odyssey. Ah, which I can, I can run the entire show and tell you all about the game because for those of you who don't know, one piece is my all time favorite anime, and I love that I li live and breathe one piece. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. What else? That one was really good. Uh, really fun, R ppg. Um, really good story. Really good combat. It definitely grew on me. Uh, next I played it Dead Space Remake, which. I have to say, is by far the best remake I have ever played, ever. Whoa, it. So the original Dead Space came out in 2008. Mm-hmm. really good game. Phenomenal horror, phenomenal action. Third person shooter, uh, Sur Horror Survival, really good game. The remake took that phenomenal game and just elevated the, and there's, there's so much. I could also spend the entire show talking about it, but just to name a few things. They reworked the entire level design of the game so that all of the areas are interconnected. You can backtrack from the very beginning of the game to pretty much almost the end. There's just the very last chapter. You can backtrack. Um, but from chapters one to 11, you can backtrack through the whole ship. Enemies were taken, uh, dialed up to. So now enemies whenever you shoot them, uh, in the original game, you know, if you shoot the enemy's legs, for example, a couple of times, eventually their legs would just like pop off, you know, they would fall to the ground and crawl. Mm-hmm. Now every shot you take, you can actually see the flesh degradating, the flesh, just like coming off, dying off. You can see physical changes in the enemies as you shoot them, as a way to indicate the enemy's health. And it just feels so grotesque, so gory, so real. Um, on top of that, you know, they revamped the horror, the, the lighting, the audio work. It is just phenomenal. It is easily the best game I've played this year so far. Oh, you were, you

were already spoiling my next question cuz I was about to ask, I was like, is that, is that game of the year for you so far?

Well, I, I think out of everything I've played so far, yes. I, I, this is definitely the best game that I've played so far. Um, I think there are some pretty good con this year is stacked. It is, it is stupidly stacked, absolutely stacked with video games. Um, so while I think that that's, I think that space remake should definitely be nominated for game of the year, later in the year. But I don't think it'll win. I think there are possible other games that are gonna take the heat up higher. Yeah. For sure. For sure. Um, then to finish up the list, I also played through bioshock Remastered. I played through this, uh, Metro Venia called Gu Guam. Guam, yeah. Yeah. Phenomenal game. I had so much fun with it. I will say though, the platforming was unforgiving. Oh, it's rough. And I say that as someone who loves hallide and loves path of pain. Mm-hmm. So, so listeners, just to give you some perspective, right, that that's how tough the platforming guacamole

is. So are you gonna play through the second win guacamole too?

For sure. I definitely plan on doing that at some point, probably later this year. Um, I'm, you know, I'm just trying to cram in as many games as I can cuz as soon as, uh, my game of the year for this year, uh, releases, I'm gonna have no time for any other game.

I like how you say it, you already prefaced this. You're like, this is gonna be my game of the year

for this year. Uh, there there is zero shot that there is, you know, and I say this knowing very well what's releasing this year. There is zero shot that I will like any game. More than tears of the kingdom. Oh,

All and all it has to be, is just more breath of the wild and it's already Gotcha.

I mean from the trailers, right? Like, that's what it looks like, right? Mm-hmm. it's just more breath of the wild with a darker story. And everything they show me about that game just gets me infinitely more excited for, okay.

Okay. I'm a person who liked Breath of the Wild, but didn't necessarily like, it's not my Game of the generation or anything like that, but like, sure, I like it. But for when I look at the trailers for tears of the Kingdom, I look at that and I'm like, okay, that's Breath of the Wild with some cars in it with a little darker aesthetic.

No, that's, that's fair. That's fair. Yeah. I What's really appealing for tears of the Kingdom the moment? Take a tangent from the list of games. Yeah, go ahead. Um, is that I, I really enjoyed what Nintendo did going from Arina of Time to Major's Mask. I like how they took a really good established series, right? And they, they gave us our first, I, I believe Acar of Time was the first 3D sell the game. Um, I might be wrong. I, I don't know off the top of my head, but I think we can all agree that Arina of Time was like the defining 3D seller game. And it was for the most part a, a fairly light story. You know, it wasn't anything super heavy. It wasn't anything dark. It was a fairly good versus evil kind of story. And it was great. It was phenomenal. Story. Gameplay was great. E everything about that game is, you know, timeless, majestic, whatever you wanna call it. Mm-hmm. And then when they did Maura's Mask, Maura's mask, Like a little bit more of a under underappreciated, underrated gem. Cause it's, it has the same engine, it runs the same as Z enough time. But they did certain tweaks here and there to mechanics. And I think just the story, you know, they took, they went from this evil versus ba evil versus the, um, good story and made it this like darker, more so somber and almost like freaky kind of story. Mm-hmm. when it comes to a SEL game. Um, and the director I, uh, or was it the director? I forget who it was. Uh, I forget if it was the Ag l Numa or, um, Miyamoto said that what they're doing with tears of the kingdom from breath of the wild is what they did with, uh, a time to Mauras mask or what Star Wars did. From a new hope to empire strikes back dialed up to 11. That's intense. That, that in itself, you know, and if you, I don't know if you watched the latest trailer for tears on the Kingdom Yeah. With the director. I felt that, yeah. The direct, yeah. Mm-hmm. I felt that like manifest, you know, seeing, uh, who we believe to be g Andorf, resurrecting bringing out the malice, you know, some of the enemies, he brings out the style in which he brings the enemies out and looking like he's just ready to like take over a high rule. Completely. I felt that like evil. I mean the freaking, one of the major things to happen in these trailers is that the master sort got corrupted. Mm-hmm the sword that is designed to be, uh, the sort of evil's Bain, it's supposed to seal the darkness, it's supposed to eradicate, the darkness got corrupted and shattered. That in itself to me is like, what the heck is going on So I am very excited to see the pot. I mean, I think it has the potential to be the best seller game.

I, I think so too. Um, I will say like, one of the most hype moments in the trailer for me is like, especially in this last one with the Nintendo Direct that we had, was like, on the bridge. Did you see that three hated dragon?

Yes. Yes. Um, what there, that, that's actually, excuse me. Uh, that's actually a boss fight in one of the older cel, the games, I believe in a link to the past. Mm-hmm. Um, and I will, I'll find you the name in a second, but I do believe that was a boss in a previous CEL game. So when he showed up, I was freaking out. I was like, yo, is that, uh, the, the boss? Mm-hmm. the, the thing. Uh, and you know, a lot of people seem to think the same thing online, and it's, it's very exciting. That is, um, Another thing that was really cool in the trailer was when g uh, Gand is summoning all the other enemies, you can see an enemy that looks very like skeletal, very like dead kind of enemy. And a lot of people are saying that that's gonna be this version's game of the re deads, which are the super creepy mummies that show up in a Karina of time and Maura's mask. Um, and that's very exciting because, you know, those enemies are what I as a child remember as being like scary selva You know, like if you go to the shadow temple in arina of time, there are so many reeds and you know, it's cra it's scary. Every time that they scream it paralyzes you. Then they latch onto you and they just like kill you. Um, so seeing that enemy, uh, make its way over to the world of breath of the wild and tears of the kingdom is very exciting. Man, that's so dope.

It seems like this is like a love letter to Zelda fans

specifically. I, I think so. I, I really think so. You know, they're, they're definitely stepping up their game and I think, I think it's gonna be good. Yeah. You

know, like one of the things I think is interesting about this generation with Nintendo is like, Nintendo's always the nostalgia, uh, console and system, so to speak. They're the nostalgia brand, but it seems like this generation of the Switch specifically there have been leaning so hard on like paying homage to the past, even with their newer games. Like, yeah, Mario Car Eight is like bringing all the tracks in at this

point. Um, it's amazing. Yeah. And then you, it's

phenomenal. And then you have like, um, you have Super Smash Brothers Ultimate, which is like Yeah. A culmination of everything they've done so far, and then added like maybe 30% more content. Yeah. And then, yeah, and then you have like Zelda right now. Um, I would argue that, you know, Mario Odyssey had a lot of homage to the, the past Mario's as well. It just feels for sure. It feels like they're, they're paying, it is like a love letter to a Nintendo fans. Uh, like that's kind of the, the theme of this generation for them.

I agree. I I totally see that. And, you know, it's, it's pretty cool, um, if you think about it with the switch because a lot of what they showed at that direct seems to be games that are either remakes, remaster being poured over. I, I think SEL though was one of the, the few games that looks to be like a completely new game for the current generation, Which makes me wonder if Nintendo's kind of like at the end of the shelf life of the Switch. I hope so. Um, I, I, I also really hope so cuz you know, it's been six years and you know, this switch has done some amazing things. I have no clue how Breath of the wild runs as well as it does or looks as well as it does on the switch. It is phenomenal. And I found out the other day that game is only 15 gigs. Yeah. Minuscule, which is, Ridiculous. You know, any PC game that you even demos are bigger than 15 gigs. Um, so for that game, for the size of everything, of the game, of everything, it encapsulates to be 15 gigs and to run on the switch is insane. Um, but, you know, granted, I feel like Nintendo has been sitting too comfortable with the switch. Like, you know, it's great, it's portable, it works, but I feel like no one has challenged Nintendo, which is why the switch has been going on for as long as it has. And I think it's time Nintendo steps it up. You know, if that is a switch Pro, if that is a completely new console, I, I'm game for it. But I feel like. Nintendo needs to come out with the next thing.

I think so too. But I do, I will say, I'm like, I think the steam deck sort of changed everything. It's like, cuz now everyone has that handheld, uh, that handheld console with the s s d where they're getting fast load times. Even if like the visual fidelity is kind of par on, on the same pages, the switch. But like that s s D makes everything feel zippy And the fact that you're playing these not necessarily the first party games, cuz you know, steam is more of a third party, um, platform. Yeah. But the third party games that run on your PS five that run on your Xbox series X are all playable with the s s d like factor into Yeah. On that seam deck. It's just, it's marvelous. It's magnific.

A hundred percent agree. Um, yeah, and the, the other thing is that with the steam deck, you know, Nintendo now has a competitor for handheld mm-hmm. And, you know, the steam deck's been out for a while, and I haven't heard Nintendo say anything about it really. But I was really hoping that the steam deck would push Nintendo to realize, Hey, somebody's challenging us in the portable market. We need to come up with like a better handheld.

Yeah. I don't think they feel challenged by anybody, to be honest.

they, I mean, I, I think, I think it's a complete opposite of anything. They welcomed the challenge. Yeah. And I think that was very well exhibited with the, uh, $70 increase, uh, for tears of the Kingdom. Oh, that kind of

hurt, man. It's like, yeah. I feel like I would've accepted that a little bit more. It would've been easier for me to swallow. If that increase came with like a new console generation, then I'd be like, okay, you know, so I sign me up. But like, when this is a six year old device, and like, ha like after six years you're deciding, hey, yeah. $70 now, and I'm like, what are you giving me extra for

$70? You know, I a hundred percent agree, but I also, you know, I gotta applaud Nintendo cuz their, their marketing strategy is like top-notch. Mm-hmm. you know, if they had introduced that price point with any other game, people would've revolted. Nobody would've bought it. But they do that with the game that they know everybody and their mother is waiting for. Yeah. You know, I saw, I saw that $70 price point and you know what my first thought was? Okay. Yeah. You were like, I'm gonna pay that. Yeah. I was like, I didn't even think twice about it. I was like, I, I heard pre-orders were up. I went to the Nintendo store and on my switch and I saw it, it said $70 and I was just like, okay, add. Send Like, I, I didn't bat an I and I was fully aware that it was $10 or more. Mm-hmm. and I, I was like, Nope. Because I am beyond hype for that game. And I, and you know, Nintendo knows that Nintendo has my number and you know, they, it was a phenomenal marketing strategy,

So yeah. If this came out with like Kirby or with like any other game,

you would've been, I would've been like, okay, really? 70 bucks. Nah, Buta the Kingdom

I feel ya. I feel you. So what else you've been playing

lately? Uh, let's see. All right. So to finish off that list, um, another game that I just recently finished was, uh, shadow of the Tomb Raider. Oh, good Throwback. I, I love the Tomb Raider games. I have a, a huge long history with the Tomb Raider games. Um, it was actually, I think one of the first games I ever played. Um, so my dad was, uh, I'm into video games because of my dad since I was little. My dad had, um, Aari. Or I think it was the Super Nintendo, uh, where we played Duck Hunt. Oh, yeah. Forget if that was the Atari or the, I think it was the Super Nintendo. Cause I think that, I think that is the Super Nintendo. Mm-hmm. Um, yeah, we played Duck Hunt on it and I recall having a lot of fun playing that game with my dad. Um, you know, I also played stuff like Pong. My, my dad was just like, all, all over into video games and as soon as he got a laptop, I think that was one of the first things he did. He like found, uh, how to get video games on it. And one of the f the first video games he got on, it was the original Tomb Raider game. Back when Laura still was just a bunch of polygons put together.

Yeah. I remember those days.

Yeah. So I, I played, uh, to Raider one, two, and three on his laptop. And I was like, wow, these are so fun, you know, and this, I can't believe that we played these games like this. You know, we didn't have a, a controller. We literally played it on the keyboard. Mm-hmm. and with the mouse track pad on a laptop. Crazy. I don't know how we did that. But, you know, back, back in the day, that was like luxury Now it's like, oh, you filthy casual. You're playing it on a laptop with a track pad. Mm-hmm. Um, but yeah, so I, I love the two Raider games and when they, uh, remade this series, you know, I played the, uh, tomb Raider, I played Rice of the Tomb Raider, both really fun games. And I've been sitting on shadow of the Tomb Raider for forever. I got the game back in 2019 when it came out, and I had it for the PS four. and I sat on that game for so long that I saw it. I eventually saw it on the sale on pc. Bought it on pc, and I played it through on pc. That's

crazy. So you almost you bought the same game twice just because you forgot about it.

Yeah, basically.

Yeah. I

understand. I understand. Um, but yeah, super fun game, great exploration, fun combat. Like, I, I think they really hit it. Uh, like they, they nailed it with this, uh, new trilogy that they made and I really hope they keep making these. Yeah,

I think they got bought out by the Embraca group, right? Is that now a I think so. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Cuz it's um, so it's Square Enix in, um, crystal Dynamics and I think Crystal Dynamics got bought out by someone.

Yeah. Um, that's crazy though. I, I liked the, the new Tomb Ritter trilogy. I didn't quite love it as much as I loved unchartered, like especially Uncharted four cuz I, I love that game, but

agree, a hundred percent agree. Yeah. The Uncharted series is great and, and four was, I still think it's a crime that Overwatch one game of the year over Uncharted four. Oh my goodness. Yeah, same here. I I will never get over that and I will never forgive the Game awards for doing this. For I

am, I'm completely right there with you. But, and you know, like I, I am always a advocate of like, Hey, like I, I feel like my game never wins the game of the year. Almost like it suck half of the half of the time. At least it never wins because like it takes two, one and I was just like, no shit. No, no shade on that game. But I was like, that is not my king. That is not

that the king represents, it's so true. Mm-hmm. Um, so I think the first time I ever watched the game awards was in 2019, and that was the year that both zeto and, um, Death Stranding came up. Mm-hmm. And granted, I hadn't played se so I, I was like oblivious to it. I, I honestly don't even know why I didn't play it, because, you know, I'm a huge Trump software fan by this point, and I guess I just never got around to it. But I did play Death Stranding and I love that stranding. So going into it, I was like, you know, I hope that Stranding wins Game of the year and throughout the whole night, anything that it was nominated for, it ended up winning. And I was like, okay, this is looking good. And they get to Game of the Year and it's like, oh, Seco Shadows Out Die twice. And I was like, really? And, you know, you can, you can ask, I have a, a good friend of mine who's a even more of a fan of the France software game than I am. I, I texted him and I was like, really? That game won? He's like, yeah, why wouldn't it happen? I was like, because that's Stranding. And you know, I was almost like upset that Seco won and. It was the year, two years after that, in 2021, I finally get around to playing se and I was like, yeah, I get it now. This is, this is the stuff, you know, so I, I look back to 2019 and I'm like, how stupid I was

I get it too. And like, you know, yeah. It's one of those things to where like, it's revisionist history to where you can go back and play the game now, and you're like, oh, I, I completely understand. I was on the wrong side of history,

you know? A hundred percent. Yeah. No, no, no shame on that. Stranding no shame to Kojima. Kojima is amazing. And that Stranding was a phenomenal game, but Zeto was without a, another better game.

Yeah. You know, so Def Stranding is one I didn't connect with, but I like, I could see like, that's, was

that pun intended? Yeah, yeah. For

sure. for sure. But I was like, I, I could see why people really just like the game. I, but for me personally, I was just like, it, the gameplay element didn't quite strike me as like being engaging more so. Okay. I always felt like, Uh, oh, I can be playing something else right now. Like I, but I get what I get, the concept and what it was trying to go for and what it absolutely nails, but it's just one that didn't speak to me on a personal level.

No, that's, that's understandable. Yeah. The, the gameplay takes a while to get started. Like, it's one of those games where like you start playing it and like you get through the tutorial, you get through the first like, couple of things and you're like, it feels like something's still missing. Like when is that game supposed to like really kick in? And it does take a while, but towards the end, like once you have the whole picture, like the story is, you know, phenomenal, the story from start to end is insane. What Kojima came up with. Um, and yeah, the gameplay struggles a bit at the beginning, but once you get towards the end of it, and like you have all sorts of weapons and items available to you, the gameplay just feels pH.

You know what, you know, playing Def Stranding made me really miss metal gear. Am I'm being honest with you. It made me same. It made me miss that and I was just like, same. Oh, I would love to see what a modern day metal gear would be like with this freaking

komi. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It'd be, it'd be great to have, um, the Metal Gear franchise back on. But, you know, uh, the thing is like, if you wanna take the games that are already made red, like metal gear, solid 1, 2, 3, and, and four even, and remake them, remaster them, go for it. Great. But I, I would be super hesitant to support a new, a completely new metal gear solid game if kojima's not involved in it. I think metal gear, metal gear without kojima is not metal.

Okay, so here's my, here's my, like, exercise for, for you for the next couple minutes. Okay. If you, so let's just say you're, you're the big wig at Sony. Like you, they, they've now promoted you're head of Sony, um, the

gaming division. Nice. So I'm finally getting up here. So yeah.

that's amazing. So it took all that to get a PS five. That's funny.

Um, you, no, I was fortunate enough to get a PS five like a year ago, so, no, we're good. We're good.

So the, you're in charge of, of everything going on, what would you do? Okay. And, and you, you've completely bought out the license to middle gear solid. Like you now own, you now own kmi. So I'm like, what? What, what would you do after

that step? If I owned Kmi, you would see remakes. a lot of games under the sun. Um, I would green light immediately. Uh, a remake of Metal Gear. Solid one. Okay. I would Green Light a remake of Symphony of the Night, the Cave Symphony of the Night. Mm-hmm. those would be like my two first priorities to get both of those games, um, remade and all it's glory. You know, I would give it the de Dead Space remake treatment. Okay. Um, yeah. Which

studio, which, which studio are you assigning these

projects to? Oh, that's, uh, that I have no clue. um, that, that would, that would require something, you know, cuz uh, because of the Dead Space remake, like my Mind goes to Motive studio for a metal gear solid remake. But I don't know how they would handle that. I mean, they have the whole survival who nailed down. Um, but I'm sure there's, there's a, another studio, there's probably a better studio out there to handle a metal gear, solid remake. Maybe

Blue Point. They, they've been doing a lot of remakes in

the past. Blue Blue Point does good work. Um, maybe House Mark. House Mark, that'd be good. Who did return all that? That would be a, a team I would trust as well. Um, and then for Cave Symphony of the Night, I also have no clue who I, I would get, but it'd definitely have to be someone who's an expert in Metro vens. Um, yeah, I I, I would love to get team Cherry in on it, you know, to take them from Indie to like elevate them to like, here's a huge budget remake the, one of the greatest metro vens ever. And, you know, do do it justice. Um, But, you know, they're still busy with Silk Song, so I'm gonna let them, uh,

be Yeah. Let them do Silk song. I would say, you know, like, eh, I'd say it's appropriate because like, and you already are getting that dead sales, like p o c for Cave to just go ahead and take that team. I think it's Motion to Win and just let them do it, you know? Okay.

Okay. You know what I like what you're Yeah. I, I like it. I like it. I, I, I think so. I think that would be, you know, I have yet to play dead cells, but I've seen enough of it and heard enough of it that I know it's a phenomenal game. Mm-hmm. and, yeah. If, if the deaths who made that game wanna take on my cave Symphony of the Night remake project, I, I'd be okay with. Okay. Okay.

So no more Pachinko Pristine in your kmi?

No. Okay. Yeah. Can we talk about that for a second? Yeah, go ahead. She needs to stop, like, KMI is clearly investing their money in the wrong place. They cancel Silent Hills. Mm-hmm. they cancel. I forget what else they canceled, but they, they've been killing Ipsas or letting them sit on ice for forever. And what are they doing? They're making Pachinko games. out, bruh. You can't write

this man. You can't make this stuff

up. No, it's, you really can't, the jokes write themselves like, what, what are they doing over there? I

have no idea. I, because I'm like, if you just have anybody at the top that's passionate about video games, there's no way you could just say, yeah, Pachinko machines. That's what we're gonna do next.

Yeah. That's crazy to me. That's it. It's insane. I, I don't know how that came to happen, but I, I don't think Kmi is thinking straight.

No, for sure. Not for sure not So, so in this, in this like exercise we've been doing here, so we we're bringing back Silent Hill, we're bringing back Pennsylvania and we're bringing it back. Middle gear. We're remaking all the middle gear games or are we just sticking with the first

three or four? I would say let's remake the first one. Let's see how reception is, and then I would like to just, you know, take it 1, 2, 3, up to four. Um, I, I think five came out recent enough that it doesn't need a remake. I think five is fine as it is. Um, maybe may, you know, it it, I think it'd be cool to take the, the ones from the P S P, so Port Lops, portal Lops two, and Peace Walker. Mm-hmm. and make those like full fledged, like mainline treatment games. Um, I think that could be cool as well. I, I

think you should bundle those, make 'em all full fledged games and make 'em like for sure one big game

together, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Similar to what Nintendo should have done with Arina of Time, Twilight Princess, and Wind Waker, you know, remaster them and port them all three together over to the Switch. And Nintendo did that with Mario, right? They did, um, super Mario. 64, the All Star collection. Yeah. Yeah. The All Star collection. What was that? It was Super Mario, 64 Sunshine and, uh, galaxy. Right. But why just the

first Galaxy? Why not Galaxy too?

Exactly. Exactly. You see listeners here, here, uh, at the podcast, we get down with the real questions. Why? Oh, okay. Why, why not Galaxy too. Exactly. Why is Nintendo holding out on Twilight s which is arguably the bestseller game as of right now, and, and not porting it over to, to the Nintendo. Like to the Switch.

I, you know, like I was going to like title this as a deep dive discussion episode, but this is starting to become weird video game decisions. You know, this, this is, that's what this episode's becoming. I'm loving it.

Uh oh yeah. I'm loving it. That in, uh, the Nintendo slash Kmi, right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Wow. But yeah, I think, I think metal gear, solid one, two, and three. Mm-hmm. or, yeah. 1, 2, 3 and four. Uh, four. I loved four. Four was such a good, uh, it was actually the first metal gear solid game I ever played. Um, and then I kind of like went backwards and played the other ones, but four was so good. I would love to see that come back in like a phenomenal remix.

Okay. I can understand that. Yeah, I can understand that. I, five was my first middle gear. Like I had never played any, any of the middle gears until like five came out and then like, I was so hooked and sort of like bummed out to find out. It was only half a game, so to speak. Yeah. I was like, what are y'all doing? Why, why'd y'all only put out half a game?

Like, where's, where's my game at? Yeah. Cuz you, you didn't give me a half a discount off. You made me paid full price for it. Full price, but you gave

me half a game. I'm like, somebody got sent me in the street for

this What, what was really good about something really good that, uh, five did was finally connect the entirety of the timeline. Mm-hmm. um, it, there was, there was a gap in metal gear, solid story that kind of didn't make sense. And five finally came out and it closed that gap and it gave such a good closure as to the story of Big Boss, the story of a punished venom snake. And, you know, I, I gotta say Kojima Kojima came up with such a beautiful world, such a phenomenal story when metal gear solid. And to me the whole, you know, big boss does this like, uh, face transplant, does the psychotherapy on a random medic. and makes him think that he is big boss and now the existence of Big Boss is actually two people. And the whole punished venom snake plot that goes out of that is what is insane. It is one of the coolest storylines in any form of media I've ever experienced. Um, It, it's so good. And like the entirety of the metal gear solid, the entirety of the metal gear story is just phenomenal. There's actually a video on YouTube that you can watch. It's about 12 hours long and it takes every single cut scene out of every single metal gear game, and it puts it together so that you can get like a comprehensive understanding of the entire story. And it is phenomenal. You know, make some popcorn, throw it on the tv, lay on the couch and just like watch the whole thing. It is great. It is like the greatest

movie ever. Yeah. That's crazy. I'm gonna have to start at like 12 at the end of midnight.

I did that, I did that once. I, you know, it was like the weekend. I had nothing better to do and I just, I made some popcorn, I had some beers and food ahead of time and I just sat there and I, I watched the whole thing and I was like, this is great. That's

amazing. That is amazing. So would you rather co kojima make another middle gear game, like middle gear six, or would you rather him work on more training or brand

new ip? I would rather so Kojima's working on debt stranding too, which I am mm-hmm. super excited for. Um, depending what he does in the story with that game, you know, there might be the possibility for debt stranding three. Yeah. Um, but I, I think at this point I wanna see a new IP from Kojima and I wanna see like a genuine horror game out of Kojima. Oh. Um, that PT trailer, uh, you know, a playable trailer that he made mm-hmm. um, was probably one of the craziest and scariest things I have ever experienced. That pt ha pt had me, like in shambles while I was playing it. I was like, get me out of here Um, and I cannot imagine what a full fledged horror game by Kojima would be like. I, I, you know, I would probably not be able to play it at night. I would need to have my comfort blanket on. I would need to have like three other people in the room with me and the lights would have to be on.

So what if he made that as a VR experience? Like he did that and it was places of VR too.

are you, are you trying to gimme a heart attack? I'm not

gonna play it. I already know. I'm, I

said I wanna play the game. Not, not die from a heart attack. Man, I, I, I would jump on that like yesterday. So you're down

for the heart attack

is what you're telling us. Yeah. You know, if it, if Kajima makes a horror game and he's like, oh, but I'm only releasing in vr, we're gonna put our big boy pants on mm-hmm. and we're gonna put our brown pants on top of the big boy pants on because I don't want anybody realizing, uh, yeah, no, I would be, I would be so down for it. I, so I own a VR headset, which you can actually see right here. Yeah. Um. Horror games is the one thing I've refused to play on them. I think the scariest I got to playing on VR was, uh, resident th Evil four, which I wouldn't really call it a horror game. Um, but I guess technically it is, right? It's a survival horror. Um, and that, that was a lot of fun. Like, I had a lot of fun playing that in vr. But, uh, I, I know VR has like genuine horror games and I, I, I don't know if I could stomach that, but if it was a kajima made one, I would, you know, put the big boy pants on and give it a try.

And that's your, your $70 is gone at that point, huh?

I love, we're assuming that it's, I mean, yeah, realistically it would probably be 70 bucks. Yeah. Um, yeah, it would, it would be 70 bucks to, I would be paying money to have constant heart attacks and anxiety I bet,

I bet. You know, like I'm looking at the, the lineup of VR and I don't necessarily feel like I'm impressed by what's come out so far. Um, that said, are you going to invest in the PlayStation VR too?

So I really considered getting one because of the, uh, horizon game, the Call of the Mountain. Mm-hmm. I really enjoyed both Horizon games. It's amongst my favorite open world games I've ever played. Um, and Call of the Mountain really looked really cool. You know, I, when the, when I bought this VR headset, I really got a kick out of playing, uh, resident Thi Evil four in vr. Like, I think that is the definitive way to play Resident Thi Evil four, uh, at least until a remake comes out. Um, but I got a, I got a real kick out of playing that in vr um, games like super hot, super hot was so much fun in vr. It was a workout. It was a workout in a half, but it was, it was a lot of fun. Um, so when I saw the trailer for Color, the Mountain and some of the gameplay, I was like, this looks really cool. Like, this could be a really great premium. Yeah, like a really fun experience. Um, but I think I'm gonna wait and hope that it gets poured over to pc cuz. To buy, uh, one, the, uh, PlayStation VR headset to is kind of expensive. $500. Yeah. that's a lot. I think I paid like 300 for this one. And even that, I was like, hmm, um, yeah, five hundred's, a lot of money. And to buy it just for this one game is also like, I can't justify that right now. Maybe down the line if they release more games. Um, but as of right now, I, I don't think it's worth it. I

don't neither, uh, I'm gonna be honest with you, I at $500, I'm like, you can just buy another PlayStation at that point.

yeah. That facts But sure, you can just buy another PlayStation at that point. Like, you know how much food that is? That's a lot of food. That's, that's at least three weeks of groceries, at

least, at least at least four cases of eggs at the time of this recording So, yeah, it's, it's been crazy. It's been crazy. Yeah. But like, so we got off subject a little bit. What else you been playing?

So the, the last game that I finished was, um, Metro Prime Remaster. Oh. Which came out the day of the direct mm-hmm. So that was Shadow Drops. Yeah, it Shadow dropped, uh, a week ago, actually on Thursday. Um, yeah, that was that, or actually Wednesday was the direct Right. Yeah, I think it was Wednesday. Yeah. Uhhuh. Yeah. Cuz I was home that day. Yes. It must have been Wednesday. Um, yeah. That, that was really cool, dude. I, I know everybody in the community has been asking for that ga uh, like the entire trilogy to be remastered and poured over to the switch. So when Nintendo made the announcement, I was like, wow, this is so exciting. You know, even if it's just the first game, I was like, this is a step in the right direction. This is so exciting. And then they're like, oh, available later today. I lost my marbles. I bet you did I was like, what? What do you mean? Available later today? Um, and as you can imagine, I went to the Nintendo store, it was actually just sister after I put my pre-order in for, uh, tears of the Kingdom. Mm-hmm. I was like, oh, that's right. The the Metro Prime Rema, uh, Rema, uh, remaster is out too. So I went and bought that next

to it. That's crazy. So Nintendo just wrapped up that on that day,

Yeah, cuz And, and the crazy thing is that I didn't buy just one copy of, uh, tears of the Kingdom. I bought the, the standard edition on the E shop so that I can play it the second it becomes available. And then I think a day or two after that, I was able to, uh, secure a pre-order for the collector's edition from GameStop. Mm-hmm. Um, so yeah. So Nintendo has consumed my soul and my wallet, uh, this last week. They, they got

all the grocery money from you this

week, basically. Yeah. I, I, I am starving. I'm gonna have to not eat for a couple of days, but It's okay. It's okay. Let

me know. I'll send you a care package full of Oodles

Les Um, but yeah, so I, I played through that and I finished it last night actually. Okay. Um, it was really good. I, you know, it was faithful to the original game. It made some changes here and there for the better, I think quality of life improvement. Um, Yeah. You know, it's, it was great to be able to play the game on the switch finally. So I'm hoping, you know, sales look good for them. I'm hoping that they do the same to two and if they do, go ahead and, uh, remaster echoes. Uh, I hope that they give it like a proper treatment, you know, not just like enhance it visually, but like I need some quality of life improvements. If they can tweak some of the level design, that would be great too. Cuz two, two was, two was a rough experience. Two attempted to do what one did and it was just kind of not there.

So from, from what I'm hearing, um, like, you know, I think it was Jeff Grub who like reported that, you know, like they're in the making of already doing two and three for the remaster above those. That's good. That's good.

But you know, I love. You really? Uh, corruption? Yeah. Corruption. I, I was my favorite one out of the three. Um, I'm a huge sucker for any kind of a medium when they do the whole, um, dark version of the hero. Mm-hmm. And, you know, in Echoes they started dark Samis, but it wasn't really until three that you actually get to throw down with dark Samis and like the whole phase on, and like how Samas is infected by the phase on and, you know, you're degradating as you continue the game. I, I love that, that like kind of bloodline in the story. Um, so yeah, three three was awesome. I really enjoy three, so I, I hope they, they get those remasters out fairly quickly so that I can give Nintendo even more money.

you're like, that meme wasn't a fry from Future Rama, where he has all the money up and he was like, just take my

money. Basically. Just take my money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That, that's me. You wouldn't intend. Right now they have me on a hook line and sinker and it's. It's shameful, but I, I will admit

it. Oh, so what I gotta note, like you were watching the direct, what was the game you were playing with the direct, like while the direct was like going on and then like all of a sudden you saw Metro dropping and you were like, uhoh, you got this game, got pushed to the side.

Um, so I was playing, well actually, I, I actually didn't do that. Okay. Which I'm very proud of. So I, I was, uh, playing shadow of the Tomb Raider and as soon as I saw that, uh, Metro Prime was available, I bought it. I downloaded it, but I was like, I'm gonna wait till I finished shadow of the Tomb Raider. But the only reason I did that is because I knew I was close to the end of, uh, tomb Raider. I could feel that I was coming to like the final mission cuz everything was kind of like starting to wrap up. And I'm like, I have maybe like an hour or two left on this game. Okay. And sure enough, you know, I went back to it after the direct, I played maybe three, four hours and I finished it and I was like, okay, now we can go to Metro Prime Okay. So you, so I was, I was good. I was at least good about it. Yeah, for

sure. For sure. Nothing got brushed off to the side or

anything like that. Yeah. No, I, I, I was good about not doing that. I

like it. Um, yeah. So we're coming up on a year that's big on remaster and remakes. You know, you got like Metro Shadow dropped. We got that. Um, dead Space has got its own remake. Um, we're getting, it seems like this year is gonna be a big year because, um, what is it, even before remake is coming out like in 36

days, that's a big boy. That's a big boy of remakes coming out. I am resting. Deal of four is one of my all time favorite games. And as soon as they announced that remake, you know what I did? I went to Steam and I pre-ordered it. I'm seeing a pattern here, It's bad, it's bad. Listen, this week we've been suffering emotionally a lot and my wallet has unfortunately, taking the blunt of it, I. Between, between you and I and the, the listeners. I have spent way too much money this week on things that I definitely did not need I understand. I understand. Yeah. I saw going a bit off track. I saw on Amazon, uh, Darth Vader lightsaber, like the vfx, like the, the legit lightsabers on sale. And I was like, that's cool, but like, you know, it was like 250 mm-hmm. and I was like, it's still a little bit of money. Um, so I was, I was, I wasn't gonna buy it, but when I clicked on it, Amazon was like, oh, uh, this item is eligible for, uh, payments in installments. Yeah. And I was like, oh, you suckers. I immediately, I bought it. So that's supposed to arrive tomorrow and I'm very excited.

That's high. You're gonna have to send me a picture

of it. I'm excited to see that. Oh, I'll, I'll, I'll make sure to post it. Yeah, yeah. Um, but yeah, so I, you know, this year with all the remakes, you know, it's very exciting. It's really hard. I, I knew going into 2023 that my wallet was gonna need some policing. Oh yeah. Because there's just so many games coming out that look so good. And I'm, I, I, I genuinely wanna play them. Um, and Resident four is one of them. Like I am beyond excited to see the remake, like from what we've seen, the trailers, the gameplay, it looks crazy. Everything. It looks like they took anim, the anime aspect of it and dialed it up to 11. Cuz it just looks so hype, so amazing. Like, I cannot wait.

So I want to ask you a question, like, you've been playing quite a few games here, but I've seen some gaps in the resume for 2023. What are the games that you feel like you missed out on so far?

Um, I'm trying to think what else, what else came out this year so far. I would argue that the only

big title that you didn't mention was probably a, a Fire Emblem Gauge and High-Fi Rush.

Yes. Yes. You know what that, those, that's true. Those did come out this year. Um, so Fire Emblem, I. I have a weird relationship with fire. I really enjoy their characters. Um, and that's mainly because of Smash Brothers, right? Mm-hmm. So like, I, uh, Martha Roy. Mm-hmm. um, our, our characters that I, you know, for as long as they've been in Smash Bros. I love using them. And I think that they're phenomenal characters have read some of their story. They're lore and then, you know, they sound like really cool, well made characters. But then I tried playing, I tried playing the OG Fire emblem, the one where you play as Martha. Mm-hmm. Kat. Yeah. Um, where you play as Martha. I tried playing it and I was just like, besides the fact that the game is like really outdated, something about the combat was just not for me. Like, I like strategy games. Mm-hmm. to a certain degree. I can, I can get really bored of, of strategy games. Um, or sorry, not strategy. Uh, I can get really bored of turn base games. Like I, I like turn base, but at some point it's like, okay, uh, that's a bit too much. I don't like strategy games whatsoever. Like at all, at all. Top-down, uh, like r t s top-down view, stuff like that is just not for me whatsoever. Um, w reason I couldn't get into stuff like StarCraft Warcraft stuff like, uh, uh, there's strategy games are just not for me. Yeah, I understand. Um, and to, to, I wanted to give, uh, fire and Lynn a try, and when I did try it and found out that it's a combination of turn base with strategy to it, I was like, I don't think this is for me. Yeah. Yeah.

That's definitely

not gonna be in your bag. Yeah. So unfortunately, I, I knew what Engage was. I will say though, engage looked really cool. Uh, the idea of bringing back past legends and using. in your team was really cool and the trailer was gorgeous. Like, the game looks really cool, you know, it has that anime aesthetic. Mm-hmm. and in the trailer, like Martha was a big part of the trailer and Martha is my main boy in Smash Bros. So I was like, this looks really cool. I was almost tempted to get it, but, you know, then I saw gameplay and I was like, ah, that's right. This is fire. I'm looking. Yeah,

I love strategy games and I like term base games, so I like Fire Emblem, but I only like three houses because three Houses is the one that has a good story, has good connections with the, the characters. fire and Engage feels like God of high school in the sense to where like, it felt like a lot of slick action and a lot of like, a lot of everything that you would like about that kind of gameplay if you're into that, but without any of these substance that makes all that feel worth it. Like all the story that leads up to, hey, this is why we're fighting in the first place. Like, hey, these are why these characters are coming back, like without all that. Okay. It's almost. It's almost that, like if you were watching the Naruto fights without having any notion of anything that's going on, you know,

Yeah. That, that would, I can, I can see what you're saying. Yeah. That would be bad. Yeah,

exactly. Exactly. And I, you know, like there are some people who really enjoy that because they don't wanna have like the anime aspects of Fire Emblem to where like, Hey, I don't wanna learn about like 17 people's backs stories, but like for me, I'm a story searcher kind of guy. I'm like, give me all the back stories. Make me actually care about whether or not this character lives or dies.

yeah. So, so there was that, and then high, high-fi rush looked really cool and I actually meant to, to get into that game as soon as it was announced, I was like, oh, days looks really good. I'm gonna start playing it. Um, but I, I decided to wait a bit. It looked really cool In, I, I like rhythm games. Mm-hmm. um, you know, depending on who you asked, I'll tell you that SEC's a rhythm game, Um, so I, I was very interested in High-fi rush, but I, I decided to give it some time, you know, lets, some reviews hit, let's see, some gameplay, maybe wait for a sale on the game to get into it. Uh, so I'm still kind, I'm kind of waiting. I like what I've seen so far. Um, I think I'm just gonna wait for like a decent sale and then probably play it. I understand

that. I understand that.

Yeah. So did you get a chance to try that?

Oh yeah. That's my game of the year so far, I think. Really? Okay. Oh yeah. It's, it's everything I like about like, you know, me and you just got done talking about like some anime tropes. It feels. Uh, like it feels like it has that same kind of heart and love from like, the story from Avatar, the last ab bender of like Okay. Okay. Of, of like the ang saga to where like everything has serious elements to it, but it's very much jovial. It's very much that fun. Mm-hmm. Like vibe it very much like, okay. I can almost swap the main character out for Saka and they're almost that same character, so to speak, almost into that, to the, almost to the team. Okay. So I'm like, it is that element and then it mixed in with that Devil may cry action. It has like some elements from um, okay. Devil may cry. It has some elements from Kingdom Hearts, you know, like you got the turn, like the rhythm based stuff from Guitar Hero all mixed in with one. And then you kind of have like some platforming elements that while the platform it doesn't feel like perfect. It still is a fun kind of vibe. So I, I think it's a great game and, and I want to see Xbox do more stuff like this to where it's smaller bite size experience that are very, like, tight and confined and like has like a purpose to it, rather than like seeing a whole bunch of like star fields

to be honest. No, that's, that's, that's true. That's very fair. Yeah. Especially because Starfield doesn't, so far I'm not, I'm not impressing excited whatsoever. No. That, that first trailer just, and that was not it. Mm-hmm. it, it someone, someone at Bethesda saw that and was like, yeah, this is the one boy. This is the one guys.

Yeah. And I was Adam like, what were you watching man? Because this seems like a black gray and like brown version of Nomad Sky is what I kind of got from it. And I'm, yeah. And I'm looking at that engine and the way like the trailer showed it and I'm like, this looks just like Sky Room. It looks just like Fallout four. And I'm like, yeah, that was 10 years ago. Man. We need, like, we need a little more modern

experience. I, I know they said it's supposed to be Sky Orman space, but I did, I'm not signing up for Skyrim's gameplay and game engine from 10, 11 years ago. Yeah. Like gimme something much better cuz otherwise it's gonna be another cyber punk. Oh, you think

it's gonna be like that bad at launch?

Ooh, I think so.

I don't know if X bucks can afford a cyber pump

right now. I, I, yeah, I don't think so either, but we'll see. We'll, we'll see what happens with that. Um, but yeah, you know, you make hi-fi sound really good. I might actually go check it out sooner than I thought. So it's

the, it's like $30 right now, uh, on pc. No, it's not bad. So it's not, it's not like

super bad.

I gotta ask you a question. Yeah. What game has you put the most hours into this year?

This year? Um, is it one piece of Odyssey? Probably, yeah. Uh, I actually, I think this year alone, yeah. Probably I put in close to 70 hours on one piece Odyssey. Okay.

Um, what made you wanna put that much time into the game? Is the game really that good?

The, the game is really good, and it's actually kind of a long game too. Like I, that amount of a, uh, those 70 hours I put into it isn't really, like, outside of like, it, it isn't like replayed time. It isn't like, oh, let's go hunt down achievements, really. Um, it was just like the game, like the going through the story and a few hours into like side missions. Um, So it actually, the game actually covers a decent chunk of one piece story and there's plenty to do in the game. Um, I, I went into it thinking it was gonna be like on the shorter side, but you know, a true to one piece, it, it was very long I would've didn't do anything

with that shorter side of the pitch. No, for sure not. Yeah. Do you feel like that represented

one piece? Well, a hundred percent. Um, the, the char, like the characters, you know, it's really cool that they got all of the voice actors from the anime to reprice the roles in the game. Uh, and not just like the main characters, but like side characters. Characters that you ha we haven't seen in years in one piece. You know, they got the original voice actors for everybody and that was really cool.

Do you get to see any of the old villains in the game Outta curiosity? You do. So like crocodile do flamingo and all those,

you get to see crocodile and do flaming, uh, do flamingo. Yeah. Okay.

Okay. Yeah. Who, who would you mainly use in the game? Oh, so

my, my man is Soto. Soto is my, my go-to guy. Yeah. Keeping it here with the green motif. Mm-hmm. Um, yeah. No, Soto, Soto has been my favorite character from the second he showed up in the show, which is episode two.

Yeah. I, you know, he's up there for me, especially like, I think the moment he flipped as one of my favorites is the moment where he takes the blow for Louie, where he takes Louie's pain and he's like, nothing happened.

Oh, so good. Episode 377. That's how good that moment is. I know exactly the episode that was such a phenomenon. Everything about that episode is peak one piece. You know, everybody, they just got done fighting, uh, Everybody's like barely there and a freaking another, uh, war Lord shows up. um, Kuma shows up. He's like, oh, I'm here to take Luie and soda's, just like immediately, like, no He, you know, he puts up a fight and I love the moment where Sanji wakes up. Mm-hmm. and Sanji is like, oh, well you know what? No, you don't have to sacrifice yourself. I'm gonna be the one who, and Soda just takes a sword in, knocks him out. He's like, no, this is me. This is my moment. Mm-hmm. go back, go back to sleep. Uh, yeah. And then when he just takes loof, all of Louie's pain and he's just like sitting there in the pool of blood sides, he's like, what happened? He's like, nothing, nothing, nothing. Nothing happened. It's so good. Phenomenal. It's so good. Oh my Lord. So is such a great character. Um, yeah. So in, in one piece, Odyssey, any chance I got to you, Soto? I definitely, uh, utilized him. Um, so one piece, Odyssey uses a, a system. Uh, it's, it's a system I've seen before in games where like you have your, um, uh, Power, speed and technique type. And it's like a triangle, right? So like, power, strong against speed. Speed is strong against technique. Technique is strong against power. Okay. Um, the right pepper, so was Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Um, so Soto was technique, so any enemy that was power, you know, he was like really, really good at. And Soto stats, stats, like base stats for like his strength, his attack power is really good. So I decided, and the other cool thing with Odyssey is that you can do builds. Um, so you have all these accessories that you can put, you know, uh, boosters on so you can make, uh, more attack power, more defense, more HP or whatever. Um, so it's sodo. I focused on a, on a strength. So Soto had the highest attack out of anybody on my party. So whenever he fought against, you know, even like, like Final Boss kind of stuff, anytime that he fought someone who was a power, you know, I would use his strongest attack and I would like decimate the enemy. You know, it would take like almost their entire health, health bar with this one attack. Um, but the funny thing was when I would fight enemies that were speed. So speed is a strong against technique. Meaning technique is weak against speed. Mm-hmm. And, you know, I had enemies that were speed and I was like, I refuse to take Soto out of my party Cause I was like, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna have a party without Soto. So I would, I, you know, I would tank the damage and mm-hmm. So my, my build for Soto was so good that even though he was attacking an element that he was weak against, uh, he would still deal an insane amount of damage. That is crazy.

Which, which one of the, the straw hats did you use that you weren't expecting to use as

much? I was surprised at how good NAMI's character is for the game. So NAMI's a speed type, so most of her attacks can be ranged attacks. Um, but what I didn't expect out of, uh, her combat is NAMI has, I think by far the most amount of attacks that deal damage to the entire enemy field. Oh. Um, so the way Odyssey works, there's not like, uh, your side in the enemy side. Mm-hmm. it's kind of like little pockets, uh, like little, uh, what do they call them? A arenas areas. Um, so you can have like, up to four I think is the maximum that you can have. So you can have like, uh, you can have four characters. So you could ha technically have like each member of your party in a different arena. Um, and depending on the attacks, you know, there's a attacks that hit one target. There's a attacks that hit the entire group, the entire arena that you're in. And then there's characters that can do a attacks that hit everything in the entire field. um, Soto, Soto, lfi and San, uh, Sano, uh, Soto and lfi, I think had one attack each that could deal damage to the entire field. Mm-hmm. but Nami had like four of them. Um, so it was really great when, you know, you found enemies that were weak against, uh, speed. And when there was a bunch of them, you know, you didn't have to prioritize attacking whoever was gonna attack next. You could just like do one attack that would wipe the entire field. So that was crazy. That was pretty good. Yeah. Uh, her character was really good. Um, USO's character too. If you combined NAMI and usap, USO could do things. Uh, so na you could start off with NAMI doing an attack that would, um, I forget the word. It wasn't stunned or paralyzed, but it was like en chant. You couldn en chant the enemies, uh, by having NAMI show herself off. Right. So the enemies, especially there were guys would like fall in love with her and be like, uh, dazed. Mm-hmm. And then they would be susceptible to USO's, like sneak attacks with, you know, that one attack he takes out like a 10, uh, ton stop hammer with just a balloon. Yeah. Yeah. it's, it's just like a balloon. If you do that on an enemy, like normally you don't deal damage to them. Like it tells you that it's ineffective. But if you dazed them with NAMI and then do this attack, you deal an insane amount of damage because they're not thinking straight.

Oh, that's so fun. Um,

yeah, it was, it was really cool. There was a lot of like, cool combinations you could do with the characters.

So how was the story? Do you feel like it lives up to like typical one piece story or do you feel like it's lacking?

It was a, it was a really good story. It's, it's kind of a shame that it's, uh, not, not Cannon. Mm-hmm. Um, cuz it was, it was a really cool story. Um, and I think it's one of the one piece stories that could easily be blended into the actual cannon of the story and it would make sense. Um, do you

feel like it would be like a arc of its own or more like a

movie type? I think it would be more of a movie. Um, okay. But just like, uh, I don't know if you watched a film Red Yeah. One piece where, where film film Red was really cool and it's one of those stories that I think would make a hundred percent sense if it was made Cannon. You know, you might have to, you know, obviously you can't go back and fix things, but I think you could make it like, oh, it's a flashback in the future. You know, like later down the line, do a flashback and like explain some things. Um, cuz I, I believe it's Canon that Shanks had a daughter, I think that was established by Ola. Mm-hmm. Um, but what is not Canon is the events of the movie. But I, I don't see why they couldn't be, I think they could make them Canon and it would be a pretty cool story. Um, so with this game, I. What's up?

Oh, I was gonna ask you before you continue, is this post, one oh App, or is it pre

Ronaldo? So going into the game, that was the first question I had. I was like, oh, where does this fall on the timeline? Mm-hmm. Um, and the game itself is so isolated from the actual story that it's kind of hard to tell. The only way that I was able to guide off of that was, uh, based on the bounties that the crew has Okay. At that moment in time. Um, and I believe this takes place right before the won o Arc starts, like before the won saga starts. Um, what Jim be with you? No. So Jim, be Jim Be's not with them. Uh, okay. So it's definitely before wa mm-hmm. and, um, the bounties are, uh, San's Bounty is still 10,000 more than Sotos. Mm-hmm. So it's definitely after the events of Huke Guide. Okay. Yeah. So it, it has to be right before Wao starts.

All right. Sorry to interrupt. I was just curious on where this was. No, no, you're good. Taking place. So how does, how does Chopper and Nico Robin play in this game? Do they, do they feel good to play

as Yeah, for sure. Um, so Chopper has his, uh, monster point mm-hmm. so you can, uh, transform into monster point and deal a lot of damage. Um, Robin was a little bit of a letdown in terms of, uh, the combat. She, she does have a, a decent like, array of attacks. Um, but I, I found myself not really, uh, having her in the party because her attacks, you know, even, even though I had her boosted with attack and like all sorts of stuff, I just felt like her attacks didn't hate as strong as I would've liked them too. Um, she had a couple of attacks that deal damage to multiple enemies, but, you know, nothing, nothing to warrant using her instead of, uh, Soto or Brooke who are both also a technique.

Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. My last, question on this. One outta 10. Do you, I don't know if you like scoring games, but like what score would you give it and would you recommend it

to people? I would give it a solid eight. Outta 10. Okay. Um, I would re I obviously if you're into one piece, I 110% recommend you go check the game out cuz like, you know, one piece, that's literally why I, I, I got the game Um. if you're ne, if you've never played one piece, if you have no, if you've never watched one piece, if you have no clue what one piece is, I would say don't play because you're gonna spoil yourself a lot of things. Oh yeah. Um, so definitely like go watch them manga before you consider playing it. Now, if you really don't care about spoiling yourself and you just wanna play a good game, like it's still a pretty awesome J R P G with a good story, good gameplay, um, and plenty of content, like I said, 70 hours just to get through like a single casual play through. Um, so yeah, I would, I would recommend it. And the reason I don't give it a perfect score or a higher score, um, there's a lot. One of the things that like really bugged me about the game is how much dialogue and unskipable cut scenes unskipable dialogue there is, oh no. Um, you, you spend a good chunk of the, of the game just like listening to conversations or like watching a cut scene instead of like actually playing, um, And the one, the, the, the one thing with the gameplay that like really bugged me, uh, and I think I gotta blame, uh, Pokemon legend Aias for spoiling me with this mm-hmm. is, you know how in Pokemon, on the original Pokemon Games, whenever you encounter an enemy, a Pokemon, you like bump into them and then you get transitioned into like an arena and you have like an actual fight. Yeah. Uh, that's exactly how a one piece Odyssey works. But I would've almost preferred that it didn't, I would've preferred it be like, um, Archus where when you encounter a Pokemon that you wanna fight, you kind of just like have the fight there. And it happens because, you know, over the course of the game you have so many fights that it piles up every time that you have to like, transition into the arena. Uh, there's like a, a camera pan of the enemies and then you actually get to start fighting and. It's so blatantly obvious that even the deaths must have realized it cuz they included an option to speed up the combat, um, so that you can, you know, move faster through the encounters because it, it gets very tedious to, you know, you maybe just exploring and some enemy sees you and they run up to you, bump into you and now you're doing an encounter that you didn't care for. Oh, that's rough. Yeah. So, so that, that part, you know, that's part of why the game takes so long to do because you keep running into fight after fights because of that. Um, so yeah, you know, I wasn't a huge fan of that. I think it, it would've benefited them more if they didn't do something like that. If it was just like, oh, you ran into an enemy. You have the fight right there and then.

Okay. Um, final question on just games in general. Out of all the games we've talked about today, which one would you reco recommend the most to the listeners today?

Hmm. Ooh. Let's see. Um,

I know that's putting you on the spot a little bit.

Yeah. You know, we, we talked about a lot of good games today. Um, uh, let's see. So off the top of my head, I think the, the game that comes to mind is probably Metro Primary Master. Okay. Um, you know, it's, it's a, it's a great game. It's one of those classics that got a good remaster done. Um, and, you know, that metric prime one is such, it's such a great adventure, you know, especially, it's, it's, I think it's one of the, if, if not the only, uh, 3D shooter that I can think of that is structured like a metro. um, you know, you, it plays just like a metro venia with the exploration, the getting lost. Uh, you get to a door and you can't open it because you need a specific weapon or a specific item that you don't have. So you gotta do a lot of backtracking. So it's actually kind of neat to see that in a third person, oh, not third person, in a first person, sorry, uh, first person shooter, um, but in a 3D game as opposed to a 2d, uh, metro Veia. So that's pretty cool. Um, but then I remember Dead Space remake and I think if you're into horror, if you can tolerate, uh, a few heart attacks and a lot of anxiety, I think that is the game so far this year to check out. Cuz that remake was just chef's Kiss.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. All right. So I got one last thing for you. Do you have time for one last segment of the show? Of course. Course. All right. So this, I don't think you were a part of this last time you were on, it's our trivia portion of the show. It's the are. Oh yeah. It's okay. So it's a segment I like to call. Are you a pro nerd? And, and this is you getting five questions based on five random topics in Nerdom. I have a, right here on my separate screen right here. I have a, a wheel, a Will of destiny, so to speak, wherever this Okay. The wheel lands on is your category. That's where your question's gonna come from. So I've, I've interviewed a tons of people now since we, we've last spoken. And I, I'm just gonna let you know, only one person has entered the Pro Nerd Hall of Fame by answering all five questions. Correct. Okay. Only one.

So no, no pressure,

right? No, no pressure. But I've, I have a feeling you're gonna be the second, so. Let's see. On the last ca on the last question, you have a like, uh, option between like category A or B. I'm not gonna tell you which category is which, but you get to choose your own destiny here. Okay? So yeah, so a and afterwards you can, if you want to go back and see what, what the question for B was, you can completely do that. But all that said, are you ready? Let's do it. All right. So let's see. Spin the wheel. All right, let's see what the wheel lands on the li The wheel of destiny has landed on Pokemon Pokemon trivia spec. Okay. It, it could be easy. You, you never know. Um,

yeah, or it could be, uh, what's Pokemon 382

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I I wouldn't even ask you a question like that. I feel like that's doing you too dirty at that point. Alright. Right. But it, you know, in that sort of vein, it is asking you about a polka next question. Here we go. Of course. All right, so in generation one of Pokemon, there is a Pokemon by the name of Geo. Dude, this Pokemon was in the Pokedex at 74 Geod dude's. Last evolution is Goum. What is his Middle evolution?

Um, oh man, I, I can picture the Pokemon. I just can't think of the name. So it is, it is geo dude. And then Geo Dude evolves into, oh, man, it's a tricky one, isn't it? Ah, yeah. I, I, I, I can actually wait, can I even imagine the Pokemon, what is he? Because I, okay. So I, I remember the last one he looked, he's literally just a, a sphere. Um, okay, so, so the, the middle one is like geo dude, but he's actually, does he, does he have, he has multiple arms or just the two? I

can, I can say for sure, he has multiple

arms. Okay. Um, but I'm, you know, I'm not gonna, so I, I don't recall the name. I, I recall what the Pokemon looks like, but I don't recall the name. All right. Are you tapping out, dude? Oh, man. Yeah. What's, uh, give, what is

it? All right. He is tapping out. He is officially missed. The first one, the answer was

Graveler. Ah, graveler. Damn it.

That's right. Yeah. So you had Gdu Graveler, and then Goum and

Goum. Yeah. Ah, man, I, I am ashamed to all you Pokemon fans out there. I apologize. Nice. I, I was in, I was in huge on Pokemon

Yeah, it's all good. It's all the good. Now let's spin the wheel again and see where it lands.

All right. Come on. No, no whammy. No whammies, no whammy. Big money. Big

money. All right. It is officially landed on Lord of the Rings. Okay. Okay. All right. So, What, what entity was, what entity did the fellowship run away from in the minds of Moya, but had, but one member of the fellowship had to turn

back to fight. Oh. Um, the ball rug. Yeah. You

got it right. You got it right. Yeah.

Yeah. You shall no

It's so epic.

I love it. Yeah, it's so, oh, it's so

good. It really is. So you got one. You're one for one. How you feeling so far?

There we go. Okay. You know, I was, uh, I was, um, I felt a bit confident going in. I was like, okay, I, I know, I know my gaming trivia. And then we started off with Pokemon and I was like, this can't be good. Yeah, no, this can't be good at all. But then you said, you said generation one, and I was like, okay, that's like the one generation of Pokemon I genuinely recall. And I just, I couldn't remember Graveler. That's upsetting. It's a deep

dive. It is such a deep

dive. Yeah. But, but I'm, I'm glad you know, you said Lord of the Rings, and I was like, okay, I haven't, I haven't watched the movies in a hot minute. And you said the, the minds and you know, my, my mind immediately went to, um, Mina's Mork. Mm-hmm. where, you know, with the orgs and everything. And then you said, but the one, the one member turns around and I was like, oh, that has to be the ballroom. Mm-hmm.

Exactly. Exactly. I like it. All right.

All right. So one for two. One for two. All right.

So your next category is in the realm of DC.

Oh, okay. More of a Marvel person. But, uh, we're gonna, we're gonna play, we're

gonna play. We'll see, we'll see. All right. This DC uh, this DC villain is fueled by a path electrical rage that compels him to turn his old, his odd physique and awkward waddle into a well-dressed force for fear. What is this villain's name? His birth

name? Can you, can, uh, you cut out a little bit. Can you repeat that?

Okay. This villain is filled by a pathological rage that compels him to turn his odd physique and awkward waddle into a well-dressed force for fear. What is his villain name? As well as his birth name or his birth name? And to give you a little hint or rework the question, this villain is a Batman centric villain.

Okay. I, for some, I, I guess for some reason, I immediately started thinking about Batman, Batman villains, um, odd in. Awkward waddle. Is that what he said? Yes. He, he has a awkward waddle, um, hot physique. Um, would that happen Filled with rage too? I feel like that's important. Who's, who's like failed with rage, pathological rage. Pathological rage. That wouldn't be, uh, killer Crock, would it? Is that your final answer? Um, no, that's not my final answer. Um, his, uh, so, so I, I forget the name of the dude, but it's the, the guy who's made of mud and he can turn into other things. So he came to mind. Killer Crock came to mind. Um, I don't think it's Penguin. I doubt it's Joker. Um, and I don't know that many Batman, so. Sure. Let's go with Killer Crock as final answer. The answer was indeed Penguin. Oh, was it really? Ah,

man. He has an awkward physique and he waddles, you know, when he walks

because he That's true. You know what I, I guess I, I, that should've, that should've been a dead giveaway. I guess I didn't, when you said awkward waddle, I just like, didn't register. I was like, I don't know what that means. Yeah. He's built like a penguin,

you know? Yeah,

yeah. You're right. You're right. No, I, I see it now in retrospect. That makes a whole lot of sense, It's all

good. It's all good. Now, let's

really say hindsight is, uh, 2020. It really does. And 20 20 20 was a bad year, so I forgot about it.

It's all good. It's all good. We are now going into the realm of video games.

Okay. I, I'm good at those.

You know, the crazy thing about it is like, our statistician has informed me that video games statistician, Yeah. Has informed me that this is the hardest, it was second to hardest category that we, that the wheels lands on.

I, I think that makes sense, right? Because it's like just video games in general. You could ask me about a video game. I've never even heard of it. Yeah.

That, that, that one in Star Trek are like, no, like very few people. I don't think we've ever gotten a Star Trek like question

right. Yet so far. Okay. Well, I have, I don't know anything about Star Trek other than Captain Kirk. And that's And Spock. I know. Spock. Yeah. Yeah,

I'm right there with you. I'm right there with you. All right, what do we got? All right. So Pacman was designed to resemble which food? Pizza. You got it. You got it. How did you know that off the top of

your head that quickly? Uh, I, cuz I, uh, that's, that's one of those like trivia, or not a question, but like, uh, tad bits of like mm-hmm. a, a, a useless fact I've heard before. Okay. That, uh, you know, the, the create, I forget the creator's name, but he was eating a pizza pie and he took a slice out of it and was like, oh, that looks like a cool shape.

That is so dope. Okay, so you're two for two right now, and you're down to the final question. Do you want category A or

category B? Give me category A. Category A.

Okay. Yay. All right. All right. A it is, uh, I regret to inform you that category A is in the realm of Nintendo. Okay. Okay. All right. So here we go.

Give it to me. What do we got? What do we got?

All right, so, okay. This one could be easy or it could be hard depending on who you are. Okay. In 1988, you Coyo and his team managed to develop the first handheld video game console to com be compatible with interchangeable game cartridges. What was the name of that? Si.

I believe that was the n e s. Is that your final answer? Let's see. Nintendo. I know, I know the, is that, so there was a N E S, which was the Nintendo Entertainment System. There was also the Super Nintendo, which came after, but if we go back, interchangeable cartridge 64 was weighed later. And before that,

in 1988, Yoko and his team managed to create the first handheld video game console to be compatible with interchangeable game cartridges. What was it

called? I'm gonna go with any s final answer. All right. Unfortunately, in

your answer is incorrect. Damnit

the answer. What? What did they Yeah. Was the game boy. Oh, shit. I You did say handheld. I don't know why. Hand held. Mm-hmm. I don't know why in my mind I process handheld as in like a control or like a, yeah. I'm so stupid I, I think the

part that really like shook you cuz I saw the wheels start turning as soon as I said like game cartridges and I think you focused on that part. Yeah.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. I, uh, for sure I, I completely forgot the existence of the game.

It's all good. And we just had a gameboard direct

almost, you know? Yeah. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. It's all good. So, so to you, to the viewers at home, you can, you can see why I stick to playing games instead of like going on stuff like, who wants to be a millionaire? Cuz I, I would lose that the first

question. It's all good. It's all good. Would you like to see the road not taking and, and see what you would've gotten if you went to the other way?

Yeah. Uh, would, can you give me the question before without the answer? I wanna see if

I can get that one right. Yeah, yeah. I'm, I'm gonna give you the category and the question. Um, the category was the M C U trivia. The what? The Marvel, the M C U, the Marvel Cinematic

Omniverse. Oh, okay. Okay. I'm good at that.

Yeah. Yeah. I feel, I feel good about this one. All right. Okay. What's the question? What crime was Scott Lang arrested for breaking and entering? That is correct. If you wouldn't want that right, you would've got three, correct. Instead the two I,

I would've, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I A fun fact, I've actually been to a bunch of trivia for Marvel, um, and, uh, how you do so, okay, so fun. Uh, I'm gonna try to make it a quick story, but both of the time, so I've been to, I've been to a bunch of them, but there were two times that I went, uh, here in Philly and those two times I ended up getting second place. And I didn't get first place out of a technicality bs Oh, no. Um, the more prominent one. So, uh, this one that we went to, it was, uh, three of my friends. and the team that was in first place was a team of like 10 people. So like, you know, chances are they were cheating on their phones or whatever, but we were tied at the end. They made, they did one final question for the two teams, and the question was, what is the name of the blank initiative that kickstarted the Avengers project? You know, obviously they didn't say Avengers, but the, the kick started, the M C U, I think was the way they worded, but they, they asked us to fill in the blank, right? So they were like, what is the blank initiative? The thing is called the Avengers Initiative, right? Mm-hmm. they were asking for the blank. So on the paper we wrote Avengers. When they gave it back to us, they're like, oh, you guys got the question wrong? Uh, you guys got second place? I was like, what was the correct answer? He's like, oh, it was Avengers Initiative. And I obviously argued. I was like, well, you guys asked for the blank, right? It's not called the Avengers Initiative. Initiative, it's called the Avengers Initiative. Um, but the guy who was running the trivia was a guy that I went to college with and we didn't like each other. Oh, no. So as soon as he saw me, he's like, oh, yeah, no, he's, he's got it wrong. So, you know, I tried arguing it, but you know, the guy was in charge and he didn't like me, so he's like, oh yeah, no, you guys have it wrong. That's insane. Yeah. So we, we got cheated out of, uh,

$50. That is insane. That's a whole.

I, uh, yeah. Or like half a card of, uh, eggs. Yeah, half of them. Just, just the six Just the six, yeah. So that, that was really annoying. But you know, we, I, I know we killed it at the, at that one in the other trivia, so, you know, we, we got our M C U stuff pretty then. Oh, okay.

Okay. So lit. It's been so much fun having you on the show. I want to thank you for Oh, thank you. And thank you for being here. And thank you for spending so much time and just nerding out with me on this episode. before you go. Of course.

Thank you for

having me. No, man, you're more than welcome. You're always a, a high esteemed guest here. I, I love having you on the show. So, um, before we go though, where can the good people find you?

It's the good. People can find me on Twitter. Uh, at li on play, you can find me, uh, li on play is short for literally unplayable. Uh, and you can find me as li on play on pretty much any platform. You can find me on Twitter, you can find me on Twitch, you can find me, um, on Instagram, TikTok as well. We, we, I have been putting out some TikTok as of recent. Um, and then if you wanna join the Discord server, there's a link, um, which, you know, I guess if you, if you make it all the way to the Twitter page, there's a Beacons page in my bio, which has the links to everything Discord, YouTube. Um, YouTube is the only place that you can find me as literally unplayable. Um, but for all the other purposes lit on play

will do. Okay. And everyone, his, um, beacon will be in the, the description of this episode, so you can find me sweet right there. So,

perfect. Yep. So there you go. That's how you can find me. And yeah, Twitter, twitter's where I'm most frequently on, so if you ever wanna catch me, that's probably the best place.

All right. Thank you so much for being here on the show, and we'll catch you in the next house.

Peace. Sounds good. Thank you so much. Take care.

so that's a wrap for today's episode. I would like to send a special shadow and thank you to Lit Un Play for being a guest on the show. I also wanna let you know about the single player experience Discord server. It's the perfect place for single player gamers to talk about the good single player games they've been playing lately, and to get video game recommendations. Think of it kind of like a book club for single player gamers. The link to join will be in the description. Once you're in, feel free to share your video game backlog list. Talk about the good games you've been playing, or give your feedback on the show if you have a game that you think should be recommended or that you think I should talk about. Let me know in the single Player Experience Discord server. I'll see you there. Before we go, I just want to thank you so much for listening to today's episode. Stay safe, stay gamming, and I hope to catch you in the next one. Peace.