Press B 231: 2025 Game Releases Are Wild!

In the year 2025. Welcome, everybody, to another episode of Press Me to cancel your favorite retro gaming podcast. Maybe not this week. This week we are talking about our. I guess our favorite picks, the games to look forward to. Games we're psyched and hyped for that are coming out in 2025. At least we hope they do come out in 2025. We'll see. There's a few we'll talk about. I'm looking at you, Metal Gear Delta.

That's nothing. Silk Song says hi to Metal Gear Delta. Games aren't going to release until 2020 35. Unfortunately not alone. I'm joined by two good friends to talk about the games of next year. Chart, how you doing this week? I'm excited about this episode. There's a lot of stuff that I was not thinking about until you put the list in front of our faces and I went, oh, oh, my wife is not excited, but I'm excited.

No, it's. It's. I'm gonna say I thought 2023 was gonna be a packed year. And it was. I thought 2024 might be pretty decent, and it was stellar year. And it just looks like 2025 also gave me a banger of a year. But also we got Wolf. Wolf, how you doing this week? I'm doing all right. My selection is going to be looking a little forward and a little back, so somewhat retro.

It qualifies some of the ones on your list. And I was like, good. I knew Wolf was going to come through and pick those ones because I felt bad not picking them.

It's. It's me and Chart who are going to pick the modern ones because we just got that FOMO disease we can't shake. I don't anticipate anything different in next year. Okay. So let's. I guess we'll get right into it. We are talking about games that coming out next year. I got some trailers that the guys have provided. I'll try and pull them up as we talk about them and just. Yeah, it just. There's a lot coming out next year, more than I thought. And that's with, like, the Switch 2, for example, not even officially announced yet. Like, this is just games coming out for PC, Xbox, PlayStation. It's a wild list. Who wants to start? Jar, do you want to start first?

Sure, I'll go for it. That's fine. Well, I'm going to start out with one that is not technically. It's not technically next year, but it's close enough to be next year. It actually comes out next month, but it's. It's right on the cusp and I'm really freaking excited about this. I really wanted to talk about this game because it's unique in the fact that it is a VR game that's coming out. This is strictly for VR only. And it's in a universe that has had hit and misses and hit and misses throughout the gaming environment. But from the looks of this one, it's very much on the cusp of the last good installment for the video. Well, I guess it's not the last one, is it? Because there's been like three since then.

There's always more room for one more.

Yeah, no kidding. It's your. It's like Chris Thanksgiving dinner. And there's just enough room for just enough of everything. This son. We're going to talk about Alien Rogue Incursion. Alien Rogue Incursion is basically a Survivor horror type game, which you all know that that's my jam. But this one takes place in. Solely in virtual reality. This is a VR game. So you put on the helmet, you. You get face hugged, you get chased around and you get to fight off aliens in a VR environment. And there's nothing more exciting and thrilling than to me as to be on a, you know, 1979 designed set of a sort of Nostromo. It's not the Nostromo, but you get what I'm saying. Like a ship of that. That look, right? And trying to survive yourself against a horde of aliens. Now you do have. You do pack heat, you do have some weaponry and it's not like alien isolation where you can hide in lockers. But to me this seems like a really, really cool concept and a really fun thing and I like to scare the hell out of myself. So this seems like the perfect opportunity to do so. So we'll be seeing that. We'll be seeing that at the beginning of December, I think it comes out December 9, which is pretty early on in the year, so. Or the month. So that's going to be sick.

Wait, is that December this year? December next year? Yeah, I said it was going to be. It's close to the next year, but it's not quite next year. You know what? It's after the Video Game Awards cut off. I'll allow it. Thank you. I did discuss this in mps, but again, Jake doesn't listen to me, so that's fine. No. Do we just flag her and disregard for the rules? 2025 episode let's Talk About Games End of the year that's fine.

This is an honorable mention for 2025. How's that sound in the Venn diagram of GP's mind? It's. It's an honorable mention. It's a hidden gem. As well as a game coming up next year. Very much. I'm excited for it. I need more alien VR games. I think that's. That's a. That's going to be a trip. That's going to be real rough.

I just want more good alien games. Right. It's a franchise that's fantastic. I just wanted to be good in games. Alien isolation was fantastic. Terrifying, but it's fantastic. But yeah, you're right. When it's been hit or miss, mostly misses, I think over the years. So I'm hoping this one is good. Getting face hugged in VR is not something I want to do. But it looks cool. I gladly watch you go through that pain. But that's. And you will, because I'm sure I'll play it. Yes.

So, yeah, that looks interesting to me. But I don't know that I could do that in VR. It was bad enough doing it on a monitor.

You're not wrong. It is going to be a totally different ball game. It's. There's something about VR knowing that it's fake but still feeling like I played Walking Dead. Saints and Sinners. And that game has a silence to it as you're creeping around town that it is stressful to turn around and see a digital zombie in your face trying to get you that you didn't. That wasn't there like two seconds ago. It's. It really messes with the whole sensory perception thing and the idea of hearing the hissing and the. The sounds we hear in alien isolation. But in my ears with the mask on. Oh, it just sounds like a thrill ride.

With VR. It heavily revolves around the sound design. Right. Like assuming they get the sound design right, like Alien Isolation did, where you hear the humming and whirring of the ship and then you hear the skittering and all that. Oh no.

That's what I'm hoping is that they'll drop you in a. They're not going to throw any background music or anything. Unless it's like, you know, the. The panic Violin or something that you hear just real, real quick snippet of it and then they throw you into the. The. And it's just you breathing and you walking around. It's part of the reason why I've liked so many of the. Nor more recent. Even the remakes that have come out, they don't throw anything in there except your surroundings. Instead of having some kind of music unless it's fitting. It seems like they're really nailing it with the sound design these days.

You know what I want to see for that? I want to see the. The motion detector that they have in the movies. Because you're in VR. I want the idea of like looking at your hand, the motion detector, hearing that beep, motion beep. And then panically looking around the hall, hallway you're in for where the alien is. That will be, like you said, is very immersive, for sure.

And they have it. You. There's a. There's a video of you having a gun in one hand and the motion sensor in the other. Looking at, you know, looking around, it's beeping and you see the little dots starting to multiply. It seems cool again. Alien. Alien always seems like a cool subject to make some kind of horror survivor game out of, which is Alien Isolation, which is coming out in two years. We'll talk about that when we talk about games. Wait for in 2026. But they always just. They overdo it with the alien Marine aspect where it's just guns flying and it, it just takes away from the whole. Now, don't get me wrong, Aliens is a great movie, but it's just not what I look for in my games. I want to be. I want to be stressed out and not. I'll take a flamethrower, just burn the. Out of everything. So, yeah, go in that direction.

Playing an Alien game, you want Alien one, not Alien two. Right. You want, you want the scare, you want the tension. You don't want to just go in guns blazing and, you know, if somebody's done, they're done. It's. Yep, that's exactly what I want.

I get that because, like the best characters in Aliens was never the Marines, really. I mean, I like Aliens too, but it's. It's always been Ripley. Right. It's always like the, the would be scientist that gets ambushed. That's. It's the average person. The fear of the average person fighting against the aliens is the fun part. So I'm with you there. Yeah. Like, even the newer ones, it's not really about the Marines. I don't believe. Right. Like Prometheus and stuff has, you know, bodyguards, but it's mostly scientists and researchers.

Yeah, well, even the bodyguards got taken out like the first, the first 10 minutes of the movie. And then you had to deal with the scientist. So it was like, you know, no one is safe It's. It's just. It's a really cool concept, especially to throw that in. Virtual reality would be something I've been looking forward to. I've been trying to find mods for alien isolation in VR and I just hear it's clunky and broken. So actually having a game intended to do that makes me like, let's freaking go all about it.

I also feel like VR is not. I was hoping it would have hit its stride by now. There's not very many must have VR games. Right. You could probably count on one hand the games that are must hit, must play experiences. And Steam is probably the best place to play VR games at the moment, I think. And I'm glad to see at least one good release looking or what appears to be a good release for VR next year. I think last year the only one I liked was Tetris effect, and I don't even think that was last year. That might have been 2023. I'm looking forward to dusting off my headset to try something new next year. Hopefully it's not just scary stuff.

Join me in aliens. Just shit your pants simulator for me. No, I'm good. All right. That's a good one. That's a Good one for 2024. Ish. 25. 2025. What do you got? 1988. 86. All right. The one I've been looking forward to the longest is Mariachi Legends. Me too. Oh, okay. That's one that I'm looking at too. This is a Metroidvania put together by an indie studio. I think it's the same. The same studio that did Nine Souls, if I'm not mistaken. That's a game I want too.

I didn't know they were part of that. That's sick. I feel like this is the case, if I'm not mistaken. But I'll check my palace for you. Talk. Apparently the game is made by. I don't know if it's a Mexican studio, but definitely a Latin American studio. And so the game will actually have an option to where all the dialogue is in Spanish. Okay.

Which is really cool. So it's like going hard on the Mexican culture and immersion and everything. And then not only is it just like you're a detective, but also apparently you can turn into like this mariachi hero. But then there's break points where you do cooking. So there's like a cooking minigame. As all good games have. It's great.

But, oh, man, the setting to this looks super cool. The acting sounds top notch in the trailers. And then I. I gotta say, like, the way they try and portray it that, like, it sounds a little like a telenovela and I love that. Okay. Yeah.

There's been a. There's been like an uptick and a game that I'm going to talk about here in a little bit with the. Throwing in the live action with the retro look like cutscenes. It seems like that's. It's funny that, because again, there's gonna be one that I talk about here a little bit that has a similar setup. But I. I really like the addition of making it look retro and then throwing in the live action videos of the people in it. It just kind of adds a whole another level to it. This. This game, Mariachi Legend looks really cool.

Yeah. And I don't. Long ago and I was digging around for it. Yeah. I don't know if it's gonna have live action cutscenes actually in the game or if that's just for the trailer. Just a trailer.

I won't be upset either way. But I mean, it seems really cool. Like, I'm with you. Like, that's a good way to sell it and sort of lend the credence to it and give some production value to the trailer. Instead of just having an animated trailer, they went for the live action shots. And it sort of connects you a little bit to the characters in that way, I think. But I'm really excited about this. The music in this game. Just what I've heard from the trailers. Sounds awesome. I am all in on this because it's like heavy Dia de los Muertos theme and I'm all about that.

Yeah, that's cool. So this is the studio that did. I just looked it up. Nine Years of Shadow. They've done a few other ones, I think as well. Yeah. And Nine Years of Shadow, I actually played that last year. Not a very long game, but a pretty solid Metroidvania. And the big standout for that one was the music was great in the pixel art. Like, top notch. Like some of the best pixel art I've seen on Steam in terms of games. And Mariachi Legend looks even better than Nine Years of Shadow. And it looks like they've kind of chosen a theme and kind of gone into it really deep. So I'm excited for this one as well. If it's anything like Nine Years of Shadow, I'm all in. It's really great. I'm a sucker for pixel art in the modern age. Especially when it looks like this. This looks like Symphony of Knight level of pixel art, but a lot more fluid, a lot more frames of animation, a lot more effects. Yeah, like style. Right. Really big style. So I'm really hyped for this one as well. That's awesome. That's a good one.

That's a good one. Definitely top notch. Did they give it that one when it's coming out? Did they say when it's coming out? No, I don't think so. I. I feel like it had one earlier this year and that just kind of fell away for one reason or another. So now it's just 2025. Okay. Yeah, I've had that on my.

I'm gonna say here real quick because I don't want to mention anywhere else, but we're on the topic of Metroidvanias, but Silksong, again, my choice are Fantasy Critic this year. I'm not going to even talk about next year because as far as I'm concerned, that game only exists in my imagination. That was. That was another Metroidvania I was looking forward to for 2024. I don't know where the hell that game is. So hopefully this one comes still in the oven. Still cooking. Yes.

Chard, you made me check. We are two days shy of Mariachi Legends being on my wishlist for a year. Wow. I remember we talked about this actually. I think last year. Game awards last year. I think it was more the announcements. Yeah, I think it was supposed to be. I'm interested to see what mine says. And then it just. The release date disappeared and they get asked about it now and then and they're just like when it's ready. Okay, thanks guys. As long as they don't Silk Song and I'll be good.

I can respect when it's ready. Just don't tell me about it five years in advance. That's all. That's all. That's all I ask. A year. Two years is fine. Three years. Okay, fine. But if it's more than three years, you better be Elder Scrolls in terms of your release window. Otherwise. Just teasing. That's all it is. You told me about this on the 23rd of November. So right around Thanksgiving. And I have. I've have it. I've had it on there since I want to.

I want to mention this November mentions in the comments. Who remembers that Silk Song was supposed to be a DLC for Hollow Knight? Didn't I bring that up last week? I think you did.

I think so. But before that I didn't even realize. It was so long ago that Hollow Knight came out and just the two DLCs back to back and then the Silksong hype. Like there was a time where I'm like, I better play Hollow Knight because it's going to come out in six months. I have to finish Hollow Knight before I can play Silksong. I didn't realize I had like, you know, two years for the Sisyphean games to get through first. It's crazy. Plenty of time.

It's nuts. Anyway, so my pick. I got deep into it, but no, I have not beaten it yet. The game is hard. Although now that I've beaten Elden Ring, I can probably do it, no problem. You do any. Every game looks easy compared to Elden Ring. Did the same thing with Mega Man 1. You beat Mega Man 1 and then you beat it on Mega Man 1.

In every goddamn platform it's ever existed on. Yeah, I got evidence. I can do anything. I can beat Mega Man 1. This is nothing. I'm a pro gamer. Come on. Street Fighter 6. Fuck you. I got this. Those were funny mps.

My pick is going to be. It was called Project L and it's League of Legends. I mean everybody knows about League of Legends. Toxic fandom aside, it's one of the most popular and I think quite a bit of fun Dota esque online game. But it's also like a media empire at this point. Right? The point where I think they just had their. Their equivalent of world or their world championships. They had Linkin park perform at the League of Legends Nationals or whatever the hell it was. Lincoln park was hired to do a song drop at this thing. Like it's. It's huge. Huge in a bizarre way. So there's like a hit anime called Arcane that's on Netflix that's getting a second season. There's. There's all kinds of crazy stuff. I heard they're trying to do an MMO that's in the works, although that's probably a decade away. But they're also working on a fighting game. And not just any fighting game, but a two on two tag fighting game. So when I think of that. Hold on. Second, I'm trying to get the trailers off the screen for the audio listeners. So not just any kind of fighting game, but a tag based fighting game. And I love those. And that goes back to me how much I loved Marvel vs. Capcom and Street Fighter vs. X Men, all that good stuff. Chardonnay, you and I did an episode recently on that Capcom compilation and I'm telling you, one of the reasons I was hyped for that is because this game is coming out. I didn't realize how soon. But next year they have done a few alphas. I think they've done some demos at Evo, I believe it was. They did a demo. So people have had some. A little bit hands on time with some of the characters. But it's a two on two fighting game, tag fighting game in the League of Legends universe. So they're pulling characters from league. I can't even tell you how many characters are in league these days. Is dozens of characters. So they have a wide pool of things they could pull from if they want or do something new. Just. But this, the idea of crazy and wild and crazy characters, tag assists, you know, swapping back and forth, the whole nine yards. It looks hectic. It looks a lot of fun. Everything I like about Marvel versus Capcom, but newer characters, I guess so it looks really solid. The graphics look great, the music sounds okay. I'm pretty hyped for this one. Will they play it? I don't know. The Street Fighter 6 kind of turned me off. But I still want to see what this game becomes. Because the only thing I don't like about League of Legends is the chat when you're playing those 60 minute games, right? It gets very toxic. Or at least it used to when I last I played years ago. But like nowadays, November says he thinks 170 characters, if it's that high. That's insane. That's ridiculous.

That was a lot of folks. League's been around. League's been around for a long time though, right? But yeah, the big issue with this, it was called Product L and then they decided to call it 2xko. Which, yeah, you're right, November. How the hell do you even pronounce that? It's a dumb name for a game I'm pretty excited for, I guess. Have you guys seen this one or I know about it or.

Yeah, I was watching it after you posted about it because I. I went through the list and I of course went, that's a weird name. Let's see what this one's about. And I went, oh, it's. It's some. It's a fighting game. And then of course Jake picked it as one of the ones he wanted to talk about. And I went, well, Jake's into his 2v2v2 fighting games, so this isn't a big surprise. Might as well be Tetris. But I didn't play a lot of leagues. I play very little leagues. Way back in the day. But I think it looks beautiful. I think dark look. Artwork looks cool. Looks smooth. Looks like the fighting styles are going to be kind of neat. And again, if you got. I like it when they give you a ton of characters to pick from. I want to be able to play a fighting game and play every single character, not be able to do it in one night and come back to it later. It's one of the reasons I like like Marvel versus Capcom 2 and 3. There's so many choices to play with that. It's. It's pretty neat. Ironically, I saw on our list that they're coming out with Marvel's Fighting Collection 2 next year at some time. So thought that was kind of fun.

Yeah, that one's going to have Capcom versus SNK2. And that was the one I really liked when I was younger with a Dreamcast. That game was solid. Yeah, that's pretty. It's pretty good as well. So if you're like a fighting game fan for the last year or so to even next year, you're just. You're feasting. Right? We've had so many great fighting games from new Mortal Kombat, Tekken 8, Street Fighter 6. Marvel vs Capcom came back.

Isn't Guilty Gear getting another release sometime next year? That I thought I saw.

Not Guilty Gear. More dlc. I think they have two more characters in the current season. Guilty Gear has always been kind of strange. Usually when they have a hit game, they. They do a bunch of characters and then they usually do like a rerelease, but they update things. Like there's Rev and Rev X. I think it was called for the last one. I think they've stuck with a season model for this, this, this game so far. Which is fine because Guilty Gear Strive, even though it's a couple years old, still looks amazing. Like Strive. It just looks great and still an awesome game. And adding more characters is not a bad thing. Even if I'm not a fan of paying money per fighter. But at least it's not too, too bad. I think ARC system works. I'm trying to. What they're doing now. They did some work on Blazblue or Blaze Boo. Is that Blazblue is theirs. They did another fighting game. Like they get. They do their own games, but then they also get contracted out by other companies to help with their games. Right. That's why they did Street Fighter Z Fighters a number of years ago. And that's why I think that game did so well. Because ARC is amazing. So it'll be Interesting to see another 2D game that's not done by Ark. Right. This is done by the League folks. And it's good to see some competition because yeah, even though it's still 3D models, that graphical 2D style looks really on point.

It's a solid drive. I mean I know they were doing the 3D fighting styles for a long time and we had the polygons and you know, like the doa's and the Tekkens and whatnot. But I don't know, I've always, I'm just partial to the side scrolling sprites. I'm always a bigger fan of the 2D fighting style, so. But maybe that's just from me growing up with it and playing it all the time in the arcades. It just reminds me of good times at the arcade. So yeah, anything that looks like that works for me.

To me there's something magical about playing a fighting game where the characters look cartoony rather than hyper realistic. Yeah, like, I don't know, there's. It's. It feels more fun, it feels more frenetic. It feels like I don't want to on anybody liking Mortal Kombat, but to me like you know, 10 year old me, oh crap, this is great. There's gore and all that. 40 year old me, I'm like, eh, I'd rather have more style. That said, I think I had heard of 2xko. I'm going back to before because I didn't get to jump in. But I, I am grumpy old man and I instantly, once I see something is related to League of Legends, I'm like, nah, I'm out. Because I had such a bad time with League, right. That I just. Yeah, when Arcane was announced I was like meh, there was some RPG based on one of little furballs from League of Legends. Eh, didn't care. You know.

Carries the title. Like if it has League.

If I, if I were to go back and play it now, I bet you I couldn't recognize 90% of those characters. It's been a number of years since I played it, but I still dug the world they're building. I just had to shut off chat. That's all it is. So that's okay. I don't know, we'll see. I mean, I mean that this. And then if this does. Well, I know they did mention MMO. I'm always interested in MMOs. That's a hard market to get into. It is so dominated by Warcraft and Final Fantasy 14. I don't know what that looks like. But I'm all in for a fighting game. So, Chard, how about you? What's your next pick? Oh, sorry, Wolf, Go ahead.

I was going to say, I do absolutely believe that in the value proposition of the League of Legends title, I am just not the audience. But also, I want to say you guys were talking about, like, fighting games. SEGA announced that Virtua Fighters coming out of retirement too. Oh. Before we jump onto the next title, I wanted to throw that in there as well. Nice. They have to. Yeah, I know, right?

Like, in terms of 3D fighters, there's just. There's Tekken 8. Really? Because that has 3D movement. There was November and chat mentioned DoA, but it's not likely because the team left the company. And that's the same deal with Soulcalibur. Actually, I think Soulcalibur is the same studio. A lot of those folks left as well. So we're not going to see a soul caliber or DOA or anything else. It's a 3D fighter for who knows how long. So it's nice to see SEGA continue that renaissance and start bringing back their older titles back or their franchises back. Right. So we know they're doing, like, Golden Axe and Shinobi and all that stuff. Crazy Taxi is coming back. But Virtua Fighter had always had, like, a really hardcore audience, so it'll be neat to see what that looks like, if anything looked damn pretty. Because that game is always great.

Yeah. I'm also interested to see what SEGA does with it. Given, you know, Virtua Fighter sort of spawned Shenmue, sort of spawned like a dragon. I want to see what sort of funk, like a dragon rubs back on Virtua Fighter going forward. Okay. You know, that's one crossover I want to see. I want to see Yakuza characters in a fighting game. It might as well be right. Why can't Hero and Majima in a game? Why wouldn't Virtua Fighter be the perfect opportunity to introduce.

That's what I'm saying. I imagine them not putting Kiryu and Majima in a new Virtua Fighter game. Yeah. Like, they will sell like hotcakes just because of those two characters. Right. So you know what? He cares about Jackie, Sarah and Akira anymore. Like, it's been too long. They gotta have some of that modern heat and they'll bring it. So there you go. I can imagine. Is it just the fighting game? The stages would be like Streets of Tokyo or Kamurocho. Wrong city.

But Camero and Then there's a bike. You can pick it up and you can whale away at the bike for a bit. Scooter Tree. Just the destructible terrain as you wheel his weapons. I would be all over that kind of game. That's something I'd like to see them do. Nice. I mean, if there's a pirate spin off of Yakuza, then why not a fighting game, I guess, right? Yeah. Hawaiian pirate or some. Yeah, that's actually. Actually that's coming up next year, too. I know.

Crazy year chart. How about you? What's your next pick?

All right, we're gonna keep it dark and gritty and. Well, most of my picks are dark and gritty. Actually, as I'm looking through them. I don't think there's one. No, there is a colorful. Is one colorful one in there. So we're good. But all the ones that I picked are always going to be evil and demonic and scary. And this. This isn't so much scary in the sense of like, alien VR is scary. This is scary for the things that you're going up against, because I'm picking Doom. The Dark Ages. This game looks freaking badass. And if there's nothing that Chard likes more is to feel like a badass when he's playing video games. Have said that on numerous episodes of this wonderful podcast that I adore being a just terror for the things that I am fighting. They give you a shield with a goddamn razor blade on it. Your typical weaponry. I like the dual wielding of the. Of the shield and the gun and all this stuff, and you're fighting the same demon.

It's doom.

It's doom. You can't go wrong with Doom. Like, it's just what they what have be. What Bethesda has done with doom has been absolutely spectacular from 2016 all the way up to now. Doom guy is the man, and it's just awesome to see what they're going to do with this. It is a. It's the same thing, but with different sauce. It's like it's still a hot dog, but we put ghost pepper sauce on it instead. Like, I don't know. You can't go wrong with doom. In my eyes, you just got to go out there and kick ass. You get to ride a dragon for and blow fire at. I mean, you're shooting. This weapon has a skull grinder and it's shooting the shrapnel of skulls at the things. Who thinks of this? Who's lying Chainsaw shield.

Yeah. This thing is fantastic. It is we're about to. I'm about to bring it around to the beginning again. But it's basically first person Rygar with guns. Exactly. It's like Captain America pissed off. I mean it's. It's the disc armor. Right. So I love it. I think it's going to be great. I love Medieval time games and to put Doom guy into a medieval hell just seems really neat. So I'm all about it. I'm sold. I will be buying that on first week of release.

Well, I mean, I kind of want to know what. Go ahead. We're not A.I.

You can tell what the lore is. I'm kind of curious what the lore is going to be because it's not distant past. It's obviously future. It's the Doom guy in high tech armor in a sci fi setting. He gets shot from a station in space down to the planet. But it's clearly got the medieval Ages theme going on. I know it doesn't matter in his doom and I don't want to think too hard, but I am curious what the lore and the story of this is going to be and how it ties into the previous games, if it does at all.

Well, Doom is always best when it's just over the top absurd. Right. Exactly right. So that's already winning combination there. But I mean look. Army of Darkness. Right? They did it too. It worked. So Doom could do it if army of Darkness could do it. Like some of my favorite reviews of Doom on Steam has been it's a survivor horror game but they are surviving me and I am the horror. I love it. That's a good way of describing it. So great. So yeah. Doom, Doom. The Dark Ages.

When I. When I saw this being sold, I was. I was all in immediately. Did you play the last one? Eternal? I did, I did. Did you finish it? Like how was that?

I've not finished it yet, but I. I played the hell out of it. It's. It's up in the air for possibly being a sis fee in game next year. It's one that I would love to complete because it is a lot of fun. But I don't know if I should follow. I did Doom 3 last year and I did, you know, a new one this year, which I do, like every other year. Do a Doom game. Is that's kind of where we're going with that. So at least you're playing a good one this time.

Yeah, no, there. It's great. I just. It's one of those things where I want to play it on my PC and I just haven't had time because it works great on the Steam deck too. I just have to finish it.

Yeah, yeah, I played the. The lot. The one before that, I think it was 2016's doom and that was solid. That was a great time. And I've been waiting to kind of have time to play Eternal, but I have a huge backlog already. But Eternal. Eternal looked really rad. So I'm. I'm kind of curious about this new one as well. It's definitely. You're right, Wolf. Absurdist in all the best ways. Sorry. I had hot sauce at dinner and I'm like, Dr. Pepper has given me.

The worst hiccups I've had in a long time. So that's what happens when you go out. The ghost Pepper hot sauce is a mistake. If we don't get a Doom guy jumping an actual shark in the next three games, I'll be disappointed. Same. Same. That has to happen. Give him a motorcycle and everything. So perfect. Okay, Wolf, what's your next pick? Can I guess? It's gotta be Sequen. Yeah, it's suicide Remaster.

This was the one that I was like, someone's gotta pick this. I'm going to feel bad if I don't pick this.

I've been looking forward to this one for a while too. Initially, it was supposed to come out in March or February of this year or something. So it got way pushed back. And it looks kind of silly because when you look at the gameplay for this, it's got these HD textures on everything. The world map, the 3D battles, everything's HD except for the character sprites. The character sprites are the good old fashioned 32 bit pixelated sprites. And I love it. Like, there's something silly about it, but it also just kind of works because they're like, yeah, we're going to update everything except the sprites. Profile portraits are really pretty. Like, you can see all this detail on everything except them. And I don't know, there's something that takes me back to the PS1 era for that.

Right?

I like it. I think it's cool to polish everything around it. I mean, the Pixel remasters kind of did the same thing with Final Fantasy, where it was like, polish everything around it, but we're to keep the sprites very pixelated now. They cleaned up the pixels, of course, but that was one of the things that brought me into it to begin with. Even though I have my beef with buying a game that I've had four of the versions of. But to do the same thing to Soy C where it's. Everything's clean, the portraits are nice, like you said, everything's cleared up. But the sprites look exactly the same. That's just. That's just tugging on the old nostalgic heart strings. That's.

Yeah. Something that I was like, I gotta look into getting that thing when it comes out. That looks cool. So in all the little army battles, you got these stupid little lemming looking dudes running around fighting each other in a really HD little landscape. It's silly. I love it. It's perfect. No, I dig it.

This is a game where if they replace the sprites with 3D models, I don't think anybody would want to play this. I think the nostalgia is definitely like the 3D backgrounds with the sprites and if you go away from that, you're kind of ruining the nostalgia. Absolutely. Clean up the 3D. I mean, this is PlayStation, right? Originally.

Yeah. Clean up the 3D models and stuff. Sure. But you got to leave those sprites and they. They're sprites, but they still look really great. The pixel art was always good for this, right? Yeah. Is this the game series that had like a bazillion characters you could recruit? 108? Yep. League of Legends over here. That's crazy. 108, all right.

Yeah. Well, it's based on. I can't remember the name, but it's a Chinese legend where it was the 108 Stars of Destiny or something like that. And so that's why you get 108 characters and you can't play as all of them. Some of them are just shopkeepers or chefs or whatever, but usually end up being able to use like 60 to 80 of them in combat, I think.

Wow, that's nuts. Yeah. That was a. That was a franchise I always want to try out. Like, I have such a rough time playing JRPGs these days, but if I were to go back and play One, that might be the one, I would. Try to play that for years. And I've been trying. Loved. I've been trying to cut out time to jump into it and play because it's. It's always looked very, very good to play.

I loved 1 and 2, but 2's Western translation was garbage. There was all sorts of things that were just mistranslated. My favorite example is there was a headgear piece that was translated as circuit instead of circlet. Circlet, yeah. Right. Is it a new translation team that they set up for this one?

I Do believe. Yeah. It's all a fresh retranslation of the games, so I appreciate that as well. I think given the fact that the original two did hit really hard emotionally back then, going back for a retranslation of them, it's going to be that much better. Right? Was it, I guess, Chard, you played Valentine's 6 pixel remaster, was the translation for that still the original from the snes like Ted Woolsey, or did they change that one? I thought I heard they changed it.

I. It seemed like it was a little bit different from the original. It seemed like there was some more clarification. Did you like that they changed it or do you think the original was better?

No, I thought. I didn't. It didn't bother me enough to be, you know, that I hung myself up on it. I. I think I was more excited that they, like, they're saying this is the line we've been waiting for, this line or whatever. And seeing all the Kafka skin or KFK's Lions about, you know, the end of the world and all that, it just. It played out really well.

Like I'm thinking if they ever did a remake again, I guess, of Final Fantasy 4, if they don't have that Spoony Bard line, I'd kind of be upset. I kind of like the hokey translations for some of these classic games. Some of those I don't have that nostalgia for Suika then messed up and what it was like. Right? Yeah.

Yeah. Like you look at Final Fantasy 4, it's just not the same without the Spoony Bard comment. Right. There's some train which you still can do. So sometimes there's like jokes or references that are very dated to the time and so. Right. For that I can appreciate a modern retranslation, especially if they leave out the tongue in cheek pop culture joke references kind of thing. Then it makes it more timeless. Right? Yeah. No, I'm with you there.

Speaking of, since you've mentioned Soy Kudin, next year we're also getting another rpg. This is not on my list, but I had to. Yeah, it wasn't on mine either, but I just thought of it. I think you're thinking the same thing as me.

Lunar Remastered Collection is coming out and they did the exact. They're doing the exact same thing that you and I are. Are all about, except they didn't really clean up. The only thing they really looks like they spruced up is the. The cutscenes. The. The anime style cutscenes that they have. They look spectacular. But it is, like, still the same base sprite work, even though even the level design around it still looks like the base game sprite work. But, like, everything's smoother. The attacks seem like they're a little bit smoother in battle, but the. The anime cutscenes that they already had in the original look stellar.

Yeah, yeah. That and those are getting a full retranslation as well because Victor Ireland would not sell the translation rights to them for anything more. Anything less than what I understand to be kind of an overpriced amount. So that's. That's an odd one because, like, for me, it was never the story, like the translation for that game that hit with me. It was always the. The music. And the music was really good. Oh, yeah, yeah.

The opening cutscenes were amazing. Like, definitely, if you were to have a Sega cd, that was the game I think you show off for the Sega cd, if you're an RPG fan. Was that. It was because the videos were so great. Yeah. I wouldn't mind checking that one out too, next year. That's. Man, you know, sometimes I don't mind a remaster. I don't mind a remaster. In this case. It's not, you know, $10 Horizon Zero Dawn Forehead DLC. So don't mind a remaster once in a while.

Yeah, 10 bucks. Okay. That's a burger. And I'm saving money on not eating out, so. Fair.

Okay. My. I think of me next. Yeah, let's go with. Okay, you picked a video too. I got to show this video off. I'm going with. We talked briefly for a minute about the switch 2. God, sometimes I just. I hate Nintendo, but I love them. They have not officially announced the switch 2. They keep referring it to the upcoming. Or the. What's it they call it? The replacement for the Switch. Or the successor to the Switch is what they keep calling it. They won't call it switch 2. They won't call it Super Switch. They barely acknowledge the console is coming. We all know a console is coming. And at the start of this year, we did this fantasy critic thing, which, for those who don't know, Fancy Critic is kind of like fantasy football, but with game releases. And at the beginning of the year, they populate the list of what games they think are going to come out that year. And it was assumed that Switch 2 would come out this year in 2024, and they would have to launch with a Mario game. So we were doing the draft for picks. I saw. I saw Untitled 3D Mario platforming game. I'm like, I'm taking that one because there's going to be a 3D Mario coming out in 2024 with the Switch 2. And it's going to be amazing. It's Mario. How could it not? Well, I mean, it never came out and we never got the Switch to. In fact, Nintendo didn't even acknowledge the goddamn system until like two months ago.

So 2025, Metroid Prime 4. Thinking that we were going to get that one too, I risked a little bit on that one. But that's coming out next year, I think. Right. So yeah, only got a video and an announcement, so I'm already one step ahead.

Yeah, it'll be end of next year and that'll be interesting to see what that looks like. But yeah, Switch 2 is supposed to come out next year or at least they're going to give an announcement next year. I don't know. But if it does come out, the way I see it, the last Mario game we had, and it was a good one, was Mario Wonder, but it was a 2D platformer. They're not going to do a 2D platformer for the Switch 2. They're not going to do Mario Kart 9 because they just did a Mario Kart 8 DLC that was epic in size. It doubled the tracks. I don't see a Smash ultimate sequel anytime soon. I just don't see any other kind of Mario game coming out except Back to basic 3D Mario platforming game like we have with Odyssey. And Odyssey was all the way back in like 2017. I want to say that was like when the Switch first came out. So I think we're more than due for a new 3D Mario game. The closest we've got, I think was the Super Mario 3D world. They added a browser's Fury expansion to it and that was more freeform 3D. But it wasn't an Odyssey replacement. Right. So I'm looking forward to whatever the hell Nintendo does for a 3D Mario platforming game. I loved Odyssey. I thought Odyssey was really great. I liked the bite sized moons. I loved how you would go into the wall and it would be 2D pixel Mario and how every suit you could wear in the game had a pixel sprite to match. I thought that was really clever. The music was fantastic.

You're talking all this stuff. All right. Yeah, you gotta show the video. Yeah, hold on, hold on. I'll play the video. It's great for an audio podcast. Yeah, sorry, I keep talking. I don't. Shut up. The audio listener, Charlie gave me a video of 82 of Mary Brothers one as a artist representation of what the 3D Mario platformer would look like. Love you. Sinister. But yeah, I. To be fair, there were parts of Mario, the last 3D Mario game that kind of looked like this.

It did, yeah. Yeah. The same style you would jump on the world in the hidden areas onto the wall and it'd be 2D perspective and it would be Mario 1 looking sprites. It was fantastic. It was really neat. And like I said, all the costumes of the game had a 2D pixel sprite. Enough that I wish that they would have brought out a 2D Mario game with those sprites. They had them there. It's really bizarre. They didn't do it. But yeah, give me an Odyssey too. Or give me something brand new. I don't care. But I want to. I want a great 3D Mario game again. I think it'd be more than due for another 3D platforming game. I don't know. I think the last one I played was maybe the Spyro Reimagined or Reignited trilogy. That was the last 3D platformer I played. And that was a great one.

It was great. But I want a new one. So I don't know. What about you guys? Do you think you have any interest in the Mario 3D game? Yeah, I liked Mario Galaxy. I thought that was a lot of fun. I think that was the last one I played was Mario Galaxy.

I enjoyed galaxy. I enjoyed 64. I hated sunshine. I didn't play Galaxy 2 just because I was kind of off of the Wii at that point. But what was the most recent Odyssey? Odyssey I really, really enjoyed. There were a couple of points where I felt like it got a little tedious, but for the most part I really dug it. And then I'm hoping whatever 3D Mario game we get is a lot like Bowser's Fury that we saw in Super Mario 3D world. Plus Bowser's Fury for the Switch. Because that Open World Mario Experience was actually pretty awesome. Even if it's not like a whole open world. Like Open World by Zone would be pretty cool just the same.

Right? How big was that? Because I never did play that. My kids played it, but I never actually sat down to go through that. I like 3D World a lot, but I didn't try Bowser's Fury. I would say Bowser's Fury was probably like three to four hours, maybe, give or take. Okay. So I could see that being like 1/7 of a full 3D Mario game in that style. Because there's usually seven, eight worlds.

So I think like Mara 64. Right. Every zone, you spend a good couple hours in every zone in Mario 3, Mario 64 and there was quite a few of them. So yeah, you're right. If they did that, I'd be all down for that. I'd be all in on that. Like, bring back Cat Mario. I like Cat Mario and I can. See them playing with that a little bit. Keeping that sort of style where the boss of the area is always encroaching on you somewhat. Right.

And each world it could be a different regular Mario creature that's this gargantuan beast because K Mic flew in and cast a spell on it. Like simple to get to the point and just start playing with a giant Koopa Troopa or Goomba or whatever. Like.

Yeah, I'm all for it. I think. I think it's more than. More than do. I think it's more than time. I mean 2017 was a long time ago in terms of, you know, gaming. Gaming years. But first we need the Switch 2. I guess we'll have to see what the Switch 2 looks like. I've also said a few times I don't want to buy a Switch 2 because I have a Steam deck and I have some issues with the hardware like the Joy Cons. But if the Switch 2 has maybe a radically shifting gears on the Joy Cons, maybe the game is good. I don't know. But it's still something to see. Anyway.

You're just gonna get Mario Odyssey 2 for the Switch 2. Or the Switch Super Odyssey. Also, they need to lean into that whole like Super Nintendo naming convention with this. I don't know why they just don't say it's a Super Switch. They. They could do so well with that. Switch Mario. Switch Mario. Yeah. Then a switch 64. Wait, who's. Is it Wolf or no chart again? Right. Okay. Yeah. What's that?

All right, we got. We got a fun one. And this was one that I was going to compare to to Mariachi Legends with. With Wolf's Pick. This is a new one from a. I. I guess New Blood Interactive. This game is called Tenebris Somnia, if I pronounced that right. Wow, look at me speaking Latin. This is a retro inspired horror survival game. You're seeing a pattern here with me with live action cutscenes in between each thing. And it looks terrifying. It looks really, really cool. I am totally sold on this game. There is a demo that's on Steam right now that I need to get myself into and, and, and play around with it. But I really like the concept of the mix the mixture of reality with the retro survival spin off. So it's like, it's like if Resident Evil was on the Nintendo, the NES entertainment system and then they're like, we're gonna throw live actors and actresses in there and tell the story through that too and come up with some horribly terrible looking creatures that you're going to run into. I'm sold. I've heard very good things about it from, from friends of mine. It's, it's kind of a left fielder as it is both retro and real. Action. I, I have to try this out. This looks so cool. I think, Jake, I think you sent me a tik tok of this. Initially.

Yeah, when I saw this on TikTok, I'm like, what is this? Is this real? And then I realized it was a, a horror game, but pixel art with the mashup with the live action. I, I said I had to send this to you. I knew that this would be your jam. And it was a demo, I think it was Steam Next Fest I think was going on at the time. Yeah, this one looks interesting. I'm not quite sure I'm sold on it, but I'm totally interested in the style. It's a bold choice of a mix up. I agree.

The pixel art again looks really great. I am a sucker for good pixel art. The cutscenes also look like decent production quality too, so that helps. That's the other thing. It doesn't look like it's B actors. It looks like they put some work into this, this particular display of what they're trying to sell you. So yeah, I'm, I'm interested in this. This seems pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah.

So, yeah, that's. This one's high on my list of things that I'm excited for coming out next year and I'm definitely going to be giving this one a try. And I bet it plays fantastic on the Steam deck. So that'll be, that'll be a fun, you know, play in the dark, Scare myself stupid kind of game. And a movie that comes with it, apparently so. But when we were looking at the Mariachi Legends doing the same thing, it, it, you know, with the live action detective and then it goes into the pixel art. It very much reminded me of this same kind of thing that they were doing with, with the live action, but they really sell the pixel art and the live action additive. So I hope that Mary Al Tree Legends decides to adopt the. The live action with the pixel art thing too. So I think it's a really cool feature that they're. They're throwing out there. So Tenebris Somnia. Check that out. Looks. Looks pretty cool.

Yeah. I'm trying to find if there's other games by the developer, but I don't. I think they might be new. I think they're pretty new. I haven't heard much. They had some games that I saw on Steam. There's Hell or the Black Heart. And it looks like Hellbound. That sounds familiar. Hellbound. Hellbound. The Tagline is a 90s FPS 30 years later. Okay, so probably a boomer shooter in a modern area. Yeah. Okay. I dig it. That sounds good. Awesome. Yeah. Okay.

I'm interested in that. That looks really neat. That'll probably be on my wish list as of tonight. Nice. Yeah. The problem with this episode is how many games are we going to buy now in 2025? And I'll have money for all these. Looks like the demo is still on Steam. Still available to download and try, so. Nice.

Then you should download it now because a lot of the time those get pulled off at the end of the year after game awards are done and the hype dies down. They usually pull it and then the game comes out next year. So definitely grab the demo now if you're interested in it and play it. Because after they pull it down, it's also un. You can't play it anymore. They. They should.

We might mess around with it tonight. 2D survival horror adventure game with live action cutscenes. Unveil the depths of disturbing story by solving puzzles and fighting horrible creatures. Let's go. Yeah. Looks cool. That's a charred game. I bet. I think Tenebris Somnia is actually charred Monk in Latin. Sounds accurate. Is Insomnia sleep? Maybe. So is this like I'll sleep when I'm dead? Tenebris Insomnia. Yes. I can see the opening line already now. It's got to be an episode.

No, Tenebris means darkness. Oh, does it? Okay. Yeah. All right. For the darkness of night. Insomnia When I'm dead. Done. Easiest one line ever. All right, what do you got? What's your next one? All right, here's. Here's a little bit more off the wall selection. I came across this earlier this year. Looked really fun. The wife was also interested in playing this one with me. So this might be one that I play with her as well. Because it's got multiplayer. It's called Goblin cleanup. Okay.

And what is this? You are a goblin in a dungeon, and you have to go clean up the mess after adventurers come through, but you can also fall victim to the traps. And. And you know all the problems with the dungeon. So the idea, like, you can get eaten by a mimic you saw there. So the idea is to clean up the dungeon without yourself falling victim to it. They don't turn it off for the cleaning people. That's kind of. No, they're not unionized. Still in there. What the heck?

So, yeah, you got to go clean up all the guts and gore of the failed heroes and not die to the traps. That's clever. That's clever. I saw the mop you use as it looks like a slime with eyes. That's. That's pretty awesome. What's that. What was that game as a dungeon keeper that had the traps where you build it a. Build a dungeon for the heroes to come in? I think that's what it was.

Yeah. Dungeon Keeper did something like that. There was also Evil Genius did something like that. And what was that? Kemco, I think, had one for the PlayStation. What was that called? Oh, yeah, yeah. I remember Kemco. Was it Deception? Yeah. Okay. It wasn't Chemco. It was Tecmo. Tecmo's Deception.

Is it okay. Okay. There's a CO somewhere. Yeah. The concept of the evil dungeon and you have to clean and maintain it is pretty freaking funny. And I saw that at the end of the trailer that it was a Kickstarter game, so that's interesting. That's good. I love taking it the next step. But instead of being the dungeon management, now you're the dungeon custodial janitors.

Yes. I love your cleaning up the dead adventurers. Ever wonder what happens to your body after you die in a dungeon? The Goblin cleanup crew comes in there, takes care of it. Yeah. That's cool. I like that. I mean, that's something I gotta look up, too. I think it looks like a lot of fun. So much fomo.

That's the thing. Yeah. Like, all these games, no money to buy them all. They all look really great. And, like, a number of these are just coming out in February, which is insane. There's at least 10 in February that look like games I would be interested in. So I'll have to kind of just ration them out throughout the year. There's a demo for Goblin Cleanup. There is On Steam. Is there? Have you tried it?

I have not played it yet. I keep meaning to and haven't. But I. I gotta try that before they pull it down because I gotta know if it's as good as it looks, but I'm sure I'll enjoy it. Yeah, this looks good. Especially if there's multiplayer and it's. Yeah, I think it's streaming. Okay. Oh, really? I don't press B to clean up screen. Yeah. Yeah. I wouldn't mind doing another multiplayer game with you guys. That would be fun. Like, we did treasure Revenge like forever ago. Yeah.

It's been what, like a year and a half? Two years at this point. Wowza. I think. Yeah. Two years. Crazy. Need to loosen up some more schedules. Yeah, that's. This enemy is time. Right. That's always the big hardest part. Okay, who's next? Is that me? You? Yes, you. Okay, well, you guys got like four picks, so. All right, I'll do mine because it might be a little bit long and then I'll do. Well, we're gonna. If it's the one I think we're gonna go. You and I are gonna gush about this one because.

Yeah, my last one will probably be just a short little snippet about it too, so. Same hit the button. There's the button. Monster Hunter Wilds. Yeah, I was kind of.

When I saw this trailer for this, I'm like, yeah, yeah, that's cool. I'm always up for more Monster Hunter. But then I saw the full trailer and then they released had an open beta weekend last week. And Chard, you and I both played it. Man, that game is fucking good. Like, I. I loved the shit out of world. I have maybe 200 hours playing through world. And then when they brought Monster Hunter Rise on the switch, I played the hell out of Rise on the Switch. It was great. I mean, it wasn't as pretty world. The world looked amazing. The gameplay was pretty solid around the Switch. Yeah. And then now they're taking the in Monster Hunter Wilds. They're taking the MOUNT system from Rise and the more open zones of world and putting it together and it looks just epic. So I know. I played the demo and I'll talk for one second. Charlie, pass it to you. Big thing for me that my big takeaway was the zone was massive and there's live weather as you're playing. So when I started a hunt, it was like broad daylight and it was fine. I'm fighting a monster, chasing him down. And toward the end of the fight, monsters run off. Monster Hunter. As the monster is running off, it starts to get dark and foggy and Then lightning starts hitting and we're talking lightning, a lightning storm. We're talking bolts of lightning are striking the ground that damage you if you're nearby or damage the monster when you're nearby. And as I'm trying to kill off this frog thing, out of nowhere comes a lightning dragon type of monster. And they had the, the monster surprises in World and I think they had been Rise as well. But they were never this epic, right. The idea of the weather coming down, the weather's coming in and the weather lightnings are striking and you're just trying to kill this monster and an even bigger monster comes down with the weather effects. It was just such an epic scene. The music was awesome. Just riding around on that Chocobo style mount was felt really awesome. Like just what an epic looking game. I can't wait for this one. And it comes out in February so I don't have to wait wait long. It's not December.

Right? But it's only a few months away. And that, that open beta was. I was so glad I played it because I went from being like interested in this game to like I have to play it day one because that's where it's at for me. Same. So like Char, what did you think of the demo?

I. It was exactly how Monster Hunter World roped me in. The same exact way where I was like, everybody's talking about it. Monster looks cool. When Monster World came out, I watched Lord Optic play a little bit of it and he was, it was the same thing where he was chasing a monster and then another monster like grabbed it and wrapped itself up in it. It was like an eel monster that was fighting, they were fighting each other while he was trying to capture it. I went, what? So I, so I bought it. I had to buy it. Played the hell out of Monster Hunter World. Freaking adored it. Rise came out and everybody was kind of talking it. So I unfortunately listened to the talking heads about Rise and I didn't get into it. But then this, this beta came out. I didn't think I was going to find time to squeeze in to try it out. And I came up here and holy God, this game was so fun and smooth. I felt stupid because I couldn't, I couldn't remember the button control. So I felt like I was just flailing about with my, my Gleeve, my insect Gleeve, like rocketing myself into the air then flying in the wrong direction. Getting beaten up by all these things. They this, it just starts from. It's adrenaline from start to finish. And you're chasing these things down and remember picking up the. The pieces that I knocked off so I can make cooler armor with it or cooler weapons. This is gonna be epic. And me and Jake are going to be playing this in February because it's. I'm sold. I was sold the minute that I hit the desert sand. And like he said, the storm comes in and you see lightning cracking across the sky while you're fighting this giant beast. They just. They did such a good job with it. And the mounts, the mounts are really cool. What they did with this, I didn't play it and why and Rise at all. So having that addition of being able to chase after it a little faster on the mounts because the world's bigger, right. And it's huge. And then having your mount like help you out so you can whistle it in while you're getting your ass beat and it'll come and scoop you up and you can run away to safety and kind of recoup and go back at it. It was neat. This. This is going to be a fantastic game. Fantastic game.

Yeah. And like, I know like I never used to like the Monster Hunter games. I remember trying to play. I think it was the third Monster Hunter. It was on the Wii U. I think it was Generations. I think it might have been. It took me a while to get to get in on that game because there is a learning curve with Monster Hunter games. Like, like you said chart. If you. If you haven't played World in a while and you go back to it. It takes some time to kind of get that muscle memory with the way the controls work. It's not Elden Ring or Fromsoft games. It's animation combat for sure. Like you're committed when you make an attack in Monster Hunter. But the feeling is different very much. But once you get into a groove of it, it's really addictive. It's really freaking interesting and. But they keep doing more and more quality of Life. So it Rise. The two speechers that were big. There was like a dog. You write a dog and also would go up walls for you. They also had like the wire bug system. Basically. Basically glorified grappling hook. I didn't really care for the grappling hook stuff. But the dog. The mount was a pretty amazing. I know November and Chess says he didn't like Rise. I thought Rise was really good. I still like world more. World was more epic. The monsters were bigger. The world was bigger. Rise was more compact because it was on the switch. I mean there was A PC release as well, which I do want to go through that. And I do like Rise, but World was always like the best one for me. And to see a true sequel to World I couldn't be more hyped for. Graphics are fantastic. It's using the RE engine.

Beautiful. Yeah. And like that RE engine was fucking epic for Resident Evil remakes. People were kind of worried that it wouldn't be able to do an open world type of game like this. And I know it's probably going to have high system requirements. This will not run in the Steam deck, I can tell you right now, but if you have the hardware for it, it looks really damn nice. You don't think so? Maybe.

I think it might. I mean World I didn't think was going to run and it was green checked like the minute I bought this thing. And it works really good on the Steam deck. So maybe yours because it's got different hardware, but I don't know. They updated enough regularly that I feel like it would make. It wouldn't look anything like what we saw this weekend in our respective PCs, but I think it could still possibly be playable. I feel like this would have to be a Steam deck playable game. They'd have to do something to it to make it work.

I mean I would love it, but for me, when it comes to games like this, when they look this good, I'll just, I'll have it run on my desktop and I'll stream it to my Steam deck. I'm all in on the streaming to a Steam deck. I think Moonlight Sunlight is a great system to get those games on there, like even now. What am I playing now? Dragon's Age. Veilguard. I could run it technically on the Steam deck, but I'd much rather run it on the PC and stream it to my Steam deck. And the experience is fine. It's great and it looks so much better. So I'll probably do the same thing with Monster Hunter Wilds. Gosh, there's so much in this game, it looks really epic. Yeah, graphics, the music, atmosphere. I don't even care if the story is bad. It's Monster Hunter. I'm not expecting much.

I'm not signing up. I'm signing up for hunting. Some cool looking shit. That's what, that's what I'm all about.

And like these games always have dozens and dozens of freaking hunts to go through. I can't wait to see if there's more than one environment. There has to be more than one map. And if they're even Remotely like the first one we saw in this demo. Man. Yeah. I can't speak enough on this one. It felt really good. And it's February. Capcom has kind of approached a golden age. I think is even more than what they had on the nes. Right when they're. They were at their golden age on the nes, but I think they've surpassed that in the last few years and on PC and consoles. Like the Resident Evil remakes alone are fantastic. And then adding on Monster Hunter, which is fantastic. Street Fighter, of course six is fantastic. Like they've had a string of hits and so few misses. The only miss I feel for them is Dragons Dragon's Dogma 2. Like really. And one out of five or six ain't bad in terms of misses. So yeah. Wolf, I don't know. You're not really a Monster Hunter fan, I don't think. I don't know if you mentioned you played one of the older ones.

Yeah, so I did get to try one way back when. I bought Monster Hunter Freedom for the PSP way back when. Okay.

I didn't super get into it, but I also didn't know anybody else who had it. So I didn't like it was just playing by myself and it was pretty dull for the PSP playing by yourself. Then there was Monster Hunter try, which I think you could play most of the missions on your own and then a few were online requirement, but I think they also had a matchmaking system to where you could play with random people or play with your friends. I got to play online with friends a couple of times. I think I did a few matchmakings, but for the most part I just felt like playing by myself. I didn't. I don't like having to require having to rely on people I don't know to play a game like this. I also am not a big fan of the. You know, you go to do a mission and it's going to take you an hour to do. Like you have a pretty good idea it's going to take you an hour. I don't always necessarily have an unbroken hour to play, so I don't. I just. I stay away from Monster Hunter for that reason. Like what I played of Monster Hunter Tri. I liked the gameplay loop and all that. I was really into it, but I just. I don't have a guaranteed hour to sit and play one anymore. So it's probably one I will skip even though I think it looks rad as hell.

Yeah. The oldest one I play was Generations and Generations was that older style of Monster Hunter where you had to buy consumable items each round before you did a hunt. Because you want to build a mine for ore and pick all the, you know, the ingredients and all that stuff. The Gathering component required disposable consumable items. That's gone in world as of World. The other issue was there's that gameplay loop over. You fight a monster, he runs away, you have to sharpen your item, maybe paintball the monster, track him down. Again, tracking the monster was very difficult. But again, in World, they made the tracking of a monster a lot more seamless and they even made it even easier. And Rise. It was almost too easy in Rise and then adding the mountain Rise made it so that when you know if you have to catch up to a monster, you can. So you could stop and sharpen your weapon, chug a potion, eat your rations, and then go really quickly and get back into the action. It does seem like Monster Hunter Wilds the same idea to the point where when you're on your mount, you can actually sharpen your weapon on your mount as you're going. And then what they also added was Autopilot, which I don't. I like it, but maybe people might not like it, but you can auto have your. Your mount auto move for you while you're doing waiting for to get to the monster fight. So like you, you know where the monster is on the map. And unless you want, I mean, if you want to manually control the bird, you totally can. But if you just want to just zip you there automatically while you're sharpening weapons or looking up information, you can totally do that too. So they definitely put a focus on the, the quality of life improvements to these games. They're a lot easier to get into. And I think the battles in in Wilds will be shorter. I'm sure there'll be huge fights that are longer, but it looks like a lot of the smaller monsters might be a bit faster, which is. Which is good. I know when I played Rise, my complaint with Rise is that the battles even like the. The marquee monster for that one was Mega Mallow, I think his name was. That was like 30 minutes tops. Like he was not. He was not a long fight for Monster Hunter standards. So I kind of like the epic long battles. But I'm with you. I don't always want to do an hour playing the game. I want. I would like to have options and I think we might have that here. Plus, like, I know that in Game Food, man, they've always been good at in game food at Capcom and Monster Hunter 15 has seen better.

Oh my man. No, I, I don't know if they've addressed it since then, but in try, I also had an issue with the fact that you would have to do the same. Like I hit a choke point where I needed to get certain types of drops for gear upgrades to really advance. And I was. I was at a point where I was like either do this monster that's, you know, 30 to 45 minutes or this monster that's 30 to 45 minutes and there's not even necessarily a guaranteed chance it's going to drop what I need.

Right. And so I think that's kind of where I petered off and just lost interest.

I got stuck on Rathalos and Diablos for quite a while in Monster Hunter World, which is where I. I spun off of it because I had. I was still playing it very much on a souls kind of level. Instead of not thinking about the right way to approach everything, you know me, I'm just gonna bull rush and hit my face against the wall until either the wall falls or I get hurt and leave. And that one, I just, I had a really hard time with it for a long time and I finally came back and. And I beat it and then beat the base game and now I have Iceborne, but I haven't gotten very far in Iceborne yet. So I'm. I'm excited to get back to the dlc. I've been playing it on. I. I got it on my PS5 because I had it for PS4. Still looks freaking amazing on the PS5 downstairs. And then I also was gifted it, I believe Cinestar gifted it to me for Christmas time last year and I have it on my Steam deck so I could play it on there as well. So it is awesome. Very cool game, Wolf. If you ever have any interest and decide to pick up World or even Wilds, we will gladly or I don't want to speak for Jake, but I will gladly play that game with you for 20 minutes to an hour. However much broken time you got, you just say, hey, I got to take a break and I'll go take a pee and then we'll come back and do it some more. So I think that'd be great.

Yeah. Yeah. Monster Hunter Online with Friends is the best. I've been wanting to do this with you guys for a long time. If we can find the time for it, I'm totally down for it. I remember playing with Friends World originally and Degante I think it was called. All I remember is that one. Whenever you went to use a potion, it's like if it doesn't matter how far away I was, if it could see you, it would look at you and just pounce your ass. And it would punish you for chugging a potion. And it was funny as hell. Frustrating because he's hard, but I remember beating him a few times. You still do need to repeat fights, and that's kind of the fun of it. But it's not nearly the grind that it used to be. Right. Generations. I felt I had to do a lot more fights to get the items. I wanted to build certain armors. This one, it's a lot easier. And even in wilds, I felt like I was getting a lot of ingredients off the monsters. I want to say there was something in there that gave you bonus drops to make it a little bit easier. So while you'll probably have to repeat fights, I don't think it'll be nearly as much of a grind, which I think is, again, is a good thing. Right. Like, I want to fight a monster because it's fun, not because I feel like I'm a choreography.

Right. And the designs are cool. It's Capcom doing what capcon does and designing some really, really cool and interesting looking creatures that are fun to fight.

There's one because there's always. There's always like monsters that come back every game to game. There's one in generations I haven't seen since is the Nibble Snarf, I think it was called. And in generations, you actually had to use, I think, a fishing rod to yank it out of the desert sands. Like you had to fish for it. That's got to come back. That has to be. They have a desert. They're adding things. Fishing is all the rage in games these days. I want. I want fishing and I want nibble snarf. So bring back Nibble snarf.

Capcom nibbles 2025. Give me nipple Snark. Anyway, yeah, I. I can't wait to February prepared. Prepared for Jake to be bad on research on episodes because I'll be playing this freaking every week like this will. This will be one of my big games next year. He's going to be for those football fans that listen to us. He's going to be the Kyler Murray to Call of Duty. He's just playing like trash. We're gonna have to carry Jake throughout the rest of the year. All right.

Opening lines are all you rest the rest of 2020. 5. Fantastic. I'll hunt when I'm dead. Monster wild. Wilds Wild. All right, sorry, what was your, what was your last one? I'll do a quick last one. And this is exciting one. This is my more colorful and less horror survivor scary game. But I'm actually, I'm really pumped for Ghosts of Yotai. I believe that's how you pronounce that. I love Ghost of Tsushima. That game was absolutely stunning and gorgeous. I have to finish it. Yeah.

I got so deep into it and there was so much to do on it that I spun off of it just because there was so much going on. But this, this game, this franchise has been spectacular. And I watched the announcement trailer for Ghost of Yotai and it's just more of the same with a different character and a really cool story and some really cool aspects to it. I'm pumped. I'm pumped for Ghost of Yotai. I think this is going to be really, really cool. I love the, I love the company that made the original. So I'm ready, I'm ready to do some more samurai in Japan in some exceptionally beautiful surroundings. Very bright, vibrant colors. This has made this. The two games that I put aside was Monster Hunter World and Ghost of Tsushima. And these games have made coming out, have made me redownload them and reset them up so I can play them again on my PlayStation. I cannot wait for this one. This is going to be really cool.

Yeah, the, the, the voice actress for this one is Erica Ishii and she's also the one of the voice options in Dragon Age Vilgard. She's amazing. Like, she's really good. So I, I'm, I'm looking forward to that. To see in this one, I did not play much of the first one. I keep saying I'm going to record myself playing it or I'm going to do something with it. I just had to sit down and play for me, I think because it just. It's a beautiful freaking game. Like, you're not kidding. Like, this is one of the most beautiful games I've played in years in gaming. Like, it looks really great.

Yep. And on PC, I'm sure it looks. Because I had it for, I got it for PS4 and then they had an upgrade. When you get the five, you can get the five upgrade for like five extra bucks. So I bought it and upgraded it for the PS5 and I turned that on and was just like, yep, okay, we gotta, we gotta play through this again. So. And this is one of those Games that I think the story and the combat and stuff would be intriguing enough that my wife would actually be interested. Instead of watching a show on tv, watching me play this and this unfold. She did the same thing with Alan Wake. So this will be. This will be a fun playthrough and then when this comes out, I am all about it. That's going to be really cool.

So. And of course it'll probably be a Sony exclusive for a little while. I don't know. They did make the announcement that they were going to stop making things exclusive, but it looks like it is. This version is for PlayStation 5. I just really. I don't know how long it's going to be. The PS5 games announcement trailer says so. Doesn't mean that it's going to be. Honestly, it means more time for me to finish the first one. I guess I'll take it for that same. Yeah.

So quick, quick side. Yeah. Ghost of Yo Time. I'm super pumped about that. That's a good one, Wolf. You want to do yours?

Yeah. My last one is Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition finally. Yeah. Well, I have it for the Wii U and I tried playing it a little bit, but as much as I like the Wii U, I think the dual screen thing that they tried to do with a handheld and a TV at the same time, it doesn't really work for me. So I didn't. I never really gave it enough time. I also didn't know anybody who else who had it, so I didn't play online with it. So I messed with it for like an hour and that was it. But it seems like it kind of gives me Phantasy Star Online vibes to a degree. And I absolutely loved Phantasy Star Online. So I really look forward to going back and playing this with the Remastered edition. And I didn't know a ton about it. When I found out that this space ship that they live in that's sort of crash landed on whatever this world they're on is, is called New Los Angeles. I was, I was like, what? So this isn't even in the same sort of realm as the rest of the Xenoblade Chronicles games. This one's more like, you know, a distant future of our Earth kind of thing rather than just some random whatever the hell world where everybody lives on giant living monsters like you do.

Yeah, I was the one switch. It was Xeno Xenoblade Chronicles 1, 2 and 3, honestly. So we got two, then we got definitive edition of one, and then we got three.

Right. Okay. Yeah. It's like Final Fantasy, where I never know what the hell I'm playing, but there's a bunch of them. But I like the one on Switch. I always meant to go back to this one because I did have a Wii U, but I never got around to playing it. And I was kind of waiting for a remaster, but they've been so quiet on it. And they remastered or they ported from the Wii U almost everything that was on the Wii U to the Switch. And this is one of the last few games left. Yeah, I'm glad to see it getting moved over, especially with an upgrade. It looks really good. Like, the graphics are really awesome. Very stunning. Very big environments, like big enemies and monsters. I dig that. And I've heard nothing but good things. So I might check this one out too.

And this one does the Gears thing, like Xenogears. So they went a little bit more back to the roots of the Xeno mythologies that were kind of built. So you get to use these giant robots to fight things too, which. That's just going to be fun as hell. Right? Nice.

And it's that mix of fantasy with sci fi I do dig. Fantasy Star 4 is one of my favorite games on the Genesis. And it's that right, where it's just the sci fi with the fantasy and a great background world building. Yeah, this looks like a really great one. I can see why this one is liked a lot.

Yeah, this is definitely one I'm looking forward to. It also has, from what I understand. You know, we had it in Xenoblade Chronicles 2, which is the only one I've really sunk a lot of time into running around and, you know, collecting resources from around the world map. You know, come out, come out. But now she says it too, because we said it so often. She heard it so often. That's something that we just say in the house. It's stupid, but the resource collection, much like Monster Hunter, is a thing in this game. So I. I kind of look forward to that, too.

Nice.

All right. Awesome pick. I'll give you my last one real quick. I don't have a video for it, and I didn't realize it's coming out next year. I'll tell you why. And that's. Grand Theft Auto 6 is supposed to come out next year. I think they said December of next year. I don't know how likely that is. It's probably. Probably going to get delayed. A game of that size usually gets at least one or two delays. So we'll see. I kind of put on my mind because it's coming out exclusively to consoles first because that's Rockstar. That's what they do. They'll release on console and then a year or so later, then they'll release on PC because they know people are going to double dip. So I won't be playing it until it's on PC. So it'll be a couple years for me.

But probably the only one with the console to play it. So. Probably just wait until PC anyway.

Yeah, yeah. Like I didn't play GTA Online at all, but I actually like GTA 5 story quite a bit. I like the characters a lot. I love the retired gangster. I freaking love Lamar from the other guy's story. Franklin's story was really awesome. The cars was great. Freaking Trevor was nuts and the map was just massive. I. I like GTA 5 a lot. I'm really curious to see what they do with six. I'm hoping. I'm hoping Rockstar doesn't screw it up with the. Because GTA Online is one of the most profitable games I think ever. Right. It's made them so much money to the point where I'm almost shocked that they're doing a single player game. I almost figured it would be an online game only like games as a service, period. But it looks like there is a single player component to it, which I'm happy for.

Look, it was Red Dead Redemption that came out and everybody was just like, I can't get any better than this. And then they released two and you're like, it can't get better than this. Oh my God. Okay. Yeah. So. And it's not even you would they. They had adl. They have online aspects to Red Dead, but it's not nowhere near the. The aspects that it is on Grand Theft Auto. Like nowhere near it. So.

Oh yeah, GTA is ridiculously popular online, right? Red Dead 2 is online. I don't think. I think it's dead now. I don't think. Well, pun intended. I don't think they do anything with it anymore. But GTA Online still gets updates every other week. It's nuts. Yeah. November says it's very often enough that it's always. I feel like it's always a headline on gaming sites. It's pretty frequently updated. Never mentions. Apparently they're making with built in RP capabilities. Capabilities. I can't talk right now, but role playing in GTA 5 online is like huge. And what I remember, I think they bought one or two of the main RP groups for that purpose because they wanted to include that component into the sequel. So November's right. That's gonna be a big part of GTA 6, so we'll see what they do with it. I mean, I hope it's good. I hope I don't have to play online because I don't want to talk to people. I'm not that kind of gamer. But if the story is as wild and crazy as five, I'm all in.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I will say. Oh, go ahead. I will say I really enjoyed the single player of five. I also really enjoyed the multiplayer in Grand Theft Auto Online, but I also liked that I didn't feel like I was compelled to play with other people on online. Yeah. And I could still do a ton of stuff just being ridiculous by myself online. So. Yep, as long as they don't require online for six, I'm in. Yep, same. Same. Okay, any other honorable mentions?

I forgot about Claire Obscura, Expedition 33. I forgot about that. And I am excited about that one. Oh, yeah, that game looked neat. Like graphic, wild, a lot of style.

It's. It's like a. It is kind of like a Final Fantasy esque type type game, but I don't know much about it that I could go on a tangent or say anything about other than what I've seen. Looks very, very interesting. And I'm very intrigued about it going further in. But I don't want to misclaim or misspoke anything because I did not do my research on this game. So do not. Yeah. Pull the trailer so people can see. Yeah.

Yeah. For those of you watching, those of you listening, we have a trailer going and it's about it and it looks gorgeous. And if it. If it is like Legend of Dragoon sold. Because that game is amazing. So. But it looks pretty neat. Yeah. Like it's something about it. The adults. I confused it with metaphor refantasio for a while, not realizing it was a separate game. But yeah, watching the trailer again, I'm like, I remember this at the game Awards and it looked really freaking awesome.

This is very exciting. So, yeah, like, people of a certain age are like, not dis. Like people that are old enough are like disappearing and I think they send out an expedition of teenagers or something to go that won't disappear to go figure out what the heck's going on or whatever. It's. It's supposed to be spectacular. So I'm. I'm very much looking forward to seeing. And it looks like it takes place in A sort of like 1800s alternative reality sort of kind of thing. It's interesting.

I mean, absolutely stunning graphics. The graphics is totally bought. I'm totally bought into it. So big monsters, combat. Looks very much like. Like Legendary Dragoon where it's timed. Timed hits. But it's still turn based. But it just looks so perfect. So. Yeah, I like the camera stuff they're doing with this too. That's really neat. Yeah. I think this will be high super dynamic.

So good one. No Engine 5. And we're starting to get Unreal Engine 5 games now coming out one and one after the other. And that engine is real freaking awesome. Like really powerful. Yeah. Yeah. This looks legit. Yeah. Some guys. Yeah. I don't have money for all this. I know. Neither do I. Yeah. Do I maybe. Maybe come back and be a deal again. I guess we should have called this episode too many games. 2025. Too many games. 2025. Yeah. Too many. That's. That's a good one. That's a good.

All right, well, I'm broke. 2025. It's true, Wolf. You want to show to anything or tell people where they can find you or a game that you're playing at the moment? Honestly, I'm still just kind of playing Vampire Survivors Castlevania dlc. Really good dlc. I'm still working through unlocking characters. I think I am this close to Richter at this point. Nice. Are you okay?

It's. It's a lot having to sit through a half hour for each character for so many characters to get everything. Oh, my goodness. I think it was a Vaughn in our Discord said that the final, final battle he said was epic. And this is Vampire survivors, which is not. I don't expect Boston Epic and vampire. Survivors are not words that typically marry together. Yeah. Yeah. But I've still. I've seen the full map at this point and I've only actually played in about half of it. Yeah. Wow. That's crazy.

It's huge. I made it to Dracula's throne room, but don't know what to do after that. So. Yeah, that's kind of as far as I've been. Well, there's a whole chunk of map you guys have not seen yet. I imagine I'm waiting for the inverted castle or whatever to show up. That's kind of what I've been planning. Gal Fl. Where can folks find you?

Always on Press B to cancel. And over at Twitch, wwich.tv forward/chardmonk. We are playing Alan Wake 2 was going to Try and get back into it tonight. I took my my standard weekend off last week that I usually do at the end of the month. But now I'm half tempted to try this tender breast zombia this evening just to play around with it and do kind of a short, let's see what this looks like. So maybe we'll do that with the demo. See if it's really worth the hype that I'm putting onto it.

Okay, so I'm sick. Jake, you can find me Twitter. I'm over in Blue sky now and pretty active over there and so are a lot of other people. It's been like a major shift at Blue Sky. It's a not going to call it fun, but it's definitely been a nice more chill social media experience put that way. So we're over there. So let's press B. Press B is also still on Twitter, but for me personally, I'm only on Blue sky now. That's my last social media stand. You just search for press b.org on Bluesky and you'll find myself and Cinestar Char. We got to get you hooked up with that domain name as well.

You're there as well, but I'm over there.

Yeah, as well. In terms of what I'm playing, I've been still playing Dragon's Age Vilgard Dialogue is kind of. And the story is like not gripping me, but the combat's really good. It's like Mass Effect, but Dragon Age. It's pretty solid combat. I'm really digging it. The environments are really pretty. There's definitely a lot of game there and it feels more focused. I don't feel like I'm. It's not like Inquisition where you get lost on the big maps. It's a lot more focused. I'm digging it a lot, so I'm gonna play more of that. I'm hoping I don't fall off it because next week Tetris Forever comes out. That's the next compilation from Digital Eclipse. I have to pay play for that one.

Speaking of horror survival games, Tetris.

Tetris is a scary ass game. My co worker apparently listened to this podcast once in a while and she said, she said she agrees with me. That game can be scary, kind of. At least they agree with me on Sonic. Sonic Drowning Scene is pretty scary. But no, it's 15 Tetris games from the original one on the Russian Soviet era computer electronica 60. They got the Apple ones. Apple two ones are on there. They announced. There's some DOS ones. And then of course they got Famicom, NES Nest, there's Tetris, Gaiden, a bunch of them. I love Tetris. It's one of my favorite games. I'm probably gonna do something on the channel with that like I did with Karateka. But Tetris forever I'm looking forward to. I love how they do just not just the games, but they always do a reimagined game as well. And they've done one called Tetris Warp. If you haven't seen the trailer, go check it out. It's Tetris, but the style of and physics change during gameplay that looks rad. And plus they do all the behind the scenes interviews and documentary stuff. That's always really good. Digital Digital Eclipse is probably one of my favorite developers right now. Just for the game preservation stuff that they do. I'm really looking forward to it. Makes me want to watch the Tetris movie all over again because I like that movie too.

It's a good movie.

So real quick for press B to cancel you can find [email protected], press B to cancel on YouTube, on Twitter or on Bluesky. You can find us wherever you listen to your audio podcast episodes. If you listen to somewhere where you don't see us, let me know. I'll make sure we get added there. We're also should have mentioned this last week with Wolf, but we're also now part of the super pod network, superpod network.com that's a network, a collective of other gaming podcasts because shocking. There's a bunch of us. But these guys are really cool. They're a bunch of great shows. We've guessed it on a few of them. We've had a few of them on our show and it's a good networking thing that we're doing. It's not competition. We're all just podcasting for a hobby that we all adore. So it's nice to be with a group of similar like minded individuals. So we're on that network as well. So yeah, otherwise we are presby to cancel. Thanks for listening and see you next week.