¶ Intro
Welcome back, everyone to the Game Informer Show, a weekly podcast covering the video game industry. Join us every Friday for a discussion about the latest gaming news, reviews, and exclusive reveals, alongside Game and Former staff and special guests from around the industry. I'm one of your hosts today, Alex van Aiken. Today I'm joined by Kyle Hilliard. How are you hello?
Doing?
OK? Normal? Good week? Yeah? Sleepy? You know?
Oh? Yeah, that's fair, that's fair.
We're we have chronicled the first winter, the first false spring in Minneapolis. I believe we're now experiencing the second false spring, so that means only one more false spring till we're done hibernating.
Uh.
Brian Shay, how you doing?
I'm great. I just played what is my favorite game of twenty twenty six so far, and we're gonna talking about on this episode.
Yeah.
I am hopping on a plane tomorrow to go to Sunny Florida to visit my family, so I will be experiencing actual spring.
Yeah, that's awesome. I'm happy for you.
Of course, if you want to support the show, the best way to do that is to pick up a copy of Game and Former magazine, which you can do by going to gaminformer dot com slash subscribe. You can get an issue delivered to your ten issues to be specific,
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pick up a copy. I believe they run eleven ninety nine for the the news stand version, and uh yeah, it's full of great stuff. Our Our latest issue that we revealed earlier this week is on Invincible versus We. We flew out Marcus Eric and interviewed Robert Kirkman, I believe is a Corey Walker, the artist I believe.
And played got to play Duplicate, which I don't think anyone has played yet.
Yeah no, no, yeah, So we got a a lot of stuff happening. So it's it's a great issue, great time to get in on board if you haven't yet, and it's the best way to support the show, help keep the lights on. We appreciate it, all right, guys, Let's let's get into it.
Brian, you you teased it.
We're gonna be talking about Pokemon Pocopia here in just a second, and then later on Scott Pilgrim ex Kyle reviewed it for us and be a shorter, more succinct show. But two really, I think really big, mostly pretty anticipated games. I mean Pokemon Scott Pilgrim. Those are two big, two
¶ Nintendo Indie World Discussion
big franchises.
So let's get into it.
And also quick though, speaking of big games that are coming out this week, I did want to shout out that Nintendo Indie World presentation because we got Mini Shoot Adventures, which I have been banging the drum since twenty twenty four that this game absolutely slaps. It's like Zelda, like Zelda Overworld, like top down Zelda Overworld, only instead of a little guy with a sword, you're a spaceship that just cruises around and it's.
I never played it. I need to play.
It's so good and it just hit switch to. That was part of one of the announcements during the indie world, and I just wanted to give a quick shout to that. I give it a nine point twenty five back on when it was just on Steam. Now that it's on switch To, which is the perfect home for it. There's a switch and a switch To version, and it's a free upgrade, so if you don't have a switch To yet and you get the switch one version and then
upgrade for free later. It is bullet Hell twin stick shooter in a Zelda style like top down environment, and it is one of my favorite games of twenty twenty four. And then there's all so Blueprints, which just hit switch Too this week, and I mean, I think everybody on this.
Game is well one of my games of the year.
I think I think in ten years time when I look back at twenty it's always hard when you're doing end of year stuff, You're like, ah, is it this one or this one? I think in ten years time the game from last year I'm gonna be thinking about the most is probably Blueprints.
Yeah, yeah, I mean Charles at nine point five.
It was in our top ten Games of twenty twenty five as an outlet, and it's just one of the most incredible games of last year, and that's available now on switch To, and that is a perfect switch To game because it like it is just such like a one more run type of roguelike experience. Yeah, And like I was thinking, like I don't want to carry around a notebook if I'm playing it, like on a trip or something. But then I was like, oh wait, I
carry my phone with me everywhere. There's a notesap in there. There's also a screenshot functionality on the switch So it's like, that's I think that's you can make. That's a perfect game for it. And both of those games are incredible and are on switch To right now.
So un shot Out Mini Shootings Out Okay, cool cool? Yeah, yeah, I think on my top ten I think for that year as well. Yeah.
I mean we're talking to two diehard Zelda fans here, and we fully vouched for that game. So if you're a fan of any of those, any of those genres, really, whether it's twin stick shooters, bullet hells, even though it doesn't have the degree of difficulty that there is like
typically no associated with that, yeah yeah it does. It's bullet hell elements, twin stick shooting, core gameplay and Zelda style exploration, which is just like a hodgepodge of brilliance from them from my perspective because it's it's so good. But yeah, Blueprints is also like one of the best games you can play on the switch to right now.
I think I was bummed that we didn't get Mean to the Hollow or dropped.
Right that I can't wait for that game.
Yeah.
I was hoping that was going to be like the one last thing, but Blueprints took that spot instead, I think.
But yeah, before we got into the Meteor topics, I wanted to shout out in case anybody listening to this did not see that presentation, which I think was one of the better Nintendo Indie World presentations we've.
Ever got in there.
Yeah, there's also a new game from Clay Entertainment which didn't Starve, and Mark of the Ninja and Invisible Ink and games like that like two point five D Brawler, which it looks like Castle Crashers but with their art style,
Like holy crap. I'm just recapping that on my podcast Rockwood. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah, I was just like I was looking at like the recap and I was like, man, this was just a solid Indie World presentation from start to finish, a lot of great stuff, including a game that you played. Kyle Denshattack is coming to switch to now.
Yeah, I got a big Dentsha Tech feature in the Invincible issue of the magazine where I talked to the developers and talk to them a lot about their sort of love of the Dreamcast and how Dnshittack kind of
feels like a sort of a contemporary Dreamcast game. And then that Traguler that they showed during the Nintendo event was like really showed a lot of the more like what I would assume is like later game and saying of that game Denshittek by the way, just for contextualize, it's like you are, You're on You're controlling a train, and you're like doing like Tony Hawk style stunts, like on rails on a train. But it's just it's just like this Bonker's anime inspired very cool. I liked. I
liked what I played of it for sure. Literally on rails, yeah, literally leap off of them and do tricks. That's crazy.
But sorry, sorry to hijack that what you're doing.
Glad that you brought it up. Because I think that, you know, like you said, there's a lot of games that and there's a lot of people out there that you know, switches their primary console or like maybe they have a switch and they don't they haven't upgraded to next gen on PS five in place that you know, I think it's I think it's great. But speaking of
¶ Pokémon Pokopia
switch to the new exclusive Pokemon Pocopia, please, I I want to hear all about it.
This is.
Up there with my most anticipated games. I'm not gonna say my most anticipated. It might be depending on the day, but regardless, very excited to hear about this thing and how it how it lands.
The execution.
Yeah.
So I think that a lot of people when they saw this game, they were just like, oh, it's Animal Crossing but Pokemon. And I think there is a degree of that that that ended up being true. But I think that Dragon Quest Builders is the much more like,
the much more apt comparison. And that makes sense because this is from Omega Force, which did Dragon Quest Builders, So totally I would say it's the comparison or the recipe that I kind of gave on my podcast was it's like sixty percent dragon Quest Builders twenty percent Minecraft and then like maybe ten percent animal crossing and then ten percent Viva pinata. Okay, So it's like, you know, basically it's a lot more linear than animal crossing is,
at least in its narrative. There is an overarching narrative that they are consistently pushing you towards doing. But within those that narrative, there's also a like you know, you're going from giant sandbox to giant sandbox, and you're befriending
and attracting Pokemon to your environment. Basically like you wake up as a diddo who if you're unfamiliar with, can kind of transform into anything, right, like mostly Pokemon, but in this case, it transforms into its human trainer that it can't find, and it leaves this cave that he
wakes up in. He has a poked x, which is presumably left by their trainer, and you find a tank growth and the tank growth is like, oh yeah, like humans fled, like humans are no longer here, and you have to like and like you look around and it's like, yeah, something terrible happened in this world. Like the first environment
is just completely it's literally called withered wasteland. So you look out there and like the entire area is just brown grass and dead trees and like wilting bushes and stuff. And the first Pokemon you find and is Squirtle. So you go up to Squirtle and you talk and he's like, oh, well, I need a place to live.
It's like Mystery Dungeon where they're actually talking to you.
Yes, it is. It is one of those rare games where you actually have like conversations in our language with Pokemon because poon you're playing as a Pokemon, and it's fun to see how they attribute personalities to them. So, like, you know, one of the earlier Pokemon that you attract is Cyther, and you look at Cither you're like, oh, I bet he's going to be a jerk because he just looks like a scary bug with blades on his arms. And he's like, what's up, bro, how's it going?
And it's like that's.
Yeah, don't be a Mortal Kombat scene real quick. So you know, Squirtle's like, oh, I need a place to live. And but here's how you do water gun. So he teaches you and because your ditto, you transform into Squirtle very briefly, or parts of Squirtle, and you can use water gun and you can go around and like you said, oh, I want like like living grass to live in, not this dead dry stuff, and like he's like, so you have to go in like water a patch of grass
and then that that is his habitat. Then, so like every pokemon has habitats that they want to live in, and you know, some of that's like yeah, so you go around, you're like, all right, well, Squirtle needs four patches of green grass, so you water that and he's like, oh, thank you so much, and then you water another area of green grass and then you know, Bulbosar shows up and it's like, hey, thanks so much, and here's how you do leafage, which will make it so you can
actually grow grass around wherever you want it to be, and then that attracts charmander, and then charmander can help you like light stuff on fire, so like if you need to make a campfire, which will attract another certain type of pokemon. Every pokemon there's so there's a pokeadex that you have that is like a pokedex in a mainline game where you are filling that out with Pokemon that you collect in this game and by collect you're
befriending them. You're not catching them or anything like that. There's no battling in this game. It's for violence, no conflict. Yeah, it's it's legitimately. This is the most animal crossing part of this game. Where you are you're building habitats. They're coming over and they're like, oh, cool, you mind if I live here, and you're like, yep, go for it, and they're like, cool, I can help you if you
need anything. So like a lot of Pokemon that you meet won't teach you anything like it will just be like they are there to live there. Your job is to make their lives comfortable. And the more comfortable your pokemon are, the higher your environment level, and the more the higher your environment level. One, you need to raise your environment level as high as possible for the sake of the story. But two, as you raise that level, it opens up new stuff in the shop, which is
also extremely important. So like, you know, you make Charmander his patch of grass and he lives there, and then like one day he's like, hey, you know, like I could use more comfort in my house, so I get I like crafted him a bed and put it next to his patch of grass and he's like, oh, thank you so much, and then suddenly his his comfort rating raises from like average to nice, and then there's like another level above that, but like the more comfortable your
pokemon are and the more pokemon you have that are in like good standing, the higher your environment level goes. And then that opens up a whole bunch of new avenues. But like you know, as you go you find more pokemon, you new systems are introduced, Like you know, you get like a smelting furnace where you can have pokemon that have control over fire, like Charmander or Magma or whoever.
They can actually burn stuff so like they'll they'll turn like iron ore that you mine out of the ground into iron ignets and that is used in crafting or like you know, oh I dug up all this sand I can put it in this furnace and have a Pokemon that uses fire turn it into sheets of glass.
And is that with the express purpose of for building?
Yes?
So building there's also so in addition to like crafting and everything like that, where it's like, oh, I specifically need this one thing, like Charmander wants a bed, I'm gonna build him a bed at this crafting table. You can also there's there's buildings that you want to actually construct,
and the main thing is these Pokemon centers. Every environment has a Pokemon center that has been destroyed, and you learn like what's going on through throughout this narrative, and it's actually one of my favorite.
Parts real quick, like is the story. There is a story and it's interesting question.
Yeah, you are pulling back the threads of like why is humanity no longer in this Pokemon world? Like that there is a story behind that, and a lot of it, you know, some of it is like through like dialogue, but a lot of it is through like finding, like exploration and finding like journal entries or like newspaper clippings of what's going on or like here's and you can also find other stuff like I found a magazine article
about a gym leader. I'm not gonna spoil as I'm gonna keep this as spoiler free as possible, but it's it quickly becomes apparent that this is taking place in a specific region in the Pokemon world. So like I found like a gym leader's like a magazine profile about one of the gym leaders from a past game, and that unlocked that gym leader's like appearance that you can apply to Ditto, so you can you can you can unlock like hair styles of something.
Random exploration.
Yeah, that's a random exploration. Like I found like a oh, here is this gym leaders like he he is this, and I don't want to say too much to give away who it is, but like and then it's like Ditto thinks for a second, and then Ditto can transform into like a kind of facsimile of that gym leader. Yeah, and it's like, this is your new outfit. Do you want to keep it that way? If not, you can
always transform later into this. And it's like just like a way to customize your DODO because like when you first get.
How many of those have you found? Started interrupt?
I mean there's it's not just gym leaders either. Like I found assumption. I found something for like, uh, a very iconic specific thing. Again trying to step around spoilers there, but I wore that. I wore, I wore that for most of the game. But I probably found like six
or seven in costumes and like maybe four hairstyles. But I have not found everything very clearly because there are some characters that would be in that same area of like, they obviously have stuff for all of those all the gym leaders, I would imagine are a lot of the iconic characters from that game in that region.
It's crazy that they made a Pokemon game where every character you know in love is dead. It's kind of a you know.
I mean, there's there's stuff. I mean, I don't know how far in the future this is supposed to take place in this region, so maybe they maybe they were just like it's.
Like a Tears of the Kingdom situation where it's like it's at the end, you know, like don't worry about like we're not talking numbers here, but it's at the end.
But I'm wondering, is this like thousands of years in the future, or is this like twenty years from now? Could characters still be alive?
Like there's gonna be a nuclear Pokemon in Wind and Waves.
That explains a lot about what this what's going on in this world. But no, it I mean, it's it's fun to find the narrative and it takes a while to get through the story. You know, I I before I even really touched the other part of this game, which we can talk about in a second. The narrative took me over forty hours to get through, and that is I would say pretty linear. You go through several
different environments, you know. The first one is withered Wasteland, which is, you know, just a grasslands area that is completely dead when you get there, and your objectives are primarily to attract new Pokemon work with them to figure out how can we end this drought that has hit this area and cause it to rain, and also rebuilding the Pokemon center in every environment is also pretty important as well. So that is the first biome, and that
takes a lot of exploration. It takes a lot of like, all right, I gotta figure out how to get this Pokemon. And that's where the habitat des comes in handy. As you explore around the area, there's these little like sparkling parts sitting on like different parts of the ground or in the environment, and you go up to there and it's a hint about like, oh, here is a hint for a habitat that you could build nearby that would
attract a new Pokemon, and so like the like. There was one that I found early on that was like, oh, well, here. If you do four patches of grass in the shade of a tree that is all living, so you have to water them to bring them back to life and then build the like grow the grass using the bulbosars leafage that he taught you, you can attract a cyther
and so that's what I did. And then you get you meet the cyther, and the cyther teaches you cut, which allows you to like you know, cut through certain objects and and and like there's like debris and some some environments and you can use cut to like chop those into wood. And then you can bring that wood to cyther and he can turn it into lumber, which is used for building. So it's like a process.
And then like.
You know, same thing like if charmander is there, you and be like, hey, I found this clay and you can give it to him and he will he'll use his fire to convert that clay into bricks that you can use for building. So it's like these pokemon, even if they don't teach you something, they have utility that you can they can you can use, and same thing, like you know, there's a the second environment is a beach area. No wait, no, that's the that's the third environment.
The second environment is like a mountainous area and it's it's very mining heavy, so like you can build railways that like connects the entire thing and almost almost death stranding esk in that regard where it's like there's like
remnants of a railway. It's a strand game. And so like, yeah, you're like every environment like presents different opportunities, even though some of the gameplay mechanics are very very similar from environment to environment, and it's it's more like I really enjoyed the mystery of like figuring out what happened to
this world. I enjoyed the Easter eggs, like this is a a love letter to the Pokemon franchise through and through, and like the gameplay loop is so much like all right, I have like these three or four things in the back of my head that I want to accomplish. I'm just going to start checking him off one by one. But then along the way you get distracted. You're like, oh, I was going out there to like mine the specific resource,
but what's this over here? And like there are times where I went way off the beaten path and like I was like, oh, well, there's nothing over here. But a lot of times you find like either those like loar drops or those costumes that I was mentioning, and that is the stuff that I really really looked forward to.
And then other times it's like, oh, I found another Pokemon I didn't even mean to find, and now he's on my team and I can I can do things with them, and it just like I found like something that looked like in one of the environments was like an abandoned birthday party, Like everybody just like had to like get out of dodge and like just left all the party like stuff set up, and it's like something happened here very clearly. It definitely feels I mean, it is a post apocalyptic game for sure.
Yeah, in terms of like a Fallout game, you know, it does, I know.
Not a whole lot in a weird choice that I love, to be clear, but like because it could have just as easily made this well I don't know, I haven't played the game, but like to just take place on some remote island and it probably would have been fine. But to be like no, no, no, like apocalyptic, it's like cool, go for it, man.
So yeah, you're basically just like rebuilding society. So like the like the mountainous region is like engulfed in volcanic ash, so clearly there was like some sort of volcanic eruption
that happened there. And then there's you go to a beach biome and it's like it is flooded with uh with just water, Like you have to go and like stop, like like all the infrastructure of this area has broken down and all like the little like ravines that were built by humanity have broken down over time, so like houses and everything are completely flooded, so you have to build new like path ways for this water to go to the ocean so it's no longer flooding your environment.
And then from there, you know, you start meeting more Pokemon because they were like, oh, thanks for like you know, draining my house that flooded. Now I can live there, and like I can help you out.
And picture in a like an environment like an alternate history where what if Team Magma and Team Aqua.
Were more successful. Yeah, I mean I don't know what the cause of this all was, and I that even if I did, I can't spoil anything, so nor would I want to, because I think it's super fun to like peel back the layers of what could have happened here.
But like I will say that like I was still learning like new moves that Ditto could pull off like thirty hours into my adventures, like within the story, and it was you know, and that they really were useful as well, like they were traversal things like like the one that I can talk about is I found a dragonite in one of the environments and he taught me how to fly basically like not not necessarily like fly, but like glide. You know, it's a very slow descent glide.
So like if you had to get from like one side of the map to the other, this would basically do that, but you have to find like a high vantage point. But yeah, there's there's a lot of really cool lore based stuff and like just hearing like conversations
in passing, like it's none of its voice. You just hear the digitized cries that that Pokemon use in every game, but like seeing dialogue of like, uh, this is an example Wes used when I was talking to him earlier of like Charmander and Pidgy, like just we're chatting in an early sequence and you know, Charmander's just like, oh, I love how you fly, Like I hope I can fly one day, And Pidgey's like I have a feeling flying is in your future. And it's like, oh that
that's kind of cool. That like there's little like conversations that these Pokemon have and it seems like they're all like written context specific for those two pokemon to be talking, and I'm sure there's like other things. Like it's funny because in an early early environment I built, I had hitm on chanon hitm on Lee, and it just turns out they love hanging out together, so theyre and like there.
And there are also like moments where like there's like cool interactions happening, and while you walk by, it'll be a thing that says there's a photo op happening nearby, and you can open up your camera I think it's the minus button on your switch and take a picture of them and because like it's a special interaction and you can collect those photo ops as well.
So it's like Pokemon snap light kind of stuff a little bit.
Like like one of them was like, oh, hitman chan Is is punching the punching bag that you put near his environment, Like so it's it's stuff like that, like some like action shots or like oh, this Pokemon is dancing to the music that's playing by DJ Rhadam, which was one of the the Pokemon that was revealed in the Pokemon Day stream that they they showed the Poco Pia trailer. But so the narrative itself is very very linear, very handholdy. I would say, almost hold on in a Pokemon game, come on.
Early and never put you back on.
It tries to funnel you towards the narrative will say, and it's like very dialogue heavy, to the point that I was like, wow, like this isn't letting up like I thought it was just that way in like the first couple of hours, but like all the way through to the end, there were like it was like Okay, you've got to go do this now, like go do this, and like you can ignore them and like instead go
like explore the environment. I often did that, like to the point that there were times where they were like there was a story cut scene or not cut scene, but a story like conversation where they're like, Okay, we need you to go do this, and I'm like, dude, I did that like seven hours ago, and then like I talked to them again, They're like, wow, you already did that. Thanks, awesome, that was fast.
I'm into that. I like when that when they acknowledge that in the game, you know, where it's like you do like yeah, if you're just like doing way more than it expects you to in a moment. Then when it's like finally time to do that thing and they're like, oh wait, you're like wait ahead of that. I don't mind that, you know. Yeah.
I usually spent a good like seven or eight hours in each biome just exploring, like I would do like some of the baseline stuff, just to get like a like a small number of Pokemon that I needed, because like in order to do stuff, you need to gather resources, and you also need to like if I want to rebuild the Pokemon Center, you need to have the specific resources that it has, like like I don't know, it's sometimes it's concrete, sometimes it's bricks, sometimes it's just wood,
just to whatever specific to that environment. Then you also need to have like a bunch of Pokemon, some of which have specialties.
So like some.
Pokemon have like the ability to build some Pokemon have the ability to bulldoze, some are able to gather resources or search for stuff, some can fly, and like, based on what you're building, they need different specialties. And based on what you're building, you need a set number of Pokemon. So if you're building a tiny hut for a Pokemon, you only need like two Pokemon to help build that, but a Pokemon center you might need up to like
eight Pokemon, some of which have like certain specialties. So yeah, like I would like basically try to do as much of the exploration as possible while still like steadily like finding those clues of what habitats to build, and also figuring out, like how do I attract more Pokemon, So that way I still have like when the time comes for me to tackle these narrative missions, I'll have all the pieces in place that I can have those dominoes fall.
And that ended up being I think the approach that worked best for me because I would hit a point where I'm like, all right, I've explored this biome enough. Now it's time to do the story stuff, and I would have all the pieces in place, whereas if I was like, Okay, now it's time for me to the story stuff. Oh god, I need like five more Pokemon in order to do that. Now I have to go do all that stuff, and I feel like that would be annoying to me. So like I appreciate the way
that I approached this game. So you know, once you finish the story, and I mean, you can do this whenever, by the way, So this is not like a once you finished the story. This is how I did it. Once I finished the story, there was an entirely separate biome that you can access from the first environment, by the way, so you can do this as early as you want. Once you get through, I would assume, like the tutorial stuff, you can go to this separate area and it is basically as soon as you go in there,
they're like, oh, this is such and such town. This is basically your sandbox, and it is bigger than any of the other biomes in the game and has multiple islands that you can go and explore and like develop and attract Pokemon on. And what it is is it is just basically like their version, Like if the main narrative is Dragon Quest Builders and Viva Pinata, this is their Minecraft and Animal Crossing where there's no narrative. It is just you going and building this this island up
how you want to build it. Like I'm currently building like this giant mansion for me. I have all my Pokemon working on that right now. So next time I fire up the game, I'll have this mansion and then I can start decorating my pokemon. Hey, I gave them a home, Okay, So that is basically the.
Entire YouTube comment.
That is kind of quite on our review, and I was going to wait to ask you on the show. They said, thanks for the amazing review. I would love to know more about the free build mode. When do you unlock it and do you have a full catalog of items available to decorate like Harve's Island or the hotel and animal crossing.
So I did not go to it until I finished the second biome and I talked to tank Growth at Professor tank Growth. Actually I talked to him after I finished it, and he was like, oh, yeah, there was that like other area in Withered Wastelands, like you should go check that out, and then I did, and then I was like, oh my god, this is like a
whole like separate game basically tacked onto here. So I think you can go to it pretty early on, and it is just you know, you have to rebuild a bridge, which all you could all you have to do for that is like punch the ground using the rock smash ability that on Chand gives you and harvest that and then place the ground tiles to forge that bridge. So like you can go there pretty much immediately. I think maybe you have to do like the early missions in
Withered Wasteland. Then once you get there, your inventory is shared with the main narrative, so it's not a separate mode. It's just a separate area and it plays exactly the same, but like you it is there. There's like very loose like missions and requests, but there's no like important requests like there are in the other biomes. It's just like, yeah, go there, build a house. You can use whatever stuff
that you have earned in the main game. So like if you want to build that mansion like I talked about it, I think it's just called like a a house or a cottage or something. I have forget what like the hierarchy is. It goes from like hut to this. It's like four layer four levels of houses that you can build in order to do that, though, you need to raise the environment level of whatever biome you want
to have that high level house. So like I didn't unlock a kit to build that highest level of house until I raised like Withered Wastelands to the five level five environment. And then once you do that that, like each level environment that you raise, it gives you new kits to build, and they're all themed after that that that biomes theme, right, So like Withered Wasteland, it's all like leaf huts and then like it's like a leaf cottage and then a leaf house and stuff like that.
So it's not like you have a separate inventory. It's all stuff that you find in the game, So it's I wouldn't look at it as a separate mode. I would look at it as a separate area within that game. But it does feel distinct from the other stuff because it's not nearly as handholdy. Like, yes, there are like environmental hints of like, oh, if you build this habitat, it'll attract this Pokemon and then you can have new Pokemon join you, but you can also build houses for
existing Pokemon and have them move in. So if like you want to relocate pokemon, you can and you can bring Pokemon from one biome to another, which is cool. Even though you have to reach certain levels and like accomplishments to reach those extra biomes like in the narrative, eventually, you know, it all becomes just one synergized experience, if
that makes sense. And like so I am I'm basically like now that I have completed the story and I'm focusing one hundred percent on this this free build area, I am basically pilfering every other biome to make this other biome so much better. Like I want that because it's enormous. Like when I tell you this is like massive, I don't want to say it's like the size of
all other biomes combined. It's probably the size of two of them, though, Like it's substantial, Like there's like multiple islands that you can jump between, and like all of them have different things that you can explore. It's it's pretty massive, so there's a lot of stuff you can
do with that. I'm slowly building outward and I'll probably at some point work to connect all the islands, but like, yeah, it's I could see myself now that I've done I'm done with the story and I've spent a decent amount of time in this separate town. I am, like, I plan on probably putting like at least another dozen hours into this game, just developing this island because it's it's such a satisfying loop and now it's finally the game that I truly wanted, which is like, yeah, go do
what you want, man like. And that's what I like about this area is like since you can access it whenever, but like it, like the other stuff you have access to, is dependent upon your progress in the story and also your abilities. Like you know, you don't get that Dragon Knight glide ability until the final biome, so like, if you want to be able to glide between islands, you're
gonna need that. Otherwise you're gonna have to build long, long bridges using like the ground tiles that you harvest, kind of Minecraft style.
I'm really excited to play this. I'm curious where it ranks in you know, your personal rankings of the Pokemon games.
Risk, I guess right, like yes, broadly, yeah, broadly yea. I mean, have you ever given a Pokemon game a higher review score? Brian and your time a game you haven't? Yeah?
I think I yeah, I think all the Pokemon games have topped out it in the eights for me so far. And then I gave this a nine. Yeah, and man, I wasn't prepared for where it ranks in terms of like the overall Pokemon games. It's such an apples and urges comparison between like because there's no combat here. It's not like an RPG in really any way, aside from the fact that you're accumulating new abilities as you play through it. Can I rank it among the Pokemon spin offs instead?
Like I'm checking with the judges. No, they said no, okay, okay, then I'm jot.
I would put it like if we were to rank it wrong all Pokemon games, I'd say, it's like, like, let's go back to like Pokemon Heart gold and Soul silver. It's not as good as that. Like that is my that's the gold standard to excuse the pun of Pokemon games in my opinion. Since then, I would say the best game that Pokemon has put out has been Legends Archias. I don't think this clears those. Actually, I may have
given Legends Archias a higher score. I think I may have given that a nine point twenty five, but I I somebody else might need to check that while I'm talking checking, But yeah, Legends Archias is very good. It's such a difficult compared, but yeah, it's in the conversation as the best Pokemon game of I would say at least the last fifteen years. I don't know if I'm ready to award it that title, but it's but yeah, yeah, okay,
so yeah, Poco Pia I gave a higher score. And then uh, you know, as far as the spin offs themselves, I would put this up there, like with like Pokemon Trading Card game on game Boy Color.
That's my number one, baby, Yeah it's not, but spin offs. I love that game.
Yeah, it's probably number one for me as well. I wish they would do a new one of those, because, like, I think that unfortunately, the popularity of TCG has made it so that we're and like the the proliferation of like gotcha mechanics has made it so that that's too tempting for them to actually do like another like Pokemon TC.
I mean that's what the mobile game is right at this point, where you.
Yeah, unfortunately, but there's no like story, like at least worthwhile story.
Imagine you could actually go and explore and beat people to get their cards.
Great, that should do.
That's what I wish we would get. But that that is on Nintendo Switch online if you have access to the Game Boy catalog, that is there, So I would recommend people play that as well. But Pocopia, I mean it's up there with that in terms of like my favorite spinoffs of all time. It's in the top three, if not number one or two probably I'm trying to
think of anything else that like tops it. I mean maybe the original Pokemon Snap just for like the novelty of that era of seeing those Pokemon in three D in that way and like being in their environment. But like by today, you're a.
Big Pikachu guy, like you'll you never shot up about how.
You I played Hey You Pikachu while eating a ghost pepper because of the game and former extra life streams back in the day, So I have like a little bit of trauma associated with Hey You Pikachu, which is hilarious and laughing in my face. But yes, if you look on YouTube, there is a clip of me screaming in agony Pikachu. So I would say, like, yeah, it's
probably easily top three. Like if you ask like, if you asked me today, what game would I rather play, it's probably in terms of all the spin offs, it's probably between Pokemon TCG on game Boy Color and Pocopia.
Yeah, all right, I'm excited, man, this this uh, this has been on my list for a while. I think a lot of people and hearing the way that they are, like really smart decisions they're making with using the Pokemon you know.
It's funny. I back in like.
Twenty nineteen, maybe I was that Game Informer, so maybe it was like twenty twenty.
I don't remember. It might even before Game Informer.
I like it was back when I was on Twitter and I like pitched a Pokemon city builder idea where you were like, you know, building towns and attracting trainers and stuff. So not quite this, but you're so close, I know, I know. But this is like I'm like, oh, they kind of kind of made like a kind of version of the game that I really wanted to play,
you know, Viva Pinata. And that's like really when you said that as an inspiration, I was like, oh, okay, not that I wasn't gonna play it before, but now I'm like, come on, all right, let's get here Friday or I guess Thursday night.
Yeah, well I think it's tonight. Actually, I think it actually comes back, really, I think so, Oh we're recording this on Wednesday. I think it comes out on Thursday. Actually March fifth is the release date.
Oh, you're right, you're right.
Okay, since the nights are weird, though they don't always release east, I don't know, but yeah, you should check for sure.
Yeah, but yeah, I mean it's really good. Like I I had a blast playing this game, and I thought I would, but like it surprised me at how like how in into me it sunk its hooks. Yeah, to the point that it would be like one in the morning, I'd be like, I really have to go to bed, I have to be up early tomorrow, but like I
really want to fulfill this one request real quick. And then you get like sidetracked on the way to doing that, and it's just like it is the ultimate like you know, I'm going to distract you with this while you're trying to do that, and you're going to find something completely new to want to focus your attention on. And it's and this.
Is switched to exclusive, right, it is not ONCT one. Okay, well cool, Well thanks for thanks for chatting about that. Brian really appreciate it. I think, you know, people have got a lot to got a lot.
To pick through with this episode.
Before we get to Scott Pilgrim, I do just want to take a quick ad break and then we'll be back right after this and welcome back to the game.
¶ Scott Pilgrim EX
And former show. Kyle. You played beat.
And reviewed Scott Pilgrim ex which is the follow up to What Scott Pilgrim Versus the World, the game which came out a while ago.
I know they kind of.
Re released it a few years back, but this is like the first proper Scott Pilgrim game we've had in years. And Brian leo'malley's back at the Helm, right.
Help or helping tribute games.
I know, tribute games people behind Team and T Shredder's Revenge and Marvel Cosmic Invasion. They're kind of I guess they are at the Helm, but Brian leo O'Malley is involved the creator of Scott Pilgrim. What do you think about the game and can you kind of give us a primer of people? I mean, I feel like a lot of people listening to this have probably heard of Scott Pilgrim, and I feel like the game and the
movies and the comic they're so synonymous. But just in case, can you give us a quick primer?
Yeah, yeah, I mean Scott Pilgrim is a franchise based on a comic by Brian Le O'Malley. It's like a coming of age story about like, you know, people in their early twenties who are in like the music scene, and it meshes well with like video games, and it's like it is very much I don't know how you guys felt, but like I remember going to see that movie in theaters and it starts with Zelda music, like that's how that movie starts, you know, And it's just like this is this was like this for me, Like
this movie is for me. I played in a band growing up in high school and college and stuff, so like that that movie is special to me and now growing up now I have a daughter who's also obsessed with it, Like she loves it. It's like one of the favorite movies and we watched it a lot, and it is a movie I watch every couple of years where I'm just like, why aren't more movies like this, like,
how come movies don't have this energy? Really? But it's just like a crazy Yeah, it's a fun franchise about it's just like really, what's the word where it's it's not realistic, you know, it's like you're it's about like it's what do you mean? It's like a metaphor for what it's like to fall in love for the first time, set against someone who grew up playing video games and you know, like fighting and stuff like that. It's fun and like I I like the first game, which was
like an Xbox Live arcade game. It was like it was pre Game Informer for me, but I was doing a lot of like you know, freelance reviews and stuff like that, and I played it and I enjoyed it, mostly because I like the franchise. I'm not the biggest
beat him up guy. But this either, as the story goes like that was a game by Ubisoft, and the team that made it broke off and a lot of those members, you know, became Tribute, so like it is kind of a return to the thing that kind of brought Tribute together, right, Like like Ubisoft people made Scott Pilgrim, branched off, broke off and started Tribute and then you know,
released games, so it's like circling back. And Brian le O'Malley wasn't super involved in that original game because it was meant to coincide with the film, so he's primarily working on the and like he submitted some art and stuff. I got a chance to talk to him because I did a feature on it where I went up to Tribute Games in Canada and like got to play the game, and I did like a video call with Brian le omalley, which was really cool. It was super fun to talk
to him. But he was even saying, he's like, yeah, I wasn't super involved in the original game, like I was. I liked it and I like how it came out, and I liked my interaction with those people, but like there are things I would have changed or suggested be changed. I would have like taken more time with the art that I submitted. But here he's I think his I think his credit is just consultant. But even when I was up at Tribute, they were kind of like it.
It's kind of like consultant was just like the best
thing we could come up with. But like he was, he was very involved, like he helped write it, and like he was saying a lot of the one thing that he was obsessed with, which makes sense for a comic book guy, was that he was like he spent a lot of time editing down the dialogue to make sure that it would like fit on two lines on screen, so clicking for a lot of dialogue and stuff, which I was just like, Oh, that's such a comic book guy thing of like I got to get these this
exact amount of words in this word bubble and stuff like that. Yeah, And then and then the game itself is uh is it's weird because it's like not it's kind of cannon but not really canon, but like what is canon? And Scott Pilgrim, who knows, like it doesn't there's not really a canon. It's like there's the comic that has a beginning, middle, and end. The film has a beginning, middle, and end. The anime is sort of a follow up to both in a way, the film
and the comic. And then like then the original this is kind of a sequel to the original video game and the and that this game kind of takes place after the anime, and the anime was like a time travel story anyway. So it's like I think I even asked O'Malley and he was kind of like, I don't know, man, Like it's like it's not really what the scot Yeah, it's like it's just meant to be an excuse to like get a bunch.
Of characters an anthology series. Yeah, and they're the same characters.
Yeah. I I ended up. I gave it a seven seven to five mainly because it's like it's it's familiar, if that makes sense. There's nothing particularly like super exciting or new or unexpected in the game. Tribute has gotten really good at making these kinds of games which are like a nostalgic, sort of retropixelated beat them ups, Like the Ninja Turtle game is great, the Marvel game is great, and this one's great too. But it's just like it's it was just hard to get like really excited about it,
you know, it's just nothing really like put me more. Yeah, but it's like, but it looks great and it's a
new soundtrack from Atamanagucci. I love. The soundtrack for the original game is like an all time favorite video game soundtrack, like truly, like if I were to rank some of my favorite video game soundtracks, Like I would you know, Donkey Kong Country would be up there, you know, pick your poison with Zelda, you know, I could probably pick one or two Zelda games and like Halenic obviously, yeah, for a certain type of person for sure, And and I would truly I would put like the original Super
met Boys soundtrack and the Scott Pilgrim video game soundtrack up there, Like I listened to that often. I really love that soundtrack.
I'm on a Gucci do the movie soundtrack?
No, they didn't just anime, but they did not. They weren't involved with the movie. The movie was primarily actually I don't know, but I know Beck was heavily involved in the movie soundtrack. All the original yeah, like all the original rock songs you know that like Scott's band plays those are like Beck wrote those songs, you know.
Interesting, Wait, Michael Sarah didn't write that song.
Although quite talented musician that Michael Sarah. I think he released an album recently.
I recently rewatched that movie on the way back from Japan. It was one of them on like the seatback things, and I tried to get my fiance to watch it and about halfway through she was she tried to be very nice. She was like, that was different from anything I've ever watched, but you can keep watching. So I'm gonna go to sleep.
So she was Anna Kendrick basically a game, So I get it.
I get it.
Yeah, she hates fun but anyway, but yeah, so and there's like the comments like you kind of know what to expect coming into this if you've played like the beat him up like Team in or anything like that, Like this is a co op beat them up. It's it's more inspired by River City Ransom, which was not a game like I played that was not like a
touch point for me growing up or anything. But the result is that it's it's actually kind of like open world and quotes like, you know, don't come into this expecting grand theft auto but like it's not a series of levels that you travel between on an overworld map.
Yeah, it's interconnected screens that you're kind of passing through.
Yeah, Like and it's Toronto and there's like there's like portals to like altern dimensions and stuff, and it's like that that part of the game I really liked because it was like adventure game light where it was like an NPC would be like, oh, you know, I like I I think I saw the character you're looking for in a school, and then you're like, oh, where did
I Where was that school? And then you would have to kind of you actually like walk over there, and the city's like small enough where it's like it never takes too long. But I just like, I just always will appreciate that approach to like a world, because then it just kind of feels consistent, you know, it doesn't feel like a little blocked off chunks that you're entering and exiting. So I liked that part of it. Yeah,
it's good. It's a super solid cooperative beat him up with like fun characters and fun dialogue, and like I was never like emotionally moved by the plot or the story or anything like that, but as a means to kind of like jump around and see familiar characters and like see new characters that Brian Leomalley created, Like it's all it's all fun and and effective, you know, but just not like not it like I think I might. In my review, I wrote like it made me happy,
but not ecstatic. You know, it's just like yeah, solid love love hanging out with Scott again. Thank you. You know.
How does this compare to tribute to other games like Marvel, Cosmic Invasion and Shredder's Revenge.
I think that this would probably be my favorite of those three. Wow, maybe Ninja Turtles like a close second. I played a little bit of Marvel, and I like. I like Marvel fine, it's I didn't really get nostalgic over like seeing sprite version of those like Marvel characters and stuff like that, but I like the The layout of the world is the thing that I found most like interesting and like like engaging. You know.
Yeah, those other games are more so level to level.
Yeah, which is which is?
Yeah? And I just I liked I like this. I like being able to be in Toronto because, like the setting of Scott Pilgrim is is crucial, you know.
I mean not to say that go to Toronto.
I no, surely I can.
For how much longer? Who knows?
Yeah? Right? But yeah, super solid, super solid game with a great soundtrack that I look forward to sort of sort of seeing if it kind of sticks in my brain as much as the soundtrack for the original game, did you know, I don't know if it's up on like streaming platforms yet, but I love on them on a Gucci so like to get a new soundtrack from them. It's always exciting.
And when when is this out? Is this out now?
Is out now? Yeah?
Out now? Okay?
Yeah? And I played on switch to and it ran great, like new issues on switch to whatsoever looks great? Ran great, you know, quick loading, all that fun stuff. I don't think I ever really saw any like frame ring drops or anything, which is like impressive because there's actually a lot happening on screen. You know, there's a lot of like stuff bouncing around. Sometimes it got even a little too chaotic.
For me to the point remember that in your review.
Yeah, I don't even really know what's happening, but I seem to be winning, so I'm just gonna roll with it.
Couch co op to right.
Yep, yeah, up to four players, yeah okay, and it's drop in drop out very easily played. Played a bit with my daughter the other you know, the Scott Pilgrim fan in my household, and uh it worked well when she got tired of hanging out with her dad. She was very easy for her to leave in that ktinue playing.
I saw that lost her cool well, I think that's going to bring us to the end of the show.
Alex, this is this is circular. I want to plug. Yeah, I want to plug. An interview I did on the website recently with director Matt Johnson, who directed the recent Nirvana the Band The Show the movie, which I highly recommend if you can see it in theaters, you should. It's a fantastic, hilarious movie that I really loved, speaking of movies that just take place in Canada that have a lot of energy, that you watch and are like, how come more movies aren't like this?
Yeah, but I've heard great things about it.
Yeah, Oh it's so good. I've seen it twice. Like I I loved it so much, but I got I talked with him because like he's clearly like you watch that movie. His previous movie, BlackBerry even, which is another fantastic movie. It's like very video game coded. He loves video games. So there's this interview on the website with this director Matt Johnson, who also is the we Shop Update Day sketch.
We shot Wednesday.
Yeah, we shop Wednesday. That's that's not bad. Yeah, that's that's him. You know you might so really Yeah, yeah, which I talked to him about that in an interview too. That song will get stuck in your heads so much. Yeah, I don't know. I had this experience when I saw trailers for BlackBerry, where I was like, this movie looks great. Why does that guy look so familiar? And it took me a while to be like, Oh, it's that's him. And then and then I looked it up and I
was like, he directed this movie. Yeah, and he's and he has a couple of projects come up, but he's also directing a Magic the Gathering movie, which I am very curious to see what interesting looks like. Yeah. He all he could tell me about it was that he's doing it and he's excited about it. That was all he was able to say. But the reason I bring
it up is because A. I want to plug it. B. We talked about Scott Pilgrim in that interview because he's very He's a very Canada guy, very like like he's you watch any of his BlackBerry Nirvana the band of the movie. The show is like a very Canada movie, Like it's just like it is is like, this is a movie that takes place in Canada. And then the create the funny thing about it was I talked to him, it was a great chat, and then I got off the call with him and picked Scott Pilgrim ex back
up to continue my review. And there was an easter egg that was a direct reference to Nirvana the Band the show, which if you're not familiar, it's the premise is it's these two guys who are constantly trying to get their band a gig at the at this bar called the Rivali. And there's a character and there's npcasons the Scott Pilgrim video game who are like, Hey, what are you doing tonight? And they're like, oh, I heard my friends Jay and Matt are playing a show at
the Rivali. So it's so funny that I literally hung up the phone with Matt Johnson and then like started playing Scott Pilgrim and found that like five minutes later. So that's the circular plug I'm making here. Scott Pilgrim, Nirvana the Band, the Show of the movie interview on the website. Please I insist you check it out.
Awesome.
Well, while you're checking that out, be sure to go and check out the YouTube channel YouTube dot com. Slash Game Informer got a lot of great stuff on there, including by the time you're listening to this, probably some our first Invincible cover story video, as well as a bunch of video. We got a Scott Pilgrim The X review. We got a Pokemon po Copia review up there. If you want to see those games in action, and you know,
follow these guys on social media. You can follow Kyle at Kyle Hilliard go file, follow Brian at Brian P. Shay uh, and you can follow me at It's Van Aiken. Thank you all for for listening. Be sure please pick up a copy of Game Informer, gamiformer dot com, slash subscribe, or find us on your news stands uh and uh yeah, that's gonna be it. Guys, Hope you have a great week and we'll see you next time.
Bye.