TGI 661 - Probably Not Friend

Welcome to the Gamers Inn. Come on in, pull up a chair next to the fire. It looks like you've had a long journey. I'm your host Jocelyn and joining me as always is my co-host Ryan. Hello, Ryan. Hello. I know everyone at home is wondering, did we get good this week after our silksong conversation last episode? Yeah, we're just jumping right into what we're playing this week because honestly, that has been a lot of what I've been playing this week. Silksong is...

Silksong is really fun and it gives me just such a feeling of accomplishment, even when I beat bosses that like everybody else has already beat. I still just feel so good because again, like it's I know I said this last week. It's not the kind of game that I play. I don't play Metroidvania stuff. I don't play platformers. I don't play Souls-likes. Like this is just completely and utterly outside of anything I would normally play. And I've gotten so much further.

Silksong than I have in any other game like this that I've tried to play before like Ori's the big one that jumps into my mind and I think I might have said this last week too because of just the aesthetic but I couldn't get very far in that one it just didn't like grab me But Silksong, I don't, there's something about it. It's like every time, like...

I get a story beat and I talk to a new character or find a new character. I just love seeing Needle's interactions with them. And it feels so rewarding because it was so much work to get there that I'm like, oh. this is amazing. Yes. Give me some story. Give me some character development. Who are you? What's going on? So yeah, even if it's only like a cute little couple of one-liners, I'm still, oh, I am all in.

Yeah, I do appreciate all the interactions with the characters as you're moving through. And as we touched on last episode, I feel like the personality that Hornet brings to the game that wasn't.

present in the first one you notice right away every time you walk into an area and and your character is respectful of of every uh of every you know sentient creature that's there like if if a creature isn't attacking you it seems like there's a conversation to be had and It's actually really funny that you say that because literally every single new character design that I walk up to, I'm like, I walk up to them so slowly and I'm like, friend, friend, friend, not friend, not friend.

if they're if they're moving uh chances are they're probably going to attack you i i don't know if that applies across the board but uh you know a piece of advice i have is that when you are engaging with a character and talking to them is always talk to them multiple times. And I learned this in the first game too. It's something we didn't touch on, uh, last week, but if you talk to them,

Oftentimes they'll have more to say and sometimes offer you a quest. I literally just talked to a character that like had a big spiel and I was like, oh, that's interesting. But this is like. you know, off the path of, of the map, there's gotta be more to this. So I talked to the person again and she was like, Oh, you know, if you collect these things for me, that'd be great. I was like, Oh, cool. A quest. So you have to.

I think sometimes when it's not like mission critical, you kind of have to pry it out of them. Unless it's like critical path, they're like, oh, well, you want to talk to me again? Sure, I've got something you can help me with. If you insist on not just going the fuck away, I guess I can keep you busy. Exactly. Exactly. Oh, you're not leaving.

Maybe if I give you something to do, you'll leave. Yeah. Essentially that, like just every character you come across is, is just socially, you know, not having it. And it's like, okay, here. go go find uh four of these routes and and um that should keep you busy and there is a lot of optional like sort of i don't want to say fetch quests but um

There was a quest I discovered that was like, go hunt three of these monsters. And you wait, the way you find them is you track them by like finding their. Oh yeah. The cinder things or whatever. And you have to get their scent. Yeah, that was a fight I was not prepared for. Yeah, there's they were they weren't really like sub bosses, but they were sort of just like unique enemies that you had to learn their patterns and.

I really appreciated that sort of like revisit this area and you probably have some additional abilities or a new crest that you can sort of play around with.

It was a really neat way to sort of animate an area that you hadn't been to in a while. In case it isn't present to the folks listening at home that are a little further than us, we're still in Act 1. We're still in the first sort of set of areas that were... we're sort of uh yeah i think i just made it to my fifth area i think But yeah, I think one thing I did want to mention was how kind of interesting it is that you don't necessarily have to employ the same strategy.

in order to defeat bosses so there's there's one boss and i don't want to do too many like spoilers or whatever but there's one boss that has a second phase that makes a use of an ability that you gain in that zone and so If you use that ability, you can do a thing up above the boss that does a whole ton of damage, right? But I didn't even realize that that was a thing. I just stood on the platform below the boss and just went ding, ding.

So it probably took me like twice as long to beat this boss as everybody else. But in the end, my strategy worked. I just avoided all the attacks and just went. And then eventually I won. So, yeah, I do appreciate that different strategies are possible and it doesn't like lock you into using.

either like a mechanic or a move set that's new to you because the game can be so punishing with those enemies hitting for two every single time it's basically like you're just you have three hearts like at the very beginning of zelda And yeah, everything just seems to hit so hard. You basically get three chances. And if you get hit three times, you're out. So I really appreciated that they were like, you know what? You're new to this mechanic. It's here. And if you.

employ it then that means you're gonna have an easier time but you don't have to because i feel like if i had started to try to do that in the middle of a boss fight I would have died so many more times. So I very much appreciated the slow and steady approach that the game allowed me to do. Yeah, no, there were a few bosses. There was one boss that and I'm pretty sure it was optional.

where it's just it's on the ceiling and it's just like spewing gunk from the ceiling and there's a bunch of like little platforms you can hide under and it was essentially just a very clear test of patience to like wait underneath this ledge wait for the the the spew to stop yeah exactly the puke to stop you know coming out and then and then like jump up hit hit once or twice like if you're going if you're hitting it twice hitting the boss twice is like oh

that's stretching it. It was really just to do it once. And it was just a matter of just being patient. I didn't even realize that was a boss. I thought that was just like a room mechanic. I've just been mad dashing it. Which is fine. Every time I've gone to go and check that because I think there's a little room beyond.

that I still, I keep forgetting what's there. And I'm like, if this big slime belchy thing is in my way, there's got to be something good in that room. And then I do the whole big long run and then there isn't anything good in that room. And I'm like, ah, crap. Right. Okay.

Or I think there's something good in that room, but it's behind a door I don't have a key to. Yeah, I think there's a key you have to buy from the shop. Yeah, for like 500 little rosary things. And I'm like, I haven't had 500 rosary things in my whole entire life. I'm too afraid to have it, you know, like, I just don't, I don't hoard them. I, I did have an incident where I lost a good chunk of them. And right now where I'm stuck is I was going through two areas.

uh that that i could have bought a map and i couldn't because i didn't have the beads and i'm like oh my god so i feel like i've kind of been fumbling around in the dark uh for a little bit apparently you can like if you die and drop a bunch of rosaries if you make it back to where you die you can like reclaim them yes but i that that is just like rumor to me because i have never been able

to just make it back to where i died other than like in boss fights but just in the world i never make it back to where i died without dying again because you die again and then obviously all of your rosaries are lost because it kind of like saves your previous amount, right? So if your previous amount was like 100 and you die and then you die again, your count was zero. So it remembers that zero, not the... not the higher of the two right so yeah i uh that's just a rumor

As far as I can tell so far, because I die so often that I've never actually made it back to my corpse. Well, I'm happy to report that it is truth. If you make it back, you get your. You get your rosary beads back. It's it is the it is the sort of corpse run mechanic that sometimes can be quite frustrating. And. there are, I think there is there, I found an item that you can equip that like, so it's interesting that the way it reads is it says like, Oh, you know, when you die.

you keep some of your rosary beads. And I'm like, well, it's weirdly written because I keep zero when I die, you know? So now the way this is written, it sounds like... you know you get to keep more it's like well yeah if more is more than zero that's that's great like i would even take you know 50 so um i also found out what the uh the memory lockets do you i've

been collecting them and i keep thinking i keep finding things that like say oh this would be good to turn into a historian or something and i'm like okay well i haven't come across that quite yet but I kept finding these memory lockets and you can use them to unlock slots in a crest that you have so you can equip multiple tools I learned that

A little too late that I'd like, well, I am admitting I learned it too late. I just discovered it and I'm like, oh, so now I can equip the, you know, the, the GPS signal for Hornet and I can equip the. the ability to, I think I just equipped the ability to help to keep some of my rosaries when I die. So it's, it's win-win. So, uh,

Yeah, if you find those memory lockets, you can actually use them on the Crest page to unlock. I think you can unlock an additional slot per category. So you can have two per category. Oh, okay. Three categories, yeah.

So have you unlocked an additional crest yet, which basically gives you like a... completely new moveset yeah no i haven't i know i've seen a lot of people like talking about them i have like i say i have a good friend of mine who's all the way through the game already and so he's been talking about crests and everything else and obviously my tiktok is still full

of silksong content so i i've definitely i'm aware of slash familiar with the crest concept but no i haven't actually found it yet and i was kind of surprised by that because that i think is the only um The only achievement that you have over me. So like we're pretty close by. At least our next boss will be a shared boss, right? Our progress is about the same. But yeah, whatever or wherever the crests are, I seem to be missing it.

There is one little like mini boss that I didn't go back to after I got the dash ability. So maybe I have to go beat him. I don't know. No. So the crest I found it was it was off. I wouldn't say it was like off the critical path, but it was, it was near it. And it felt like one of those instances where like, this feels optional, but I'm going to push through. And it was sort of a, it kind of felt like a puzzle dungeon.

So it was it was in the area of the you haven't quite I think you're just getting there. We talked about the branching path that you got to where you could go to the crows and fight the flying enemies or go left to the inn type place. So, yeah, it's in the left area. Oh, OK. Yeah, I haven't really I haven't pushed through there because I kind of like.

made it to the inn and then kind of poked my nose out that way and then it seemed like there were lots of enemies and they seemed like they'd be kind of difficult so i was like you know what when i first made it to this area there was a left path or right path i'm gonna go see what's down the right path just in case

And that's pretty much where I left off. So, yeah, I yeah, I've just I've really been enjoying Silksong and I'm going to keep kind of pushing through because I don't think I've hit the point yet where. I can't go any further. I think it's going to be a platforming issue because I do find that if I just kind of like am calm and patient and stand still, then there's, you know, a lot of boss fights mini boss fights you know new enemies and stuff like that i i'm

making my way through i'm able to learn the movesets and stuff so i don't think silksong is beyond me from a combat perspective i think silksong might be beyond me from uh bouncing from those stupid red flowers to the next stupid red flower Yeah. And there's I know and I might have mentioned it last week because of the TikTok videos. I know that there's a section coming up where like lava chases you. And I'm like, I just I that will that will be the end of me.

of that platforming section i will not be able to do so i'm not there yet fingers crossed but uh yeah so i'm still really enjoying it but the one thing the one thing that pisses me off so much is that this game has now ruined my steam completely all of my recommendations say because you played games tagged with metrovania souls like platformer difficult

I played one game. I played Silksong. Yes, I have played many hours of Silksong at this point. Even then, I think I probably played like 10 hours maybe. Like, that's not even... I think like DVD is at like 2000 hours. Like I have played so many other games for so much longer. Where are my city builder recommendations? Where did those go?

Because now everything is like Souls-like platformers and Metroidvanias and difficult. And I'm like, I don't want any of these. Silk Song completely ruined my recommendations. It's probably just because it's like, it's so different and I've actually put time into it. So Steam is like, oh, you've discovered a new thing. Here's everything we have.

like no steam stop well then you know not to uh leave a game running that you're like unsure of and like oh you know remember always ltef4 this way you know steam doesn't think you're into um Whatever game the Discord has tricked you into playing next, I guess. I don't know. Trick is a strong word, but you know what I mean. Yeah, so...

I literally had to go and play Little Witch in the Woods to try to reset my algorithm because Little Witch in the Woods is basically like a witchy stardew. And so it's I think it's a little indie Korean company, I think. So it is like localized to English. So the dialogue and stuff at some points is a little bit like stilted. But.

It's really cute and it's cozy. I haven't played too, too much of it. And I will say there's like a prologue section on a train where you're sitting there talking to your magical hat. And it goes on way too long. It's like explaining why you're on the train and where you're going. And it's this little quippy back and forth thing with you in the hat.

But you have to actually push a button to advance every little thing of dialogue. And some of the sentences are like... three or four words long and it just felt like i was sitting there like next next next next next next next i was like okay this is this is too long and too much i think it probably that whole train section took like

oh probably like 15 minutes like it just felt way too long before like you kind of got into it but then it's like then it feels very kind of stardewish because you have like You get your little cabin. You have to clean it up. You're trying to get into a village. But it doesn't like start you off like at the very bottom. Like you're a witch.

So you do have and it says basically that you've like just finished your schooling or whatever. So you do have like some skills. So like you could make potions, you can cast spells, you have a little like quill, you can draw in your encyclopedia journal thing.

you know like it is very um like it gives you a lot of stuff to do right off the bat which i really appreciated it wasn't like it wasn't too much but it wasn't super slow and boring so they kind of um throw you into the the witchiness of it right from the get-go so yeah like it again i haven't played very much of it i think i only played about an hour or so just to kind of get into the prologue and and kind of see where this was going to go

But it's got like mostly positive reviews. I guess it's been in early access for quite a while. But just recently, like within the last couple of days, actually did its 1.0 release. So that's when I picked it up. And yeah, it's super cute. It's like I say, like the Stardew kind of pixel art stuff, graphics wise. But yeah, it's so far, it's really cozy. It's really cute.

You play a little witch in the woods. What else do you need to know? Oh, did it fix your algorithm in Steam? Is that? No, not yet. Probably because I've only played like an hour in Steam's like. is it because you like silks on better and i'm like no steam you do not know me better than i know myself go away i don't know Steam probably has many hours of Smite to look at and be like, well, maybe she's into MOBAs. Maybe she's into action combat arena games.

I do think I have quite varied taste when it comes to video games. And I think, if anything, Silksong has taught me that I need to... give more types of games a chance and we'll talk about one that i'm actually like really excited two of them actually that i'm really stoked about after that nintendo direct

that like previously i would not have been so like we'll talk about it later but i think silksong is kind of like making me expand my gaming horizons because of how much i'm enjoying it and how much i would have completely avoided it in the past it makes me want to go back and try Ori again honestly because I'm like maybe I just didn't know what I was getting into with Ori and there are

I think just the patience that I've acquired from Silksong would really help me playing in other games like that. So maybe my Steam isn't ruined. Maybe my Steam is learning. Oh. alongside me oh man ori those two games were so beautiful and the music was amazing and the fact that they

Look, I understand the developers moved on to other projects, and I think their current game... I can't remember what it is, but it's a little bit... It's a different... to a different path uh that they took but man the fact that we didn't get another ori game i loved those ori games and um yeah i'm trying to remember i think it was like the the game they're working on now is is a

It's in early access. It's like a roguelike sort of dungeon crawler type thing. I can't remember what it's called, but Ori in the Blind Forest. Like that game is so good. I loved it. I love that game. So yeah, you should, you should give it another shot. I feel like, I feel like the first one is really good. The second one sort of runs with.

what they established in the first one like but they are like they're connected in a way that you matt said the second one was a lot harder yeah uh yeah actually or maybe it ramps up quicker Maybe. Anyways, yeah, Matt said that the second one was harder than the first one, for sure. But anyways, yeah, that's a whole other aside. Point is...

Little Witch in the Woods, I do think it seems like worth the time so far. Very cute, very pretty, very well done, especially in like a pixel art style that I don't necessarily normally like. Go check it out again. It's definitely available on Steam. That's where I've been playing. But yeah, it's super duper fun. So what about you, Ryan? What have you been doing this week other than poking away at Silksong?

Well, I got distracted by the Nintendo Direct as well, sort of. Look, we're going to... if it seems like we're oh we're rushing through the what we played section a little bit because that nintendo direct was pretty beefy and it had a lot uh a lot in there especially if you're Someone who purchased a Switch 2 that's looking for some... That's looking for justification. Well, no, justification isn't the right word. It's more like strategically finding additional products to pick up that...

Without the credit card company being like, you're spending a lot of money at Best Buy. I'm going to send you a code just to make sure that it's really you. Although you'd think they'd know by now that, you know.

uh we'll get to that but i after that uh direct i was like you know what i i need to get back to donkey kong bonanza because i really enjoyed my time with it and i didn't i didn't finish it uh so yeah i i jumped back in and i ended up finishing up the the main quest and i'm not gonna you know spoil it or anything but uh that last sort of section there just loved it it was amazing i

I can't say why without it sort of spoiling it, but like it was, it was a lot of fun and, um, they did announce that there would be DLC, which we'll, we'll talk about. I did not buy the DLC. This is not like a, you know, right? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Because because that DLC. We'll talk about it. But no, I ended up finishing up the main quest of Donkey Kong Bonanza. I loved every moment of it. It continued to be...

fun in every capacity as you continue to play the game. Just when you get used to a mechanic, in each world they'll introduce a new mechanic. One World is like, okay, now there are these platforms that float, but they have glue on them, and you have to throw an object.

onto the platform so it comes down and then you can like clap to make the thing fall off of it so the platform goes up and then they build that into some platforming mechanics and they even they even build it into like enemies that you fight so they'll like they're immune unless you throw an object at them so that they crash to the ground and then their armor falls off because every enemy has like a, every enemy has armor built into it.

uh that is usually terrain based so that you are just like the train like you know smashing through it you have to smash through the armor of of these enemies and depending on what the enemy you know armor type is like it might be as simple as just hammering on the Y button or you might be required to find some stronger material to take it out or turn into, you know.

super donkey kong or whatever to uh to do enough damage but um yeah like like the super mario odyssey game from the same team before it like i i felt like um it ramps up has a great finale. And then I opened up the post game and sure enough, the game does exactly what I love, which is like establishes a conclusion to the story.

And then it's like three months later and opens up into this post game where like it just keeps going and you're able to explore at your leisure just to kind of like look around and there's new challenges to do.

I think like a lot of Mario games, like the challenging bits, like the really complex platforming and puzzles and combat mechanics are introduced at the... after the main quest and it's kind of like well this is optional for those that want to engage with the systems in a more complex way uh and it's it's definitely got that so i started the post game which involves

Going to each each areas elder and initiating like a specific challenge. So there's this like whole post game quest that I'm doing right now. And it's. gated by how many bananas you've found, with the first one being 300 bananas. So I was able to do that one, like jump into it and start it. I think I had... And when I say collected, it's not really collected. It's like based on how many bananas you've eaten throughout the game, these bananas are the things you get.

When you complete a challenge and Donkey Kong quickly eats them. So I've eaten 600 of these bananium gems. That... is a lot of bananas yeah well it's donkey kong i mean like it's never enough right the the whole point um when you're when you're moving through the game anytime someone asks like what Why are you going to the planet's core? Because if you get to the planet's core, it'll grant you a wish. And Pauline just wants to return to the surface, but Donkey Kong wants bananas. And that's...

You get the option every time is you can either give, you know, Pauline's answer or you can give Donkey Kong's answer. And it's always it's always bananas. Yeah. Just an unlimited amount. Bananas. Yeah. I mean, he's he's he's a simple creature. All he wants is just a pile of bananas. And as we've established on previous episodes, just have zero security on said. banana collection just kind of leave it out in the open for what geez he's had it stolen by um uh

Mario, he's had it stolen by the, you know, K. Rool from the SNES days. He's had it stolen by penguins. I can't remember what the enemies were in the first sort of Wii reboot, but they were like sort of, you know, just creatures. Yeah. So again, like you'd think after the first couple of times he'd put like a gate or like a keypad or something on the front, but.

no just a cave just a cave yeah just a cave and maybe ask diddy to watch it every once in a while which i mean he's not he's not doing he's he's not doing his job either so uh yeah no i i've i've thoroughly enjoyed donkey kong bonanza i'm still working my way through it i'm in the post game now i thought like oh i'll finish the main quest and then and then i'll have enough reason to go buy the dlc but i'm like oh there's there's quite a bit more here so i'm

I'm still working through it. Still having a great time. Still boggles my mind. And again, when we get to the direct, like none of these games.

outside of Mario Kart World, have been priced at the $110 Canadian level. Which is, again, like, I'm sitting here wondering, like, okay, well, I guess now Donkey Kong Bonanza is at the... except 120 i was gonna say because it it has a paid dlc right so yeah that extra content is gonna push it up over the edge yeah and but that's the thing does that so does that mean like

By that logic, is Mario Kart World going to have some free DLC down the road? There's been nothing yet announced for Mario Kart World. No post-game stuff. So it's just... It's just odd. I don't think Nintendo has really established what these price points mean. Outside of, yeah, I mean, maybe they've established that if something isn't priced $110, expect some paid DLC. They literally announced, we don't have this in the notes because we're not Pokemon, huge Pokemon fans.

These days, but they announced DLC for a Pokemon game that's not even out yet. You know, so maybe that's their their process. I don't know. every company is doing it differently so we'll see we'll see i'm glad you mentioned pokemon because that was actually one thing that i wanted to talk about and i forgot to i forgot to write it down in our maybe some of us

Like, it looks cool. And look, I'm not one to give companies a hard time for announcing DLC. Like, I really do feel like, you know, development is hard to comprehend. for for non-game developers because like when a game is finished you have this huge team And we always talk about layoffs suck. Like the alternative to laying off staff is to have them working on something and DLC is perfect. It's like, oh, you finished your portion of the main game, move over to the DLC team.

We're able to establish that it's happening. We can announce it. I think announcing DLC before a game is out will always be a weird... pr move when you could have saved it till after launch like they did with donkey kong there was no there was they could have announced that dlc before donkey kong hit because i'm sure they they knew of it you know they knew what it was going to be um they might not have known how much it was going to cost but

Like, it's just I think from an optics perspective, it makes more sense to wait until post launch. I'd say one or two months just to kind of 100 percent, because it's like if you're if you're it doesn't matter really if it's free or paid. It's one of those things where it's like, why isn't in the.

base game yes like and that will always be the question whether they justify it or not like I remember just the mass effect three launch dlc stuff was like well this was all done after we went gold or it was all done by a team that was done their main portion of the game and and as you said like well if it's available at launch Why isn't it part of the game? That one was a little different because it launched day one and it was a very fair question of like.

put it in the day one patch guys. What are you doing? So yeah. So yeah. Video games, business. It's all fun. Yeah.

Well, let's get into that business. But before we do, let's take a moment to thank our September patron, Racer. Thank you so much for supporting The Gamers Inn over at patreon.com slash thegamersinn. The monthly host special is coming. It is recorded. I'm just waiting for quality control to listen to it and make sure that it's decent. And then, yeah, it should be up in the next day or two, depending on Ryan's schedule.

But I'm pretty happy with it. I rewrote it way more than the first one. It was very complex and difficult, but I think it was a lot of fun. So I hope you guys like it. Like I said, that should be up on patreon.com slash thegamersin sometime in the next couple of days. So keep an eye open for that. We also have our monthly game night. It's this week, Friday, September 19th at 8.30 p.m. Eastern.

Looks like we're probably going to be playing Peak, which I'm excited for because we missed like the peak of the peak hype. So. Yeah, I've had it since it launched, I guess, basically, but no one to really play it with. I got it for some friends, but we've been playing other stuff. So yeah, I haven't actually had a chance to try it yet. I might log in and just...

see what it's about before Friday night, just in case there's anything to kind of like be familiar with or set up or a tutorial to go through. I don't know, but it is a it is a co-op, so should be a lot of fun. I'm really looking forward to it. Yeah, no, I'm I got to pick it up. I did notice that if you are a humble bundle choice subscriber, you can get 10% off over there. So I think that's where I'm going to pick it up. But but as we said, I think you talked about it.

About a month ago when you were... You went on a spending spree on Steam. It's like $10. I was going to say, I'm pretty sure I got it for like $4. So yeah, it was basically like a, why are you even charging me? Or why is this on sale? $10 is not a lot of dollars and you're 60% off right now. Why? There was a whole lot of hype about it and it looks really cute. The devs have been very fun and engaging over on socials.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to trying peek out and seeing how far up the mountain we can get. And speaking of mountains. We have lofty goals this year over at tiny.cc slash TGI Extra Life. Yep, it is that time of year again already. So on Saturday, September 27th, starting at 7 p.m. Eastern, Travis and Ben are going to be playing the Dark Pictures Anthology, House of Ashes. We played this one a couple years ago now, I think.

that's the one that's like out in the desert yeah okay yeah so we did play that one yeah i thought so so uh yeah it's i think there have been two is it two or three more that have come out since house of ashes I think it was just the one we didn't like. I didn't like the story, but at least the tech was still there.

Because I feel like the first two were really, really good. That was Man of Medan and Little Hope. Those two, so good. House of Ashes, story-wise, not my jam, but... the at least the tech of the game still really was was good was held up everything was good and then it kind of went downhill from there so of all of the dark pictures to play House of Ashes is still a good one. So that is Saturday, September 27th, starting at 7 p.m. Eastern. That is over at twitch.tv slash Pixel Mountain Gaming.

Then on Saturday, October 3rd, starting at 8 p.m. Eastern, Travis is going to play Ghosts of Yotai. go and check out Travis's stream. Again, that is twitch.tv slash Pixel Mountain Gaming. We are going to have streams and game day plans and all that fun stuff coming up soon. We are about six weeks out now, I guess. which is kind of crazy we're about six weeks out from uh from game day so really looking forward to it it's going to be a fun time yeah

And I made a mistake. I put in the teleprompter that it was Saturday, October 3rd. I realized it's Friday, October 3rd, and it's either the launch day or the day after launch for Ghost of Yotai, so Travis is going to be...

uh booting that up and if you're curious about playing that game it's it's a good opportunity to jump in and check it out from from minute one so i think he's he's starting his playthrough on stream so i'll definitely be checking it out because i'm i'm curious about ghost of yotai but i'm like also

understanding there's plenty of nintendo stuff coming out that i i i might be looking at like i don't want to buy every we talked about how many full price uh premium games we've bought this year and like I don't want the fall to be like, well, we only bought one. So now we're going to buy four. Like that's. Yeah, I feel like I still have a couple more like premium titles that are coming out. The Bloodlines is coming out.

uh in about a month i think and that's that's i think 80 so i have that one for sure and i feel like there was like two or three more that were up and coming that i was interested in this year feels like the first year in a long time that like every single month there's something like super crazy game of the year contender like this is such a strong year in gaming and i know everyone's gonna say

Expedition 33. It's on my list. I'm going to play it. It's up in all of the well, it's like it's in all of the game of the year conversations still. So it's definitely worth checking out and worth playing before we actually hit award season. So. It's on my list. As soon as I get a lull, then I'll be checking it out. Yeah. Anyways, busy, busy, busy, busy year. Only going to get busier as we heard from Nintendo Direct. So this was for September.

and they it was it was long it was over an hour um and there was a lot of stuff packed in there i watched it on two times speed which was hilarious yeah okay But yeah, there was a lot of good stuff in there. So first of all, we got a new movie announcement.

there was basically nothing in the trailer it was a huge teaser it was just you know you saw mario you saw the castle and then it kind of flew up into the sky because we're getting super mario galaxy as the next setting for the next mario movie Most, if not all of the cast is returning slash the same. So we have more of that to look forward to. Maybe Mario just won't have a lot of lines.

I mean, he's in space, so unless... Well, actually, if you've played Mario Galaxy, you know he can breathe in space, so he'll likely be talking. And, I mean, this isn't like the Alien franchise where no one can... hear you scream i mean you can hear chris pratt in space unfortunately so um as someone who wasn't like you know it was fine it was it wasn't It wasn't. We'll see. I mean, they didn't announce any new cast. I assume we'll get Rosalina in some capacity.

Because it's Super Mario Galaxy. But yeah, Galaxy is her story, right? So yeah, yeah. So I mean, it is interesting that they are skipping like. The end of, you know, spoiler alert for folks at home, but the end of the Super Mario movie, you know, a Yoshi egg is seen in New York and there was always this assumption they would, you know, sort of do the Super Nintendo games. Yeah. The Mario world stuff. Yeah. Yeah. To galaxy. Although like Yoshi has a strong presence in galaxy too. And.

I mean, I don't know if you have a strong connection to Super Mario Galaxy, but when that music came in... at the title sequence, I was like, okay, I'm in like, I, I love that sort of like orchestral, you know, galaxy beat that they, you know, theme that they have. And, uh, The soundtrack for the first movie was really well done. It was not done by Nintendo, but they made a point of announcing that that guy was back and that did it for the first one.

I don't know the name off off hand, but they did a fantastic job with the first movie. So the fact that they're coming back is is good news, but not a lot of details outside of like. they did say that they were basing it on the galaxy video game. So, um, yeah, we're going to space. Yeah, that kind of led into the next announcement, which was that Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 are coming to Switch and Switch 2, I believe. Yes.

Yeah, so it's not a Switch 2 exclusive, right? It's both? Yeah, so it is a Switch title. We'll have Switch 2 sort of capabilities at no additional cost, which is... is nice considering you know we're we're going to talk about cost throughout this whole thing because it is unfortunately uh It is a threat when it comes to Nintendo. So this one's interesting. When they first announced it, I was like, okay, what is this? Because we got Super Mario 3D All-Stars, which included Super Mario Galaxy.

They are actually selling these as a bundle as well as separate, which they made a point of announcing. However, what I've learned since that announcement is that this Super Mario Galaxy is different from what was... packaged in 3d all-stars so there has been additional work done i mean it's still by and large the same game uh so if you wanted to save yourself uh 50 bucks that's right these games are

Priced individually at $55 Canadian for a bundle price of $90 Canadian, like for, and these aren't these, I wouldn't qualify them as they're not remakes. Yeah. They are remasters. And I mean, it could also this is also not like like an HD version. So this. Nintendo does this weird stuff where they have their remakes, then they have their HD sort of titles like Skyward Sword and Twilight Princess. But these are just like slightly modified versions. It's...

It's hard to look at the price of like $90 for two Wii games, Wii era games that do have some work done here, but like not a lot to justify.

yeah that big of a jump yeah but then again like this is this is kind of what nintendo does right like you can't play these properties anywhere else if you want to play super mario galaxy you have to play it on their platform and they basically like because they haven't like been backwards compatible the whole time it's like you might have gone a while without playing super mario galaxy and then so they're tapping into nostalgia and

There is no other way to play it, right? Like you can't verify your catalog in any way to say I've already paid for Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 back when I was playing on the Wii.

You just have to buy it again. There's no continuity there in your library. And I mean, don't... think any of your like GameCube and Wii discs and stuff are gonna fit and work in the Switch with you know not a disk drive so yeah there's really no way to say hey guess what i actually already own this so nintendo kind of has you by the balls if you want to play galaxy you're gonna have to pay again yeah way more well i mean it's

It is interesting because Nintendo has re-released these titles, you know, straight ports like emulated on the Wii U and you can buy them for $20. This is not that. This is like... We've taken these games and, and they have been up res. They have, there has been work done to them. So like you can make the argument, like they're bundling them. Like it's at least they didn't, you know, charge full price for each title. Like the fact that they are.

is a bonus so i'm not i'm not necessarily like you know uh i and it is nice that they're selling them individually so for example for me i i have 3d all-stars i purchased it when it when it arrived for the 35th anniversary and a lot of these announcements were for the 40th anniversary which is happening this year so the fact that they've separated them digitally so that if you feel like okay I have Super Mario Galaxy here

This may be a, you know, a slightly better version, but like if I want to save $40 and just get Super Mario Galaxy 2, like I do have that option and I, I want to wait and see. what the switch to versions look like, because like there was some, uh, uh, whirlwinded or discord had sent us like sent me a, a comparison video and, and the comparison video is like,

They look very close, but all the footage they have to go on is the Switch version. We haven't seen the capabilities. All they've said is that the Switch 2 version will play in 4K. If I want to play Super Mario Galaxy in 4K, I guess I know how much that's going to cost. I do love these titles, and I feel like Super Mario Galaxy 2 is probably... They're great games.

I don't want anyone to think that I'm like shitting on Super Mario Galaxy or saying they were bad games or anything else. I very much enjoyed them at the time. I would probably very much enjoy playing through them again.

It's not to say they're bad games at all. It's just that Nintendo, I feel like, out of all of the systems, probably has the... least amount of compatibility it seems and you know sometimes it's for good reason they are also the ones that innovate more than anything else they're not going from one box to another to another to another you know like you've got the wii with your motion control the wii u with the with the tablet then you know the switch is different again there's just um

i would say like stuff that plays on switch one should play on switch two because but again that hardware is the closest of basically anything that nintendo's done right like everything was so much different from its predecessor that i on the one hand i get it but on the other hand i'm just like oh man like every generation i if the game is even available which it isn't always if the game is even available

Every generation I have to pay for it again. Yeah. Doesn't make them bad games. It just, I don't love the practice, even if I can somewhat understand it. Yeah. I think really the only, I mean. I hate to say it, Jocelyn, but the only platform, console platform, that is doing backwards compatibility in a way where you have the disk or you own the digital product and it just runs is Xbox.

yeah i know microsoft so there you go like i don't care i don't care no no maybe and i got it in this week yeah well that was uh i teed you up there Yeah. One thing I am really excited about, and this actually might be enough. to get me to actually buy the Switch 2 is the new Yoshi game that's coming out. It looks so cool.

I was worried when when they started the trailer, I was like, oh, no, they're just going to do a straight up like 3D Yoshi sort of look and feel. And then and then you see the storybook sort of.

It's still 3D, but it's a combination of Yoshi's Island look and feel, like cartoony, hand-drawn storybook style. And I'm really glad that we're getting sort of a... well honestly like a combination of the two styles which is which is really neat yeah yoshi's been yarn uh what he was yarn i have yeah i have the i have yarn yoshi yeah the amiibo yeah But yeah, honestly, they had me when the setup.

for the game was like uh first of all an encyclopedia with a giant mustache i was like okay and then he's like i need your help yoshi because i can't read my own pages because his face is on the front of the book and i'm like fair enough i just i just love this like i don't know what it's just so quirky so the whole idea is that yoshi has to basically like go around and play through all the levels and stuff and fill out the encyclopedia

And yeah, I don't know. It just it looks so cool. It's like you have to find the thing. You have to figure out what you can do with the thing. So they. gave the example of there was like flowers and it was like okay you can you're Yoshi so you can eat the flower and then it's like this flower tastes sweet and then it's like hey the flower can get on your back and that goes that's

Ken Ride Yoshi is something that goes into the encyclopedia. And I'm like, I just, this is so cool. It's not just like travel from point A to point B. It's like, learn about your environment. make note of it and figure out how to best interact. It's like it's more exploration than it is like goal oriented, right? Like get from like platformer stuff, get from start to end.

So yeah, I think this, I think this, oh man, this game looks so good. I'm actually really excited about it. I'm like, I'm going to have to buy a Switch too, aren't I? Well, I mean, I've, I've said this before. I really feel like there's going to be. When you when you look at a Nintendo platform, you're you're looking at like, OK, I love a good chunk of these franchises. And a lot of these titles might go on the would be nice to play list down the road.

But I think eventually there's going to be one game for most fans of Nintendo titles that it's like, OK, this is the one that's going to. push me to purchase the console and then i have my nice to play lists handy so i've got like two or three other games that to justify them you know i'm not just buying the switch 2 for yoshi or for fire emblem or

you know, no judgments. I feel like if you, if you buy, I think the only thing, like if you say like, I'm waiting for star Fox, it's like, okay. Or F zero, I guess would be a more of a reach. It's like.

Sorry, I don't think you're probably not going to buy a Switch 2 if you're waiting for F0. Sorry, folks. It's just not going to happen. Although maybe now it will that I've said it out loud. Maybe, yeah. But I totally... get it like i think everybody has that game and um it's a huge investment and i think to make that investment worthwhile it has to be like there has to be that one title Which, honestly, I feel the pull of Yoshi in the mysterious books so much more than even Mario Kart. Like...

And I think it also helps that the Switch 2 has like some more entries into the catalog, right? Mario Kart alone, Donkey Kong alone was not enough, but now I can be like, oh, I'm actually really interested in this Yoshi title.

And also, I know Ryan really liked Donkey Kong and, you know, another Mario Kart is always good. So it's almost getting to the point where... the catalog is big enough because again like much like galaxy one and two like i'm not saying i thought that mario kart was going to be a shit game or the donkey kong was going to be a shit game it's just it's such a big investment to buy a new console Those games weren't enough to justify it for me. But I think like Yoshi Plus could.

actually be enough to to push me over because this this game looks so cute the only kind of like worry I might have is just like the scale of it because it's like a Yoshi not a Mario so I'm like is this going to be like the Princess Peach game and I'm only going to get, you know, 10 hours of playtime out of it. Princess Peach was a really good game, but it was so short that I was like, oh man, I was a little bit like kind of let down about the lack of flexibility.

in that title and how quickly i made it through so yeah like that was that's my only concern is that yoshi and the mysterious book will be um like too short i would like out of a title that makes me buy a console I'd like somewhere around like 25 hours of game time. But yeah, we'll have to see how that all shakes out. I might still wait for the reviews of Mysterious Book and then go from there. But it's...

It's enough to make me seriously consider it. Yeah. No, I think that's fair. I know that the Yoshi titles have... sort of been closer to like the side-scrolling kirby games in terms of their length and complexity so um yeah like i i think it's worth sort of waiting for reviews and seeing

seeing how those shape out although like you know the yarn yoshi game like that was um and and i i think there was like yeah that was pretty decent it was good like it was didn't overstay its welcome but it was still a lot of fun Absolutely. I was kind of surprised to see two titles, actually, Hades 2 and Resident Evil 9, like, I guess, showcased in the direct because they're not.

nintendo specific titles uh but both of them caught my attention and this is what i was kind of hinting to with my comments earlier about silksong and kind of like expanding my horizons because Oh my god, that Resident Evil trailer. pulled me right the fuck in and i like normally i don't know if i just haven't been paying attention or what like i did like the look of village and i thought it was it looked kind of cool but you know i never really got into it

But like this trailer grabbed my attention and I was like right in the whole time. The character design looked so cool and those monsters were so creepy. And it's like. It never really seemed to like jump scary. It just seemed like crawl up the back of your neck spooky.

And yeah, I was like, oh my God, I think, am I going to play a Resident Evil title? And then the like, can't play horror games part of my brain is like, you're going to boot up a Resident Evil title and then log in and never move. well especially considering they're they're pitching this one as like a return to their horror roots so uh yeah i don't know i i

I never played village or seven. I couldn't get into the, the first person view. I really do prefer the third person view for those resident evil games. And the fact that. re9 is going to have the option for both right from the get-go is has me more interested um i've always preferred their remakes but i think re9 might be one that you know it's uh worth picking up

Day one, just because it is it is a start of a new story. Like it is it's not a continuation of I mean, it's still set in the overall world, but like it's it's a new character, a new a new starting point. And maybe we should like. try to find a way to co-pilot it somehow like set aside a night and just be like okay you play a bit and then once you hit a wall then i'll play a bit and then when i hit a wall you can take over again yeah

That might be the only way to do it just because it will likely be too scary. You're right. I feel like I need a friend. I need an adult. Yes. Yeah. We need an adult in the room. yeah and and for hades too taking applications yeah if there are any adults in the discord that yeah they feel like they can chaperone Do you think you're going to need a chaperone for Hades 2 and it's roguelike fun? I think folks are probably happy to hear that you're back on the roguelike train.

Well, that's the thing, right? Because I'm enjoying Silksong so much, I'm kind of like looking back at these experiences that a lot of people have really enjoyed. And I'm like, you know what? I should go like I own Hades. I own Hades on the Switch. I'm pretty sure I own it on the PC. I think it was like free on Epic and I probably bought it on Steam. Like I have Hades everywhere. I've just never booted it up because.

I thought it was a card game because Hat was so into it. I'm like, clearly it's got to be a card game. And then I actually watched a stream of it after I bought it. And I was like, oh, oh no. But... I think that because Silksong has kind of like opened me up to experiences that I used to just kind of shrug off based on genre from the get go. I'm like, maybe I need to actually give some of these other games a shot.

Because Hades 2 looked so cool. And I mean, thematically, the whole idea, like all the Greek gods and everything else, like I've always really liked the idea of it and the lore and the story. I just... didn't think i was gonna like the gameplay but i'm like you know what maybe i should just give it a chance so i think i'm gonna go play hades and then yeah hades 2 when it comes out i'll give that a shot too because i think

Hades is a much more lore-heavy story-heavy universe. I don't think I can just jump into Hades 2 the way I jumped into Silksong without playing Hollow Knight. So yeah, I'm open to it, you guys. Yeah. expanding my horizons I feel like you could jump straight into Hades 2 like it is a it's a new character it's a new protagonist right yeah I mean

I'm sure it's connected. I just assumed that it either picked up and carried on from the original or it was like... another perspective of the same conflict or something so anyways i i assumed i would have to play the first one but i'm sure the discord will tell me if i'm safe to jump straight into two because then maybe that's what i'll do because It looks so cool. I love the art style.

And some of the abilities and things that they showcased in the direct, I was like, that looks very satisfying and like a lot of fun. So maybe I like roguelikes now. I don't even know what's happening to me. Well, it's it's. it's out of early access September 25th. And it's going to be a console exclusive for the switch and switch to with a physical edition coming on November 20th. Although I know you and I are like,

Not going to wait two months. I'll just buy it, get it digitally. And yeah, it's been an early access since last May on Steam. And I didn't pick it up. And I was like, OK, I'm going to wait until. until uh we get closer to 1.0 so i think we're nearly there so like we are nearly there it's it's like next week yeah it's next week yeah because it's the 16th today and yeah

Don't worry, that September Patreon special, it's still on time. If anything, it's going to be early, you know? It's all good. Thanks, Ryan.

uh and and i mean like in terms of the other stuff that that was announced like there was um so you know we were looking at the switch to calendar and we're like when is what is happening in the fall like you know we we do have uh we do have pokemon coming out in october uh and then there was this question of hyrule warriors age of imprisonment and like i feel like that was announced a long time ago

Because I feel like I looked at this and I was like, oh, another Hyrule Warriors. And then I was like, wait, I thought this was already out. But apparently not. They just announced it a while ago and it's not coming until, is it coming this fall? It's coming November 6th. So that was the question I had. That two times speed, like all of the like any prices or any dates, it was like up and down. And I was like, yeah, whatever. Ryan will tell me. Well, I missed it because I watched.

direct um and then i i was trying to watch it live and then i would miss i would have to pause it and come back and i think i missed the announcement i was like oh there was a trailer did we get a date because like it was always winter 2025 and like that could easily slip to i mean into january even though it said 2025 but the fact that it's going to be arriving november 6th was a surprise and i was kind of thinking to myself like am i gonna

Am I going to get this one? I liked tears of the kingdom and this is sort of breath of the wilds age of what, what age of calamity was to breath of the wild. This is, you know, tears of the kingdoms sort of side story warriors game focused on Zelda's time in the past. Uh, so I mean, I, I did, I did enjoy what I played of age of calamity, but it did.

suffer from performance issues and and but i did love that like they captured the the look and feel of the breath of the wild well yeah and now you've got the switch too so you've got the brand new hardware to try this out on like if they have performance issues on brand new hardware like that is a big issue so i'm sure

that they will make sure that this game actually runs really well on the Switch 2. If you're trying to play it on a regular Switch, you're probably going to have some problems. But yeah, if there were performance issues here, I would be shocked. Be like, Nintendo, what are you doing? Your console hasn't been out for a year yet. Come on. I'm pretty sure it's a Switch 2 exclusive. So they've... Oh, well, there you go then. I feel like it is.

although now that i think honestly i find they say switch so many times i can't keep up with what is what is going where what's available where like what's upgraded what's not like it's just switch switch switch switch two one seven i don't even know yeah

It's hard to know. It's hard to know because you're right. It's Switch 1 and Switch 2. Well, it's because they call it the Switch and the Switch 2. They don't even call it the Switch 1. They just call it the Switch. It's just like the base thing. And then there's Switch 2. So then that's why it starts.

to in my opinion get a little confusing because then it's like if you're talking about just if you just say switch it's like okay are you talking about the original or are you talking about like the most recent switch console that's available because like right now if i say oh yeah the playstation i'm talking about the five not the four like but yeah because they have so much cross compatibility with

the switch one and they have those like upgrade packs and everything else like right now because the switch to to me feels like there's a lot of switch maybe it's just because i don't have a switch to you yet but i feel like there's a lot of switch players that just haven't upgraded so maybe that's why they're to me it seems like sales i'm sure are proving me otherwise but to me it feels like the both consoles are still um like actively playable like there wasn't a huge shift over to switch to

Probably, again, because of the smaller catalog. But anyways. The point is, I find it confusing. Yeah. I mean, this is like every other console generation. Specifically looking at the PlayStation and the Xbox, there was a lot of overlap and a lot of reason to prolong. the uh you know the previous generation and uh age of imprisonment is a switch to exclusive so um nintendo is i think

doing more exclusives than they are sort of cross-generation games. But one cross-generation game or service, I should say, that they announced, and I only include this because I think it's ridiculous, is the Virtual Boy. So they're bringing the Virtual Boy to Nintendo Switch Online, which will require some form of peripheral, although I imagine you'll be able to play these games.

without the purpose it's not like it's like hey you don't have this in the hundred dollar virtual boy replica or the thirty dollar cardboard uh thing it's not gonna work but i i just when they like When they announced this, it's like, okay, because I assume that like, absolutely. You're going to have to have one of those things. And you think it's going to be able to tell it's like, I don't sense. There's a cardboard sensor in the switch and we can't tell.

Well, no, I don't think that like, yeah, I just I just don't think that it's going to be a good example. I don't think it's going to be a good experience anyway, but I agree with you there. I when they announced this, I'm like, this is a fun.

novelty and if i can boot these games up and play them without like i'm not i am not buying a virtual boy an accessory the cardboard one was like okay maybe but like 30 like those labo kits were really cool and maybe this is an i love that you're like i'm not gonna buy an accessory i'm not the cardboard one

maybe i feel like you could probably build one ground i'm not buying these i'm standing my ground uh i will try the virtual because i have nintendo switch online i will try the virtual boy games without it i do not need to have um you know really poorly rendered vr in in shades of red uh I just I just find it. Yeah, like when they showed that like tennis thing, I was like.

that's the best you've got that's the best they've got there's like 14 games they literally said like you know sometimes they do the teasers for these these additions to the online service and they like preview the first 10 games but at least Nintendo is like, now you got us. We're, we're going to be giving you all 14 games that came out for the platform. And, um,

You know, Nintendo is like they've tried to bury this. They've tried to, like, ignore it as a part of their history because it was an immense failure for them. And it was supposed to be their original third pillar way back in the day. Uh, but yeah, it did not do well. Uh, but yeah, it's such a Nintendo thing to be like, okay, we are bracing our history, even the failures. And also we're going to try to.

You know, we got the patents. We got the molds. We're going to see if we can, you know, squeeze out some money from people who want a virtual. But it might be cheaper if you want a replica virtual boy. I was going to look it up. on ebay it might be cheaper to just buy an actual virtual boy even if it's not working and just place it on a shelf and be like like if you're looking for like nintendo history to display like it i don't know

Someone will correct me and say, oh, I looked it up and a non-working virtual boy is still like double the price of of whatever this. I was going to say, can you call it a replica if it's.

still the same company making it well it's not it's not the virtual boy like it requires a switch to be inserted into it but i just cannot fathom like it you literally place it on a desk and you have it's like going to the optometrist you gotta like put your chin up on the thing and like i mean it's just it's so dumb it's so dumb

It's so weird, but I hope someone picks it up and shares their thoughts on the Virtual Boy replica, but I can't do it. I bought the GameCube controller that had practical purpose. purposes and i really love the gamecube and i was able to make that leap uh even though it was expensive but i i just can't do it for It's literally $100 Canadian for this thing if you want to buy it. It's wild. It's expensive. But they did it. They weren't sure if it was possible, but they did it.

wild all right let's let's talk about the dlc so uh donkey kong bonanza dlc yay or nay does it look like something you're interested in because it didn't look like much to me But I haven't played the game, so maybe there's some context I'm missing. I don't think you're missing context. So essentially the DLC is two parts. It's DK Island.

which is missing from the game so um i wasn't sure i i've been going in spoiler free and i wasn't sure like they keep referencing dk island and other locations and yeah dk island isn't in the game and and now it's part of this dlc and look from a nostalgia standpoint like you know to be able to explore dk island in the bonanza sort of engine is is really cool

I don't feel like that's the the main drive. And this was a criticism I saw about the DLC and like, OK, like Super Mario Odyssey, when you beat the main game, you. you basically unlock peach's castle from mario 64. you're able to like run around the grounds and i don't think you can enter the castle but it gives you that nostalgia hit of like you know

Here's a classic environment that you can explore. And now that it's in the DLC, you know for a fact it's not in the base game, which is kind of a bummer because it was a nice... It was a nice, it was a small but nice thing to have in Odyssey at the end as sort of a reward for finishing the game.

um maybe it's more substantial here but the biggest draw is this emerald rush which is uh which is like a roguelike uh mode where you're you're collecting these emeralds and you're trying and you're collecting perks as you go

which augments your abilities and kind of pushes you in a certain direction. So it's a replayable mode, which is kind of neat. And I think that the biggest draw for DK... uh bonanza is is the destruction mechanics but that can kind of get old as you're just like tearing the ground apart so in this case with this emerald rush dlc like i guess

that will have mechanics in place that encourage you and give you reason to continuously smash things. So, you know, the fact that they're building some systems in there outside of just like looking for stuff.

is kind of neat but it's it's 30 canadian so it's it's a bit pricey in terms of how i would sort of look at how dlc is priced it almost feels like they're doing the blizzard thing like they're doing the nintendo yeah like 20 bucks i could see being you know a more reasonable price but yeah i don't know um

I guess maybe $30 is the new 20, unless you're a good guy indie silksong. Yeah. I don't know. But I have not purchased it yet. I want to sort of... finish the main game before i i purchase additional content but um look i'll be honest with you like i think the dk island part is is um is more of a draw I want to read some reviews and see if it's just like...

you know, is it just like a cool run around and look at it or yeah, does it have some actual interesting gameplay functionality that does not make $30 run around and look at it. I'll watch a YouTube video, you know, but, uh, if Emerald, I, from from what i hear emerald rush is very very fun it is a great sort of spin on on the main game and totally fits in a dlc sort of package but the dk island thing sort of feels like definitely feels like

Probably should have been part of the main game, but they've decided to add it post launch in DLC. I honestly thought it was a free update when they started talking about it. You know? Oh, that's even worse. When you think it's a free update and then they just slap a $30.

price tag on it like cool when they talked about dk island it was it seemed like oh this has got to be just a free update we get to explore like a small new environment i was thinking more closer to what super mario odyssey had at the end of the game but uh you know it is expanded a bit but but i still am it's hard to Again, like spending $100 on the main game and then $30 on the DLC. And again, all Canadian prices, but even the US prices are up there.

I have not purchased it yet. I am on the fence. I need to sort of play more of the main game, but I want to look into some reviews on how the DK Island stuff is fleshed out, whether it is just like a nostalgia hit or if it is like an actual... sort of area with like all new puzzles and and challenges to complete but um i haven't i haven't seen that yet i gotta i gotta dig a little deeper yeah

So, okay, you mentioned DLC before the game even comes out. Was that about the Pokemon that I'm excited about? no okay good because i was so confused i was like okay i because the one i'm excited about is pokemon poke poke poke poke poke poke poke poke poke poke poke poke poke

Pocopia. Pocopia. There it is. We got there. The whole premise is that Ditto finds a flyer or a photo or something on the ground of a human and then turns... itself into a human and then basically starts collecting pokemon but because you are already a pokemon you can actually talk to them and it's not just like pikachu pikachu it's like it's actually like you can have full conversations um and because you're a ditto you can like learn how to um

like replicate things on the island so the little squirtles like hey i need more grass and you're like hey okay and you can make grass and you basically go and It's almost like an Animal Crossing Pokemon crossover because... you basically learn how to alter your island it looks like and then more and more pokemon will like move in because it doesn't seem like you catch them the same way you do in other pokemon games like

They're around you and they're living with you and everything else. So I thought that looked so cool. Again, it's another little cozy game, but it's Pokemon themed, which. yes please sign me up so when you said dlc i was like oh no is that dlc for the new pokemon game oh i don't want to buy a whole main game

And then another DLC game on top of it. But no, they're separate. So Pokemon Z to A or A to Z or whatever it is, is totally separate from my Pocopia. Yes. Yeah. Pocopia is a... sort of animal crossing style sort of crafting sim game and uh pokemon legends zas is a is an adventure traditional pokemon game and they announced dlc for it

um uh yeah i i couldn't really care less about the the mainline pokemon game but this little animal crossing esque title looks so cute and i want to be a ditto pretending to be a human I'm a human pretending to be a ditto pretending to be a human. Now you have to switch to titles. The library for Switch 2 titles is really starting to ramp up because even though, like I said, Hades 2 is going to be available in lots of places.

um i'm actually it's the kind of game that i think i probably would want to play like anywhere i'm waiting on a handheld like take with me kind of thing so yeah i don't know uh it's the library is ramping up for sure um there was one more thing that i wanted to talk about and that was i probably should have done it back when we were talking about mario galaxy but um the rosalina

amiibo where she's like sitting in the chair and holding the book with the two little loomy guys oh my god so cute i want it and i haven't wanted an amiibo in a long time but that one when they showed it i was like i actually love this I don't think I even want to know how much they are, Ryan.

I know it's in the notes that they are all caps expensive. I like I don't even want to know. I just want to like wave my credit card in Nintendo's general direction and get that cute little Rosalina. I love Rosalina. I always play as her over peach now. Yeah, Rosalina is is is awesome. And yeah, those Amiibos are expensive. And I'm trying to see if I can find it if they have.

because they they actually didn't have pricing so that's never a good sign it didn't have like a pre-order button or pricing or anything it was just like look at this awesome thing we made and i'm like nintendo i know it's awesome you're gonna want so many of my dollars it's not the most expensive amiibo they announced they they actually announced i was like kind of cursing it because they announced a lot of amiibos Um...

And look, I didn't buy all of them, which is good because, you know, there are. OK, what didn't you buy? I did not buy both of the Kirby Air Rider Amiibos. I thought the Kirby. You bought one of the Kirby Air Rider Amiibos? I might cancel it, though. Like, I'm looking at it. They're $55. Are you excited?

no wait what yes these amiibos have gotten crazy expensive and that's where i'm on the fence for this one specifically because it is it is per it is uh is billed as a double amiibo it's both the cart And Kirby. And look, it has the highest chance of being on the chopping block because it. it uh well i have never i have never heard you express excitement about the new kirby game it i i'm not i don't want to buy it it's i'm not excited why the fuck would you buy the enemy because it looks cool

The Amiibos look cool. Just like the Rosalina one. You're not buying it for Super Mario Galaxy 2. $55. $55. It's gotten to the point where they have... They have outpriced. So the original pitch for Amiibo was like... They look like really good figurines and they're moderately priced. But now we're looking at this as the price of a video game. Yeah, and they have some cool functionality sometimes. But yeah, like $55 is bonkers. Yeah, that one's definitely probably most likely getting canceled.

especially when, uh, if, if I speak too loudly about it and, and somebody, somebody here, I'm going to text Ashley right now. your husband is doing right now yeah definitely buying pre-ordering amiibos look that look i'm honest that one that one i only picked up because i was like well if it goes away you know then then i won't be able to pre-order it but those

Those Mario ones are 40 bucks. So they're not great. Yeah, I was really hoping for like 30 or less because that to me for a little plastic figurine is reasonable. they're bigger though like these ones are um these ones definitely look like they are bigger style amiibos which honestly i don't subscribe to i wish they were smaller so they were cheaper but yeah um i yeah i have like i i think the last um Last Amiibo I remember buying that was like a set was the Bowser Mario Peach wedding set.

I bought that. I do also have the Crafted World Yoshi because that one was super cool because it was like fabric. But yeah, like those are the most recent ones I remember actually purchasing. So, yeah. Oh, no. Don't worry. It's sending me live right now. trying to get me to join the club look i mean i've always subscribed to the fact that amiibos um look cool uh and the functionality behind them like

is a neat feature, but is, is not the main draw. Like if you want, you know, premium Nintendo figurines to put on a shelf figurines. Yeah. Like this is, this is a, You can't do better than this, but... Well, tell Matt to track it down for me for Christmas. There you go. I'll send him the link. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. They... But yeah, $30 is the new base point price Canadian for Amiibos. Like the Donkey Kong and Pauline one was $30. The baseline Metroid Prime 4 ones they announced are $30.

uh so yeah like and then the yeah so they announced um metro prime 4 finally release date is december 4th alongside um three amiibos including an extra large one that is samus on a bike and honestly the funny thing is is like i know i've said this publicly on the show i'm not buying collector's editions anymore because i have no more room for statues

But now Amiibos have become that thing. It's like it's you're building your own collector's edition depending on which Amiibos you want to buy. Yeah. So, yeah, but I'm glad that we got a release date for it. I really thought it would get pushed to next year. I mean, they are pushing it out as far as they can and keeping a 2025 release date, but they confirmed there would be some open world.

sort of um motorcycle sections which the trailer didn't inspire confidence on what that would be but it was a very short trailer so i don't want to necessarily get too worried about it but I mean, again, it was a short snippet. It's cool that they're adding some additional stuff to Metroid Prime to kind of like give it some, you know, switch to sort of open world feel. That is a Switch and Switch 2 game that you'll be able to check out. But yeah, that's December 4th.

It may not meet the deadline for the Game Awards, but it will definitely meet the deadline for the TGI Awards. So I will be playing this day one. I don't have the game pre-ordered yet, but I do have the Amiibos. At least that one I can say I am excited for the game.

yeah that makes at least a little bit more sense doesn't it i mean honestly if i if i am going to pick up a switch too then i probably would pick up um galaxy again because it has been a long time since i've played them but yeah still that's steep and i don't have the the other bundle the all-stars bundle thing that you were talking about so okay yeah i mean for me yeah the that galaxy purchase would possibly make sense but also maybe i'm

talking about spending like $90 to justify spending $40 just because I really like the Rosalina Amiibo. No, you're in a safe place. If you want to buy Amiibos for games you don't own, look. I own Galaxy in Galaxy 2. It's just that they're for my Wii. You know what I'm saying. I'm not dragging that thing out. It's okay. And there are people in the Discord that would...

They would also back me up here. Support me in my endeavors. Yeah, man. I mean, that Rosalina... I actually had the opposite reaction. I thought the Mario one... I thought both of them looked a little... weird at first and i think it is like they're just more detailed than in the game so they are like proper premium if there's one thing i can say about amiibo is that the quality have come a long way and the prices shot up

with it so yeah i remember the og link amiibo that like had the that yellow stand coming out from his crotch and i was just like what are you doing nintendo like what are you doing we've come a long way you've definitely come a long way but yeah like the there was one more game it ended the direct with this and we are so not only did they confirm that we're getting a new Fire Emblem in 2026 with Fortune's Weave but they

teased at the very end of the trailer that there would be some connection to three houses because uh sothis popped up which is a main a main character in three houses and um It's been a long time since we've had like a follow-up Fire Emblem game this close together. It actually, the closest would be the Wii, sorry, the GameCube to the Wii. was the last sort of connective, uh, back to back almost. Yeah. Back to back. There have been other titles that like awakening is tangentially.

is connected to a previous game in the title, but it was like the NES to the 3DS. This is closer to sort of a generation apart. Yeah, I was excited for more Fire Emblem. And then when they they dropped the Sothis tease and I was like, OK, wow, like they're actually going to do that because Three Houses was it was one of those rare Fire Emblem games that escaped.

the traditional Fire Emblem audience and like a lot of people played it so it definitely went very mainstream yeah so this just is is smart uh from from nintendo's perspective to be like let's let's tap into that um that popularity potential audience. Yeah. Yeah. That didn't extend to engage when it came out. So they, they probably, you know, engage was. It was fine. It was a good Fire Emblem game, but it did not do Three Houses numbers. So to re-tap into that is smart, I think. Yep.

So yeah, that's pretty much it. There was even more stuff than we talked about here tonight that was announced at the Direct. Like I said off the top, I feel like this is the biggest one we've had in quite a while. So yeah, lots going on. We're finally seeing some...

switch to support so I might actually go and buy it sooner rather than later we shall see um it's definitely kind of competing with like the steam deck in my handheld world like i i need to just like make a decision and now i'm faced with like the nintendo exclusives versus like on the go access to my steam library and man oh man there it's oh every day i come up with a different answer to that question as to what i would play more so

We'll have to see. But anyways, biggest direct in a while. Hope you guys enjoyed that coverage. We have one more story tonight. It's very, very short. I am curious to know if you're going to engage with this content or not, but The Witcher Season 4. premieres uh october 30th so i i feel like the announcement was like closer to the release date than i thought it was going to be like i don't know why i just assumed like

they would announce it in like the spring, like coming this fall or something. I was very surprised that they were like, hey, guess what? It comes out October 30th this year. I was like, really? You're done? okay but uh we did get our first clip official look at uh liam hemsworth as geralt and so i will say Liam Hemsworth is fine. I have nothing against him as an actor. Go off, Liam. Have at it. You are no Henry Cavill. I'm sorry.

like he he just doesn't have like and the trailer was like nothing it was literally like it comes up behind him and he kind of like looks over his shoulder and like turns around like it is the teaserist of teaser trailers it's literally just to warm you up to the idea that henry cavill is no longer playing the role and that they've replaced him with liam oh did you not watch the um there's a clip

We can do this live. This will be fun. Oh, okay. Here, I'm going to send this to you. So there was a first clip. Yeah, the teaser that you're referencing was released previously. The first clip is... Yeah, the first look one. Yeah. Yeah, this is Hemsworth. this is official teasers is him fighting a banshee or no sorry a night wraith and I mean I thought look you asked if I was going to engage with it

Um, I'm so far behind in the Witcher. I have two seasons of, I'm two seasons behind. Um, and there's no way. There's only three seasons. I know. Like I watched the first season. I'm like, this is pretty good. And then I never, never went back. Okay. I know. And I like Henry Cavill, but I watched this clip and I'm like, okay, I think they're.

they're doing their best with with what they've got like whatever happened behind the scenes that they had to to switch um i mean it i think it works it look he's not henry cavill like there's no way they were going to be able to replace henry cavill Unless, you know, there's a in the first scene, he Scooby Doo takes his mask off and it's like, oh, it was Henry Cavill the whole time. It is Liam Hemsworth.

yeah so i think like so i only watched 40 seconds i didn't have the sound on because you were talking and that's rude so um i haven't actually heard him speak yet uh i hadn't already i hadn't seen this this minute and a half i'd only seen the look over the shoulder for sure teaser trailer but for me he just doesn't have enough weight like whether it is like his like stature or like the gravitas that that cavill brought to the character like he was so just like

weighty like i can't think of another way to to explain it like he was like gruff and like definitely bigger strong silent type yeah just a bigger guy and yeah like hemsworth again like nothing against him but like You're supposed to be this like crazy warrior that, you know. drinks this potion and like hulks out and there's nothing about liam hemsworth that gives me hulk right whereas like cavil like it's like every step with him was heavy

Right. I just don't get that for like Liam's too light on his feet. Maybe I don't know. Like it just he gives like fancy fencing guy versus like broadsword fighter. Does that make sense? Yeah, no, I think that's right. I look like playing the Witcher games. I never got the sense that Geralt was Henry Cavill.

um it almost felt like henry cowell was in the room it's like oh i like the witcher i'd love to play gerald and he works as gerald but when you play the games like you don't get the sense that he is this big literally superman um Like Liam Hemsworth kind of looks closer to the Geralt from the video games and that he is the build of the video game. He's a little smaller. Yeah, I always thought that like Geralt was just broad shouldered.

And had this kind of like swagger that I just don't get out of Liam. No, and that's fair. And I think if you do, I do give you permission to listen to Liam speak because he also does not, he does not do. uh a henry cavill as gerald impression i feel like he does which like i yeah i feel like doing your own thing is probably the better way to go honestly because you're never going to do that like gruff, growly Geralt the way that Henry did it. And people didn't like that either. I mean, I mean.

I did. I did, but again, I've played Witcher 3, but I'm not played all the games, read all the books. I'm working on the books, but... played all the games read all the books um like super fan or anything like that like i watched henry cavill first and then played witcher 3 so like my introduction to the world of witcher really was the net

Netflix show. So I think my perspective is probably different because my first Geralt was Henry Cavill. So then like going into Play Witcher 3. i was probably like projecting the the henry cavill in my head onto the video game character right so i'm gonna see the similarities and not have a preconceived notion of what Geralt is when I was first watching the TV show, right? So I think that's probably why it didn't bug me. I was just like, growl at me, Cavill. Yeah, let's do this.

you know like i i don't know okay i'm gonna i'm gonna actually watch um liam say something we'll see how this goes yeah Oh, wait, he didn't actually say something. He just grunted. Wait, hang on. I'm going to back up further. I feel like near the end, he actually now I'm trying to remember. I know he says stuff. It's right at that. Yeah, yeah, it's right near the beginning. Hang on.

oh i don't know man all i can hear is is hemsworth which again like i've liked him in other roles but i'm just like yeah i don't know we'll see we'll see i mean i did say that I mostly enjoyed. I didn't like the third season all that much. There were some high points, but I did say I would give this a try. I will give Liam a shot. um the kind of way that cavill went out like where the third season ended was um a little bit like cliffhanger if i remember correctly it was kind of like a

I'm going to take the fight to them kind of a moment. And then he like walks away into the woods. So yeah, we'll have to see. Cause store like story wise, I find the world very interesting and compelling, obviously like it's. such a successful franchise across multiple different mediums so yeah i think like there's potential but i mean like from the behind the scenes stuff it seems like they were taking

the story away from its source material, which is why Cabal left in the first place. So I don't know, maybe because I'm not as familiar with the source material, I will enjoy season four where maybe other people wouldn't. But they took away my cavil and he was so yummy. So I just don't think I can get into it the same way.

Yeah. So, I mean, you're going to start a new fan podcast for his Highlander series he's working on now. Yes. And Warhammer. I mean, if there's ever been a good time to get into Warhammer, it's now.

right those are other properties i am not familiar with at all but i'm gonna get all in on because of his role so yeah i i have no shortage of henry i know that but he was just such a good gerald so yeah we'll see we'll see um i'm sure it might be fine and it also might because like i think at some point well i mean siri is our next uh protagonist right in the next witcher game so i mean like at some point it's going to be kind of like a

passing of the torch to siri maybe she and yennefer will be you know the main characters really and you know not cavil will be there but yeah maybe not as as large a role as Geralt played in previous seasons I don't know but I I will I promise I'll give it a try especially since I'm caught up I can't believe you haven't even watched season two and three um I thought season two was quite good yeah

I think there was just such a big break between the two. There was, yeah, there was a huge break. But yeah, season three felt, felt like it was quicker. I think, I think season two was delayed by COVID maybe. I think it was. Yeah. yeah i can't remember what it was honestly i've just i've really struggled with you know big epic series when it's just it's just me like if it's if it's ashley and i watching like i'm usually better to to keep up although we have just

There's so much TV these days that like, yeah, I really enjoyed the first season of The Witcher, though. So, yeah, I really don't really don't have a good excuse other than I think there was a big weight between season one and two. And then I. before i knew it i didn't even watch the um wasn't there like a like an additional series that came out too yeah there was like an animated thing yeah and then there was another live action one too wasn't there trying to remember it was like um

Gosh, I can't remember what it's called. It's like origins or. Yeah, you're right. You're right. You're right. Yeah. Yeah, I did not. Well. I'll on October 30th, I'll watch the start of season four. I'll let you know. And you can either get caught up real fast and prioritize it because season four is amazing or you'll know it's a miss.

Yeah, I'll report back just after Halloween and let you guys know how it all went. But if you want to continue the conversation, head on over to tiny.cc slash TGI Discord. You can also visit us on the web at gamersinpodcast.com or patreon.com slash thegamersin. Reminder, we've got a new host special episode that'll be going up in the next couple of days. So go and check that out.

You can also follow us over on Blue Sky. You can find me, Jocelyn, at JocPlays.com, and Ryan is at RyanMurphy.ca. Also, be sure to check out our TGI Community Starter Pack at tiny.cc slash TGI Starter Pack. Thanks for staying at the Gamers Inn. Remember, tune in next week. Bye, everybody. Bye, everyone.