Hello, everybody, and welcome to a new episode of the MinMac Show, a place about games, friends, and getting better. My name is Ben Hanson. Thank you for being here on this lovely day. Lovely day to you, Jeff Mercufava. Hello. Lovely day to you, Jacob Geller. And to you, good sir. And the goodest sir of all, Sir Kyle Sir Hilliard.
We continue, my friends. Don't we all? By talking about so many games on this here podcast, including Claire Obscure Expedition 33. Two of the people on this podcast have beat it. We're going to be talking all about it on this here episode. We're also going to be talking about the Oblivion remaster that just shadow dropped this week. It was a fun surprise. There's a game called Sunderfolk that I'm excited to talk to Jeff about. That's tabletop. To say inspired is not giving enough credit. It is.
shoving as much of a tabletop game into a video game as possible uh bionic bay we're talking about the onimusha 2 remaster that's coming out later in may we're talking about A game called Creepy Redneck Dino Mansion, River Towns. And then, of course, back after the show, we have some wonderful questions that have been submitted over there on Patreon. Thank you so much, everybody who jumps over there on Patreon. And...
Here's a fun thing for everybody who wants to review this podcast on Apple Podcasts. If you enjoy the MinMax Show, you can help spread the word by telling a friend about it. Or what about this? What about... If you submit a review on Apple Podcasts before April 28th, Before April 28th, submit a review on Apple Podcasts for the MinMax show and include some way to contact you. I'm talking Blue Sky Handle, Discord name, Twitter name, Instagram, anything like that. Some way to reach out to you.
Leave that review. We're going to be choosing five winners randomly and shipping out. the Blu-ray collection for Psych Odyssey. No way! Yeah, thanks to the good folks at Double Fine and Two Player Productions. This is, of course, the greatest documentary about game development that has ever been created, and I am... Very confident will ever be created. Nothing this ambitious will ever happen again. And has an awesome Blu-ray package. Has the whole second run available now through Fangamer.
It has an 80 page making of booklet, 13 hours of bonus features, including MinMax interview with one Tim Schafer in there. So. it's the best get a physical version of it we're giving away five copies all you have to do To win that Blu-ray physical version of Psych Odyssey is submit a review for the Midmax Show on Apple Podcasts and include some way to contact you. And then randomly choosing five winners.
on April 28th and shipping out Psych Odyssey, baby. Also, before we dive in, real quick reminder, Jacob Keller and I are going to Sao Paulo, Brazil. um next week and we're having a community meetup so stay tuned to the end of the episode we'll share details again there jacob how you feeling about that trip we're gonna be on a plane uh very soon man yeah i i truly can't wait i i was like
and I'll probably get nervous like the day before, but now I'm fully just like, this is going to be amazing. Let's go. How much research are you doing? Because like, okay, I got to learn a little Portuguese. I'm saving that for the last second, but I'm going to be fluent as you could possibly imagine. But then there's just little things that I realized like, oh, I don't know.
I don't know who the leader of Brazil is these days. I don't know what's going on politically in Brazil. Are you worried you're going to run into them or something? I won't know their name. I'll panic. Yeah, that would be very embarrassing if you didn't know. The answer is very little, especially because, look, on a previous episode, We were talking about who's the best min-max person to travel with. And everyone agreed, when you travel with Ben, you're in good hands. So I thought, great.
I don't need to do anything. All right. I will have Google Translate on my phone if that's what that means. But yeah, so I'll be out next week. Jacob will be out next week. But the plan is we're going to have a guest host pop in for the podcast. The podcast will continue. All of our shows will continue. So. Look alive, everybody. We continue. We continue, Kyle, just like Claire Obscure, Expedition 33. This is from a developer called Sandfall Interactive. If you remember, we've talked about this.
french rpg heavily inspired by jrpgs over and over again on the podcast and god i was a damn fool i embarrassed myself every time we talked about it i'm like I don't know. I've been burned before. These games inspired by JRPGs. I don't know if this new team can pull it off. The game is out. And Kyle and Jacob have finished it. Jeff and I have started it. And by God, they have...
Just blown some damn minds. They did more than pull it off. They are just storming out of the gate with their first game here. Yeah, it's impressive. It's one of the best RPGs I've ever played. Yeah, just like full stop. Now, if I may, Jacob, you are kind of newish to the turn-based RPG stuff. Like you just played Chrono Trigger, you know, like, you know, metaphor. It felt like you were still saying, I'm kind of easing into these waters and discovering my love for this genre.
that's true but like i'm including non-turn based rpgs in that as well right uh and and i think i think that like we can talk about there are lots of parts that i appreciate but like the combat system that they have crafted here feels Specific to me, like kind of the most satisfying possible version of what a modern turn-based system could look like. Yeah, more than metaphor.
yeah i mean because metaphor metaphor is like without a doubt just to be really big like there's this like wipes the floor with metaphor like handle I think, yeah, metaphor has some very clever kind of theory crafting of how your characters can you know could work together how you could build a specific guy but like this has you know, almost as interesting just the skill interactions and things you can do with the characters and layered on top is
Let's get the example out of the way, like a FromSoft level of animation that you are constantly forced to interact with because the game is about. dodging and parrying attacks as well as doing your own attacks in a turn-based fashion. Yeah. Okay. There's a lot of specifics I want to dive into here. We'll save it still because we're doing the deepest dive on this. We'll share more details on that after this discussion. But I mean, Jeff, how far are you in Expedition 33 here?
Um, like 35 hours. Jesus Christ. Okay. Yeah. If I beat the game and I think you might've put in more hours. Yeah. I'm not even close. I'm maybe guessing like a third of the way through or something. What are you doing? I have problems, okay? I have problems. And like once the world map opened, I was like...
Are they going to take me to these other places? Or should I just be running around and going to all of them right now? And that's what I ended up doing for a very long time. It's an incredible game. Everything about it... Like I was not expecting. Something this good. And I looked up Sandfall afterwards to be like, who are these people? Like, they have no right to make something this good. Not fair.
That's the part that I still can't wrap my brain around is how that team pulled it off. And it's some former Ubisoft talent. I mean, they have plenty of game industry experience just forming together here for the first time for this project. But just in terms of firing on all cylinders, you know, story, the combat. Oh, my God. Characters just like.
Like I have been playing this game too late at night. You know, I'll go to bed at like three o'clock and then I'll lay there till like five o'clock just thinking about how good this game is and how interesting it is and like story twists and all of these things. It's just like.
Where do you where do you even start? You guys are gonna have so much fun on the deepest dive about this one because I did it was literally keeping me awake like multiple nights I would just I would just like think about it after I finished playing that's so delightful I mean it was yeah so Jacob was playing it early and I think it was sent a message just being like boy it's a shame we're not doing clear obscure for the deepest dive it really seems tailor made for it it's like
We can pivot. We can do that. We can make it happen. So thank you for the guidance. And I'm glad you're not completely out on a limb when it comes to its quality, like when all those reviews dropped. And I guess more importantly, when I started it myself, like the first hour and a half, it was like. You know, there's a hook. I want to touch on that briefly as like a little side tangent here is like this genre is like is bad with intro.
right like like jrpg inspired games jrpgs rpgs like they they they have slow roles generally obviously there are exceptions but like to me it feels like a genre that that it's like you got to spend some time with it before you understand it but i was like quickly like really right away i was like totally enamored with what was happening And there's like an early twist that's like really effective. And just the idea of like...
There's something in the distance and we're going to go see what's over there. And then you get there and it's immediately like, holy hell. There's no way I'm not seeing this to the credits. Like really right at the beginning. I don't think I expected that feeling of... I don't know if you guys thought of it too, but... Just the hook of a movie like Annihilation of just like we're going to we're going on an expedition to a weird place.
We don't know exactly what can happen, and it's going to be a bit surreal. People have been going there for decades, and none of them have come back. Even that. I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about that. We've been sending people there for years and years. No one's ever come back, but we're still going to this expedition, and you will find out.
why and what's happening on this continent, the mainland. It is one of the best premises for a game that I've ever played. And not just the premise, but they have like They knocked it out of the park in terms of the storytelling and the pacing that goes with it. Like the first half hour you spend in Lumiere, like the city that all the expeditions leave from. And that time is...
So expertly spent. You're just kind of walking around talking to people, but it does such a good job of like grounding you in the perspective of the characters. And that has made that has made me so invested. for everything that comes after that of like, of like seeing and feeling it from their perspective, from that point on, like it is just, Who are these sandfall people? How are they so good at like at like nailing that right out? Like this game has made me think of so many other.
RPGs that I've played and just been like this is a bloated mess what I'm like you know the story is not interesting the skill trees aren't interesting like this is a master class on so many of those things when they're dealing with themes that they are out of the gate of like hey as far as at least as i can tell so far this is a game about love and death like they're just hitting you over the head with it and they can get out of the gate so strongly on that front for just
making you think about these concepts that are invading the world. Because the premise, if you don't remember, it's that we probably dunked on it or talked about it a fair bit with our reaction streams. Dunked on is not the right term, but just kind of been fascinated by where the premise is. All right, there's a paintress. There's this big figure in the distance and she paints a number every year and everybody who is above that age dies. Is that the cleanest way to set this up?
And the number goes down by one every year. Correct. So it's, you know, 35, 34, 33. Right. And every year they've sent expeditions to try and figure out, like, OK, if it's your year. what are you gonna do sit around in this town and wait to die like no we should at least try and kill the paintress let's try and take a boat over there at least talk to her yeah but i'm sure the game gets into such a funny idea of like wait so a certain point where they're sending like
99 year olds on this mission to like go try and take her out i mean we'll like these are the conversations i want to say for the deepest dive because there's like so much just in that premise that is interesting and they like They do a great job of kind of like... You hear this premise and you're like, OK, that is fascinating. And then immediately you talk to like even just in this intro section, you talk to like six different people who all have.
Really different like takes on what they should be doing that you didn't consider until you talk to them of just like. What does it mean to have children right now? Or like, should you maybe go on the expedition before it's the year that you're going to die? Or, you know, like all of these things where like.
The premise is interesting and then they make it more interesting by just like inserting so much kind of thought and character nuance into how everyone else in the world is interacting with this. huge thing and it's still especially in the beginning i'm curious if this keeps up throughout the entire game like it's almost unfair how much they use music
I would love to hear like a video game composers take on this game because there's, you know, the argument that some composers make of like, well, the goal of a good soundtrack is to remain hidden, to elevate the moods, but not have you notice it. And this is just like. Bam, bam, bam, bam. And it is so effective. Like every scene in the opening just feels like it's a music video and it works.
so damn well. I mean, in my notes I was taking, I was writing, like, I even wrote, like, the mix sometimes feels off for dialogue. Yes. Right? Like, it almost seems like the music is, like, accidentally overpowering the dialogue but like i think it's to its benefit ultimately like i i would rather hear that score at the end of the day yeah i'm with you and it's probably a good sign that like you know they uploaded the entire game soundtrack to the youtube channel a while ago it's like a
Such a smart move. I've been listening to it. I've just been playing it while I'm doing stuff. It turns out it's effective as hell. And then the combat. I think one of the things that's interesting about this game is It's clearly inspired by JRPGs, but at the same time, like, it's confident and bold enough to securely have its own identity, which I feel like is something that's kind of missing sometimes with these kind of homages to the JRPGs of yesteryear.
Like there, there have been other games where, you know, you do a spell and then if you press the button at the right time, it'll be a little more powerful. And like, and on the offensive side that it. it feels pretty similar to like all those other games, but the, the dodging and parry system just like, Somehow makes this more interesting to me than most action RPGs. Yeah.
Like and they and they have built like every every enemy and all of their animations are clearly built around this idea that if you can read their moves and if you can time it right, like you're just going to negate all damage and probably do a super powerful counterattack. which like sometimes you're just going to need that extra amount of damage that you're doing on them. And it works so well that like.
I never want to play another turn-based game that doesn't marry it with this kind of reactive defense. It uses both probably the limitations of its budget and just like the conventions of RPG structure really well, where it's like... In these kind of games, you are fighting a lot of the same enemies. You know, like it's just there is a lot of combat and they don't have an infinite variety. But because the game is built around dodging and countering.
When you see the same enemies doing their same attack. you know, first you can try and dodge them and the dodge has a more generous timing window than the parry. And then as you fight them repeatedly and you get more confident in their attacks, Then you can start parrying these like long chains of of strikes that they're doing. And the counter attack that they give you if you do successfully parry everything is so powerful that like.
You as soon as you kind of learn a combat encounter, you can trivialize it because like you can just completely nuke them with your like knowledge of all their attacks. And so it's never. I never was kind of like, oh gosh, one of these guys again. I know how to kill it and I just have to go through the motions to do it. Because once you have internalized an enemy's combat rhythms, you've won. It also makes every boss...
Like doable, like almost to a certain degree, almost whatever level you're at. Right. Like what it's not. I'm not saying you can like instantly beat every boss at like level one and you have a great time, but like it just means that like if you're struggling with a boss, it's not a matter of like, oh, I need to go walk around arbitrarily and fight people and level up. It's like you're better off.
just doing the boss fight over and over to learn the patterns and it's like more satisfying and you feel like you feel more you feel better about your success it's a great game if you like to be stubborn in rpgs you know like if if you like to find an enemy that's over leveled and be like you know what maybe i can just
stay here until i beat it like it really does give you that ability but also you level up from combat pretty fast and so i think if you didn't want to do that and you did want to just go on a couple more laps through an area and grind
I think you would gain power pretty quickly. Yeah, it's just so unique, I think, to... be paying this much attention to just the random crappers that you're encountering in an rpg like this just to be like okay i'm studying every bit of animation i remember that this wind up lightning attack the timing is kind of like this compared to this like it just makes you so much more
active i guess than even like your beloved paper mario or mario luigi thing you know i feel like you're so much more engaged because it is They are huge swings. Like for a while, I was surprised, but like, God, I don't have that much health. Like if you're getting hit.
you're taken out pretty quickly. But then as somebody who's not a fan of parrying and who's never been good at parrying... then when you have to realize like okay when those parry attacks are clicking you do such an ungodly amount of damage like okay i need to start paying attention i just need to suck this up and just learn this and like jacob mentioned like dodging is a bigger window and so start dodging then build your skills
in understanding and your memorization of the enemy animations to the point that you can parry and then you just feel god dear and then when there's like that expedition parry that's when you transcend to another level of bliss it's ridiculous it's like the entire team like it's so good Like all of the pairing that you do, like it has no right to feel as good as it does when ultimately you're just pressing a button when you're supposed to press the button. Right. But it just like.
It feels so much more satisfying than, again, like, most games for me, like, I don't get this kind of... Like, if I get, like, a... a four hit chain where I parry each one and you get an action point back for each one that you parry. And then you do a huge counter attack at the end. Like that feels so much better than any other enemy encounter. uh in most games it's just ridiculous get this guy to evo And then once it is your character's turn to attack.
almost overwhelming at the beginning where like each character kind of has a specific game that they are playing you know where it's like OK, you know, this character mainly does kind of elemental magic attacks. And when you do an elemental magic attack, you get, you know, an elemental boon. And if you get multiple of those boons and you can do something else. And so you will spend the like the.
Each character's mechanic is deep enough that you will spend a lot of the game just figuring out how to do that effectively. And then by the end, and we will talk about this on The Deepest Dive, there is a lot of endgame. Like, there is... There is a lot of end game optional content. Like when you are doing that hard stuff, you will suddenly find ways of.
Joining the different characters games together in ways that you hadn't previously thought of where it seemed like everyone was doing something independently, but actually you realize that like. you can direct them all into this, like, focused laser beam and suddenly do just, you know, like...
a strike bigger than you thought possible on an enemy. And it's only because you understand all three characters that you have on screen and what they can do in conjunction with each other. Huh? That's an interesting tease. Uh, so happy with the ending, happy with the end game. Like how long did it take you to beat it, Jacob? I rolled credits at 60 hours, but I did most of that endgame stuff. I did pretty much everything. I mean, again, something we talked about, there is no quest list.
There are no like objective markers. There is no kind of like checklist to keep track of things. And so I actually don't know how much content I had left in the game. You know, like I did. A lot. And I went around and I think I did most of the kind of big optional endgame stuff. But like, I think this is probably going to be a game where people are like finding new weird stuff. for a long time because it really
It is truly just driven by your curiosity and what you want to explore. Yeah, I was intrigued by, like, it has a world map, which is great. Just a miniature version of yourself running around the world. You know, it's kind of like a Dynasty Warriors situation. Which one came out this year? Was it nine? What was it? Origins? It was just called Origins. Origins, that's right. Yeah, yeah. But... At the same time, like, there's not like a region map.
Unless I'm missing something or we get to that point, which is interesting not to have kind of. A map as you're kind of navigating just kind of the smaller dungeons or something, if you will, like a Final Fantasy X had. That is like a little complaint for me is I did get lost.
pretty often like I did I did kind of run in circles for in a few occasions it wasn't enough to like I never like threw my hands up and I was like I don't know where the hell to go but there was times where i was like i actually would really like just even a little map that i could look at or i wouldn't mind a destination marker of some kind you know
But it was ultimately fine because the areas aren't that big, right? You have like a larger open world, but those sort of, you know, dungeons or I guess you could call them are all generally pretty competitive. right right it's just weird to have that thing of like fast travel between the bonfire equivalents basically you know But then you're like, okay, there's no map that you're looking at. Just remember, it's going to be named this. You can jump back there if you want to. But as a...
As a dum-dum item of those moments of getting out of combat, be like, wait, which direction was I going again? Which way did I come from? But it's such a small complaint. It is a game where there were occasions where it's like you have to pay attention to what the characters are saying because they're like, we got to hit. But it helps. They do it well enough. You kind of have to learn to pay attention to that.
And it helps that on the world map regions are really visually distinct. And so you do remember, you know, it's like. Unlike Dynasty Warriors, which had... basically like a flat map with trees and mountains on it wherever you went this has like a really you know like oh i remember that was in the snowy region or the underwater region and once you're there then you can kind of
work your way towards something more specific. Just jump back to pairing for a second. Because you two are Sekiro nuts and I'm not. The creative director is a huge Sekiro fan. He's like a speedrunner for Sekiro and all that stuff. People are embracing how Sekiro this is. What does that mean other than just there's a parry?
It means, and maybe Jacob, maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong, but to me it means like patterned parrying, where it's like parry. Parry, parry, parry, final parry, right? It's like, it's not, it's... Does that make sense? Like, it's not just one parry. It's like a distinct rhythmic pattern of parrying depending on the attack. Yes, it very much becomes a if you are paying attention, it becomes a rhythm game, you know, and I am I am paying attention to just like.
how far apart my button presses are and i'm like a little too fast on that one a little too slow on that one and kind of gradually learning but like fundamentally i think it just does mean You parry a lot, and the animations are designed for you to be able to block every hit.
You know, like there are even even attacks that seem like they wouldn't be able to be countered in other games. You know, like early on, there were kind of like an enemy would shoot a projectile at me and I would think, well, surely I must dodge this. No, every single attack has a rhythm and can be parried no matter what it looks like or how big it is. Right, right.
Fascinating. Well, I mean, Jeff said it, that the developers should be locked up because they have no right to do this, and it's not fair to other developers to let Sandful Interactive onto the scene like this. It's not possible. Kyle's story overall hit you hard. Yeah, I liked it. I like how it concludes, too. I'm happy with the ending. Obviously, I won't say more than that, but it's a worthwhile journey. And also... It catches, it caught me off guard.
of being really funny occasionally. Like just like little lines, little, like there was, maybe I'll message you later, Jacob, but there was a moment in a cut scene that was like totally off to the side that really made me laugh involving math. And but I was like really surprised by that, that there was just like occasionally there's like. Just like a quick funny joke in there that it's like really caught me off guard and I thought it was really funny. Nice.
You have a review up on Game Informer's site if people want to read a written review of Kyle Stoss on Claire Obscura Exhibition 33. We're going to be talking about this for... Oh, I'd argue hours and hours and hours and hours with The Deepest Dive. If you're not familiar, that is our multi-part game club discussion. We're splitting this game up into three distinct... discussions, and the stopping point for the first discussion is when you get the fourth character.
stop when you get the fourth character and we're going to be unpacking that in a big way um next week on min max's youtube channel but then also in the bonus podcast feed if you're a five dollar supporter so jump in
Support us giving this game the discussion it deserves and unlock the more convenient version of the discussion for yourself in a podcast format instead of checking out on YouTube with The Deepest Dive. So if you've been on the fence, When I was playing Claire Obscure, I normally don't play with headphones, but I'm like, you know what, I'm going to put on my Turtle Beach while I'm jumping into play this thing. And so part of me was wondering, like, Is this music over the top amazing?
Or am I just so blown away by playing with headphones that it's like sinking in in a different way? And the answer is, Jacob, I'd argue, is the beautiful fusion of the incredible music of Claire Obscure. That's right. And only the audio you can hear through Turtle Beach.
700 series headset i've been i've been dinking around with these headsets like you know i've got some in the past and i'll usually just auction them off for the charity drive that we do every november but i was like you know what
I need a good gaming headset for my PS5 upstairs. I have a little... crappy one up there that there's always like an echo when i'm trying to play hell divers with folks they can hear like an echo my voice it's just miserable and so i got the stealth 700 series turns out jeff i'm Feels damn good on my head. Tell you that much. Comfortable as the day is long, this stealth 700 series from One Turtle Beach. And...
then you got to start worrying about not being a headphone guy. I'm like, what's this battery life going to be? Is this going to be like PS5 controller? Do I need to leave these plugged in all the time? Jeff, guess how long the battery life is. I don't want to. Let's just say even you could beat Claire Obscure Expedition 33 on nearly one charge of Turtle Beach's Stealth Thunder Series because it's 80 hour battery life.
Oh my god. And it doesn't have one of those stupid packs like an Apple Vision Pro you gotta put in your pocket or something. 80 hours on this sucker. It's ridiculous. So, you can go to Turtle Beach's site, there's a link below if you want to check it out. And they have more than just headphones. They got keyboards, they got controllers, mice. flight and racing simulators, everything you need at Turtle Beach there. And you can get 10% off. So look up.
And listen up, everybody. Head to TurtleBeach.com. Use the code MinMax for 10% off your entire order. That's 10% off your order at TurtleBeach.com with promo code MinMax. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support MinMax and tell them that we are the ones who sent you. Get the ultimate immersive gaming experience with Turtle Beach today. Follow that link below, 10% off everything you need from Turtle Beach. Thanks to those folks for making it happen.
What an odd week because we got a great new RPG with Claire Obscure and then it seems like there's also a lot of people who are being dragged into the past. with the Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion, the big remaster. We're being dragged into this beloved 2007 game. Welcome back, everybody, to the 2006 gem, Oblivion.
What an odd thing. This thing has been leaked and rumored and whispered about for so long. And then lo and behold, the rumors were true. Microsoft just shadow dropped this thing on Tuesday and said, hey. It's out now. You can play a full remaster of Oblivion. And I think, I'm curious where you all are at with this remaster of Oblivion, but seems to be from the video they showed and the consensus is like, this is... This is an incredibly ambitious remaster.
And just to drop it like that, I feel like it's exceeding expectations, which is maybe what Bethesda needs at this point in their life after Starfield is just to have a surprise. Wow, this thing's way better than we thought it was going to be. OK, I guess I haven't heard like better than I.
we thought all i've been hearing is like people talking about their nostalgia for the original game right like maybe i'm listening to different people like is that is that the reception is that people really adore this thing i think so but i think just from their little you know video diary walking through everything like if this was a playstation game i think they would have called it a remake
Everybody is squishy with those terms. But the fact that they said Shadow of the Colossus on PS4 was built from the ground up, rebuilt. It's a remake. It's like, well, it's kind of the same effect here where they're taking the core engine.
but then layering the new Unreal Engine 5 engine to help fuel it, and then... all new assets for the art here like it's really ambitious like watching that video I was like oh this does feel like a remake and like booting up I did not play much I played like the first half hour or something like that it was
I mean, just the faces were always the weird thing about oblivion of people walking up to you and the camera zooms in. And it's like they were always kind of strange looking. And to hear Patrick Stewart get excited to see this prisoner again after, you know, 20 years or whatever. I was like, wow, he looks. You look good, King. You don't look bizarre anymore. Congratulations. Yeah, it seems like most of the enthusiasm that I've seen online has been that...
Like, the game looks pretty because of UE5, but that people seem really excited that it is the Oblivion engine under it. Yeah. And I saw one Reddit post where it was like... Someone shot an arrow in that first little dungeon area. They shot an arrow into a rat, and then the rat just started ragdolling all over the place, and they were like... I'm home now. And every comment was like, this is the most amazing thing. I'm so happy that they're using like the actual.
oblivion engine under it all it needs to have that jank and it's funny just like in the official video even having todd howard kind of winky winky they couldn't say like don't worry everybody it's delightfully janky but they have to be like it's preserving the
flavor of oblivion like it still has the bad acting and the bugs right it's an odd thing for like a bullet point of marketing but they had to hit it and they were totally right to do it yeah yeah i saw someone else describing like walking into a shop
And the items on the table just sort of vibrating as if they were going to like explode off into the distance at any moment. And they and that was like in the pro column. They're like, yeah, no, that's that feels right for Oblivion. Something about that world is just always.
On the verge of ragdolling out like crazy for no reason. And that's amazing. After walking through all the improvements, they're like, oh, we added new VO for all the races now. They're all different. You got that idea. And we also added sound effects to the combat. I was like, wait, what? And feedback. Enemies now react to getting hit. Okay, I have no sense of what that game was like back in 2006. Dude, back then, man, we were just, like, it's hard to...
I don't know if you guys felt it. Like, Jacob, I don't know what your history is with this game, but like... The Xbox 360 was still relatively young. The sort of introductory games like Perfect Dark had been pretty underwhelming. Yeah. And so to play Oblivion, which was like the long promised like this thing is going to blow your mind game. And to exit the prison in 2006, and see the open world, it was genuinely, even beyond a Grand Theft Auto, it felt limitless in a way.
Something about the fantasy setting. It was mind-blowing. It was truly mind-blowing at the time. Oblivion is one I have a lot of nostalgia for. I played it more than Skyrim.
ultimately like it is the one that's closer to my heart but you know I I've never I never beat either of them but it's it's the one that I remember playing in my college dorm and like even my friends who weren't big gamers started save files and really got into it and we would all just like walk around and like collect plants and stuff like that because it was just like it it was it was massive in a way that we just hadn't experienced at that point
I didn't play it back in the day. I have no love for it. And still in that video, when it kicks in with the main theme, I was like, oh, right in the gut. It still got me. But I realized it's because of editing Skyrim videos while at Game Informer, I used Oblivion's music.
for the Skyrim video so it's like a dumb stupid roundabout way of being nostalgic for it but like yeah it's effective they tease it in the video but it still is really effective when that main theme kicks in yeah it's funny if someone with zero nostalgia for it it's like There is not a thing pulling me towards it, and I'm curious if there's anyone who didn't play Oblivion who's like
Now I'm going to get into it because I'm sure there are. I just don't know why. I think there's a lot of people and it's funny that the way they market it again, which is what I'm a geek for, is. They know that fan base that played Skyrim. They know that there are...
10 million people waiting for elder scrolls 6 and it's the idea of trying to hit that beat of like how do they phrase it they had something experience the events that set the stage for skyrim like think there are enough people who are like i can play a janky or skyrim
while I wait for Elder Scrolls 6, sure. I guess I'll go back and play that because it looks pretty now thanks to the remaster. I do think that audience is out there. Exactly, exactly. There's an interesting element for Elder Scrolls where like Morrowind was like...
maybe and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong was like the most open-ended in terms of like what you could do with your character and your abilities that you could unlock and stuff like that and then Skyrim is the most sort of like streamlined and locked in where you're You're more limited in what you can be, if that makes sense.
Like I believe in Morrowind you can get to the point where you're like flying, right? Like you can go crazy and then Oblivion exists in the middle of those two. So there are benefits to Oblivion in terms of like being more open-ended. and giving more agency to the player in a way that's really interesting. Shut up, Jeff. That is exactly what I was going to bring up. Morrowind was my intro and the reason that I still play every Bethesda game because of that.
like stepping out into Morrowind in the same way. And it is that specific thing of like the further we have gotten into that series, the more refined they have become in terms of like... limiting the brokenness that you can achieve like in i think i think it was more wind if not oblivion but i think it was more when we're like items with like magical powers and you could totally break that and i i got to the point where like i had a ring or whatever
That would let me jump so high that I would die from the fall damage when I came back down from it. And it's like, that is the kind of like character crafting and stuff that like. It went farther and farther away from that in the series. And so when I first started Oblivion last night, The alchemy part was the part that I was like, oh, that's right. I do remember this system and I do like it. Every item that you pick up has like...
Four different attributes, but you can only see the first one when you first do it. And so you're like matching them with other ingredients. And that just becomes more and more powerful. And it's like everything like. is not as broken as it was in Morrowind, but like you, you can, you can really build out your character in goofy, you know, ways that, that Skyrim kind of. sanded off all those edges. I am also nostalgic for.
So when they said they like redid the UI and the leveling, what does that mean? Did you notice the difference in the leveling? They I read about it today, but like basically what they did was in the in the original one, you would level up based on. Whatever the skill is, doing the skill levels you up within that skill. And I guess in the original, I didn't remember this personally, but you...
You would level up like your total character where you would get the skill points that you could put into different, you know, into the different categories. You would level that up by doing your major skills only. And so like once you've if like if you were if you were playing as a thief. You would level up your sneaking ability just by sneaking around all the time. So it's one that levels super fast.
And if you leveled that up too fast, the amount of skill points that you would get, though, was from the minor skills that you leveled up. during that overall level. And so if you weren't doing other, so basically like, Every time you were going to level up, you would have to do a bunch of minor skill stuff. You would have to go craft potions or like carry, you know, use heavy weapons or whatever in order to bank a bunch of skill points for when you leveled up.
you know did the major level up and that I guess would affect all kinds of enemy scaling and stuff because like i said if you were a sneaky boy you would level up way too fast in your main ones and you weren't getting enough skill points to put in and so they they completely wiped that and they were like all all skills that you level up now contribute to it. And then once you level up, you just get 12 points.
across the board to put into your different skills and stuff so that that all sounds like legitimate um improvements so one thing i liked about that the oblivion the original though was like for example like your acrobatic skills your jumping skills like would level up just by you jumping
right and that's i would jump everywhere yeah and and and so that's that's like my weird memory of oblivion it was just like i would just hop through the fields you know and i would have incredible jumping and it was awesome so that's still maintain that yes yes so every every you're still leveling up all your skills by doing them it's just that the main boost that you get where you where they say okay here's skill points put them into your main stat
Like, that is just universal, and you would get it by leveling up your acrobatic skill, I guess, ten times or whatever. And so that seems like what most people... Most people like that that is a thing that has changed. I guess that got modded out a long time ago. And so that seems like a positive, a positive change that people like. Yeah. Why do you think? They shadow dropped it. They just, surprise, had a stream, dropped it on Tuesday.
If you had to put yourself in the marketing mind of Microsoft, what do you think that is? I would think they got a ton of shit for Starfield. And they didn't want to answer questions for six months of like, how are you going to this up? You better not it up. So just put it out there.
And then people can complain about it or whatever, but they don't want to do endless interviews. It does feel like it just doesn't give people time to get mad at it before they buy it. I guess you're right. It's exciting that it's... announced and available now and before you can think Well, this thing in Oblivion wasn't very good. I wonder if they changed that. You already bought it. yeah that's true same like with apex or you've already started the 125 gigabyte download wait really
Yeah, I was really surprised at that file size. Oh my god. This seems like a great comparison. How big is the original? It fit on a DVD. We know that much. PC Gamer did it. I think they said it was like... 8 gigabytes or something ridiculous like that. Actually, it might have been two disks. Do you remember, Jeff? The original Game of the Year edition required 4.6 gigabytes of storage space. Perfect. It's that much better this time around, though, Jacob.
Yeah, I think that's interesting to Shadrapa so people can't get up in arms about Bethesda and get their expectations maybe too high or too low or anywhere. It's like with Apex Legends. respond realize like it's a free-to-play EA game we need to get this out the door let people realize it's good before they just build up their own storyline in their head and it's just it's fascinating to think of like Microsoft has got a decent amount coming out this year
Maybe if they were pushing it for six months, maybe it would have stepped on some excitement for Avowed if there's that overlap between those audiences. But what's really fascinating to think about, like, this game was developed by Virtuos. in singapore the developer here but it's also the same team that is making the same studio that's making metal gear solid delta the remake of three
And so just two wildly different marketing strategies for those games. And Delta seems like it's more of a remake truly from the ground up, even if it's very... loyal remake, but just like, I feel like Delta has been teased for so long now. And now here's this other big remake project, remaster project, just surprise dropped out of nowhere. It's a weird whiplash for that studio. I'm sure for seeing these two different marketing strategies.
Oblivion. I mean, Jeff, fun curiosity. Is it tickling nostalgia enough that you're going to stick with it, you think? I'm going to stream it tomorrow. Okay. That was the first thing I thought, like, this would be a fun one to at least stream for a couple hours, for sure, before I go back to Clare Obscure and just play that until the end of time. That sounds lovely. Until I turn.
Well, they'd have to up the age, I guess, to 45. Give me enough. Lady never tells. Not Jacob. I'm the only one left. Congratulations. Enjoy our corpses. There's a game called Bionic Bay, ladies and gentlemen. Puzzle platformer. Too dismissive to be like, it's one of those limbo inside-y type things, but with a big robot-y thing.
Is that the best summary for Bionic Bay, Jacob? It's kind of one of those limbo insight-y things. I guess it's not a bad comparison to make. I didn't know I was supposed to play this. I didn't know I was legally obligated to play this. Puzzle platformer, man. Jump on it. Yeah, I started this maybe like an hour and a half into Bionic Bay. Jacob, you're playing a lot of it. Jeff, have you played it too? Yep. Okay. Yeah, I finished it. It's not too long. Okay, nice. What'd you think?
It's neat. It's it's like I had I had seen this for a while because the developer would post wool gifts on, you know, on Twitter, on Blue Sky that were mainly like here is big. pixel art and here's like a little character running around it and that is kind of the appeal of the game is like If you like the feeling of being a little guy in a megastructure, this is cool because like. There is a very little explicit story. Things do not kind of make sense. You're not going on like a character arc.
You're just a little guy in a big metal world running around. But like that metal world. Has really cool lighting. It has really kind of intriguing machines in the background. And and running around as the little guy like feels good. And, you know, the thing that I would put over Limbo and inside or at least a different priority for this game is like. The platforming feels really nice. You have a dodge roll and you have a jump and you can chain. You can.
roll to jump farther and then you can dive out of the jump to go even farther or you can like change your direction by diving in the other way and so like The platforming is much more technically demanding and much more interesting than in like a Playdead game. Yeah, and plenty of kind of little puzzles along the way. the earth early puzzles are kind of based on swapping places with metallic boxes but if like if you touch a box
Then you can swap spots with it at any point where it's like, oh, even just that basic swapping it. I don't think I've seen it done in another game quite like this before. Yeah. And it's very, there's a lot of. lot of like physics in the game where things things are just kind of allowed to happen And so there's a lot of like, oh, OK, I need to put this box over here. So I'm going to swap with this box.
And then you swap and you realize that the box you swapped to was holding up two other boxes. And so they immediately fall and crush you. And then you just die. And it's like, okay, well, resetting takes one second. So now I'll do that. And know to pick the top box from the stack instead of the bottom. I do really like it. For everything that Jacob said, it is like...
The impossible... thing to try and get across is just that it feels really good to play like all of all of the jumping and diving and rolling is super fast and you can go basically like
You can jump almost entirely across the screen in one go. And, you know, the puzzles are all good. It does the one... thing that i don't love in puzzle games where it's like they'll teach you a puzzle and then you will do that puzzle that same that same thing like 10 more times it's like you know it always makes me think of like
I don't know. It was probably Jonathan Blow who said it where it was like, you know, just do a puzzle once and then go on. And, you know, like each puzzle should be its own thing and should teach you something new. And that. okay, there's a block on top of this area that I need to get down, so I will stand on top of it and then switch places with it and I will fall down and then it will fall back on top. We do that so many times. But, you know, it's also like...
None of it is brain wracking and it all feels really good to be running around so fast. There, there are times where it's like, I will go through like an area and I don't even know how I got through it alive because there are explosives everywhere that are very satisfying when they blow up. And it's just like, I don't know how I lived through that, but we're moving on. It like, it will be a fascinating game to see speed runners.
play yeah well what is this there's like an online mode where you can like race against other people There's kind of like a... I think it's basically a time trial, but it does like the... you know, the super meat boy thing of showing everyone's attempts at the same time. And so it's like, you know, 50 little guys running across the screen simultaneously. And yeah, it will be because it's like, like, you know, like a play dead game.
The puzzles are basically designed where you walk into a room and then die and then you figure out how to have that not happen. And so like I, you know, once you understood everything that was happening in the level, you could get through extremely quickly. Bionic Bay is the name of this game. Psychoflow Studio and Marina Oi are the developers.
The publisher is one Kepler Interactive who also did Clear Obscure. And then they have Rematch coming up as well. They're on a hell of a roll over there at Kepler. I don't think I'm as into it as you guys are. I'm going to keep going with it because it's a nice, simple game, especially on Steam Deck. I was like, okay, just slowly make my way through kind of these puzzle environments, but I'm glad that it worked for you. I mean... Yeah, I mean, it's...
you know don't don't have your expectations too high like it it is yeah comparisons to play dead are just because you're a little guy in a big it is not a like cut from glass design like like they do but it is i like You know, it's a it's a fun little platformer in a cool world, which sometimes is that's what you want. That's what you need. And sometimes, Jeff, when you're running around jumping, you're building a bit of an appetite. Am I wrong or am I right?
And you need a little bite to eat. But sometimes it's like, what is it? It's getting warm out. It's getting nice. I want to be outside soaking up the sun, playing with the girls. I don't want to sit in here making stupid food, prepping for... How long does it take to make your average dinner? Six hours? At least 12 hours. 12 to 14 hours. Yeah, AIO review says 12 to 14 hours. So what if you could speed that up into, I don't know, Jeff, two minutes?
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at factormeals.com slash minmax50off for 50% off plus free shipping. Keep Factor around as a sponsor because I do love their quick and easy meals when you're in a rush. Jeff Marquifava, I am so eager to talk to you about this game called Sunderfolk. I know you have been. I know. I was bugging you. Because you always do a thing of like, hey, who wants this code? Who wants access to this? And Jepham was a...
famously quiet every time I offered it and eventually I got to the room like, will you just take this code because I want to talk to you about this weird tabletop sunderfolk style. We don't force people to play games here at MidnightX. Except for this tabletop game that they want to talk about with Joe. So this is Dreamhaven, which is a bunch of former Blizzard folks, a bunch of, you know, Hearthstone folks working on this. But Cinderfolk...
Under publisher Dreamhaven, Dreamhaven also is developing Wildgate, that game that we talked about in the past that Leo and I played with kind of the... uh the ship combat the one that's a little bit like sea of thieves that we talked about before but this is something completely different that is out now um jeff let's see it's think of like uh Hearthstone meets Jackbox meets turn-based strategy tabletop game.
Uh, it's like Digital Gloomhaven, if people know that game, but everybody's playing on their phones. It's a funky mix, right? Because you're playing on the TV, but... You download the Sunderfolk app and then you're controlling it on your phone and controlling like, okay, where is this character going on the screen? How am I using their moves?
The moves are represented basically like cards that you kind of flick up on your phone in a very satisfying way to kind of trigger that move and stuff as you navigate around. funky interface, but like, this is very particular to my exact life. I understand that. But like, I have my Steam Deck hooked up to my TV in the dock. Do you guys do that? Do you ever play with a docked Steam Deck? I didn't know it was a doc. Okay. There's a doc. It's super wonky. I always have a...
Real hassle of a time trying to get like controllers to work, especially for multiplayer stuff. It's just a mess And so the idea of like, oh, here's a game where I can have the Steam Deck hooked up to the TV and then I don't need to worry about controllers at all because the phone is the controller. And plus. I can play with my wife because she loves tabletop stuff, but isn't really into video games. But like, hey, this is basically just.
And we're going to be leveling up our characters as we work through this kind of tactical situation. So it has hit this perfect sweet spot. in my life where I'm super excited about it. But Jeff, I'm as a connoisseur of tabletop, as we can see from all the games behind you. What do you think about Sunderfolk so far? Yeah, it's... It's an interesting premise that I'm very happy is for you. Okay. It is not for me. He hates it, man. He hates it. What do you talk about this? It's fun as hell.
the game seemed fine. The reason that I like tabletop games in the first place is because it's an activity that doesn't involve staring at a screen that i can play with other people right and here it's two it's two screens everybody's got their own screen and then you're also playing on another screen right and that and so like
And so that's why I didn't ask for code. And that's why I begrudgingly downloaded it when you wanted me to. But like in terms of that actual interface, if that's not a deal breaker for you or if that sounds exciting to you like does for Hanson. like the interface works really well. And I was very surprised that like, It is very slick. It is very easy. Everything works the way that it should. It is really satisfying to have, you know, like the hex grid layout with your characters on it.
And then when you play a move card, you just kind of like trace on your touch screen and you can see the path that you will go on the television screen. And it just, you know, there's no like weird leg or anything like that. And it just, it works really well.
that's cool i hear you that it's like oh the beauty of tabletop is getting away from screens but like if you've played a lot of tabletop in your life and you're looking for something different and like this game can do things that you can't do in tabletop and it's a fun easy you know co-op experience to jump into there is certainly like
I would not play the physical version of Gloomhaven because it's too complicated and there's too much upkeep. I do like the digital version. And so this would fall into that area. And if you want to play a multiplayer game like this with other people, like a digital multiplayer game, with other people like this is the way to do it because you do need
You know, like you would need your own hand of cards and you would need to be able to see all of that and trying to have all of that on one screen would be a pain in the butt. So like I like there there I'm sure there is an audience for this. It's just. I'm not in that audience. Yeah. I fall outside the Venn diagram. of who this appeals to. Because it turns out it's a bend diagram. Because it is weird to think about like, I don't really like turn-based tactical games.
But video games, I don't. And it's so weird that like with this format, I feel like I'm giving a tabletop pass to a lot of stuff. I'm like, I'm also not really into super dorky fantasy stuff. But in this one, I'm like, man, if it's like tabletop based and there's some. ancient turtle talking about the magical seeds of the tree have been stolen but i am all in magical old turtle tell me what i want to hear it's just it when it's when i'm coming at this from a tabletop perspective
I don't know. I'm so much more open to some ideas that I would reject from the video game world. So I don't exactly know what the magic is that Sunderfolk is working with here. But it's fun. Like, you know, it's.
You go around, you choose different missions that you have. You have like a home base that you're kind of building up and building affinity with different characters. You can talk to three different characters every time you go back to the home base, all that fun stuff. But then they also do little... quirky unique things that they can only do here of like okay if you're getting in and encountering a new type of enemy one character or one player can name that enemy or one player can name this
uh thing over here that you're trying to get to on this level so it's they have like different little fun interactions and stuff instead of just fight this character to level up your guy move on move on uh there's some there's some smart stuff in there So therefore, Jeff, because you can name those archers, is it not the greatest? That's very fun. As I was playing, I was like, I'm sure they could probably do stuff where like...
And I don't you can tell me if they do where like some people get certain information on their phones that, you know, other people don't. And and that kind of like I'm. It seems like a very smart system that they got going on. But they should also be locked up and thrown in prison. Is that your angle here as well?
but for the opposite reason of Claire Obscure yes yeah because this one doesn't appeal to me so I'll be damned I'll be damned uh yeah I I'm looking forward to like I think I'm going to slowly be making my way through this all year it'll be like my co-op game with my wife and it's like single player you can technically play it that way i don't think it'd be great it's like you i mean if you're really into
As much fun as you could have in a single player board game, then perhaps it's up your alley. But like it's designed for if you have a group of like two to four players to jump in and go through this campaign, you know, and it's like, well, it's 50 bucks. which at first like, well, for a video game, it's pretty steep for something like this. But then at the same time, it's like, I don't know, for... A tabletop game would probably be more than 50 bucks. It seems like a good...
Good setup, good test case for you. I'm sure there are other people out there who are looking at it right now and thinking this looks very cool. And I have a group for it. That would be perfect for them. Yeah. It's just fun to see like developers pent up after years of working at Blizzard and... probably failing to get a thousand projects off the ground. Like what do they make when they have complete freedom? And when they come out of the blizzard gates,
And they make something as weird as like, we want to make a tabletop game that you play with your phone, but then based on the main screen, like taking this big of a weird swing, I'm very into. But then again, I was all on board for PlayStation when they were leaning into the whole play link angle. Remember all those weird phone games and stuff? I want to see more people experiment with this, so I'm very excited that a talented team like this is tackling.
this fusion of phones as controllers but in a way that's not a clunky mess uh but sunderful this seems like the best version of yes of that kind of experience very polished and worked very well um for what i played yep Absolutely. Sunderfolk, everybody. You can check it out if you want that. I'm curious to see if anyone else likes as much as I do. Um... another game that Kyle's been playing a lot of is one Onimusha 2 Samurai's Destiny.
That's right. This is the year of Onimusha. We can't get out of this. We did the deepest dive. Onimusha 2 remaster was announced and now you have played the remaster and you didn't play the original back in the day, Kyle? No, I didn't. I think we're talking about Deepest Dive. I never even beat the original back in the day, but I played it a lot because I played it like at a friend's house without a memory card.
And I always wanted to play two, but I just never got around to it. Yeah. Yeah. And now the remastered version is coming out and I can talk about like the first part of it. I can talk about playing up to a certain. uh-huh but also it's a game that came out also it's a game that came out a long time over 20 years ago and it's very possible to play through the entire thing yeah i mean overall how did it compare to one for you it's cool i i i quite liked it it's um it's
It's different, right? Like it's different in surprising ways. Like the structure is the same where you have the sort of pre-rendered backgrounds and the combat feels similar. But there's this whole other part of the game that's like interacting with NPCs and giving them gif.
And that actually changes the way the story works and like the structure of it. And you can get like different. I think the ending might be the same, but like there's different tracks to go through and see different things. And it's not like. It's not like you get one gift and you're like, oh, this definitely belongs to that guy. You get like, you know, 50 gifts and you're just sort of like giving random people random stuff and like.
waiting for their reactions you know i i did an interview with the um with the director of the original game recently and he was talking about it and like He was like, yeah, it was like we were very intentional. We didn't want to have like an affinity meter or anything like that. We just wanted you to see their animations and just have like a human reaction was like the goal for that. Like I gave this one woman like.
these mushrooms I found and she like freaked out on me and was very upset about it. And I was like, oh, I guess she doesn't like me anymore. I don't know. That's funny. I wonder if it was a little Animal Crossing rub off in this era because it was from in 2002, I suppose, that this came out. Yeah, I booted it up. I got like really rekindled the old.
fond memories of the deepest eye of Onimusha that feels like we did a lifetime ago where I just booted up the original Onimusha 2 on the PS2 and I was playing through the opening. I did too like a month or two ago. Oh, did you? Yeah, yeah. It's nice to have like Onimusha muscle memory at this point, especially on the PS2 where it's like, oh.
Somehow Onimusha 2 also doesn't use the analog sticks on PS2, which is still so weird. It's still just relying on the D-pad in this game that came out, you know. Yeah, because you did not play Onimusha 1 Remastered. I haven't touched any of the remastered stuff, no. Okay, because it is nice. I mean, it makes a big difference and makes it much more playable, frankly, to be able to use the controller.
and not have it be tank controls. I mean, I know it might be blasphemous for some people who really love that, but it does make the game, I don't know, I find it more fun to play. Yeah. a more reasonable challenge but um yeah after after sort of diving deep into one it was it's nice to have a version of two available
Um, and it, and it, it's good. Like it plays well. It's, and it's also like, it's similarly like not super long. Okay. Uh, Jacob Gaylor, I hate to tell you that after the events of Onimusho 1, um, Nobunaga.
no yeah and he runs amok and only one person this coming only one person can stop him and it's our new protagonist jube from the beginning but okay i was i was gonna ask because the onimusha or the protagonist of onimusha one goes kind of super saiyan at the end of the game in a way where you're like oh new mode and then the game ends right is any of that present in two yes so now you remember you can hold down circle the big thing you can
suck all the souls into your gauntlet. That's kind of the Onimusha thing. And you can suck in like health or experience, yada, yada, yada. Now there's a purple orb.
that you can absorb that if you get the certain amount you can go full onimusha mode and that's that's the big big difference here this time around and it's funny because in the first game right you're right like it shows you a cut scene of that you're like wow i want to play as that that's cool and then the the The other weird avenue that they get into that for Onimusha 2 is like, they barely, I don't even remember them tutorializing.
At a certain point, I was like, oh, I think if I hold down two buttons, I go Super Saiyan. from like basically the beginning of the game it's like you could do that it's just very funny how it's like It's almost like they didn't realize that people would want to do that or something. I guess that's the thing. But I was amazed that, like, in the intro video, there's so many other characters introducing. It's like...
It feels like a sitcom opening all of a sudden, like, and this wacky character, here's this. blonde guy who thinks he's a ninja running around the rooftop and here's a hot chick and she's in a waterfall taking a shower it's like who are these people those are the people you're giving gifts to okay okay gotcha um and no spoilers here I will say I read your interview with the director and you asked about like, what is this doing in the game? And when...
I read that in the interview and I revealed it through the spoiler text on GameInformer.com. We're talking about the older game at this point, right? We're talking about the original release. Well, who could possibly say? There are some things in this game that I was... aggressively not expecting to be in this game. That's a great way to put it. For all the teasing people have done about, oh, you got to play more Unimushas after you did the Deepest Dive and won. It's like no one revealed that.
the sequels contain this element, which is really huge. It feels like it's crazy. Like this one, two is crazier than one. I mean, I don't know. Do you guys think one was crazy? It was weird. It was weird. I mean, some of the characters were, yeah, I'd say they're, I'd say they're crazy. It was, it was quirky. that's crazy yeah not the first one's quirky this one gets off the rails in a way that's uh really fun so you liked it more than one
Oh, you know what? That's a tough question for me because I do have a weird nostalgia for one, and I do like how compact that game is.
Gosh, in three years, if it's like, ooh, I have an itch to play Onimusha, I think I'm still going to go back and play one. Okay, okay. But that's nostalgia more than anything else. I think there's a lot more to do in Onimusha 2, for sure. There's a lot more like... reasons to revisit it frankly yeah because with the gifts you can get like branching storylines right yes yeah yeah you can see different parts of the story with the
yeah that's funky um but yeah if you're if you're craving more onimusha onimusha 2 samurai's destiny the remaster is coming up may 23rd so i gotta wait a damn month for this thing Or you can go back and check out the deepest dive we did for Onimusha 1 and play through that along with it. Jacob, is there a world where you play this? I mean, Onimusha, I feel like your reaction was like, cool, I'm glad I played it, but I'm not like, you know, super fan.
I'm worried about you saying it's a similar length is good. It's like I don't necessarily want increased complexity. You know, like the like managing different characters and like gift giving kind of scares me just because it's like. I liked how straightforward Onimusha was and the fact that I didn't even have to think about like ammo, you know, that it was just it was just like a Resident Evil game with no scarcity. Right.
But I don't know. I'd certainly, you know, like, I did enjoy the first game, and I would like to see what wacky stuff happens in this one. Yeah. The gift stuff is weird. Like, you could technically just not even engage with it at all, and you would still get a full Onimushix. But yeah, hey, I plugged my interview with Motohito Eshiro on GameInformer.com. There you go. There it is. Check it out, everybody. Another game.
If you enjoy puzzle games based in a mansion as you're slowly uncovering room by room, there's only one game to turn to in this era, and it's called Creepy Redneck Dino Mansion 3. everybody from Strange Scaffold. This is Bejeweled Puzzle Quest Resident Evil 1 and Dino Crisis, I guess, thrown in there? Is that the pitch for a creepy redneck Dino Mansion 3? Also, it's a time loop Metroidvania. Okay, also a time loop Metroidvania, very important.
It's an incredibly simple game to play and an incredibly complex game to describe the pitch of. But the core of it is... I got an email about it, and the thing that made me sort of... go over and be like okay i do want to check this out like please i would like a code for this was survival horror metroid vein And then the screenshot was bejeweled. And I was like, well, what is this? I was intrigued.
Yeah, and so it is from Strange Scaffold, one of Jacob's favorite developers. They have, later this month in May, they're releasing that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles tactical takedown. tactical game, which Charles McGregor, friend of the show, is working on, which is cool. But they never stop releasing games as evidenced by this.
where they're jumping right into three for Creepy Redneck Dino Mansion, correct? That's just a goat simulator-style joke here of pretending there's a bunch of other games in this line. I would say it's not a goat simulator style joke because I enjoy it and it makes me laugh. Okay. I see. I see. Jeff, you seem like you're a Puzzle Quest nut. I've never played it. And I usually am not a huge fan of Match 3 games. Really? But this is
This is more in my wheelhouse. I don't believe you. I like match three games where it's like Okay, just try and get as many of these things right now as you can from a big group and not the more bejeweled. whatever the hell you're doing in that high score runs that type of thing or like a visual blitz style thing but yeah it is nice because like as you're working through different scenarios here
It's like, okay, you're fighting a raptor. I liked having something other than just that puzzle going on as well. And it is a really interesting and goofy, but... But interesting premise of like. You are trying to figure out how to go through these different rooms. And then like every, every like. you know, dialogue choice that you have or like they're giving you choices and those are branching off into different paths. So then like once you restart.
You kind of like go back to this bar and like you can upgrade and you can buy like different resources and things. And then you go out and you like, OK, well, this time I'm going to try and go down this path instead. And you're doing the similar. um, like bejeweled style match three stuff, but it's. It's interesting. And then it gets like super goofy and super weird and fourth wall breaking.
um, that stuff has been amusing as well. Yeah. I mean, I feel like we can, it happens like before the first save point, basically that it is revealed to your character that you are in an unreleased video game. like that's that is kind of part of the shtick and so then there's a lot of like There are just a lot of video game development jokes of like...
You go down a hall and there's nothing there. And there's a line about like, it really seems like probably something was supposed to be here. And then they ran out of budget or time. And so now it's just a weirdly empty hallway or like, you know, you.
You, like, find the exact angle to run at a wall so you can clip through it and, like, get to a different place that was... So it's just, like, it is... it like it's it's more than the sum of its parts you know the match three thing i think is i haven't played a lot of these but i would imagine it's a pretty mid match three like it's not it's not as exciting as even bejeweled um but with this layer of like metadness on top of it and then each
Each fight kind of has a different bit that it's doing. Where like generally it's like, OK, if you match, you know, if you match nine red tokens together, then you can use that to perform some sort of action. But sometimes that action is like. you get into a place and it's like forced stealth tutorial. And there's a velociraptor that's not looking at you. And if you get enough red gems,
you can sneak up behind it and snap its neck silently. And it's like, that's just, you know, just having that in your head, even though it's just a bejeweled map is really funny. And they like continue to have fun with. what collecting the different gems means throughout the entire game yeah it's the best possible wrapper you could have around a match three and it's just so refreshing too to have a game like this like a like a puzzle quest right where
You don't have to worry about microtransactions. The whole bejeweled genre and mastery genre is like, okay, it all feels inherently gross because I'm just waiting for like, okay, how are they going to try to nickel-dime me in this free-to-play mobile game? But just to have like, no, no.
It's a satisfying thing for your brain to do. And imagine just this clean, pure version of it where now we're telling some meta story about video games and Resident Evil and everything wrapped up in this. It's the best possible way to present. everything there. Did you finish it, Jacob? Yeah, there's there's some stuff that I didn't. There are like some branches that I didn't fully explore, but I did. And the other fun thing about it is like as you do things, you do. The Metroidvania part of it.
As you do things, you just kind of acquire skills through experience. So like... you know at some point you might fight a computer and then when you fight the computer you get a skill that's like hacker and then you remember that like much earlier in the game There was just a branch that you couldn't take because it required hacking a keypad and then you can go back and do that. So it's not, you know, like.
It's all text choices. It's not like you're getting a double jump and you can reach a higher balcony, but it will say something like now you have a double jump. And so you can click on the option that was the balcony that was too high to read. You're never walking around as a character. It's just visual novel. Just purely text-based here for this thing. That's cool. I assume it runs okay on Steam Deck. I was just playing on my PC.
Okay. Yeah, it definitely seems like a great one. Like, it's weird playing it and being like, God, I kind of wish I had this on mobile, actually. If there was just a premium version of it, just... Because Mobile and Match 3 is such a beautiful combo. But it's only out on Steam right now for Creepy Redneck Dino Mansion 3, of course, from Strange Scaffold.
Um, similar vein puzzle stuff, but with a new twist, we got river towns, everybody coming down the river. This is entire episode. It's been this plus this, this is Tetris meets a city builder.
yeah okay uh kind of it's yeah it's like um in terms of board games it's like tile laying polyanimal game it's you're not there's no like forced time where pieces are coming down, you know, like... drop-down dutchy or whatever right i like jeff you can't just casually drop a reference to drop down dutchy like everyone understands we'll talk we'll talk about that one in the future But yeah, like you have a map.
grid-based map that there are rivers on and you have to and then you have like this stack of um different tiles that are shaped like mostly tetris pieces but they're different you know configurations of towns um and then like each turn you have one and you have and you just have to choose where you want to place it and like
They come in mostly it's like three different colors and those are different like districts of the city and you just want to build big groups of the same color together because of the... the biggest group of each color is what's going to score you points at the end of it. Um, and so like, It, it, I streamed it last week and it was an interesting one because for the first, you know, like hour I was like, this is interesting, but it's pretty simple. And like.
I wish they kind of, you know, made it more complex. And then as I played, it became more complex. And I was like, I like that it's getting more complex because it becomes a little more frustrating than I was expecting. At first, there's like, you know, dwarf romantic vibes of like, yeah, I'm just building these little towns and it's very easy and there's...
not much to it they complicate things more with like the river placement and then you start getting other goals there there will be like trees out there that you have to build all the way around and like I think the sticking point for me and the reason that I didn't... end up liking the added complexity is that like they do the very mobile thing of for each level you can get up to three stars even though they're little river town symbols or whatever but like those are point based and like
And so like the higher score that you get, you might get up to three stars and that's what you want to get. And it's like that requirement as you go on.
Every district has to be perfect. Every orange piece has to be touching all the other orange pieces and blue and purple and whatever. And then you also have to get whatever the bonuses are. And then every time you build... over a river it builds a bridge and that gives you two more points and it's like you have to do all of those things otherwise you're not going to get all the stars and then in order to unlock the next world you have to have a certain number of stars and that level of just like
mobily like how do we create a sense of progression just kind of makes it more stressful than Then it would be if it was just like a high score thing, like, yeah, good. Can I do it this time? It's like, man, if I don't, if I can't, if I don't have a place for this last orange piece, I'm and I'm going to have to play this level again. And that's like.
That's not what I want from this kind of casual tile city building. But it's interesting and it's like, ultimately I would lean more towards that side than... Then it just continuing to be too simple and you always had enough. In the early levels, you always have enough space. You don't have to worry if like you're leaving empty spaces and things like that. And that gets more complex and you have to think farther ahead.
That's pretty cool. The reason I wanted to talk about it is there were like... eight people following it on twitch and it has like 79 reviews on steam and for as good as it is like it just deserves more attention and if you like dorf romantic or you do like uh tile laying you know board games then like
This is a good version of that, and it's worth checking out at least. River Towns. I think it's just on Steam right now for River Towns, but we'll see if it makes its way anywhere else. Sweet. Good to see it. Hey, Jacob, what are you looking at right now, man? Pop quiz.
my face on discord oh you could also just go to google and like search jacob geller and look at the images and you could see your face and if you did that you'd probably need you'd probably need like a browser to do that though right That's true. But you'd probably, knowing you boot up some lame browser for squares, like Firefox, please. That's my worst quality of my browser choice.
Well, how about you spice it up a little bit in the office or the computer room, Jetham? Forget spicing up in the bedroom. We're talking about spicing up the computer room with Opera GX, everybody. Thanks to Opera GX for sponsoring this episode. The whole angle is you don't think about your browser. You probably locked in whatever browser you're using years and years ago, and it's probably some clunky...
slow, RAM-intensive turd that doesn't even care about the fact that you're a gamer. Am I right, Jeff? Just say Chrome. Just say Chrome. I'll say Chrome. I'm not scared of those hacks at Google. The idea with Opera GX is... The thing you use to look up Jacob's face? Yeah, well, you can go to Google on Opera GX. You can still support Google through Opera, don't worry. But Opera GX, the idea is it's a browser that's...
that's optimized for gamers. They have a bunch of things that they're pushing and they're like, okay, you can set it so it'll have a RAM limit so you won't interfere. with the game that you're playing if you don't want to have that bogged down anyway, because some of these things can really be a computer hog in a way you wouldn't expect. They have a bunch of different modes, like, oh, what?
transparency for the sidebars makes it more immersive almost looks like you're on your desktop as you're in the browser whenever you open up a new tab they have mods as they put it thousands and thousands of mods So you can have weird fancy splash screens. I can make him nude. You can do whatever the hell you want to do. That's it, man. Opera GX. It's all there for you.
You can have force dark mode built in there. There's also a built-in VPN with Opera GX So if you are looking for a new browser, you want to shake it up, you can check it out You can follow that link in the description That's operagx.gg slash theminmaxshow. You can use the link in the show notes to download it for free with Opera GX. If you want to give a little facelift to your internet browsing, that's an option for you.
Also, shout out to our dear friends at iMateBit. They want everybody to know about some of the greatest soundtracks known to man from a video game. They're available in a big reissue in their wonderful online store. I'm talking about the Persona. soundtracks everybody for Persona 3. four and five and these are the mega mix which means they're kind of like the greatest hits so if you want just the greatest tracks from persona three four and five
you can go to IMAPIT's wonderful online store and check that out. Or there's a link in the description if you want to go directly to these mega mixes. and you can look at everything else in IMAPIT's wonderful online store. Check out everything that's in their store, and you can use the promo code HAPPYBIRTHDAYMRESETTI. Happy birthday, Mr. Resetti for 10% off of everything under $100 in their online store other than the Persona vinyls. Doesn't work there. Everywhere else you can get that.
Help support IMAPIC because they support the MinMax community in a huge way by shipping out a prize each and every week. to whoever submits the greatest question on Patreon. If you support us here on Patreon, you can submit a question. Every single week, we choose our favorite. They win a prize. This week, of course, they are winning the vinyl soundtrack to Oxenfree 2, thanks to iMateBit. Amazing art.
Great. They go like this. Chris Pelley says, hey, do you all have tips for someone that's never played anything similar to Claire Obscure Expedition 33, but you want to be somewhat in sync for the deepest dive conversations? What's a person to do? No one has ever played anything like this game. Because it is the face of God. We have no tips. I think an early tip for me is actually like...
Do do get good at countering right like let yourself get killed and don't worry and don't like sweat it too much because it has really good checkpoints and just get the hang of countering as soon as possible yeah um but in terms of like the larger genre of turn-based rpg
I mean, it is a genre that took me a while to get into, because when I was young, I just fully did not understand turn-based RPGs. Like, I remember booting up a Final Fantasy at a friend's house and being like, what is this? I walk five feet? And then a bunch of menus pop up like and I can't press a button to just punch somebody like that did take me a while to sort of understand the value of that.
I mean, the thing about Claire Obscure, though, is I think it, even if you're not a fan of the genre, it's so compelling out of the gate that I think it might pull you in, right? Like, it might just pull you in. And the combat is very snappy. Right? Like, moving through those menus and selecting things and watching it all play out.
is quick and feels good so yeah i mean i don't think they're asking i don't think they're asking like will i like this it's more just like what what are the things that other jrpg players already know that I won't know which I would say just kind of like There is a whole skill system where you're finding luminas and then they can turn into pictos.
which is a little, the terminology is a little rough. I'm so confused, yeah. And I think it won't matter by the first deepest dive and then we can talk about them more in depth because it is a confusing system. Just I think just think like. Even just one turn ahead. You know, a lot of characters have moves that will set up a move that will come around the next time that they get to play. So instead of...
always doing the most powerful move available to you at any given time. Just think, if I do this now, this will allow me to do this next turn. And like... Even just doing one move ahead, I think will get you pretty far in terms of battle strategy. One thing that they do tell you to not miss is you should always just attack enemies.
like before you get into the battle you can just like press the button you always get first strike and then the thing that they don't tell you at least i i didn't realize it um is you have items that you can use and most of the time In JRPGs, I hoard items all the time because you never know. You want to make sure you have it when you really need it.
Here, like when you rest at the different flags that you reach, those all refill. So there is no reason not to use them. And it took me a couple hours before I realized that. They are essentially Estes flasks. Yes. Including one that is just a... keel the entire party outside of combat.
and you yeah just just use it whenever you're a little down on health because the checkpoints are pretty frequent and you'll get them back yeah i was i was thinking i had to save those but it you're that was a good tip jeff because i did it took me a while to like yeah just heal there'll be a flag soon enough don't worry yeah
Also, I forgot to mention, it's important that Claire Obscure, it's on PS5 and Xbox and Steam, but it is on Game Pass. So if you're on the fence about jumping in for the deepest dive and you happen to have Game Pass, you can jump in there and play with us there. Uh, apparently it's also runs on Steam Deck. I'm curious to see how it was. I mean, I guess it's Unreal five, which is really scalable. Cause like.
When I was playing, I did not think this game would run on Steam Deck. And I don't know that for sure, but I've seen reports of people saying it runs pretty well. Wow, that's awesome. BMO writes in and they say, hey, Desert Island Cereal. You can only take one, and that's all you can eat until you leave the island. Do you have toothpaste on this island? No, there's no toothpaste on this island.
I'm living this life already. All your teeth are going to fall out if you can't brush your teeth after eating Captain Crunch. There are healthy cereals. Right? Well, BMO is kind of taking this angle of like... Not your favorite series, but the one that's most likely for you to survive? I think he's taking a more. That's just what you would never get tired of. Yeah, what you would never get tired of. Like I said, I live this life already. If I'm eating cereal, it's crispy.
basically crisp x i love crisp x i don't tell you god your clear obscure age number just climbed 10 years hold on i gotta take some uh some supplements real quick Boring name, but great cereal. Smart start. what is this crap is unexpectedly delicious and you could get it from costco and so my parents always had it stocked and so from like You know, middle through high school, I'd start every morning with Bola Smart Start. What are these things? Some sort of brand flakes?
they're just they're crunchy brand but they taste they have more flavor than like a raisin brand okay and i'm thinking if it's a desert island you know the best cereal is like reese's puffs but i think i would go crazy if i had something as sweet as reese's puffs every day so start start you know See, I'm thinking you go Special K with strawberries. Right. I was going to say Special K fruit and yogurt.
yep yep that's good because you can separate those ingredients out and if you're on this desert island you can really savor it then separately you can make like strawberry I wasn't thinking that far jam out of the jam special okay your freeze dried Red strawberries. Yeah, yeah. That's what you go for on a regular morning, Jeffum? Yeah, because it pretends to be healthy, even though it's clearly not. It's all just candy. It's fine. The yogurt that they put into it. Yeah, come on.
it's like if you want to horrify yourself just look at like the sugariest cereal on the aisle and the one that seems the healthiest and they will have identical nutritional information just copy and paste for everything BetoQ92. On a Blockbuster trip, my mom rented an N64 South Park game for me. Well, I enjoyed it. My mom did not enjoy them swearing all the time. Those boys are only in fourth grade. They swear so much.
We went back to the clerk and they explained the rating system to my mom. She became more aware of my gaming and I one time had to convince my mom the Tony Hawk game was saying psycho visions and not psycho bitches in the song. I didn't own an M-rated game until I was 17. How aware were your parents of what you played growing up?
I think I've told this story before, but generally they were not aware. But my mom did just randomly watch me play Goldeneye once. Oh, no. And she was just like, you're just shooting. You're just shooting them. That's all you're doing. You're just shooting them. But that was the extent of the conversation. She didn't take the game away or restrict my game. She was very offended that I was playing a game where you just walked around and shot people. And then she was like.
All right. Did you quickly turn on the paintball mode? Innocence lost. No, it's all paint. It's all paint. They're paintballs. That's cool. I think every modern shooter should still have paintball mode. I still think that helps a lot.
my my parents were very aware of game rating systems and part of this was like i did not i didn't have an older sibling and i didn't start playing games like on consoles until relatively late um however they were not aware or they just couldn't control my like flash game intake and so this is something that hayley and i discussed on a recent bonus pod where my parents would be like no t-rated games for you and then i would go online and play the most
like violent and racist and like just like terrible in seven different directions flash games and i was like oh well i guess this is allowed yeah you guys were talking about just a bunch of like right yeah just games that were like George W. Bush 9-11 simulator just like that type of thing over and over again yeah and then I have I have shared this story several times but it was when I turned 13 and had my bar mitzvah I said
In the eyes of the Torah, I am a man, so I should be able to play Resident Evil 4, an M-rated game. A game for men. Hell yeah. Did it work? It did. They were like, I guess that logic has failed. Can't argue with that. When I was young enough for them to care, it was like Super Nintendo games. So they probably would have...
They would have cared if it was like Mortal Kombat, but I never owned it. And the Super Nintendo version was censored to begin with. But by the time I was old enough to buy, you know... shooters or whatever i was buying them myself and they didn't care i also saw robocop when i was like eight years old so they weren't you know like i said they were they were 80s parents
They didn't pay that much attention. That's such an easy catch-all. Well, you know 80s parents. Well, you know 50s parents. You know 40s parents. You can just say that about any decade. And then there's a line where it's like, and then they care too much. They don't have to go outside. Lousy helicopter parents. Nate Voris writes in, have you ever had a moment of reflection while playing a game when you thought, is it effed up that I'm having fun doing this?
Like, I remember loving the euphoria system in the Star Wars Force Unleashed and would have cruelly dangled stormtroopers and watched them desperately grab for railings or anything to save themselves from being thrown over the edge of the abyss. Am I a psycho? Fun time, says Nate. No, the Stormtroopers had it coming. They signed up to fight for the umpire, so it's all good. I think more about it in terms of, like, every game that we play where they're...
The question, the way that you paraphrased it was like, killing civilians. Obviously wrong. And it's like, yeah, as opposed to... quote-unquote bad guys in every other game where the answer is always just murder them with guns. It's a more overarching morality question than just do you do bad things to civilians? But but I feel that way, like in terms of the original question.
Every now and then when we watch, we'll watch like a Microsoft Direct and it's like four games in a row where it's just like. And you torture people and look at all the blood. And this is coming soon. Aren't you excited? Also on Game Pass. It's like. What is wrong with us? What games are you talking about? South of Midnight? What Xbox? Doom? Doom. I mean, yeah. I mean, Diablo. Diablo trailers are bananas. That is true. Check out my blood skirt. Yeah, I guess that's true.
I remember like when the ramp up to last of us part two and days gone was going on. And it was like this weird line where it was like, if we were watching like days gone footage, Like we were like, well, this is disgusting. But if it was Last of Us 2 footage, we're like, this is artistic.
And sometimes you would watch the trailer and you wouldn't know until the end if it was Days Gone or Last of Us. Wait, are we disgusted or not here? Oh, no, it's art. Until the end of the trailer. They got his Last of Us, so it's good. It's cool. We're all good with it. Yeah, little girl getting her... arms hammered off or whatever it's that's fine that's that has a message behind it. I do remember watching that trailer for Last of Us Part II and be like, is this?
days gone like oh my god Naughty Dog would be turning in their grave if they knew that we were confused whether or not that scene was from days gone or last episode 2 that was that was the shittiest part of the uh the naughty dog last of us 2 documentary is they talked about that trailer And I think people rightfully wrote articles that were like, Hey, it's messed up that an entire game's trailer is a woman being brutalized. And then Naughty Dog was like, How dare you?
it was wild yeah to be like polygon.com like just singling out like this it was an embarrassing like i don't blame the people for saying that because i'm sure they felt real emotions but like If I was making that documentary, I would be like, this is embarrassing for them. And if I'm going to put it in, it's going to be an embarrassing moment. Tommy Estrenga writes in and says, if you were given a deal. For Ageless Immortality. How many of you are interested in that? Just baseline.
I stay the age I am now. You stay Claire Obscure 33. for the rest of your life. That's very ageful. You only get to be that for one year. Am I the only one? This is turning into Would You Rather from Comedy Bank. Am I the only one in the world who has this? Yes.
I don't think I'd want to do it. If there was a whole culture of people who were living forever and everyone learned how to deal with infinite life... together do you want to watch everyone that you know and love die and then all of society fall apart Okay, or get better. While you just are still powerless, but at least you're still alive to witness it. Okay, how about this, hotshot? All right, I'm changing the deal. I'm Satan, and I'm changing the deal.
Now it's you and everybody. Oh, it's from the Microsoft press conference. Ah, pre-order now. Game pass. The prices are increasing. If you and everyone you knew and loved were granted ageless immortality, interested? Hot shots? Can you choose to die? Jesus, there's a second part of this question that's more interesting. Okay, but the answer is no. No. All right. Give us the second part. No, sorry, Tommy. You guys don't deserve the second part.
Now, the question is, if you're given a deal of Ageless Immortality, but you had to be sent back in time and survive World War I to get it, would you take it? So a bad deal to start with combined with... I'll have PTSD for the infinite life that I have. Okay, but imagine you were more obsessed with living forever. There's probably a majority of the audience that is more keen to this idea, or people are like, oh, I want to be beautiful and young forever.
Do you think they should take the deal of going back and fighting in World War I? They're not immortal for World War I. no they're not yeah they have to they have to like wait until 1918 november whatever whatever where they signed the peace deals and then you're granted immortality the thing is people think immortality forever and ever and to them that means like
the next 60 years and it's like right the sun's gonna die if you can't pull the plug on yourself you can you can you can let's assume you can all right now you're changing the deal again so now you're interested mr world war one That's a little better. Yeah, I can figure it out. I would be pretty good at Trench Warfare. I tried to look it up to see if there's stats. Imagine... Combat in World War I, Kyle, what percentage of soldiers died that saw combat in World War I?
I don't know. I don't even want to guess because I feel like I'm either going to guess way too low or way too high. Now that's podcasting, everybody. Take notes. 40%. 15%. So it's basically a cakewalk. We could strut our way through there and be fine. David Dubbs writes and says, Hey everybody, am I nuts or have modern pinball machines become way too complicated? I went to my local pinball arcade with a ton of machines that I just couldn't follow.
There's now constant sound effects in every hit, an entire TV on the top with important details and overflow of lights, constant multi-balls that I have no idea how I'm triggering. Am I getting old and I can't keep up with it all? Help me. help me i think he's right It's too hard, too complicated and weird. It feels like pinball machines are being designed for... the pinball wizards among us. My main goal is to not make the ball go in between the paddles, because that's...
That's the worst thing that can happen. It's like, I don't know how to play like the meta game of like, first you have to hit it up this ramp and then you have to hit. I don't know if that's the meta game. I think that's just the game, but.
But the game is to not let the ball go away. I mean, in that the point of a game is to press a button on a controller. But I mean, don't you think it is also catering to you that you're trying to keep it so active and kind of PopCap-esque and how many... whiz bang whirl colors they're flashing at you and multi-balls popping out your hoo-ha
That's the goal as well is to keep newcomers around, right? How many machines are you playing? Good ones. Yeah, but I don't know that that does keep newcomers around. yeah because it's like if you don't understand the rules i like pinball pinball effects we played for many years at game informer and it It always was a bear when it was like a new table. You had to go into the tutorial and read like 20 screens explaining how all the multiplayers work and the special modes and all of that stuff.
Yeah, there's a limit of like, hey, this is now just too much and it's homework. I have to do homework. For 20 minutes before I can. Like play this game good. I think it's. You just have to pay for it. Like if it was free. Then I would like figuring stuff out. But it's like. paying in this economy a dollar at a time to like to to to not understand the rules of something you know it's like when i go to my barcade and i play like track and field
It's like, I get that I just have to push the buttons really fast, but I don't know what I'm doing until I've already game over it on the avatar frontiers of Pandora pinball machine. Yeah, I had a real... dorky adult moment where I think it was when I was doing that mid-max spotlight on EverQuest where I was in San Diego by myself and I was like, well, okay, I have a free night. What am I going to do? I'm just going to go to the bar.
and get some local IPAs and drink beer by myself and play their Ghostbusters pinball table. And I was like, this is like ideal night. Here we go. And it's one of those situations of like, what do you want? What do you want, everybody? It's not as satisfying as you think it's going to be. Because I was there for like...
15 minutes. I'm like, what am I doing? This isn't like true happiness by any measure. This is a mediocre time at best. What did my mind? It was sweet. Jeff, have you ever seen the table called Cue Ball Wizard? It's a pinball table that has pool balls in it. It has a cue ball that you hit the little ball into. It's at my hometown brewery at this point, but I'm really obsessed with it just for weird, clunky old pinball tables. Are you looking at this thing?
I'm looking at it. Yeah, it's a good one. It's just fun to see the little ball collide with the big ball, you know? That's it. Hey, I have a deafening Schwab life insurance commercial that I can't blame your age. Ben Mann writes in and they say, hey, Ben, why do some dinosaurs make it into the collective consciousness and others do not? Great question, Ben Mann. Because some look cool and some don't. But what defines cool for a dinosaur? It's not like some are wearing sunglasses.
Scary. Scary is cool. They're all that. Well, most of that. Is it like not like a normal animal? You know, if there's one that's kind of just the shape of like a cow, am I like, I don't care. I've seen a cow. And it's like how many Brachiosauruses or quote unquote Brontosaurus alikes do we really need? Seismosaurus, you're big. I get it. Big whoop. I've seen that shape before. Give me something new.
yeah i was like in the 80s they only knew like four dinosaurs and so that those were the only ones that you ever heard of yeah and one of them was like a chinese dragon like we were very confused back then i was kind of leaning that same direction too of like I wonder if there's a certain America centrism idea to this.
You know, like the dinosaurs that were discovered in America are more likely to be in American museums. Therefore, more people in America were exposed to them. So then when more and more dinosaur movies started popping up, we're going to have those types of dinosaurs. in the movies because of her childhoods and then those spread around the world and that's what leads to them being more popular?
Like I was, I was really diving into this of like, yeah, which, which dinosaurs were discovered in America. And it's like T-Rex, Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Dilophosaurus. Like, okay. It makes sense why Michael Crichton was so intrigued by these, you know? Do you know the the thing about dinosaur like illustrations? Have you heard the story before? Tell me the tale where it was. I think it's I'm looking it up. I think it's Charles Knight was the guy where.
Basically, dinosaurs, we've known about dinosaurs for a long time, but for a long time they were drawn in these lakes. pretty boring kind of lumpy ways where it was just like i don't know it's just this it's just a slow wizard creature and then Sometime in like the turn of the 20th century. I thought it was later. But anyway, it's like at some point there's an illustrator who started drawing them in like more actiony poses and like looking cooler. Yeah.
That is very much when our dinosaur fascination started. Like it wasn't actually that we were all obsessed with dinosaurs forever. It was like. they seemed boring and then they started being drawn cool and then we were like oh my god look at these things yeah that makes once they drew them for that game informer cover that was you're the dinosaur that was the turning point that makes sense Do you guys remember there's a dinosaur called Utahraptor?
No. There is, yeah. They should put it in the next Jurassic World movie. I think that'd be a fun big threat. Ironically discovered in Mongolia. Juniper Cain written, that's not true, but no one reacted anyway, so I need to have a disclosure out there. Juniper Cain writes in, hey gang, last week on the podcast, Ben and Kyle valiantly defended audiences shouting chicken jockey at the Minecraft movie.
And it turns out everybody loved that take, Kyle. It was really cool. I saw some of those comments. We were on the right side of history. It's the equivalent, apparently, of going in and... ripping up paychecks for uh most workers here if you could replicate this theatrical experience with any other film moment or even gaming moment as in the audience would all shout the quote from the media immediately after it said and lose their minds
What would it be? What should be the moment that has or the media that has a chicken jockey moment? I really think this should be something incredibly somber and then the audience, you know, gets a chance to liven it up. Right, right, right. So the answer is... Uh, it's like, I don't know when the brutalist one, he says like, I'm not lowering the ceilings. And then everyone's like, I'm.
and starts throwing their popcorn around. Yeah, that's good. Or I guess leaving it ambiguous so it doesn't spoil anything because there's people playing it on PS5 now, but towards the end of the new Indiana Jones game, when Indiana Jones screams, Blank was chosen by God. That line that I love so much. Oh, you get a whole theater reacting to that. That's the good stuff, man. Go to a theater to watch.
I guess it's a fantastical world we're dealing with, yeah. I do think we got close for a while and then it seems to have receded again, but I do think we should all be doing something during the Nicole Kidman AMC. There should be like a dance. When she says heartbreak feels good in a place like this, we should all stand up and salute or something. Yeah, there needs to be some movement, like the Macarena, something to correspond perfectly with that entire speech, I think.
God, that is where the roller coaster or the popcorn and the Coke is flying. I don't think they even use anymore, but everyone's like. Yeah, you got to react. The point is to have those big social unifying moments. That's the idea of movie theaters, right? Can I say I went to – I saw Sinners last night. Oh, yeah. And it was a full – imax theater on a tuesday evening just a random like every seat full and the audience was reacting and it was awesome oh good uh is that movie as good as everyone's
clayman yes okay like you you come out of it feeling like you've been like shot out of a cannon wow all right awesome um ashley malone has a question which successful movie franchise has the most bad movies Superman. Superman. Interesting. So she said you can't include Star Trek because that's the obvious answer. Oh, that's. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to think like proportionally, but is it just number? Because it's like, how many good Jurassic Park movies are there? Oof.
Two. One and a half? Two. I'm in the two camp, but what's your second, Ben? Yeah, it'd be, yeah. lost world yeah okay i didn't know i i because i really do i'll go to bat for lost world but most people don't yeah um although if you put a gun to my head and said is lost world a good movie I'd put that muzzle further against my flesh and I'd say yes. Or Ghostbusters. No, that's fun too. Ghostbusters is good. Yeah. Because it's like Ghostbusters has won.
That's it. And then they keep making movies. They're like, remember how that first one was good? Don't. I think Answer the Call is better than people give it credit for. It has a weird reputation, but there's funny bits in the movie. Yes, there are some funny bits in the movie, but also the defenders are a bit out of line for defending that movie. It's not that good. We can defend better things, everybody.
Bobby Mac pointed out Resident Evil. Resident Evil. Seven movies. That is a great, great contender. And there's one. I like that first one. Which even then was... Even then, that's sub Lost World level, if I'm being honest here. That's like campy... Can't be fun. Yeah, Terminator, I was tempted by.
But then I'm like, there's not really that many. There are like three good Terminator movies. That's the thing. I like Dark Fate. I know apparently people lump that in too much with Genesis. Those are night and day movies. Dark Fate is good. Yes, I'm totally with you. Three is fine. Yeah, I think Jurassic Park might be...
Even then, I love them all so much. Don't make me part from my dear fallen kid. I would say Dominion's the only Jurassic Park movie that makes me genuinely angry with it being bad. Which one is that? The last one. Yeah, the Locust film. So there we go. Craig Gilmore writes in and says, not really a question. Just wanted to say that in reference to man of the hour, Alex Garland recently, Jacob mentioned on a recent podcast that he wrote DMC Devil May Cry.
I just wanted to ask if Jacob saw that recent GQ filmography interview with Garland. Did you see this, Jacob? No. Where they run through all of his films. But it's literally the opening of this GQ interview. They're like, oh, we also wanted to ask you about... The video games we worked on like DMC Devil May Cry. And Alex Garland quote said, yeah, no, I did all on that. Oh, really? Yeah. Never mind everybody. They talk about enslaved? They didn't even have the audacity to bring it up. No.
Nathan Ryers says, where is my sweet, sweet pew pew bang merch? When do the pre-orders go up? Well, due to tariffs, I'm sorry, we're not going to be able to deliver PPubang merch in a timely fashion. No, yes, obviously that is a... of paramount importance um basically i'm not happy super happy with any of the merch options for mimnax right now and so uh we're looking at kind of building out a new store with higher quality merch because our merch is fine you can buy it
I have some shirts and they're pretty worn down at this point. And so we're looking into kind of a merch relaunch in the future and there are irons in the fire to... to get a big relaunch of high-quality min-max merch, even if we get a smaller cut of it, just to have some clothes that'll last more than eight months.
through a washing system. Could you imagine making a podcast good enough that people are demanding merch after five episodes? That's the power of Pew Pew Bang to make this show look like crap. Nick from Atlanta says, hey, cohorts, it's time for everybody's favorite soda-themed game, Doctor or Doctored. As everyone knows, your job is to correctly guess whether a Dr. Pepper knockoff is real or fake.
Contestants win a lifetime supply of my choice of Dr. Pepper knockoff if you only drink it once and then never again. That sounds fair, Nick. Thank you. All right. So is this a real or a fake Dr. Pepper knockoff? Some of these are regional. No. Correct. That's fake. But fairways in Iowa carried one called Country Doctor. That's a good name for Dr. Pepper ripoff as Country Doctor. Jeff, I'm Dr. Celeste.
Spelled like the game. Sure. It was real. Distributed by the pantry across the South, apparently. Jacob Geller, Dr. Whatever. Real? Real. Appears to have been distributed across the south of various stores. Kyle Hilliard, very appropriately. This is your gamer tag, I think, on Xbox. Dr. Nut. No. It is real. Bottled in New Orleans from the early 30s to the late 70s.
Early 30s. Sorry. It doesn't exist now. So I think I get a partial credit. That's a fair point. Jeff. Well, none of these exist now, though. Right. Correct. I think some do. Jeff. Skipper. No, come on. It's real. An old Safeway drink, which changed to Dr. Skipper as it was discontinued. That's very confusing.
As it was discontinued. I'm confused. We're called Dr. Skipper now. Don't forget us, Dr. Skipper forever. The educational requirements of soda really went through the roof. Now you need a diploma. Jacob, Mr. Sip. I think it's Dr. Sip. Well, it's real. It was formerly called Smart and Final. And it was available in stores in Arizona, California, Florida. New. What is that? What is that state called? Nevada. I was going to say New-Vada. New-Vada. In Mexico.
Smart and final is a great name for a soda, by the way. It's as definitive as it gets. But where'd the doctor come into it? It just tastes like doctor. These are all Dr. Pepper wannabes. Nothing tastes like Dr. Pepper, though. Except for Diet Dr. Pepper. It tastes just like it. And Mr. Pibb. There we go. Thank you, Dick from Atlanta, for your doctor trivia. All right. What do you like? My one was Dr. Thunder, I think, growing up in South Carolina. That was a big one? Dr. Thunder.
That's good. What a unique flavor that Dr. Pepper is. How would you describe it? Well, they engineered it to not be like a natural flavor, right? There's some weird story about... It was meant to not taste like anything. Some mad doctor made it? Yeah. Pepper, I believe. Oh, my God. What do you like for question of the week?
I kind of like chicken jockey theorizing. Okay, chicken jockey. I like the dinosaurs. I like the immortality, even though everyone played ball with it a little bit too well. Jeff, where are you leaning? Oh, I like the chicken one. All right. There we go. Juniper Kane. Congratulations. You just won question of the week, which means you get auction free to that vinyl. Thanks to I'm a bit. Now, of course, it's time for something that's called get a load of this.
Hey, get a load of this everybody. There's um That magazine that we talked about on the show before, it's currently in the Ball of Heroes rotation as well because we're very thankful for the... creator, Caspian Whistler, sending out a bunch of copies to folks on the MinMax team. But there's a video game magazine that comes out once a year called A Profound Waste of Time. It's a kickstarted thing every single year, and he shipped over a bunch.
They are so good. No offense to Game Informer, Kyle, your beloved magazine. The magazines are made. The profound waste of time is incredible. Yeah, it's really great. And so I actually had some time this last weekend to kind of comb through it a little bit. There was an interview with Greenblatt, the designer of Parappa the Rapper.
Kyle Bossman, he did the interview for. Did you read that one? It was a great interview. Yeah. Yeah. It was like, you know, Parappa, I love him so much and I never really looked into the history much. I never really understood. I knew it was some partnership with some designer, but I never understood. It's like, oh, it's just this. artist in his 60s now who lives in new york but the part that blew my mind is i didn't realize that like he owns
The full rights to Parappa and Um Jammer Lammy. It's like a weird fusion thing where like Sony made the games, but he fully owns those characters. And at a certain point, Kyle Bassman has an interview, like, you know, what he wants to do in the future. He's like, oh, I want I want Sony animated. pictures to make a Parappa movie. Like that's my dream. But again, it'd have to be that weird collaboration of like, well, they don't have the rights, so how likely would they be to do it? But...
It's just a unique perspective that you don't hear too much about. That's the main problem with a Parappa movie is who has the rights? What a mess. The link below if you want to check out that magazine because it's quite cool. If they did that movie, it would just have to fully have.
the music from the first game right like those would be the musical moments right like they could have some original songs but if you're not kick punching all in the mind like it'd be a nice mix it'd be a nice I don't know what the comparison it'd be a little bit like the Lion King remake where you'd have to add like some new original tracks in there you know but predominantly we're working with like
Check out this moose in the car. A lot of fun, memorable songs, and then a bunch of songs you won't remember. Right. What does Zazu feel? A lot of that graph is right in there. Does anybody else have got one? Get a load of it. If I told you that there was a YouTube channel called Service 95, you'd think that's probably some corporate throwaway account. But in fact...
It is a YouTube channel where Dua Lipa, the musical superstar, does long, in-depth, and incredibly insightful interviews with... random authors who have written books uh and they are just it's just like two webcams her talking to the authors she has clearly read the books and is really into them. And the authors are often like, I have never been asked that question. Wow. And it is so.
And they have like, you know, the channel has 80,000 subscribers, which is a lot, but not for Dua Lipa. And it's just like, it's like the most beautiful woman in the world asking these authors who have maybe done like two other podcasts. Just really insightful questions about their writing. And it is so funny and weird that that exists. Perfect. It's like SZA coming on to the last episode of the official severance podcast and just.
talking ben stiller's ear off about how this important severance is to her and how she's watched the first season like eight times weird uh yeah what is the name of the channel one more time It's called Service 95. Cool. Link below if you want to check that out. This is what Dua Lipa's doing instead of getting harassed in Fortnite. Get a load of this. God, Christ, you guys. Get it together.
Worst. This is a new video from Stand Up Maths, my go-to math YouTube channel. You may remember them from such previous get a load of thises as... Five infinite $5 bills more than a stack of infinite $1 bills. was a good one. But this one is called Explaining the Trump Tariff Equation. And it's just a 20 minute video of this very smart mathematician who saw the equation when they published it and was like,
It doesn't make any sense. And he goes into a deep dive about, it's a very good explainer for how tariffs work in the first place. And then why these ones are very stupid as well. And once you've watched it, you will feel like you can be confident in saying, hey, now I know enough about tariffs to know that this is a dumb place that we're in right now. Interesting. So check it out. Here we go. Hey, get a load of this.
So that game Suicide Squad, remember how I was really bummed out about how they killed the Justice League, even though I thought it was a cool idea, but in practice it kind of came up. It felt like a bummer, sure. Yeah. So... The game's story is complete now via like DLC and motion graphic cut scenes and stuff like that.
And you can go watch like the final true cut scene of Suicide Squad. It's a motion graphic. It's not like, you know, animated characters or cut scenes. But they were all clones. So it's cool. Cool. Bunch of clones. What? It felt like that. That didn't feel like the real Batman. Hey, get a load of this from the community in the Discord. Tokyo Game Life shared this. It's just a cool idea, I guess, if you're into marketing. No, I take back that, I guess. It is fun. Nintendo uploaded.
the highest quality version available of that Paul Rudd Super Nintendo ad from 1991. I love that it's on the official Nintendo channel. It's for a company that it feels like it's just getting tighter and tighter and tighter. Like Nintendo, it does feel like a flash or like, Oh look, they're having fun.
They're doing this thing, and the answer is why not do it? Why not upload this old Paul Rudd ad you had for the Super Nintendo? And then, obviously, in conjunction with what they made, the new one where he came on to talk about. switch to and then ign had a very hard-hitting interview where he talked about how much you like the switch to and those questions were scorchers so if you can handle that you can go check it out
All right, that is it for this episode of the MinMac Show. Thank you so much, everybody, for watching, listening, sharing. As we tease at the start of the episode, again, Jacob Geller and I are going to the Southern Hemisphere. That's right, Brazil. That's right, Sao Paulo. Next week for Gamescom that's happening down there, we'll be creating a travelogue showing off that entire trip for you. But we're hosting a community meetup at a bar slash restaurant called La Sampa.
And we're going to be there Thursday, May 1st from 4 to about 7 p.m. So check out the Patreon page. There's a public post on Patreon where you can find details on that if you want to come out and join us. You don't need to be a Patreon supporter to jump in. Please bring a friend. You don't need to be going to Gamescom. You don't have to have a ticket to Gamescom to get in there either.
So we'll just be hanging out there by the bar. Come swing by. I'm very curious to see just what a meetup is going to be like in Brazil. So let us come out and meet you, please. Let's see a bonus pod this week. Our Patreon exclusive bonus podcast. If you support us at the $5 tier on Patreon, you get access to the bonus podcast feed. It's very easy. You jump in on Patreon, you get that.
rss link you put that in your favorite podcast app and then bada bing bada boom all of those bonuses pop up right there including bonus pod the show that haley hosts every single Monday. And this week was a truly great episode. where it was all about Easter eggs and games in honor of Easter. And it was her and Jacob Geller, this very same Jacob Geller as the one on this episode, having a very in-depth, fun conversation about...
the best Easter eggs of all time, but then also trying to, with Haley's legal mind, trying to classify the different strata and subsystems of Easter eggs and games. It's, Jacob, it was a truly fantastic episode. So thank you for jumping on for that. Yeah, it was it was great. And I love that. I was just like, here are my favorite Easter eggs. And Haley emerged from like a beautiful mind style wall and was like, I think I figured it out.
So yeah, if you're ever craving more Min-Max content, unlock that bonus podcast feed. You more than double the Min-Max content every single week, including The Deepest Dive. Join it for Clay Obscure, Expedition 33. Or if you just enjoy people giving the game... like this the discussion it deserves you can support it directly over there on patreon but you can also submit questions and unlock the podcast version all that fun stuff
You know, we don't plug it too often, but check the description for this podcast. There is a link to our Stream Archives channel, which is just youtube.com slash at minmaxstreamarchives, where all of our solo streams go. So if you want to see a lot of Jeffm...
playing a bunch of games in particular check out that whole separate youtube channel uh there's a bunch of good stuff on there but yeah jeffman's gonna be playing oblivion on there streaming it on twitch you can give us a follow there or check out that stream archives channel on youtube um new show plus This week was a fun one. It was a charge shot, which meant it was going to be a one-off bigger episode. And we teased what it was going to be. And the answer was.
Something that I've wanted to do for so long. I remember on a podcast years and years ago with Surreal, joking about how funny would it be if... We had a new show plus or some sort of show where we just like flew to LA just to eat donuts and then flew back. And so this is the time we finally fulfilled that with Leo Vader flying to Ohio to meet up with Charles Hart. to have some Skyline chili.
The fabled Ohio dish of just a bunch of spaghetti covered with chili and cheese that every Ohioan is gaga for. They're raised on it. It's like their mama's milk over there. And so the new show plus is just Leo flying over there and having a wonderful, huge meal of skyline chili. So you can check that out.
on min max's youtube channel or there's an extended version if you're at the ten dollar tier as well um also dock lightning everybody it's going to be coming up in may throughout the month of may If you have ever wanted to create a short documentary, this is your opportunity, folks. We are accepting everybody. If you have a phone, you can create a short documentary. The way Dr. Lightning works is it's a community film festival for short documentaries. They have to be under three minutes.
We have a post going up on Patreon this Friday that should be public for everybody so you can learn how it all works. If you've ever been curious, you've ever wanted just to interview somebody to make a short documentary, we share a bunch of links for free software for editing and you can use your phone. This thing can be quick.
sloppy you don't need to be a professional documentarian you don't need to know a darn thing just have the attitude of willing to be a little bit creative in the month of may and then at the end of the month we're going to round them up and have a big film festival celebration of everybody's work and everybody that submits a short documentary we're going to send out a Steam code to them as well. So stay tuned for that.
Let's see if you really want to go behind the scenes, which I guess it's that part of the show. We have another rapid fire interview that we're recording this Thursday, hopefully, unless something falls through and it should be up, I'd say in early-ish May, but it's kind of a funky different where it's not about one game in particular. It's kind of the entire career of a... legendary developer? What's the best way to phrase this developer while still teasing it?
Legendary? I think Legendary is okay. He's been doing it for a long time. You know his name. You know his name. Pound for pound, one of the greatest game directors of all time if you look at the gameography. So that should be a fun interview coming up in May for everybody. So thanks for supporting that.
All right. Thanks so much, everybody. Enjoy next week's episode with the guest host. You all be nice to them, you hear? And I'll be back the week after that for a new episode of the MinMax Show. Thanks so much, everybody. Be good. Have fun. Let's go.