Game Under Podcast 121

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Smugcast Banter
0:00:15 Puzzle Talk With Gagandeep Singh and Tom Towers
0:02:00 Smugcast Without Intro
0:02:45 Gagan Has Not Published a Podcast in a Year (Who could tell?)

Discussion of Top Ten Game Selections from the Endless Backlog Podcast
0:02:46 DMC5 Talk Stylish Action Update
0:12:00 Bayonettaminute

Onto Shooters 0:21:00 Doom Discussion
0:26:30 Fornite
0:28:00 Netcode & Boomer Shooters

Breaking Down Resident Evil 6
0:33:15 How Bloodrayne and RE6 are Alike
0:39:00 Resident Evil 3 Remake Impressions & Extended Conversation about Resident Evil

New Releases
0:53:00 Animal Crossing
0:56:50 Ori: The Will of the Wisps & Original Ori (Castlevania Talk follows)
1:13:53 Similarities with Shovel Knight & Extended Conversation about Metroidvanias
1:47:02 The Score from Gagan

Antichamber
1:48:45 Dvader's Review of Tom Towers #2 Best Game of the 2010's

A Critique of Game Under's Top Ten Games of the 2010's
1:50:08 The List

Gagan Puts Together His Top 10 of the 2010's Live
2:22:22 "F*ck it, we'll do it live!"

Super Smash Bros.
2:44:30 Tom asks for Gagan’s take on SSB.

Transcript

Tom: If he likes the Uncharted puzzles.

Gagan: That should be held against him.

Gagan: Zelda ones aren't always bad, so at least give the Zelda ones a pass.

Tom: I can accept people liking Zelda puzzles.

Gagan: They have an appeal.

Tom: Uncharted is another question.

Gagan: Yeah.

Gagan: It's like they're not...

Gagan: At least the Zelda ones sort of want to pretend you're solving them.

Tom: You do have to do something.

Tom: It might be obvious.

Tom: But you do have to do it.

Gagan: And in the case of Breath of the Wild, they actually like have in between just complete nothing, actual puzzles.

Tom: Plus it's got Super Monkey Ball stuff in it, doesn't it?

Gagan: Yeah, yeah, it's got a lot of shenanigans and stuff.

Gagan: It's good.

Gagan: No, it's very...

Gagan: I like Breath of the Wild.

Gagan: I don't like D Zelda, but I like that game.

Gagan: Everybody's like, Ooh, you seem Zelda enough.

Gagan: I'm like, thank fucking God.

Gagan: It's not Zelda enough.

Gagan: That is the best thing to happen to this franchise.

Gagan: Sign me up.

Gagan: It's like, this how those pieces of shit felt when Devil May Cry became something else?

Gagan: Okay, I get it now.

Gagan: I mean, you know, Devil May Cry was ruined.

Gagan: That's different.

Tom: Ruined by Team Ninja, I assume.

Gagan: Ninja Theory.

Gagan: Your boys of the enslaved fame.

Gagan: Bad gameplay fame.

Gagan: Hellblade Studio.

Gagan: I don't know, Hellblade could be cool, I guess.

Gagan: I don't want to duck on that game because everybody's like, ooh, game's sad.

Gagan: It helps me with depression.

Gagan: I'm like, I shouldn't make fun of this.

Gagan: Thank God.

Gagan: That's not getting recorded, right?

Gagan: That's not on air right now.

Tom: I think this should just be a cold open where the episode three of the Smugcast, and I think we're smug enough to not need to actually have an intro to the show.

Gagan: All right, we just go from here?

Tom: We've been going the entire time, I think.

Gagan: If you want to, yeah, no, I'm game.

Gagan: I don't think Phil would appreciate it.

Tom: He may cut everything out, out of anger for the criticism of Enslaved.

Gagan: Really?

Gagan: He's an Enslaved person?

Gagan: I mean, but he knows I don't...

Tom: I like Enslaved too.

Gagan: He knows I don't like your top list, both of them at this point.

Tom: Yeah, I'm an Enslaved fan too.

Gagan: Yeah, let's discuss.

Gagan: That's what we really need to discuss.

Gagan: The Game Under Games of the Decade cast, hold on, add that to the itinerary real quick.

Gagan: That's what I'm going to.

Gagan: Introduce the people while I go look at that real quick.

Tom: Well, the itinerary is right there in the chat.

Gagan: No, I thought we were recording.

Gagan: I thought we were officially in podcast.

Gagan: This is officially part of it now.

Tom: Yeah, we are.

Tom: But what are you looking at?

Tom: You mean you can't recall off the top of your head the brilliance of our top list?

Gagan: Introduce us to the people.

Tom: If the people don't know who we are at this stage, at this stage, they should probably be out and wiggling.

Gagan: I have not put a podcast out into the world in a whole year though.

Tom: But your upcoming Game of the Year podcast, I believe, is six hours to make up for it.

Gagan: Bro, it is so up...

Gagan: I cannot believe we podcasted for so long.

Gagan: And the ending stretch is literally...

Gagan: I treat you not...

Gagan: is just Ben and William going, No, I want my game to win.

Gagan: And me going, I don't fucking care.

Tom: I want my game to win.

Tom: The previous years was four or five hours, wasn't it?

Gagan: Yeah, they've been long before.

Tom: I have to admit, I did not listen to it because it was so long.

Gagan: No, some of them are obviously too long.

Gagan: I think my biggest mistake always was when I edit these podcasts, I don't do the timestamps while I'm doing the editing.

Gagan: I do it after the fact.

Gagan: I mean after the fact.

Gagan: I just don't do it once it's out in the wild.

Gagan: I'm like, oh, who cares?

Gagan: I'll figure it out.

Gagan: They'll skip.

Gagan: But I really want...

Gagan: There are things in this new podcast I deem worthy of listening to.

Gagan: Brian...

Gagan: The timestamp I will tell you % you must listen to is Brian Mareheim arguing for Goose Game.

Gagan: And it was so convincing that every time that stupid game came up to cut, like, internally, I was just thinking, I was like, I still feel like it's the best argued game because, man, I loved that presentation he just did.

Gagan: Because I told him beforehand as well as we can.

Tom: See, this is the major problem with your criticism of my typo pick for greatest stealth game ever is your counter argument was not that Untitled Goose Game should be the greatest stealth game ever.

Gagan: Yeah, Untitled Goose Game does sound like a pretty cool stealth game.

Gagan: He compared that game to Frickin Hitman.

Gagan: I'm just thinking of the stupid Goose and Agent with the same energy.

Gagan: And he's talking about, like, tying the some little kid's shoelaces together.

Gagan: Like, man, what a malicious bird.

Gagan: Like, what?

Tom: I think I managed to trap two people in the phone box at once.

Gagan: Oh, you like Goose Game?

Tom: Yeah, I'm a fan of it.

Gagan: So it's not a mean game, right?

Gagan: Like, it is, like, legitimately a good game.

Gagan: So the question I asked him during the podcast was, like, listen.

Tom: It's certainly not on the level of Hitman or something like that.

Gagan: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gagan: The question I really asked him was, like, listen, could this have not been about a goose and still been an enjoyable video game?

Gagan: And at first he tried to guess, like, no, it could have been a completely different animal.

Gagan: I mean, like, literally, could this not have been a joke and still at least mechanically have some level of satisfaction?

Gagan: I don't even need it to be, like, Hitman, but, like, at least, like, it's good on its own merits.

Gagan: Like, because, like, Goat Simulator is not a good video game, in my opinion.

Gagan: Like, I don't think what it does is particularly, like, it's funny, I guess, right?

Gagan: But I wouldn't like, like, you couldn't, that game has to be that joke, because those mechanics could not work, would not be satisfying in any other context, right?

Gagan: Devil May Cry could be some pretentious bullshit, nonsense wankfest, but the combat would still be, the mechanics would still be good.

Gagan: Is the difference I like to clarify.

Gagan: It was like, the aesthetic adds to the appeal of the game, but it's not the game at the end of the day.

Tom: I wouldn't obviously put Untitled Goose Game on the level of...

Tom: Devil May Cry.

Tom: But, and obviously the whole Goose theme is one of the main attractions to it, but I think if you are playing it not just to achieve the basic objectives you need to succeed and pass the levels, if you're either going for some of the optional objectives, which you don't necessarily know as you're playing, or just trying to do ridiculous things like trap multiple people in the phone booth when there's no reason for you to do that at all, I think there is a reasonably good stealth game there that gives you some room for creativity.

Gagan: So then I'm glad it made it to the top list.

Gagan: But, as I said, when you see the timestamps, if there's one thing, if you've settled for one thing you want to listen to, that's the thing.

Tom: So an Australian game made it onto Endless Backlog's top

Gagan: Can I spoil the winner for you?

Gagan: Can I spoil the winner for you?

Gagan: Because I know my podcast will be up before this.

Tom: Yep, go ahead.

Gagan: Devil May Cry did not win, believe it or not.

Gagan: Outer Wilds won.

Tom: And yet you dare to criticize any list made by The Game Under Podcast.

Gagan: Let me explain.

Gagan: I single-handedly got Devil May Cry the win.

Gagan: I got Ben to quit.

Gagan: I got Ben to tap out.

Gagan: And let me win.

Gagan: But the way he said fine emotionally got to me.

Gagan: And I'm just like, God damn it.

Gagan: And I let Outer Wilds win because I felt bad.

Gagan: Because when he gave up, it didn't feel the way I wanted it to feel when Devil May Cry won.

Gagan: I didn't want Devil May Cry 's victory to be remembered as this sad, stonewalling thing I did.

Tom: Your combo argument was not stylish enough.

Gagan: It wasn't.

Gagan: The argument became like a philosophical thing, which is like, I've always had the issue with my...

Gagan: I want that issue to always be there with my podcast friends because I think it's a boring listen if I just get someone else who's exactly like me.

Gagan: Because that's too much Gagandeep.

Gagan: You just can't have that.

Gagan: You need someone who's very cool, calm, centered like Ben, and like just joyful about games like Chris.

Gagan: And then you need me, who's the asshole.

Gagan: But like, it came down to it's like, listen, I want a game that's deep, mechanically rich to win this.

Gagan: I was like, I understand we gave one to Bayonetta one year and I got a workplace one last year.

Gagan: I mean, I wasn't really part of the decision making process of what are the games, but yeah.

Gagan: But I absolutely want one of these to win.

Gagan: I get that Outer Wilds is cute.

Gagan: It's inventive.

Gagan: It's definitely inventive.

Gagan: It's a very cool concept for a video game.

Gagan: But I'm so tired of the high level, deep, mechanical rich game not winning.

Gagan: And just being like, oh, you know, is depth really that important?

Gagan: No, depth is totally the defining characteristic of all the best games that have stood the best test of time.

Gagan: Like there is the reason Mario has outlasted every other platform is because his jump is more expressive than the other jumps from other platformers.

Gagan: That's not to say it's the best necessarily all the time.

Gagan: There are forgotten classics, absolutely.

Gagan: But like, there's a reason the chump platformers didn't stand, is what I'm trying to say.

Gagan: But, you know, you live and learn.

Tom: And sometimes you make a terrible, terrible decision that you'll regret for the rest of your life.

Gagan: Bro, you won't understand.

Gagan: So, it's bad enough that I had to edit this like hour Bayonett.

Gagan: But then I had to hear myself let Devil May Cry lose.

Gagan: Mind you, podcast listeners, I love Devil May Cry

Gagan: I have not been so openly hyped for a video game.

Gagan: People on my goddamn Discord were like, Gagandeep's excited for a video game?

Gagan: It's disgusting.

Gagan: It's just because I'm usually the one who's like, usually they go, Oh, the Gagandeep's so excited trying to be a sourpuss or whatever.

Gagan: But for that one, I was like, It's Icky.

Gagan: He's excited and happy.

Gagan: Like, I don't want this.

Gagan: I'm like, okay.

Gagan: He has jerks.

Gagan: But, you know, I didn't...

Gagan: Yeah, I just...

Gagan: I'm too loyal to my guy.

Gagan: Even though Ben betrays me every game of the year podcast.

Tom: I'm just astounded though, because isn't Devil May Cry the greatest game ever?

Gagan: Yeah, it's not the greatest game ever.

Gagan: I'm reasonable about it.

Gagan: And during the podcast, I didn't call it the greatest action game ever.

Gagan: Even that, I'm like, okay, maybe it's not the greatest.

Gagan: You know, Bayonett is so pretty great.

Gagan: I love Ninja Gaiden Black.

Gagan: I love God Hand.

Gagan: I love Devil May Cry

Gagan: Which you gave a .

Gagan: You're right.

Tom: It should have been a

Gagan: I'll retroactively...

Gagan: I'll accept a because like retroactively, I'm lowering every other score you've given.

Gagan: Like anything you've given higher than Devil May Cry I've given it below.

Gagan: With the exception of like your score for Bayonett is fine.

Gagan: I'm willing to...

Gagan: I'm willing to be one of those people that like thinks Bayonett is more fun than Devil May Cry

Gagan: That's fine.

Tom: Excellent.

Gagan: I like Bayonetta.

Tom: But we're not here.

Gagan: Yeah, we're not here for Bayonetta.

Gagan: Although it is part of our trademark fans because you and I don't have a Yakuza Killzone Minute.

Gagan: We have a Bayonetta Minute, which is that how are we still in and they have not shown us footage of a Bayonetta yet this game apparently exists and development is going smoothly apparently.

Tom: I actually literally forgot it existed.

Gagan: Yeah, it is in development.

Gagan: Hideki Kamiya is probably not directing it.

Gagan: Right?

Gagan: He can't be.

Gagan: He's working on whatever Project GGE is going to turn out to be.

Gagan: Which is fine, I'd rather him do a new IP anyway.

Gagan: Same here.

Gagan: I don't think the Revengeance Guy is on the game necessarily.

Tom: That would have been a great combination.

Gagan: Yeah, I would have been down for him.

Gagan: And Hashimoto doesn't work there anymore.

Gagan: And I have concerns.

Gagan: Because my number one concern is like, listen, I think there are objective reasons for why Bayonettak's core combat mechanics are better than 's.

Gagan: And those should be brought back.

Gagan: I don't think Umber and Climax should be as overpowering of an option as it is.

Tom: Yep.

Gagan: I don't think...

Tom: I think that's fine, but I don't want the shitty QTEs in the same place.

Gagan: Right, right.

Gagan: Everybody gets on this about like the quality of a campaign.

Gagan: I agree with everyone that...

Tom: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Tom: I'm sorry.

Tom: I'm not finished yet.

Tom: The other thing, which is more important than that, is when I thought about it, at the time I was slightly annoyed by the quantity of humanoid bosses, but on reflection, they made for a really enjoyable and consistent quality of the bosses that not only gave you an interesting challenge defensively, but also enough room to go completely crazy in your combos as well.

Tom: Whereas a lot of the bosses, from what I can remember in the original, were much slower paced and basically cut up set pieces.

Gagan: They are.

Gagan: No, that's...

Gagan: You can definitely take the campaign of Bayonetta when it's asked.

Gagan: But I think Jean is better than any boss fight in Bayonetta

Gagan: Like the Lumen Sage has huge issues with the way he just gets out, he just drops out of your combos for no reason.

Gagan: He like destroys any sort of consistency.

Gagan: He's mad frustrating on higher difficulties in a way that just Jean staying more consistent is fun.

Gagan: And I think there's a decent argument I've seen for why the Rodan Arena is better in than it is in

Gagan: Because of the camera issues creates, but that's a little out of my own personal wheelhouse.

Gagan: Like that's not my complaint, right?

Gagan: So I don't want to...

Tom: The Umbran dude, that's the final boss, right?

Gagan: Not the final dude.

Gagan: I'm talking about the Lumen Sage.

Gagan: Like her dad.

Gagan: He's that game's equivalent of Jean.

Gagan: But like a lot of...

Gagan: Bayonetta has a spectacle problem.

Gagan: And it's like, listen, I don't want the spectacle gone.

Tom: Yep.

Gagan: But get closer to how Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry understand those.

Gagan: Like listen, at the end of the day, it's about fighting the guy.

Gagan: Ain't no one...

Gagan: No, on replays, I will not care how flashy the scenes look.

Tom: Yep.

Gagan: Like I do not care that it's a two-headed dragon.

Gagan: I only care...

Gagan: It's like, oh my God, is he not going to do his attack yet?

Gagan: Like, seriously, man?

Gagan: You're such a drag.

Gagan: I do think Bayonetta...

Tom: I will defend...

Tom: Go on.

Gagan: I do think...

Tom: I will defend the Lumen-Said boss fights though, because they're certainly frustrating if you are going for very stylish combos.

Gagan: And the Platinum.

Tom: Well, I didn't find it frustrating going for Platinum or pure Platinum on him, and I think I replayed it on Hard.

Tom: But the reason for that is, one of the things that I enjoy in Beat'em Ups, and especially in Bayonetta, I think, with the combination of Witch Time and the really dynamic dodging in Bayonetta compared to a lot of games, is to me, you get an amazing rhythm going with your dodging and use of Witch Time, and in those boss battles, it just works so amazingly well when you get it right.

Gagan: Maybe.

Gagan: But I also don't like the fact that every attack in Bayonetta gives you Witch Time, whereas in Bayonetta some of the attacks give you Witch Time, specific ones give you Witch Time.

Gagan: We don't need to make this an entire Bayonetta podcast, though we should.

Gagan: All I'm saying is, I want to see a Bayonetta

Gagan: I'm a little concerned, I'm a little worried that because of the switches, very weak hardware.

Gagan: Like, I'm already annoyed that effectively Bayonetta has never left the Xbox effectively in terms of horsepower.

Gagan: Right?

Tom: Does that really matter?

Gagan: Kind of, yeah.

Gagan: I think there's certain things horsepower adds to...

Tom: So you think there's things in DMCthat they won't be able to do due to weaker hardware?

Gagan: I think there's certain physics and animations.

Gagan: There's certain animations I would say might have been harder to do or just have on the screen, like certain effects.

Gagan: Because the thing is, right, like there's...

Gagan: Developers are always going to try to make their game look prettier and always going to try to ramp up the scale, right?

Gagan: So if you are working on the same hardware and the Bayonetta franchise is known for crazy wackiness, well, what's going to give up first?

Gagan: The framerate or the wackiness?

Gagan: I don't think they're going to dial back the crazy.

Gagan: So it's like, the framerate already on the Wii U is not particularly good.

Gagan: You know, like, if good is frames per second, the Wii U's framerate is not good, right?

Gagan: Like, this is better than most games.

Gagan: Because most games are...

Gagan: are sub-

Gagan: Dare I say sub-but I don't want to throw that out there.

Gagan: I didn't worry because Astral Chain, right?

Gagan: It doesn't have as much stuff going on screen.

Gagan: The game is frames locked.

Gagan: Like, that has me...

Gagan: I'm concerned after that game.

Gagan: I'm like, what if they think they're going to get away with a Bayonetta at frames per second?

Tom: Is it the same on the PC port?

Tom: That's ported to PC, right?

Tom: Astral Chain.

Gagan: No, it's a Switch exclusive.

Gagan: Nintendo owns the IP.

Tom: But Bayonetta is coming out on PC, right?

Gagan: Bayonetta is also not coming out on PC, so I think Nintendo.

Gagan: And Wonderful is randomly coming out on PC.

Gagan: Wonderful has a Kickstarter.

Gagan: Did you know this?

Tom: Yes, I did.

Tom: Well, I'm retracting my optimism then, and that sucks because I waited so long to play Bayonetta partially, and this is serious, not a joke, even though it was delayed for many other reasons.

Tom: I waited because I'd seen how crap the frame rate was on the PS

Tom: The other versions, yeah, the PS

Gagan: The version wasn't that bad, but it's better on the PC, obviously.

Tom: Yeah, but I never had a

Gagan: What did you play it on, the Wii U?

Tom: Yep, Wii U.

Gagan: Well, yeah, Bayonetta that's what I'm saying, so I'm like, that's what I'm saying.

Gagan: I am very concerned, like I'm tired of Platinum telling me that development is going smoothly, but I'm like, are you guys making it for the Switch ?

Gagan: Cause that'd be cool.

Gagan: Cause I could live with the Switch

Gagan: I am worried if it's a Switch only game, how that game is going to run, or like...

Tom: Yeah, if it's an exclusive, I am now worried.

Tom: I thought that it had been announced that it was multi-platform, but...

Tom: I could not have been more wrong, apparently.

Gagan: Cause like, you can still make a very good...

Gagan: You could make the best Bayonetta game on that hardware, absolutely still, but the way you would make it is very inside baseball, and game development isn't inside baseball.

Gagan: Game development is about selling, and to sell shit, you need the game to look good, and have like some sort of flash, right?

Gagan: Inside baseball is how we discuss when we say, oh, this game was the better one, even though other people remember this one as the favorite.

Gagan: You know, it's how we tell people, like listen, Sandy Peterson made some, or Patterson made bad levels in Doom and we should only worship John Romero of the people that used to make the Doom games.

Gagan: John Romero is a gift to society.

Tom: But Doom does indeed look better.

Gagan: Doom does look better and has a super shotgun, which is a legendary gun in the history of the FPS, and Doom 's wads are amazing.

Gagan: It has one of the greatest modding scenes ever.

Gagan: To this day.

Tom: It's also got the fucking city level.

Tom: That's in Doom right?

Gagan: That's a trash level.

Gagan: It's a Sandy Peterson.

Tom: Because that looks really impressive, but it's one of the worst ever first person shooter levels.

Gagan: That's bad.

Gagan: Trips and Traps is bad.

Tom: That's on fucking home front level.

Gagan: I don't know.

Gagan: I don't have context for how bad home front is, but sure.

Gagan: Okay.

Tom: Imagine Half-Life level design, but even worse.

Gagan: Sure.

Gagan: Okay.

Gagan: But like a lot of the problem is a lot of FPS games have done.

Gagan: A lot of FPS games have made me appreciate Half-Life in a way that I don't want to appreciate Half-Life

Gagan: But it's like, I guess Valve wasn't that bad.

Gagan: Clearly, people were way worse than them at video games.

Tom: Yeah, Half-Life is basically mediocre or slightly better than mediocrity.

Gagan: Half-Life you mean?

Tom: Yeah, Half-Life

Gagan: Maybe you're not wrong about Half-Life

Gagan: You know what?

Gagan: The expansion to Half-Life is weirdly really good.

Tom: From what I've played of I believe it is better than

Tom: I still think it's crap.

Tom: No, okay.

Tom: But I've not played as much of it as

Gagan: But how do we feel about Original Doom then?

Tom: Well, Original Doom is a perfect game.

Gagan: It really is a fucking perfect game.

Gagan: I'm concerned that we'll never play...

Gagan: So I had this conversation with someone who was very happy with the direction of Doom and Doom

Gagan: Or Doom Doom Eternal.

Gagan: People get weirded out when I call them Doom and Doom

Gagan: It's like, that's what they are.

Gagan: Like, shut up.

Gagan: He described it as like they're very much action games, or how if Devil May Cry or Bayonetta were a first-poster shooter, Doom and Doom would be those games, effectively.

Gagan: Because it's that type of energy of like go into a room, kill people, yada yada yada.

Gagan: It's very much like what Serious Sam and Painkiller should have tried to be in a lot of ways and don't deliver on.

Gagan: Or what Bullet Storm could have been if Bullet Storm was also not above average.

Tom: I haven't played Bullet Storm.

Gagan: It's very unimpressive.

Gagan: But the point is, and I'm like, listen, because like you know my issue with Doom is I am not proud of this, but my issue with Doom is very much it's good doom, right?

Gagan: And that's a terrible reason to not like a video game.

Gagan: I am, as someone who adores Resident Evil and loves Banjo-Kazooie Nuts and Bolts, I should be one of those people who's capable of going, I am capable of accepting a new direction and then arguing why I don't think the new direction is particularly strong.

Gagan: That's at least justifiable.

Gagan: But when it's just like, man, why aren't the majors like Doom and Doom ?

Gagan: It's like, okay, now you're just being a child, right?

Tom: You have become your nerd voice parody.

Gagan: I have become my nerd voice parody, yeah.

Gagan: I'm getting some mileage out of the nerd voice this week, though.

Gagan: So, right.

Gagan: And we were discussing, I was like, you really can't make a game like Doom because the thing is a lot of Doom and Doom is fucking perfect.

Gagan: Like, there's a reason that ModScene continues to make great map packs for that game because, like, they explore the challenges and encounter designs with that game that we're not even seeing tried with other video games.

Gagan: But that's because they can because the map making options are very easy relative to, like, modding a D game.

Gagan: Like, modding a new game, Doom game, would probably be a nightmare in terms of, like...

Tom: Speaking of D, I think that's one of the reasons we haven't seen another game like Doom because even stuff that gets a lot closer to it, like Tribes, for instance, I think being in D and the greater range of aiming that that necessitates, and it applies to Quake as well to a lesser degree, but I think it still applies, limits what you're able to do in terms of the level design and speed because you're more focused in the D perspective, or D, whatever you want to call it, so you can design things much, much tighter.

Gagan: Yeah, yeah.

Gagan: The thing is, I still would love to see an FPS developer try it.

Gagan: Like just put the, have the big budget money game behind that sort of like boomer, I call them boomer shooters now.

Gagan: Because, well that's the term me and the Discord, the Discord I'm commenting on from.

Tom: Fortnite would be a zoomer shooter.

Gagan: Fortnite is very much a zoomer shooter.

Gagan: I don't, have you played Fortnite?

Tom: I played a single match.

Tom: I assume it was against AI because it was the first match you just get dropped into after the game loads.

Tom: And either everyone playing that game is utterly atrocious or I am a naturally talented Fortnite genius.

Tom: So I assume it was AI set to easy.

Gagan: To explain the mechanics?

Tom: To the experience, yep.

Gagan: So I appreciate that.

Tom: I don't understand what the building is for.

Gagan: So the building I actually think is one of the cooler aspects about the game.

Tom: It may well be, but why is it there?

Tom: What does it do?

Gagan: What does it do?

Gagan: So you can break buildings in the thing to create holes into the levels.

Gagan: So there's construction that way.

Gagan: Or you can create platforms for yourself to reach higher vantage points.

Gagan: Or you can make yourself shelters.

Gagan: What ends up happening though?

Tom: So basically platforms for sniping, cover and hiding under the map.

Gagan: Also when you're trying to outgun someone, people can start building themselves platforms and shit and cover.

Gagan: But what's cool is, I've seen people juke people doing that.

Gagan: Like you start building sort of like a quick mini maze just so you could psych them to go right and then you flank them and turn it around on them.

Gagan: I think that aspect of Fortnite is...

Gagan: I'm not in depth enough to see where the problems arise from that.

Gagan: I just know that I find that aspect of it cool because it reminds me of an NBA player sort of just crossing someone up.

Gagan: That shit's cool.

Gagan: My bigger issue with Fortnite is the RNG around the shooting.

Gagan: Because I want ballistics to be consistent.

Gagan: I am an arena FPS person.

Gagan: I play Halo as far as my console shooter of concern.

Gagan: I like consistent...

Gagan: I like Counter-Strike

Gagan: Don't get me wrong.

Gagan: But that's the only game where I accept that randomized bullet spread.

Gagan: Yup.

Gagan: If I point at you, I want that shit to go and hit you.

Gagan: Unless it's a projectile.

Gagan: I don't think the guns have recoil.

Gagan: Do I care about recoil?

Gagan: See, I don't know if recoil is always as important for the type of games I like in the genre.

Gagan: Like, does Quake multiplayer really need recoil?

Gagan: Right?

Gagan: Like, it's a projectile.

Tom: It doesn't have recoil.

Gagan: Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Gagan: But like, I don't think it makes sense in that type of game.

Gagan: But like, I like the way...

Tom: I think it works fine in Killzone, for instance.

Gagan: Killzone is an ADS game, though.

Gagan: Like, it's a little different.

Gagan: You want that sort of recoil of a gun.

Gagan: Yeah, yeah, like, I'm not an ADS person, but like, Killzone is an example of like, where the weapon sway is good and all that stuff.

Gagan: But that game's larger problem is like, the latency issues with PSN.

Gagan: And that game has netcode issues, because like, that era of shooters had like...

Gagan: No one wants to admit it, but they had bad netcodes.

Tom: Yep.

Gagan: Like, Halo BR spread is the worst on netplay.

Gagan: It's cool in like, a local environment, if you could play and you could see like, where the skill comes from.

Gagan: But online, it's like, oh look, it's a coin flip after a certain distance.

Tom: I would say this may be completely wrong, and just expecting something better.

Tom: But to me, the PSera of netcodes were worse than Xbox netcodes on Halo until that is Halo went to complete shit towards the end.

Gagan: Yeah, well Halo I mean, you had people stand-buying in Halo and leaving the map, and Halo is a darling of mine.

Gagan: Maybe you had a few problems, I think, maybe.

Tom: Well, some may have problems, but I don't remember lag being an issue too much.

Gagan: Lag wasn't always the issue, but I think if you were like very inside baseball about it, you could definitely point out like, here is a latency of Halo that none of you ever noticed.

Gagan: Now compare this to like a present day Halo game.

Tom: They were definitely there, as I said, it's probably just expectations because basically by the end of Halo online that I was playing it, basically all anyone was doing was going around finding things like latency.

Gagan: Yeah.

Gagan: Plus you have Australia internet.

Tom: Destroying the game.

Gagan: Okay, so the thing I do want to say is like, I wish someone would spend the money and try to make one of those maze shooters again.

Gagan: And I'm worried that people think the new Dooms are that game, they're not.

Gagan: And don't get me wrong, I think Doom Doom is looking like the real deal.

Tom: Don't these exist?

Tom: In theory, I haven't actually played any of them in the Indiesphere.

Gagan: The thing with the Indiesphere is, very much like other Indiesphere genres, is like they feel like rejects of boomer shooters.

Tom: Yeah, so they're basically tributes, they're tribute bands.

Gagan: They're tribute band games, which is like, don't get me wrong, there's something admirable about Dusk and, I want to say the other one's called, it's not, which one is the fake?

Gagan: One of them's the fake one.

Gagan: One of them is the fake one and the real one is Heretic, I think.

Gagan: Or Heretic is the fake one and Hexen is the fake, the real one.

Gagan: But yes, one of those, right?

Tom: Yep.

Gagan: But I think the real future of the FPS is like games like Devil Daggers, Doom Eternal and Desync.

Tom: Yep.

Gagan: This very like combo-centric, style on them FPS game.

Tom: What was the last one?

Tom: Desync.

Gagan: Desync.

Gagan: D-E-S-Y-N-K.

Tom: Okay.

Gagan: Let's see.

Gagan: It's not even a letter.

Gagan: Fuck you.

Gagan: But yeah, no, that game is neat.

Gagan: Also, you should play it just because GmanLives is a big little bitch on his YouTube video saying that game isn't cool and that game is cool.

Gagan: It's very esoteric.

Gagan: I don't think it explains itself well.

Gagan: But after reading a guide on what does what, I think the combat system in that game is really freaking cool.

Gagan: And I think people should give it more of a try.

Gagan: Which is how I came to enjoy Resident Evil by the way.

Gagan: It was very much...

Gagan: So that's a conversation I want to have with you, right?

Tom: Yep.

Tom: So you ended up enjoying Resident Evil

Gagan: I did not enjoy Resident Evil 's campaign.

Gagan: They're still bad for different reasons.

Tom: And for the record, I have not played Resident Evil

Tom: is the last Resident Evil game I've played.

Gagan: But I believe you've seen Vader argue before that Resident Evil has cool combat mechanics.

Gagan: Or at least they've made that conversation.

Tom: I think Edgecrusher as well is a Resident Evil apologist.

Tom: I think Arnie absolutely hates it.

Gagan: Arnie is closer to right, but ignorant of what the problems are.

Gagan: I was also the same way.

Gagan: I played part of the campaign.

Gagan: I thought, this is fucking garbage.

Gagan: And then people were like, the combat is really cool.

Gagan: I'm like, really?

Gagan: This janky little thing?

Gagan: We went from Resident Evil to this.

Gagan: Really?

Gagan: Thumb in the air.

Gagan: But then I saw little quick commands people put in games.

Gagan: And it reminded me of...

Gagan: You know how I did a Shovel Knight interview with the Shovel Knight dev?

Gagan: And he explained this story about how Bloodrayne Betrayal, they never explained their dodge mechanic to people.

Gagan: So like half the reviewers didn't know what the hell they were supposed to do.

Tom: Which...

Tom: Yep.

Gagan: Whatever.

Gagan: You could argue it was incompetence or whatever.

Gagan: But the point is, he accepted the blame.

Gagan: He was like, listen, if we fail to explain something, of course people are going to have a bad time with the game.

Gagan: And that's something that's always been a thing.

Gagan: Like some people don't get Wonderful because that game does a terrible job explaining itself.

Tom: It certainly does.

Gagan: So like in Resident Evil I'm like, I'm looking at all these things that you can apparently do with like quick button commands, like quick shotting and like insta like filling, like mixing your herbs and like filling up your healing thing and all that stuff.

Gagan: I'm like, really?

Gagan: You could do all that?

Gagan: And then it's like, huh.

Gagan: And then like this time by I wanted to play it properly.

Gagan: And I'm like, this is actually kind of cool.

Gagan: You can fucking slide.

Gagan: And it's like, this is like how I would want the John Wick Kung Fu shoot the gun food shooting game to play.

Gagan: Like Capcom's onto something here.

Tom: But it's like Vanquish, but in Resident Evil.

Gagan: Yeah.

Gagan: You could definitely make an argument that it's more complex than Vanquish.

Gagan: Like if you start playing with the mechanics, like if you make a more intentional effort to sauce with the mechanics, right?

Gagan: Not make the game make you use them, but you yourself go out of your way to use them.

Gagan: You'll be like, this is actually, you could do some funky stuff with this.

Gagan: The campaign is so bad.

Tom: Now I'm actually interested because Vanquish is one of the two or three good third person shooters.

Gagan: It is a very top end genre.

Gagan: Top heavy, top heavy, not top end.

Gagan: But yeah, that's an example of a game where I feel like it's bad, but there's a good game in there.

Gagan: If you play mercenaries, you don't have to unlock mercenaries.

Gagan: I would use mercenaries as just an excuse to like learn that stuff and play with that because the challenge mode, because you just unlock new missions as you beat and five star the missions or S rank the missions or whatever the scoring system is.

Gagan: I don't remember at this point.

Gagan: But that was a question I wanted to ask you.

Gagan: Like if you're like a critic, right?

Gagan: If you're like critically discussing a video game on one hand.

Gagan: Yes, right.

Gagan: A video game failing to teach you something is a design flaw of the game of the product at least.

Gagan: Right.

Gagan: But my stance is if there is information out there that helps you extract more from from the game.

Gagan: Why shouldn't I use it?

Gagan: And isn't that because at the end of the day, that's a more correct take of how the game works.

Gagan: Because like just because you didn't know how the system works, doesn't mean like the system doesn't work that way.

Gagan: Right.

Tom: Well, I think the critic should be attempting to find out if there's something they're missing.

Gagan: Right.

Tom: In the first place.

Tom: But if a critic does want to put a lot of weight on games having to be open and teach you what to do, if they were to criticise the game, even if the game was good and better than it appeared to be based on what it taught you, if they wanted to knock points off it for that, I think that would be perfectly fair.

Tom: But you would expect a critic to be attempting to figure out stuff more than the average person might be.

Gagan: Okay, I'm glad we're on the same page.

Gagan: Alright, cool.

Gagan: So we have dragged Trademark Banter longer than it had any business going.

Gagan: We didn't even get into half the stuff I thought we were going to Trademark Banter about.

Gagan: Just because we did not decide to play this on any sort of rails.

Tom: We don't need rails.

Tom: It's the Smugcast.

Gagan: This is Smugcast man.

Gagan: We go wild.

Gagan: I'm like Arnie, man.

Gagan: Arnie's keeping you on the rails all the time.

Gagan: I don't know what he's doing.

Tom: He's a square.

Gagan: I didn't think Arnie was a square, though.

Gagan: You know what?

Gagan: I should have.

Gagan: He dined out a System Wars poster once to the mod.

Gagan: So he's like a narc.

Gagan: So I don't know why this throwed me off.

Tom: I didn't know that now.

Tom: I know I have to be very careful when I'm around him.

Gagan: Yeah, he'll probably narc you out to Vader or Phil.

Gagan: We're definitely going to talk about your website, Start Settlers.

Gagan: We'll get to that later.

Gagan: The coronavirus.

Tom: Let's move on to Resident Evil given that we were just talking about it.

Gagan: Okay, Resident Evil

Gagan: I played some of the demo.

Tom: I've looked at some screenshots of the demo and about seconds of YouTube footage.

Gagan: Okay.

Tom: So I'm very informed about it.

Gagan: I just want to do a quick Google search because I want to learn the studios.

Tom: While you're doing that, I'm going to give my hot take based on screenshots and seconds of video footage.

Tom: Yep, and this is also based on playing the opening of Resident Evil which in all other ways was fantastic.

Tom: But one area that, to me, is a bit disappointing about the remakes, and it would be difficult for them to live up to the originals in this context, particularly given they're basically, I assume to some degree, money-making side projects, albeit very lovingly made.

Tom: Compared to the originals' graphics and the atmosphere it manages to evoke, they are massive disappointments to me.

Tom: There's not the same level of tension to them, and that's also partly due to switching to the Resident Evil style of movement and aiming.

Tom: But when I think of Resident Evil and from playing the originals, it does feel slightly disappointing to be back in that setting, but with so much of the dramatic tension sucked out of it due to the change in perspective and lesser artistic quality in the graphical choices, as well as the change in perspective and movement style.

Gagan: So the aesthetic thing has always been your thing, not mine.

Gagan: I think those games look pretty as well, so I'm on board.

Gagan: I think they still maintain pressure.

Gagan: I wouldn't...

Gagan: I don't think it's as easy as saying it's like Resident Evil in terms of movement.

Gagan: I know that's not what you mean, but it's like...

Gagan: Because it's still not a tank control game, because Resident Evil is a pseudo tank control game in the sense that if it was in that perspective...

Tom: It actually feels more like Revelations.

Gagan: Yeah, it's more like those games.

Gagan: That is correct, in that you move and shoot.

Gagan: But I think the way they made the damage models in those games, where it's really not about killing enemies, it's about neutralizing them as a threat.

Tom: Slowing them down so you can run past them.

Gagan: Slow past them, yes.

Gagan: And then what happens is when you have to come back to areas and you have to deal with Mr.

Gagan: X, it's like, well, if you didn't kill enemies in the room, now you have to deal with them plus this enemy.

Gagan: And it's like, okay, that changes the encounter.

Gagan: And that sort of stuff is still engaging.

Gagan: I think the resource management and that like, like the appeal of Resident Evil games to me, the game and not like, oh, no, I'm scared because I just don't get scared with these games, is the exploration and like the puzzle box of the level where like you're routing your path to certain areas.

Gagan: Like to me, Resident Evil, the mansion and the police station and Resident Evil are very much like Metroid or Dark Souls or like that type of Metroidvania or whatever.

Gagan: We're like, but it's not about get it.

Gagan: It is get item open a different part of the area, right?

Gagan: But it's not the get ability and do that.

Gagan: It's more like how do I get this key or get this puzzle piece over here while conserving ammo and avoiding threats?

Gagan: Or do I make the aggressive play here, but I got to deal with these motherfuckers?

Gagan: And that part of the game is still pretty cool.

Gagan: I think I have I like that in the demo, there's a lot of optional stuff.

Gagan: So there's like these little toys you can pick up.

Gagan: And they're there.

Gagan: I think what they're meant to do with the demo is have you just exploring it and seeing how much optional content there is.

Gagan: Like the shotgun is an optional pickup in the demo.

Gagan: You have to pick it up in one of the areas.

Gagan: It's also hinting at other areas.

Gagan: If you played Resident Evil Nemesis, the PStitle, you're like, OK, I know what I know what this area is going to be leading to in the real game.

Gagan: And then in other ways is just to see like, you know, this is a dense environment.

Gagan: My concerns are a few things.

Gagan: One, Nemesis only shows up in the demo for his very specific part that he's supposed to show up for and nothing else.

Gagan: And if you trigger that and then go on to do some of the other explorer exploring, my question is, does this mean he's always scripted this way in Nemesis in the remake?

Gagan: Because like I kind of want him to be like, it wouldn't be a death sentence to the game design if he's scripted, right?

Gagan: Because like you can make more planned great encounters that way versus just letting him off on his own, right?

Tom: Yep.

Gagan: But I want him to like be a little bit of his own entity a little bit sometimes.

Gagan: Be a little bit more dynamic.

Gagan: Doesn't hurt, I think.

Tom: I'd say you probably can't really tell from the demo.

Gagan: You probably can't.

Gagan: But I am very pessimistic that that is the case.

Gagan: Video games.

Gagan: I have learned my lesson from the Destiny demo of surely the whole game will not be like this.

Gagan: And then the whole game was exactly that.

Gagan: And I learned that if I don't speak my mind, no one else will.

Gagan: And that is how Destiny became the game where it's like, you know, the gameplay is really good.

Gagan: All it needs is a little bit more content.

Gagan: And if you remember, Tom, when I reviewed that game, I said, no, the gameplay is also bad and is directly responsible for why this game isn't fun.

Gagan: It doesn't matter if you just add more content, it's just more boring content at that point.

Tom: Yep.

Gagan: Sadly, I lost that battle to society, a society deemed Destiny an acceptable video game, but whatever.

Tom: I think they deemed it an excellent video game at that.

Gagan: That is just the most nauseating thing.

Gagan: No, I feel like Destiny is like a punchline.

Gagan: Like, they like it, but they know it's, like, like a grilled cheese sandwich, but like a nasty grilled cheese sandwich.

Gagan: Like, you know you made it with American cheese, and not good cheese either.

Gagan: Um, the other worry I have with...

Tom: And the latter Destinies are the add-ons have received a fair bit of criticism, haven't they?

Gagan: So the Destiny add-ons are...

Gagan: We're not gonna talk about Destiny!

Gagan: I don't play those games anyway.

Tom: I'm just saying the world may have caught up to you on Destiny.

Gagan: Yes, yes, yes, sure.

Gagan: The world should have been there day one like I was.

Gagan: Anyway, back to Nemesis.

Gagan: The other thing I have is...

Gagan: So in the original game, Jill has like this side shuffle move, right?

Gagan: That's because the original Nemesis is more of an action title than even Resident Evil a Kamiya game no less, and Resident Evil

Gagan: I actually don't know who the director of Resident Evil Nemesis, is.

Gagan: For whatever reason, we only remember Hideki Kamiya and Shinji Mikamiya as Resident Evil directors.

Tom: Because they're the two best Resident Evils of the original.

Gagan: You could make a decent argument for Nemesis over it too.

Gagan: I lean towards as the best one of the PSgames.

Tom: Same here.

Gagan: But, so there's a side shuffle move, right?

Gagan: And that's a good mechanic.

Gagan: So I think in spirit, they wanted to give her a dodge in this game.

Tom: Yep.

Gagan: But it's a dodge that triggers a slow-mo.

Gagan: And my immediate memory is that one of the people, some of the, Capcom is getting help from a studio called Mwhich is founded by former Platinum Game CEO Tetsuo Minami.

Gagan: And like, it has ex-Platinum developers and it's like, gee, I wonder where these guys got the slow-mo dodge from.

Gagan: And, and I think it's too strong of a thing, because it's like, yes, in the new Resident Evil remake, it takes five shots, or at least more, to kill a zombie, but in, when you give me a slow-mo dodge, like two or three of those shots are free.

Gagan: You know, if one of them's a critical shot, she's blowing heads off like we're playing Resident Evil

Gagan: But that fundamentally kind of trivializes a lot of this game.

Gagan: I'm worried that this dodge will trivialize the game.

Gagan: I think it should not be a slow-mo effect.

Gagan: Like, I think just because it works in Bayonetta does not mean we had to add a slow-mo to every-

Gagan: Slow-mo is not always a good thing.

Tom: It's also in Vanquish as well.

Gagan: I think it works better in Vanquish, because like when you're playing Vanquish to be cool, you're more like boost-dodging than you are like slowing time down all the time.

Gagan: Yep.

Tom: Vanquish is basically about getting combos and doing cool shit, so it makes perfect sense to have stuff like that in it.

Gagan: Yeah.

Gagan: Like, slow-mo is actually one of the safety nets of Vanquish.

Gagan: Vanquish is a cool game where like the safety net for like the scrubby players is you play Gears of War.

Gagan: Think about that for a second!

Gagan: Playing bad in Vanquish is playing that game like Gears of War.

Tom: Yep.

Gagan: And then people wonder why like Vanquish is like the game people like run their mouth about as like the best game of this genre.

Gagan: Because it's like, yeah, it makes Uncharted and Gears of War look really boring.

Gagan: The other concern I have is, again, the critical shot.

Gagan: I was destroying headshots in this game and I'm like, I don't know if that's what I want you guys to do with this game, even if the original Resident Evil is also a very actiony title.

Gagan: Because, you know, I kind of want to play, yeah, Resident Evil and Resident Evil got me in the puzzle box mood with Resident Evil again.

Gagan: It's like, yeah, yeah, let's do this again.

Gagan: Because if you're going to make an action game, I want you to make Resident Evil 's mechanics in a proper, straight up, full on murder ass murder action game.

Gagan: I want Chris Redfield shirtless with a bandana.

Tom: There will be a perfect place to add the slow down time dodge as well.

Gagan: Yeah, yeah.

Gagan: You know, let Chris Redfield out, put the gun show, you know, his biceps out there.

Gagan: I'm about that life, you know.

Tom: His biceps that can literally slow down time.

Gagan: Also, since we need to confirm this on the podcast, people tell people that the best campaign in Resident Evil is a Leon campaign.

Gagan: Do not trust those people.

Gagan: They are liars.

Gagan: They are the same people that would tell you that Destiny is a good video game.

Gagan: Never listen to them ever in your life.

Gagan: The best campaign in Resident Evil if there was a good one, which there is not, is the Chris Redfield campaign because it's the most actiony of the four campaigns in that game, which is the only thing Resident Evil is good at.

Gagan: In fact, it's great at it.

Gagan: It's just constantly the Resident Evil campaign is getting in the way.

Gagan: Anyway, it's not about that.

Gagan: Those are my concerns right now with Demisys' demo.

Gagan: I know we're not allowed to be negative about Resident Evil because Resident Evil was such a great title and it is a great game, I feel.

Gagan: Maybe just a good one.

Gagan: I don't know.

Gagan: I don't think it's as good as the original remake.

Gagan: And it's certainly not as good as the greatest video game.

Gagan: I'm kidding.

Gagan: It's not as great as Resident Evil

Gagan: But it's definitely, at the least, as good as Resident Evil for the PS

Gagan: Or at least, maybe, if it's worse than it, it's at least on the same tier.

Gagan: I think Resident Evil similarly has the sewer level is not good and the labs are kind of boring in Resident Evil

Gagan: The game literally peaks in the police station and it's sort of downhill from there.

Gagan: In the remake, the police station is the best part of the game and then there's the rest of the game.

Gagan: Nemesis, I can, Resident Evil has a bad habit of like its final stretch not being that strong.

Gagan: Now I'm one of those people who doesn't have a problem with the island in Resident Evil because I'm like, let me just murder ass murder people and I'm in.

Tom: I think it's fine also because at that point the story is just getting completely hilarious.

Gagan: Yeah, and it's the best.

Gagan: And I also think like Resident Evil still has like new, even though it's running out of steam at the end, it still has like a few change of pace scenarios still left in the tank.

Gagan: Whereas...

Tom: It's kind of just throwing a lot of shit at you though.

Gagan: Yeah, it is, it is, it is.

Gagan: At that point you would definitely, you definitely saw like, maybe they did design this game just throwing darts at a board and just the first part is just like the first half is just amazing how well they paced it all.

Gagan: But in the case of the other Resident Evils, because they're like these very slow plotting, plotting is probably the wrong word.

Gagan: I think plotting has a negative connotation.

Gagan: But they're very slow, deliberate games.

Gagan: And then at the tail end they want to play like action games and they're just not built for that.

Gagan: Like they're just not as interesting to be played as action games.

Gagan: You just don't make too many interesting decisions when you play them that way.

Tom: Yep.

Gagan: And they get exposed.

Tom: That could go to the favor of the REremake.

Gagan: Who knows?

Gagan: Yeah.

Gagan: For all I know, the slow-mo might be the greatest mechanic added to this game.

Gagan: I'll be like, oh man, that's slow-mo.

Gagan: God, I don't know what Tom was talking about.

Gagan: It was a great addition to Resident Evil and this remake.

Gagan: That's exactly how I'm going to tell people.

Gagan: I'm like, I knew Tom was wrong when he brought up a podcast.

Gagan: I don't even know why he said it.

Gagan: I tried to stop him.

Tom: I'll have to hold that out.

Gagan: But yeah, we've done our service to be relevant to pop culture and modern society that we acknowledge that Resident Evil is out because neither of us played Doom Eternal yet.

Gagan: Even though it came out, neither of us have played Nioh yet, which is reviewed and out in the world.

Gagan: I don't think either of us is ever going to play an Animal Crossing.

Tom: I played about minutes of the original Animal Crossing and that was enough.

Gagan: Did you enjoy your time with that game?

Tom: I was tremendously bored and had no idea why anyone would ever subject themselves to the experience.

Gagan: So I'm very big on...

Gagan: I don't like when people say, I don't get why people like this, I don't get why people like that.

Gagan: Because it's like, don't be a putz, you can totally figure out why people like Thing, right?

Gagan: But with Animal Crossing, it very much is like, you're just paying your bills.

Gagan: I do not understand.

Gagan: Just go to your bank's website and pay your bill.

Gagan: You have played Animal Crossing at that point.

Gagan: But people like fishing in that game and bobbing apples.

Gagan: I know kids like it, which is fine.

Gagan: I know as a franchise, it's got a very more openly like appeal to...

Tom: Yeah, but I was just interrupting you because I just remembered the best thing about the original version of Animal Crossing on the GameCube.

Tom: And the reason I risked buying it in the days before Steam sales for $was it included a $memory card.

Gagan: Oh, okay, yeah, that's important.

Tom: So I figured even if it turned out to be of no interest, which it didn't, and one day I swear I will try it for minutes before I completely dismiss it, I thought it was a risk worth taking for the memory card that came with it.

Gagan: People love that franchise.

Gagan: I don't know what to say.

Gagan: Yeah, like I said, I don't ever want to do the I don't get it thing because, you know, even games I don't like I can get the appeal like I get the appeal of what Grand Theft Auto is.

Gagan: Even if I think playing your part sucks.

Tom: Yep.

Gagan: I get the appeal of Uncharted even if I think less of you for playing it.

Tom: Well let me put it this way.

Tom: I understand the appeal of Animal Crossing but I don't understand why when I play it I do not experience what I believed the appeal was or what people are talking about when they play it.

Gagan: See I don't think I get what people like about it.

Gagan: I just don't get that but whatever we don't need to talk about Animal Crossing.

Gagan: We neither of us played Animal Crossing that just came out reviewed great probably sold a million copies.

Tom: This is clearly just another failed attempt for us to appear relevant.

Gagan: Nioh and then I didn't even play Ori and the Will of the West.

Gagan: I'm playing replaying technically not replaying Ori and the Blind Forest.

Gagan: I'm playing the definitive edition.

Tom: Well I sort of played the new Ori so I'm going to give my very deep impressions of it.

Tom: I launched the game.

Tom: I had my PScontroller connected to my PC via Bluetooth.

Tom: It didn't work at all that way including with DSWindows on.

Tom: So I had to connect it via USB at which point I got the controller recognized by the game.

Tom: But the controls were mapped incorrectly.

Tom: So on an Xbox controller, A would be X on the controller, on a PScontroller and that was, I believe, how I was meant to go forward on the menu and B, I think is equivalent to circle.

Tom: Yes.

Tom: B was meant to be back and I think square somehow ended up being select, i.e.

Tom: A and back was actually X.

Tom: So I have no idea what's going on there.

Tom: And their controls, I think, are not remappable.

Gagan: They are not.

Gagan: You can't rebind gamepad controls in Ori, which is a shame.

Tom: So clearly, contrary to the praise it's receiving, the game is completely awful based on that in-depth experience I had with it.

Gagan: You could use Big Picture mode in Steam to set the controller.

Gagan: Have you ever messed with it before?

Tom: Not beyond turning off the fucking light.

Gagan: It fixes certain games for me.

Gagan: Because when I was playing Dark Souls it accelerated the camera turn.

Gagan: So if I mildly nudged that camera, it went way yonder into one direction.

Gagan: And I'm like, this is not how I want to play Dark Souls with my camera hating me this much.

Gagan: I know these games are a little hard, but this seems a little much.

Gagan: And certain fighting games, because obviously that creates its own set of controller issues.

Gagan: But they pick it up with Big Picture mode and properly.

Gagan: I mean, I don't use DualShock for Ori.

Gagan: I use an Xbox controller because I have one.

Gagan: But I might try it out.

Gagan: Just see.

Gagan: Should I launch the game right now and see how that would work?

Gagan: I'm kidding.

Gagan: Let's just do that, playing with fire on that one.

Gagan: I really like this game.

Gagan: In I think it was definitely among my favorite games of that year.

Tom: It was part of the Ubisoft Indie Support Campaign, right?

Gagan: It's not an Ubisoft Indie Support Campaign.

Gagan: It is a Microsoft First Party Indie Support Campaign.

Gagan: This is one of those darling Phil Spencer games.

Gagan: This is the best produced published Microsoft game of this generation if we're not talking about a Forza game, which I am sorry that I qualified that as a joke, just not into car games like that.

Gagan: But you're either making the argument for Halo 's multiplayer or Ori, and I am a fan of Halo 's multiplayer, but I'm also a Halo shill, so that should be held against me on that one.

Gagan: But I think Ori is legitimately good, really good.

Gagan: Personally, I'm on the record that the Metroidvania genre is number one in Super Metroid, D ones.

Gagan: Let's limit to D for right now, because D obviously has Metroid Prime and Dark Souls and Resident Evil.

Gagan: But D, I think it's Super Metroid, Metroid Zero Mission, and then I think it's La Mulana.

Gagan: That should be the three best games of the genre.

Tom: What about Metroid Fusion?

Gagan: Really good.

Gagan: I don't think it's as good as the other two Metroid games.

Gagan: I think it's better than the Metroid remake Nintendo made.

Tom: That's the Game Boy one, right?

Gagan: That's the DS.

Gagan: Well, the original Game Boy one is Metroid

Gagan: And then the remake they made, Nintendo made is Samus Returns, which is with DS, which I don't think is, it's fine.

Gagan: They made Metroid.

Gagan: Glad you guys remembered this franchise, you jerks.

Gagan: And then I don't think it's as good as that fan-made remake AMR, which legitimately does cool things, which to tie back into Ori, the creator of that fan mod works with Moon Studios and has done work on Ori and The Will of the Wisp, which is effectively Ori for this conversation, which I am trying to get to playing after I re-beat Ori again.

Gagan: I just wanted to refresh your course.

Tom: So it's worth a replay at least.

Gagan: I think so.

Gagan: Of that year, I have my top five for that year.

Gagan: It's my fifth favorite game of that year.

Gagan: Over Splatoon at six, which is high praise and even Halo I have at ninth for that year.

Gagan: So it's not a bad year.

Gagan: Over Snake Bird, no less.

Gagan: Snake Bird is a cool game.

Tom: So Snake Bird was tenth.

Gagan: Snake Bird was like, no, no, I had Snake Bird over Halo, eighth.

Gagan: Tenth was like Transformers Devastation.

Gagan: No, no, Mario Maker actually.

Gagan: I had Mario Maker at tenth.

Gagan: Witcher did not make my top tenth for all you people that need to get mad about that year.

Tom: It shouldn't have though.

Gagan: It shouldn't.

Gagan: It's not my, I appreciate what Witcher does well, but it's not my favorite game.

Gagan: But, okay, back to Ori.

Gagan: So yeah, like it's a big indie darling Microsoft first party game, and yeah, I really like this game.

Gagan: It's, so the reason I gave my little quick Metroidvania ranking is those two to me are the three best games of the genre, like the games you would give like a nine or a

Tom: Yep.

Gagan: And then the tier below them is where Ori is at, and I think it's better than the other Metroidvanias I played, which effectively is the entire Castlevania franchise, the Castlevania franchise that are like Metroid-like.

Gagan: I think the ones before Igarashi's brand of Castlevania took over Symphony of the Night's styled games, I think those are legitimately really good and probably better.

Tom: Is there any logical reason forvania to be affixed to Metroid?

Gagan: I don't know why it became the genre name, but it's because people...

Gagan: Symphony of the Night is a very important game to a lot of people in that they find it more approachable and playable than Super Metroid.

Gagan: I think people think Super Metroid is a little bit more esoteric.

Gagan: Some people think Super Metroid is clunky.

Gagan: For instance, I don't think the combat in Super Metroid is particularly good and it's my favorite game ever made.

Tom: Yep.

Gagan: I think if you're just going pure monkey instinct and press button, ooh, this is fun, Castlevania feels funner to hit something.

Gagan: Symphony of Night, it feels funner to hit something.

Gagan: There's all sorts of fun polishing effects, flames, sparkles, the works, the things the kids are into.

Gagan: But that's-

Tom: Isn't there a wider range of weapons as well?

Gagan: Wider range of weapons.

Gagan: It's more of an RPG, so it satiates that compulsive thing that people get into with video games.

Gagan: It has that really cool surprise of the castle being inverted in the end, that everyone remembers as being cool, but then completely forgets that the playing it part was total shit.

Gagan: Everybody loves the Dracula line of what is a man, a miserable pile of secrets, because you know what?

Gagan: As badly acted as that line is, that is an absolute fact.

Gagan: Dracula was spitting bars and we did not appreciate it.

Gagan: We need to appreciate it for the factual statement he was making and not the fact that it had funny voice acting.

Tom: Or was awkwardly written.

Gagan: Or it was awkwardly written, whatever.

Gagan: But I do think Castlevania has earned its place now in the genre name, just because they really do ape either Metroid or they ape Castlevania.

Gagan: They really ape Castlevania.

Gagan: When they ape Castlevania, they really copy Castlevania.

Gagan: So I think-

Tom: Maybe because it's easier to copy.

Gagan: Yeah, yeah.

Gagan: I think, especially the upgrade system, I think as much as I don't think Symphony of the Night is anywhere near as good as Super Metroid, I have to accept that Castlevania has earned its place among the things, you know?

Gagan: At some point, you have to hold your L and just accept it.

Gagan: It's like, you know what?

Gagan: Whether you like the game or not, it was one of the most influential titles of its era.

Gagan: To this day, Symphony of the Night is an influential title.

Gagan: The indie scene, where would it be without the Metroidvanias?

Gagan: Because there's so many of them.

Tom: That is true.

Gagan: I think Hollow Knight and La Mulana and the Ori games have sort of separated themselves from the other ones, at least from what I've played.

Gagan: But I've never played like Zeo Drifter or something, like that's supposed to be a good one.

Gagan: In the case of Ori, I think what I really like about Ori is it has really good expressive platforming mechanics in that you obviously go through your, we're gonna unlock a double jump and there's gonna be like a thing that lets you like parachute around and hover in the air a little longer.

Gagan: But Ori is like the creme de la creme mechanic in this game is actually this mechanic called bash.

Gagan: And how it works is, I think it's like the fourth major power up you get in the game where how it works is like an enemy can throw a projectile, right?

Gagan: And you press Y on the controller and then it freezes time for a second.

Gagan: And then you can sort of, from that projectile, you can sort of like bounce yourself off into one direction and the projectile will go into the other.

Gagan: And you can do that off of enemies.

Gagan: And there are certain environmental objects that can trigger this bash system.

Gagan: So the cool thing about bashes in the first game, if you let go of the stick, your immediate reaction is to obviously always hold the stick in the direction, just do chain bashes, right?

Gagan: Obviously when you just string them.

Gagan: But what people don't know, cause the game doesn't explain it and it doesn't need to, this is one of those things it's fun to discover on your own.

Gagan: Cause I'm not sure if it was intended cause it's not there in Ori now.

Gagan: But if you let go of the stick and just sort of like drift, like you'll drift or like if you jump, it'll actually allow for further horizontal distances and increase speed and momentum.

Gagan: And then you can like further string yourself from there.

Gagan: So it's like a cool piece of inertia.

Gagan: It kind of reminds me of like, like really good movement in Devil May Cry is where certain like Rainstorm, you play Devil May Cry but you know how that he does that spinny gun thing in the air?

Gagan: That move is called Rainstorm.

Gagan: He does it in a cut scene.

Gagan: I think he shoots up a bunch of bats when he's running down the tower.

Gagan: Yep.

Gagan: Yeah.

Gagan: Okay.

Gagan: So that move has a lot of inertia to it.

Gagan: So like if you do it off of like, like depending on what area you're trying to stick, not only does it like move the enemy, but it'll move Dante across a certain space and like high level people like use that sort of aspect to the physics to create different combo paths from there.

Gagan: And that's sort of like what's fun about Ori is that like it creates different platforming chain options as well.

Gagan: And what's fun about Bash is that it's just really cool how it works.

Gagan: It refreshes your air options because like now you can double jump again.

Gagan: You gain momentum.

Gagan: You can redirect projectiles back at enemies or you can move projectiles around to destroy certain obstacles for you, destroy certain puzzles for you.

Gagan: So like the first time you get Bash, right?

Gagan: It's in the first major area you can mess with it.

Gagan: It's called a Ginzo Tree.

Gagan: And they present a puzzle to you.

Gagan: When you get to it, you'll understand.

Gagan: You'll be surprised by this scenario.

Gagan: So you get to an area and there's this plant that's going to shoot this projectile, right?

Gagan: And you have to get this projectile to like the top left of the room you're in.

Gagan: There's a bunch of platforms laying around, right?

Gagan: The few on the left, few on the right.

Gagan: There's one object that like the projectile will go in from one end, go out the other.

Gagan: So like if it goes in on a flat one that's on the bottom with an opening to the right, but like it's shooting up, now the projectile is going up instead of horizontal.

Gagan: It's going vertical.

Gagan: And then, you know, another one will go from vertical to left or vertical to right.

Gagan: And what happens is that's like when you're learning the game or when you're playing the game at like everyone else's level is, okay, I'm going to follow this puzzle exactly, which is like, okay, I got to do this.

Gagan: Now I got to direct the ball here.

Gagan: Now I got to direct the ball here.

Gagan: There's enemies in the room.

Gagan: I'm going to kill them first to make my job easier because I'm tired of them shooting at me.

Gagan: Because especially if you play that game on hard, you might want to do that, right?

Gagan: Or you get really funky with it, and you actually never use either of those things and just say, you know what?

Gagan: I'm going to personally point where this thing is going to go because I can redirect it.

Gagan: And I'm going to keep catching up to it and redirecting it to my goal myself and not once use the puzzle environment in the area that the game designed, but do it my way and use the enemies in the level as a way to bash myself around the map.

Tom: That's what I was going to ask is, are you able to basically juggle a projectile to be able to do crazy things like that?

Gagan: You can, and it's fun as shit to do.

Gagan: I think it's personally, I find it hard to do.

Gagan: I think it's not as easy as it looks ever.

Gagan: But when you get it going, like when you get good with it, it's like, okay, yeah.

Gagan: And like having seen other people play this game at like a much better level than me, it was like, yeah, I knew this bash mechanic was something.

Gagan: So that stuff's really rad about the game because then it starts chaining with other things in the game.

Tom: That sounds awesome.

Tom: Yeah, yeah.

Gagan: I mean, it's just you can cancel downward momentum from that game with double jumps and still keep horizontal momentum.

Gagan: Like just little things like that.

Gagan: That's like the average player is not going to understand that or even use that aspect of the mechanic.

Gagan: But I like that it's there and that stuff's cool.

Gagan: And what happens is when you get good at the game, like you start unlocking a grapple type move or like a tackle or like a stomp move to hit enemies and stuff.

Gagan: And that stuff's nice and all.

Gagan: But like the real fun is just chaining this fun movement and just jumping around and like not hitting the ground on certain levels.

Gagan: Like a lot of the speedruns of this game, you'll see, it's like people are not...

Gagan: People touch the ground real quick to reset their options.

Gagan: They're back in the air again once they get their options.

Gagan: And it's led to some interesting sequence breaks in the gameplay, which is cool.

Gagan: And that stuff's really rad.

Gagan: I think the Metroidvania part of the game can be taken to task a little bit.

Tom: Just before we move on to that, what it sounds like, but in a way with way more freedom, is Bash is sort of like a multi-directional Shovel Knight jumping mechanic, where the mechanics in Shovel Knight felt so satisfying and completely different because you weren't really jumping, you were pogo-sticking off something.

Tom: And that sounds like you're basically pogo-sticking off projectiles, among other things, in any direction you want.

Gagan: Yes.

Gagan: And it dictates also the thing you're pogo-sticking off.

Gagan: Yep.

Gagan: Because it also flings enemies a little bit.

Gagan: Like there's one enemy that's like a rolling armadillo, like a rhino enemy.

Gagan: You can't really kill it, but you can fling him around.

Gagan: And often you fling him around to open certain doors for you.

Gagan: So obviously you set him up to go one way and you get another.

Gagan: Other enemies, like they try to jump at you.

Gagan: So what you do is you catch them midair and then you slingshot them into the spikes that normally could kill you, to kill them really quick.

Gagan: And it's like that type of stuff is really fun to do, because like the game's actual combat mechanic fucking sucks.

Gagan: We'll get to the combat in a second.

Gagan: But yeah, like that's a good way of putting it.

Gagan: It's an omni-directional jumping mechanic.

Gagan: It's an extension of like the jumping mechanics.

Gagan: It's way cooler than like simply, oh, we added a triple jump.

Gagan: So, you know, we have movement.

Gagan: It's just like what's cool about the game is what I think like elevates it above other games in the genre is that like, I think if you want it to flex and like learn a speed run for this game or just wanted to like really get good with the mechanic bash and the way the movement works is good enough that I feel if you want it to get into the technical side of things, like play a little bit more technique, that is a fun mechanic to learn and has a high skill ceiling that's worth chasing even if like, you know, you might have some issues with other parts of the game.

Gagan: So I don't really have, I do enjoy exploring in this game a lot.

Gagan: Like I love, you know, the Metrovania loop is very much, you know, I saw a thing I couldn't open before and now I get this item, I bet it opens it, right?

Gagan: Like that's the thing that we've all discussed ad nauseam about the genre.

Gagan: But like I said, my nerd voice is getting some mileage as well as my doofus voice.

Tom: And they're quite close.

Gagan: They're close, no, my nerd voice is very much, you know, actually, like my nerd voice is very nerdy.

Gagan: Let's not...

Tom: It depends on how into it you get.

Gagan: That's true.

Gagan: There's a bit of a theater-

Tom: I feel like there's a range of efforts that you put into it.

Gagan: You know, I'm a man of theater at the end of the day.

Gagan: No, I like to, I like diverse characters in my lineup.

Gagan: So, so with the thing with that-

Tom: You need to make sure your nerd voice and doofus voice both have a lot of depth to them.

Gagan: Exactly, exactly, you know?

Gagan: Like what, why did he become a doofus?

Gagan: Does he be doofus because like his parents suck?

Gagan: Or is he just doofus because he's just like a gorilla?

Gagan: You know, like there's layers to my guy.

Gagan: Anyway, so that part's really cool about Ori and that like, you know, because the movement is so fun, like I enjoy going around this area and just finding little nicks and nacks and finding like, oh, here's the little energy thing that gives me experience points to power up another ability tree.

Gagan: Here's the life bar that gives me more of a health bar.

Gagan: Here's the energy ball that gives me more of this spirit energy.

Gagan: I'll get back to what spirit energy is later.

Gagan: But a criticism could be made that the actual, like part of the fun of metroiding is maybe the backtracking from one area to another and just using the whole map.

Gagan: A lot of the way Ori is designed is that you can get a majority, when you get sent to an area, the game's a little bit more linear than other Metroids in the sense that you get sent to go to an area to do an objective and when you're there, you tend to exhaust that area of everything in the room.

Gagan: And there's like maybe a few things leftover for like you to come back to later, but now you do absolutely have to go out of your way to get here.

Gagan: Whereas like, even though there's tons of tons of out of your way segments in Super Metroid or even the Castlevanias or other games in the genre, a lot of times you are going back and forth all over this map, specifically to do standard objectives and then like on top of being able to pick up some stuff and like take advantage of like, oh, wait, I remember this thing was over here that I couldn't interact with.

Gagan: I bet it worked with this thing.

Gagan: And so that part I think is a valid criticism, but at the end of the day, I kind of find like if you were ever a person who's like, man, I really don't like the backtracking of Metroidvania games, then Ori is your game.

Gagan: Yep.

Gagan: Like this is the game you'd want in the sense of like, like I want to explore and I want this loop, but I want it, I want this loop in very compact ways in the specific areas.

Tom: You want to cut down.

Gagan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gagan: There is a fast travel system.

Gagan: It's very specific to where fast travels often, like you still have to like do a lot of like running back and forth through an area just because like the fast travels like here's the middle of the level, go ham.

Gagan: And it's like, you know, I gotta walk all the way up this tree again, just to get the item I want.

Gagan: Like really, come on.

Gagan: You can just put me right there.

Gagan: So, you know, that's what's a little maybe could be a little bit better, but.

Tom: I think it also makes sense for them to cut down on that aspect of it if the platforming aspect of it is as potentially complicated as in making it sound.

Gagan: Yeah, and well, you can do a lot of fun stuff with it.

Gagan: The thing is I've seen people describe it as like maybe the game is more Zelda than it is Metroid in that like each area is more like a dungeon that you're exploring and fleshing out.

Gagan: It's just like you don't think of it as a dungeon because the layout isn't very like deliberate the way.

Gagan: It's not very explicit to the way a dungeon is like, this is the dungeon, this is the world.

Gagan: And where it's like, this is more like, it's more like Metroid where it's like, you're just going back and forth through an area.

Gagan: And it's like, that probably makes sense because there are a lot of like puzzly ruins.

Gagan: There are ruins in this game.

Gagan: Like I would think those are more, I think of those as more the dungeons of the game.

Tom: Yeah.

Gagan: Dungeon equivalents.

Gagan: And they've definitely pay their homages to Zelda because you cannot be an indie developer and not pay some homage to the Legend of Zelda franchise.

Gagan: It's the greatest video game franchise ever and we all must love it.

Gagan: I'm sorry, did I sound a little annoyed there?

Gagan: I appreciate that it does those things, right?

Gagan: But at the same time, as much as I do enjoy exploring in that game, that is the thing that I think holds it beneath Super Metroid, among other things, is just like, I think the richness of the exploration of Super Metroid is sometimes more fascinating, especially because of like speedrun tech.

Gagan: Like the way you can sequence break in Super Metroid is just like bonkers.

Gagan: Whereas like Ori is, you know, it's like, you know, you can do some sequence breaks, but I don't think it's as cool as, like a lot of the fun of the speedrun in Ori is very much like flexing the movement.

Gagan: I wish there were more platforming challenges to take advantage of said movement.

Gagan: I think a lot of the platforming can be maybe a bit tad too easy, especially the moment to moment platforming, just because I think they were under the impression they made more of an action adventure title.

Gagan: And as stated earlier, the combat is not particularly good.

Gagan: And yes, I did lead with Super Metroid's combat is not particularly good either.

Gagan: So she has like a Navi equivalent, right?

Gagan: This ball that like that zaps lightning at people.

Tom: Did Navi zap lightning at people?

Gagan: Yeah, that's her combat mechanic.

Gagan: Ori's little combat mechanic.

Gagan: She shoots people.

Tom: I mean in Zelda.

Gagan: I'm saying Ori has a Navi equivalent.

Tom: Yep, okay.

Gagan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gagan: Sorry for getting a little skipping tangents.

Gagan: But so that's how you deal with enemies.

Gagan: You shoot them early on.

Gagan: It's a very simple mechanic.

Gagan: You have to be within a certain distance before Navi will zap them.

Gagan: She doesn't like zap like an actual projectile.

Gagan: You have to be within a distance and she'll send like an angular projectile.

Tom: Yep.

Gagan: And she'll fire at them.

Gagan: And if you hold X when you get the charge flame, you create a large charge attack and it does a charged blast and that does more damage than a single blast.

Gagan: You may have heard where this attack has come from in another game in this genre.

Gagan: Who knows?

Gagan: And another ability is obviously the stomp.

Gagan: You ground pound them.

Gagan: That ends up being one of your strongest moves.

Gagan: What you could do with like this rhino enemy that's armored is you ground pound them.

Tom: That's the one you can throw around with.

Gagan: There's two of them.

Gagan: There's one you can throw around and there's another one that you can't throw around.

Gagan: It's probably not a rhino, the one I can throw around, but it looked similar enough to me and that I don't fucking care enough to remember what it was.

Gagan: But it's green.

Gagan: So like the green one is how I recognize like, okay, this is the explodey one.

Gagan: I need to throw him into a wall.

Gagan: And then this is the gray metal one.

Gagan: He's beefy.

Gagan: I have to kill him myself.

Gagan: So what you do is you ground pound him.

Gagan: And then if he's still alive, you bash to launch yourself back in the air so he can't hit you right back and ground pound him again.

Gagan: And you're like, man, I'm pretty cool.

Gagan: But you're not that cool because the combat is kind of not that cool in this game.

Gagan: It's kind of a little braindead sometimes.

Tom: So it's too simple?

Gagan: It's too simple.

Gagan: Like, because it's like, why wouldn't you do that?

Gagan: Like, why would you take his hits?

Gagan: Like you could zap him, but zapping him isn't fun.

Gagan: If you crank the difficulty up to hard, right?

Gagan: What it does is you take more damage and the enemies to have more health.

Gagan: So that's fine.

Tom: So they call them bullet sponges.

Gagan: Sure, let's call them bullet sponges.

Gagan: But it goes back to the thing of like, why is shooting in Super Metroid not all that fun?

Gagan: Because there's nothing to it after a certain point.

Gagan: She can aim up at an angle, down at an angle, or forward, right?

Gagan: And it's like, you're just pumping bullets into thing and it's...

Gagan: You're not...

Gagan: Like, combat isn't always fun about what you're doing, but what you're doing in that game isn't all that interesting.

Gagan: And it's made less interesting by what the enemies are doing to you.

Gagan: Like, that's why AMR is a funner game because, like, the bosses in that game actually challenge space in interesting ways.

Gagan: And then it's like, okay, now how do I hit them?

Gagan: Like, that's why Mega Man's fun.

Gagan: Mega Man is very much just jump and shoot, right?

Gagan: But people love Mega Man.

Gagan: Because that's because, like, how does Mega Man work?

Gagan: It's a tight platformer.

Gagan: You're not, you're killing things, but you have to get to a space and kill things.

Gagan: How do you deal with bosses?

Gagan: He has certain patterns.

Gagan: You have to dodge and move around.

Gagan: If the patterns are too simple.

Tom: Yeah, they're all about rather than hitting the enemy, not getting hit by the enemy.

Gagan: Correct.

Gagan: And then obviously you can make those games a sick joke when you play the Rock Paper Scissors game.

Gagan: It's like, oh, you're Iceman.

Gagan: I bet Flamethrower destroys you in two seconds.

Gagan: And it's like, oh, yes, it does.

Gagan: And sure, you can play it that way.

Gagan: But if you play like the Buster only runs, it's like a fun challenge to do, even though, yeah, maybe they're a little bit more of a sponge.

Gagan: But it's like, you're actively doing something.

Gagan: You're mentally engaged.

Gagan: Yep.

Gagan: Fun is ultimately when your brain is the happy face emoji.

Gagan: When your face is the sleeping...

Gagan: And when your brain is the sleeping emoji, that's when the game is bad.

Gagan: Or as we call it, the uncharted franchise.

Gagan: And that's ultimately where I think Ori's combat is going into the same problems as Super Metroid, where it's like, some of the enemies do have...

Gagan: So there's this one goopy enemy that will shoot projectiles into three directions.

Gagan: And what's cool is when the projectiles hit the ground, it leaves a poisonous part on the ground.

Gagan: So now it's like, okay, not only must I get in position to shoot this thing, I have to be careful about where I'm going to land, because it's a poison.

Gagan: The problem is, they're not paired with anything all that's ever...

Gagan: They're never paired with another interesting enemy.

Gagan: Because imagine if you were dealing with those, and dealing with this jumping attack enemy that does an angular jump in on you, right?

Gagan: Or the birds that sort of nosedive at you, or the rhinos, then it's like, okay, how do you move in space now?

Gagan: Do you use bash?

Gagan: It's actually also the weird thing about them, their projectile is one of the few things you can't bash, which I think is kind of whack, even if it kind of makes sense to make their challenge acceptable, but you know.

Tom: The combination of enemies is also one of the most important things for when you are backtracking in Metroidvanias, is you come across enemies in areas you thought would be easier than they throw in a different type, and it's a completely different fight as a result.

Gagan: You know how we were talking about Doom earlier, right?

Gagan: And how great the wad scene has sort of expanded encounter design.

Gagan: If we were to ever do a broader topic on Smugcast, one of them has to be the death of the art of enemy mixing in video games.

Gagan: It's like everyone keeps doing this, and my beloved Devil May Cry makes this mistake, which is that it just doesn't, like these games are playing it so safe with the way they want to mix enemies.

Gagan: God bless Doom and for just saying not all of them are in the same room.

Gagan: Now Doom made the mistake of not making the cyberdemon also a standard enemy in the game.

Tom: Yup.

Gagan: Like after the boss fight, he should have been in levels, but they didn't do that.

Gagan: Doom fixes that.

Gagan: But like these other games, it's like, like, yeah, man, the fury is a hard enemy, so we threw three of them at you, but it's like, no, what if you had to deal with the scissors and this fury was around, and this bat was constantly throwing air projectiles at me?

Gagan: How do I, Dante, who has all these moves, move around space now?

Gagan: Could that be a little challenging for your average Joe?

Gagan: Yeah, but that's why we created multiple difficulty settings.

Gagan: It's almost like you guys aren't taking advantage of your tools when you should, which is like, that's sort of like a thing you could sort of lay at the feet of Doom and that maybe they don't always explore all the challenges of their tools the way their wav scene did.

Gagan: But like, guess what?

Gagan: They were innovators at the time when they were doing that.

Gagan: Like, there was no rule to like, there was no idea, like, of course you mix enemies back then, right?

Gagan: Like, that's just like, that's like now a thing, like, yeah, you mix enemies.

Gagan: Like, one of the biggest shames about The Wonderful is like, why does it never mix its enemies?

Gagan: Like, that's what it should be doing that Bayonetta did that.

Gagan: Albeit not enough even in Bayonetta, but so like similarly, I think Ori is much a product of modern games where they just don't do that, which is kind of drag.

Gagan: And it does hurt the comedy.

Gagan: Yeah, the spirit energy, the blue orbs very much governs that.

Gagan: So it governs the charge plane and another like spirit attack you have.

Gagan: The other thing it serves is if you when you have that energy, if you hold B, you create your save points, you create manual save points around the area.

Gagan: So sometimes I can be stubborn and I just go a string of point.

Gagan: Like you can make the difficulty a little bit higher for yourself because you're like, I want to do a string of these things in a row before I make like a proper save point.

Gagan: Right?

Tom: Yep.

Gagan: Because I rather spend this energy on this charge attack, which is an interesting decision.

Gagan: Like, do I want to use my currency to attack or do I want to make save states for so I don't have to like repeat certain things?

Gagan: It's like when I say you have to repeat things, I mean like you have to repeat a cut scene again.

Gagan: You might have to get a pickup again.

Gagan: You might have to make that long ass trek back to the bumbafuck again.

Gagan: But even on hard as I'm playing, I'm like honestly the zapping attack can kill most enemies for me.

Gagan: So why don't I just make save points?

Gagan: Like it's not that serious.

Gagan: Because like does spirit energy doesn't govern like maybe if it governed your interesting movement.

Gagan: I don't know if I'd want that because then that limits like how far and fast you could go.

Gagan: So it is like weird where how you would make it more interesting.

Gagan: But they dropped the save system in Ori

Gagan: It's just straight up checkpoints after in that game.

Gagan: Which I think is a shame because I did want to see this mechanic explored.

Gagan: But maybe it's like more interesting on paper than it is an execution.

Gagan: Because in execution in the game I don't think it's.

Gagan: There have been times where I've been replaying I'm like yeah this game could have had checkpoints.

Tom: Well you'll have to play too to find out for sure.

Gagan: Yeah yeah so that part isn't as strong I feel.

Gagan: And then I already said the combat isn't good and then the game doesn't have boss fights but there's one definitely you have to mandatory fight this thing.

Gagan: It looks like the thing on the cover of Day of the Tentacle.

Gagan: That's probably a bad way of describing it but it jumps out of the ground.

Gagan: And you charge attack it and it dies after a few of those and then you get the thing you need to get and then you don't have to do another mandatory fight until that again.

Gagan: I'm saying mandatory because like basically every other fight of with enemies is like technically you could always skip it technically you could always like like bash use them as a bash option to get out of dodge.

Gagan: There's also this big ass owl but those are usually chase sequences those are good to platforming segments.

Gagan: Those do exist in the game but those are very like tight rhythmic timing challenges.

Tom: So the combat may be lackluster because the enemies are more there just for the platforming perhaps.

Gagan: They're funner for the platform but I don't think it had to be one or the other right.

Gagan: Like the reason they're fun to platform is just you jump at them and you press Y and you dash around right.

Gagan: Like that part would have been cool even if the enemies were fun.

Tom: Yep.

Gagan: You know like imagine if you had to use your bash like in Moria because think about it you can send projectiles back at enemies and you can send enemies flying so it's like imagine if the combat was interesting enough to express it let you do cool stuff with bash.

Gagan: Like there's room for exploration here.

Gagan: In fact they added melee weapons and some combos in Ori too so it's almost like they were listening to your old pal Gags.

Tom: You'll take full credit for it.

Gagan: I'm gonna take full credit for it.

Gagan: Listen when a Goggin game gets a Goggin sequel you know this is a beautiful thing.

Gagan: So yeah I think Ori is really cool.

Gagan: The part where I'm at right now is this area where you're like carrying this ball and it can allow you to touch hot surfaces.

Gagan: But now the surfaces are moving platforms so you got to use gravity to do the thing where you go off the side of the platform and then it's gonna send you flying one way and you're gonna land on the platform and then you have to move yourself around to send yourself flying and oh look I landed on a platform and not death.

Gagan: It's like okay yeah I've seen this in Mario.

Gagan: I'm glad that you guys also discovered gravity in video games.

Gagan: It's a you know it's fine sequence.

Gagan: I think the Ginzo Tree Escape is more fun just because like that sort of tight rhythmic very like do this chain of platforming sequences and uh moves is where the game excels.

Gagan: Yep.

Gagan: Beautiful game by the way.

Gagan: I don't know if you've actually seen the game like properly played in motion.

Tom: Yep I have and it looks great.

Gagan: I cannot believe that they made a better looking game themselves after but holy shit it's a good looking game like the whole time I'm playing that sometimes like sometimes I just get like that's a pretty ass game like how did this random out of nowhere studio with people that don't even work in the same office from different parts of the planet make this and it works and it's cohesive um I've seen people complain that sometimes the backgrounds the game is so good-looking and so detailed that sometimes the backgrounds look like something you can interact with and the level um purely platforming concerns I don't think it's a big deal ever because the one or two times where I'm like I wonder if I can jump on this was like you have to be an idiot to not realize you just went full length and pressed a and didn't hit anything or do anything the game reacted with that you could grab or jump off of which means you can't You can't do it, so if you just keep repeating it, you're just a buffoon.

Gagan: So that's not a thing.

Gagan: And then, where I do think the game's visuals maybe are a bit much is that like sometimes, but the way the foreground is, because the way the visual is designed, there are like foreground aspects of the level that are definitely part of the view, and that can cover some of the image.

Gagan: And then like you have your bash effect, you have your lightning effect from your combat attack, right, and then you have like the enemy's own projectiles and like big purple goop, and then like you have another projectile coming from another area.

Gagan: Sometimes you can get lost in the chaos.

Gagan: Like I've definitely died a few times where it's like, I don't really saw what hit me there.

Gagan: When did I get hit?

Gagan: Part of that could be just me being a scrub and I just missed it.

Gagan: But the other part could just, I just think maybe like sometimes it's more visually busy than it needs to be.

Gagan: Where at the least I don't think the four, I don't think there should ever be anything in the front of the screen ever.

Gagan: Like I want that part clear, personally.

Gagan: Yep.

Tom: But that's the effects that are happening, aren't they?

Tom: Not parts of the map, right?

Gagan: I think it's both sometimes.

Gagan: Sometimes it's the effects of the attacks and then some parts of the maps, like they're showing the plant from a different angle.

Tom: Yeah, I'm looking at the video.

Tom: Yeah, there's little silhouettes in the foreground.

Gagan: Yes, exactly.

Gagan: That's what I mean.

Gagan: Like the silhouettes.

Gagan: Sometimes that with the particle effects or in like, we'll get in the way.

Gagan: And that's a little, it's a little much.

Gagan: But that's like a minor thing to me in the grand scheme of things.

Gagan: Yep.

Gagan: We have to talk about the story, apparently, because people, people, whatever, I don't think the story in Ori is particularly strong.

Gagan: I don't think it I think the opening happens too fast for you to give a shit.

Gagan: Right.

Gagan: Like, I know people who I've seen people describe it much like up the Pixar movie, but I'm like.

Gagan: The Pixar movies example is like, even though it's very.

Gagan: And it's just so good.

Gagan: But it's like, even though you're not like seeing them as a couple, right?

Gagan: Like they do a really good job of this is very expressive animation of like.

Gagan: Then going through their lives and like some of the heartbreak of their life of like, you know, they didn't have kids like that's very overtly say it to you without like necessarily saying it.

Gagan: And then it's like.

Gagan: Those are like very universal concepts of like, you know, you're going to get older and like you have someone you love and then it's like, maybe, you know, some of the things aren't going to work out.

Gagan: And then like, you know, what's it like when that person dies in your life?

Gagan: Right.

Gagan: That's a heavy thing.

Gagan: I don't understand why a kid's movie needed to start that way.

Gagan: Right.

Gagan: But that's how we started a kid's movie.

Gagan: I don't know why I was sad while the kid was like, I don't know.

Gagan: This isn't you.

Gagan: Where's Wally?

Gagan: I love Wally, but whatever.

Gagan: Ori, I don't think has the same effect of watching the other characters sort of pass away because it's like, I don't have that attachment to this like bear thing.

Gagan: I'm not invested in it.

Gagan: I'm not.

Gagan: I get it.

Gagan: Like Ori now lost something, someone meaningful to their life.

Gagan: But it's like it just doesn't have.

Gagan: I don't know why.

Gagan: I can't like it happens too fast.

Gagan: Like it just it just feels like the most like played out shit.

Gagan: Like we've done this.

Gagan: Like, of course, he's dying.

Gagan: Like it's predictable that he's going to die.

Gagan: It's playing the he's going to die music with the piano and the violin.

Gagan: It's like, oh, man, feelings.

Gagan: And it's like, I don't care.

Gagan: Oh, man, the owl is angry.

Gagan: And then later on, you find out the owl lost his kids and the owl or is the owl is a mother and she lost her kids.

Gagan: And it's like, yeah, then I'm then I feel like the owl is the one being mistreated here.

Gagan: I'm on the owl side.

Tom: So it sounds like it comes across as contrived.

Gagan: In other words, contrived is the right way to put it, I guess.

Gagan: I don't know.

Gagan: I try not to say contrived anymore because I guess in theory you could say everything is contrived if you go with like the literal pedantic definition of the word.

Gagan: But that's probably the right not really.

Gagan: Not really.

Gagan: OK, so what would be the difference?

Gagan: What separates not contrived from like contrived, right?

Tom: Let's look up the...

Tom: let's do in classic game under podcast style, look up the definition of contrived.

Tom: Obviously planned or forced, artificial strained.

Gagan: Deliberately created rather than arising naturally or spontaneously.

Gagan: Now every work of fiction is theoretically deliberately created rather than arising naturally or spontaneously.

Tom: Except that isn't the case.

Tom: So even on a fundamental level that would be false, but it refers to how one perceives it.

Tom: So if you're looking at something and you perceive it as having been obviously planned or forced, or being in some way artificial or strained, strained is a slightly odd word to add there, but it's about your perception of it.

Tom: So it's like a cliche.

Tom: Something is cliched if it rings false, even though ideas and stories are often repeated.

Tom: So it's not simply saying that it was planned, it's that it feels planned.

Gagan: The definitive edition, the other thing, the definitive edition, this is one of the big reasons I want to play it.

Gagan: Because I didn't want to be like, man, they added a new mechanic when it's like, no, actually on the re-release of the first game, they actually added this mechanic.

Gagan: One of them is a dash, like an actual straight up dash.

Gagan: And the dash is really neat.

Gagan: Because it lets you move really fast, it recharges on contact with the ground.

Gagan: Right.

Gagan: Another thing that's cool is that you know how that trick I described where you release the control stick as you do to move blah, blah, blah.

Gagan: That works with dash as well.

Gagan: So you can do a batch style boost anywhere and ride the momentum as you glide and double jump.

Gagan: So like the dash works similarly with that sort of inertia.

Gagan: It works in combination with charge jumps and dash.

Gagan: So if you change, so if you charge then dash, you'll do a charge dash that goes further and can hurt enemies and break walls, which is like, yeah, yeah, I don't know, I really like the addition of the dash.

Gagan: It adds to the movement.

Gagan: If you like, when you see a change, it's really good.

Gagan: What they shouldn't have done was make you wait basically like replaying most of the whole game before they give you the dash.

Gagan: I think you should have got the dash earlier and they could have maybe redesigned some of the challenges to allow you to do cool things with bash and dash, right?

Gagan: But I guess that would have been a greater undertaking as far as doing a definitive edition of this game.

Gagan: But I don't know when you're making a game called the definitive edition, maybe, you know, you can do undertakings like that or whatever.

Gagan: But yeah, it's a cool mechanic added to the game.

Gagan: There's another one that's like a grenade thing, it's fine, it's not a thing to write home about.

Gagan: But yeah, like the story, I, sure, then contrived is the right word.

Gagan: It just doesn't feel, the first part isn't contrived technically because that's the premise of the story, right, I guess?

Gagan: Yep.

Gagan: You know, it's our, is it our rising action?

Gagan: Is it the correct use of the term rising action?

Tom: No idea.

Tom: Rising action?

Gagan: Falling action?

Tom: Are those terms?

Gagan: Those are terms apparently in story.

Gagan: So there's exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, denounment.

Tom: I would question the validity of this as a technique because here are six examples on literarydevices.net.

Tom: One is Revelation by Flannery O'Connor.

Tom: One is The Hobbit by JR.

Tom: Tolkien.

Tom: One is Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.

Tom: One is Twilight by Stephanie Meyer.

Tom: One is Evermore by Alison Nowell.

Tom: Okay, okay, I got it.

Tom: The Snow White by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm.

Gagan: Okay, I got it, but hear me out.

Gagan: Literary devices are bullshit like all of literature as like a discussion point or whatever.

Gagan: Anyway, now that I have abandoned modern literature culture and done my part to the podcast, I really like Ori and the Blind Forest though.

Gagan: I still think that game is really cool.

Gagan: I'm excited to see how they have tackled some of the issues.

Gagan: I hope they have tackled some of the issues and they didn't just go, yeah, let's just make Ori again.

Gagan: We'll add some new bad combat mechanic and it's good.

Gagan: But I have, from at least sources I trust, the boss fights are really good because apparently it has boss fights, which that I could believe because if the AMR guy worked on the game, I think AMR has the best bosses in the Metroid franchise.

Gagan: So, I mean, it's not really tech-

Tom: Both D and D?

Gagan: D and D, my man, my man, yes.

Gagan: And that game is technically not part of the franchise because it's a fan game.

Gagan: But you know, it's just a thing like Nintendo will never make an action game the way I want one.

Gagan: It's just not in their thing.

Gagan: I think they are much better when they're doing exploration or like platforming.

Gagan: But like that improved the combat's much better and the platforming even though they took one of the inertia gimmicks away from bash, right?

Gagan: Another mechanic exists in that game.

Gagan: That's also really good, apparently.

Gagan: And that, from what I've heard is like it's very much the game deserves to be in the conversation of one of the most expressive platformers in terms of movement.

Gagan: It remains to be seen how the high level meta of that game evolves, right?

Gagan: They've already got the speedrun of that game down to minutes or something, which is pretty fast already, consider that game on average people beat in about hours.

Gagan: So I'm excited to get to that.

Gagan: But yeah, Ori's a good game.

Gagan: I thought it was an out of in

Gagan: I'd still personally give it an

Gagan: If you press me like, oh no, it's more of a like, yeah, sure, whatever.

Gagan: Or at least like, you know, how I described it describes more of a

Gagan: Like, yeah, that's fine.

Gagan: You know, I don't do s, by the way, for the Tom Towers, I do straight out of

Gagan: But I feel confident with an in that it's not as good as the best games in the genre, but I like it better than anything else in the genre.

Tom: It sounds excellent, particularly the whole bash thing.

Gagan: Yeah, I think you'll most likely be annoyed more by the way the combat is not good.

Tom: And that maybe sounds like you can kind of just skip it.

Gagan: Yeah, you can.

Gagan: You absolutely can.

Gagan: You can make an effort to skip it more.

Gagan: But I could also see you being like annoyed in that there aren't enough like handcrafted platforming segments that really let you show off this stuff.

Gagan: Yep, because on some level that does bother me as someone who whose entire argument against Super Mario Odyssey is very much that like why is this cool platforming mechanic wasted on all this putzing around when we have the coolest hopscotch system of all time?

Gagan: Like let me hopscotch.

Gagan: So that's Ori.

Gagan: I think that game is right.

Gagan: I think your boy Vader gave it an on VG Press.

Tom: So he was a big fan of it?

Gagan: He, I can't tell because everything he gives a game is like an or like points something out of

Gagan: Like I don't think I've ever seen him, Antichamber is the lowest thing I've seen him review a game and...

Tom: What did he give it again?

Gagan: A war crime apparently.

Gagan: Hold on, let me look it up.

Gagan: You and I...

Gagan: !

Tom: And he beat it too, I'm pretty sure.

Gagan: Puzzle games are supposed to create the sensation of Eureka.

Gagan: I got the solution.

Gagan: I didn't feel that at all too often.

Gagan: Most of the time I felt relief that I stumbled upon the solution.

Gagan: There is no sense of progression with this game.

Gagan: Ideas don't really build on one another.

Gagan: Some do, but it's not a consistent edition of ideas like a portal.

Gagan: I am going to keep the score on the positive end just because it is a meaty game and had some good ideas.

Gagan: Some people really enjoy this.

Gagan: For me, I found it to be more tedious and frustrating than it had to be.

Gagan: He does like puzzle games.

Tom: But everything he wrote there was objectively wrong.

Gagan: I know, you and I are very much of the same though.

Gagan: Antijamers is a great game.

Gagan: Antijamers is one of the best puzzle games of this decade.

Tom: It's one of the best games of this decade, to be precise.

Gagan: Yeah, it's up there.

Gagan: I like that game.

Gagan: It's definitely the best game of the decade.

Tom: But my list is not complete, so I cannot reveal if it is the best.

Gagan: We can't reveal your list, but do we get into the game under top list and can we go one by one on all these games?

Gagan: Even though, did you pick all these or do you have a say in any of these?

Tom: The official game under one was chosen by the both of us, I believe.

Gagan: So this is the list, right?

Tom: Yes it is.

Gagan: Okay, so number on the list is Tetris Effect.

Tom: That was his choice.

Gagan: Tetris Effect is a cool game because it's Tetris.

Gagan: I have no problem with Tetris as a game.

Gagan: One of my favorite games of last year was actually Tetris

Gagan: My only contention would be Tetris Effect was not the best Tetris game of the decade because Tetris was this decade.

Tom: I think Tetris wasn't VR.

Gagan: It wasn't VR so that's the argument in that they made a really cool VR game and we have to validate VR with something, I guess.

Tom: I think that's the argument.

Tom: However, it was still a wrong choice because my pick would have been Nintendo Labo however it's pronounced.

Gagan: See, I'm not a Labo person so that's fine.

Gagan: So I'd rather have Tetris then.

Tom: Well I've never actually experienced Labo but it features cardboard so it's automatically better.

Gagan: Okay well Phil Fogg, I agree with Tetris Effect if only for Tetris.

Gagan: Not the VR though, VR still wack.

Gagan: Next, The Walking Dead by Telltale Games.

Tom: Yes.

Gagan: Now I'm gonna assume this is on there because of the influence it had following as far as like where Telltale went and like the way other episodic adventure games started popping up.

Tom: And not just episodic adventure games, it had a huge influence on narratives in games in general I'd say.

Gagan: Okay.

Gagan: No no I would actually like that explained.

Tom: Yeah well when was it released?

Tom: Let's look up the dates.

Gagan:

Gagan:

Gagan: Forget the papers.

Tom: I'm just looking up some other games.

Tom: Yeah so that's two years before the likes of The Last of Us.

Tom: From my mem-

Tom: what's that?

Gagan: The Last of Us is

Tom: Yep.

Tom: No,

Gagan:

Tom: Slash

Gagan: No, is a different generation, bravo.

Tom: Okay so one year.

Tom: Nevertheless it is first.

Tom: Yep, so basically The Walking Dead as cartoony as it was with the exception of maybe things like Silent Hill, most games-

Tom: not that this was triple A but it was obviously designed to have mass appeal rather.

Tom: Most games with gritty stories in them that were designed for mass appeal weren't really attempting to have any thematic content in them to the same degree as The Walking Dead.

Tom: And The Walking Dead predates stuff like The Last of Us.

Tom: So that will be the argument.

Gagan: I can accept this as an influential pick.

Gagan: I, however, obviously do not like the game because there is a playing of parts of video games and I find The Walking Dead is a bore to actually do the me interacting with it part.

Gagan: Also, let us never forget that that game ends with some guy putting you in a chair going here are the decisions you made let's go over them real quick this one was so doozy wasn't it and it's like okay okay telltale you jerks anyway they're not sure so what you're saying is you made a choice you regret it at some point and you got very upset when they pointed out your stupidity maybe but no more so no i just don't think that's a good way of doing that at all it is corny it is very it's very corny like it's sort of like it more like breaks the illusion at that point that like oh yeah this is very binary bullshit definitely it works better it and the reason it is awkward is because they are doing things thematically more seriously in something like until dawn which is just completely ironical and corny it works quite well telltale is gone but um yeah i don't know i just i didn't think uh I think people think it's one of the most important games of that year, but that year has Hotline Miami and Mark of the Ninja, and those are funner.

Gagan: So...

Tom: Hotline Miami is awesome.

Gagan: Then we have Depression Quest, which I'm...

Gagan: Does this game really make it because of the bullshit surrounding its developer?

Tom: To me, this is the game of the decade in terms of influence, but I couldn't get it to get to number one, sadly.

Gagan: When you say influence, you definitely mean, like, all the bullshit surrounding...

Tom: Gamergate, yes.

Gagan: That's not...

Gagan: Like, on a technicality, that is correct.

Gagan: But I don't think the game necessarily is the one that earned it, so we're skipping that one.

Gagan: So that's one of my consensuses, like, I don't think...

Tom: If Depression Quest did not exist, Gamergate would have had to find a different starting point, found a different starting point.

Tom: But it was the starting point of it, so it deserves...

Gagan: I'm glad that you are definitely not...

Tom: It deserves to be several places higher on the list.

Gagan: I'm glad that...

Tom: Let alone on the list.

Gagan: I'm glad that you are not beholden to...

Gagan: Influence Needs To Be Good, because clearly, if that was the case, there's no way Depression Quest makes the list.

Gagan: You were like, as long as it had influence, and it was far reaching, it should be on the list.

Gagan: And this is why Depression Quest should be one.

Gagan: And I'm like, no.

Tom: So if we can go straight to the Nazis, Hitler is surely the most influential man of the th century.

Gagan: Last of Us the okay, yeah, sure.

Tom: I don't know why that's there.

Gagan: I mean...

Tom: Let's flip this around, you defend it.

Tom: Why is The Last of Us number seven?

Gagan: Does it have to be seven?

Gagan: Or like, more like, did it make the list?

Gagan: I'm more about lists.

Gagan: I don't care about the order in the grant.

Tom: Okay, just defend it on the basis of its inclusion.

Gagan: Are you offended by it being on the list?

Gagan: I'm not.

Tom: I'm not offended by it, but I wouldn't pick it.

Gagan: Because it's not the most offensive one that we've gone over at this point already.

Gagan: The previous three, I think, are worse games than The Last of Us.

Tom: My question just would be, other than spawning off a couple of copycat games that failed miserably, did it really actually have much influence?

Gagan: None.

Gagan: None, none, none whatsoever.

Tom: Exactly.

Gagan: No, as an influential, no, I don't think, I don't think Naughty Dog has ever made an influential video game.

Tom: I think Tomb Raider was influential.

Gagan: Not them.

Gagan: Oh, no, you mean Tomb Raider

Tom: Well, they didn't make that either, so.

Tom: But they didn't influence that.

Tom: But yeah, they kind of produce, they inspire copycat games, but they don't really Yeah.

Tom: influence things in general.

Gagan: Yeah, I don't think of their game the way I think of Mario or like Thief or Half-Life or Doom.

Gagan: Yep.

Gagan: Like those aren't just, like they had influence, they had, they changed the way the genre would be developed at that point.

Tom: Yeah.

Gagan: Right?

Gagan: Like even Halo, you could argue it has a qualified influence and that it's all console FPS?

Tom: I think Halo is a perfectly fair choice for having this massive influence for its multiplayer because PC multiplayer shooters didn't really follow the same sort of model and that basically became the model for console online first person shooters.

Tom: I think if you're making an argument based on the single player or mechanics, it's kind of questionable.

Tom: But in terms of its online influence, it was massively influential.

Gagan: So time out, this is a list about influence or the quality of the game or both?

Tom: I'm pretty sure the main criteria was influence.

Tom: It was two things.

Tom: One, influence was definitely a considered factor, but not the only factor.

Tom: And two, I think they had to be symbolic of trends and defining characteristics of the game.

Gagan: Okay, then I don't think Tetris Effect is anywhere close enough.

Gagan: Now I'm back to Tetris Effect.

Tom: It's there just for VR.

Gagan: It's a little, if then it's, then I think it's the wrong VR placeholder.

Gagan: I think.

Tom: Definitely.

Tom: I would agree it was his pick.

Gagan: I think Superhot VR is the right pick, maybe?

Gagan: Or Astrobot.

Tom: Again, wrong.

Tom: There's two potential picks.

Gagan: Okay.

Tom: One is Nintendo Labo and the other is Beat Saber.

Gagan: Actually Beat Saber is probably also the other one.

Gagan: That's another good one, yeah.

Gagan: Those are the games that, but I think Astrobot is the one where I think of where I'm like, it probably isn't the mass market game though.

Tom: I think you really can't go past Beat Saber.

Gagan: Astrobot is the game where I'm just like, where I go, like if I were to play VR, that's the game.

Tom: Yeah.

Gagan: I want to try.

Gagan: That's the game that could solidify VR for me.

Gagan: But Astrobot is more like, I'm the enthusiast.

Gagan: So I want the gamey game that has like good gameplay.

Gagan: So I don't know.

Gagan: Maybe that's something, cause like Walking Dead has the influence.

Gagan: I accept that.

Gagan: I don't accept Depression Quest.

Gagan: That's, that influence is completely different.

Gagan: And I don't even think the game has a role to play.

Tom: That should be number one.

Gagan: Technically, the timeline works that way, I think.

Tom: And I think it does, because for the Gamergate to kick off, which is arguably inevitable, depression quest or no depression quest, you need, one, a female developer, and two, you need a female developer making a serious game with themes that are making commentary on a serious subject.

Gagan: I'm glad that you are at least very into...

Gagan: I'm at the least.

Gagan: I was worried where you were gonna go with that, but I'm like, okay, great.

Gagan: He knows that they're all just sexist scumbags.

Gagan: Okay, that's good.

Gagan: So, Last of Us, I think, on an influential list wouldn't belong, but if you were making like the best games of the s, I actually don't...

Gagan: I wouldn't put it on a list, but I'm not...

Gagan: of these critical darlings, the greatest sets of metacritic games that would make those type of lists, I find The Last of Us to be the least nauseating of those games, because it's generally...

Tom: I think I do too.

Gagan: Because I think it's genuinely good at a lot of things.

Tom: Yep, the finale in particular is phenomenal.

Gagan: The finale is pretty good.

Gagan: I think the gameplay actually is pretty strong in moments.

Gagan: It could be better.

Tom: My main criticism of the game is, and the thing that just ruins it for me to a great degree, is that essentially the first three hours are a combination of walking simulator and tutorial.

Tom: And...

Gagan: The opening hour, I forgot about, yeah.

Tom: Yeah, it was an interesting choice by Naughty Dog, who are meant to be good at pacing, but they basically just made the pacing and the final third amazing and kind of stuffed up the rest of it.

Gagan: I've learned that they've never been good at pacing, because they're, like they're good at pacing for a specific stretch of the game and then it all goes down.

Tom: Yeah, they're good at pacing scenarios, but they're not good at pacing the overall structure.

Gagan: Yeah.

Tom: And The Last of Us, to me, is the worst at that.

Tom: Of their two potentially good games, that is Uncharted and The Last of Us.

Gagan: Jack is a very good game, but that's neither here nor there.

Gagan: It's also their best game.

Gagan: That's also neither here nor there.

Gagan: Who do you think is an example of someone who's really good at pacing in a video game?

Tom: Bayonetta

Gagan: Okay.

Gagan: All right, let's move on.

Gagan: I'm not questioning that take.

Gagan: That's probably a good take.

Gagan: I want an idea, so I have an idea.

Gagan: Then we have Dear Esther.

Gagan: Is this also because it influenced a bunch of boring-ass, lame-ass walking games?

Tom: It not only influenced a bunch of walking simulators, it is the ultimate walking simulator.

Tom: And-

Gagan: It's so garbage.

Tom: And unlike Gone Home, where there is a splitting criticism between people who hate it due to its themes, in a similar way to Depression Quest, people hate Dear Esther-

Gagan: Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, they're sexists?

Tom: Yes.

Tom: And they're also only fans of lesbians when they're probably not actually lesbians, but are being filmed having sex with women, when they're women.

Tom: So there's two reasons for them to dislike it there.

Gagan: Yeah, okay, yeah, so they're deplorable human beings, okay.

Tom: Yes.

Tom: But Dear Esther, the whole debate about whether Dear Esther is good or not is all about it being a walking simulator.

Tom: And it was created as an experiment in whether a walking simulator would succeed or not.

Tom: So I think it is the quintessential walking simulator and the s walking simulators were a big deal.

Gagan: The walking simulator is the worst genre to ever happen to video games.

Gagan: I wish it nothing but death and to never come back ever again once it is gone.

Gagan: So I naturally am not happy about Dear Esther's influence.

Gagan: You are correct that it is an influential game, but not only is the influence bad, the game itself is bad.

Gagan: To the tune that they're not video games.

Gagan: Walking games are not games.

Gagan: They are a sick practical joke.

Gagan: We have given too much amusement to, we need to stop doing that.

Gagan: Please and thank you.

Gagan: Moving on.

Gagan: Dark Souls is a no-brainer.

Gagan: Although, I guess Dark Souls is the no-brainer, even though like technically speaking, the actual influential title is Demon's Souls.

Tom: But it came out in

Gagan: That is correct.

Gagan: But it is the actual, so this is my question.

Gagan: Like, let's say if Gears of War came out in, let's say the third-person cover shooter, like let's push it years forward, as in it happened a little bit later.

Gagan: Kill Switch comes out in Gears of War comes out in

Gagan: Gears of War is an influential title of the decade, even though Kill Switch is technically the actual influential title?

Gagan: Yes.

Tom: I think so.

Tom: And I think also, just on that point, you can also argue whether you wanna pick the game that kind of invented the thing or the one that popularized it.

Tom: And even though it's the one series that applies to Dark Souls and Team Souls as well.

Gagan: You're right, that's true.

Gagan: Dark Souls is the one that like sort of put the, like Dark Souls solidified that formula to a lot of people.

Tom: Yep.

Tom: And that's when it got mainstream acceptance.

Gagan: More so, yeah.

Gagan: Prepare to Die is, Prepare to Die is still like the tagline people associate with that franchise.

Gagan: Like that has not been the tagline for the games after that or Bloodborne or Sekiro, but that is very much Prepare to Die.

Gagan: Yep.

Gagan: Like that is, you know, that's still ingrained in my head much in the same way that I associate, finish the fight with Halo, AKA start another fight.

Gagan: But, you know, Dark Souls is very much, you know, deserving.

Gagan: That weird persistent online thing it has going on where people can invade worlds or like are sort of pseudo always online has always been in other games.

Gagan: It's not done to the same effect as Dark Souls because it's always like a half big version of it, right?

Gagan: But it's there in a lot of games.

Gagan: So that's there.

Gagan: That's another feather in its cap, I think.

Tom: That's arguably probably its biggest influence because have games really in general become that much harder since it?

Gagan: Not harder, but so, you know how for a little while-

Tom: They certainly require more competence from the player for a better description.

Gagan: So the thing I was gonna get at is like, you know how for a little while, the worst thing that happened to Melee Combat Video Games was that they all decided that Batman was the greatest combat system in the world?

Gagan: And we had to play really bad, Simon Says.

Gagan: Now, slowly that tide is turning into very souls-like lock-on combat with slow, deliberate attacks.

Gagan: Like, Dad of War may not overtly be a souls game, but it certainly has some of its lineage, I feel, you know?

Tom: I would still put it online as being kind of more influential because...

Gagan: No, it's definitely there, yeah.

Tom: Yeah, in a sense, Dark Souls is Zelda combat, but done well.

Gagan: It is.

Tom: So, we're returning to Zelda influencing action and adventure games rather than Batman.

Gagan: It is, but I think the Stamina Gauge is the thing, ultimately.

Gagan: Like, maybe Stamina Gages have existed before, and I'm sure they did.

Gagan: But I think you have Nioh, which is like the technical action version.

Gagan: You have The Surge and Lords of Fallen, which are very blatant examples.

Gagan: The most recent Star Wars...

Gagan: The developers are literally talking about copying Sekiro.

Gagan: And Ghost of Tsushima, right?

Gagan: That sucker punch game coming out.

Tom: Yep.

Gagan: Remains to be seen which combat it goes with, but I could easily see it being very much like a slower Souls game, because God, please do not try to pawn up.

Gagan: And the most recent Assassin's Creed actually has Souls combat.

Gagan: Very bad, bad Souls combat, but it's there and The Witcher technically had bad Souls combat.

Gagan: The Witcher less so.

Tom: The Witcher was pretty different.

Gagan: Yeah, yeah.

Gagan: The Witcher is its own thing.

Gagan: And there was-

Tom: Unfortunately.

Gagan: Let me put it this way.

Gagan: When they did the leak for Devil May Cry one of the bullet points was like reassuring people that like we're not gonna put a stamina gauge in Devil May Cry.

Gagan: And let me tell you how quickly I wanted to cry because just the idea of that being done so the action Jackson's would have been the death.

Gagan: I'm like, this is it.

Tom: You hadn't even thought of that.

Gagan: I didn't think they could ever do that to the genre, but it's like, oh my God, how can Dark Souls be the game that ruins the genre?

Gagan: Why are we being betrayed by a good game?

Tom: That would be the number one anime betrayal, let alone top

Gagan: It would be.

Gagan: It would be.

Gagan: Dark Souls is supposed to be on our side, the real game side.

Gagan: Don't do that.

Gagan: Yeah, I mean, Dark Souls belongs on the list just because I think Dark Souls is a great ass game.

Gagan: I love how little story is in your way.

Gagan: Oh my God.

Gagan: There's so many things about Dark Souls.

Gagan: Also, I think as simplistic as Dark Souls combat is, it is so satisfying.

Gagan: It's really good.

Gagan: It shows you how you can still get a lot of mileage out of just like placing enemies in the right spot, giving enemies certain options and making you like work for space and positioning in a combat.

Gagan: Like not everything has to be YYYYB, launch, bang, drop them, dead, rinse and repeat over and over and over again.

Tom: Absolutely.

Gagan: Because like again, as much as I love Double Bay Cry, one thing you have already seen and are going to continue to see is while Dante keeps getting all sorts of fancy new tools, his enemies kind of aren't getting enough new tools to deal with the fact that like this guy can like really move the fuck around, you know what I mean?

Gagan: So yeah, I'll give Dark Souls its props on that one.

Gagan: I think Dark Souls could be even more aggressive with the enemy positioning and enemy mixing, but it's better than most games at enemy mixing.

Gagan: Next up is Pokemon Go.

Gagan: I feel like that game is more fad than influence.

Gagan: Even if it was like the greatest like life fad of all time.

Gagan: It certainly got people out of the house.

Tom: The list isn't solely influence, it's also defining moments of the decade.

Gagan: What was, was it a defining moment of the decade?

Tom: I think so.

Gagan: People died.

Gagan: Well, that's true.

Gagan: People did literally die trying to catch a Pokemon.

Tom: Surely that's a defining moment.

Gagan: I mean, it's certainly defining moment for-

Tom: It was for the families.

Gagan: We're just gonna move on from that one.

Gagan: FIFA Ultimate Team in FIFA

Gagan: This is actually the correct pick, yes.

Gagan: I get the loot box thing.

Gagan: Cause I was gonna be pedantic and say Mass Effect is technically the loot box origin story.

Gagan: But you're right.

Gagan: It's probably FIFA but FIFA would be the...

Tom: According to the little bit of research we did, it is indeed FIFA

Gagan: So, okay.

Gagan: Obviously would never make my list cause it's just not a good game.

Gagan: Soccer itself is just not a good sport.

Gagan: So just get that shit off the board.

Tom: Have you ever played FIFA?

Gagan: I played PES.

Tom: Well, that's better than FIFA anyway.

Gagan: Yeah.

Gagan: But I've played, I think FIFA, I played maybe drunk at a, like that's the only time I could think of.

Gagan: I like, I remember like college mates being into FIFA, but I just never, but the only sports title I ever like super played were that weren't like Tony Hawk and shit.

Gagan: Were like Madden, obviously.

Gagan: ESPN NFL Kand the NBA Street Games.

Gagan: Oh, and NHL Blitz.

Gagan: Basically every sport, but soccer.

Gagan: So yeah, fuck soccer.

Gagan: Although Rocket League is a great, fantastic game.

Tom: That's the most soccer game of them all.

Gagan: And it's the greatest soccer game too.

Gagan: It's the greatest version of soccer period.

Gagan: The actual sport sucks.

Gagan: We should officially call Rocket League the beautiful game.

Gagan: Okay, thank you.

Tom: So what you're saying is you're a massive futsal fan, but you don't know it.

Gagan: Maybe.

Gagan: Okay, so I'm a big fan of Arsenal Fan TV.

Tom: Because they do stuff like that on there.

Gagan: Do you watch soccer?

Tom: Yes, I do.

Gagan: Okay, so I'm a big fan of Arsenal Fan TV.

Gagan: Specifically the wenger in, wenger out period of Arsenal Fan TV.

Gagan: Because their existential crisis of being Arsenal fans while wenger kept fucking it up is just such joy.

Gagan: The guy Troops is my hero.

Gagan: He had a moment where he's like, me mom called me and she said she was wenger in.

Gagan: I said, mom, are you mad?

Gagan: I love you but I could not resist laughing so hard.

Gagan: Oh my God, he would be crying and screaming.

Gagan: He'd be like, man, if you love this franchise, he would quit his job and get someone else in there.

Gagan: I'm like, yeah, he's gonna quit.

Gagan: He's gonna be like, listen, I don't like this whole getting paid thing.

Gagan: Just get someone else in here.

Gagan: Cause I love our organization too much.

Gagan: Oh, I love that show.

Gagan: But then, you know, then they got rid of wenger and it's just not the same now.

Gagan: Now when our-

Tom: So you would definitely wenger in.

Gagan: I wanted to wenger in for-

Tom: So that would never end.

Gagan: Yes.

Gagan: But like now when they fuck up, it's just not the same, you know?

Gagan: It's not like, I don't even know who the new guy is.

Gagan: I mean, my, Al Josa is a Chelsea fan.

Gagan: So I like calling them Chelsea and calling them assholes.

Gagan: Yep.

Gagan: And who's their old coach?

Gagan: Jose Mourinho?

Tom: Jose Mourinho.

Gagan: Mourinho.

Gagan: I know that guy is funny.

Gagan: And then I like dunking on Lionel Messi, who's supposed to be the greatest soccer player of all time.

Gagan: I'm assuming he is.

Tom: He's certainly one of.

Gagan: Okay, yeah.

Tom: Basically you can pick between him, Maradona and Ronaldo.

Gagan: Well, I like telling people that Lionel Messi is a stupid-looking dwarf.

Gagan: Yeah, so I don't care.

Gagan: And then Ronaldo, I know Ronaldo got his teeth fixed, so that's good for him.

Gagan: You know, I remember earlier, I remember he'd just be like, man, that dude needs a dentist.

Gagan: Because he's too handsome to like not have seen a dentist.

Gagan: Like the rest of you is like really good looking.

Gagan: Like you should see a dentist.

Gagan: Yeah, underselling yourself.

Gagan: Fortnite and number two, now that we've gotten off the soccer tangent.

Tom: What you're going to say is that it should be pub.

Gagan: I think if you're going to put the Battle Royale title, okay.

Gagan: So if it's influence is definitely pubge.

Gagan: Yep.

Gagan: Defining moment, I guess, is Fortnite, but I still think it's pubge.

Gagan: Because here's the difference, right?

Tom: Yep.

Gagan: Fortnite was free and on the number one selling console of this generation, the BS

Gagan: PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has the name PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, right?

Gagan: It's not made by Epic Games, the creators of Gears of War and Unreal Tournament, and the Unreal Engine, right?

Gagan: And it's not free, you have to pay $

Gagan: That fucking game became this phenomenon.

Gagan: I don't care if it was like, Milly Vanilli freaking Vanilla Ice tier, one hit wonder, like hotness.

Gagan: The point was, it was red hot to the tune that the Cliffy B multiplayer game came out and no one gave a fuck because we were all busy playing pubs, right?

Gagan: And like that game did not have the benefit of being free, that game did not have the benefit of like having like, like these world class programmers who've like built a legacy in a career already, making a more polished product, that game did not have the benefit of we started as one thing, but then we just tacked on this free battle royale mode and then we realized, oh fuck, we'd make way more money if we just made this the way Fortnite did, and I think PUBG in that regard is like the bigger story of, like it is the bigger story for the genre.

Gagan: It is the defining, it solidifies the genre as a seller, because the other games have to be free.

Gagan: PUBG made you pay bucks and you have, and people paid for it in droves.

Gagan: That game is like some insane number of copies on Steam, like million or something.

Gagan: I understand that it is buggy in spots.

Gagan: I still think like, if you ask people who play Battle Royale games, they will all agree maybe one or two things, another game does better.

Gagan: Apex Legends seems to be accepted as like the best like one, if you like start looking at it in a more critical sort of way, right?

Gagan: But they will all agree to one thing I think, which is that like getting that first chicken dinner is on a different level from getting the first win in the other games.

Gagan: Maybe because it's like the first Battle Royale win for a lot of people, right?

Gagan: So maybe...

Tom: The first win in Fortnite, for instance, is against AI designed to let you win apparently.

Gagan: Yeah, so like, there you go, but like, in pubs, like, that shit is...

Gagan: I was hearing my heartbeat the whole time with my hand on the mouse and the other one on WASD.

Gagan: And that's just like...

Tom: Without even having played pub, I think it's undoubtedly the better game.

Tom: It's certainly the greater achievement as far as the developers are concerned, but I think you simply cannot go past how massive Fortnite is as a cultural phenomenon outside of games.

Tom: But there's one major reason that there is no way pub is ever getting on a list that has anything to do with me.

Tom: And that is, it is called PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, two words with the U in PlayerUnknown as one word capitalised.

Tom: So there are two valid acronyms for this.

Tom: One is PB because it's two words, and the other is PUB or pub because you've got the U capitalised.

Tom: For some fucking reason, it is referred to as PUB, and I'm sorry, but that is not acceptable.

Gagan: That's petty and I respect it, so that's okay.

Gagan: So it's okay.

Gagan: I'm a bigger fan of the petty than the list, so that's okay.

Gagan: Yeah, I'm not against Minecraft at one.

Gagan: Given the nature of the list, now I accept Minecraft at one.

Gagan: I don't think it's the best game of the decade, obviously.

Gagan: Neither do you.

Tom: I'm also personally annoyed by it, because I swear to God that I bought it early on, before it became a cultural phenomenon, but I was never able to find where the fuck I bought it, so I could never play it, even though I am convinced that I bought the fucking thing.

Tom: So fuck Notch and fuck Minecraft, but it's still number one.

Gagan: Now that we've discussed the list, I don't hate the list nearly as much.

Gagan: Yep.

Gagan: But I still don't.

Gagan: No.

Gagan: I'm still very much like I'd rather, like obviously if I'd make a list, I would not give the flyingest of fucks about like what influenced what, I don't care, like what were the best games of that year, of that decade, to me they wouldn't make the list.

Tom: Well, none of those games would make my own list, nor did they.

Tom: Well how about you put your money where your mouth is and come up with a list of your own?

Gagan: I'll try to make a quick, that I think would be in the conversation.

Gagan: I have games I have to cut

Gagan: Okay.

Gagan: Okay.

Gagan: Would Bayonetta make my top ?

Gagan: Yeah probably.

Gagan: That one's a free one.

Gagan: Galaxy over the rest of this list, I don't want to cut it yet.

Gagan: Super Street Fighter I'm going to cut.

Gagan: It's more influential fighting game obviously of this decade is Street Fighter

Gagan: Technically the title was Super Street Fighter obviously.

Gagan: It sort of revitalized the Capcom fighting game scene and sort of brought more energy back to the fighting game audience, right?

Gagan: At least to the locals and the pro scene and as a result other fighting games.

Gagan: BlazBlue being the other one but not my game of choice.

Gagan: Dark Souls I will actually cut because Dark Souls is not my favorite of those games.

Gagan: Actually Demon's Souls which is not part of this list but Bloodborne I actually like Bloodborne a little bit maybe I like Bloodborne more maybe I do like Dark Souls more.

Gagan: Let's see Dark Souls on I'm gonna cut Bloodborne even though Dark Souls is busted in ways though.

Gagan: So I'm gonna cut Bloodborne for now just cuz I'm not a type of person that I do like Dark Souls a little bit more as like a favoritism thing.

Gagan: I'm going to will I take space cam over antechamber the witness and Baba is you.

Gagan: I'll cut Baba is you cuz I don't know if it hangs with the other group and I will I will cut the witness and I will speak the blasphemy and cut antechamber towers my friend.

Gagan: I'm sorry.

Gagan: I have you played space cam?

Tom: No.

Gagan: Or a Zachtronics puzzle game at all?

Tom: What are the other ones?

Gagan: Opus Magnum, Infinifactory, TIS and there's one I'm also missing.

Gagan: Shenzhen.

Tom: I own, I think, let's see.

Tom: I own three of them and yet haven't played any of them somehow.

Gagan: So this guy makes really cool puzzles.

Gagan: I think whenever you get around to one, you probably will still be upset that I cut Anti-Chamber, but you'll at least understand the appeal of this guy's puzzle games, which will make me happy.

Gagan: Am I gonna be a dick and put Wonderful and Devil May Cry and Bayonett on the same list?

Gagan: Probably.

Gagan: But I do like Rainbow Six Siege, so.

Gagan: Siege and Rocket League have to be up there.

Gagan: I play those games a lot.

Gagan: So I'm moving those forward.

Gagan: Tekken is going forward.

Gagan: Tekken is fucking hype.

Gagan: I love watching the pro scene of that game.

Gagan: So right now we have at least five games locked in, three of them multiplayer and Devil May Cry is a given.

Gagan: I should put Dragon Ball FighterZ on my list because I put like hours into that video game, but I am a pretentious poser, so we're backspacing that off.

Gagan: A lot of that game is just because I get wins in that game, baby.

Gagan: Guilty Gear Revelator is a really good fighting game, but again, I don't like the fact that Ben keeps beating me in that game, so that's actually a really good fighting engine.

Gagan: I should put it on the list.

Gagan: Neo, I like Neo, I love Neo.

Gagan: I would put Space Cam Forward as my puzzle game selection.

Gagan: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, so three games.

Gagan: I want to put Dragon Ball FighterZ back on the list because I put hours into that video game and I like Goku.

Gagan: So as you can see, I'm very beholden to my cuts.

Gagan: So I'm going to cut Guilty Gear.

Gagan: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Gagan: So I got to get two games on this list.

Gagan: This is tough.

Gagan: I really like Hideki Kamiya's Wonderful so I'm going to put this on the list, so that brings us to nine.

Gagan: Out of the ten, I could put Dark Souls, I could put Galaxy put Hotline Miami, Mark of the Ninja, or Breath of the Wild.

Gagan: I'm not going to put Breath of the Wild, because ultimately I'll always come back to the I don't like that combat, and it seldom looks like you're carried away.

Tom: Your reputation would never recover, let's be honest.

Gagan: Yeah, you know, it's already, it's never going to recover after what I did to ANTI-JAMER, let's really think about it.

Gagan: Man, I want to, I love Mark of the Ninja, I don't love Mark of the Ninja.

Tom: Go Hotline Miami, because I failed to pick that somehow.

Gagan: Hotline Miami over Mario Galaxy and Dark Souls, though?

Gagan: I got all the achievements in Dark Souls, but here's the thing that's stopping me from putting Dark Souls on the list, right?

Gagan: Lost Izalith is fucking terrible.

Gagan: Demon Ruins are fucking terrible.

Gagan: You can cheese the ever loving shit out of that game by simply circle-shifting a lot of the enemies and backstabbing them and you do mad damage.

Gagan: The AI is incapable of handling that.

Gagan: This is something that is fixed in all their other games, but that game has the best speed runs in the franchise.

Gagan: That game has that great world of interconnected levels.

Gagan: The bosses are good.

Gagan: It has the best Estus system in the franchise.

Gagan: It has the best lore of the games, if not Bloodborne.

Tom: You're really using lore as an argument.

Gagan: I know, it's gotten bad.

Gagan: It's gotten bad.

Gagan: The thing I would hold against Mario Galaxy even though it's a pristine work of platforming, is the Galaxy games came at the expense of the complex movement of Mario and Sunshine.

Gagan: Galaxy probably is my favorite D Mario game, but I don't love it the way I play a Souls game.

Gagan: So I'm going to go with Dark Souls over this.

Gagan: I'm going to go with Dark Souls over Hotline.

Gagan: So the only indie game that made my list was actually Rocket League and Space Cam.

Gagan: Okay, so I don't feel that bad.

Gagan: Okay, that's fine.

Gagan: So my top do I have to order it?

Tom: Yes, you do.

Gagan: So currently my games are Bayonetta Dark Souls, Space Cam, Wonderful Rocket League, Rainbow Six Siege, Tekken Neo, Dragon Ball FighterZ, Devil May Cry

Gagan: I'm going to put Dragon Ball FighterZ at

Gagan: Even though of these games, it probably has like my most hours.

Gagan: And whenever I'm in a mood, I'll play that game online.

Gagan: I like fighting games now.

Gagan: A lot of that has to do with me really getting way too into Dragon Ball FighterZ because they finally decided to make a good video game with the Dragon Ball IP.

Gagan: Again, since the last time they made like a real fighting game and not like Budokai.

Gagan: I mean, like I forgot what the name of the PS or the arcade Dragon Ball Fighting game is called.

Gagan: But whatever, it's really good.

Gagan: It's like a Marvel vs Capcom style game.

Gagan: There are simpler combo paths.

Gagan: The only reason I almost took it off the list is because the game does have an issue with some of the cast being a bit homogenized.

Gagan: Which is not what I like about fighting games.

Gagan: Like I like the asymmetrical nature of the matchups.

Tom: Yep, definitely.

Gagan: So that part being a bit compromised in DBFZ is a bit frustrating at times.

Gagan: I also think the neutral play in DBFZ could be better.

Gagan: But again, it has Goku and Goku is pretty rad.

Gagan: So I like playing that game.

Gagan: RX's system works, you devils.

Gagan: They made a better fighting game this decade.

Gagan: It was called Guilty Gear and I should have put that on the list.

Gagan: But I'm not cool enough to be one of those people who put the Guilty Gear on the list.

Gagan: So I'm sorry.

Gagan: Dragon Ball FighterZ made it to th.

Gagan: Number I'm actually going to put Dark Souls.

Gagan: At number because they begrudgingly made my list.

Gagan: So now I'm going to actually move Dark Souls to th.

Gagan: I was actually going to humor the idea of going to th.

Gagan: Because all of the stuff I just said earlier about the things that are wrong with it.

Gagan: Number I'm going to put The Wonderful

Gagan: One of the more inventive action games of this generation.

Gagan: Although now I feel like a poser because I think Anti-Chamber is the best game of that year.

Gagan: So if The Wonderful made this list from Anti-Chamber, make the list.

Gagan: Okay, so The Wonderful was off this list because I'm not cool enough to have it on the list.

Gagan: Anti-Chamber is back on, baby!

Gagan: Hallelujah.

Gagan: I didn't notice that fact.

Gagan: I'm sorry.

Tom: Wonderful is awesome though too.

Gagan: Wonderful is awesome.

Gagan: So Anti-Chamber takes Wonderful 's spot at th above Dark Souls and Dragon Ball FighterZ.

Gagan: What a comeback from being cut to th.

Gagan: Yeah, you and I really like how the puzzles work in that game.

Gagan: I like the trippy abstract bullshit vibe that game has going on.

Gagan: Like I'm all about looking through one lens and like, Oh my God, I got teleported like yeah, whatever.

Gagan: Yeah, that game is cool.

Gagan: After that, I'm putting, I'm gonna put Rainbow Six Siege at

Gagan: I'm still in shock that Ubisoft has made this video game.

Gagan: I don't understand how they made the best tactical shooter maybe ever made.

Gagan: It doesn't make sense.

Gagan: I don't know what Black Magic, I don't know if they made a deal with the devil that this game worked out right.

Gagan: It's probably a better Counter-Strike game than any of the actual Counter-Strike games.

Gagan: Half the time it's a little busted and it's still the best fucking, I don't understand it.

Gagan: They made a great first-person shooter out of Aim Down the Sites.

Gagan: Whereas I used to think the peak of Aim Down the Sites for first-person shooters was yeah it's good, but it can't be great.

Gagan: But Siege breaks that trend.

Gagan: So yeah Siege is at, what do I have it now?

Gagan: Dragon Ball Dark Souls, Anti-Chamber Siege, so that's seven.

Gagan: At sixth I'm going to put Space Chem.

Gagan: I would like to put my Puzzle Game Darlings higher.

Gagan: Because I like Puzzle Games.

Gagan: But I'm not big brain enough to put them in the top five.

Gagan: The Space Chem will have to be at six.

Gagan: And you would like Zachtronics games, so you should play them.

Tom: That is one of them that I can indeed play.

Tom: Apparently Zachtronics also made Eliza.

Tom: Which is a visual novel, not a Puzzle Game.

Gagan: Um, at number five, I'm going to put Rocket League, the beautiful game, enough said, uh...

Tom: The greatest futsal simulator of all time.

Gagan: At number four, I'm going to put Nioh and not...

Gagan: And this is why Dark Souls keeps falling down the list, is because even though I think From Software is much better at level design, and you could definitely make content complaints about Nioh as well, but Nioh has that type of technical combat system that I like fawn over and love fucking with, even when...

Gagan: I would rather get my ass kicked in Nioh than get my ass kicked in Dark Souls, is the way I look at it.

Gagan: It's just because when you get going in Nioh, Dark Souls can never compete.

Gagan: That type of fix that Dark Souls provides, it's really good in eor D game, but I've always thought it's better done in D games, that very tight positioning and tight enemy placement gameplay, or in really good first person shooter at least.

Gagan: I like the sauce.

Gagan: I like to be in on the action and be more of an active participant, and I think Nioh does it much better, so I'll put Nioh at th.

Gagan: I will put Tekken at rd.

Gagan: The first thing to learn with that game is look up what Korean Backdash is, and then the way that change is neutral is really fascinating, because Tekken now, I feel like it has a little bit of every fighting game in its neutral in that it's a very footsies game.

Gagan: Footsies means you're sort of poking at each other.

Gagan: So sort of like, you're poking at each other's range where you can't like really convert into real combos, like you're trying to get them to be like, yo, I'm here.

Gagan: It's a very, in tag games, you're worried that one bad step will actually erase your entire health bar.

Gagan: Like in those games, you can get combos long enough that it like destroys you.

Gagan: And in Tekken, one really bad play in neutral gets you blown up for a lot of damage.

Gagan: So you're playing on like this razor's edge.

Gagan: And like the thing with Korean Backdash is it's based around a fun movement system.

Gagan: You know what I mean?

Gagan: Like moving and grooving is, in the history of video games, like I think movement is the secret sauce for a lot of games, you know what I mean?

Gagan: Like moving around projectiles in Doom, moving as Mario, moving in Quake, and in fighting games it is very much about movement.

Gagan: Like one of the issues with our th place is that it has a very powerful movement technique that is very one dimensional.

Gagan: So yeah, that sort of hurts it a little bit.

Gagan: Combos are really fun to learn in that game.

Gagan: Even if they're a bit dialy, they are not repetitive necessarily, just because, or not repetitive, redundant.

Gagan: And yeah, you have the asymmetrical matchups.

Gagan: The character I like playing, Nina Williams, she's very big on frame trapping people.

Gagan: It's...

Tom: I was in Tag Tournament a big Naina fan.

Gagan: Nina is great.

Gagan: And then the pro scene is, professional Tekken is legitimately hype.

Gagan: The crowd's hot into it.

Gagan: The players are really good, worth watching.

Gagan: Number two, so number one and two are Bayonetta and Devil May Cry in exactly that order.

Gagan: The reason I went with that order is I probably want to like Devil May Cry more than Bayonetta, but I spent basically the entire decade not liking a video game more than Bayonetta.

Gagan: So I kind of want Bayonetta to still have the win, even though, you know, in the final year, a game came along that I love as much as Bayonetta.

Gagan: Plus, I think it's fitting for a podcast that Bayonetta wins.

Gagan: So there you go, that's my top ten.

Gagan: As you can see, I give no fucks about Influence.

Gagan: I only care about the games that appeal to Gaggan and Gaggan only, because all of these games, well, not all of them, but enough of them are not exactly commercial darlings.

Gagan: I think the most successful game is Rainbow Six Siege on this list.

Gagan: No, yeah, it's definitely the most successful.

Tom: Wouldn't Tekken be pretty successful?

Gagan: Successful, yes, but not Rainbow Six Siege.

Gagan: Not on the same level.

Gagan: Rainbow Six, Tekken, I think, is like million, million sold, which isn't that much higher than Novo Micro you know what I mean?

Gagan: So, I mean, Rocket League is probably...

Gagan: Rocket League and Rainbow Six Siege are both highly successful titles, though.

Tom: Yeah, I forgot about Rocket League.

Tom: That would probably, actually, surely be more successful than Siege.

Gagan: I don't think so.

Tom: That was a massive hit, surely.

Gagan: It's a massive hit, but I think Rocket League is still bigger.

Gagan: I mean, Siege is bigger.

Gagan: I mean, plus I think if you throw in the microtransaction bullshit, I think they make more money.

Tom: Well, it is Ubisoft, so.

Gagan: Listen, it came at a cost, let's just say.

Gagan: But yeah, that's my games.

Gagan: I like gameplay.

Gagan: Please give me games.

Gagan: Doom looks cool, Ori looks cool, Nioh looks cool.

Gagan: I want those.

Gagan: Please release Bayonetta

Tom: Yep.

Gagan: Do not make a Yakuza combat like Yakuza ever again.

Gagan: Yakuza had good ideas.

Gagan: Please keep building on that.

Gagan: You need to send a public apology for Kiwami Negotiate.

Gagan: Please make Binary Domain

Gagan: What else would you like to tell the people, Thomas?

Tom: I was just going to say two of your games made my list.

Tom: I'm sure you can guess which ones.

Gagan: Antichamber and Bayonetta.

Tom: Yes.

Gagan: Good.

Gagan: Oh yeah.

Gagan: I'm proud to have gotten you...

Gagan: I'm proud to have provided you the wisdom that is Bayonetta.

Gagan: It's great.

Tom: You didn't.

Gagan: I did.

Gagan: Okay.

Gagan: First of all, come on.

Gagan: All right.

Gagan: Come on.

Gagan: Second of all, come on.

Gagan: All right.

Gagan: Third of all, the other big reason I would put Bayonetta over Devil May Cry

Gagan: If I...

Gagan: Devil May Cry I think is funner to learn the combos and just expressing yourself than Bayonetta.

Gagan: Just more freeform.

Gagan: That just cannot be debated.

Gagan: and I think boss fights are more fun to like fuck up in Devil May Cry than they are in Bayonetta as we establish.

Gagan: Yup.

Gagan: But I care about the mechanics that get used against a player and I find Bayonetta's enemies are nothing short of excellent.

Gagan: And they're much better than the Devil May Cry enemies.

Gagan: In fact, you could probably take a lot of DMCenemies to task.

Tom: That's why I love Bayonetta.

Gagan: That's why Bayonetta is number one on both of our lists.

Tom: Sadly, it isn't number one on my list.

Gagan: So I'm glad NC Chamber is number one on your list.

Tom: It isn't.

Gagan: Have I restain Tom?

Tom: No.

Tom: Number one will be, um, I don't think you'll be a fan of it.

Gagan: That's fine.

Tom: I'm not sure if you've heard of it either.

Tom: Yeah, just the last thing on both of our lists, it is a disappointment that we both failed to get Hotline Miami into our top

Gagan: I want to put Hotline Miami, but it was a really good decade.

Tom: Yeah, absolutely.

Gagan: And that I'm obligated to put Dragon Ball Fighters on my list because it's like the more I've like learned fighting games, the more I'm like, yeah, Dragon Ball Fighters is more like a seven.

Gagan: But then I keep putting more hours into that game.

Gagan: So that's like, I guess I have to like put this game on the list because I love this stupid game.

Gagan: But it's busted.

Gagan: But okay, so.

Tom: You're putting it there to justify the fact that it has destroyed your life entirely.

Gagan: No, I love it.

Gagan: I love it.

Gagan: It's so fun.

Gagan: Every now and then, I get like a really, really satisfying win in that game after a long today.

Gagan: I beat someone in that game.

Gagan: I was going to leave when the set was at

Gagan: I didn't know we were playing that long, but the guy asked for one more match, one more match was like, OK, fine, I'll do one more match.

Gagan: He started.

Gagan: I got him down three characters to one.

Gagan: He started coming back with his last character.

Gagan: He had my last character dead to rights.

Gagan: He missed his pick up on the combo.

Gagan: I mashed Super Dash so fast and then a few jabs, I did a super and I was praying the whole time, like, please kill, please kill, please kill.

Gagan: I set to the animation, it killed, I was like, yes.

Gagan: Those are the things I love about fighting games.

Gagan: When someone else chokes and you fucking steal that win from them.

Tom: Nice.

Gagan: Yes.

Tom: Before we go, just on fighting games, what are your thoughts on the Smash Bros.

Tom: series?

Gagan: The first one is an interesting concept.

Gagan: Melee is a fantastic game and arguably the deepest game Nintendo's ever made, right?

Gagan: At least multiplayer-wise, it's definitely like without here.

Gagan: The stuff people do in that game from the movement is just, yeah, like you can hear the terms wave dash, L cancel, pivoting and all that dash dancing and all that sort of shit.

Gagan: But it's like when you see it applied in space, the way people move, it's like, okay, yes, that is very much a different game from the Smash Bros.

Gagan: you play with your friends, right?

Gagan: I think Sakurai is very misguided and it's unfortunate that he refuses to make a game like Melee ever again because I don't think, I don't think Smash Bros.

Gagan: needs to be dumbed down and erase that stuff to appeal to casuals.

Gagan: I think the game is flexible enough with its modes and items that casuals are in.

Gagan: It's fun.

Gagan: I think Melee still feels the most fun to play because everyone is fast and snappy and quick.

Gagan: There's a tactile nature to that game that still feels great today and you can still maintain the depth that your pro level and like your enthusiast crowd would love, right?

Gagan: Like Melee to me is that lightning in a bottle video game where they actually nailed like the perfect, this appeals to a mass broad market but there's a game with layers in here for like people to really like show their stuff.

Gagan: That's a shame.

Gagan: Brawl is shit.

Gagan: Adding tripping is dumb.

Gagan: It ruins a lot of the play in that game.

Gagan: I don't care that the party game part of the game is fun.

Gagan: The party game in Melee is fun.

Gagan: The difference is Melee also happens to be a good game on top of that.

Tom: The party part is also better in Melee anyway.

Gagan: I agree with that.

Gagan: I think Smash was a better version of Brawl and less shit but still a bit tedious when you want to learn to get good at it.

Gagan: You reset to neutral too much.

Gagan: Same issue with Ultimate but much better than Smash

Gagan: But a similar problem.

Gagan: At the end of the day, they've just made what if Brawl was good, which is fine.

Gagan: But it's not going to reach the heights of Melee.

Gagan: That's my take on Smash Brothers.

Gagan: I think it is a fighting game though.

Gagan: That's a dumb conversation to have that it's not a fighting game.

Tom: Well the thing that I find fascinating about Melee in particular is obviously it's a fighting game but it's like a combination of both fighting and wrestling.

Tom: And I can't think of any other fighting games that really have a wrestling element to it.

Tom: Well, not with stand.

Tom: What's that?

Gagan: Because of the ring outs?

Tom: Yeah, because of the ring outs.

Tom: And it does change drastically how the matches play out compared to other fighting games.

Gagan: It is a different game.

Gagan: Yeah, the ledge game is completely different in Melee.

Gagan: You play under the stage sometimes, which is nuts.

Gagan: But yeah, that's a cool game.

Gagan: A few tangents I did forget.

Gagan: Funny thing, the dash, I did forget to bring this up with the dash in Ori.

Gagan: I'll try to make this quick.

Gagan: On the forum reset at NeoGap the Ori director is on the forum and he was not happy with fans noticing that Ori may have took mechanics from Hollow Knight or Hollow Knight, because apparently Hollow Knight invented the dash mechanic in video games because Mega Man X never happened or something or all these other mechanics that these games clearly have stolen from Castlevania and Metroid.

Gagan: He could have just pointed out how many different games all these games borrow from, but he and I don't want to throw him into the bus, but he was such a goddamn sixth grader about it like I didn't even I didn't even like Hollow Knight when I played it.

Gagan: We sold more than them anyway.

Gagan: Like it was like bro.

Gagan: Why did you bite this?

Gagan: It was like three idiots on a forum.

Gagan: What are you doing?

Gagan: So it was just so pathetic for a guy that just like made a cool game.

Gagan: It was like come on man.

Gagan: Don't do that.

Gagan: Don't do that.

Tom: I love when people do that, it's amazing.

Tom: Where an author engages in this like thousands of posts discussion with people criticizing his book, which was some about I believe a traveling teddy bear or something, which is as weird as it sounds, looked all right for what it was, but the thread is just amazing.

Tom: And I am in full support of everyone willing to do something as ridiculous as that.

Gagan: I think it's funny when you're actually dunking on someone who deserved it, but it's like why are you taking jabs at like another indie game?

Tom: No I don't mean the people criticizing them, I mean the person engaging in the with people criticizing them.

Gagan: No, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, that's just, no, no, I agree, it's just, it's, it's, I don't know, you should handle it better, come on.

Gagan: But that was it.

Gagan: I remember I wanted to say that to Ori on this podcast, just because like, I knew you would appreciate it.

Tom: Yup.

Gagan: But yeah, that'll do it for us.

Tom: So was that everything you wanted to say?

Gagan: That was mostly everything I wanted to say.

Gagan: There's things we can say for Smugcast

Gagan: Maybe I'll have Ori beaten by Smugcast

Gagan: Maybe that'll be the Smugcast game.

Tom: Maybe I will have played beyond the menu of Ori by then.

Gagan: What did you want?

Gagan: What do you think you want to do for a Smugcast ?

Tom: I'm thinking Super Metroid.

Gagan: You want to play Super Metroid?

Gagan: You should play Super Metroid.

Tom: Because I started it.

Tom: I started Super Metroid.

Tom: And I played up until the game actually began properly.

Tom: So basically just a little bit past the Ridley fight.

Tom: And that was an amazing opening.

Tom: But one thing I'll bring up before we go just because it is topical is due to the pandemic that is currently occurring, the Formula One season, like many sporting events, has basically been cancelled.

Tom: And as a replacement for it, they will be doing races in Formula One not all the drives, but some of them with notable sim races, or at least popular ones on YouTube, which could be a massive train wreck because when actual racing drivers take part in sim racing games, when they aren't also sim racers, they usually, one, don't give a shit, and two, do not follow the extreme etiquette that there is in sim racing, which there isn't in actual racing, which usually results in some hilariously chaotic races where usually the majority of the field crashes out in the first corner of the beginning of the race.

Tom: And there have been a few races since the Australian Grand Prix was cancelled that are unrelated to Formula One on iRacing involving more non-mainly, non-sim racer actual racing drivers and the results have been hilarious.

Tom: So it will be interesting to see if they are going to actually attempt to finish the race in the Formula One sponsored events.

Gagan: On that note, soccer is still bad so like really if soccer is off TV it's nothing of loss to society and-

Tom: Well the A-League is still going.

Gagan: Since I am still-

Gagan: they have the nerve to call a soccer league the A-League?

Gagan: It's more like the F-League anyway.

Gagan: The other thing I want to say-

Gagan: The other thing I want to say is how I'm coping with the lack of sports in my life is that I started watching this guy who makes videos of marbles racing down a hill.

Gagan: I don't know if you've seen this before.

Gagan: And the marbles have names like Comet and like Flash and White Lightning and, you know, it's like Baker's Dozen and I'm just like, man, Baker's Dozen, how could you go to the high side in the pitch?

Gagan: You have to stay inside.

Gagan: It's the quickest way around the track.

Gagan: Everyone knows this.

Gagan: It's intense, man.

Gagan: Please bring sports clothes.

Gagan: Obviously people's lives are in danger.

Gagan: Maybe the governments of society should get their shit together and make sure all of us can stay safe and get back to work.

Tom: It is interesting when the state government simultaneously releases a statement through the DHS that people should immediately rush out and get a month's supply of medicine and food then complains when people start panic buying.

Tom: It's an interesting strategy there.

Gagan: My president of the United States of America, the embarrassment that he has, two years ago got rid of the division that handles pandemics and shit like that because probably he thought, when the fuck are we ever going to need this?

Gagan: And then of course, two years later, properly, we have a pandemic that might threaten % of the US population, which please stop saying just % of the population because it makes people think that's not that big of a deal.

Gagan: But % of the population is like millions of motherfucking people dying.

Gagan: Millions, not hundreds, not thousands, millions.

Tom: That's pretty serious.

Tom: And millions more who will have had badly damaged lungs for the rest of their lives.

Gagan: Yes, so these are a bit scary times, weird times.

Tom: And don't race against actual racing drivers instead.

Gagan: And never race actual racing drivers instead because they have poor etiquette.

Gagan: Also, it seems like they can't drive.