Sol Cesto, Hollow Knight, Frank Howley's Japan Journey | Noclip Crewcast

🎵 🎵 Thank you. Hello, friends, and welcome to episode 242 of the Noclip Podcast.

It's a crew cast. Jay Geddon is over. Jenna Stieber has retreated back to... the J land not Japan wherever the other J's go but from Japan has reemerged the one and only Frank Chauncey Howley.

Frank, I don't know your middle name. Is it a cool middle name?

Do you want to dox yourself right here? It's Philip with, I think, one L. I honestly don't remember.

I just have to check my ID or passport. See, yeah, I don't know.

I think it's because I don't know what the origin of it is.

I think my mom was like Russian Orthodox and there's like a St.

Philip. Cool. But yeah, I just say Frank.

I thought you were going to say Philip with an F. you said philip that'd be like a gas station like f-i-l-l-r-u-p filler up saint philip who do we think uh i'm gonna look up saint philip and uh Jeremy, who's your favorite saint?

And you can't pick St. Francis because that's mine.

Oh, shit. Saint, I don't know. Was it St.

Francis? Francis was the animal guy, right?

He was the guy that was like this and all the animals flocked to him.

100%. Just hanging out in Assisi, having a fun time.

That'd be my guy. Philip the Apostle apparently was one of the 12 apostles.

I don't know if it was a Philip. Was there a Philip?

That's a bit weird. There was James and his brother.

There was Philip and Bartolo and you. There was Philip.

There's a song to remember all the saints.

Yeah. Do you not know that? Yeah. There was Simon and Matthew too.

There was Judas Iscariot. There was someone.

And that's the lot. That was the song. I don't know.

Is this like a commercial song or a mnemonic that your teachers came up with?

It's a song, but it does have a sort of serial, like commercial jingle to it.

It does. That's what I was thinking too.

Yeah, the Twelve Apostles song, I feel like...

I don't know. I pulled that out of a fucking dark part of my brain, so I don't know where that came from.

I can't even find it now. Jesse, who is your favorite saint or mystic person?

You know, this doesn't have to be. It can be agnostic.

Oh, man. Favorite saint. I'm going to go saint.

Augustine, because that's the only one I can think of.

OK, good answer. Is that the same? Like, is that the no, surely not.

The Roman emperor was not a saint. Was that what?

I don't think so. That August is named after.

Augustine was like a philosopher, right?

Okay. I think. What did they philosophize that there would be a month named after me in the future?

That's a good thing to guess. Weirdly warm.

No fires around here. We're happy about it.

We hope there's no fires where you are. What is aflame, though, is the world of video games. games and we're here to talk about it in both good and bad ways we've plenty of games to talk about this week and but first of all massive thanks to all of our incredible battle pass holders without whom none of this would be possible They're all saints, in my mind.

Saints like Saint Lovefrees. Yes. Dwayne the Rock Lobster.

Anthony Thomas. Nico Basseteri. It's-a-me, Ferrario.

I mean, they're definitely Saints or Italians.

Most Saints are Italians. Senator Armstrong, Reed Dredge, Harry Flanagan, Joosh, Arno, Matt Pearson, James Brown, Mark Ross.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Eric Hamilton Schneider, Christophe Fatui, Cameron Laird.

By the way, see if you can spot the hidden Cameron lad in the poster for our PAX panel.

Zachary Snader, Alex Goucher, George Sakotis, Jacob Godserve.

And then to you, Jen. Thank you all so much.

And of course, James Med, Tohir Tillyev and Rison. who are after the page break, and I almost forgot about them.

I was like, this is weird. We don't usually stop with Entheogen.

Thank you all. And also just to remind you all that we have our PAX panel coming up this weekend at PAX.

It's Saturday. It's 5 p.m. It's at the Leaf Theatre.

You cannot. Forget where that is, not just because there is a picture of a leaf in your head right now floating down and landing on my nose.

But also it's in room 420. So smoke them if you got them.

Bring them to the noclip. PAX panel myself and Frank will be there with some special guests some special announcements and some giveaways too and bringing up some swag we got some blu-rays we got some we got some uh stickers and comic books from from give you video game people old rocket league cars i'm trying to find those i haven't found those yet we're going to be giving away a bunch of stuff and doing some fun trivia and hanging out.

Having a good old time. uh but first of all it's important to check in with our saint saint howley who has just come back from his uh trip overseas to convert the good people of japan to the word of noclip.

Frank, how was your time in Japan? Have you recovered?

I guess I'm still technically jet lagged, but and I'm already like trying to convince my friend to go in winter so we can go again.

I know every time I go, it's It's so fun and I get better and better and like more acclimated.

And yeah, I feel like this trip, nothing bad happened.

Everything was so smooth and like, there, I had so many like scenarios planned and dreamed of and everything was successful that it was like, holy, like, I'm like, where, like.

I always have this anxiety thing where it's like, where did I screw up?

What's like, or is there a giant hole in my bank account?

I don't know. I did check. Everything is okay.

It wasn't, you know. But, yeah, no, it was phenomenal.

And, yeah, I think it was 11 days. I saw seven wrestling shows.

I went to the Capcom Museum in Nagoya, which is incredible.

What I set out to do, I did play DDR in... akihabara i found the very first bamani game beatmania at a at a at like an old school retro arcade so i gotta play the very first like konami rhythm game And then also for the first time, I finally took the Shinkansen and went outside Tokyo.

So I unlocked new parts of the map. So yeah, I was talking to Goya and felt very like, comfortable this time navigating even with language stuff and then also for the first time i shot like i was like in premiere i have three hours of raw footage oh nice I'm going through and like logging and labeling everything.

So yeah, I'm, I'm very happy. So you'll have a behind the scenes up on no clip too.

And, uh, you're also working on that DDR thing as well.

Uh, I guess. So that's, that's all going to be, be part of that stuff.

Um, what was the Capcom museum like? So the Capcom Museum is part of this touring exhibition.

It started in Osaka because Capcom is based in Osaka.

And this year... In Osaka, they had like the World Expo.

So it's just they build a bunch of cool stuff and they're going to demolish it when it's done.

Oh, yeah. But to coincide with that, Capcom wanted to flex and had their –

I forget how long the company's been around.

I think like since the early 80s, so more than 30 years, but 40 some years.

So the Capcom Museum. It's in Nagoya now.

It's going to be going to Tokyo in the future.

It is just the history of Capcom. And they have original design documents.

They have original paintings and artwork that they use for like the box art, all the key art.

They have like exhibitions that teach you how like pixel art was programmed on Nintendo.

The evolution of sound from like two channel, like. to 5.1 to 7.1.

There's exhibits for so many different games, the history of character designs, everything.

I specifically went to Nagoya just for the Capcom Museum.

And even so, it impacted me to where yesterday I was playing Mega Man X2.

I was like, oh, where are the gaps? in my Capcom lineage.

And even Street Fighter the movie was represented in the history of Capcom.

There was even Dino Crisis artwork was there.

There's so many games that kind of get ignored in Capcom's lineage, but everything was represented.

There was a lot of Final Fight stuff. Even at the very end in the gift shop is just a Final Fight stage. like made out of cardboard and you can like take pictures.

Um, It was also nice because I went there kind of the first week of school and things starting up.

So when I went to the museum on like a weekday, it was pretty empty.

So I was able to take my time. I took lots of photographs.

Um, yeah, it was, it was very mind blowing.

Cause like for me, street fire two is kind of like the ground zero for me, like getting into video games.

That was like what I grew up with. Like it warped my brain.

So being able to see the original design documents, the original background stage art.

That was insane. So yeah, like the very last room of the exhibit is where it has all the design documents, but the original artwork for all the original Street Fighter II stages is there.

They just drew it on, on, on graph paper.

So the graph paper is there. Oh, sorry. Yeah.

They, they, they, so they drew the stages on graph paper and, then they would scan it and then they would color it in with like pixel art but like everything was like as is so all the little like characters like even I don't know, just like in the China level, there's like a guy like- The chickens?

Yeah. The guy with the chick, I don't know what he's doing with the chickens, but that's there.

There's even like a little thing that's like, we have left the illustrations as they were drawn back in 1991.

I know some of these depictions are a little... you know, not accurate today, but so that was insane.

It was like, that's so surreal. So yeah, it made me like, I don't know, even when we saw Capcom at Summer Games Fest, I got to speak to some of the developers and I was like, oh, Capcom Ichiban.

I really love Capcom. So it was super, super cool.

But it was also a good reason to see a more quaint part of Japan.

Like I went to Osaka and that was very busy and cool, but Nagoya was way more in the countryside.

Like. It was also where I got annihilated by bugs because I didn't expect that.

But it was very, very cool and chill. And so, yeah, the Capcom Museum was phenomenal.

There was also like. The other museum that I love wasn't video game related, but the Super Sentai Museum, which we had talked about previously, I think right before I left, that was also awesome.

That was really fun and surprising because, like, It's 50 years of a franchise.

So there's like older people going to like the stuff in the 70s.

There's like kids with toys in hand looking at the new stuff.

And then everyone like my age going to all like the actual Power Rangers stuff.

But it was like it was so fun and charming and like.

Yeah, just seeing all these latex costumes are kind of falling apart.

But like, oh, these are the real like these are the real sets, the real costumes, the real parts.

They didn't look like they were maybe that expensive to begin with either.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very – that's the charm of the show.

It's like very DIY. So going up close and you can see like, oh, the swords aren't actually like –

They're very, it's like rubber foam padding on the edge of all these blades and fake guns.

But you can see like, oh, it's like almost like original Star Wars.

You can like see the glue and the seams and stuff and how DIY everything is. um and so yeah the super the sentai exhibit was awesome and then like yeah the usual stuff going into like gaming thrift stores looking for figures all that stuff the thing i've noticed since when I first started in Japan, like last year is the pricing is really scaling up.

Like I even talked to like locals, like in Osaka, it was like, yeah, tourists are screwing everything.

Uh, like, What's happening to the retro stock, especially because of now with like TikTok and stuff is like everyone's like, oh, if you're in Japan, the best place to buy stuff.

It's not going to Broadway. So I went to not going to Broadway this time and I didn't find, I found what I was looking for, but it was like, oh man, this place, all the places starting to get picked pretty clean.

But then when I went deep into Nagoya, I found like a thrift store that's so much like cheap Sega Saturn stuff.

And it's like, oh, this place hasn't been raided yet.

I left everything there. I left, you know, but it's been interesting to see like. i don't know like the tiktok effect of just like oh my god like places are starting to like be pretty strong armed against tourists and also just uh all the center spots, like prices are skyrocketing.

Like when I was in March, 2024, I found this little like polygon TIFA figure I think it was like 1200 yen.

Uh, now it was going for 6,000 yen. It was like, Oh my God.

It increased that fast. And just like a year and a half.

Um, So, yeah, that's why I'm like, oh, my God, I have to keep going until they make it impossible for tourists to come.

So, yeah. Well, did you what did you did you buy anything that was particularly cool?

I bought like 100 wrestling T-shirts. I always go to the, I always go to the wrestling store.

I spend most of my yen there. And then also at all the merch tables for all the wrestlers.

I did find at Nakano Broadway, there's one specific Sentai show I like called Akiba Rangers.

And so there was a yellow Akiba Ranger. which was like a figure I was looking for and they had it super cheap.

Cause no one, no one really cares about that show.

Uh, I got presents for friends. Um, like flyers art things like that little acrylic figures and stuff but yeah most of my money was spent on t-shirts like specifically in Osaka I found two McDonald's t-shirts and uh that were very like i have this something you're wearing that's amazing mcdonald's malibu california that i got this shirt in osaka japan that looks like it's from grailed i'll be honest Oh, yeah, it's awesome.

Yeah, yeah, it is awesome. So, yeah, in Osaka, they have what's called America Town.

And so it's all like amazing. It's all like hip hop shirts, Nirvana and like bootleg anime shirts.

But it was that's where I found all the McDonald's shirts.

I'm like, oh, this is so sick. Because we don't have stuff like that here in America.

No, I don't know. It was cool. Also, the boo-boos have completely taken over.

Oh, man. Same here as well. Everywhere. It sucks. um but people like it but yeah i was just like i bet jeremy has completely managed to go live his life without the boo-boos appearing in them do you know what we're talking about I know everything about Lububus, but I don't have any of them.

I take it back. Wow. They're like Funko Pops for people in L.A. who hate Funko Pops.

There you go. Summed it up. Yeah. The kids like him too.

My daughter was like all about the boo-boos.

I'm like, why? It looks like a, like a. like a demented Pokemon or something.

It looks, I hate, I hate the look. I don't get it.

I don't get it. Jesse, did I have the boo-boos in Canada?

Yeah, they do. My wife wants one desperately, and I keep telling her it's $130 for the cheap ones.

I'm not doing that. Is that how much they are?

Yeah, they're very expensive. My niece wanted one and they got one called a Le Fou Fou.

Turns out there is a rip off brand called Le Fou Fou.

She got one of those. It was like so excited.

I was like, I don't think. That's a little boo-boo.

And then I had to explain it and she got very upset.

She was like, why can't I have the real one?

And I was like, because it's $300. You broke the one rule.

You don't tell them that it's not the real one.

It's okay. She's not my kids. So if she gets mad at somebody, it won't be me for that long.

Oh, they might. Same thing happened with my kid.

I think my wife got one at like the Santa Rosa Mall for like ten bucks, eight bucks or something.

And then she was like really happy with this little thing.

And then one of her friends was like, that's not a real one.

Oh, shit. Oh, my God. It's ridiculous. great so that I've made us the most important question answered Frank the boo-boos are in Japan as well well we're glad to have you back dude I'm excited to see you this weekend we're going to have fun at PAX.

Looking forward to it. We're going to record some stuff, play some video games.

There's also a separate indie game festival that's happening on Sunday. um which uh have booked us in for to go check out some stuff that you know people who can't afford or get into the mega booth stuff um so that should be pretty cool to see as well And I'm looking forward to our panel.

I'm always nervous about how many people will turn up or won't turn up.

Last year was two years ago, wasn't it, Frank?

Yeah. Yeah, that was not so. We had a lot of people turn up.

So, yes, hopefully it was a good enough show where people will come back and do it again.

So, yeah, come hang out. 5 p.m on a on saturday if you want to see uh frank's gonna have some japan stuff there as well we're gonna we have a lot of stuff to show off we have a lot of um behind the scenes stuff and also it's not being recorded or streamed so we're gonna announce some stuff at that as well which might not be for public consumption yet so make sure you come to that All right, let's dive into some games here.

Do you mind if I go first? I've got a bunch of them and I kind of want to get some of them out of the way.

Sure, yeah. So this one feel for, I just want to start with this one because this feels like we are, this is going to be in the game of the year conversation. at the end of the year.

And I saw reviews for it when it first launched in May. and it's in early access, but I hadn't.

I didn't play it and then I dove in this weekend and I absolutely love Sol Sesto.

Have either of you guys played this? I know you guys played this.

Yeah, I talked about it a couple of podcast episodes ago.

Did you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did I totally forget about this?

Yeah, I think so. Was I on that podcast?

100%. Yeah, yeah. I don't think I go. I don't think I looked up what it was that when you were talking about it.

Did you talk about it for long? Probably not that long.

It was pretty early and there's not like a ton to it.

Like it was right at the early access. Maybe.

Okay. God, I'm sorry. I don't forget everything we talk about every week.

I don't. Well, I don't. I maybe I was away that week.

I don't. I didn't catch up on the one where I was a Quake cause that's like the first only podcast I've missed on here for a while.

OK, apologies then. Well, I fucking love it.

It's absolutely brilliant. Yeah, I mean, I won't beat around the bush.

I won't. I mean, I won't get into it too much then.

It's only. feel free on early access um yeah it's uh i don't know how how do you how did you explain this thing it's like a I literally don't know because now I have to go through the rigmarole of explaining this game, which apparently has already been explained on this podcast, but It's like a roguelike match.

It's not even a match game. It's like a casino game.

Basically, I think the way I described it on Steam, I wrote a review for it.

And maybe the way I described it in the past was like, it's it's literally just a distillation of the roguelike genre.

It's like you take everything about roguelikes. builds, numerical stats, RNG stuff, and you boil it down and turn that into a video game.

It's like a grid-based... auto battler where you just click on either a row or column.

And sometimes you get different abilities that allow you to do certain stuff.

And there's a percentage chance that you can hit any of the four squares.

And you can fiddle with those percentages using your abilities.

So, like, you'll unlock something that makes it easier or... or sorry, more likely or less likely for you to hit chests which have gold in them.

After you beat a certain number of things, you go to the next floor, there's a boss after a certain number of floors and like different things you can encounter over time.

And your goal is to go as deep as you possibly can with your character.

It's very fun, but like very simple. And like the perfect thing you play once and then you put it away for 45 minutes or an hour and then maybe you come back to it later or play it tomorrow. or something i can't stop playing about this really i couldn't find myself wanting to keep coming back to it what was about it that drew you back in I guess the art style, first of all, is an absolute dream.

Very cool. I could be in this world. It's it's like somewhere between like like there's two things I want to say about it.

The animation, first of all, has this sort of like almost claymation kind of. feel to it, like undulating, throbbing kind of nature to it.

And then the actual art style, I don't know what to...

This feels like a weird Amiga game. This reminds me of creepy...

Like it's a couple of things. One, it's the fact that so much of the screen is filled up by UI, which is a very like Commodore thing, I feel like, that era especially.

And then it's like, I don't know, what words would you use to explain what this game looks like?

At the moment, I think I said it was a bit like the opening to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but the more I think about it...

It's more like the sort of cheap, poorly printed art you would see in a magazine or in a manual for a video game from the late 90s, early 2000s.

Like that weird pointillized art style where everything's sort of like the gradients are sort of noisy and like it's it's the colors are bright.

It's like a like a color version of a manuals art.

Yeah, it's yeah, it's and a lot of the like, you know, larger things that are because it's a bit of a combination because like some of the things are kind of very cartoonish looking and then some are a bit more.

I don't know, the realistic's not the word, but like details are larger.

And on some of those, they look like almost like weird...

Commodore box art you'd see for a game that obviously does not look like that.

S-O-L-C-E-S-T-O just Google it and have a look at it and it's just That and the fact that like that screen where you're picking your character, the characters look insane.

They're like chunky, round. It's like a child drew them, but like a really talented child.

Like it's I this might be my favorite looking game of the past.

I love how this thing looks. It's so weird, but it's so well done.

It's so beautiful. I love the animation I love the sort of the way you go down the floors and it's like what's going to appear next like the presentation of it is just absolutely slick.

And then yeah, it just feels it feels like you know, like a game like you're not meant to be playing, like it has a sinister vibe to the whole thing of, you know, what the bosses appear and It's all obscure, like it's not, you know, they're telling you enough, but they're not telling you everything that's going on.

And it feels like there's there's secrets buried everywhere in this thing. yeah it's just mythical and creepy and pagan and sort of like wrong i don't know jeremy did you play this at all no i've seen a bunch of it but i have not played it myself Oh, I am besotted with it.

I don't know when it's coming out of early access, but I am absolutely in love with it.

I really think it's something special. I think it's like. this is what i wish casinos had like this type of game because it is rng like it is like to a certain extent i mean you can strategy you're using your your abilities and items to to try and get the best outcome.

But a lot of it is, oh, there's like a 50% chance of me getting hurt on this row or there's like a 25% chance of me getting hit on this row. um but there's there's there's coins on that one so i think i might risk it you know it's a lot of that so and the sensation too when you make a selection like once you you You know, go all in and say, you know, spin the wheel.

Let's see what happens. The result is immediate.

You click, your character either warps to something it's going to hit.

Or you get the jump scare of a lifetime with like a real something awful face pops up on the screen and it's just like...

And then you're dead and that's it. And it's really funny.

Like there's a lot of great full screen stuff going on.

There's lots of good, just like quick things.

The upgrades and abilities you get are teeth that go into a mouth of teeth on the UI.

And like the teeth are strawberries or like blue diamond.

Like it's such a, yeah, Danny's totally right.

It's such a visually weird game that like doesn't sacrifice being weird to be clear.

There's stuff that they've added over time and small updates where I went back and played it.

I couldn't figure out what the hell they were talking about in the patch notes, what that was supposed to be.

And over time, you're like, oh, that's what that is?

Yeah, there's like hidden little secret things going on.

It's very good, even just in this early access state.

I'm very excited to see what the final version of it is, though.

Yeah, me too, because it seems like it's... Like, it just initially, like, in the first 10 minutes, I was just... I played, like, maybe... two or three hours at this age.

But in the first 10 minutes, just, yeah, the reveals of what this thing is was just... so in entrancing i think is the word maybe yeah really love it just I know there are games that you love because they're fun games to play.

This is a fun game to play. But I'll be honest, like the vibes of this game alone are just like I love playing this thing.

It's so weird. it's so really weird and cool and it just feels artistic and gorgeous and you know this is you know what it kind of reminds me of is like this kind of what games felt like in the 90s when you like because like it was so hard to make games so anyone who made a game had like a vision and a weird like, idea they're going for and they just went for it and this feels like one of those.

It doesn't feel like any... I mean, it's a roguelike sort of thing, so, like, I guess by... some way it's derivative of something but it doesn't feel it feels so fresh and cool and and singular visiony and all that stuff so yeah i don't know i i fucking love it solstice though So overwhelmingly positive reviews, recent reviews, and about 2,000 very positive reviews there as well.

I think I might do an indie recommendation on this one actually.

Cool. Because I've been drawing it so much.

And then just a quick little hit, not all that dissimilar.

We had an email a few weeks ago talking about games, gaming recommendations.

It might have been last week. And they mentioned Day of the Shell yesterday. which was a game that they had played.

The XCOM-y kind of thing? Exactly. He said it was some... type of XCOM-y, you know, I would say XCOM kind of meets Bastion, maybe something like that.

So I gave it a whirl. It's $15. It's out.

It came out in July of this year. And similarly to Sol Sesto, it's kind of like a fast version of a turn-based strategy. combat game, like an XCOM or something.

You're taking cover. You control one character and It is a roguelike.

There are like 10 for each world. There's like 10 levels.

So to complete it, you have to get through the 10 levels. levels that are so I think somewhat randomly generated or maybe there's a maybe they're not maybe there's like a yeah maybe they're not actually I'll have to come back on that but you control one character you are but like you click and move her and then like you can instantly click and move again so you're it's turn based in that like you take a turn and then they do their turns but it is going Like you do your turn, they shoot back.

You do it, they do their turn. There's no pausing.

I mean, you can pause by virtue of you not selecting the next move. but like it's just super fat.

Like it feels very real time because you're not like going to your inventory to like select a different you know, object or something like that.

You have items, but they're sort of persistent and add to your stats and things like that.

You like to pick a weapon on a run Art style wise, it again feels like it's got one toe in the world of Bastion.

It's a isometric kind of floating worlds look to it, even though it's just water around you. um uh chunky looking characters uh and yeah like like the emailer said i've really enjoyed it for 15 bucks it's really cool i haven't played it on steam deck um cause I play with mouse and keyboard.

Uh, so I'm not sure if it really works on that, but, um, uh, yeah, I've, uh, I've really enjoyed it.

Day of the shell. I'm going to play a bunch more of it.

It's a, yeah one click one turn tactical roguelike is what they called it on steam so Yeah, maybe another one I'll do an indie rec of if I've kind of played a bit more of it.

I'm not quite sure it's reached that threshold.

Yeah. Threshold. Yeah. Threshold. Yeah. Threshold.

Yeah. There we go. All right. That's a game, right?

Threshold's a game. Is it? Yeah. I don't know if Flesh Hold is a game.

I don't know about Flesh Hold. Flesh Life.

That's not a game either. That's not a game technically.

It's a toy, I guess. It's a way of life.

Yeah, Day of the Shell. Pick it up now on Steam.

Let's bounce over to Jeremy, who has been, I don't know, did Silk Song's announcement get you all roiled up? it's kind of the opposite actually um so i played ooh uh which is you know a small puzzle-y very small for a metroidvania but a metroidvania nonetheless and then uh I was kind of like just in the mood for more Metroidvania.

So I played Super Metroid, as I mentioned on the podcast last week.

And then the day I beat Super Metroid, The Silksong release date was announced, and I don't want to take credit.

I'm just saying, you know, it's pretty, pretty big coincidence.

I think I mentioned the other day to you guys that I think it was like the Red Sox curse of the Bambino. that because i had not played super metroid the uh Team Cherry were spiritually aware and they were they were just waiting for me to complete it.

And then they they received the transmission.

We're like, all right, drop the game. It's ready.

It is done. So I beat Super Metroid. Silksong is real.

Metroidvanias are back and I have ushered in spiritually a new era of them somehow.

And I was like, what uh what should i play next what metroidvania should i play castlevania games like i was mentioning on the podcast and uh i figured i would just like replay hollow knight i don't really replay games that much ever um for some reason my brain just like,

It's like you've already like, why would you do this again?

Even if even if it's like a fun game, I just like there's something about it where I'm like, you're you're dying, you're dying.

The time is coming for the end of your life is rapidly approaching.

And the more games you replay, the faster it approaches.

Not technically true, but it's like a theory of relativity thing I'm working on.

But yeah, so I've been replaying Hollow Knight.

It's a it's it's it's bizarre. It's like, because I played Hollow Knight in 2017, when it came out.

So it's been a while. So I kind of thought, you know, like the the exploration is for what's for sale, like the the ambience, the characters, the atmosphere, the the art, especially like this game is more beautiful than I remember.

Maybe it's because I've been working on my own games for the last several years or something that you gain more of an appreciation for just how talented someone is with their game art.

But I feel like the hand-drawn and hand-painted nature of Hollow Knight, I thought it was beautiful the first time, and now I'm like, this is fucking insane.

So I'm enjoying all of that about it, but I...

It's weird. I'm probably like... I've probably played eight or nine hours of it over the last week.

And I feel like I'm hitting a little bit of a wall.

And I don't know if it's because... I don't know.

Part of it I think is that I've played the game before.

Like, you know, Explorations was for sale.

I've seen all the, you know, I'm not going to hit a biome and be like, well, I've never seen Crystal Peak before.

Yeah. It's a bit like unveiling the mysteries of this world a little bit first time around, isn't it?

Yeah. For sure. So but the I think the other aspect of it is that I think when I played Hollow Knight in 2017, Metroidvanias were a genre that I was sort of naive to.

And so, you know, kind of like coming in late, it's like, you know, it's like playing a roguelike for the first time and you're playing. nuclear throne or something and you're like wow this is a crazy genre and it's like this is a well-established genre that you're a latecomer to and you're enjoying like a lot of sort of the things that have been refined over the years and other games have done.

It's just like shoulders of giants style.

And so, I don't know. I think having played...

I think animal. Well, kind of like, and ooh, I guess, but like sort of more puzzle leaning than action leaning Metroidvanias because I've played so many of them recently.

I feel like, with Hollow Knight, I'm kind of just like, I wish I was like puzzling more.

It's so like platforming and action. And I think it does that so fucking well.

Like it's so, it feels so good. It's like. fun you know down slashing and bouncing on things heads and like it feels amazing but i can't help but feeling like i'm just like i don't know why am i not like rolling around as samus and dropping bombs in every corner or something you know what i mean like yeah well it's the thing that i think we we talked about was that last week like where does Silksong go because you can't just do that again like that's unfortunately this genre has just been super charged for the past the intervening eight years right and it sounds like they've just taken their time working on it so you know I kind of trust that that they are well aware of that.

But also, it's the difficult second album, right?

This is not a team that's made a bunch of games.

Um, yeah, I do wonder, like, what would you, when you saw the trailer for Silk Song, like, you know, I think it said like this many bosses and this many things and da da da da da.

Was there anything in there that made you feel like, oh, that's like an evolution of the original?

I sort of only watched the beginning 10 seconds of the trailer and skip to the release date because it's like a game that I'm it's a game I already know I'm going to play.

So it's like I don't. I don't need to see like the third boss because it'll be cool when I see it, you know, outside of a trailer.

But yeah, I don't know. It's hard for me to tell from a trailer even because I think that like A sort of genre angle like that wouldn't be something that you would telegraph in a trailer so overtly like if it were if this is like 10 percent more puzzly I don't think it would be like.

600 bosses, 10% more puzzles. 10% more puzzly.

Yeah, exactly. It's like a hard thing to telegraph.

I expect Silksong to sort of be a straight, you know, action, actionvania.

I don't think they're going to be like Now, you know, Hornet rolls around as a ball and drops bombs in every corner, which is I don't think that's what people want from Hollow Knight anyway or from a Hollow Knight sequel.

So I would be shocked if they did that. But yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I guess what I'm going to get is it's probably more of a personal taste evolution than anything. that having played a lot of games like this 2D open world, you know, Metroidvania, whatever adjacent games, I think that having is sort of like having a layer of, like, a cerebral layer, like a puzzly layer to the world, it adds... a sort of like a way that my my brain can reach out and grab onto these worlds that feels like it is sophisticated, it's not more sophisticated.

It's just like, there's a way that it engages my brain that feels a little more meaty. whereas like replaying Hollow Knight again you know re-exploring a world I've already explored that's I take it with a grain of salt but there is something where I'm like I wish I was doing a little more than just like looking at the map and being like, oh, there's a corner I haven't been to.

Get there. I'm like, I know I don't have the ability for this.

I'll have an ability for it later. There's sort of an... This is what it is.

There's an ambiguity when there is a puzzle language to the world of...

Am I hard gated from this or have I not solved for it yet?

And I like that ambiguity because it doesn't feel like there's just a binary where in Hollow Knight you'll hit a thing.

It's like. I'll have an ability to get up there or I don't have it.

There's very, very few instances where I'm like, I wonder if I can do that.

And I think that that's kind of what's missing.

Yeah, it's like the puzzle solving gives you more verbs.

It gives you more things to do in the world that make it feel more like a place instead of like a playground where you're beating up enemies like the. best part of Hollow Knight for me anyway uh was when you first sit on the bench I was like oh there's not a lot of games where that's the save system or that's like a thing you could do it was like an extra uh like take a rest on purpose sort of moment, take in the world, listen to the ambiance.

And then the rest of the game, you're like going out and hacking and slashing.

I totally agree. I think if there was more to do in Hollow Knight, whether that was puzzles.

Or, like, a chow garden. That's a joke. Like, just anything else.

Frank's nodding. Yeah, he's like, that actually would be good.

I don't disagree. It would be hilarious if they did something like that.

Yeah, I would like so, you know, whatever.

I hope they make the game that they wanted to make with Silksong, but it would be a missed opportunity, I think, and it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense with the amount of time they spent. working on it for there to not be like one, like one more thing that you do.

I didn't notice anything in the trailer either.

So we'll have to see. Yeah. Yeah, well, exactly.

It's a week away. Unfortunately, by the time we record next week, we probably won't have played it because it's coming out on a Thursday and I do not believe they're supplying code to reviewers either so yeah it'll be it'll just be coming out so you'll be you'll be Enjoying it freshly as we do as well.

Unless you were at Gamescom or I believe somewhere in, I think Melbourne, they have in Australia, Team Cherry, of course, are Aussies.

I think they have it playable there at some place.

So some folks, easy allies have put up preview if they've played a little bit of it um some other folks uh who are at gamescom have but uh yeah we'll all be getting to it fresh next week.

As a result of Silksong being announced a number of games scattered to the wind.

And Demon School from our good friends at Necrosoft in the Bay Slay area down here, Oakland's own, have decided to push their release as far back as November.

I think their publisher was the one who made the decision, right?

Yes. Yeah, I chatted to Brandon about it privately. brandon sheffield's over there uh it sounded like and you could see it in the um in the in the announcement they put out or whatever the yellow text thing we're so used to these days.

Yeah, that it sounds like they were trying to, because they were landing right on top of Silks, like the day before, I think, was it?

Yes. Originally. So they've decided that their particular genre might suffer as the results and I reckon that it's just that everything's crammed in like it is a pretty busy release season we have here and in October, the sort of... Silksong is like the second problem.

The original sin of this was Grand Theft Auto 6, because everyone was waiting to see when GTA 6 was going to come out and then we're essentially trying to avoid the sort of assumed release date that it was going to have.

What's the status of GTA 6 at the moment?

They're saying next year, May. Yeah, May, so late May.

So yeah, basically splitting the difference.

So because of that, we have this really condensed October. with loads of stuff coming out and I reckon at least that they were trying to avoid that.

Another one that had to move, or wanted to move, the trailer for this oh like the big 3d model of uh what's the silk socket hornet right uh yeah just baby stepping on the hornet figure Yeah, basically their new release date trailer is just the character from Baby Steps stepping over a 3D model of... the character from Silksong.

And then at the end it says now September 23rd.

So they have also changed release date. I assume.

There is a bunch more indies that are also going to be doing the same thing.

Yeah, I don't. I get it, I guess. Yeah, but I also.

I. I kind of don't get it. I don't know.

I think it's a funny moment of like cute sort of everyone's coming together.

Like here's this big meme game everyone's talked about.

Let's try to get out of the way of it. You know, ha ha ha.

But also, yeah, you could have two games.

You know, it's all right. I just think it's like, sorry, you go first, Frank.

I was going to say, there's two big games coming out next week.

No one's talking about Terminator. Let me see if this is still coming out.

Terminator 2, the arcade game. Is that still set coming out for September 4th?

Because I've been dying to play that all year.

So if they delay that, I'm pissed. What is the Terminator 2, the arcade game?

Is this like a Nirvana, the band, the show situation?

Terminator 2D No Fate. Is that still coming out?

Let me see, let me see. Cause like, I don't care about Hollow Knight.

So I'm just like, I'm like pissed. Oh, this thing. yeah no i got this got now pushed october 31st okay my second backup everybody's golf hot shots golf is that still coming out september 4th because that was the other game i was super excited probably Check it out.

Look it up. Yeah, plan released on October 31st for Terminator 2D No Fate, which looks absolutely insane.

Wow, it looks great. And what was the other one?

When's it coming out? Thankfully, everybody's golf, Hot Shots Golf, is coming out September 4th.

The exact date. That's fucking balls. That's an Oppenheimer right there. drop it at the same day it's because they got pac-man in the game It's called Everybody's Golf Hot Shots.

Is that it? Yeah. They do a Pac-Man in the game.

Fucking 3DS looking Pac-Man. Look at this shit.

Yeah, that's going to be cool. I'm excited for that.

Oh, my God. I understand the logic because it's like, I mean, the obvious interpretation is just that like people's attention is sort of finite and it's like, game comes out it's like oh this is the game i'm playing for a couple weeks and then by the couple weeks passing by it's like okay now what new games are coming out yeah and it's like there's a sort of limited attention not span but like attention share especially like I think it's harder for us to conceive of because we're all people who are constantly like, what games are coming out?

What games do I want to play? What games do I want to cover for work?

There's a whole fucking professional layer to it.

But if you get home from, you know, being a nurse and you're like, I just want to fucking play a game because I'm exhausted from caring for sick people. not like oh well okay let me fucking i'll buy demon school and i'll put demon school on the steam deck and i'll put it aside and wait until you know what i mean it's just like yeah By the time you're done with Silksong, it's a two-week-old game.

And that's not, like, old. I've just played Super Metroid.

That's, like, 30 fucking years old. But it's, like...

The newness, the freshness of it is like that's that's the point.

It's also like not only the freshness in terms of like the cognitive, like the perception of it, but also the way the steam algorithm works is like.

Those first... days that the game is out are huge for does the game get you know surfaced on the front page does it get surfaced by the algorithm so my yeah i'd like it's a shame that like This is a very well-studied area of human society.

The economics of this stuff and marketplace like heuristics and and, you know, we have so much data on this, like that there must be an answer to this.

And it's so funny that like publishers are like they must have access to this too but they're also making puns on us because while i don't disagree with you a counter argument that i would posit is i don't if people are on the steam, like when GTA four came out, right?

Like, People are GTA five, whatever. But when I worked in a store and a big game came out, other games sold more because people were coming into the shop.

And if you're on Steam and you're buying stuff, you're on Steam.

You're going to the steam store. Maybe you don't go to the steam store all that often, but like you are for silk song or you're going, you know what I mean?

So like in my head, I'm like, Do people... It's like that whole thing of if someone signs up to a Patreon, they usually sign up to three.

I wonder if... people... I wonder what the buying habits are on Steam.

Like, do people tend to, if there's an indie game, grab another one?

You know what I mean? Like, I... I don't know.

The bundles would suggest that at least some degree of that goes on.

But like I was kind of thinking that like, oh, I wonder if it's a bit of a, you know, high tides and tall ship situation.

I'm sure it. I'm sure it's different for lots of different people, but I was just I was wondering, like, does it all sort of come out in the wash a little bit?

Because I bet you're right, Jeremy. I bet there are some people who want to buy that fresh game They want to get the game that's like the zeitgeist game that everyone's playing at the moment.

And then I bet there's people who grab a couple of little games.

You know what I mean? Spend 30 bucks on like three indie games and then... play them when they get a chance to, I guess.

I think the way that people talk about their backlog as if it is a sort of graveyard of media that will never be... on nerf uh i think it speaks volumes about this kind of thing where even if you're grabbing a clutch of games you sort of are like oh grab this and then i'll grab these two and i'll get to them someday it's like That, that may be the thing where it's like, now you have it.

There's not that moment of conversion where it's like, oh, I just bought this game.

Let me install and play it. There's now friction where it's like. you know 12 titles down in the in the recently purchased list or whatever you know what i mean like okay don't call me out like that all right i'm sorry jesse it's just like fucking play more games dude i'm uh can't no jesse plays more games than anyone i know but like to counter that like i think you're right but like be it like different people, different behaviors.

The way I buy games, I don't go on Steam store or like all the time I do to like, you know, research and see what's going on.

But often I will grab like a bunch of demos or a bunch of games like a couple of games like i think i did after last week's podcast i ended up putting in my um or this is the other thing i do which is i'll put a bunch of games in my um uh checkout And then eventually I'll get around and go look at them like almost like a wish list.

And then I go, no, I don't want that actually.

Because I ended up last week, I ended up picking up Day of the Shell. uh that newer game yeah uh jenna was talking about last week as sol sesto was another one and sky children of the light i was just like oh let me let me just grab a bunch of these and then in my library i'll see them there and go oh yeah okay i'll jump into that now Yeah, I wonder if that's a pricing thing.

But I hear what you're saying. It's like, everyone's different, right?

I wonder if it's a pricing thing, too, because we don't know what Silksong's going to cost.

I would guess... personal, like 25, 30, um, if that's, you know, that's a reasonable price where someone's going to pick up a $30 game and like a $10 game or like a five, or maybe they don't, or maybe they don't.

Yeah. Because 30 is more than a lot of indie games.

Yeah. But if it's like if I want to pick up two games this weekend or whatever upcoming and the choices are Demon School and Silksong, well, now that's a $70 purchase.

Yeah, I'm not doing that. I might buy Silksong and like, you know, some dumb five dollar game that looks fun for an afternoon or something, but I'm not going to drop seventy dollars.

I wasn't planning on that. So that might be part of it also is like there's only so much people are willing to spend in a single purchase, even if they are buying multiple things.

I wonder if there's like a, especially with indie games, I wonder if people feel like they don't want to spend $70 on indie games.

That is also, I think, a big part of this conversation.

And I think something that will be very annoying with Silksong.

Like, people, you know, when they're like, oh, play indie games.

Indie games are the best games of all time.

They're way better than the AAA. They're always talking about, like, Haiti.

They're always talking about, like, it's the biggest games on the planet that just happen to not be published by some big corporation.

Yeah. So I wonder what's going to happen with the pricing on Silksong.

If it's cheap, are people going to be like, why would I buy your game?

Silksong is $25 and yours is 40. Why would I do that?

I also wonder if it's the other way around.

Like if Silksong ends up being more expensive, are they going to be like, oh, this is only 20.

That's not going to be as good as Silksong.

I'm just curious what the reaction is going to be.

I want to see the future and I want it to be now, but that's later and not right now.

Yeah, right now they don't have any price on it.

The current price on Hollow Knight seems, it's 50% off at the moment. but it seems like they've been selling it for 15 bucks.

I'm not sure how long they've been selling it for 15 bucks.

Um, Yeah, it's funny in my brain I went to like, yeah, I guess 20 maybe makes a bit more sense.

I will have to see. It's so hard to, it's ridiculous.

Like it's such a strange. you know, consumer behavior thing.

Like how do you, especially with games? Yeah.

Cause like a movie, at least you have an idea of how long it is.

Like how much is the money to entertainment ratio?

But with games, it's like... You know, how long is Sol Sesto?

I guess it depends how much I like it. Like, is it something I play for two hours or something I play for 20 hours?

I guess movies are the same thing. I don't like this 30 seconds in.

I'm turning this off. But it's the percentage difference is so different.

Yeah, for sure. Make like a five hour movie because the value is more like you're just adding more movie.

There's like this. That's Netflix. They started adding side quests to movies.

That's why the Irishman is such a good deal.

That's what the MCU is, isn't it? They just keep adding side quests.

They're like, watch the show on Netflix. you haven't seen that yet or whatever you know get get disney plus there is i we've probably talked about this at some point in the past because it's such a weird sort of inversely like unintuitive thing, but there is like sort of a threshold where games that are too cheap are perceived as like not of sufficient value or something.

So this is this is something I've been running into.

I'm working on a very small horror game that originally was just like sort of the core mechanic in isolation because I thought it was interesting.

And then I had this idea for a way to expand it and I was like, I think this is it's a better game.

It will take me longer to make. And it's like, do I want to commit to that?

I think ultimately I've decided to do it because I think, uh, You know, if you see a $2 game and a $5 game, I personally, the $3 difference is so fucking minimal. that it's like, well, $2 game, like they, you know, why would I even play that?

Unless it's something that already has captured my attention.

It's an uphill battle for me to be convinced that like a You know, a game that's 99 cents on Steam is like a worthwhile experience and not some sort of little novelty toy.

Yeah, totally. I think the Patreon tiers I've taken a similar approach to where like a lot of people will have a sub five dollar tier and I just don't do it because I think, well. you're just going to make a tip jar i guess like i rather have five dollars be the minimum but then really give those people a lot of stuff like to me that feels like the right way around Also, the cut, right?

The cut Patreon takes, the cut Steam takes, right?

If you sell a $2 game. almost one of those dollars is going to Papa Gabe.

Yeah, 60 cents or something. Yeah, exactly.

It's a lot. Yeah, I mean, a lot of this will be... By the time next week comes around, we'll have answers to a lot of this stuff.

But yeah, it's... I hope for them that...

The one thing I worry about is that there is a there is because it is a bit of a meme game because this was.

It's because it was originally going to be DLC, right?

So they announced it early and then it obviously evolved.

So unfortunately it's been in the public mind for about six years.

I hope it doesn't have a backlash thing.

I hope that it's not disappointing to people.

There is or not even really disappointing to people, but there's a sort of a meme backlash to it or people who didn't even play it or weren't going to play it.

Yeah. Yeah, I think that would that would really suck if that happened.

Yeah. It does seem like Team Cherry, to their credit, are unnaturally offline, which is unbelievable.

Like their response when they dropped the game was like, people were like, what was it like dev hell?

Were you guys like fucking on the verge of suicide?

They're like, no, we're just like having a good time.

And like, You know, our last game made like fucking hundreds of millions of dollars.

So we're just like fucking didn't want to scale up, didn't want to like break the formula.

We're just like. having too much fun. And then one day we were like, I guess we gotta like stop making cool shit at some point and release this thing.

The one dev was talking a bit like the Adams brothers from Dwarf Fortress.

Is that right? Okay. Yeah, because he was like, I live in a one-bedroom apartment.

Why would I want a two-bedroom apartment?

What do I need that for? And it's like... so much money man just have one more room it's okay yeah exactly yeah humming and hawing over buying a guitar yeah do i need a bigger tv is that yeah I really respected that because it's like I I every time I see you know a game showcase come up in the entire like chat on a live stream is just like silk song is silk song is silk song, silk song, silk song.

When, uh, I think about like team cherry and I'm like, I can't imagine the pressure that you're under, uh, Turns out it's fucking like the most fucking Omega move to just bypass all of that and be like, oh, oh, were people talking about it for seven years?

I mean, I don't know. Sorry, I was drawing cool bugs.

Fuck off. You know what I mean? I think to be... clued out that much, I bet they're really clued in.

I bet that's what they're saying, but I bet they're really clued in.

I wonder. It could be that, like, seeing how what a fever pitch it was at they had to make a conscious decision to decouple from all of it I could see that maybe yeah I think they managed it well Dude, if I had fucking, if I had, even if I had like $5 million, you would never see me online.

Yeah. i wouldn't even go in i would just live outside i would just carry a big sack of money and walk from place to place It's like notes flying out of it.

Yeah, I wouldn't even have a cell phone.

I would just like write letters. I'd be like Johnny fucking Appleseed.

That's good stuff. Well, now I hope that your game, when it comes out, takes off.

I hope it doesn't make $5 million so we get to see you some more.

No, you'll never hear from me. You'll get a singing telegram from me once a year on Christmas.

Hey, I'll enjoy it. On your birthday. Yeah.

He's sending out telegrams. It's my gift to the world.

Wow. Amazing. Can I talk about Sword Art of the Sea a little bit more?

Yeah, if you want. It's really good. It is really good.

I kept playing it. I think I'm in the last area now.

Um, I guess I didn't watch many of the trailers or screenshots for it, so...

That game has variety and scale that like really the scale of it, like in terms of the.

In Journey, it's like you're... I hate constantly bringing up Journey, but it's really difficult to not bring up Journey, especially the opening of this game.

That is a game that is you... bouncing around you know as this one character and sometimes there are parts where you do go like fast down the mountain and things like that but the uh it's a fairly intimate story maybe let's say um sort of the sea just gets like wild with scale where you're just like flying up mountains.

I don't want to say anything, basically, but like you're covering distances and moving in like a really... over the top way and it's just it's gorgeous looking and gorgeous sounding it's I've really enjoyed it as a as a as just an audio visual experience and the puzzles in it are fun.

Yeah, it kind of reminds me what Jeremy was saying about Silksong and you were saying to Jesse about like, hopefully, you know, you add a bit more to it, right?

Like that it's sort of, the original Hollow Knight now feels like this sort of stripped back version of a of a you know this genre and hopefully you know they've had to evolve with the genre and whatnot.

And similarly, Sword of the Sea makes Journey feel super, super, super rudimentary because it's like, oh, here's all this cool stuff you can put in this game.

You can make a game that's also... It's not just about this art style and this tone and all these things, but also, yo, here's some gameplay mechanics in here as well.

Um, I think like, I'm not trying to compare them.

I think, you know, journey had to walk. So games like this could run of course.

Yeah, I just it's really engaging and fun and gorgeous and awe inspiring.

And I've really, really enjoyed it. No, Sword of the Sea is really good.

It does feel like a... culmination of everything they've done up to this point not just journey but like it feels like the pathless in ways it feels like abzu in a lot of ways um i know we don't do game awards by we i mean the industry at large, uh, does game awards for like specific things that people are good at or teams are good at doing. we need to just make sure that Jeff Keighley makes one for environment art and gives it to this.

I don't think, or tech art. There are bits in this, especially very early on where when you see it, your mouth will be agape for like 10 minutes.

It's beautiful. Beautiful. It's crazy. I see it and I'm like, what shaders went into this?

How did you do that? That seems impossible.

It's so it's just such an impressive looking video game basically the entire time. and it never stops being more impressive from where even from where I am, which is not super deep into it.

Um, Danny, what do you think of the, uh, the dolphin bit?

Oh my God. That was, yeah. Is that cool?

I don't, I, I thought I found it kind of annoying.

I couldn't wait for it to be over that section.

Yeah. Yeah, but it was quick. It wasn't long enough, but it was just long enough where I was like... What I liked about it was like at the end, it basically does like...

It looks like you have to climb up the mountain 14 times and then they just shoot you right to the top.

So I thought that was pretty good. Pretty cool.

I almost wonder if that was a situation of playtesters. saying what i'm saying and being like can this be over yet and they were like okay fine here you go rocket you up to the top there's a lot of rule of threes in this game where you're like you're gonna do something and you're gonna do it two more times um Yeah, I think I enjoyed that part because it was brief.

I think if it kept going on, it would have, yeah, it would have irked me a bit.

But it just, I got away with so much because it was just the scale.

Again, that was, that's a moment where the scale really kicked off and then it transitions into another.

Cool area. Yeah, it's gorgeous. Yeah, it does a lot of different things.

There's a part a little bit after that where you you're kind of lost, let's say.

I don't want to say too much about it, but you know, you're sort of trying to find your way through an environment and it's so much more stripped back.

And I just think like the pacing in it is really smart.

Like there's so much, it's combining so much weird stuff.

Like you're doing Tony Hawk levels and something. stages you know what i mean you have to get like 20 000 points those bits were so good like i was doing those challenges of getting the points.

And I was just accidentally, I got like a 30 times combo and I got all the achievements for it in one go.

And I finished that and I was like, man, I would play a whole game just like this.

Why hasn't anyone made a score attack? skateboarding video game.

I should probably just play the Tony Hawk series.

Yes. Have you never played them? I've never played it.

Still never. Okay. We have to do it. We got to do that.

Yeah. So, yeah, I sort of say I really like it.

It's $30 on Steam, but it's on PSN, like I said, as well.

So or PS Plus, I should call it. Sorry. Yeah, I just wanted to reiterate because last week, you know, we record this on a Tuesday. oftentimes something gets dropped on a Tuesday and we're a little bit not too far into them.

So I just wanted to. To be specific about the PlayStation Plus thing, by the way, it's PlayStation Plus, not the base version.

You have to have the extra paid tier, one of the two, either premium or plus. plus to play you can't just use essentials you have to have the library version dear lord um uh the last thing i want to say is uh the new deftones album is fucking great Everyone who's a Death Tones fan should go check it out.

It's called Private Music. I've just spent all weekend listening to it and playing video games and it's a fucking dream.

So... As a longtime, lifelong, hardcore Deftones fan, I just put it out there to the folks who have drifted off maybe over...

I don't know. I've loved all the albums they've put out over the past 20 plus years.

I feel very lucky that my favorite band is still releasing amazing music.

But some people dropped off, and I think this one feels a bit like their earlier stuff.

I'd never listened to Deftones, but you tweeted about it and I listened to that for a song.

I liked it a lot, but I did not know what it was going to sound like.

For whatever reason, I thought Deftones was like a daft punk song. adjacent sort of like electronic music band but nope not that they're like a weird little mix of like they're they're they would have originally been I guess new metal because there was some... Back to School's got some rapping in it, but it's mostly just metal, but it's very...

Uh, it's kind of like one foot in like new romantics and like a lot of their stuff is quite shoegazy as well, I'd say.

And they've always had like really good production.

So a lot of like interesting layering, I'd say.

I mean, their guitarist is one of the best in the world. pretty and then chino's voice is just crazy like chino has the weirdest voice.

He does like crazy high falsetto and his screaming is, you know, so it's weirdly melodic, like a lot of metal doesn't tend to be, so, you know, I feel like it's pretty cool that way.

But yeah, it's good shit, man. Love me some Deftones.

Jesse, The Last Epoch continues to be super, super popular.

The third series came out, is that right?

This is the action RPG from 11th Hour. Came out a couple of years ago.

Was it last year? Was it in early access for a long time?

It was in early access for a long time. I think it still is.

Okay. 100%. No, it looks like it's not on Steam.

It's $35, but there is a lot of DLC packs for this, so you might want to grab some of those as well.

Yeah, what's the story with Season 3? You've played this before, right?

We've talked about this before. Yeah, I tried to play it at launch, which was a mistake, because playing an online anything at launch... turns out is a terrible idea and doesn't work so I can feel my friends for a while but we have since finished it once a degree to finish it again probably for this season.

I haven't kept up with it since launch. I played a good amount of it at that point.

But I found it really easy, very straightforward, and like, My thing with action RPGs is I don't have a crap about the story.

Like very rarely do I care about the story in these games.

Path of Exile I played probably for like a thousand hours.

I think I did the story for like five minutes in the first act and then moved on.

I know the names. I don't know what they were doing here.

It's the same thing. This is my Ongabunga genre.

I don't care. It's just big numbers. Hit things with a stick.

Move on. I don't. I don't care about anything going on in these games except for the numbers.

And this season, it's interesting. Like, they haven't changed too, too much from the original version of the game.

They haven't had like, they've added a new era.

There's like late game content that's been changed.

They added a couple of things overall. But for the most part, it's still very easy.

Like we are flying. Me and my buddy are flying through this game.

We're not even like looking at build guides.

If we skip the story stuff, I think we're going to be done in like four hours, which. is kind of nuts.

Like that's, I don't know if we're just like cracked or what, but it's very, it's one of those action RPGs that's like, focused more on build variety and very quickly getting you to that point.

This is actually a good era. If you've never played an action RPG before, To hop into the like build crafty part of it, the like the metagame aspects of it, because Titan Quest two, I think, dropped in early access not that long ago.

I want to check that out. And Path of Exile 2, if you're listening to this, this weekend, if you're listening to it when it comes out, if you're listening in the future, sorry.

But this weekend, September, whatever, September 1st, I think is when it's over from August 30th.

Um, there's going to be a free weekend for path of exile to not a paid ad.

They didn't pay us to say this. Uh, but they're doing a bunch of interesting stuff.

Are they? I don't think so. Side posh action here.

Um, thanks. Thanks, Chris Wilson from grinding your games.

I appreciate all the no money you sent me.

Um, Yeah, they're doing a free weekend, so you can check that out if you haven't before.

I haven't. I've been interested in it because I played Path of Exile 1 so much.

But I'm realizing the thing I like about this genre and something I'm not excited about with Path of Exile 2 and something I'm enjoying with Last Epoch is that build crafting aspect of it.

Because I was thinking about it. With this one, I'm playing a necromancer and like my big thing that I love having a lot of units on the screen.

I let them do what they're doing and I run away while they're killing stuff.

It's so much fun. They've given you a lot of new options.

They've adjusted that class in cool ways.

So if you like playing a Necro, I think this is the best version of a Necro that I've played in an action RPG.

I didn't really like in Diablo three very much.

I haven't played Diablo 2. I probably should, but I don't think I'd like the Necro as much in that.

But the Path of Exile 2 thing, they've added this new feature to the game. where you can go to the store and buy items, not unlike Diablo 3's marketplace.

The Path of Exile and Last Epoch, which doesn't have that feature, but is still pretty good about trading.

Part of that that I think is sort of like...

Weird to me is you can buy items to bypass the part of the game which is finding items.

You know what I mean? Like if you want to make a specific build and do a specific thing, you have to find the unique.

You got to grind for it. You got to do the boring stuff.

But that is also the game. Like if you could just go to the store and buy, and I'm sure people were saying this about Diablo 3 when it came out.

If you could just go to the store and buy the item you want for the build, then what the hell is the point of the game?

Now you just have the build. This is in-game money.

This is not a... Yeah, it's like in-game currency that you can use to trade stuff in Path of Exile 2.

It's just a weird thing. Yeah, I guess because like, you know, in a lot of action RPGs or like MMOs, like WoW or whatever, you couldn't buy the exact one you'd want.

You could buy one that like almost got you there you know I mean like maybe didn't have as many em you know attributes or something or you know or an element spell or something like that that you know you can you can get like really good armor but you can't get like the really good armor you get off that doesn't have the role i want oh exactly yeah so but you can just straight up buy like the one you would want Well, it's still a marketplace, so you are still reliant on the rules, like you're saying, but because players are so, you know, they know what they're doing.

I'm sure people are making money off of this on a secondary market.

Actually, I'm 100% sure they are. My buddy was part of that for a while.

People are – they're hunting for it. They know what they're doing.

Yeah, it's just a weird phenomenon. I thought I –

I thought I didn't like it. And like, I don't, part of it is like, oh, why would I play the game after that?

But I thought about it more and I was like, I think, I think I figured out the survivor's genre.

Because I played Vampire Survivors and I couldn't figure out what about it I liked.

Like I couldn't fathom why I enjoyed that.

It felt like just a dopamine thing. But now that I'm playing Last Epoch again, and I'm thinking more about why I like it, because I am just skipping the story stuff, making a build is really fun.

And that's what the survivor's genre just is.

It's just an action RPG where you don't have to have like skill shots.

You don't have to focus about positioning as much.

It's really actually it's just positioning.

But you don't have to worry about where your abilities are going or what's going on with your mana or anything.

It's all just timing of attacks. And you just create a build.

I never thought about it like that, but that is the fun part of it.

Have you played much Warframe? Uh, I played probably like a hundred hours in beta and that was a decade ago at least.

Okay. Oh yeah. Back then. Okay. Yeah. Cause I, yeah, I, I wonder if that this is a similar thing where it's like, I don't know, do people create multiple characters in Last Epoch?

Like, is it about building multiple classes the way you want them?

Totally, yeah. Because you can get to end game pretty quick and the build and class variety is so different.

Like uniques you find can allow you to unlock whole new builds, which is awesome.

But even then, like the characters innately have Every character, every class, there's like five or six classes, has three subclasses, which are all very different in their play style.

So there's like at least 18 different classes you can play right out the gate without having to find specific stuff.

So they're all available immediately. Yeah.

So maybe that's just it. Maybe they they don't want to gum up that process anymore than they need to.

They want you to like perfect one of those subclasses, move on to the next one. or something like that.

That was more of a Path of Exile 2 fan, specifically, to be fair.

Oh, okay, okay. But even then, yeah. It also is a scenario where the more class variety any sort of RPG or RPG-adjacent game has, the more...

If you need a priest mace and it's a specific type of a specific item, then it can be tedious to have to go out into the world and grind... trolls until like the specific type of troll that drops this type of mace until you get the mace that has like plus 10 spirit on it.

You know, I can see an argument for being able to buy it, but I'm with Danny that I think that like, if you are able to buy your way into class specific gear, it should always be a lesser version of something like it should be a bandaid solution until you get the drop you need.

I think that like. stuff that's available.

I am of the philosophy that you should be any item that is class specific that is like optimal should be soul bound.

I don't think you should be able to like transfer it between, your own characters or between even like path of exile, being able to like transfer between characters.

I was a little like, I get it, but I'm a little old school on this.

I want it to be a special moment where it's like I just be... you know, VC for the first time.

And I got like a chess plate for my paladin.

And I think like when you have that there, when you force players. force i mean you bought the video game hope you're playing it um when you force them to like look for equipment and and find new things i have found especially with last epoch like I'm finding uniques.

I'm finding weird items with stats that I wasn't expecting class specific stats.

And I'm like, I want to go roll a new character.

I had never thought about that build. That sounds really fun.

You lose that opportunity, I feel like, when you...

But also people who are like buying stuff are probably at the point where they're just reading build guides anyway because they know what to buy.

True. It's just a different experience.

It's a different version of the genre that I had never fiddled with.

I didn't do any of the buying marketplace stuff in Diablo three.

I just didn't care. Um, So it's just it's a weird part of it that I don't personally get along with, but I can see the value of.

It's just a weird thing with the genre. I'm trying to get back into action RPGs because that was my thing for a while.

Isn't that funny? though is like so much about gaming and I'm not talking about this in particular just in general is like the how comfortable we feel with like the verbs like how what what Ella you know Back in my day, that chest plate would have been soul banned and that feels good to us.

And maybe it's arbitrated. It feels good.

Maybe it's just like the, you know, that's what it was like before.

Or maybe it's. maybe there's some reason why it feels good and then games we like are ones that, you know, almost like comedy sort of usurp our expectations. on what we thought we liked and then games that we don't like sometimes, oh, they just fiddled the dials in a way I don't like.

And it's just, you know, and we sit here and analyze it and talk about it, but so much of it is just like, oh, I like that.

You know what I mean? I like the way they did that thing.

A huge amount of it is personal taste. I feel like when it comes to your you're 34 and you like that because you played that when you were 16 thing because I hear that a lot, that it's like more nostalgia than it is sort of like game design preference.

I think that is, you know, it's a valid criticism.

I think it's a thing to be vigilant of. But to me, it's always been, you know, It's like... And there's Mount Washington in New Hampshire, and there are stickers everywhere in New England that are like, this car climbed to Mount Washington.

It's like the most common bumper sticker ever.

And you can... The climb up Mount Washington, Mount Washington is like one of the 10 most dangerous mountains in the world to climb for some reason.

Yeah, if you look up like 10 most dangerous, I was surprised by this because I have climbed it multiple times as a kid and did not know this.

But it'll be like fucking some mountain in Nepal that's like, oh, it translates to the Widowmaker. you know they're all or like everest like that's like the top 10 and then it'll just be like mount washington which is like 6 000 feet but it's just fucking it's a dangerous climb and i feel like it's like having that experience is so fundamentally different because of the amount of friction that goes into getting to the top that like,

The view is the same, but people who drove up there are like, oh, yeah, I get to like see this view and it's like I wouldn't be able to climb it otherwise.

And I'm not saying you shouldn't be able to.

Well, maybe I am saying you shouldn't be able to drive up to Washington.

It's a separate conversation. But I do think that like it's a perfect sort of parallel to game design friction, because I think that it is like older games definitely tend to be more frictional.

And it is, you know, you could say it's like older game design.

I just think it's like a different sort of philosophy about what game games are and what games should do.

And I personally tend to appreciate games that are like not afraid to give a lot of friction.

There are obviously sort of like diminishing returns or, you know, cases where I think playing original EverQuest is probably a little much for most people now, unless you're specifically you know go into the restaurant and ordering like the ghost pepper chicken uh some people like extra spicy frictional game design but it's like I don't know.

I think it's just having it feeling earned, even if it's like... frustrating in the moment it really does imbue a sort of specialness into these things and it makes you like you just play world of warcraft and you'd see someone walk around with like fucking bright yellow pauldrons that are glowing with particle effects.

And you'd be like, that dude is like... hardcore like that dude earned that shit that dude was fucking on Alterac Valley at 4 a.m. before his day shift um And now you see it and you're like, this guy had $15.

Yeah. This guy had his mom's credit card. so yeah it's just i don't know there's like a there's a it's it's i i guess what i'm saying is like there is the like oh it's a grumpy old men being like we were back in my day it was hard But the other element is that it's like it being hard is is a game design choice that imbues it with meaning.

100%. I think, and I think like modern, I think in the past 10 years, gamers have copped onto this.

I think, I think, I think that, stuff got so to use your words really good word frictionless for a long time and I think that's the difference between you know, getting to a town in the next Assassin's Creed game And finally making your way to like the snowy area in Elden Ring like that.

Those are ostensibly the same thing. You're just getting to a part of the map.

But one of them, like required you to do all of this work and then literally find a way to get up this elevator or this other way to get there.

And that's why people play those games is because they feel rewarded by having done the hard thing.

I mean, that's literally what Dark Souls and Bloodborne and all these games is.

You are getting rewarded for making 50 yards of getting past these tough enemies as opposed to.

Every FPS for the past 20 years where you're basically just like it's a it's a coconut shy and like every time you die, you get frustrated because you're like, oh, but I wanted to see the next room.

You know, it's like that's that is the difference.

And sure, there are some people who want that frictionless version. because they just want to chill out or whatever it is.

But I'm with you. If games aren't challenging or rewarding, then there is no point.

You might as well be doing a slot machine at that stage.

Yeah, might as well do the dishes. to the point you know exactly yeah i would literally do the that's the thing i would when i do the dishes when i like well okay when i do the you're saying when i do the dishes like yeah there you go all Yeah, exactly.

I feel like it's kind of a weird little game.

I feel accomplishment once I've done that.

I probably feel more accomplishments doing that than I do playing some like playing, I don't know.

I don't, I don't contest me a lot, but like, I just don't care.

You know what I mean? Like, like that's not hard.

Like, that's why I have like, that's why we have so many animals in this house.

Their work, But like there are a thing that you do that you get back from and it's part of your day and it adds texture and it's a challenge and like, that's what like having a kid is like as well you know it's like this extra like uh you know challenge that you get this reward from so like it's yeah i'm totally with you it's like what's the that's us i guess and that's probably the type of people listen to this podcast like we don't play games just to totally zone out like every once in a while sure but like yeah sure yeah Hey, and that's challenging.

No, I like the game. I'm not smoking a joint playing Sol Sesto.

I'm smoking a joint and playing like. What am I playing?

Probably too high. I can't remember. It's true. i'll probably listen to music that's probably what i'm actually doing when i do that there's i think it was there's like a i feel like it was hayo miyazaki there's a quote that i heard sometime it was from a filmmaker i'm pretty sure it was hayo miyazaki about um that all the important things in life are a hassle, but that we must overcome the natural predilection to avoid a hassle. inside all of us is this like i don't fucking want to deal with that thing and it's like to recognize and overcome that is to be able to engage with sort of more meaningful experiences in life um Yeah.

And that's, again, that's not to discredit, like sometimes I'm fucking exhausted from work and I just want to like, you know, see the numbers go up too.

So, There are sometimes situations where people just like want, you know, oh, the journey is the important part.

But like for some people, the journey is the impossible part.

Like you can't. like your point about the mountain, like being able to drive up the mountain and see the site is like, there are people who can't do that, who can't climb a mountain, can't go through the challenging part.

It's like being able to see the view and everything is, just that part of it of admitting to yourself that you need that support is like part of the joy of it too.

So like, that's why I'm, I'm personally like, I would never buy something off the Path of Exile 2 store.

What's the point? I would never do that in Diablo 3.

I have no interest in doing that. But like, I can acknowledge that for some players, The achievement that they feel, the sense of achievement they feel, that we feel doing like – like I feel doing the lawn for some people is going to be –

That is for them going to be playing Diablo or whatever.

Like, not to say that that's, you know, I want everyone to play the game the way I play.

It's not what I'm saying. But also. I think the way I play the game is the best way to play it.

And that's why I play it that way. It is an interesting conversation though, because for. for like the Mount Washington thing, like if you, you know, have a disability or something and you still like, you still deserve to be able to see beautiful places like accessibility. is I think essential for things like natural beauty to have like a fucking, to be clear.

I wasn't saying, I wasn't saying that's what you were saying by the way.

Sorry. No, no, no, I didn't think either.

Hey, are you guys being ableist about nature again?

No, no! We've had meetings about this. only the strong must see this video.

I think that like, you know, accessibility is so fucking important for things like that.

I think when the conversation about like, accessibility intersects with difficulty in video games, it is sort of a weird nuanced conversation where it's like, you know, the classic is, like, should Dark Souls have an easy mode?

And it is sort of a more nuanced conversation, not because I don't think, like, you know like there should be like colorblind mode and things to accommodate but like in terms of difficulty settings i think it is weird because it's like yeah if there is You know, I mean, this is well-trod territory, but if there is like an easy mode, it's like these things are adversity overcoming simulators.

Right. Exactly. It's not real. You know what I mean?

Like it's not like like if you if you if there's a button in World of Warcraft that says make me level 60, which there is actually now you just pay for it. that it's like, you know, it's not like you're teleporting to the top of the mountain and seeing the view.

There is no view because the fucking... There's no like you don't turn level 60 and now you get to see the top of Mount Washington.

You're just like. I don't know. I don't know how to express this.

There's no, like, the having done it is the view.

You know what I mean? Yeah. The journey is the goal is the trite way of saying it.

But yeah. Yeah. People don't finish marathons and go, wow, that felt great.

Yeah, I don't wait at the end of the line at the marathon and just run the last 10 feet with everyone.

I'm like, that was sick, guys. Right. It's not like you get to the end and you have like the world's best orgasm.

You know what I mean? It's like, no, this was awful.

I hated doing this, but I did it. But I feel great for this other reason.

Yeah, I guess that's true. The physical part of it isn't the part that's necessarily exciting.

Although, whatever, I don't know. that's the achievement of having done exactly yeah like like if there's ever if there was ever a it's a it's not the journey it's the destination or the other way around it's a it's that um Anyway, last Deepak, thanks for checking in with us on that, Jesse.

We also talked about Hollow Knight, a bunch of stuff about Japan, the Capcom Museum, Sol Sesto for the second time, apparently.

Sword of the Sea, Day of the Shell, and go check out that Deftones app.

Frank, how do we got some emails? Yeah, we have so many people.

If you want to send us emails, podcasts at no clip video or in the patron discord in the podcast chat channel.

Um, I will say one thing I didn't talk about.

I didn't talk about comic at all, which was the biggest anime convention in the world.

Um, but yeah, But like I said, I want to put all this stuff in a video, so I'll get the chance to talk about it in the future.

But I just want to mention Comiket, talking about climate, I don't know.

I'm still processing. Sorry, Frank, is that the one that took place in the Weyland-Yutani building?

Yeah, the Tokyo big site. That was a crazy looking building.

Yeah, like, yeah, I'm still super jet lagged.

So I'm like crazy. But anyways, lots of process.

Our email from Peter. Greetings, Noclip crew.

I'm a former English teacher and current computer science teacher, and video games come up all the time in my classes.

Last week, I used the first 10 minutes of the Bastion documentary as a glimpse into the world of software development.

Awesome. and as a way to educate my students on the magic of Supergiant Games.

This got me thinking, if you could design a course on video game education and appreciation, what games would be on the syllabus?

I'd probably tackle a genre and like go through it over 30 years.

Like I think what's interesting about games is. is how they are a reaction to the previous, like there's an element of technological innovation that's sort of hand in hand there.

But I think when genres are interesting, it's because they are changing.

And when genres are boring... see sports games slash first person shooters because there is not that much evolution.

So I think focusing on the evolution of them is that's probably the way I

You could basically pick any genre you want for that one.

Yeah, I would also say that it depends on sort of like the age slash grade range of the students.

But I like assuming that this was, you know, younger.

I mean, I guess even college is like younger people.

But I would say that like starting on a level that is recognizable and familiar to people and getting them engaged.

Like, you know, say you have a class that are interested in FPS, but they're interested in whatever, like Destiny or Apex or something like that. it would be cool to start on a contemporary example and sort of like build excitement about that and then be like, all right, now let's go to the origins of this genre.

Because then I think you're not just throwing some, you know, like if you're doing roguelikes, you're not just throwing them into a fucking net hack game and they're like, what is this ASCII art bullshit, you know?

You start them on like a familiar roguelike that they like, and then you're like, wow, isn't that cool?

And then you move back to the old thing and then there's like a click of familiarity where it's like, having that connection to something that is beloved and familiar, I think, enables you to appreciate it.

And I say that having just played Super Metroid, an incredibly tedious to my mind game. that I was driven to finish because I have a, a, a Metroidvania obsession right now.

I don't have a good answer for this. Cool.

All right. Let's move on. We've got more emails.

Avatar, non-weeb in Japan. Konnichiwa, no clip.

So I think I'm the anti-Frank. I can't stand anything J-pop, anime, or manga.

And can't for the life of me get into Japanese games.

And I've been living in Tokyo for the past eight years.

I do love the language and food and temples and shrines, though.

Anyway, I've bounced off multiple Final Fantasies and Yakuza games, Ni No Kuni, Metal Gear, Monster Hunter, and Death Stranding.

I've also watched my girlfriend play Persona Metaphor, but they just weren't doing anything for me.

The only exception would be Ghostwire Tokyo, which I devour.

I really want to find some Japanese games that I can vibe with, but it feels like the kinds of gameplay and atmosphere I enjoy do not overlap much at all with the majority of Japanese games.

Do I need to grit my teeth and get out of my comfort zone?

Do I accept that Japanese games just aren't for me even though I live here?

Can you recommend me some good Japanese games without the anime BS?

Sorry, say it slowly. Sorry. Can you recommend me some good Japanese games without all the anime BS?

Oh, man. What was the list of games he bounced off again?

It was like... It was also like they were like nothing.

They were like, yeah, they had several different genres.

I think maybe you're just racist. I don't know.

So the thing, the biggest submission that I would say is like Resident Evil and Silent Hill.

I feel like survival horror wasn't You said you really liked Ghostwire Tokyo.

Yeah. That is like survival. It's more first-person, slower-based, but I feel like Silent Hill and Resident Evil...

Those are Japanese games that take place like Midwestern American towns.

So it's like, yeah, my suggestion was going to be similar.

It was going to be dead rising. because that's oh yeah that's that's straight up like americana through a japanese lens um and again zombies But but yeah, Ghostwire is first person.

Right. So I guess that's the only difference between. between these ones i'd love to know what games avatar does like i was gonna say it's hard to recommend without knowing sort of i mean other than ghostwire tokyo um This is a weird suggestion, but Final Fantasy Tactics Advance is a game that I feel like is so sort of like...

Tonally similar to Final Fantasy games, but mechanically and in terms of it's like. framing and presentation the storytelling is so light touch like it just sort of sets it up and that it's more just about running a company of sort of mercenaries and going around and doing missions um and it's very like mechanics focused as opposed to most final fantasy games are like you know what's my origin story and who are all these people um this is just kind of like here's a bunch of characters for five minutes.

And then it's like, all right, now just fucking go do cool battles.

Okay. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. Yeah, it's a good show.

That's great. I love that game. Final Fantasy Tactics Original.

Very good. also is it a bit it's a bit animato isn't it i mean i guess i would say in terms of like The character design is the sort of the only thing about it, but that is, you know, it's like if a restaurant was full of anime girls, but they had the best pizza.

Ever. Would you eat the pizza there? Even if you didn't like anime?

I would, but he's turning down Final Fantasy, Yakuza, Metal Gear Solid V, Persona.

These are all good games. Death Stranding, yeah.

Those are all the... The biggies. Yeah.

Oh, man. Metal Gear Solid 5 might be the wrong Metal Gear Solid to play.

Maybe go back and play 4 or I don't know.

A bit more linear. One. I mean, play one.

One's fucking brilliant. Yeah, one's perfect.

Fire Emblem. I've been playing Fire Emblem.

The name of the game is Fire Emblem, but it is the seventh one in the Fire Emblem series.

I don't understand. It's my first Fire Emblem, so I'm fucking... I said that to someone who loves Fire Emblem, and I was like, I'm playing Fire Emblem.

And they were like, the seventh one? I was like, how the fuck did you know that?

It's really fucking good. What's that Fire Emblem on?

Is that Game Boy? It's GBA, yeah. It's a, yeah, it has a full, I think it's Blazing, Blazing Saddles.

Fire Emblem Blazing Saddles. They wouldn't let you make that anymore.

Yeah. That's true. It's the most racist.

Um, that's, it's really good. And you know, it has like a little bit of visual novel presentation where the little portraits pop up and they're like, oh my God, you're the fucking whatever princess.

But it's just like, it's good ass tactics combat.

And last one I'll throw in Ghost of Tsushima.

I mean, not a Japanese game. It's made in Seattle, but you know.

Yeah. Cultural appropriations never hurt anyone.

If you're going to recommend Dead Rising, you might as well recommend Ghost of Tsushima, right?

The only game. Dead Rising was made in. That's what I'm saying, though.

You're saying it's a Japanese. game oh sorry america you're picking the only american-made game that takes well not the only but one of the big ones that takes place in japan oh yeah because the racism is uh it's both sides are equal your equal opportunity I do have to say one thing because I did mention it earlier since we're talking about a Capcom game.

Why the fuck don't they make a Mega Man Metroidvania?

I don't understand. Mega Man is like a dead franchise. they need a i mean there's like zx or whatever the fuck i have not played and people say it's more metroidvania adjacent just make a just bring it back just make a metroid uh mega vania megalovania Megalovania.

It's a great song. Love it. Last one I also want to say is Gran Turismo 7 is an awesome Japanese game.

You can customize your car and put anime stuff on it, but by default, there's no anime.

It's like jazz and French food. It's good.

Coffee, coffee shops. Old men who want to talk to you about their Ferraris.

Jesus Christ. Could not deal with that game until I played it in VR.

Boku no Natsuyasumi or Natsuman if you want an English language newer one.

Very good games. They're not like super anime.

They are sort of cartoony in that style, but they're just very wholesome video games.

And you'll know if you don't like it pretty much right away. true boku 2 is the one that has an english patch i don't think boku 1 doesn't have an english patch yet does it i don't think so yeah boku 2 does in english as well yeah man oh man And then Perry wrote in and asked, what would each crew member consider the most profound moment in gaming?

Whoa. This can be your most profound moment or alternatively could be what you feel is the most profound moment for the industry as a whole.

Damn, man. Profound. That's a big word. You guys, anyone have anything?

I'll buy you guys time if you need it. My gut, my instant thought was when Wesker turns on the stars in Resident Evil 1.

That's so fucked up. Whoa. and he finds out like the tyrant is his, that's like, that's like so cruel and evil.

Yeah. I don't know. That's a good one. big twist in final fantasy seven that I won't spoil, but if you know, you know, um, That was a big moment for me as a child.

I was like, I can't believe you've done this to me.

I can't believe you've done this. I can't believe you've done this.

That's what I said. I started the beam and it was when I was seven playing Final Fantasy VII.

And the end of Disco Elysium, which I will also not spoil, but sort of the final interactions.

Especially if you... If you get the extra little bit of sauce on the end, you know, if you completed that side quest, that is, ooh.

Yeah, that's a good one. The hits keep coming at that.

Like, I don't know. It's like a game that is so narratively strong that you're like, Surely it will fizzle out at the end.

And then it's like seven gut punches in a row.

Yes. Yeah. And they come from such crazy directions.

I would say similarly in terms of an ending.

The game that shook me the most in recent memory was the ending of Half-Life Alyx.

It was just like absolutely... ridiculous like I've never that has that that is Like, yeah, whatever.

20 years in the making. You know what I mean?

Like that was like that that only worked because of the time between. the previous staff completing half life two and completing this.

And they, you know, no spoilers again, but that is, it's so ballsy.

I've since talked to a bunch of those folks about it.

It sounds like it was kind of an 11th hour thing that they decided to do it.

And it is... Yeah, I don't know. It's fucking amazing.

I was thinking as well, once Noclip 2 is up and running...

Remember, I think a couple of years ago, I had an idea where we should find like the biggest Half-Life fan who hasn't played Alex and I should just fly to their house with Alex. the VR thing and just sit there and let them play this and then record it and fly back.

I think that would be really cool. See the reaction to the ending.

Yeah. Exactly. Just do that. I think that would be awesome.

I got one more that's not like a bespoke moment in a game, but an emergent moment in a game.

I was this is sort of like me looking into the future of what games will become and have become is playing Rust.

In the first like week or two that I played Rust with my friends, there was a moment where we were all so into it that we were just like, and I think it was like right at the height of COVID, too.

So we're all just like logging on all day playing Rust.

And we had this peninsula that was locked down where anyone that came there, we would kill except for our neighbors who we had a sort of like. tenuous peace agreement with and someone encroached on our peninsula and built a boathouse and uh me and my friend were just sort of like rust transforms you into a beast of a man it brings out the worst in humanity it's a fucking toxic it's it's it is a worse stain upon history than capitalism and i we went over to this dude's boathouse and uh We stood outside and we were like, listen, we got about a thousand bombs out here and we're going to blow our way in and kill you unless you fucking like give us your boathouse and leave forever.

Wow. And so the dude is like, he's like English.

Maybe it wasn't his first language. And we were like, I was like yelling at the dude.

And my friend was like, listen, my buddy out here, he's got a fucking thousand.

Like we're good cop, bad copping him. Wow.

And then he like finally came out and. like he was like scared or like whoa man like okay it was this moment where the role play like Wasn't it wasn't like we were like, let's go RP with this guy.

It was just like we were fully immersed and like intimidating a man into giving us his property.

That's amazing. And I was like, this is this is like. gaming but I didn't feel good about it but it was like a it was a heart of darkness moment where it's like I can't I can't believe a game has brought this out in me where it's like Fucking Upton Sinclair moment where I'm just shaking down this guy for his boathouse.

I think the final agreement was like, listen, we're going to use your boathouse full time and you're going to give us permission to.

And that's the only condition. You can come back here.

Wow. That's crazy. He was like, okay, I'm sorry.

Mafia ring over here. Fucking around, man.

I got my comeuppance though, because the first like actual proper squad that came against us, they destroyed our entire house.

We spent like a week and a half building.

And it was then that the true rust began and the decline into insanity also began with it.

You know what? I've got two. I've got one that's not a game and one that is.

One that's not Humble Bundle, when that dropped for the first time and they did that big charity thing, pay whatever you want.

For me, that came at exactly the right time.

I think I was like 12 or 11. Finally, it was like video games are accessible.

You can play them now or however I might have been 14.

It doesn't matter. I was like. excited to play all these new games that i would never play before it was like weird it was like binding of isaac i think dungeons of dreadmoor was in one of those like It was a genre.

It was a style of games I would never play that were like inaccessible to me money wise because like.

$5 is a lot of money when you're 14. That's all the money you have.

So that was cool. And then the game one, I think I might have told the story before.

It's so stupid, but in Fable 2. Um, you can get married, have a kid like that was, you know, as a stupid kid, I was like, well, I could have sexy the video game.

Well, that's so cool. I'm going to do that.

So, of course, I do as a moron. She's pregnant.

I'm like, how funny. I got a lady pregnant in the video game.

What a loser. And then there's a story beat later on where you go to a place called the Spire and a bunch of time passes.

And when I came back, my kid was born and I was like, I just missed the first however many years of my kid's life.

And I didn't think about what I was doing.

Oh, my God. Like, dude, my whole life flashed before my eyes.

I was like, wow, this is awful. Video games shouldn't be able to do this.

So that was that was the moment where I was like, oh. okay, they can mean more than just like cool, subversive, ludonarrative, whatever the hell, or like, whoa, it's like, you know, passage made me feel things.

That was like, I'm crying my eyes out over a fake video game thing.

That was a big moment for me. So stupid though.

That's awesome. No, that's cool. I actually do have one more, just very briefly.

I think, like sometime between like 2013 and 2015 when I was working at GameSpot.

I think I had I read I had played indie games before But I think going to GDC for work and meeting people who made indie games and sort of like associating the humans that made them and also like the scale of these, the tiny scale of these teams that were making these games that were going toe to toe with bigger games that I liked.

It was like, I think that's when I realized I wanted to make games, even though it would be years before I actually got into it, because it was just...

I don't know. I knew that these games were made by a few people or whatever, but for some reason it was like video games in my mind were always this unattainable thing made by. incredible teams of engineers and like dozens and dozens of them with millions of dollars and uh yeah seeing meeting people that made video games i think was like a incredibly profound moment for me Awesome.

And Brennan wrote in and asked, I've been getting back into comics and manga lately.

I'm wondering if you guys have any self-contained slash completed stories that such as Superman, Red Son, Batman, Long Halloween, Blankets, Spiral, that you strongly recommend.

I would especially appreciate anything a little less known. because I feel like I've read the major ones that are always on the top of the list and all-time hits, Pantheon.

I haven't read it in a while. What about you guys, like in terms of graphic novels and whatnot?

One of my favorites in the last five years is Ed Brubaker's Pulp.

So there's a team. They have a new book coming out this week.

So you could read any graphic novel by Ed Brubaker.

He writes Crime. uh but pope specifically is about a bank robber in like the wild west and at the end of the wild west he gets away and he makes a living writing pulp graph like pulp novels in like the early 20s about his stories And then one more job, and he ends up fighting Nazis and Colts.

But probably, I don't know, 100 pages, but it's so badass.

Yeah, it's just like all this stuff. It's very violent and gritty, but anything by Ed Brubaker.

There's a series called Criminal. You can pick up any volume.

They're all standalone, but... dive in if you like film the fade out it's a noir story in 1940s hollywood anything by ed brubaker i strongly strongly recommend that's not finished yet right that run No, they're all finished.

They're all isolated, individual. Oh, okay.

That's cool. There's like 12 criminal graphic novels.

Each volume is a standalone story. So you could pick up any... Or go to your library.

Anything by Ed Brubaker that's, like, image.

Because he's done, like, Captain... Who Killed Captain America?

He's done, like, big franchises. But his individual stuff is... is what got me into comic books.

Excellent. Yeah, so I have a bunch of stuff to catch up on, East of West and some other bits and bobs.

I feel like I have to reread half of them, though, because I've forgotten so much of them.

It's been so many years since... since they started.

Yeah, that's the hard part. You can't leave it alone.

Once you come back, you're like, wait, who is this again?

What's going on? Yeah, totally. Mouse, I know, is a really... popular one art spiegelman um so but it's yeah it's you have to read it i think like if you like just one book though right i think it's two that's two yeah oh is it but you could probably find a collector's edition that's everything in one series, manga, Ikigami.

I started reading a little while ago. I think it's done.

It's really good. It's about like I won't even tell you.

Just read the first book. If you like the premise, read the whole thing.

If you can't get into it, it's just a really good setup for like a story about – authoritarianism and what happens to society after that.

It's not just about the setup of the authoritarianism.

It's like, how does how does society exist when there's so much control over people and their bodies and how they do things.

It's a very cool story. I've never heard anyone talk about it either.

I just picked it up randomly when we were at a bookstore and ping pong as well.

Funny name, absolutely devastating story about trying to reach your own heights and what sports can do to people at a lower level.

Like it's, it's ping pong, but it's competitive ping pong.

It's just, it's one of those stories that made me feel things. about sports that up until that point i hadn't and then i got really into basketball now i feel it for sure but yeah just a really well done story and if you like it even if you don't you know i honestly watch the ping pong anime just because the animation's so cool when you get a chance.

Yeah. Really, really good series. I like ping pong a lot and that's also done as well.

So. Um, I have very basic tastes in manga, uh, but it, cause like my recommendation would be like berserk or mouse for graphic novels.

But, uh, I have been recently reading one of the most popular manga in the world, which is a Chikawa and it's, it's, It's very, very fucking cute and charming.

I just read Volume 1, and I loved it. It's awesome.

I can see why it is everywhere in Japan.

It is... undeniably charming and what's it about chikawa it's like a little uh it's like a little little animals little mouse who has just like doesn't say anything and has friends and they just like I don't know.

It's it's it doesn't really have like a story as such.

It kind of just has these isolated like I'll give you an isolated like couple page narrative.

They. Chikawa and their friend are going to a noodle place where the ordering procedure is very specific, and they both have extreme acute social anxiety about going to the place.

So they walk by, and they're like, we can't go there yet.

We have to go home and research how to order.

And then they research how to order, and then they go together. and one of them orders successfully and then Chikawa freaks out and freezes up when they can't say like extra garlic with whatever and their friend orders for them.

And then afterwards they're like, that was fun.

We should be brave and get food more often.

And that's the whole, it's just like, it's so fucking sweet.

Yeah. It's really good. Frank, what was the name of the person who sent the email as well?

Brennan. If you want to send in more graphic novel stuff, I would love some recommendations.

If I can throw some other Batmans your way.

Batman Venom, really good older series. And if you haven't read the Cataclysm stuff that takes place after Nightfall. also very, very good.

Cataclysm is fantastic. It's really a, I got really into Batman one year and read everything and like almost every important Batman story.

And. There's a lot of crap. There's a lot of good stuff.

There's a lot of crap. Awesome. There you go.

Some recommendations. Sorry. Go ahead, Frank.

Preacher by Garth Ennis. It might be at the top of the list, but it really is phenomenal.

That's wrapped as well. And then for manga, this is so explicit, but Gantz is my favorite manga ever.

Oh, yeah, Gantz. It's about, yeah, Gansett rules.

It's about a kid throws himself on the subway track, and he is abducted to a new realm where he has to fight aliens to live.

And he's like, I was going to kill myself, but now I have to fight aliens and there's hot chicks everywhere in latex.

What? That's literally what the manga is about.

He has another book called Gigant, which is about a Giver model who grows into a giant to fight kaiju and aliens.

Anyways, Hiroyo Oku, everything by him is phenomenal, but it's certain you have to have a certain level of that level of taste, but you have to have a, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, lower level of taste.

I don't know, like trash and perversion.

I thought you were going to say a higher level of intelligence to get into it.

No, you need to have like a in the depths um i saw his artwork at a gallery and whatever it's yeah we should have a series called trash and perversions yeah yeah that's a that's a yeah it's a strong feeling yeah um all right thanks for all the emails folks podcast and no clip that video keep coming in or drop them in the discord channel podcast discord channel uh reminder once again saturday at 5 p.m at pax west no clip secret panel about video game documentaries and tapes We'll be announcing some stuff, showing some stuff, a couple of special guests coming on.

Me and Frank will be there. Having a good time.

I'll try my best not to curse because I believe my family is going to be there.

So that should be fun. Yes, looking forward to that one.

The Machine Games documentary will be up by the time posting it right after this.

It'll be up by the time you are watching this.

The Wolfenstein documentary is in early access for early access folks as well.

The episode one of the machine game series is all about their prehistory.

So Starbreeze interactive, basically the, Chronicles of Riddick Escape from Butcher Bay the darkness sort of how Bethesda and id managed to wrangle them to make a Wolfenstein game all that stuff And then the second video is all about Wolfenstein.

It's about 42 minutes long, 44, 45 minutes long.

All about Wolfenstein, the new... blood sorry the new order and the uh new colossus right yes that's right those ones we mentioned the spin-offs as well like old blood and Cyberpilot and and why not but I'm yes but we uh yeah focus mostly on those and then all the crazy work that went into them and there's a great section on hitler's penis um if you want to check that out that's Really good stuff.

Really good stuff. Yeah. If you like, these are classic noclip docs.

These are classic noclip studio docs. So if you liked our like doom doc or Bethesda or arcane, this is 100% down that alleyway.

And some of the stories in this are absolutely insane.

So, um, Yeah, lots of really interesting insight as well into why those guys broke away from Starbreeze back when they did.

Spoilers, it was EA. Okay, so that's all for now, I think.

Yeah. We're off to PAX this weekend. So we'll see you there.

And if we don't, we'll be back next week with more video games.

See you then, folks. Bye. Bye.

[Noclip Podcast Episode 242: Gaming Pilgrimages, Indie Gems, and the 'Silksong' Phenomenon]-[Sol Cesto, Hollow Knight, Frank Howley's Japan Journey]

📋 Summary

Noclip Podcast Episode 242: Highlights and Insights

Frank’s Japan Recap: Museums and Retro Finds

Indie Spotlight: Sol Sesto and Day of the Shell

The Silksong Effect and Industry Release Scheduling

Game Design Philosophy: Friction vs. Accessibility

Profound Moments and Community Q&A

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript