Game Scoop! : Donkey Kong Bananza: Killer App or Filler Snack?

Summary

Game Scoop! Episode Summary: "Donkey Kong Bananza: Killer App or Filler Snack?"

Release Date: July 3, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of Game Scoop!, host Samuel Claiborne is joined by Justin Davis, Nick Limone, and a rare guest appearance from Mitchell Saltzman. With regular host Daemon Hatfield on vacation, the team dives deep into the latest gaming news, previews, and reviews, ensuring listeners stay informed and entertained.

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Donkey Kong Bonanza: The Switch 2's Potential Killer App

Timestamp: [03:27]

The spotlight of the episode centers on Donkey Kong Bonanza, a highly anticipated title set to debut on the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2. Mitchell Saltzman shares his hands-on experience with the game, establishing it as a prospective "killer app" that could drive the Switch 2's success.

• Development Insights:

  • Mitchell Saltzman [04:16]: "It really has the fingerprints and the DNA of the Odyssey games all over it."
  • The game is developed by the same team behind Mario Odyssey, suggesting a blend of classic platforming with modern innovations.

• Gameplay Mechanics:

  • Emphasis on fluid movement and versatile platforming abilities.
  • Mitchell Saltzman [09:49]: "With this game, you can do all that stuff, and I love it for it."
  • Introduction of transformations like the Kong Bonanza and Ostrich Bonanza, each offering unique abilities to navigate challenges.

• Visual and Design Elements:

  • Rich, vibrant environments reminiscent of Donkey Kong Country, with a notable presence of the character Pauline.
  • Nick Limone [07:14]: "Nintendo sees games like Minecraft being the biggest thing on earth and instead of doing what a lesser developer would do, they put such a unique spin on it."

• Community and Lore:

  • Speculations about the inclusion of classic villains like K. Rool and the possible appearances of characters like Mario in unexpected roles.
  • Mitchell Saltzman [20:05]: "Cranky Kong is in the game, but he does have some cheeky fourth wall mentions of Mario in his dialogue."

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Death Stranding 2: Evolution from the Original

Timestamp: [33:55]

The discussion transitions to Death Stranding 2, with Damon Hatfield and Mitchell Saltzman sharing their experiences and impressions of the sequel compared to the original game.

• Gameplay Improvements:

  • More refined mechanics and smoother gameplay enhancing the overall experience.
  • Mitchell Saltzman [40:33]: "It's a huge improvement over the first, and I'm excited to get back into it."

• Story and Emotional Depth:

  • Increased narrative depth with optional story elements that enrich the main plot without forcing players.
  • Damon Hatfield [36:31]: "The Dollman moment in the hot springs has some deep foundation in Japanese culture that I have no idea what was happening."

• Player Agency and Exploration:

  • Enhanced open-world design allowing for greater player freedom and exploration.
  • Mitchell Saltzman [38:23]: "I did a lot more optional content and found hidden gems throughout the game."

• Comparisons and Influences:

  • Drawn parallels to Metal Gear Solid V, highlighting creator Hideo Kojima's signature style and design philosophy.
  • Mitchell Saltzman [35:48]: "Death Stranding 2 is two, especially. It's taken so much from Metal Gear Solid V in that game."

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Capcom Live Stream Recap

Timestamp: [30:48]

A brief overview of the recent Capcom Spotlight live stream, which showcased upcoming titles and exclusive content.

• Pragmata Announcement:

  • Damon Hatfield [57:43]: "Pragmata is a mix of puzzle and action with a co-protagonist."
  • Revealed as a PlayStation exclusive, blending survival horror with puzzle-solving elements.

• Fan Reactions and Speculations:

  • Discussions around fan theories, including character inclusions and storyline connections reminiscent of classic Capcom franchises.

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Video Game 20 Questions: Infamous Second Son Guessing Game

Timestamp: [60:33]

In the segment Video Game 20 Questions, the team engaged in a fun guessing game inspired by a listener's suggestion, eventually identifying Infamous Second Son as the featured game.

• Gameplay Features:

  • Explored whether the game is based on a movie (it isn't) and its open-world nature.
  • Confirmed as a PlayStation exclusive with superpowers central to the protagonist's abilities.
  • Mitchell Saltzman [67:01]: "Does your character have a superpower? Yes."

• Team Dynamics and Memories:

  • Shared nostalgic memories and personal opinions about the game and its expansions, such as First Light.

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Final Thoughts and Closing Remarks

Timestamp: [73:09]

As the episode wraps up, the hosts share their final impressions and invite listeners to engage with future content.

• Listener Engagement:

  • Encouragement to submit suggestions for future Video Game 20 Questions episodes via email.

• Upcoming Content:

  • Teasers for upcoming podcast content, including cross-promotions with other Geek Media productions like the Oxventure Podcast and What Went Wrong? series.

• Host Sign-Off:

  • Samuel Claiborne concludes by thanking listeners, wishing them well for upcoming holidays, and reminding them of Daemon Hatfield's return the following week.

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Notable Quotes

• Mitchell Saltzman [04:16]: "It really has the fingerprints and the DNA of the Odyssey games all over it."
• Nick Limone [07:14]: "Nintendo sees games like Minecraft being the biggest thing on earth and instead of doing what a lesser developer would do, they put such a unique spin on it."
• Mitchell Saltzman [20:05]: "Cranky Kong is in the game, but he does have some cheeky fourth wall mentions of Mario in his dialogue."
• Mitchell Saltzman [38:23]: "I did a lot more optional content and found hidden gems throughout the game."
• Mitchell Saltzman [40:33]: "It's a huge improvement over the first, and I'm excited to get back into it."

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Conclusion

This episode of Game Scoop! provides an in-depth look at the upcoming Donkey Kong Bonanza and the evolution of Death Stranding 2, alongside recaps of significant industry events like the Capcom live stream. The engaging discussions, combined with personal insights from the hosts, make it a must-listen for gaming enthusiasts eager to stay updated on the latest trends and releases.

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For more information and to explore past episodes, visit Geek.com.

Transcript

[Samuel Claiborne]

Foreign this week on Game Scoop, we're discussing Mitchell Saltzman's glowing preview of Donkey Kong's big Switch 2 debut, and we reveal just who the heck is actually making that game. We'll also chat about Death Stranding 2 and all the games and summer fun we've been having right here on gamescoop.

[Justin Davis]

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[Mitchell Saltzman]

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[Samuel Claiborne]

Welcome to Game Scoop. I'm Your host, Samuel Claiborne. And I'm joined this week by Justin Davis. Scoop, Nick Limone.

[Nick Limone]

I'm back.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Ready? And a rare but welcome appearance from Mitchell Saltzman. What's up, Mitch?

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Hey, what's up? Rare and unusual sighting of Mitchell Saltzman.

[Samuel Claiborne]

But you're going to be cited around the network, I think, this week because you got to do something special. We'll talk about that in a second. We've got a great show for you today. Despite our regular host being away. Damon's on vacation. He'll be back next week, but in his absence, we're going to be discussing death. Straining 2 Nick, I believe, has beat it. Mitchell, you didn't beat that yet, right?

[Mitchell Saltzman]

No, not even close.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Yeah, I'm maybe close. I'm not sure. We'll have to figure that out. Without spoiling it, I will also be discussing last week's Capcom live stream, which showed some games and showed a lot of other stuff, too. And then we have a. But first, though, as I already alluded to, but first, today we'll be talking to Mitchell about the Donkey Kong Bonanza preview that he got to play hands on time with Donkey Kong. A couple different saves. I just watched the video, read the preview. I'm excited to jump into it. Shall we?

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Let's shout.

[Samuel Claiborne]

You called it maybe the Switch 2 killer app. It's out on July 17th. Tell us why you think this could be the reason why we all need to own a Switch.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

You know, I think it's just everyone who has a Switch 2 right now, I think is really waiting for that, you know, big single player, Nintendo kind of experience. You know, Mario Kart is, is awesome. It's also very known quantity.

[Nick Limone]

It's.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

It's more Mario Kart. Logan would hate to hear me say that, but it really is. It's more Mario Kart. And yeah, like, just, you know, people want that, that Nintendo kind of mascot platformer at the beginning of. Of a console's life cycle. I think Donkey Kong Bonanza is absolutely.

[Nick Limone]

That.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

This is developed by the. The Mario Odyssey theme. Sorry to. To spoil that. The little thing that we were teasing.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Before, I brought a little history of that team that we can go over. So there's still more to talk about there.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Cool. And yeah, you know, it's, it's. It really has the, the fingerprints and the DNA of the Odyssey of the Odyssey game. I was going to say games of Odyssey all over.

[Samuel Claiborne]

It was Odyssey games.

[Nick Limone]

Yeah, right.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

The way like, you know, text. Text boxes will come up. It'll show like A picture of the character that they're talking about right after they mentioned the character. Just, you know, the, the movement, the focus on like movement abilities. Everything feels very Odyssey esque.

[Samuel Claiborne]

The existence of Pauline.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

The existence of Pauline, for sure.

[Samuel Claiborne]

The return of Pauline. Right. Did you get motion sick while playing this game?

[Mitchell Saltzman]

No, I mean, I, I, I've seen people talk about that. I, I am not a person who typically gets motion sickness, so nothing about this game really made me think. I would never have thought that that was an issue just by playing this myself.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Do you think that's because it's like higher frame rate and you spin the camera a lot? Is that basically it? Like, that's kind of the ingredients. Why that makes some people.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

I mean, I spin the camera a lot in like, pretty much every game I play. That's not a first person shooter. Right.

[Samuel Claiborne]

So, yeah, you kind of love the camera spinning games like Devil May Cry on forward. Right?

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Yeah, for sure.

[Damon Hatfield]

I kind of wonder if it has to do with the FOV when you go and bury into like the side of a cave, because it seems to get much narrow, narrower, because you lose a lot of your screen space when it's covered by, you know, mountains. So I'm wondering if that's it. But as someone who is a little bit sensitive to some FPS games that don't have adjustable FOV sliders, I did not get motion sick playing this game. At least in the Nintendo Switch 2 preview event where they demoed the first level.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Right. So Nick has also played the game. You've gotten to do a little bit of the. You said the first level, but then, Mitchell, you got to play other save files, basically. Is that how it worked?

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Yeah. So I got to. I don't know what, what Nick's demo entailed. I imagine it was probably the lagoon layer.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes, it was what we're seeing right now on the B roll. So I. The demo stops right after you enter this, like, lagoon that opens up.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Okay. So I played a little more than that because I got to play two sub layers of the lagoon layer. And then I got to play a kind of mining town after that. That was a lot of like, minecart rides and, you know, a lot of like mountains and everything getting from mountain to mountain. And then I got to play pretty classic looking, like, jungle style level with like a poison purple swamp.

[Samuel Claiborne]

And you said that's back from somewhere. Where is that? Back from Odyssey. I remember it.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

I feel like it's just a general Nintendo thing. Like there's just a lot of purple.

[Samuel Claiborne]

You're right about it.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Slaughters whenever there's, there's jungles. You know, Mario has a lot of jungle levels with purple poison waters.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Yeah, that's a good point.

[Nick Limone]

I'm so glad that it looks like this is shaping up nicely. Like, obviously it's not a final review that will come when the game comes out, but it's risky, right? Like, this isn't a sure thing in the way that like, Mario games and Zelda games are pretty much the closest thing we have to a sure thing in video games these days. And like, you know, this, this era of Nintendo allowing sort of player self expression in. In Mario Breath of. Or in Zelda Breath of the Wild and Zelda Tears of the Kingdom. And now the Mario team's getting in on the act with the new Donkey Kong game. I love it. Like, you know, Nintendo sees games like Minecraft being the biggest thing on earth and instead of doing what a lesser developer would do and just say, okay, well, you know, I guess we're gonna make, you know, a mining and crafting game. They put such a unique spin on it and just the confidence and faith that they have in both their players and their level design of like, we're gonna let you wreck up the whole thing. We're gonna let you build things and just do whatever you want, solve the puzzle however you want, and it's just gonna work and it's all gonna be fun. And it makes me so excited to see that these previews are so positive so far. And Mitchell, you said something important earlier, which is just player movement and the options for how Donkey Kong gets around the world. Like, they looked really fun in the Donkey Kong direct, but like, look, that's no substitute for getting a chance to go hands on with it yourself. Right? Like, so the fact that, you know, I trust your judgment and that it sounds like that that's an enjoyable part of the game gets me even more hyped.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Yeah. And I think, you know, an important part of any good platformer is to have like, very basic movement and have levels that, you know, are kind of designed around just doing the thing that the game wants you to do. Going from point A to point B. You know, you can find your own way to it, but I think good platformers have ways to make it so that you can get to point B either faster or, you know, you can take some sort of shortcut there. There's, you know, all kinds of different options to get to point B. And with, with this game, obviously it's taken to A whole other level because, you know, you can go through the level. You can go, you know, you can take all different directions. You know, you can do stuff like roll jumps or you can roll off the edge and do a jump, like while you're off the edge to get a little more distance, you could rip something out of the ground and slide on it. And while that, you know, is faster, it's also a little more risky because you don't have quite as much control. You can't really stop on a dime. So stuff like that is what I personally look for in, in a platformer. And I think Donkey Kong Bonanza has it in spades.

[Nick Limone]

Yes.

[Damon Hatfield]

One thing that, that stood out to me when I played the game, Mitchell, is that within first, the first 10 seconds of like actually getting hands on with the controller one, I immediately understood what every single face button did because it's like so intuitive. But what stood out to me is that the game just felt amazing the second I touched it. What I want to know is, does that feeling persist as more and more mechanics get introduced? Because one thing that was included in my demo was the transformation stuff or any like, environmental shifts to the gameplay mechanics. Because the direct is the thing that revealed all those transformations that you get and that skill tree that comes with those transformations. Did you get to play around with any of that stuff?

[Mitchell Saltzman]

So I only got to check out two of the transformations. I got to check out the Kong Bonanza and the ostrich bonanza. Kong. I say it in the. I make a cheeky little joke in the. The written about him be just being bigger, faster and stronger too. That's.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Which is a reference to the DK route.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Thank you for, for explaining the reference, Sam. But you know, it's. He's able to plow through stronger materials. It's all really satisfying. You can see it right there. If you're watching the B roll, what would normally take like a couple hits to break through, like the Kong banana, you can just smash through it like with ease. And the ostrich one is more kind of like a. I would almost liken it to one of the Odyssey transformations where it's. It, it seems very level specific. So like if you need to, you know, make a, a jump across a gap that you wouldn't normally be able to, you know, jump to, you can instead transform to the ostrich and kind of just flutter over to it. So I didn't really, I didn't really experience a lot of the very, you know, unique things that you can do with the ostrich. Other than just gliding over to different places, I'm sure there are going to be some.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Is it level specific or can you. Now that you're the ostrich, you can go back to old levels and fly through.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

It is not level specific. So I believe once you get a transformation, you can just transfer.

[Samuel Claiborne]

That's a pret. Big deal if you just have like a free flying, even temporary character, right?

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Yeah, it. And it's kind of like cool to have, you know, you can switch. You can switch whichever one you want in in any kind of moment. So you can kind of like. It's almost like having, you know, extra tools on your tool belt. So, you know, if you. If a boss would be better suited for you to turn into, you know, the giant Donkey Kong, you could just do the. The. The Kong Bonanza versus, you know, if you need to, you know, get over some sort of hazard, then you switch to the ostrich bonanza.

[Damon Hatfield]

How fast is that special meter charging? Is this a transformation that's happening constantly, or do I want to save this for a very critical moment?

[Mitchell Saltzman]

So it depends on how much gold is around you. So if you. If you notice, whenever you collect little pieces of gold, you're charging that little meter in the bottom left. So if they're, you know, if you're in a boss fight, I think typically you can like dig underground and like, you know, hit a bunch of gold that's underground. You can get charged up pretty quickly. But if you're in an area that's, you know, not doesn't have a lot of that collectible, then you might want to save it a little more.

[Nick Limone]

I'm like, I'm appreciating the more, you know. And again, I watched the direct. I've been following this game since it was announced, but like, as we're watching this footage here and talking about it, like, sort of how combat oriented it can be and just, you know, the mix of play styles of your platforming around and grappling and jumping up on things and doing very sort of traditional 3D platformer activities. But like, Mario doesn't have much in the way of like, punching and kicking and grabbing an enemy and throwing it into another enemy and like, it just the level of juice that this game seems to have with, you know, kind of that feeling of impact when. When you are making contact with an enemy and you're kind of comboing things together, it feels like it's really, really spot on. It's giving me vibes of almost something like A viewtiful Joe of, like, it's not just a platformer. It doesn't seem like. But it is seem to put an emphasis on, you know, obviously destructing things, but, like, punching, kicking, like, other verbs in the game besides just, like, jumping and climbing on things.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Yeah. And throwing your hat.

[Nick Limone]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

I mean, I think that's, that's a really, you know, suit observation. I think that that's probably the reason why I gelled with it so much. Like, I think a dirty, dirty little secret about me is that while I liked Odyssey a lot, it was not one of my favorite, you know, Mario games. I still prefer, you know, the galaxies get, get, get. You know what? I know when I'm not welcome.

[Nick Limone]

No, no, no, no. Yeah, that's cool. I mean, obviously you're, you're entitled to your opinion opinion.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

But, you know, I just, I, I, I love the, the kind of design of the kingdoms of Odyssey. I just, I don't know. I didn't like tripping over a rock and landing on a moon like that. That was how, how common they, they felt in the game.

[Damon Hatfield]

It wasn't special.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Yeah, it wasn't. It wasn't as special to get, like, the main collectible in the game. There's a little bit of that in Bonanza, but I think what makes me kind of, you know, not even think about it is just how fun it is to move around, how fun it is to, you know, engage in combat with these enemies. There's a bunch of, like, combat challenge encounters that you can, you can find. And, you know, again, going back to that whole thing of, like, you know, you can just do it the, the way that the game expects you to, and then that's fine. But I like to figure out ways to be, like, as efficient as I can in doing it. So I'll, like, I'll pull out a rock, slide on it and try to do it, like, with still with, like, 13 seconds left. And to me, that's how I find, you know, how I squeeze some more fun out of what is otherwise a fairly basic combat encounter. But, yeah, so you can do all that stuff in, in this game, and I love it for it.

[Damon Hatfield]

They kind of remind me of the P switches in Mario Kart world, if I may make that kind of comparison, where the game is like, all right, here's time for a time challenge. You have to do X objective. Figure it out, and then you just kind of like, like you achieve the objective as fast as humanly possible, but it's in how you Achieve it is what I think plays to the game strengths. If Odyssey was all about, you can get wherever you want if you are good enough at the game to figure out the platforming techniques. I think this has that same sort of mechanic and kind of design thesis centered around its combat, where it is more improvisational. You can just kind of go with the flow. It's almost like la, where you're just kind of vibing with whatever's happening and then you're improvising. Whether that be sliding on a rock, picking up another rock, throwing an enemy into another, picking up dynamite rocks or whatever they're called and doing all that stuff. Like, it just seems like it's more centered around expression via combat, which I. I think is a really interesting thing to do.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

100 and you know, it. It's also just a cool callback to how the old Donkey Kong games were. Like, you know, all the hidden bonus rooms that you just go into a room, there's not really any direction you get other than like, find the coin and you're just kind of expected to figure it out. Yeah, exactly. There's all kinds of stuff like that in this. In this game. There's even like straight up bonus rooms that have that music playing.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Well, what are the. The minecart and 2D levels? Are those like warp pipes you go into and suddenly the game is 2D? I mean, I guess I saw one of the Minecart areas just connected you. But some of them look like actual challenges.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Yeah. So there's like these kind of challenge podiums. They're different colors. Gold is like a bonus room. Black, I think, is either a combat challenge or a platforming challenge. But in any case, there's all kinds of different little podiums that you can smash and then you fall down into a little bonus area. And it's either a combat challenge, a bonus room, or some sort of platforming challenge challenge that rewards you with a banana.

[Samuel Claiborne]

So you can envision those getting really hard, right?

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Yeah, I could.

[Samuel Claiborne]

That could be where the challenge becomes.

[Nick Limone]

And we. You touched on something interesting here. This is a little bit inside baseball. But like, you know, Donkey on Country was made by Rare. It wasn't made by Japan. Right. Like, it was made by this, you know, European Western company. And there's been rumors forever, like, we'll never. We'll never get an on the record comment, but there's been rumors that, you know, Japan and Nintendo never really liked the direction that Rare took Donkey Kong. Right. Like, you know, like. Like they redesigned them. You don't really see the Kremlings or K Rule in any sort of Japanese games. Like, they sort of, like they don't pretend, like they don't exist. But like, this Donkey Kong game is so interesting to me again. And kind of that inside baseball way of. It's clearly paying so much homage and care and kind of love for Donkey Kong country, which, you know, Nintendo or at least the Japanese Nintendo teams have kind of, I mean, not literally ignored, but like, didn't really seem to want to have too much to do with for a long time. And now they're swinging kind of hard in the other direction and there's.

[Samuel Claiborne]

It's like Ms. Pac man with Namco. Like, Namco doesn't really, really acknowledge Ms. Pac man because it was designed by some MIT students and distributed by Midway in America. And so when you get collections, sometimes Ms. Pac Man's not on there. And just like, it's kind of. It's always felt that way.

[Nick Limone]

Yep, very similar. And then it does. There's this. There's this undercurrent. I guess we'll find out when DK Bonanza comes out of like, there's like K Rool truthers of like, is he in the game?

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh, yeah, there's a whole conspir.

[Nick Limone]

Yeah, there's a whole conspiracy. And like, some people think that, like, if you freeze frame the footage, like one of the little islands, like, looks like a Kremling head, a face, and it's like, is this like. And like, I'm Honestly, I'm like 5050 on, like, you know, they clearly seem to be sort of. I shouldn't say clearly. Like, I don't know.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Like.

[Nick Limone]

Yeah, I think it's 50 50. Whether the Kremlings and K Rule are like behind. I already forget the villain's name. But it's like, is that Mario? Yeah, is. Yeah, that's. That's another rumor is that Mario Jumpman show up as a bad guy.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

I will say there is. So it's not a surprise that Cranky Kong is. Is the game. But he does have some. Some cheeky kind of fourth wall mentions of. Of Mario in. In his dialog that I encountered, which was really fun.

[Samuel Claiborne]

That's cute. But is it. Isn't Cranky Kong supposed to be the original Donkey Kong?

[Mitchell Saltzman]

I'm pretty sure they don't want you to really think too heavily.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Well, because he kid he kidn when Pauline's older. So what's happening?

[Nick Limone]

And that's even. That's like, you know, I don't know if Mario has Lore in the way that Zelda, you know, sort of, kind of, sort of does. They unified the timeline and yada, yada. But, like. But there are implications of, like, Pauline is young in this, right? And, like, so in the original Donkey Kong, he kidnaps Pauline and Mario comes and rescues her and is like, are we playing the true story of what happened there?

[Damon Hatfield]

That's kind of the vibe I'm getting where this is like, here's what actually happened. Here's what the history books will tell you, that Donkey Kong kidnapped Pauline, but here's how it actually went down. It's like, it's kind of what I'm getting at from this.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Or none of that checks out of Cranky knows Mario, right?

[Nick Limone]

And then there's an implication of, you know, so Pauline goes and is, you know, becomes an adult and becomes mayor of a city that, like, it's named after Donkey Kong. It's like New Donk City.

[Justin Davis]

Right?

[Samuel Claiborne]

Right.

[Damon Hatfield]

Wait a second. I didn't make that connection. But you're 100. That's gotta be what happens.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

This is gonna be why they call it New Donk City.

[Nick Limone]

So this is a. This is an Odyssey prequel. Maybe. Like, I don't know. It's very weir. Don't think about it too much is my advice.

[Samuel Claiborne]

So you already brought up some comparisons to Mario Kart World, and I think there's a really important one that's actually being shown in the B roll right now, and that's what do things unlock, what do bananas unlock? And what do the fossils unlock? And you mentioned it. I would just like to hear from you, like, how useful is it to spend a lot of time going around collecting stuff? Please, please explain exactly what those unlock, and then we'll go into the details.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Yeah, so the bananas are the main collectible. They're kind of like moons in Odyssey. Those unlock skill points. Basically, every. Every five bananas you find, you get a skill point, which I actually really like. One of. You know, talking about the. The things I didn't like about Odyssey, it was kind of like the feeling of collecting moons just kind of for collection's sake. Once you power up the. The Odyssey to move on to the next kingdom here, there's an actual, you know, gameplay benefit to collecting the bananas. Every five you get, you get to get a new skill. And the skill tree isn't the most exciting skill tree in the world. It's most improving, like, your health or, like, you know, your. The. I don't know, some. Some sort of aspect about your. Your power, your punches. But there are a couple of them that give you new skills. And I haven't explored that deeply into it, but I hope that there's more of that because that's what I. I always look, you know, look for in a skill tree. I like to have new toys to play with rather than just, you know, making my old toys slightly better.

[Samuel Claiborne]

And then banana. Bananas are likely also a level gate. Or do you think you can just get through the game without connect collecting ban?

[Mitchell Saltzman]

I don't. So it's not really structured like Odyssey in the way that, you know, you're just collecting moons and then you go back to the Odyssey to fly to the next kingdom. You're always moving downwards into the world. Yeah, so I. I think it's more about.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Unclear.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Yeah, I think it's more about going through, like, that layer's main quest, beating a boss and then jumping down to the next layer.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Okay, so then fossils are the other one, right?

[Mitchell Saltzman]

And then fossils are the other main collectible. Those are. God, they're everywhere. There's so many of them. And those unlock different, like, you know, cosmetics for. For DK to to wear. Like, you can do pants and ties, you get a new tie, you can get new colors for his fur, all kinds of stuff like that. And they also, they do have some sort of gameplay benefit as well. Like you can get, you know, some sort of shorts that make you better at swimming.

[Damon Hatfield]

So it's stuff like that plus two to poison resistance. Is that happening here?

[Samuel Claiborne]

Yeah, probably 2% poison buff. So you also mentioned that there is some sort of interconnectivity between levels that's more than just falling up or falling downwards and jumping back upwards Again. There's fast travel and then, like, ways to get between the layers. But the sub layers seem to be. Would you describe it as one contiguous open world or is it like levels and there's like fast travel between them?

[Mitchell Saltzman]

No, it's more levels and there's fast travel between them. I kind of make the mention in my preview that to me it felt like the size of a sub layer was about the size of like a Mario Sunshine or Mario Galaxy kind of kind of level. But they are connected, you know, by the fact that they are sub layers of kind of like the same general theme of a level. So, you know, the. The Lagoon layer, once you beat a boss in the. The first sub layer, you'll go down to the next sub layer and it's, you know, the same. It's the same enemies, it's the same kind of, you know, story behind behind what's going on in that layer. But you can still fast travel back up to a previous sub layer. You know, still search for some moons. Excuse me. There's ways to get up to a, you know, a previous layer and access a previously unaccessible area.

[Nick Limone]

Cool.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

So there is interconnectivity between the sub layers.

[Nick Limone]

It's like banjo tooie.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

It's been a while since I played that game, but probably I'll take your word for it.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Well, there's more. There's more banjo DNA in this too, because you always have another creature on your back that's like pulling off some of the powers. Also has the transformations also as the googly eyes like it is. It is rare.

[Damon Hatfield]

Inspired rare, as the kids would say.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Yeah. I have not seen any abilities that Pauline is able to do other than just, you know, saying.

[Damon Hatfield]

But is that a co op feature? The her like you shooting? Yeah. And stuff like that?

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Yep.

[Damon Hatfield]

That's very cute.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

I was forced into co op by the. By the Nintendo representative.

[Samuel Claiborne]

That's a cool visual effect to see her yaz, like turn into stones, then break. It looks very cool.

[Damon Hatfield]

It's very stylish. Yeah, it's cool.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Yeah, it's. I talked about this in the preview also, but it's. It's meant for a parent to play with their child. It's not really, you know, something I would little brother and be like, hey, you want to play Donkey Kong with me? All you have to do is just shoot the things while I do all the fun stuff.

[Samuel Claiborne]

So. Any final thoughts? Mitchell, it sounds like you're hyped. Justin seems vindicated in that the, The. The game looks better and better each time we look at it. Nick's already played it. Probably beaten it actually.

[Damon Hatfield]

Dude, I'm just like, I'm very jealous that one. I'm seeing a bunch of cool stuff. It looks like you got to play through. And I. It just hit me. This game is like 16 days away. I cannot.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Crazy, right?

[Damon Hatfield]

I'm so excited.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Yeah. I mean, as someone who's just a huge, huge Donkey Kong fan, like, I. I am so excited that this game exists. I'm sorry, what's.

[Samuel Claiborne]

What's your favorite Donkey Kong game besides Tropical Freeze? You can't use that one.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

I can't say Drop freeze. It's probably DKC2.

[Nick Limone]

So.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Yeah. Okay. That's interesting because I feel like the DKC2 like, crowd came about after. I mean, I didn't even play that. I thought that game looked. Was kind of. Kind of stupid. When it came out, I didn't want to play it. I didn't want to play the third one, but I played the heck out of the first one. So I was always surprised that now 2 has risen in the ranks of being like the cool classic one. That's, that's neat.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

So I, I had like a second Genesis growing up and DKC2 was like, you know, my friend would have and I would go over to his house and play it and that was like, you know, it. It's that envy you feel of being a Genesis owner and looking at something that's so much cooler looking than any very polygonal. Yeah. And just I remember that that really stuck with me. That just kind of, you know, envy of wanting to play Donkey Kong Country. But yeah, okay.

[Samuel Claiborne]

So the question about who is making this game has been something that we've talked about on this show that we did an interview this week and kind of that answer has been revealed. Mitchell, were you involved in that? I don't know who did that interview? I don't know how it happened, but we made a new story about that.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

I was not in any interview that interviews. They mentioned during a presentation before we got to play that it was being developed by the Odyssey team.

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[Samuel Claiborne]

It's very confusing, but this week the confirmation was that we know now that it's Odyssey team. And so go ahead.

[Nick Limone]

And you know what's interesting, I didn't make this connection till just now is that Tokyo team made Donkey Kong Jungle Beat back in the day. Yeah, that might have been, that might.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Have been a good platforming game.

[Damon Hatfield]

Dude, that's my favorite Donkey Kong.

[Nick Limone]

And I completely like, you know, we're talking about this lineage of like Donkey Kong country. And like I just, I momentarily blanked on Jungle Beat even. Even though I love that game. And so they made Jungle Beat and then they made Mario Galaxy. And as far as I know, that's like when the Tokyo team kind of got their start was like those products, I think.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Yeah. So the kind of speculation recently though was that you know who is making this? Is it like a splatoon team Is it something, you know, is it just. Is it the Wonder Team just went on to make this. Who knows? But like now like, it's. The word is out that it's like Odyssey. And what's funny about that too is that you usually don't find that out until you see the credits of the Nintendo game, which is even crazier because they just don't share that information. But this is, this is the Odyssey people. That's what they said.

[Nick Limone]

They're also there. You know, people have uncovered these rumors from like five years ago. It's like, you know, rumor has it the Mario Odyssey team's making the next Donkey Kong game and you know, like those rumors constantly, right? So it, it kind of came and went, but now it's.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Do you think that's like their clock is right twice a day situation or is that.

[Nick Limone]

Or you know, like, who, who would even know? Like, you know, leaks can come from a variety of places, right? Like someone has access to the YouTube back end and then they know what's going to be in some, you know, private uploaded video or they work for some third party ad agency that's making the billboards that are going to be before E3. You know, like, there's all these sources of leaks, but like, who would know what like a Japanese internal Nintendo developer is working on? So it's like either, you know, someone said something to someone or, yeah, they just, they just, you know, they dug up two tweets of someone that happened to be right. You know, like you said, the clock is right twice a day, but, but it is, it is out there now. We're like, oh yeah, this was leaked five years ago and like, nobody really noticed.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Do we know what Retro is working on? Just the Metroid Prime 4 then.

[Nick Limone]

I don't remember. I don't. I would need to look it up. I think there were either they have a second team working on something or they had a second team working on something and then that project was canceled and now they're all in on Metroid. Like, I can't, I can't quite remember.

[Samuel Claiborne]

I'm so curious, like if the Donkey Kong 2D, you know, style thing is going to continue now that there's this, you know, big 3D Donkey Kong situation.

[Nick Limone]

Right. Maybe there were rumors I would need to dig it up. Maybe there were rumors they were making a third Donkey Kong game and then Nintendo put the squash on it. Probably because they, they, you know, were working on their own, their own internal project, but hard. Yeah, I can't remember Now?

[Samuel Claiborne]

Yeah, yeah.

[Damon Hatfield]

I mean, there's a pretty detailed view that did you know gaming does that covers a lot of the retro canceled games, like including a Zelda RTS strategy game, a Sheikah, like Wii game, things like that. So there's probably some overlap there with what y' all are talking about.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Okay, so we should talk about what we've been playing. And I'm kind of surprised, but I think this happened a little while ago now. But Nick, you beaten Dusk Stranding?

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh, yeah.

[Samuel Claiborne]

That's crazy.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, I rolled credits on it after about 41 hours. I kind of took my time with the game. I got everything I needed out of it before I was like, all right, I think I'm ready to finish this game. But even since I finished the game, there is still a lot of stuff that I am doing that I was like, oh shoot, I can't believe I didn't do this. This is cool. There's just a lot more optional content over the first game that is pretty darn impressive in terms of things that are just hidden away if you decide to explore or not explore. And it's wild to me that you can go through the entire game without discovering any of it. Like playing Pac man is a thing that I didn't know existed until I saw our IGN video about it. And I was like, what? That's not nuts.

[Nick Limone]

That's weird. That is nuts.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Can't you like actually get rid of BTS on in the world by. By getting. Playing Pac Man?

[Samuel Claiborne]

There's a map based Pac man game. And then when you eat the ghosts in the map based Pac man game, they. They are reduced in that BT section of the world.

[Nick Limone]

It's insane.

[Damon Hatfield]

But good game. Yeah, I, I very much enjoyed my time with Death Stranding 2. And you know, I think I've said I've done the comparison to Phantom Paid so many times that everyone's probably tired of it. But man, it just feels good to have that level of like verbs to play around with again and like toys that are genuinely fun and interesting to mess around with.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

It's so funny because I was talking to Mark Medina about Metal Gear and he. He famously does not play any Metal Gear games. I'm like, Mark, you realize that Death Stranding too is two especially. It's basically like, like there's so much taken from Metal Gear Solid five in that game.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Yeah, those are the two compar. That's the best comparison is five, right?

[Nick Limone]

Yeah.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

To the point where I'm like, I. I cannot believe you haven't Played metal gear solid 5 yet. Cuz if you love death Death stranding, I think you would love metal gear solid 5.

[Samuel Claiborne]

I think it's the best use of loot ever in a game. You just walk around enemy base and just take everything you can.

[Nick Limone]

I love that.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Whatever you can fit on your back.

[Damon Hatfield]

G Continue.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Five in five in battle five you use those little reverse balloon parachute things.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Samuel Claiborne]

And it's the best feeling in the world once you can start taking tanks and stuff when you tag them. So great.

[Damon Hatfield]

Kojima does name drop Phantom Pain straight up in some pretty interesting ways where I was like, oh, this is a little on the nose. Koji, what's going on?

[Samuel Claiborne]

Yeah, that's really funny when that happens. So you can keep messing around in the game after some point of no return. That's no problem. It encourages you to do that.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, exactly. There's a lot preppers that you can't even, as far as I'm aware. I don't know if you can actually unlock the relationship with them until after the game ends. But that might just be a thing where I just didn't uncover any of their cargo in time. But there was still like four or five preppers that I needed to connect with.

[Nick Limone]

I mean, I'm so glad to see. I mean, look, the first. This has always been a franchise of like, you know, that. That gamers gate like that. That was like if you know, you know, and if you like this kind of thing, like, you know, the first game had a big cult audience, but it was not, not what am I trying to get at? The first game was not like a sure thing, right? Like, yeah, divisive and got kind of mixed reviews. And it's like, look, this has a lot of cool ideas and some people are gonna love it. It's not a game for everybody. And it does feel like the sequel sort of smoothed out. Like just some of those. Some of that friction and just made a game that like. Like I'm just pumped because like I did not love the first death stranding. Like I kind of bounced off it. But I'm very intrigued about. I'm like debating do I need to go back and beat one or you know, watch a story recap and jump into two.

[Samuel Claiborne]

I hear the Director's Cut is very visible now. Like, but I only played the first one when it first came out, so I don't know.

[Damon Hatfield]

The Director's Cut has a lot of quality of life features that make that first game a whole lot friendlier. But I think playing Two strand games, strand type games back to back might burn you out on the genre pretty heavily. So I would recommend a story recap. And you just jumping into two man, it's, it feels very different and like you said, it removes a lot of the friction that prevents you from truly enjoying the game.

[Nick Limone]

That's exactly, See that's what I, that's what I want to hear. I don't know if this is deliberate or what I'm looking at. The director's cut is not on sale anywhere. It's just 40 or 50 bucks.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

I'm like, why, like, what are they?

[Nick Limone]

Like your sequel's out like the original.

[Samuel Claiborne]

This should be a good time.

[Nick Limone]

The original should be 10 bucks. So, you know, so, but yeah, like the first one, the first one obviously had its lovers, but it had like its detractors too. And so to see that this one has a little bit more like mainstream appeal is really just appealing to me.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Mitchell, where are you at with this game? How far are you?

[Mitchell Saltzman]

I'm probably about like four or five hours in, I would say.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Okay, so you're, you're just kind of, and it's something that you'd play for pleasure now. You're not going to play it a bunch more of a war crank.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Yeah, yeah, I, I, I would. I asked Mark, am I going to be doing anything work wise for death stranding? Because if I am, then I'll, I'll get really into it. If not, I'm probably going to, you know, put it on the, the back burner for now. And he said I didn't have to worry about it, so. But yeah, I, I, I also didn't, I, I, I was very lukewarm on the first death strand. The first set, Sorry, I can't say that word. Death stranding. It was a game that I, I respected a lot. I had fun towards the end. I think the on ramp is very, very long on the first game. Like, it just, it takes so long before you, you start getting into like the really fun stuff where you're, you're getting all those extra tool, like, you know, toys and tools that you can use to, you know, clear out a base or you know, make dealing with BTS not quite as stressful or, you know, because every time I got to a BT in the first game I was like, you know what, I'll come back to this another time. I don't need this in my life right now. It's, they're, they're stressful fights. But I think what, what you were saying about like it's this one smoothing out the. The kind of rough edges. I think it really. That is exactly what it does. And I think that the gameplay of Death Stranding 2 is what I wanted the gameplay of Death Stranding 1 to be.

[Nick Limone]

Be.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

So I think it's. It's a huge improvement over the first and I'm excited to. To get back into it.

[Nick Limone]

That's right. I've also heard. Hey Nick, I'm curious to get your take. Like the first. I don't know how many hours of the original I played like maybe 8 or whatever. And like it was just this Kojima stereotype of like the cutscenes just went on forever. And I'm like, I don't know. I don't care about any of this. I don't know what's going on. I'm confused and I'm not having a good time. And I've heard the sequel strikes a better balance of like it's completely insane and off the wall, but like that. That the cutscenes don't go on and on and on and on forever. Like I've heard it respects your.

[Samuel Claiborne]

You also have some agency in this game. It's like, do you want to pick up this Moby Dick book and watch a, you know, a 15 minute backstory video? You don't have to. I mean they kind of trained you on that.

[Damon Hatfield]

I think the game's at its best. Whether or not you care about its overarching story, I leave to you. I'm a. I'm a big fan of it. But where I think the beauty of this game lies in its story beats is the optional, like more intimate moments that are just like opt in whether or not you want to. Like, you'll be list in your room and listening to your portable music player and throw on a song when suddenly Doll man looks at you is like, hey Sam, I got a little something to show you. And then you get invited to like a private music video with Doll man. And it's like one of the most coolest, elegant, like beautifully animated things I've seen in a minute in terms of just, just. Oh yeah. Kojima just made up a music video with a very popular Japanese artist named Daiichi Mura. And it's like, what the heck? This is.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

This is awesome.

[Damon Hatfield]

So it's like finding like a hot.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Springs thing like that too, that it's very confusing. The Dollman moment in the hot springs have some deep foundation in Japanese culture that I have no idea what was.

[Damon Hatfield]

Happening with that there's so Many optional things to do in this game that I'm. It's pretty staggering. It always reminds me of like it's still the same Kojima who, you know. In metal gear solid 3, the original release, if you saved your game, turned off your PS2 at a very specific time, you would reboot your game and start a nightmare that was just a completely different game that was like a beat em up 3D action game. And you would play that for like five minutes before Snake woke up from a nightmare. But it's like that level of I just got to put it in the game. And if some people find it cool, there's so much of that. There's. There's like one mechanic in particular I'm still waiting for or like the rest of the people who have played the game to start talking about. So I can actively talk about it because I think it's one of the coolest things that this game introduces that nobody's talked about yet. And I love it so much. But I guess we'll get there when we get there.

[Samuel Claiborne]

I don't know what thing you're talking about, but we've still been. And I won't spoil it or even hint at it here, but there's different ways to get around in this game and kind of the final one you get is my favorite one for sure. But it does something which I was not expecting. Where I spent a lot of time making roads which I like doing, so I don't really regret them. And I made a lot of time making zip lines and then the new tram lines, but I don't use any of the things I build after. At some point I've started using the zip lines in the mountain area a lot and some of that. But really there's some modes of transportation. Just like the main regular ass truck. You can basically get it anywhere if you try. And it makes your life a lot easier if you do. So there's just funny things like that which is just like I find myself trying to play it the old death stranding way and I don't now. The other thing that's happening with me is that people built a lot of stuff. The game is completely different than it was obviously on these early servers that we play on. And then now when you see it there's a bunch of roads or I didn't even know there were roads that people had made ahead of me. And then there's always a timefall shelter, there's always something thing but it's. And it's usually interesting and Funny and like oh this is actually helpful. I had one the other day where there was like, there's like in the. What, what's the director's cut? They introduced launchers.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, the jump heads launch your stuff.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Yeah, you the things that just launch your stuff and they parachute down somewhere else. Very, very Metal Gear. You can get in those and, and fire yourself in them. Like they're very funny. Like I, I, I was playing this pretty tough mission across an unconnected chiral network thing where once I got across the unconnected part, there was a little connected part and somebody put a launcher there and you can just launch back to where they expected again. I was like this was a very smart person. They're going to get so many likes over the course of this game because there's one mission it would be such a pain. This is a huge BT area you'd have to trudge back through or go all the way around the map and now you just hop into slingshot that somebody somewhere out there just left for you. So I do like the connectivity stuff stuff. It changes the game intensely and I'm getting around in very different ways now. Okay, Justin, what are you playing? You're obviously not playing Dust Training 2.

[Nick Limone]

I'm still playing Tears of the Kingdom. I mean you only get the shrine count when you're in the loading screen. So I don't know.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Are you back on your sea legs? Like you know exactly what you're doing?

[Nick Limone]

Yeah. And I'm actually in new content now. So I started the game. I was 60 hours into it before I put it down. I don't have my play time but I've.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Oh, you didn't pick up from there.

[Nick Limone]

No, I started over.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Oh right. That's why you were saying like oh, it doesn't look as good and stuff. Cuz I, cuz the intro area is probably kind of drab, huh? I bet it looks better once you drop out of there.

[Nick Limone]

And I'm in, I'm in new stuff. So I, and, and obviously you know.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Did you go a different direction? Like north, south, east, west?

[Nick Limone]

No, I mean I, I, this is maybe a little bit embarrassing to share because it's an open world game. Go anyway, do whatever you want. But I did the exact same stuff in the exact same order. I just like, I feel like well, well part of it, part of it is just, you know, I'm a creature of habit. But part of it is, is there's you're, you have extra motivation to go to the rito first because that unlocks all the lucky clover Gazette quests and like, you know, and Tulin's the best of the. Of the sage powers, so. Yeah. And I've done three of the sages and I'm 80 shrines in.

[Samuel Claiborne]

That's a lot.

[Nick Limone]

It is. And that's, you know, way more than enough to beat the game, actually, because I have, you know, full stamina now and a lot of heart. It's, you know, have the master sword. So I've done the majority of kind of the important stuff.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Did you open up the app once and then never use it again?

[Nick Limone]

Yes, I opened up. That's exactly what I did, is I opened up the app once and never used it again. I don't, I don't like. I. I like Zelda lore and I especially like the lore of these two games connected. Like, I actually think it sort of makes some sense, but I don't. I don't like it enough or care enough to do Zelda notes. Like, I'm glad it's there. Like, I had someone describe it to me as like, like what the shrines are to old school Zelda dungeons, you know, Zelda notes. And those voice notes are to, like, lore. It's like little tiny lore nuggets that individually none of them are all that satisfying, but all 100 of them add up to like, you know, kind of a lot of interesting story implications and stuff. So, like, I'm glad it exists and like, what an interesting sort of way to recontextualize a run through this game. But I don't, like, I don't care enough to really do the Zelda notes and get those.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Are you gonna uncover the whole depths? Is that a goal of yours? Just to uncover the whole depths?

[Nick Limone]

I mean, I'm sort of at. Like I said, I was three. I'm 80 shrines in and three sages in. And like, I think I'm at kind of like wrap it up mode this point. Like, I did most of the important side quests. I did the mayor side quest and I did Lurelin Village and I did the. The real Tearjerker. Not even in a bad way, but just very heartfelt. Tarry Town, you know, they want to send their daughter off to the boarding school. And so I did all of that. So, you know, there's some other stuff I want to do. I haven't done Deku Tree yet. I haven't done the labyrinths yet. So, like, I have sort of a unofficial checklist of stuff I'm going to work my way through, but I don't think I have a lot of interest in 100 percenting it.

[Samuel Claiborne]

No, have you beat. What are the three headed things called?

[Nick Limone]

The Gliox Glios. Yeah.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Have you beat one of those yet?

[Nick Limone]

Not yet.

[Damon Hatfield]

Those ones.

[Nick Limone]

I think I need to upgrade my armor a little bit more before I do that. But I did do.

[Samuel Claiborne]

I did do really fun fights.

[Nick Limone]

I did do all the stable Trotters. So I unlocked all the. Which is another real standout side quest in that game with just incredible music.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Oh, I love that part. Yeah, that's great. All your eyeballs. Don't use them until you take on. Say it that save the eyeballs.

[Nick Limone]

The 60. The 60. Sorry Nick. The 60 frames per second is such.

[Damon Hatfield]

A. Oh, it's amazing.

[Nick Limone]

It's so like. I think maybe I shared this two weeks ago when I had just kind of started the game of like. I'm realizing now that I was subconsciously avoiding certain areas of like, you know, I didn't really want to go around Kakariko Village because the game was running at like 20 frames per second and it's like funny, you know. And now it's just. Just all of that friction is just completely gone. Like I don't know if it's literally a locked 60, but if not, it's darn close. And it just. It, it. It's unbelievable. Like I, I said before, the resolution bump to me. Like I can see it side by side, but I can't see it when I'm just playing the game. I'm not like, oh, this is clearly running at a higher resolution. But man, I can see and feel the frame rate. Like you know, it makes, it makes the Zonai devices is so much nicer and makes Ultra Hand so much nicer. It's incredible.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Awesome. Anything else worth mentioning that we're all playing?

[Damon Hatfield]

I've. In the same vein, I've actually been replaying Breath of the wild on switch 2 at the 60 frames per second patch.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Is it weird for you that you don't have the same powers? Like when I went back, I was like, oh man, I can't lift anything anymore. It's metal.

[Damon Hatfield]

If I may be controversial, I like Breath of the Wild more than Tears of the Kingdom. I think I just enjoy the overall experience of what Breath of the Wild has to bring to the table. I do miss a lot of the more layered complexity that I think Tears of the Kingdom introduces everything down to, you know, item creation, armors for you to upgrade and things like that. Like there, there. There seems to be more detailed adventures that happen in Tears of the Kingdom. But I just miss the broad strokes of everything Breath of the Wild introduces. And like, like, unlike Justin, I've. I've been using the, the Zelda Notes app to actually like, you know, I plan on 100% in this game. But I was like, oh, you know, I'll throw on the little navigation thing and see what happens. And you know, as I throw up in my navigation, I get some Zelda notes where she gives me a little context. I was like, oh, I gotta set up this little thing for excavation a little bit later and figure out what's going on. It's just nice to get little bits of flavor. But I blink my eyes and I'm like 30 shrines later I'm like, oh my God, what have I done? Like the app really does make it so much easier to do it. But that said, I desperately wish they integrated this thing into the actual game. Like man, would you. I don't want to look at my phone while I don't want to be reminded of my real life while I'm playing my video games. Like, come on, what are we doing here? But that said, it makes the game very convenient. I just, yeah, really wish.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Are you doing master mode? Are you just doing regular.

[Damon Hatfield]

I've done a master mode playthrough on Switch 1. I don't really have any interest on doing that. I did like master mode plus finishing trial of the map Master Sword, which was a harrowing experience but man, just like an exercise of utility with how much of a pain in the ass the regenerating health is of enemies of like that's not fun. It's not really challenging. It's just not fun. So I'm normal mode and just my plan was to streamline and mainline the champions, do the main story, do the trial of the Master and then the champions ballad stuff and then jump into Tears of the Kingdom. But now I'm like, what if I did all 120 shrines again and it just, you know, throw on a podcast and just roam the lands and do fun challenges and just really take in the sights and sounds because I do think Breath of the Wild above all has the impressive vistas that really just like take my breath away. I think Tears of the Kingdom is a more gorgeous game, but there's just something about how Breath of the Wild manages its like experience between the emptiness between locations really just hits me hard for some reason. I really enjoy, I really enjoy the quiet moments in Breath of the Wild.

[Nick Limone]

I mean we Breath of the Wild, you know, look, if someone has a personal preference for like that more pastoral vibe, like more power to you, right? Like, you know, I think Tears of the Kingdom, just from a, you know, video game reviews are not mad math, right? But if you wanted to try to math it out, it's like, well, I think the dungeons are better than the divine beasts. Like, I think it gives you more reason to collect what you're collecting. Like, I think that the story is better. Like, you know, you can checklist it out and like, I think Tears of the Kingdom easily takes it for me. But like, there's a lot of people. Like, I think that a decade from now Breath of the Wild is going to be the one. Like, more than Tears of the Kingdom. Like, it's never going to be that for me.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Well, it changed stuff too. Like, it became like a. It was one of the influen influential games.

[Nick Limone]

It's so you. It really is different. I talked about this when Tears of the Kingdom just came out on Game Scoop two years ago. But like, it, it's. It's almost a perfect sequel in the sense it gives you mastery and power to like rule over this land and like you conquer it and you can fly over it and trivialize it in a way that Breath of the Wild, even though it's the same game system and same game where world, it really does feel materially different. Where Tears of the Kingdom feels very kind of player oriented, whereas Breath of the Wild feels a lot more kind of like world oriented. Of like you are existing in this space and it doesn't care whether you live or die.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Yeah.

[Nick Limone]

Whereas Tears of the Kingdom is a lot more kind of playgroundy and. And it wouldn't have worked if it was the first go around. But like that immersive element of like, like you're in these trees and you're in this pasture in this field, and the only way out of it is to kind of run through it or trot through it on your horse. Whereas Tears of the Kingdom has a very different. There's so much more player power that, you know, same game, but the player expression is completely different.

[Justin Davis]

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[Mitchell Saltzman]

I don't know about you, but my local cell phone provider always has signs out in front that says get 45 new phones for $1. When you sign up with eight new lines for free. And then you go in there and.

[Damon Hatfield]

They'Re like yeah, here's your dollar.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

And then there's also this delivery fee.

[Justin Davis]

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[Mitchell Saltzman]

It comes out to being exactly how.

[Justin Davis]

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[Mitchell Saltzman]

Then even more because they tacked on another one for like the phone.

[Damon Hatfield]

But that is not going to happen.

[Justin Davis]

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[Nick Limone]

Well.

[Samuel Claiborne]

We are basically out of time for our topics because we have to move on to video game 20 questions. But I should mention in the interest of scoops and not just games that there was a Capcom Spotlight last week. Nick, you did the show for that, right?

[Damon Hatfield]

Yes sir.

[Samuel Claiborne]

So just two quick items out of that One is that there's this Pragmata game. Is that how you pronounce it?

[Damon Hatfield]

I think so. I think so.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

I think they officially confirmed that it's Pragmata and not Pragmata as else's Bragmata.

[Damon Hatfield]

Sounds So much better though.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Maybe an automated voice read that too. So it's like really hard to tell. It's like a very strange robotic announcer voice. But look, they call it a mix of puzzle in action with a kind of a Megan, like co protagonist and I don't know, like a maybe survival horror vibes without the horror. Is that what it's looking like?

[Damon Hatfield]

I'm excited for this one. I love the idea of having to play two games at once. And I think that's like. Like what if. What if Resident Evil, but also puzzle game at the same time. And I kind of like that.

[Nick Limone]

Yeah, Megan like is really funny.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Yeah. So that. Well, that. So that's. That exists. And then we. You know, you should check out our preview of our recommend. But we got a little tidbits from that. It kind of almost had like fan responses. They talked about how why Leon wouldn't be playable if he's not playable without saying that he's not playable by saying that he's not scared at enough. They said of Grace that she's introverted and easily scared, which is a new type of character from the Res Evil series. Which sounds like a little Silent Hill, like, right? Or like other horror games where you're more. I mean, I'm not going to say defenseless or whatever because you're a freaking FBI agent or at least you are now. But I don't know, I thought. I thought that was interesting that they kind of. But it's right, though. Like you're always like a. A military officer or cop in Resident Evil, even though they're horror games. Right. So you actually have some power. Power. That was interesting. They also said that the game is a requiem, a eulogy to those who came before. So I think that means that Tofu's dead.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

No, not Tofu.

[Damon Hatfield]

Tofu's gone rotten.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Yeah, Stinky Tofu.

[Damon Hatfield]

What about Hunk, though?

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Yeah, what about Hunk?

[Damon Hatfield]

Give me a hug. Game. Damn it. I want a standalone hunt game.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Yeah, you could play as Hunk in the Speedruns on three and two remake. And then also I remember Hunk from four as a mercenary. Mercenary? Is that where Hunk is from?

[Damon Hatfield]

Hunk was from the original RE2 as well. He was unlockable like Tofu. But dude, I still to this day, Resident Evil 2's like, Escape Raccoon City as Hunk might be my favorite, like unlockable bonus mode because just the thrill of getting like an S rank on that. Oh my God. I just remember shaking in my chair while I played today. It's so good.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Good counterpoint, though, of Simon Ada is really, really amazing at resume before also very good.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Just give me my hunkin tofu co op shooter.

[Damon Hatfield]

A buddy buddy cop comedy dude hung fu.

[Samuel Claiborne]

I'm here for it. Okay. And that brings us to Video Game 20 questions. This week, we heard from listener Mark Medina about a suggestion for video game 20 Questions.

[Nick Limone]

What a coincidence. We have a Mark Medina that works for ignore. Yeah.

[Samuel Claiborne]

I will reveal that it is the same Mark Medina. We went over several as options, and this is the one we settled on. And I can't wait for y' all to play, so I got to get in my accounting mode, which is by fingers. And so you have 20 questions. Mitchell, have you. You think you've played this before?

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Yes.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Okay, so no.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Once or twice before.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Okay. So, yeah. Yes or no questions. Ask away, and hopefully you'll figure this one out. I might have to look at some.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Stuff, but are we going by any order, or is it just free for all? Shout out a free question.

[Damon Hatfield]

Free for all, but I'd say we can consult the crowd. But real quick, I just want to go for the jugular for a second. Is this game based on a movie?

[Samuel Claiborne]

No.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay. Thank God.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Is that what Mark. Is that what?

[Damon Hatfield]

No, because Mark doesn't watch movies, so then he'd be like, how can I really?

[Samuel Claiborne]

All right, well, that's one. One question down.

[Nick Limone]

I wish. I wish Mark would have written a little letter. I like the little. The game scoop.

[Samuel Claiborne]

I. I can. I could read you our back and forth after this, because he did. He did have a comment about one of them that I rejected, and we can talk about that afterwards.

[Nick Limone]

Is that why he was asking me about Dark Cloud two earlier today?

[Samuel Claiborne]

Well, yeah, that's one of them that.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

I asked me about that, too.

[Samuel Claiborne]

I never heard of that.

[Nick Limone]

That game.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Yeah, I could have gotten dark.

[Damon Hatfield]

Dark Cloud 2 is good. Good game.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Would you have gotten it, though, Nick?

[Damon Hatfield]

I think.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

I think if we. If we narrowed it down to a PS2 RPG and then we, like, honed.

[Samuel Claiborne]

In on what Justin said, well, then I won't underestimate you all in the future. Although it's not like I pulled any punches here. I just. I just hadn't heard that, so it would have been hard for me to host that one.

[Nick Limone]

Okay.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Okay.

[Nick Limone]

Okay. So did this. Did this game come out after the year 2000? Thousand.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Yes.

[Nick Limone]

Whoa.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Yes. That was the start 20 questions timer.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

That was so after 2000 and based on a movie. Knowing Mark and his tastes. Can I.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Can I shouldn't have revealed it was from Mark. You know Mark? You all knew Mark too well.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

I mean, he's a. He's big into RPGs. Should we. Should we ask if it's an RPG?

[Nick Limone]

Yeah.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Is this an RPG?

[Samuel Claiborne]

Nope.

[Nick Limone]

Oh, an RPG. Can you play this game on the Nintendo Switch?

[Samuel Claiborne]

No, that's four.

[Damon Hatfield]

Is this a world that you would like to live in, Sam?

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Interesting question.

[Samuel Claiborne]

I. I have no question that the answer is no.

[Damon Hatfield]

Gotcha.

[Nick Limone]

Is this. Is this an open world game?

[Samuel Claiborne]

Yes.

[Nick Limone]

Open world. We're all from this generation, but not an rpg.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Does your character use a gun?

[Samuel Claiborne]

I'm gonna go with no on that.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

No guns.

[Samuel Claiborne]

If there's an exception, it's very, very minor and has nothing to do with what you would think of about this game. Okay, Okay.

[Nick Limone]

H. We know it's an open world. Okay. Was this game exclusive to any platform?

[Samuel Claiborne]

Yes, it was exclusive.

[Nick Limone]

Go ahead.

[Damon Hatfield]

Is this a PlayStation exclusive?

[Samuel Claiborne]

Indeed it is.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

That tracks. That tracks.

[Damon Hatfield]

Open world. PlayStation.

[Samuel Claiborne]

With the mark theory.

[Damon Hatfield]

How does Mark feel about Days Gone? Does he like that? Oh, no. There's guns.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

He does enjoy Days Gone.

[Nick Limone]

Gun.

[Damon Hatfield]

There's guns though.

[Nick Limone]

What about Horizon? Was this a PS4 exclusive?

[Samuel Claiborne]

Yes.

[Nick Limone]

Whoa. Exclusive world game, but not an RPG? I mean. Yeah. So, okay, we. We're looking.

[Damon Hatfield]

We're looking Ghost of Sushima.

[Nick Limone]

Maybe Ghost of Sushima. Maybe Horizon zero Dawn.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Could it be? Is. Is Infamous.

[Damon Hatfield]

Yeah, Infamous Second Son. Yeah.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Second Son.

[Nick Limone]

Does this game take place on Earth? Yeah, yeah, all three of those games take place on Earth. Ish.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Okay, how about this? Does your character have a superpower?

[Samuel Claiborne]

Yes.

[Damon Hatfield]

Spider man or Infamous Second Son.

[Nick Limone]

Yeah, so, yeah, we also have Spider Man. Although, well, I guess it's not based off a movie, but it is licensed.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

How many questions are we on Sam?

[Samuel Claiborne]

Oh, you have. You've come on 13 questions.

[Nick Limone]

We're doing great.

[Damon Hatfield]

Is this a. Based on a Marvel property?

[Samuel Claiborne]

No.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Looking more like infamous.

[Nick Limone]

Yeah, Infamous. Or maybe what was? Or a ghost. Ghosts.

[Damon Hatfield]

Well, they're both sucker punch though, so that probably don't want to go that route.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

I mean, I wouldn't. I mean, does. Does Jin have a superpower?

[Nick Limone]

Oh, I mean, I don't know. You can.

[Damon Hatfield]

Oh, you're right. Jin does not have a superpower.

[Nick Limone]

Can turn the world black and white and like do cool samurai stuff. Okay, I don't know how to narrow this down further.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Maybe should we say is it it part of a series or if it's a one off?

[Nick Limone]

I mean, we have a gentleman's rule. Like we could ask is it part of the Infamous franchise. And we've absolutely asked that question in the past, but sometimes we kind of try to. Can we come up with a smarter way down?

[Damon Hatfield]

Troy Baker is the voice of Delson from Infamous Second Son. Does this game feature Troy Baker?

[Samuel Claiborne]

Yes, it does. That's what.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Dang.

[Damon Hatfield]

I think we know what it is. This.

[Nick Limone]

Well.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Well, hold on. It could be First Light. It could be First Light.

[Nick Limone]

It also could be hundreds of other games, but not Open World. You have a superpower.

[Damon Hatfield]

If it's a superpowered open world, it's Infamous Second sun or First Light. The only other thing is, I guess. Do you play as a woman in this game?

[Nick Limone]

Was. Was First Light the First Light?

[Damon Hatfield]

You play as a woman and you play as. Yeah, she has the neon power.

[Nick Limone]

And that was.

[Samuel Claiborne]

You don't.

[Damon Hatfield]

Okay, so you play as Delsin.

[Nick Limone]

Okay.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

I think it's gotta be Second Son.

[Nick Limone]

Yeah, go for it, Mitchell.

[Damon Hatfield]

Mitchell, you're our guest. You gotta do it.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Well, here's the last question I'll ask. Does this game take place in Seattle?

[Samuel Claiborne]

Yes, it does. And that's 17.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

All right, then I will say, is it infamous second son?

[Samuel Claiborne]

Indeed it is. Came out March 21, 2014, for PS4. We gave it 8.7. I have no memory of this game.

[Nick Limone]

Yep.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Oh, so good.

[Damon Hatfield]

I like the Smoke.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

I would say not as good as Infamous two.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Yeah, I liked Infamous one and two. I just didn't. I didn't. For whatever reason, what was happening in, you know, March of 2014, I did not play an Infamous game for PS4.

[Nick Limone]

This was early PS4. Right.

[Samuel Claiborne]

It did have a DLC sequel thing.

[Nick Limone]

Right.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Called First Light.

[Damon Hatfield]

Good game. Better than the base game.

[Nick Limone]

It wasn't literally a launch game, was it? But close. Like early.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

I don't think so.

[Damon Hatfield]

Not launch. Yeah, it was close. It was like, launch. Launch gear, I think.

[Nick Limone]

Yeah. Because that's why we didn't give it.

[Samuel Claiborne]

A higher score, Nick, than the. Than the base game. We gave it a lower score.

[Damon Hatfield]

That was before I joined ign, so that probably has something.

[Nick Limone]

I played. I played this entire game. I don't remember anything about it. It didn't make any mark. Any.

[Samuel Claiborne]

So you're like me, but you think you played it? I don't even know if I played it.

[Nick Limone]

I. I know for a fact I played it. So I guess I can't say I literally remember nothing about it. But, like, I don't remember the story behind beats, but, like, yeah, I remember all the movement mechanics and traversal is really fun. And then they made that even better in First Light. All. All of those features are really cool. But it was. It's a very. This sounds negative or pejorative. I don't mean it that way. It's like a very like early console life cycle game where it kind of punched above its weight for me at least of like I'm looking for another PS4 game to get. So I'll. I'll pick up this and get it. Whereas if it would have come out two years later, like I might have. I might. I might have passed it back by.

[Samuel Claiborne]

So they went straight onto making Ghost. That's what they did after Infamous, I guess. Yeah.

[Nick Limone]

Took a long, you know, many years.

[Damon Hatfield]

I mean we certainly didn't get another Sly Cooper game.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Sadly they made us.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

We technically did just not sucker punch.

[Samuel Claiborne]

True, true.

[Damon Hatfield]

I do remember this game having like some. It was for sure like a PS4 showcase though, right. Cuz like your main character Delson could like like he. He could Mega man bosses right where he would steal their powers. But his. One of his default powers I believe was smoke. And it was just one of the most like coolest looking things you could do of just transform into a cloud of smoke and like warp through the environment. Like dude, this is like the power of the PlayStation 4 here. It's a.

[Samuel Claiborne]

It's a great still too. Like I really does hold up good. Did they. Could. Could you shoot a gun in this game?

[Nick Limone]

Yeah, that's what I was.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

I was going to ask you what the. What the clarifying you.

[Damon Hatfield]

You can shoot projectiles but no guns.

[Samuel Claiborne]

I remember the little, little projectile firing that you could always do in these games. Look at that reflection. Why does that look so good?

[Nick Limone]

This game was really good.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Faked.

[Nick Limone]

This game was good. I may have been slightly too harsh.

[Samuel Claiborne]

On it, but I think we just had a lot of options at the time or something.

[Nick Limone]

It's just surprising to see that we were near the tail end of kind of the open world renaissance of now everything is an open world rpg. And back then there was like you know, Crackdown and there was. What was the one from. That was like this from Activision.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

That was prototype. I actually like Prototype better.

[Nick Limone]

Yeah. And so this was. There was a real. We were really spoiled for choice when it came to like open world action games back.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Sunset Overdrive wasn't too far after this, right?

[Nick Limone]

Sunset Overdrive.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

Oh God. Sunset Overdrive was so good. I think also like the. The blueprint for these games was really Ultimate Hulk or Hulk Ultimate Destruction which.

[Damon Hatfield]

Another good game actually.

[Mitchell Saltzman]

I was reminded of that game playing Donkey Kong Bonanza. So full circle.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Yeah, that's pretty hulky, isn't it?

[Damon Hatfield]

Can you rip a car apart and put it on your fists and use them as boxing gloves? You know what?

[Mitchell Saltzman]

I did not see a level where that had cars, but I wouldn't put it past Nintendo.

[Damon Hatfield]

Don't give me hope, Mitchell.

[Samuel Claiborne]

Oh, man. Well, nicely job. I'm really happy y' all got that. As you can see, Mark wasn't trying to stump anybody. He just wanted to come up with a good game. Although there was some. Some, there were some stumpers in his selection. He had. He had wanted to do one that we had done before, which was Final Fantasy 8, which he said was his favorite RPG.

[Damon Hatfield]

What the heck? I thought 10 was his favorite. He lied to me.

[Samuel Claiborne]

I think that's what he said. I can't remember. His favorite PlayStation RPG, I think is what it was. I can't even remember. Okay, well, that's all the Scoops we had. Viewers and listeners. If you have your own suggestions for video game 20 questions, you can email them to gamescoopgn.com that concludes my temporary hosting of Game Scoop. Have a great Independence Day. To those who celebrate, and I think it was Canada Day, one of these days, too, is for people that celebrate that. So enjoy your time off if you have that. If you don't, I'm sure there's a bank holiday around the corner. And for everybody else, see you back here next week where Damon will be rejoining us. Thanks so much everybody. That's IG and Gabe Scoop. And we're out. This episode of Game Scoop was produced by myself, Samuel Claiborne Tayo Oaken Technical production is by Marian Franzen and Amir Raqib. Audio engineering is by Marian Franzen and post production. Editing is by Tayo Oaken. Graphic design is by Nicole Kagapan. GamesCube is an IGN production and part of the Geek Media Network. For more, check out our weekly podcast like Unlocked Beyond a Nintendo Voice Chat, now's a great time to score some incredible games Through Humble live now through August 5, grab Warhammer 40K, Rogue Trader, Daemonx, Machina, Death's Door, Cat Quest 3, and more. Whether you're building your backlog or discovering something new, it's the perfect time to pick up these fan favorites. Plus, every purchase supports a good cause. This month, your humble choice Membership supports Covenant House Get a curated mix of PC games every month, all for just $14.99 a month. Skip a month or cancel anytime and know that 5% of your membership goes to charity.

[F]

From the folks Behind Outside Xbox and Outside Extra comes the Oxventure podcast, where the supernatural action horror comedy of the weird west has returned in a new season of Tabletop ARC RPG Deadlands.

[Justin Davis]

Each week on the Oxventure podcast, we visit a treacherous frontier full of monsters.

[Nick Limone]

And magic where even the trains run on the souls of the damned.

[F]

Our five players have overcome impossible odds and now find themselves running a monster hunting agency for hire. But when sinister forces threaten one of their own, it sets in motion a whole new adventure. They may not all survive, so join.

[Nick Limone]

Us in Oxventure Deadlands only on YouTube.comoxoxventure.

[Damon Hatfield]

And on the Oxventure Podcast.

[Nick Limone]

Available wherever fine podcasts are downloaded. Deadlands is an Oxventure production and part of the Geek Media Network.

[Damon Hatfield]

Christian Bale was preparing for his role in American Psycho, dressing the part, hitting the gym for the first time in his life, even getting his teeth redone. There was just one problem. He didn't actually have the part. Art Leonardo DiCaprio did. Listen to our podcast what Went Wrong? Every other week as we unearth the chaos behind Hollywood's biggest movie flops and most shocking successes. Available wherever you get your podcasts.