Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Review - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Summary

Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast Episode: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Review
Release Date: April 23, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of the Kinda Funny Gamescast, hosts Tim Gettys, Greg “GameOverGreggy” Miller, Blessing Adeoye, and Andy Cortez dive deep into their comprehensive review of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. Released less than a year ago during Summer Game Fest, this indie title has garnered significant attention for its ambitious scope and unique gameplay mechanics.

First Impressions and Expectations (00:00 - 05:00)

Tim Gettys opens the discussion with excitement about finally having the chance to review Expedition 33, highlighting the initial skepticism due to the game's small development team and the ambitious use of Unreal Engine 5. He shares his personal enthusiasm, mentioning, "I absolutely adore this thing so much." (05:00).

Barrett Courtney admits he was a vocal doubter initially, concerned about the game’s ability to live up to its inspirations like Final Fantasy 8, Persona, and Twitchy action games. However, after playing, he concedes, "This is a 9 out of 10 amazing game." (06:56).

Gameplay Mechanics and Combat System (06:54 - 25:00)

The hosts delve into the game's turn-based combat system, which uniquely blends traditional turn-based mechanics with real-time parrying and dodging, drawing comparisons to Mario RPGs and Action RPGs.

• Barrett Courtney praises the combat's satisfaction and depth, stating, "It's like one of the most satisfying combat systems I've interacted with in a long time." (08:18).
• Andy Cortez emphasizes, "They made turn-based combat good. Finally," highlighting the innovative parry system that feels almost like a rhythm game (09:38).

However, the hosts also note areas for improvement:

• Sound Design Issues: Multiple overlapping sound effects during intense combat can be overwhelming. "Sometimes it's like goddamn gonna go deaf..." (10:01).
• Climbing and Navigation: Comparisons to Final Fantasy 7 and Kingdom Hearts are made, pointing out that the simplified climbing mechanics can sometimes feel repetitive. "It's so PS5 but feels like PS1," (19:36).

Art and Visuals (25:00 - 35:00)

The art direction of Expedition 33 receives high accolades:

• Andy Cortez declares, "Art direction wise. I can't believe or just it needs to be nominated. It's an incredibly imaginative game." (10:02).
• Tim Gettys praises the fashion sense and character design, noting, "They have a sense of art design and character design and costume design that is so next level." (16:33).

The game’s pre-rendered cutscenes face criticism for their lower resolution, which contrasts sharply with the stunning real-time graphics: "When they render pre-rendered cutscenes at 480p, it breaks immersion." (24:40).

Story and Character Development (35:00 - 55:00)

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 offers a deep narrative interwoven with moments of humor and emotion:

• Roger Pocorn shares, "The emotional moments are what brought this game up from wherever it was and then to the stratosphere." (52:26).
• Barrett Courtney highlights the authentic character interactions, comparing them to Final Fantasy 10 and emphasizing the game’s ability to balance seriousness with humor seamlessly. "There's a moment where Charlie Cox's character cracks a joke right after a heavy event." (47:35).

The friendship system is discussed, with some critique on its lack of depth compared to titles like Persona:

• Barrett Courtney mentions, "The friendship system feels very flat and doesn't significantly impact the story." (53:44).

Customization and Ability Systems (55:00 - 60:00)

A significant portion is dedicated to the game's Luminas and Pictos system, a customization framework allowing players to tailor their abilities:

• Andy Cortez explains, "Lumina is an ability, a passive... once you equip it enough, it becomes a picto for everyone to use." (36:00).
• The complexity of the system initially felt overwhelming, but became a source of enjoyment as the hosts grew accustomed to it. "Once you get the hang of what the system is, it's so cool." (37:01).

However, the hosts agree that the user interface could use improvements to better organize the extensive customization options:

• Barrett Courtney suggests, "They needed to sort abilities into defensive, offensive, support categories." (40:57).

Performance and Technical Aspects (60:00 - 75:00)

Performance is generally praised, especially on the PS5, although some minor issues are noted:

• Tim Gettys shares frustration with the lack of in-game maps and directions, which led to wasted time and frustration. "I wasted at least three hours running around looking for the same portal." (21:02).
• Andy Cortez points out, "The jumping and climbing mechanics are charmingly simple, reminiscent of classic JRPGs." (19:36).

Final Impressions and Recommendations (75:00 - 90:00)

The consensus among the hosts is overwhelmingly positive, with minor critiques that do not overshadow the game's strengths:

• Barrett Courtney concludes, "This is a fantastic game. People should absolutely pick it up this week and support this studio." (07:10).
• Roger Pocorn emphasizes the game's depth and replayability, noting how experimenting with different party compositions enhances the experience. "I was so deep in it, unlike metaphor, which was just rolling the same characters." (35:07).

Tim Gettys wraps up by highlighting the unique blend of inspirations and the game's ability to stand out as its own entity, recommending it to both RPG enthusiasts and newcomers alike. "What's unique about Expedition 33 is how it takes inspirations and rises above to be its own thing." (16:33).

Notable Quotes

• Tim Gettys (00:31): "Hold me back, Tim."
• Barrett Courtney (06:56): "This is a 9 out of 10 amazing game."
• Andy Cortez (09:38): "They made turn-based combat good. Finally."
• Roger Pocorn (11:56): "I bet against this small team and I am so happy that I was completely wrong."
• Barrett Courtney (16:33): "I think that in almost every single one of those ways it rises above to be its own thing."
• Andy Cortez (24:40): "The game is just a phenomenal experience. I want more."
• Roger Pocorn (35:21): "I had an awful moment where I'm at the second or last boss and I'm just getting destroyed."
• Tim Gettys (46:13): "This parry system is so satisfying and so fun. When you nail it, it feels so good."
• Barrett Courtney (54:11): "The friendship system feels very flat and doesn't significantly impact the story."
• Andy Cortez (37:01): "Once you get the hang of what the system is, it's so cool."
• Roger Pocorn (52:26): "The emotional moments are what brought this game up to the stratosphere."
• Tim Gettys (16:33): "The fashion sense and character design are next level."

Conclusion

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 stands out in the RPG genre for its innovative combat system, stunning art direction, and deep narrative. While it has some areas that could benefit from refinement, such as sound design and user interface improvements, the overall consensus among the Kinda Funny hosts is that it is a must-play title for 2025. They commend the game's ability to blend various inspirations into a unique and engaging experience, highly recommending it to both veteran RPG players and newcomers.

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Transcript

[Andy Cortez]

Foreign.

[Tim Gettys]

What'S up? And welcome to a Kind of Funny Games cast that I am incredibly excited for, both as a host and as a listener of what is about to go down today because we are doing The Claire Obscure Expedition 33 review, of course. I am your host, Tim Gettys. I'm joined today by a rare appearance on the desk by Barrett Courtney.

[Barrett Courtney]

Hold me back, Tim.

[Tim Gettys]

Hold me back, Tim.

[Barrett Courtney]

Because all I want to do is turn this games cast around and turn it into a screencast because I want to talk about Andor so goddamn bad.

[Tim Gettys]

We have to wait till tomorrow. We have to wait for tomorrow for andor that came out. Here's the deal, everybody. Andor is dropping three episodes a week for the next four weeks and that's a lot.

[Barrett Courtney]

I have pages of notes, Tim.

[Tim Gettys]

I'm excited, very excited. But we're not going to be reacting. We're not going to be doing the screencast the day after. It'll be either the the next day or even the following day, depending on the week, depending on our schedules. We're going to try our best to get all done.

[Barrett Courtney]

It's a lot of, it's a lot of Star wars content every week.

[Tim Gettys]

It'll be tomorrow that we're talking about on all of that. Andy though, how are you?

[Andy Cortez]

I'm, I'm doing great, Tim. You, I mean, you really fucked up. Putting Game of the Year episode yesterday instead of today.

[Tim Gettys]

I loved it. You know what I mean? I loved us having to talk on that episode. Just be like, yeah, this is where we're at.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Roger Pocorn]

Just nothing else.

[Tim Gettys]

Knowing that this episode was coming. And of course rounding out a group today, it is the tastemaker, Roger Pocorn.

[Roger Pocorn]

Hi everybody.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, don't do that. I don't like that. I don't like that. But I do like this kind of.

[Andy Cortez]

Coming up with a new cast.

[Tim Gettys]

This is the kind of funny games cast. Each and every weekday we get together to talk about the biggest reviews, previews and topics in video games live on YouTube, Twitch and podcast services around the globe. If you love what we do, please support us with the Kind of Funny membership on Patreon, YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcasts to get all of our shows ad free and you get a daily exclusive. Greg Way for a chance to be part of this show though. Please submit your thoughts and opinions as YouTube super chats as we go. So if you have any thoughts about any of our experience with Claire Obscure Expedition 33, please get those in. Little housekeeping for you. We are an 11 person business. All about live talk shows today, there's no kind of Funny Games Daily because we're doing a very special double dose of kind of funny games cast. We had the embargo for this. We are. We're all so excited about the game that we will. We wanted to be as close to it as possible, so we wanted to get that out. But also the embargo dropped for a interview that I got to do with Motohi Isharo, the director of Animusha 2, both the original PlayStation 2 game and the upcoming remake. So I'm very, very honored, very excited. This is one of those, like, holy crap, lifetime, can't believe I'm doing this type things. How.

[Barrett Courtney]

How fast was your heart beating at, like, the beginning of it? Like, how bad were the nerves?

[Tim Gettys]

I was very nervous. This was one of those ones. I was like out of my comfort zone for sure. I was talking to Roger about it for like a week. Just let him know how, like, hey, we're doing this, you know, but hey.

[Roger Pocorn]

We made sure to support you.

[Tim Gettys]

Everyone here supported me as well as they possibly can. And I just want to let everybody know that even if you're not interested in this, please watch it. Watch it live. You're not going to want to miss it.

[Barrett Courtney]

It's a good show.

[Tim Gettys]

It has some twists and it has some turns that you won't expect. And I just promise you you're going to want to watch this one.

[Barrett Courtney]

We'll talk about Ghost of yote getting a PlayStation blog release date tomorrow, tomorrow.

[Tim Gettys]

On Games Daily, but you're going to want to watch this one all the way through live to the very end, but then after that, the day's not over. We're returning to Alien and Predator in review with Prometheus, a movie I'm very excited to talk to the boys about. If you're a kind of funny member, Today's Greg Way is video game console launch horror stories. It's 23 minutes of Greg going through some of his worst gaming moments. I got to watch that one. Then this Friday, the Elder Scrolls Online podcast, a kind of funny gamescast limited series is back with episode two. Super cool because, you know, we don't often get to do a lot of developer stuff here. Kind of funny, but whenever we do, it's very special. So to get both the Onimusha 2 thing and even more of the Elder Scrolls Online this week is very special.

[Roger Pocorn]

I watched that episode yesterday and it's a great episode. They really go super in depth about the highs and a lot of the Lows and kind of a second introduction to Elder Scrolls Online with the console release. So really good stuff.

[Barrett Courtney]

The entire series. Great.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. You ran us.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah, I. I directed the. The episodes. And as someone who has no intention of ever playing this game, it's like, it's really fascinating stuff. So make sure to tune in when episodes drop.

[Tim Gettys]

So you can check all of that out on the Gamescast feeds or even on Bethesda's YouTube on Friday. Thank you to our Patreon producers. Anatoly Asked, Del Twining, Carl Jacobs, and Omega Buster. Today we're brought to you by Imperial and Aura Frames, but we'll tell you about that later. We got to get the topic of the Show. Claire obscure. Expedition 33 is upon us. This is a game that we first saw last year.

[Barrett Courtney]

Game Awards, I think.

[Tim Gettys]

So Summer Game Fest, maybe.

[Roger Pocorn]

Summer Game Fest.

[Tim Gettys]

I want to say it was Summer Game Fest and we looked at it. We're like, wow, that looks like, incredibly ambitious. We heard Ben Starr's voice in it. We're like, whoa, this looks so cool. But we had a lot of doubts, you know, we were like, okay, the more we heard about it, like, it's a $50 title. It has a very small team. It looks beautiful. There's a lot going on. Unreal Engine 5, can they pull this off?

[Barrett Courtney]

Developer Direct also, like, made me even more nervous just realizing how small this team is. This being their first game together as a team. Seeing all of the different inspirations they're pulling from. Can they live up to all of that?

[Tim Gettys]

It was the Xbox Showcase during Summer Game Fest last year.

[Barrett Courtney]

That makes sense.

[Tim Gettys]

Uh, so, yeah, that. That was not that long ago. Less than a year ago we first heard about this game. Now we have played this game. The three of you have beat this game, correct?

[Andy Cortez]

Yes, correct.

[Tim Gettys]

I have not. I am woefully early in the game just due to how busy I've been. And I hate that because every single free moment I've had, I've been playing this game. And every moment that I haven't been free, I've been thinking about wanting to play this game. I absolutely adore this thing so much. There's so much about it that I absolutely love. And. And I can't wait to hear you guys talk about everything about it and to see if it all continues to be as good as it has been to me so far. I love it so much that even 10 hours in, I was like this. I need to pre order a physical copy of it. I want to support this team. This game is fantastic. So that is my, my, my very quick thoughts on it because I have not beat the game yet. But I, this is one of those ones that I'm like this is for me. I didn't, I, I couldn't rush it for the review. But also I'm not going to Good for you. I'm going to play this game and see it to the end. I am enthralled. But enough about that. Who wants to start off with their official review on the kind of funny scale of clear obscure Expedition 33.

[Barrett Courtney]

I'll start.

[Tim Gettys]

Barrett wants to start.

[Barrett Courtney]

Cuz I, I feel like I was one of the more vocal doubters of this game. Especially learning how small this team was after the developer direct. Like I, I, I think we knew how small they were before that.

[Andy Cortez]

But you were the biggest doubter though.

[Barrett Courtney]

I'll talk about it.

[Roger Pocorn]

I'll talk about it. Maybe I was justified. You know what I mean?

[Barrett Courtney]

Let's talk about it. And yeah especially seeing like all games that they're pulling from feel it wears a lot of its inspirations on its sleeve. I know you know a lot of like Final Fantasy 8 inspiration in terms of like world map kind of stuff or 1010 in terms of story. Yeah. And then like Persona in terms of like mainly just like presentation in combat for the most part and then also twitchy action games as well. And it's like how is this all going to come together? And you know, I will gladly eat crow on my doubt. It's fire. What's the dev team? Sandfall Interactive. This team should be incredibly proud of this first title that they've made together. This is a 9 out of 10amazing game. It really goes for a lot of bold swings that I think make it stand out in a lot of ways in terms of storytelling and world and then in terms of gameplay. This is like one of the most satisfying combat systems I've interacted with in a long time. It being turn based but it also being kind of akin to a Mario RPG or Mario Paper Mario. Right. In terms of timing on making your attack stronger or parrying and dodging to completely kind of negate damage from enemies. A lot of that is very intense but it comes together in a very satisfying way I think. So there are some things that I have little gripes with that like really hold it back from being like a masterpiece to me. But I think for a first game from this team, for a game to come out less than a year after metaphor refantazio for it to stand out in so many ways with it being similar weirdly in some ways as well. I think this is a fantastic game. People should absolutely pick it up this week and try it out.

[Tim Gettys]

Andy Cortez.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, I'm right there with Barrett. I think that this game could have just set us all up for a disappointment and really bummed us out because of how incredible it looked for those first few showings visually and what it was doing with combat. And I mean I have great news for a lot of people. They made turn based combat good. Finally.

[Roger Pocorn]

Took them 50 years. His part.

[Andy Cortez]

No, no, but fro fro, fro. It's godamn like the. I'm saying this right now. I need people to already start you know, drumming up support for not only a lot, the voice cast fantastic. Jennifer English knocks it out of the goddamn park.

[Barrett Courtney]

Shadow Cox as well.

[Andy Cortez]

Like everybody's just so damn good. But art direction, this game needs to win everything. Art direction wise. I can't believe or just it needs to be nominated. It's a incredibly imaginative game in every sort of level in every area you're at. Just so pretty to freaking look at. And I would say sound design because damn when you. When you nail those Perry's and when you nail those counters. Yeah but. But maybe not implementation of sound design because sometimes it's like goddamn gonna go deaf with how like much you're ramping up the. The volume in this part. Let me just tune it down a couple decibels, you know, a couple DBs here and there. But like even some of the crazy attacks it. The true souls fans will know this y'all. You know when you roll into a shitload of jars and it's the same sound effect playing over each other a million times. Like whenever there's a lot of parries and attacks you'll get like that starts to get crunchy.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

And it's like oh, I don't like you almost like popped a little speaker right there. But the game is just a. A phenomenal experience. I. I want more. I can't wait to go back to it. I want to play it on the harder difficulty. It's just.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah, I want to go back to.

[Andy Cortez]

New game plus so much fun and so great. And I, I think early on, even in my first five hours, first four or five hours, I was just like wow. I. I haven't felt this way about a narrative in a long time in a video game. Like I haven't really kind of been this gripped by an experience in a good while and I really, really enjoyed my experience with It I would give of 10 as well. Amazing experience.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh my God, this makes me. This makes me so happy because like internally with where I'm at now, I'm like this is an 8 out of 10 that I fucking love. But oh my God, hearing this for you guys, this is fantastic news. Roger Picorney, take us home.

[Roger Pocorn]

You know the biggest hater of Expedition no. I. I counterpicked it. I counterpicked this game because how many times have we heard the story, right, of a small team of X AAA devs that come together and they're like, they're shooting above the weight class, right? They are like, hey, we have all these inspirations. Here's a trailer for our game. It looks amazing. It's like, okay, preview of the game feels good but like how is the actual full game going to feel? So I took the risk and I bet against this small team and I am so happy that I was completely wrong. This game is really, really great. It is not only a story that resonated with me. I have some not gripes but just where we ended with the story. I don't think hit as much as the journey to the ending, if that makes sense.

[Barrett Courtney]

Interesting.

[Roger Pocorn]

But the gameplay blew me away. I mean I'm with Andy, right. I'm not necessarily a turn based person. Turn based combat is kind of a turn off mostly. I mean that was kind of a miracle. That metaphor pushed past it with the story and everything to get me to a place where I love that game so much and made it a 10 out of 10 for me. But the way that they mix the turn based elements of it with the parrying system, it's almost like a rhythm game. Like I was literally playing rhythm heaven in order to get better at this game because my rhythm is so bad. Yeah, it pushed me to become better. It pushed me to really fall in love with each of the characters. Not not only in terms of the story but also in terms of their gameplay structure and the way that each of the individual characters work. I. By the ending of it I was able to. Okay, well this character does this thing. Okay, well now I'm going to play differently and adjust everything about my perks and the way that I go through a story battle and change my team up. Like I was so deep in the Duffy that I. Even with metaphor I was not like that. I was like just rolling the same characters and I was just praying a God that would work out. I was so deep in it and.

[Barrett Courtney]

Something I just want to shout out before I lose this thought Is like, it's so impressive how fun they make each character with all of their different abilities because yeah, usually in an rpg, you know, you love your crew, you love the entire crew, but you know the four, you know, like who you're rolling with for pretty much the entire game. And it was very impressive how much I was actually changing team compositions to fit a battle or to you know, just go out and grind a little bit and like prioritize other people just because it was fun just to play it with all of these different character styles.

[Roger Pocorn]

Yes. So overall this, this game is really great. There's a lot of little things I think have added up on top of me not hating the ending at all. Like I really enjoyed the story. It just didn't emotionally impact me as much as the journey to the ending of it. So that mixed with the little things gets me to a really great video game. So that's an 8.5 for me.

[Barrett Courtney]

Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

I could see a lot of moments where two months down the line where we see a lot of games kind of act games of servicy where they, they can iron out some of the small little nitpicks I have just mechanics wise. There's a couple moments where I'm trying to fast travel back to a spot. It's like I gotta run through this area again because I had to go back to my camp. So it's like I could see little things like that getting ironed out. Just some quality of life stuff. But yeah, that's, that's kind of where I'm at. Where are you? Oh, sorry.

[Barrett Courtney]

Oh sorry. Really quick just for just to kind of hammer this point home of just like how much this feels like other things but still feel feels uniquely itself. Maria on Blue sky posted. It's like the turn based gameplay and UI of Persona 5 was mixed with the pairing importance of Sekiro and the atmosphere of the near series. And even then there's so much that's unique to Claire Obscure. I'm dead serious when I say please do not look up anything story wise before playing, which I would hammer home as well. Like the story is goes in places that I was not expecting and like in the first eight hours I was like this is like a good solid thing. I'm kind of like confused on the tone of the game a little bit. I think the onboarding into the world is a little weird, but once you get to kind of like one of the first major beats, it's just all gas, no breaks from there on out. And it's really impressive how they were able to keep that up for 30 hours essentially.

[Tim Gettys]

I. I do think that a word that's come up a couple times is unique. And that is something that is so appealing to me about this game. Where you can compare it style wise to a lot of things or even gameplay wise to this or that or. The inspirations are clear in so many ways, but I really think that in almost every single one of those ways it rises above to be its own thing. And there's something about like, Andy brought up the art direction and of course the stylish battle system and all the UI is just super cool to look at and all of that. And also pretty easy to look at as well.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Not perfect. I think some of the menus can get a little bit cumbersome and overwhelming. Overwhelming mainly because there's a lot of fake words, you know what I mean? And having to remember what is what, like that can get a little hard, but still absolutely stunning and never not fun to look at. To me. The thing that impresses me so much is the fashion sense of this game and like the kind of world fashion even like it. That to me is so unique and like there's somebody there that has like a sense of art design and character design and costume design that is so next level and unlike any Franston I've ever. But that's the thing though. It's like I. We don't see this in games, right? Like whether, like, whether this is a brand new unique thing or this is how the Frenchies are dressed. They're nailing it. And I think that that goes so far.

[Barrett Courtney]

You can use the word Frenchie.

[Tim Gettys]

Well, like, I don't know. Can you not. Whatever. I'm sure I'm related to some French version at some point. That's fucking fine with it, you know, but either, hey, I'm giving them compliments. Great. But what I. I keep saying this, but like this game, story wise and character wise, it reminds me of Final Fantasy 10 with a different fashion sense. And that is like such a amazing compliment because, like, I think they look so damn sick in this game.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. In terms of also Final Fantasy, I think like one small thing is world navigation was one thing that kind of held me back of like this game reminded me a lot of Final Fantasy remake games in terms of like, hey, here, let's, you know, oh, you want to get up that cliff. Let's have you like kind of slowly jump from like little, like grab hold to little grab hold. I think like exploring around can feel a little bit weird. But then they also like to bring it back to a compliment. They also kind of lean into it and have fun with it. Like you know the. There is some small platforming and that's really just like here's a really big platform jump to this other big platform and it feels a little stiff and.

[Tim Gettys]

Stuff like that feels like Kingdom Hearts. It, it.

[Barrett Courtney]

It feels a little bit by like Kingdom Hearts and then you go out and explore the world. And then I stumbled upon, you know, an only up challenge in the middle of this game. And it was like oh, they knew what they had here in terms of what this game feels like because it does kind of feel like only up. And then there's just like yeah, do this only up challenge. And again that's a gameplay side quest fun thing to show off just like how weird this, this game gets with everything but. But it feels earned.

[Tim Gettys]

Something you brought up to me talking about like the jumping and kind of movement in this game was the. How the climbing feels very similar to Final Fantasy 7 where there's all these just like kind of like grapple holds and you just jump to it and you hold left. It just jumps to the next and it feels very PS1, but it looks very PS5. And that is, it's funny because like I find that charming. I don't find that bad. It's funny that like kind of even making the jumping from climbing on mountains even simpler than an uncharted or something like that. Trying to not make it look like this beautiful cinematic thing instead making it kind of feel more classic jrpg I feel really adds to the. The novelty of this.

[Andy Cortez]

But I, I will say that there's like I can maybe count the amount of times that you're climbing on stuff and on two hands. Like I, I think early on there are a lot of like kind of those little lattery moments but I expected them to be in every level all of the time non stop. And like it doesn't happen as much as I thought it would because they will sometimes replace it with the. That little. When you shoot up.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

You know, you're kind of like teleporting.

[Barrett Courtney]

Magic rope or whatever.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. Whatever that is. But like I, I think early on I thought I was going to be climbing non stop in this game. I felt like I was it. Nah, I guess not. Not me. I. I didn't really feel like it was happening as much as I thought it would be like I would in a Jedi Survivor or something like that, you know.

[Roger Pocorn]

And that's what I felt about a lot of the smaller negatives about like the gameplay and the map and all that. Where we had a lot of conversations, Tim, you and I, about the fact that there is no map in any of the specific worlds that you're in. Right. There's an over map for you know, the entire world but when you're in like an area, there's no map of like hey, here's what how any of this works. And for me I got lost like a few times, right. But it never like hindered my experience. It is something that I noted and I was like, I wish there was a map that would be nice. But it didn't like stop me dead in my tracks and maybe me feel like, oh man, this game needs a map. And the same thing with the climbing right where I was like, ah, it's, it's whatever I could take or leave it. It didn't like, I didn't feel like it was happening all the time.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah, they're just like kind of little like okay, like I could see, I already see the tweaks of whatever they want to do for a follow up to this game, you know, there's absolutely no hud.

[Tim Gettys]

I think that's kind of like where it begins and ends, where it's like there's no map, there's no compass, there's no little thing at the top like showing any type of direction at all. Clearly a choice. I don't think it was the right choice and maybe I'm just a complete fucking idiot. My directions, horrible. And I'm not saying it's not, but I legitimately have wasted at least three hours in this game running around thinking that I'm looking at the same portal, but it was actually the portal on the other side of an area and everything just looks so similar. Granted there's reasons for it I guess like in terms of what that area was without spoiling anything. Still I wasted my time and it's like I would have rather not do that. But definitely sounds more like a me problem than to the extent that you guys had.

[Roger Pocorn]

I think the only negative so just here, right, because there's so much positives here.

[Barrett Courtney]

I know, I just, I just want.

[Roger Pocorn]

To get it all out. The only other negative that I want to want to say is I do think this game does need some type of restart. The boss fight. Because this game is so.

[Barrett Courtney]

Not just the boss fight, just fights in general.

[Roger Pocorn]

Just fights in general. Yeah. Just because this game is so based on parrying. Like you have to learn how to precisely parry every enemy. And every enemy is unique, right? They have different pairing time windows that you have to focus in on you basically, for every boss battle, I've had to fight them at least twice to three times. Right. Just to get it and understand it in order to beat the boss. So it is grueling and annoying when you. You're on the first one, you do really well and then you're like, okay, cool, I have to restart it. Go to the start from the checkpoint and walk all the way to the person and then restart and then have to deal with all their animations. Like, we need to get back, skip.

[Barrett Courtney]

Through cutscenes over and over again, Stuff like that. Yeah, I think with this, this is like one of the main reasons of, like, why I. To me, Even though I 9 out of 10, I think this is an amazing game. You should absolutely pick it up and support this in the studio. It was one of those, like, man, this is rough for this game to come out so soon after Metaphor. Because metaphor introducing that mechanic of like, for different reasons. That game, if you go into a fight not paying attention and even a little unprepared, it's like, oh, you're fucked up in like 30 seconds. And then they introduce a thing that was like, hit L3 to restart the battle. I think some circumstances might change a little bit in terms of like, RNG stuff. And I felt myself so many times instinctually doing that in this game because, yeah, it. The flow of this game is very interesting and again, unique because it feels so. It feels very souls. Like, it feels very action fromsoft. Like, where a lot of your time grinding is more so learning and recognizing these new enemies that you're being introduced to in a new area. And I want to point out something.

[Andy Cortez]

Real quick before we lose it. Nice. Blight says, oh, I'm out. I'm not a Perry Poppy. They have a story mode. They do have a story mode.

[Barrett Courtney]

And I highly recommend it just because I think this game is amazing. You should absolutely check it out. Like. But yeah, this game is tough, but I think with that comes like a weird pacing balancing in terms of exploration and fighting enemies that I don't know. I. I really wish. I think that that little addition could have helped a lot in terms of exploring around and becoming familiar with stuff and not having to do the run up to a boss every time. And sometimes like, the auto save being really weird or like right before, let's say, like, I just died from an optional boss and I'm like, all right, I need to change my loadout.

[Andy Cortez]

Cool.

[Barrett Courtney]

I changed it. And then I go to fight the boss and then the auto save brings me back to right before I change my party dynamic and I'm like, ah, fucking come on man. So there's just like little things like that that feel a bit rough. But despite that, I wish, I wish.

[Andy Cortez]

That they rendered their pre rendered cutscenes at a higher resolution. Yes, that's like, that's like one only one of my main things because there, there's not a whole lot of them. Granted they do a lot of real time cutscenes so that you see your characters with their hair, with their outfits. Outfits and you know, the little customizations like that and they always look great. Because I think that the game fidelity wise is unbelievably stunning to look at. But then it'll every once in a while, maybe like five times throughout the whole, my, you know, 27 hour experience will cut to a pre render cutscene and it, it looks like it's in 480p and it's rendered really nicely. Obviously they put. But you know, it's like, y'all heard of AV1? Like let's get somebody. You know, I'm sure like, you know cutscenes are going to add a shitload more to the file size and I understand all that, but it was always kind of a bummer running into those because of how much muddier the experience looks.

[Barrett Courtney]

Also, if you're gonna do like the custom outfits and stuff for cutscenes, do it for the full game, not for like two or three cutscenes that are like more important story. Like let me see my customized characters in my group and all this stuff. It's very weird to be like, oh, I guess that's what this person is supposed to look like. And I haven't seen that in 20 hours. It's so weird.

[Tim Gettys]

So. And you just said 27 hours your time with this game. You roll credits. Roger.

[Roger Pocorn]

23. 24. Around there. Yeah.

[Barrett Courtney]

32. I did a lot of side stuff at the end that I was trying to get these two to. To do before embargo. But I know it was a kind of a. They're trying to get it.

[Andy Cortez]

I ended up doing the like the. More the real important ones. Yeah, okay.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah, there's. And that's the other like just to give another compliment is like everything feels so important in this world and how it all ties together and really in really cool ways. I was not expecting this game to do and I found myself just even after finishing the game, doing so much around the world just to get more out of stories or characters, even knowing what the resolution was all going to be. It's really cool what they are able to do with this world.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah man, I can't wait to keep talking about it, can't wait to keep playing it. But we're going to have to wait to do that. After a word from our sponsors, this episode is brought to you by Imperial. We've told you all how important it is to developers to wishlist games you're interested in on Steam. So if this game sounds cool to you, make sure that you wish list it. In Imperial you play as a mercenary sent to a distant planet to discover the mysteries of an ancient civilization. Powers unknown lie within the monolith. But those are no mere ruins as an expedition has already ventured inside with only a few survivors. Why was it built? What powers reside within who is at the center of the monolith? All these secrets and more will be uncovered if you are brave enough to take on Imperial. Imperial features a unique blend of RPG systems and skill based combat across three weapon archetypes the Acrobatic Glaive, the defensive but devastating Mace and Shield, and the powerfully ranged Cannon. With a deep ability system and extensive customization, every battle is an opportunity to refine and optimize your combat style. Form relationships with with each of the few surviving expedition members who all have their own personal quest lines. Whether you choose to help or not can have drastic consequences for them. The Monolith is guarded by powerful automatons, each with distinct attack patterns and weaknesses that demand precise execution and strategy to be victorious. Create your mercenary, enter the Monolith, learn powerful abilities, defeat the automatons, and uncover the secret secrets that lie within Imperial. Imperial is available May 8 on PC, Xbox S&X and PS5, but you can wish list now. Do it. Wishlist Imperial this episode's brought to you by our Frames. If you haven't called your mom in a while, here is your reminder to do it. But then, if you want to go above and beyond, Mother's Day is coming up and I have the perfect gift idea. Our frames are incredibly smart and easy to use, allowing you to upload unlimited photos and videos directly from your phone to to the frame. Plus you can order the frame online and preload it with photos and videos using the Aura app so it's ready to go right out of the box. It's a gift so special they'll use it every day. Trust me. Gia's dad does Greg And Kevin and a ton of people here at Kinda Funny are obsessed with their aura. Frames. It takes about two minutes to set up a frame using the ARA app. And I know that from experience ARA has a great deal for Mother's Day. For a limited time, listeners can save on the the perfect gift by visiting Aurora Frames.com to get $35 off plus free shipping on their bestselling Carver matte frame. That's a U R A frames.com promo code. Kinda Funny. Support this show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. Joe Hendry liked my tweet. It's pretty cool.

[Barrett Courtney]

He believes in you.

[Tim Gettys]

He believes in me.

[Andy Cortez]

He believes in you. He's such a handsome man.

[Tim Gettys]

He is.

[Andy Cortez]

If I was, I feel like if I were a 6, 65 year old mother, I would just be like, what a handsome young man that is.

[Barrett Courtney]

What's a handsome young boy?

[Andy Cortez]

That is. I would like pinch his cheeks. You're a handsome young fella.

[Tim Gettys]

You know, even the grannies believe. Everyone. We got some super chats I want to get to to inspire some conversation here. Cognitive clip says clear, obscure hype. Let's go. Tyler Pace says, this game looks absolutely amazing. I still can't believe Roger got slapped on a plane.

[Roger Pocorn]

That is. That made me laugh right before I had to go up and I was.

[Andy Cortez]

Like, that's, that's incredible.

[Tim Gettys]

These days you wouldn't know. You're so good at pairing now. You would have just popped up there with that.

[Roger Pocorn]

They still haven't messaged me, by the way. JetBlue, you know what I mean? Never messaged me, never said anything crazy.

[Tim Gettys]

Wow. Relish, please. Does anyone try on Cloud thinking about input timing?

[Roger Pocorn]

I did. I played probably a few hours in Cloud. I mean you can figure it out. You can get there. Especially if you play it on easy because the basically the big thing about story mode is that doesn't necessarily make like the enemies weaker or anything like that. It gives you a little bit like they're higher timing. Yeah. Higher timing. And then they're a little bit weaker when they, when they attack you. So yes, yeah, you can, you can play on Cloud. You can figure it out.

[Tim Gettys]

Something I want to talk about is the, the party because I've been very fascinated so far with not just the characters and like how their stories and dynamics which I'm very obsessed with, but how again, here's the word again, unique. Each of the, the characters seem like. I love that maybe later in the game this changes but each character has something about them like an ability set that is theirs. And I, I feel like that so far has been very rewarding for me to want to actually switch them out and have your party of three be like the right party to go into a battle, even if I don't necessarily need it to win. It's more just like for the extra added fun of it of like, getting the strats and understanding how to use each of the different kind of like. And it's not just abilities. It's like entirely different in terms of.

[Barrett Courtney]

Like, how, like, their skills all work in tandem together. Yeah. And like, the fun is min maxing it all like Lunae here, she has this system called stains, which, you know, if she does certain attacks, she'll kind of gain four kind of different elements, elemental kind of things, and then certain attacks will feed off of different color elements, and then those attacks will be higher. You have.

[Andy Cortez]

That's all the stuff that really scares me whenever we get into games like this and you do run into other party members and like, you know, not recruit them. They just, they join or whatever. And there may be some fighting styles that are a bit confusing at first.

[Tim Gettys]

Because Andy's not using growling Pokemon.

[Andy Cortez]

I, I don't.

[Tim Gettys]

He's not using Lear.

[Andy Cortez]

I'm not, I'm not tail whipping. No way to lower their defense right in this game. I did and I loved it. And Barrett mentioning the different fighting styles. There are other characters that will do weird that like in at first turns me off and I'm like, I don't want to learn this system. This seems annoying. You know, like, I, I, I just want to attack. And then I fell in love with it because of how awesome it is. And I really up not putting a certain party member into my party until near. Well, I say near the end, but it was, you know, it was still like, I still play the last seven hours with them or something like that. But I regretted not doing that sooner because I was so worried about just having to learn something. Just learn Andy. Just learn something. But I'll tell you what I didn't need to learn. Pairing. God damn, I'm good, dude. So, like, I'm so good at this game.

[Tim Gettys]

It's crazy.

[Barrett Courtney]

I would say just, just to loop it back really quick to the different abilities and the way all of their unique systems work. I think it's really impressive of like, it doesn't feel overwhelming just because I think they. They do a bit of good synergy. It's synergy, but also pacing in terms of onboarding, new characters and different play styles. And stuff. And maybe like, at first you don't click with somebody. Like, there's a character who gets introduced kind of later on in the game that I wasn't feeling right away. And then I had to use him as a backup character because if you have your kind of first three in your party die, you get a second chance. But it's everybody else who isn't in that first party, which, by the way.

[Roger Pocorn]

That was a huge pop for me when I was like, oh, man, it's over.

[Barrett Courtney]

Oh, and that sending the reserve team and like, that being a legit strategy sometimes for some bosses where it's like, I can get this boss down to here with this crew and like, maybe get the. The second team to come in. And then learning, like, being forced to learn, like, oh, now I have to learn how to play as this character who has, you know, certain attacks are going to be stronger each turn through, like a random RNG system and learning how to min max, even that stuff. I was like, oh, this is fascinating and satisfying. Yeah, yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

The I. I wanted to bring up real quick. Or you go first?

[Roger Pocorn]

No, I was just going say, my advice to anybody who's playing this game is to really go in depth and switch out your team members. Because I had the same thing right where I had a few characters that were the reserve team. And then by the end of the game, I was like, I. I massively up because I under. I finally gave them a chance. And I was like, oh, no, I understand how to play you guys now because everybody is viable. Everybody has their own unique thing. And I. I fell in love with cl. Like, that was my character. That was the character that I always had in my main.

[Barrett Courtney]

Her abilities are fucking crazy.

[Roger Pocorn]

But then once I, like, like, I gave her up for a little bit, I was like, okay, let's put in the other. Who. How can these other people do. It's like, oh, they're actually really good. If I put in the time and the effort to learn them.

[Barrett Courtney]

Shout out to my boy. Minoko, yeah. Is just goated.

[Roger Pocorn]

But it's a little overwhelming at first. Just a little over. Because going back to what Tim said, there's a lot of fake words, a lot of words that, like, they're saying out there. And like, I don't know what that means. It takes a while to kind of ingest.

[Andy Cortez]

And that's where I'm taking the conversation. Next is Luminas and Pictos.

[Roger Pocorn]

We got to talk about.

[Barrett Courtney]

We gotta talk about this.

[Andy Cortez]

We looked at this preview during the Xbox developer Preview. And it was Developer Underscore Direct. Developer Underscore Direct. And it was lauded as something that is such a positive because look at how deep you can get into customizing how you are approaching combat with a system of Luminas and Pictos. And we saw a screen and I'll, you know, biggest menu screen. The worst thing you could have showed anybody because it had 90,000 different choices. And it. They were all a bunch of different words. And it's at the point where I'm looking at them where I'm like, well, I'm sure there's a bunch of duplicates or something. You know, like how you have multiple items. No, there was not. They were all very. They were all different items. And I looked at that and I almost vomited. Like, I was like, this sucks. I don't want this. And once you get the hang of what the system is. So what it. What Luminas and Pictos are Illumina is an ability, a passive, right? And it might be, hey, every time you parry correctly, you get some health back. Which I am all about the leech. I love leeching in games. If I could suck some health back, I do that in every video game possible. And if it's something Perry related, holy, even better, right? So I equipped. So I equip. I equipped the Lumina, right? And if I do five complete encounters with that Lumina equipped, that Lumina becomes a picto that is then available for anybody in my party to equip.

[Barrett Courtney]

And it's ability sharing, essentially.

[Andy Cortez]

It's ability sharing your care. So but you have to unlock it for every. For in order for everybody else to use it. And then as you're making through your journey, you're finding all these little picto slots. And then suddenly you have your character Lunae or Robert Pattinson. He's got 33 picto slots. And then you might see that. That if you have 33 picto slots, it costs 20 pictos for that. Insanely cool pictos. That's like really op and awesome.

[Roger Pocorn]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

And you're kind of doing the thing where it's like, hey, you have 15. What. What's your NBA roster? LeBron's $5. And you know, goddamn Ilgauskis is $1. And you're kind of. You're doing that push and pull and you're doing the min maxing of. I have 33 pictos available right now. Now. Oh, actually I had two more that I didn't unlock. Let me apply those. I have 35 now. And that sick ass ability is 10 pictos. I'll put that in. So now I have 15 left. And then the other one, this one. Oh, I get one pictos. It costs one pictos to get AP back for every dodge.

[Tim Gettys]

Every correct dodge.

[Andy Cortez]

Put that in. That's a one dot. That's a no brainer.

[Barrett Courtney]

Holy.

[Andy Cortez]

For early game that's like such a, a no brainer type. And it's, it's the stuff that those systems seemed really overwhelming and kind of cumbersome and I was like, I don't really want to fuck with this. And then I fucked with it. Heavy. It is so cool.

[Barrett Courtney]

I will say in like in the beginning hours, it's not that huge page of a bunch of different like Luminas.

[Roger Pocorn]

Or sneaks up on you.

[Barrett Courtney]

It sneaks up on you because like I, I would say in the first couple hours being onboarded into that system, you're like, okay, I get it. It's ability sharing. You know, you only get three slots per character to fully equipped a Lumina, right?

[Andy Cortez]

Lumina.

[Barrett Courtney]

And then once you, yeah, like Andy was saying, once you get through a certain amount of fights, equipping that specific lumina, then that ability becomes shareable through the Picto system. And in the first few hours, you know, you're picking up a couple or whatever and then you're like, you have your party comp, you have them all equipped with certain things and you, you know, you've unlocked the picto version of it. So you're all, you're feeling good and then you don't check in for like 15 hours and then you open up that menu and you're like, what the dude?

[Tim Gettys]

Even then though, like, this is the type of game where I, when I play RPGs in general normally I'll, you know, set my equipment from the start, play for a while. And I don't like to change in menus after every battle. I know some people do that stuff. It's like I like to like get through a little bit and then after I get to a challenge or something. Yeah, exactly. You like something you like to turn.

[Andy Cortez]

You like to complete like seven quests in World of Warcraft, then you go back to turn them all in. It's like, holy, yeah, nine levels.

[Tim Gettys]

Then you get to look at everything and like put it together. And my God, it's been so satisfying because every time I've done that, I become so much stronger the next time where the next battle I get into I'm like, I am attacking for so much more damage at this point. And like, that feels good, you know, like, yeah, it's satisfying to, like, put the work in, get stuff and then be able to. And when I say put the work in, I don't just mean the battle system. I mean actually, like, looking at the menus and trying to decide, I'm gonna give them this. I'm gonna give them this and see how it all plays out. Like, it's been very great for me.

[Roger Pocorn]

It's like, oops. All fun stuff, right? Like, I go to the. I go to the perks, and it's just like, I'm just calling perks because that's. That's the way I look at it. And it is just all the fun modifiers that you expect. Usually you get with weapons, and you do have modifiers with weapons. But, yeah, being able to go in there and be like, okay, well, now fire damage is, you know, 50% more critical. And oh, also, I updated this character. This character is like my all about critical hits, right? So I can. I can mix that all together. Now I'm getting 100% critical hits. Like, you can really get in there and do some wild stuff. I will say it is very, like, a lot. It's just. It becomes a lot. And I don't think.

[Andy Cortez]

I mean, it starts a lot.

[Roger Pocorn]

The UI needs to become. I don't know how do you make that UI better, But it needs to be better. I don't know how to organize it.

[Barrett Courtney]

It's rough when you go to that menu. It is just all of them unorganized. I think they, like, by default, they instead needed to do the sorting system in terms of, like, here's defensive stuff. Like, here's a drop down.

[Tim Gettys]

The sorting is very limited. It's like alphabetical by level, by power. That's it.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Then there's the. It's not only that, but then they have the subdivision of sorting, where you could do all of that stuff either. Either alphabetical by level or by power. And then they have a sub menu of sorting like Bear just mentioned, which is offensive only, defensive only, support only. I. I agree that I'm on both sides of the argument where I think that it is still kind of. That there are enhancements that can be had and can be done, but they still gave, at least in my opinion, a lot of ways to try to manage the mess. I think maybe. Honestly, Roger, it's like the. For me, it's the. The use of the word energizing and all. Like, once you play it enough, you realize that the word energizing is their key phrase for giving you ap. And your AP is your moves, and your more powerful moves cost more ap. And then obviously healing is for heels. And I. I kind of wish, like, either maybe they were color coded or maybe the. The pre. That word of like, energizing was like, not bolded. And the other word. I don't know what you have to do, but they're. They still did a decent amount. What I wish. I wish there was one more sorting option where it up top showed me all the ones I have equipped and then showed me all of them by power. And that was like, you know, that was one little option that I wish I could kind of mix and match sorting. And yeah, I do think that it can. It could definitely be overwhelming at first, and I think once you get sort of the systems down, then I. I had so much fun finding a late game pictos and being like, oh, this could really, really change some. And then being like, well, let me go fight five people so that I can unlock it for everybody, you know?

[Roger Pocorn]

And that was the difference between me hurting at a boss and just being like, I'm just getting destroyed. What's going on with my. With my perks. Right. Let me check them out. And then I had an awful moment where I'm at, like the second or last boss and I'm just getting destroyed by cls. Is getting destroyed. And then I'm like, okay, let me just go check. And then for some reason, I had nothing equipped. Like, no, but it was.

[Tim Gettys]

It was nice.

[Roger Pocorn]

It was nice relieving moment. Okay. At least this is what's wrong. It's not on me. It's not on me. But yeah, no, Going through that and finding all the. All the stuff is really fun for me.

[Andy Cortez]

It was like the. For my personal experience, it was. It was the perfect level of difficulty because I first tried everything, but it was hard.

[Roger Pocorn]

Yes.

[Andy Cortez]

And that tried everything. Everything. But by the, like, by the last, like, 20 hours of the game in the beginning, I was. I would die to somebody when I wasn't equipping shit and didn't really fully understand the pictos and the luminance and all that stuff. But by the end of it, I.

[Barrett Courtney]

Was like one boss that took me at least 10 tries. Was I crazy?

[Andy Cortez]

It was.

[Roger Pocorn]

Me too.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay. Yeah.

[Roger Pocorn]

Yeah, that's crazy.

[Andy Cortez]

And legitimately I beat it. I was like, I'm goat. But. But it was still hard.

[Barrett Courtney]

Oh, yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

And I. And I loved that I was having to revive and I was having to crucially use an ability that, yes, Adds shields to people and all of that stuff. Just working in tandem. It was a. It was a orc.

[Barrett Courtney]

You were locked.

[Andy Cortez]

It was a musical just experience using.

[Roger Pocorn]

All of the abilities that every character has. Right. Because you know, some characters have the shield thing, but they also do a lot of fire damage. You're like, I'm just going to do fire damage. No, it's like, no, you're using the shield and you're using the fire. You're just really maxing every single.

[Andy Cortez]

My girl mayel getting into her grandiose stance or whatever. Virtuous but virtuous stance. But it only happens if. If an enemy. If I use that move and an enemy's on fire, then she goes virtuos stance. And knowing that that's 200 extra damage mixed in with this ridiculous move.

[Barrett Courtney]

That is so like, you have to have like enough AP but like having another ability that's just autom getting her ap. Oh my God.

[Andy Cortez]

Singing legitimately. By the end of it, I had some Luminos and some Pictos Luminas and some Pictos equipped that were where every character was getting heals from everybody if they were healing. And I was getting health back from counterattacks and I was getting health back from parries. And it was. I was just like, it sounds like a pyramid, dude.

[Barrett Courtney]

Again, like that's the fun of like min maxing, dude.

[Andy Cortez]

Lunae, you could drop a nuclear bomb. And she said, Luna could not die if I tried.

[Roger Pocorn]

That's awesome.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

She was resin every. Like, you could not kill this woman because I was like parrying and it was. It was a great freaking time.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

And I had to swap kicks so much.

[Barrett Courtney]

It kicked so much ass. And I wanted on the record that, you know, like, I struggled with this game game. And I've beat games like Sekiro and I'm just. I'm not God tier like Andy. I just want it on the record because I know people in the comments are going to be like, ah, they're not gamers. We're all gamers.

[Tim Gettys]

Some of us are gamers less than others. And I love this parry system. Like it is so satisfying and so fun. When you nail it, it feels so good. And when you don't, you know what you up. And I think like you guys have said this a couple times now. Yeah. Sometimes it's like it gets a little weird.

[Barrett Courtney]

There's some enemies where I'm like, I still don't truly do.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, really?

[Barrett Courtney]

Oh, yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

So far I haven't got this there.

[Andy Cortez]

But Tim frames win games with Nvidia.

[Tim Gettys]

This is true.

[Barrett Courtney]

I'm playing on PS5.

[Andy Cortez]

This isn't sponsored, you know, but I got my 240Hz monitor. I wasn't even getting that many frames. But still like I, I the, the once getting those parries down, getting the timing down. And I really also enjoyed just like kind of adding in a new mechanic later on. It's nothing completely game changing but. But a way to sort of freshen up enemies and some of these boss fights. I was just like glowing to Roger about one of the early major boss fights that has nothing too crazy about it mechanically. But they do really interesting things to keep the boss fights fresh.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yes.

[Andy Cortez]

And more importantly creative to where you go.

[Barrett Courtney]

Wow, that's unique.

[Andy Cortez]

I love that you're doing that right here.

[Tim Gettys]

That's great, man. There's a couple of things I want to touch on here. One is the, the, the charm and the weird of this game. Like it is so clearly inspired by the games that we've mentioned already. But like you'll turn a corner and there's just the funkiest looking thing that is so out of place and like Kevin has like something on screen right now. I'm not talking about this.

[Barrett Courtney]

I mean earlier we saw in Andy's like kind of first couple hours there was just a mime. Yeah, there was just a mime. And let me tell you, don't with the mimes. Terrifying.

[Roger Pocorn]

Run away.

[Barrett Courtney]

Like run away from the mines.

[Tim Gettys]

There's such weird. And it doesn't feel out of place place like. And then another classic JRPG thing. You go and you find this new area and it has such a life to it. The. It has a community and characters and a language even. And there everyone's talking to each other and there's a vibe to it that you'll remember for the rest of your life that that place from this game was like that and that is as high as.

[Roger Pocorn]

It has such a vibe that we're going to be. If any game is sort of smells like Expedition, we're gonna be like that's kind of like expedition. You know what I mean? Like this is going to be the baseline for a new type of vibe. Yeah. And also, also the humor of it all.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, I would. Yes.

[Roger Pocorn]

We gotta talk about that because that, that took me. Threw me through a loop because the game starts off pretty light and then it gets really dark. Like I'm talking about like the first like, like 15 minutes. Like, like five minutes.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah, exactly. Whatever.

[Roger Pocorn]

And then. Yeah. And then it gets so dark and Then it starts getting very funny out of nowhere. And it is like a very genuine and weird funny.

[Barrett Courtney]

Like, it threw. Like, it felt out of place the first couple of times of, like, yo. We've just gone through some terrible stuff as we've, like, kind of mentioned in, like, our preview and stuff. Stuff. And then, you know, Charlie Cox is, like, starting to, like, crack jokes. I'm like, what the.

[Roger Pocorn]

What the.

[Barrett Courtney]

You were just about to die, like, 20 minutes ago, whatever. But eventually, I think, like, there is that weirdness at first that is slowly kind of earned. And the more this game kind of reveals itself of how weird it is, I think the more that feels right at home. Like, there's a group of. Of critters in this game called Gesturals. And their whole minions. They're. They're, like, essentially minions, but they kind of look like those, like, wooden figures or, like, wooden figure dolls or whatever. Yeah. And like their whole. Kind of.

[Tim Gettys]

Their whole thing.

[Barrett Courtney]

Their whole thing is just fighting.

[Tim Gettys]

They just like to fight fights. We fight through fights.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

They, like. I. I do want to keep on kind of harping on how. How charming the writing was because I was talking to just so many different NPCs in one of these areas and legitimately, like, chuckling at every single line that these characters are saying in random different spots. So not only do I think the. The writing is super sincere and earnest in a lot. And emotional in a lot of different moments.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yes.

[Andy Cortez]

But they also just have a really good. A really great sense of humor, I think.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. And I'm starting to get to the. The more humorous elements in. In my playthrough. Right. We're talking about the gestals and stuff. Like, that stuff's funny. But even getting through that, there was a moment where, so far, the story has been very serious and very, very, very big. It's heavy. And there was a moment where, like, two of the girls are just giving Charlie Cox's character.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

And I'm like, I love this. Like, it feels. It feels authentic. It reminds me of the writing in the. The F7 remake games that I've given so much praise for, loving the dynamics between these characters because they feel, like, real. And I. I just love it because I think it gives, like, really quick.

[Barrett Courtney]

For the video video watchers. They're, like, trying to find their friend, and their friend just gets killed, like, nothing. And then, like, 15 minutes later, Charlie Cox, like, cracked a joke. And, like, at first it's, like, kind of weird. Sorry, just to go back to you.

[Tim Gettys]

No. Yeah. I just thought I'm. I'm very, very into. Into that stuff.

[Barrett Courtney]

There's a moment with my boy Monoko, and another character that. That it got me so hard in terms of la. Like, it hurt how much I, like, laughed at it. And I think that's like, the cast, again, just fucking nails it. And, like, the rapport all of these people kind of have with each other, and also knowing that they're probably recording Silo in booths, just, like, the way that they're able to kind of bounce off each other's energy when it all come together is really fucking awesome.

[Roger Pocorn]

Yeah. The emotional moments, though, like. Like, that, for me, is what brought this game up from wherever it was and then to the stratosphere. Because there are some moments where the most. The heaviest shit happens. And I think I've played RPGs and I played games that kind of push past it a little bit. Like, we feel the motion and then we're just. We're on to the next thing, right? And then we. Yeah, exactly. That's my favorite game of all time. But we sit with a lot of that sadness and we really, like, explore it. And even when we do push past it, that's part of the story because it's like, why are we pushing past this like that. That is kind of the crux of this whole game, right, Is the. These expeditioners have a goal and they are. They're going for it even if people die, even if horrible things happen. And the way that they keep on bringing up that emotion, that grief, it. It's very poetic. And it happens at the right moments. And then they also balance it out with the very strange and weird moments at the right. At the right time. So it's. It's a delicate balance. And at the beginning, I was. I was like, man, I don't know if you're going to be able to do this. This is. It's also a French game. I'm like, I don't know how it's going to translate. Like, how is this going to do? And it. It does a great job. Yeah, you know me. Come on.

[Tim Gettys]

And he's the only one that didn't say anything. You know what I mean? Yeah. Couple more super chats I want to get to. I saw this sentiment shared a lot here. A question from my homie Paige. Synced in chat in Twitch chat. This comes from Download says, are there ways to influence the story, I. E. Dialogue choices or different party comps?

[Andy Cortez]

You can talk to characters more.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

And that. That comes with some rewards yeah, there's nice.

[Barrett Courtney]

There's a, you know, not to get too into it. There's a very thin friendship system. That is another, like, one of my bigger critiques. It feels very, like, very flat and very like, we have to have this. We have to have this is like, this is the type of game we're making. And I, I think that's like one of the, the weaker elements of the game. But you're not really doing like, like, it's not like a Persona where you're hanging out with a friend and it's like, oh, if I make the wrong choice here, if I say something this person either doesn't want to hear or is not going to land with them, I'm not going to get as many friendship points. Yada, yada, yada. It's literally just, you're going to start up a conversation with your friends at camp and then you're going to go through just like a. A conversation, not really picking a dialogue, but you can choose who you're hanging out with, who you're not hanging out with in that sense, but you're not really changing the story. I would say.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, you, you're picking dialog. I. They are leading to the same place, I would say, but if anything, it's a method to introduce a newer ability and mechanic kind of later on in the game to where I, I didn't know that these things were going to happen. I was like, yeah, of course I want to talk to these NPCs because I really enjoy hanging out with them and I love their dialogue and I enjoy the character writing.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yes.

[Andy Cortez]

So, yes, I want to hang out with them and see what happens. And then the more I did that, then it's like friendship level unlock 3. And then this new move, I was like, what the is this new mo? And having those things upgrade and get better was like, oh, cool. At first I definitely felt like, all right, well, this is definitely not as in depth as I assumed that they would want.

[Barrett Courtney]

Like, if they had all the bunch of world they presented in a very weird way where all of them are kind of available to do their next level all at the same time time. So then it's like a weird like, all right, well, if I want to get them all to a certain level to unlock a new skill or whatever, I gotta hang them out with them all tonight before I want to go out back and grind. So then that also causes a very weird, like, I'm not really in the mood to do this, but I should do this type of thing. So.

[Roger Pocorn]

Which made me like, kind of deterred me from doing it right because there were so many moments where we're at camp and I'm like, man, we just had a crazy story moment. Like, I just gotta see that through. Like, I don't want to hard stop the story, but I did like, like talking to the characters and being able to have those connections because I didn't even know either, like, of like was there even going to be an upgrade? Was there some incentive for me, gameplay wise for talking to these people? I just enjoy talking to them.

[Tim Gettys]

I love talking to them every chance I get. Oh, I'm here for. I want to hear what you have to say.

[Andy Cortez]

That's me in Mass Effect where it's like I'm going back to the Normandy every time to see and Garrus is still doing his, you know, calibrations and like I, I enjoyed talking to them. But the fact that it was also mainly just a way to, to give you this upgrade to an ability was like, oh, okay. This isn't just a kind of pointless exercise.

[Tim Gettys]

Getting to the rest of the super chats here before we close things out, think about if you guys have anything you want to get to. We got Demon Hacker saying, are the dominoes finally falling? Tim, bro, they've been falling. And I feel like again we've said this before, Xbox bought the entire game store. The dominoes are now theirs. They can throw the dominoes around any way they do.

[Barrett Courtney]

Is it really Xbox's domino though?

[Tim Gettys]

Well, that's the thing is like it's on game. So I feel like at the end of the day, like giving Xbox the credit of getting this game to people and their strategy and presenting the game.

[Barrett Courtney]

And co marking bearing it with oblivion. Horrible.

[Tim Gettys]

That's horrible. But all of that, like, yes, the dominoes are absolutely falling and really quick.

[Barrett Courtney]

It. It only feels weird just because, you know, they were part of the developer direct in January and if they were part of a normal showcase more recently, that was 30 different games and stuff like that, that I, I could get it. But the fact that like they were recently a part of a developer direct that showcased five different games that felt like kind of a big, more substantial parties too. First parties as well. And then for Microsoft to kind of turn around and be like, all right, well we're gonna shadow drop the remake of like one of our biggest games in history the same week to take out all of the oxygen gin of the air. I think that's kind of the more annoying thing, you know, y'all who are watching this are probably gonna eventually play both, but I'm. I think more about the conversations for, you know, my friends who are kind of in between normies and us, right, who are texting me all about Oblivion yesterday. I don't know, like, unless I tell them specifically, I don't know if they're gonna naturally find out about Expedition because of this thing. So it's that it feels so emblematic. Emblem. Emblematic of the industry for an indie studio to come out with such a unique, unique, fun new thing this week only to have all of the oxygen be taken out of the room by a corporation who has been withering away in terms of fun. You unique creative ideas in the last decade with a remaster. And so that's the, that's the frustrating thing. Play Expedition 33.

[Tim Gettys]

I mean, that's the takeaway again, a 50 game or on game pass. Like how the fuck is this game? $50. How.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah, like that?

[Tim Gettys]

I.

[Andy Cortez]

Did 30 people make this?

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Why did they have 33 employees?

[Tim Gettys]

Come on, guys. It's kind of fun.

[Andy Cortez]

But I do hope that, you know, throughout the rest of the year that this, that hype will kind of circle back around because I, I mean even now it reminds me a lot of metaphor last year where you see that big ass graphic on social media with all the nines and tens all over the place. And, and I, I think word of mouth will help this game a lot. And I really hope it does because they deserve it and more.

[Barrett Courtney]

100.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Roger Pocorn]

I think people will boot up Oblivion and be like, oh, it is an old game. Like it does feel old. Not, not hating on it, but you know, Exhibition is a, is a brand new video game.

[Barrett Courtney]

And I know that like, you know, people like, ah, they're different enough and all this stuff. And even Mike said yesterday that the game's good. People flock to the game. I hope that for this game, you know, there are also situations like Titanfall 2. So like I just, again, it's too.

[Roger Pocorn]

Early to really say, but also Doom comes out next month too. So it's like there's no room for. You know what I mean?

[Tim Gettys]

Dominoes are falling. Yeah, they're in a rock place right now. It's. It's tough now when there's just so much. But again, play this game. Yelsing says, still crazy that Robert Pattinson isn't in this.

[Roger Pocorn]

It's crazy, dude.

[Barrett Courtney]

Again, it feels like they had a contract originally with him and then he was like, I'm gonna make a movie.

[Roger Pocorn]

It was so Funny, because I think I, I, I went to blessing. I was like, this guy looks like Robert Patty, bro. I've been saying that like, like it does. It just looks like.

[Tim Gettys]

I got it. Admits, you guys, Guys, I don't know who you're saying looks like Robert Patton.

[Roger Pocorn]

Gustav. Gustav, the main guy, he looks like.

[Andy Cortez]

What are you talking about?

[Barrett Courtney]

He looks so much like Robert Pattinson.

[Roger Pocorn]

From Good times, specifically with the beard.

[Andy Cortez]

Tim. It's like when I play Liza P. And everybody goes, oh, Timothy Shalam. It's that with Robert. Everybody's like, robert Pattinson. Robert Pattinson.

[Barrett Courtney]

People in the chat call you Mickey33. And it's so good.

[Tim Gettys]

That's hilarious.

[Barrett Courtney]

That is Robert Patton. Look at that, man. That's Robert Pattinson with the mustache.

[Roger Pocorn]

He just sees gusav, bro. He sees the character. He's so deep in the game.

[Barrett Courtney]

He weirdly sees Charlie Cox.

[Tim Gettys]

I'm not used to seeing this man with a beard. Okay, you're right. You're right. Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Good movie. Yeah.

[Barrett Courtney]

If you watch Good Time, that's a good movie.

[Tim Gettys]

No, I have not. Oh, that's a good Batman.

[Andy Cortez]

Just to re echo some stuff that I said during the preview period that I loved how during the preview it felt. I was really worried about whenever big Hollywood actors are in games because necessary. That doesn't always transfer one to one for one. But I was so blown away and so, so ecstatic with Charlie Cox's performance in this game during that preview period. And that still, that's still. I still feel the same way as I did during that preview period. He is incredible. The whole voice cast is amazing. And when they get emotional, you feel that shit. They. Jennifer English, I, I think will be nominated for a lot of performance awards for her for her role as Maya. She was incredible. Shadow heart and she kills it here, man. Oh, so good.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah, I know that. Yeah. I think she's fantastic. Yeah. I don't think this tops blueprints for me in terms of game of the year. I think, again, a game has to do a lot to overtake blueprints. But I will say I would be surprised by the end of the year if this isn't my favorite story of in a video game this year.

[Tim Gettys]

Admiral Edwards says there are a lot of costumes.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah, I wasn't feeling a lot of the optional costumes I had, like, them kind of mix and match, like the kind of main costumes and looks. But anything that was kind of like out of the ordinary, I was like, nah, feels too weird.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, it was a little too weird. Too Immersion breaking Everybody's too hot to be switching around like that. Like, I, I, I just went with the color changes.

[Roger Pocorn]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

The white and the black.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Because you end up getting like a white color variant of the suit that you wear. And like, I did the thing that Bear did where I just kind of mix and match.

[Roger Pocorn]

Might be tough though, because I was only able to find it for the winter women of the group. I wasn't able to find it for.

[Tim Gettys]

They split costumes up into like.

[Roger Pocorn]

I don't like it, I don't like it.

[Tim Gettys]

I like it. I like it.

[Roger Pocorn]

Give it to me, give it to me.

[Tim Gettys]

Let me go find all this stuff. Yeah. I made one of mine, a super batty mime. And I'm so about it.

[Roger Pocorn]

Whoa.

[Tim Gettys]

So about it.

[Roger Pocorn]

Whoa.

[Andy Cortez]

Also, Kirsty Ryder as as Lunae. Another amazing performance from Sifu, I believe.

[Roger Pocorn]

Really?

[Barrett Courtney]

I think so.

[Tim Gettys]

Cool. And then the final one here, Cowhen Fudka says no. We talked about Game Pass. It's actually insane. And no was KN o w. I don't know what you're quite saying, but hey, you can play this game on Game Pass. And you should if you have Game Pass. If you don't have Game pass, it's worth $50. You should definitely buy it.

[Barrett Courtney]

Buy it. Support the devs on PlayStation.

[Roger Pocorn]

It's on everything.

[Barrett Courtney]

Yeah, it's on everything.

[Roger Pocorn]

Which I didn't know until we got codes. I was like, oh, it is on PlayStation, huh?

[Tim Gettys]

Like.

[Roger Pocorn]

Cuz that's just the market metaphor too, right? Like, yeah. I was like, oh, it's a PlayStation game. Didn't realize that. Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

She was Kuroki in in Sifu.

[Tim Gettys]

Well, everybody, that is our review of Expedition 33. Obviously we are very, very high. And I can't wait to keep playing it. And I want to hear all about your journeys with it as well in the comments below. Are you hyped to get this one going? Please let us know. Like I said earlier, we have a great day of content coming up. We're about to get into our second gamescast of the day. It is my interview with the director of Onimusha 2 and Onimusha 2 Remastered and my preview of Onimusha 2 Remastered as well. And you're gonna want to stay tuned and watch this one live. The end is very, very something. You know what I mean? But I want you to be there. I want you. Today's gonna be one of those days where you're just like, I was there.

[Roger Pocorn]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Tim interviewed the director of Onimusha too. And I swear to that. I swear that to you. Okay. And then after that, Prometheus in review. But until next time. Love you all. Goodbye.