What We Played Over Christmas Vacation - Kinda Funny Gamescast

Summary

Kinda Funny Gamescast: "What We Played Over Christmas Vacation"

Date: January 7, 2026
Hosts: Tim Gettys, Greg Miller, Blessing Adeoye Jr., Andy Cortez, Mike "Snowbike Mike"
Theme: The gang reunites after the holidays to discuss everything they played over Christmas break, giving candid reviews of the biggest releases they finally had time to finish and sharing laughs, gripes, and personal stories from their gaming adventures.

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Episode Overview

This episode focuses on the games each host played and completed during the winter holiday, featuring in-depth discussions and reviews of major recent releases (like Metroid Prime 4 Beyond, Ghost of Yote, Elden Ring: Night Rain - Forsaken Hollows DLC, and more), a rapid-fire run through smaller titles, and reflections on backlog progress. Expect honest review scores, strong opinions, a sprinkling of holiday banter, and advice for listeners trying to tackle their own game queues.

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Major Discussion Points

1. Metroid Prime 4 Beyond (05:11–16:00)

General Reception:

• Andy Cortez: 7/10 ("Good")

  • Praises: Stellar visuals, Samus’s hero shots, strong Metroidvania gameplay core.
  • Gripes: Mixed bag due to "struggles with different visions," green crystal mechanic felt tedious, lackluster ideas.
  • “The great parts are so great, and the bad parts are...not good and kind of bad.” (06:25)

• Greg Miller: 7.5/10 ("Good, but heartbreaking")

  • Initial excitement ("my Volt Forge...that excitement and energy was with me for a long time") faded due to repetitive and unfun combat, especially at the end.
  • "If you are making a game like this where it's not about the shooting, why am I shooting so much right now? And why is it not fun?" (07:01)
  • Green crystal “vagina pedestal” mechanic universally panned; broke pacing and felt like busywork.

• Blessing Adeoye: Did not finish (apathy quit at midway point)

  • Loved the early game; “Vault Forge is where I was like, oh, shit, this is fucking awesome.”
  • Metroidvania elements and open desert hub failed to capture the magic of prior games (esp. Prime Remastered).
  • "I just wasn’t having fun... it’s not a bad game, but it’s not what I want to play on my break." (14:00)

Notable Quotes:

• Andy: “I could almost feel and sense all the struggles that this went through... like, at its core, it’s still such a really cool game.” (06:02)
• Greg: “I was crestfallen by this one.” (10:16)
• Blessing: “The Metroidvania aspect of this is so disappointing, especially coming off Prime Remastered... everything is so spread out and uninteresting.” (14:00)

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2. Ghost of Yote (16:00–23:52)

Reception & Comparisons:

• Andy Cortez: 8/10 ("Great, highly recommended")

  • Loved sidequests, visuals, open world’s variety.
  • Compared its impact to God of War 2018 vs. Ragnarok: “Yotei is an overall better video game...but not quite as special as Tsushima was.” (18:15)
  • Praised armor sets and customization; disliked new stance/weapon system (“I’ve decided I don’t like it”). (21:02)

• Greg Miller: 9/10 on review, “it’s interesting how it doesn’t resonate the same way that Ghost of Tsushima did.” (20:15)

• Blessing Adeoye: 8/10, “I like, but don’t love it...”

  • Legends multiplayer might be the experience that truly elevates Yote for him. (22:38)

Notable Quotes:

• Andy: “A weapon should be so much more and cooler than that.” (21:03)
• Blessing: “I realized that Legends was the thing to really upgrade that experience.” (22:40)

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3. Elden Ring: Night Rain – Forsaken Hollows DLC (23:58–33:19)

Highlights:

• Andy Cortez: 9/10 ("Amazing experience")

  • New map, new bosses, all fresh content; especially praised “ever dark” remixed boss fights and the scale of the new area.
  • “It's probably the final boss is up there with favorite Souls bosses ever. Wow, so much fun.” (32:30)
  • Only complaint: No crossplay ("just stinks", 33:00).

• Mike: Echoed the high praise, loved co-op and discovery (“This shit’s lit.” 24:19); detailed how the new mechanics and world added tons of incentive for replay.

Notable Quotes:

• Andy: “This map is fucking massive...gave me a lot of core Elden Ring moments with exploration.” (27:03)
• Blessing: "Our first time doing that, it was...like elementary school playground secrets." (25:51)

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4. Lies of P: Overture DLC (35:38–37:47)

• Blessing Adeoye: Huge shout-out to the quality of the DLC: “There are moments that reminded me of my first time playing Last of Us – [it’s] top tier in video game design.” (36:01)
• Andy Cortez: “I loved all the boss fights in the Lies of P DLC. So much fun.” (37:09)
• “Final boss...one of the best soulslike boss fights I’ve done.” (37:25, Blessing)

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5. Tim’s Holiday Indie Surge (39:52–49:16)

Shinobi Art of Vengeance (Finished)

• Score: 8/10
• “Mini metroidvanias for each level is a great concept. Combat is deep – totally a Lizard Cube fan now.” (40:52–41:55)

Dispatch (Narrative Game)

• Score: 9/10 ("Amazing")
• Praises innovative, jank-free adventure gameplay; succeeded at onboarding non-gamers and fostering engagement (Gia — “her gamer brain turned on”).
• "This game is jankless... production value is through the roof." (40:52)
• “Loved it — can't wait for more.”

&Roger (Indie Narrative Experience)

• Not scored, but described as emotionally devastating.
• “I didn’t know it was this...stupid-ass indie games fucking me up for real.” (45:44)
• “Video games are really powerful. I don’t even want to give it a score.” (45:18)

Hollow Knight Silksong (Beat Act 3)

• Score: 9.5/10 ("Amazing")
• “An all-timer for me in every single way…but I do think about 20 of my 70 hours were not fun—too much of a good thing.” (48:38)

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6. Mike’s Holiday Gaming Journal (49:16–61:40)

Control (Remedy)

• “I loved it...blown away by the setting, the gameplay, all of it. The Federal Bureau of Control rocks.” (49:41+)
• Enjoyed the Alan Wake tie-in DLC, although felt lost due to unfamiliarity with Wake.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses (First Time)

• Golden Deer house; “I had so much fun, not only on the tactics and gameplay side... but the school side.” (51:46+)
• Loved bonding and recruiting (“I got NIL deals out — you want some money? I need you Bernie. Bernadette, get out of the room.” 53:41)
• Gaming Journal Segment: Mike showcases his holiday gift: a personal, illustrated gaming journal, documenting his Fire Emblem journey.
• “I actually wrote out the entire moment-by-moment game of Fire Emblem...put my little goods and bads...my star, Hilda. Hilda’s a queen.” (59:29)

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7. Backlog & Future Gaming Plans (61:40–67:32)

• Blessing: Considering Final Fantasy X (!), Fire Emblem, or Dragon Quest XI for next JRPG; leans towards FFX. (62:04)
• Andy: Blessing likes Dark Souls more than Bloodborne now (“Whoa, we have crossed the threshold!” 62:41)
• General: January deemed "Big Backlog January" (64:32) — quiet release month, so time to dive into old games.
• Greg tried Baldur’s Gate 3 again, bounced off the controls, started New Vegas instead. (64:01+)

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Notable Moments & Quotes

• Blessing on Metroid Prime 4’s desert:
  “I think this thing pales in comparison to Hyrule Field and Ocarina of Time. Mainly because it’s uninteresting.” (14:00)
• Andy on Ghost of Yote’s combat:
  “I’ve decided I don’t like the stance system and I don’t like the weapon system.” (20:48)
• Andy on Elden Ring DLC:
  “This map is fucking massive. It’s crazy that we’re still discovering wild moments of elevation…” (27:03)
• Tim on Dispatch:
  “A 9 out of 10 on the Kinda Funny scale is an amazing game. I think it’s easily my favorite of these narrative type games…” (40:52)
• Mike on his gaming journal:
  “If you read this on the back, it has everything that happened...And so yeah, that was just an incredible two weeks. 77 hours in 11 days.” (57:51; 59:29)

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Rapid-Fire Review Scores & Games Played

| Game / DLC | Player(s) | Score/Impression | |----------------------------------|----------------------|---------------------------| | Metroid Prime 4 Beyond | Andy, Greg, Blessing | 7/10, 7.5/10, stopped | | Ghost of Yote | Andy, Blessing, Greg | 8/10, 8/10, 9/10 (review) | | Elden Ring Night Rain DLC | Andy, Mike | 9/10, “lit” | | Lies of P: Overture | Andy, Blessing | “One of the best” | | Shinobi Art of Vengeance | Tim | 8/10 | | Dispatch | Tim | 9/10 | | &Roger | Tim | Not scored, must-play | | Hollow Knight Silksong | Tim | 9.5/10 (“all-timer”) | | Control | Mike | Loved it | | Fire Emblem: Three Houses | Mike | Loved it |

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“Big Backlog January”: More Games & Final Thoughts (61:40–67:32)

• Community super chats shout out personal backlogs and emotional journeys (e.g., Expedition 33 compared to God of War 2018) (65:33)
• Tim: Dread is his favorite Metroid after replaying several in a row: "Super Metroid...old game is old, but goddamn, Dread is fucking sick." (66:17)
• Blessing asks, between Silksong and Prince of Persia: Lost Crown for next Metroidvania?
  • Tim: Lost Crown for a quicker, equally rewarding experience. (67:08)
• Call-to-action: Listeners are encouraged to share what they played during break in the comments (67:33)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Metroid Prime 4 Beyond Review: 05:11–16:00
• Ghost of Yote Discussion: 16:00–23:52
• Elden Ring Night Rain DLC: 23:58–33:19
• Lies of P: Overture: 35:38–37:47
• Tim’s Indie Highlights: 39:52–49:16
• Mike’s Gaming Journal: 49:16–61:40
• Backlog Reflections & Community Q&A: 61:40–67:32

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Summary Tone & Style

The cast brims with candid opinions, relatable gaming struggles, fondness for deep dives, some good-natured grumbling (Metroid crystals!), and plenty of inside jokes and encouragement for exploring new genres, returning to old favorites, and just keeping the passion alive. The gang blends genuine review analysis with the kind of loose, inviting “talking games with friends” vibe that defines Kinda Funny’s best episodes.

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Closing

If you missed this episode, you missed impassioned reviews of 2025’s most anticipated games, clever recaps of old favorites, and a real sense of how to enjoy (and sometimes survive) that post-holiday gaming backlog.

Transcript

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[Greg Miller]

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[Andy Cortez]

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[Tim Gettys]

coding from beginner to expert the fun way through a hands on RPG like experience. Go to boot.dev and use code kinda funny to get 25% off your first year on the annual plan. What's up and welcome to the Kind of Funny Games cast for Wednesday, January 7, 2026. Of course. I'm your host, Tim Gettys. I'm joined by Blessing. Adio. Yeah, Junior.

[Blessing Adeoye]

Good day. Tim.

[Tim Gettys]

Snowbike Mike.

[Mike]

What up, Tim?

[Tim Gettys]

Greg Miller.

[Mike]

Hello.

[Tim Gettys]

And Andy Cortez.

[Greg Miller]

Hello. We're your two biggest.

[Mike]

I mean I love Cortez merch. Come on, let's get close.

[Greg Miller]

Have you seen this sweatshirt? Me and Mike have n rifle. Nicer rifle dot com. Go get yours today.

[Mike]

I want more. Give me more.

[Tim Gettys]

Give him more. Andy, why don't you give him more?

[Andy Cortez]

As I was making clips over the break, I also had that one clip where he's looking at my hoodie. He's like, God, look, that looks great on you. I was like, I gave you one of these, Mike, because yeah, it doesn't fit me anymore.

[Mike]

It's happening so fast.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, everybody, of course, if you're watching live, be part of this show by super chatting on YouTube.com kind of funny games. Remember, we couldn't do this without our producers. On patreon.com/kind of funny. So very special thank you to Delaney the psalm twin and Carl Jacobs and Omega Buster. Today we're gonna start with Kev's here. So I don't think we're gonna have the effect of topic of the show. But we start with the topic of the show. It was. Okay, you don't need to do it.

[Greg Miller]

We appreciate you making the cameras work.

[Andy Cortez]

Don't worry, we love Seeing the hustle.

[Tim Gettys]

There we go. There we go.

[Andy Cortez]

That doesn't. It doesn't show up in the stat sheet, but we'll remember that.

[Mike]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Barrett is prepping game of the year, which is Monday. So while he's doing that, Kevin's running all the shows today. So Kevin's literally running around. So we appreciate everyone's patience with it, and also we appreciate Kevin.

[Andy Cortez]

I want Kevin to learn how to dodge roll.

[Mike]

Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

Because I would love to see, like, when you need him in a hurry for him to, like, be set in the camera and then, like, just do a dive dog.

[Greg Miller]

Like, man, there's something about that front somersault. Not on a pad, that I'm just like, I can't do it.

[Mike]

You know, you got to hit that shoulder.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, yeah.

[Greg Miller]

But I feel like that's how I

[Mike]

throw out my shoulder spine right there.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, right.

[Mike]

But, like, you hit that shoulder, you're in.

[Andy Cortez]

There's one kid on Tick Tock who's really good at archery, and he's, like, trying to be an adventurer. He's dodge rolling.

[Tim Gettys]

There you go.

[Mike]

Hit that shoulder.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Mike]

I love that.

[Tim Gettys]

It was all blocked from the tv.

[Andy Cortez]

There was a loud, audible knock.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, God.

[Greg Miller]

I'm talking about you drive your shoulder

[Blessing Adeoye]

into the ground last time you somersaulted.

[Tim Gettys]

Oh, dude, no. I don't do that.

[Blessing Adeoye]

It's been years for me.

[Mike]

Do you think you'll do it more now that you're about to have a child?

[Tim Gettys]

No, I, I. There's. There was reckoning that I had to have with myself of just like, I am having this child at the worst time. I think that, by definition is always going to be the case where it's like, the older you get, you know what I mean? The worse time it is. But, yeah, no, I am. I am not physically able to do anything.

[Andy Cortez]

Cool.

[Tim Gettys]

I'll stand there. I'll toss her around a bit.

[Blessing Adeoye]

You know, you guys start doing daily stretches.

[Tim Gettys]

I'll be. Yeah, but I've never been able to stretch. Presidential fitness exams back in the day. Crush that. I was, like, top of my class in, like, every single thing. Hard to believe, but I was presidential.

[Mike]

Used to be called back in the day.

[Blessing Adeoye]

Yeah, I don't. Not in my day. I don't.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah, there was a presidential fitness.

[Blessing Adeoye]

Is that the one where you're running from back and forth?

[Tim Gettys]

The beeps down, sit ups, pull ups.

[Blessing Adeoye]

Oh, yeah, we did those. We did those.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay.

[Tim Gettys]

But the touch your toes thing, Never could do it. Not even close. Stretching is my enemy. You what?

[Blessing Adeoye]

Oh yeah, I wasn't flexible. I just, I just me I. I just brute would brute force break dancing but I wasn't, I was never like like doing the splits or anything like that. I could just be. I think I'm just more quick and more like agile is not the word.

[Andy Cortez]

I guess it's physical.

[Blessing Adeoye]

I don't know.

[Tim Gettys]

I freaking love it. We have a lot of games to talk about cuz today's topic of the show is what we played over Christmas vacation and we have so so many games to talk about, so many games to give review scores to because some of the the bigger games of the year were finally got to by some of the members here like Metroid Prime 4 Beyond, Ghost of Yote and Elden Ring Night Rain Forsaken Hollows. I want to start with Metroid Prime 4 Beyond because who beat it over?

[Mike]

I did.

[Andy Cortez]

I did

[Tim Gettys]

quit from bless two beaters over there.

[Greg Miller]

We're the master beaters.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

I want to start with Andy Cortez. What did you think about Metroid Prime 4 Beyond and what would you give it on the kind of funny scale?

[Andy Cortez]

I've been giving it the most basic basic ass bitch analysis which is just saying like the, the great parts are so great and the bad parts are not good and kind of bad and unfortunately it just feels like such a mixed bag and I could, I could almost feel and sense all the, all the struggles that this went through and with different visions and all sorts of stuff like that. Like at its core it's still such a really cool game with what it does Metroidvania wise and then there's just a lot of other ideas that I just don't think were really super well thought out or I think if they had another chance to redo things they'd be like actually let's take the, let's take the green crystal stuff maybe out of it and let's change some other things up now however you look at my screenshots on my Twitch too, you swear this is a 10 out of 10 for me. I mean shout out to Nintendo and Retro for like always showcasing Samus cuz she looks so good all the time. She always looks rad. They give her like always really cool hero shots. So I was constantly taking screenshots. I would Give Metroid Prime 4 beyond a 7 out of 10.

[Tim Gettys]

Good on the kind of funny scale. Greg Miller, what about you? What would you give Metroid prime for Beyond?

[Greg Miller]

I would give Metroid prime for beyond on the kind of funny scale a 7.5. Good which is heartbreaking. You were there with me, Tim, where I was at first night I came in, I was like this and that, my Volt Forge. And then that excitement and energy was with me for a long time. And then it just felt like it went away. Where it was just like, all right, we're still. And then it was getting into the ending. Some of you came into this. And what really recontextualized it was you, Tim, saying like, it isn't a first person shooter, it's a first person adventure. And when I was like, oh, okay, awesome, I can get behind that. And then by the end, I'm like, if you are making a game like this where it's not about the shooting, why am I shooting so much right now? And why is it not fun? Like that final boss battle, I did not enjoy the boss before that. I didn't either, which I forget the name of. But like the green crystal thing. Yeah, it was just like, oh, we got to a point where it was like, now this is grading on me rather than being fun. And what was grading was being forced in these combat scenarios when that isn't what this game's good at. And so I was loved, exploring, finding the upgrades. Now I have more missiles. Now I have this. I'm going back, I'm doing this, you know, for as many complaints and even watching the direct about this where I was like, damn, that desert doesn't look good. When I was fucking ripping it on Viola, you know, I went and bought a goddamn Amiibo for this game. I want to remember that fucking red suit, that Viola suit and the motorcycle when I was ripping it, that all fell away. It was so much fun to do that and do it. And then it was eventually a point of like, I understand that I'm coming into a game that I don't play where I was like, man, no fast travel. Like, I still have to cut back and forth. I'm like, I get the point. But if I'm doing that, then the desert needs to be more exciting.

[Andy Cortez]

I.

[Greg Miller]

When I. When an enemy comes up on it, I need to be excited to fight them rather than God, this fucker again.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, those are really annoying.

[Greg Miller]

Like, I don't. This sucks. I'm just tracing you and letting it go and like, no, don't do that. Or either make the combat more fun by making it more fun to fight and shoot, or just get away from it and give me more to explore because it was the exploration but you know, throughout the game and I know this is Metroidvania you go into something, find out you can't do the thing you clearly need to do. Like, early on, when I was finding all the crashed sites and all these things, and I'd be like, oh, I don't have the thing, but I'm excited to get back here. Hours later, when I got back there and I had a fucking. Every time shoot the fucking. The. The things that were spawning out wasps on the wall or shoot the guys who shot it, I'm like, this sucks. It makes me not want to do this part of it. And again, yeah, the green crystal thing, so stupid. I. While. While exploring and trying to fill in all the things and shooting around, I was getting crystals at a really great clip and I was like, great. Now I. This. I clearly wouldn't have that much work to do.

[Andy Cortez]

You thought you had way more than I did.

[Greg Miller]

I'm like, what the. And it was.

[Tim Gettys]

It's like.

[Greg Miller]

And then it's, you know, I. I was bitching about it online and, like, Brennan Graber popped up about the. And I'm like, I get all that, but that's not fun. Like, that wasn't even when it was, well, go blow up these things. Outside of all the entrances, it was like, I still spent a lot of time doing that in a place where I was like, I'm ready to finish the game. I'm ready to take Samus to that other level. So I was deflated. I was so high early on on it, I expected this to get onto my top 10 list. And I was like, this is going to go somewhere. And then by the end of it, I was like, damn. What? It didn't stomp out the flame to go play Remastered. Like, actually go through and play Remastered. I have my. I brought my switch in today because this afternoon I'd like to try to get in there and start some stuff before Animal Crossing, before Redacted shows up. There's a few things like that. But, yeah, I was. I was crestfallen by this one.

[Andy Cortez]

It's a good word.

[Mike]

I was softly raising my hand as someone who is on the fence about this game. Roger really pushed me away from this during the break. Said it wouldn't be for me. Can you explain a little more about the green crystals? Like, maybe I was zoning up, but, like, what are they there for? Why has it become such a headache?

[Greg Miller]

Well, yeah. So you have a vagina that you need to fill in with green crystals. Oh, they put it on the screen there.

[Mike]

It's very clearly an open vagina pedestal.

[Greg Miller]

They put the on the pedestal. And so, yeah, I forget the narrative hook to it, Right? It is the idea that you need a statue, you need to get into all. It gets you the. The fruit. Right? Is that the deal or whatever. It gives me something to help me remember what these squid people all wanted me to do.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay.

[Greg Miller]

And so there's a tower I gotta go to. And you organize your guys, you get everything together, like, cool, we are ready to go assault the tower. But you still need to fill in the green crystals.

[Andy Cortez]

Ah.

[Greg Miller]

And it was like, again, I actively been doing crystals so that I wouldn't get to it. I read. I'd listen to the kind of funny review with you and Logan where it was like, you know, make sure you're doing these. You go, you'll be all right. And I was like. I got there and I was. I was not all right. And I was tilted about it. I was like, come on.

[Andy Cortez]

There was. There was too much of things I didn't enjoy, not enough of things that I did really enjoy. And I just wish that that ratio was evened out a bit better or maybe just kind of like eliminate the. The parts that are unfun about the game now for. For the good stuff. I still like. I loved the exploration. I loved the investigation. I wished that when we did that podcast, the Gamescast with Tim and Logan Plant reviewing it, I.

[Greg Miller]

That's the vagina I'm talking about.

[Andy Cortez]

I really wished that the. That when you all were mentioning the little. Their version of Shrines, I thought there were going to be a lot more of those. And I was so bummed out when it was just like five or something like that. Like, yeah, I thought I was going to be running into a lot more of those. And when I finished my first one, I was like, that ruled. I love little puzzles, stuff like this. This is awesome. And they didn't give me nearly enough of that. And yeah, it's one of those things, Greg, where it's, okay, let's make these enemies while you're driving on the motorcycle easier and funner to interact with and fight. Because there was times where I'm just spinning around the camera like, where is this goddamn guy?

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

And it.

[Greg Miller]

None of them are challenging. They're just annoying.

[Andy Cortez]

It got very, very annoying. And it's like, okay, make those a lot more fun to interact and fight. Or just make the desert a lot smaller, because driving across it is like, yeah, okay, this is. I got to go all the way back over there. And it's not a super fun experience to do that.

[Tim Gettys]

Bless. What were your thoughts? Why did you rage quit? When did you quit?

[Blessing Adeoye]

So I raised quit probably around, I think, exactly halfway through the game. I know because I looked at a walkthrough to see how much of the game I had left. Because I had to make a conscious decision. I think rage quit is probably putting it way too much. It's more of an apathy. Quit of. I got to a point in the game where I realized that I just wasn't having fun. And it's not a thing of. It's a terrible game. It's not a thing of. It's a bad game. In fact, I think the game is a solid, good. I think the game is enjoyable somewhat. The problem is that I loved Metroid Prime Remastered so much, and I started this game off loving it so much.

[Greg Miller]

Right?

[Blessing Adeoye]

You step into the Fury Greens. The vibes are there, the music is there, the visuals are there. You progress a little bit more into the game. I got to the Vault Forge, and Vault Forge is where I was like, oh, shit, this is fucking awesome. I love scanning everything. I love seeing how everything in the level design has a purpose, both in terms of the story they're telling in this world, but then also how it contributes to the platforming and the navigating and figuring out what to do next. I think the Vault Forge is such a spark in good level design and really interesting Metroidvania gameplay and post that I think that's where for the game, it's time to start being a true Metroidvania.

[Andy Cortez]

Right?

[Blessing Adeoye]

It's time to start going, all right, now get this ability and go back to this place and figure out how to open this thing. Because now you have the ability to do X, Y and Z. And I think for me, that's where it falls apart. I think the Metroidvania aspect of this is so disappointing, especially coming off of playing Metroid Prime Remastered, a game that, for me, made me really love exploring that world because of how interconnected it is, because of how maze like it is, and because when I get that new ability, as I'm working my way to the next thing, I'm seeing things where I'm like, oh, shit, hold on. This door that I passed earlier is actually this thing. There's this relationship I have with the map in Metro Prime 1 that I do not have in Metroid Prime 4. And I think a big part of that is the open desert area, right? Like the thing that we're comparing to Hyrule Field and Ocarina at the time, which I think is an apt comparison. Except I think this thing pales in comparison to the to Hyrule Field and Ocarina of time. Mainly because it's uninteresting. And for what you want to do as a Metroidvania, you want me to have that relationship in the world. What relationship with the world? You want me to moment. To moment be interested with. Okay, this thing's over here. How do I get there? Oh, this thing's there. Oh, I got this ability earlier. Let me use it here. Here. Everything is so spread out and everything feels so iterative and uninteresting in the ways of even like, all right, I got a double jump. All right, cool. That's just gonna get me tool edge. And that's really the only use for a double jump. Oh, I got this thing. Okay. It really only has one use and that's to unlock these specific things. Like I think my favorite Metroidvanias that I've played have provided me with multiple ways to use like the same ability and make that really malleable.

[Andy Cortez]

Right.

[Blessing Adeoye]

I think of a game like Animal. I think of even like a Metroid prime, one of the. Oh snap. I got this one ability. Now I can do all these different things. Yeah, like a lot of this just didn't hit for me in a way where halfway through I just had to make the conscious decision of, hey, I'm not reviewing this. I am on break choosing the games, choose the games I want to play and match a Prime four. Halfway through just became a game that I was like, I'd rather not spend my time during my break playing this. I'm going to move on to playing Dark Souls. So I did that instead.

[Tim Gettys]

Let's move on then to Ghost of Yote. Andy, you beat that over the break as well.

[Andy Cortez]

Nice. I did, yeah. Ghost of Yote. I had a awesome time with it. I played it for about 55 or 58 hours or something like that. Found myself super interested in doing a lot of the side quests. Obviously visually it's super stunning. Was kind of bummed that I wasn't able to play on my PS5 Pro back at my parents house in the RGV956. We don't play no games. I didn't take my PS5 Pro there, but I brought home a my old PS5 to like leave there so that I'll have there because my other one went to my nephew because he's of course it. The question starts off of like, hey, do you mind if. If Aaron takes the. The PS5 back home so Nathan can play it. I'm like, okay, this is just going to turn into. It's his now. Yeah, sure, whatever. But I was able to play yeah, all of Yote there. Super enjoyed my time with this game. This is a very similar situation to the way to my relationship with God of war 2018 and Ragnarok, where Ragnarok is a better overall complete video game than God of war 2018 in terms of what makes a video game a video game. And I think if I may maybe played Ragnarok first, that would be a more special experience. But 2018 was the thing that sort of like, whoa. That this is a brand new experience that I haven't really had in gaming. And I feel a lot of the same way about Yotei, where Ghost of Tsushima was so special to me and it had story moments and twists and turns and so many things that made me feel a lot. And I just didn't quite get there as much as I wanted to with Yote at the. Not only the amount of times that, you know, a game wants to make you feel, but like also just how hard is it making you feel, you know? And I would say that Yotei is an overall better video game when it comes to mechanics and combat and everything it's doing with just exploring the world. The open world, I think is far more interesting than. Than Tsushima in terms of how it's built out and the random things that happen and everything kind of always feeling fresh. But it just isn't quite as special to me as Sushima was. And I think it's one of those situations where if I played this before Sushima, I'd probably feel the reverse. Right? But it's awesome. I like Atsu a lot more than Jin. I. I think her character is great. And Erica Ishii crushed it with the performance. And visually it's stunning in so many moments. And I got a lot of Final Fantasy 16 vibes from this and even Final Fantasy Remake and Rebirth, where the characters and the cutscenes look so good when they are the mocapped character cutscenes. And if I could wave the magical Andy Cortez game Development one, I'd say give you. I'm gonna give you one more year and a couple extra mil to like make more cutscenes of these qualities because then you'd be experiencing another story. Another story moment with a side quest and the story being told is great, but the characters are standing there and doing the. The automated mouth flaps and it's like, oh, this is really taking me out. Because the last cut scene I just saw looked so incredible and you see the performances and now I'm like having to experience just these animatronic robots mouth flapping and it's just not hitting quite as hard. But that's not the fault of this studio. That's just budget. And you know, you know I would have said, I would have said maybe take some of the weaker story lines and weaker side missions and focus a lot more time and budget towards like making the better moments, you know, feel higher budget. I would give Ghost of yote an 8 out of 10. Great. Highly recommended. Couldn't stop playing it. Just kept on going back to it. Even though there'd be times where it's like I got to go play in the den and my, my parents room is right. It's like I can't really play the volume. It's going to be uncomfortable situation with like am I going to be able to hear headphones, whatever. It's like I still wanted to keep on playing and still kept going. Had a great time with it. Yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Somebody who loved it obviously gave it a nine when we reviewed it. I agree with what Andy's saying. Where I think when I sat down to do a top 10 list this year. No. Is it on there? It's on there. But like it was that idea of like man. It's interesting how it doesn't resonate the same way that Ghost of Sushima did.

[Andy Cortez]

Right.

[Greg Miller]

It is very much God of War to God of war Ragnarok, I think.

[Andy Cortez]

And I, I, I was asked a very benign basic question on, on threads of like, what was your favorite weapon? I was like, honestly I didn't have one cuz I don't like this system.

[Blessing Adeoye]

I've decided, I think I've gone, I've

[Andy Cortez]

decided I don't like the stance system and I don't like the, the weapon system. To sort of inote of them saying let's change the stance system and give you now this, the rock paper scissors system of this weapon is good against these.

[Greg Miller]

Use the katana.

[Mike]

I'm so badass.

[Andy Cortez]

I, I just, yeah, I, I found myself just, they were just, they were just tools for me. But a weapon should be so much more and cooler than that. The relationship that I have with weapons in any fromsoftware game where I'm like, oh, I'm doing a run with this weapon. This is sick. I'm gonna go with dual daggers now. Oh, now I have the twin blade and I'M like, I can't wait to feel awesome with this. I just never felt that with this. And I think a lot of it is the nature of being forced. You're not being forced into these rock paper, scissors situations. You can still do better against that one weapon even if you're using like a weaker thing. But you'll just not be as strong against it. But I just like, because the system's built that way, it feels like I'm kind of like, I want to play by these rules and I want the thing to feel the way the designers want it to be designed. Yeah. And I. I don't know. I just like, just didn't give a. However, all of the armor changes and the armor loadouts. An awesome change and something they. I think they introduced in sushi.

[Greg Miller]

They patched it later. Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

But I. I loved customizing my different loadouts and knowing that like, this is my stealth build and I look sick as and this is my whatever build that's good for this power up. And it looks awesome. The different colorations, the different, you know, finding flowers out in the wild and getting new color schemes, all that I loved. I loved making Atsu look awesome. But I just wish that I gave a. About the weaponry. This is what I'll say. Right?

[Blessing Adeoye]

Because I feel the exact same way as you. I also gave it an 8 out of 10. What I'll say is that we gotta play ghostly ot legends when that.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh, I'm so excited.

[Blessing Adeoye]

I. I had the realization moment for myself after reviewing Ghosts of Yote where I was like, mean, that's crazy how much I love Sushima and I like Yoti. I like. Right. I gave it an 8, but I'm not as in love with it. And I realized that Legends was the thing to really upgrade that experience. And I think that's where the combat shines even more. I forget if they kept the rock paper scissors weapon system in Legends chat. Remind me.

[Andy Cortez]

I don't think they do because you. You selected classes. Like, you'd be like, I'm going to be a range dude who maybe has a secondary. Like, I remember focusing on like, I want to be the arrow guy or whatever. Like.

[Blessing Adeoye]

Yes, I remember that too. And so I feel like that will be the thing for us that might take Yotei as like a single player game and make us fall in love more with the full package. Because I think that really makes the gameplay shine.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

I mean it's still like an easy recommend. Like, there are still a lot of awesome stories. Stuff that happens Here that had my jaw on the floor like, oh, shit, that's really cool they're doing this.

[Greg Miller]

You had great reactions.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, I kind of just. I think it's like nothing you compare to that first time. You know, that first time with Ryozu. You know, that first time with. Or that one side quest that had me just tearing up like crazy in Ghosts of Sushima. Like, I didn't quite get there.

[Tim Gettys]

Landy, I want to hear about not your first time, but your second, third time with Artorias.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh.

[Tim Gettys]

In Elden Ring Night Rain, Forsaken Hollows. That's another thing you're gonna review right now.

[Andy Cortez]

I'm gonna throw it to Mike so I could stop talking for a little bit and throw.

[Mike]

Oh, no, you can't throw it to me because I don't know any of the details of Night Rain of the dlc. No, no, you got it. You have to lead me on this one. I'm just your passenger. I'm your. I'm your teammate here.

[Andy Cortez]

Okay?

[Mike]

But I'll tell you that. You know what? Fuck it.

[Andy Cortez]

I'll just.

[Mike]

This shit's lit.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, this shit's lit.

[Mike]

Let's get real, Tim.

[Andy Cortez]

You.

[Mike]

We got the dlc, we got new content and of course the new excitement of what bosses will they add from previous games and what will they create, right? New bosses, new moments, new music as well. Always fun to hear on those boss fights. But yeah, it was really cool to jump back in with Andy after riding such a high of Elden Ring Night Rain this year. Right? I spoke on it before, but this is my favorite FromSoft product as of right now because I've always loved sharing my Dark Souls experiences with others. I love the co op nature of the game that can be and the idea that we got more of it was exciting to me. And they delivered. They nailed it, right? Two new bosses, Andy. For the mega bosses we'll call it, they added in Night Bosses. Of course. There's a Night One, Night two mechanic on that, Tim. So there's more bosses added than just the two mega big title names right there. But really, really exciting stuff map wise. Did they add anything new, Andy?

[Andy Cortez]

Well, they. They added a completely new map, which the way they were doing map and procedural changes before was you're going to have like different seeds of the core map, but every now and then we might throw a randomized section of There's a volcano now on the top. And if you could go visit and explore the volcano. And when you do, you will fight a final boss There. That will give you the ultimate upgrade of take any weapon in your inventory. Make it a gold epic, legendary thing with all this like extra power.

[Blessing Adeoye]

Our first time doing that, it was. We were guided by like a random player. We were like, where are you taking us? And he just kept taking us deeper and deeper.

[Andy Cortez]

It felt so dangerous.

[Blessing Adeoye]

It felt like like elementary school playground secrets were.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye]

Somebody's like, yeah, something. So you follow them.

[Andy Cortez]

Check this out, dude. Yeah. So the other. So you know, the other sort of world changes that they've had in the game are there's a snowy mountain on the upper left corner and you explore that and if you beat the final boss there, you're going to get, you know, this other extra power that changes the game in some kind of big meaningful way. And they do a really good job of that. This one. They didn't just add a different section to the already existing procedural map. They just gave you a brand new map. And it's this whole area that is sort of similar looking to the underground areas in Elden Ring, but it's a very kind of ghost town looking, freaky, dark, scary area. And it has its own mechanics where there's all these. There's about seven or eight really like bright blue purplish crystals around the world. And you look at them and they just kind of look like set dressing every now and then. But when you walk up to them, you can break them. And if you break four of them in a run, then the giant big ass crystal in the center cracks and then you could go get the ultimate power there. And all of them have those ultimate powers. All have these really cool passive and runs that will help you out for your final taking on the final boss. Also, whenever you break all those crystals, there are two separate areas on the map that whenever you walk into the screen gets kind of blurry and scary looking. And it like you get this weird vignette around the screen and your health goes down by half. And when you're in there you're like, why is my health down by half? I don't want to be here. So you leave and you get your full health bar back. But if you break all those crystals, you can now explore those areas without your health being halved. So part of the, part of the strategy is like, let's break those crystals immediately. Then we can go explore those parts without having the health tax or whatever. And these areas are like, this map is fucking massive. It's crazy that we are still discovering wild moments of elevation. Like how did you get Wait, it goes all the way down there. Like, it gave me a lot of sort of just core Elden Ring game moments with exploration and yeah, the bosses in this DLC are so awesome and so much fun. And the. They essentially added two bosses. But then what they had been doing to sort of extend the life of the game was we're adding the ever dark versions of these bosses.

[Greg Miller]

This is why I buy them.

[Andy Cortez]

And so the. The bosses they normally. The ever dark versions are. It's harder, but it's not. We're giving the health. The boss just more health or more damage. We're adding new phases to it and they're going to have new movesets and that's what kind of makes them more difficult also. So it's like an added challenge for people that want to go back and keep playing. And they already added the ever dark version of the first boss that they added for this dlc. And it is. It's straight up just like a different boss. I was blown away by. You beat the first phase and it's like, okay, what's this going to be? And it's like, whoa. Like you all kind of undersold that there's two bosses because this feels like a completely extra boss that you're doing now with this sort of ever dark difficulty. It's awesome. It's really cool. The final boss is one of the coolest things that me and Mike still have not beaten with the help of Melissa with a Y. We're gonna get there one day though. But it's just so much fun. It is so many laughs, so much like so many epic music being cranked up. I send the clips to Tim and Tim was like, I don't know what's going on, but this is some of the hypest shit possible.

[Tim Gettys]

That one boss was so damn cool.

[Mike]

New bosses, new map, new characters as well, new classes to play we haven't talked about.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. The new Nightfarers, which are one of them, you know, I've been meaning. And she's awesome. She pulls a bone out of her body.

[Greg Miller]

It's the reverse of Adam and Eve.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, she pulls out like a gross bone out of her body and it's. And then she like stabs the enemy with it. Flies towards him and it's awesome. It rocks. And the other character's name, he's the scholar and he's like a much. He plays a lot differently. You have to like. You do this L1 ability. L1 trying. I forget what the button combination is. But then you sort of like bust out a book and then your whole screen goes into like third person mode. Like way closer behind the shoulder of the character. And then like a circle surrounds the screen and it looks like you're scanning enemies and you're analyzing is what you're doing. And you're analyzing enemies. And the longer you focus on them and the closer you are to them, the faster a little red circle fills up. And the closer you are, the faster it goes. If they're far away, it goes a lot slower. But when you fully fill in those circles on the enemies you like, activate it and then they get super debuffed and your squad can do a lot more damage to them. Our runs with the Scholar didn't go great. To a point where Mike I was like, you know, I don't know if I should be analyzing him. I said, yeah, you're not doing. Mike wasn't happy that I wanted to really just analyze.

[Mike]

There's a certain games gameplay style that I need from Andy and that's like a heavy carry and when he tries new things, it doesn't work. Just Michael's not happy. Stick to the track.

[Andy Cortez]

He was not happy with the, with the analyzing. But Tick tock just makes me really want to analyze Mike Tick tock showing me all these builds of like the

[Mike]

Scholars, the most overpowered character.

[Andy Cortez]

It's like Mike just doesn't want me to believe in the vision.

[Mike]

It's impressive. It's very cool that they've added new characters. Like we said, new bosses, a new map. It feels fresh and fun to play. I hope that we can get Blessing back in the squad and have a good time because it is so much fun. And these final two bosses are like amazing and awesome. The Balancers is so much to juggle. There's like eight different units running around that you're trying to duck, dodge and dip on. It's like really fun. They fly across the map, they're in the air. They're summoning spears all around in different AoE attacks. It's like really, really cool. And then on top of that, the final boss is like Wild Man. He's jumping all around the screen. Tim, he's up vertical. He's on the ground. He's sword slashing your left and right. It is the ultimate dance of Dark Souls. When you think of it of like being patient, learning the boss combos, then dodging, then getting your hits in while also protecting the team. Like it's so much fun.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, it's probably the final boss is up there with like favorite Souls bosses ever. Wow. So much fun.

[Tim Gettys]

You want to give it a score?

[Andy Cortez]

I would give, I'd give it a nine. I think it's an amazing experience. I, you know, honestly, it, it'd probably be a 10. Even though I look at all the flaws, I just feel like the, all the, the, the pros of it and the fun that I have outweigh a lot of the flaws. It's just still no crossplay. And that's just from software, man. They just do things differently. They, you know, dance to the beat of their own drum and it, it, it sucks. And that's the same way I felt about like I was doing my Tier list of 20, 25 games and I felt the same way about rematch. It was like you didn't have crossplay at launch. You do now. But like not having it at launch is like such a bummer. Night Rain. Not having crossplay still just stinks.

[Tim Gettys]

Remember the Kind of funny membership on patreon.com kind of funny or YouTube.com kind of funny games gets you the show ad free. And speaking of ads, let us tell you about our sponsor this episode brought to you by boot.de if you're listening to this show, there's a solid chance that you 1 like video games and 2 at some point in your life have been interested in learning software development. Boot.dev combines those things because they know that the smartest way to learn is is to never get bored. It takes your coding from beginner to expert the fun way through a hands on RPG like experience. If you're ready to put in the time it takes like Kevin is.

[Andy Cortez]

So I'm learning to code Python.

[Blessing Adeoye]

And the best thing about this, I don't have to read anything. It plays audio files for everything. It's awesome.

[Tim Gettys]

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[Andy Cortez]

This episode is brought to you by Redfin. You're listening to a podcast, which means

[Mike]

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[Andy Cortez]

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[Mike]

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[Andy Cortez]

Hard seltzer with flavors, 8% alcohol by volume.

[Mike]

White Claw Seltzer works Chicago, Illinois so

[Tim Gettys]

during the break, you and Andy had a little quick conversation that I think that people want to hear.

[Blessing Adeoye]

Yeah, yeah, of course. Andy talking about Elden Ring Night Rain, mentioning that boss being probably one of the favorite fromsoft bosses that Andy has. Remind me that I also finished Liza P. Overture over the break, which Andy's been asking me to do for a very long time. And he's been asking me to do pretty much for the entirety of the year since Liza P. Overture came out. Because of course me and Andy fucking loved Liza P when that came out.

[Andy Cortez]

That shit delivered.

[Blessing Adeoye]

It is really, really good. Honestly. I think when we're talking about DLC for games, we got to give like some extra tips of the hats to like some of these souls like developers because it's kind of crazy how much content and how much quality they jam pack into this thing. I'm talking like fantastic bosses, fantastic level design, fantastic story elements. There's music in the lies in Liza P. Overture that goes crazy towards the end of it. There are moments, honestly, that were reminding me of like my first time playing Last of Us and how like last was kind of blew me away with some of its environmental storytelling and like seeing the clickers and all this stuff. There are things Eliza P. That took me back to that of like, oh, I'm walking through this hallway and there's like there are things happening that are really setting the tone in an environment that is very much top tier in video game design. And so big shout out to to Is it Round eight Studio Round eight. Yeah, big shout out to Round eight.

[Andy Cortez]

Round eight. And Neo is kind of in.

[Blessing Adeoye]

Neil was being the publisher. Yeah, yeah, I Think this is a studio that you cannot not pay attention to.

[Andy Cortez]

Right.

[Blessing Adeoye]

If you're somebody who's paying attention especially to action games or souls likes. But even outside of that, y' all got to keep an eye on Round eight. They're. They're doing another level.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. It's such a. Such a special experience and it reminded me a lot of when I beat Silksong. I was like, I can't think of a whole lot of boss fights that I didn't like in this experience. There was just. I loved all the boss fights in the the Lies of P dlc. So much fun.

[Blessing Adeoye]

The final boss, Eliza P DLC is like I would put up there with probably one of the best souls like boss fights that I've done. Which is crazy because Fromsoft is the standard. Like there is not many boss fights that are compared to Fromsoft boss fights as far as how they design things, how the characters look, how the characters intro in round eight. I think they're like, they're keeping up like they're doing in a crazy way over there. So. Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

Shout out.

[Tim Gettys]

Hell yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Shout out.

[Tim Gettys]

I played so many games over the break. Some old ones.

[Greg Miller]

Gotta get them all in before that time's gone forever.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. No, because also I. I want to talk about this later at some point, not today, but I finally built my new PC. So I was really. So I used to playing a lot of very low necessary performance games but like still they looked great. So I just want to kind of run through some of them quickly and give some scores on some of them because I finally finished Shinobi Art of Vengeance. Oh man, I love that game. It was so much fun and I really feel like I was blessed this year with video games. That spoke to me. Getting both this and Ninja Guidan Ragebound in the same year is so special and they are so similar but incredibly different. And I appreciate them for completely different reasons. Ninja Gaden Ragebound being way more just old school in its method, methodology and gameplay and what it's asking for you are of you. And I do love the twist that it has gameplay wise of the blue and purple kind of system and it being more rhythm game based. Love that stuff. And I really think that more than most people in games media, I really enjoyed Ninja Gaiden Ragebound and I know everyone really loves shinobi and I am also part of that list. This game is just modern. Like I don't think there's anything old school about it except for the fact that it's a Shinobi game and it's a 2D side scroller, but the reality is like, I don't know that I've played a game quite like this. It's level based, but the levels are like mini Metroidvanias and that's such a great concept. And you add on incredibly deep combats. Like, I am so impressed with how much the combat and platforming kind of work together in a very Prince of Persia Lost Crown style. But there's something about this one that is just a lot more frenetic and smash Brothers, like in terms of the one on one matches that you get with some of the bigger enemies that you come across or some of the bosses specifically. But yeah, really, really loved this. I'd give it an 8 out of 10. I do think that there were some just overall things about it that were like, okay, I think this could have used a little bit more polish. But Lizard Cube are definitely a team to look out for. And there's someone that I'm going to be like, anytime they put a game out now, I'm going to give it a shot. And I really don't think that I've given Streets of Rage 4 the love that it deserves because they keep just going back to these classics and like modernizing them in a way that I'm like, wow, you all are redefining what these like, genres can be. So definitely give Shinobi Art of Vengeance a shot.

[Blessing Adeoye]

Is Lizard Cube, are they owned by Sega or do they just partner with sega?

[Tim Gettys]

I think they just keep partnering with SEGA and like, again, shout out to Sega for their initiative. They started a couple years ago and we're starting to see the. The fruit of all that labor. And it's so far been kind of a win for them and they're partnering with the right team, so it's cool to see. Next up, I want to talk about Dispatch, which all of y' all recommended to me before the break. And I knew I was going to enjoy it. This was one that I was like, I need to wait for the break because me and G were going to play it together. And I absolutely loved it. I.

[Andy Cortez]

Hell yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Hell yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

A 9 out of 10 on the kind of funny scale is an amazing game. I think it is easily my favorite of these narrative type games I've ever played. I've given Walking Dead a ton of shots. I played the first couple episodes of season one, but never even finished it. There's just something about the jank of the Telltale, even the good ones that just got my Way this game is jankless. Like this game's production value is through the roof. Not just in terms of all the cinematics look good and the performances are great and the music's awesome and all that stuff, but how it seamlessly goes from you're watching something, you're interacting with something, now you're playing something. There's a lot more gameplay in this than I expected and it was awesome. Like I feel like the type of game that it is where it's like a real time strategy almost as you're like dispatching all the different heroes. I was so surprised at how well the game presents what it's asking you to do. That Gia, a known non gamer, completely understood what was being asked of her. And I let her make every single choice, let her direct who we should send to everything.

[Blessing Adeoye]

That's awesome.

[Tim Gettys]

And she was thinking like she like her gamer brain turned on for it all. And I thought that was like totally because of the team that made this game, making it well designed enough that like you can understand what's being asked. Because in the beginning there's kind of a lot. When you first get that dispatch menu coming up, you're like, what am I doing here? And it goes from this is really easy to oh, I'm overwhelmed pretty damn quickly. And I think that they had a really great pacing to the whole thing. I really wish I would have been able to play it week to week. I think that would have been a super fun experience. And for season two, do you think

[Greg Miller]

G would have hung in there 100% yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

And we ended up playing it like one a night over the course of, you know, what, how eight days or whatever. But it was very, very funny playing with somebody that does not play games and doesn't play games like this and doesn't get that we're going to make a lot of choices so when the first person comes up, we don't need to fall in love with them.

[Mike]

You got to at least see tough to do that.

[Tim Gettys]

And she just doesn't think that way, you know. And then I was like, I don't even really want to ruin the experience by explaining that to her. I just want to let it all happen. But it ended up so funny where I think the majority of episodes when the credits would hit and you get the like your percentage versus other people. The amount of times we were in like under 5%.

[Blessing Adeoye]

Wow.

[Tim Gettys]

Making the same decisions as other people was so funny. And it still told a great story. And I, I'm, I went on YouTube and started watching, like, other variations of it. I'm like, damn, man, this game is awesome. And I hope that. That we get a season two not too far away from now, because really loved that. And also, Greg, amazing job with the interview. I ended up watching.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, thank you so much.

[Tim Gettys]

Beating that, which was really cool. And Roger, another one. I wanted to kind of play some more games for the game of the year conversation. And I was like, all right, what are the short ones that everyone's talking about? And I kind of, like, looked at, like, the top 50 games people are talking about from last year, and I tried to find the how long to beats on it all. And this one, I'm like, all right. Love the kind of art style they're going for. Every once in a while, I'm here for a Florence or, like, these type of indie games, and I was like, I'm gonna give this one a shot. I've heard you guys kind of rave about it and be into it, and I did not know what it was about. And that shit fucked me up like no game ever has. And it was. It was the most. I don't even want to say a lot. I couldn't believe how hard it hit me when I realized because, yeah, went into this game completely blind, and it was about 50 minutes in or so, and something happens, and I'm like, oh, man, I see what's going on here. Burst into tears immediately, text Greg. And I'm just like, oh, God. Like, I didn't know. I didn't know it was this. And it's just beautiful, man. It's. It's so raw and real. And there's, like, there's writing in this that just feels so authentic. And it. It's the type of stuff that you can't make up. You know what I mean? You need to just have an experience and then be. To be able to be this open and to make art like this and put it out and share it with people. There was multiple people that DM'd me, like Celia from over at the Shovel Knight developer Yacht Club. We were going back and forth a bit and a couple other people. It's like people that have family members that deal with these things.

[Andy Cortez]

It.

[Tim Gettys]

To be able to share this experience and have this game that, like, just hits so hard. It's like, damn, what a special moment. Video games are really, really powerful. I don't even want to give it a score. Like, I feel like it's not that type of game. To me, I do think it's an experience that People should give a shot. And the way that it uses its subject matter to via gameplay is incredible. And I think like such a unique thing that only an interactive medium can do. So shout out to and Roger.

[Greg Miller]

Saturday, December 27th at 5:46pm Tim texts me, Greg, I'm playing and Roger. And I think I just figured out what it is going on. And I burst into tears. I sent a hard emoji. Tim, I didn't expect this at all. Wouldn't. Wouldn't have seen it coming in a million years. All right, I'm gonna try to get through this. I go, what was the aha moment? And he says what it is? And I go. And he goes, man, stupid ass indie

[Tim Gettys]

games fucking me up for reals. And then the last one I want to talk about, it's the big one for me. I'm finally going to be able to give it a score. Hollow Knight Silks. I beat Act 3. I thought it couldn't be done. I texted and yet I don't even know what time. I texted him an image of me about to do the final dive. And I was like, here we go. And I didn't text him again because I thought that within a couple hours I was going to be able to be like, I did it. It took me another couple days. Yeah, that shit done. But I did it. Yeah, the game. I saw the, the final credits. I love this game so much. This is an all timer for me in every single way. Like I am so happy that I committed to it. I can't wait to go back to Hollow Knight 1 because I just want more. I can't wait for this DLC to come out. I got got yesterday so hard. The Hollow Knight subreddits. I don't know what the fuck's going on over there, but they're all just like coming up with a bunch of bullshit and pranking each other.

[Andy Cortez]

For several years. Yeah, for several years. Like there's a subreddit tag that is a meme tag for like for fake silksong games that hunger. Huh?

[Tim Gettys]

Skonger. Is that what it is?

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah, it's always like a fake. It's just like an inside joke. And if you've been there enough, you know that this is always like a fake post. But it'll still get other people. Yeah. Post.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah, I. Oh, silk post. Yeah. I thought that that Sea of Sorrow was gonna be released today.

[Mike]

Oh, wow.

[Tim Gettys]

And yeah.

[Greg Miller]

Yes, baby.

[Tim Gettys]

This close to setting it to the game's daily slack. But I was like, I'm going to Verify this. And I was like, oh, I got fucking got. But anyway, this game is absolutely incredible and so worth logging in for. I give it a 9.5 on the kind of wow. Amazing. I do think that it is, is there's enough things on a personal level to take it down from a masterpiece to me, but it is right there. Like, I think that in my pantheon of all time Tim games, like, it is incredibly high. I just think that. And a lot of people aren't going to agree and I know people are very sensitive about Hollow Knight, but I do think that a lot of the runbacks I understand is designed. I just didn't enjoy it. And I feel like now that I've beat it, now that I am 70 hours into this game, like there's about 20 of those hours that I didn't really want to be doing. And like that that's not fun to me. And I also think that the Act 3 stuff, like I. Some people really like being lost and not knowing where to go and what's going on. I don't. And so because of that, it was like I. Without looking at a guide, I don't know how people would figure out getting to getting into act three. Like, it just. You're even knowing there is an Act 3, right? Like, and the word of mouth stuff, that's all cool. I don't know. Act three to me felt like the best DLC I ever played. I didn't need it, you know, I'm so happy I have it, but I need it right then. Like, I feel like the game to me would have been better if it was a little shorter, which is a crazy thing to say because I loved what came after. It's just, it is too much of a good thing, I think. And that brings it down to a 9.5. God bless this game. Can't wait for more. And now I'm going to stop talking so I can hear Mike talk.

[Mike]

Oh, Tim, that's cool, man. You don't have to let me talk. But. All right. Tim, I played some old games over the break. I messaged you about one of them and man, I had a lot of fun in this year of Mike exploring old games and, you know, adding on to just the list of awesome times that I had. I played Fire Emblem three Houses and Control. Man, I really wish that my best friend would have told me about the Remedy version. Man, you.

[Greg Miller]

Where you been?

[Mike]

I mean, Roger was telling me all about it.

[Andy Cortez]

Mike. We streamed it with Nick for like three days in a row and Nick had No idea.

[Mike]

No care for it at all?

[Andy Cortez]

No. No idea where to go at. Out at any time.

[Mike]

So I'll start with control really quick. I had so much fun with this game.

[Greg Miller]

I.

[Mike]

You know, my remedy verse is Crossfire X. That's the running joke. You know, I jump into that. I can tell you all about that. But truly and honestly, this was awesome, right? We've done a couple of sponsored streams with Nvidia and we've played control games to show off all the cool tech From Alan Wake 2 for the first hour with me and Nick, and then of course, Andy and Nick playing control. But I haven't gone on and played it. And man, oh man, I was blown away by this. I loved it. This is awesome. Right off the bat. I mean, the Federal Bureau of Control, the old house. Like, how cool is this setting? And Jesse's a fun character. There's a lot of mystery, there's a lot of intrigue, there's a lot of reading. And I put on, I read every night. I did it all live on content to read it out loud and had some fun and got lost in the mystery. Wanted to find out what was happening with this crazy entity that was in my mind and all of the different objects. It was like, really cool. And then the gameplay, I mean, I love shooters. And this third person shooter was it. It had perfect controls. I loved the superpowers that you got throughout it. To add the glide mechanic, of course, the telekinesis of grabbing items and throwing them at others. It was really, really fun. I liked everything about this. I loved, man, it was freaky. Every time you would go in and find something new, something weird. When you'd go into the motel and you'd turn that light on three times, you get teleported somewhere else. It's like, this rocks.

[Andy Cortez]

It's amazing.

[Mike]

And then I got to end it with watching the Control Resident trailer where now it really clicks and kicks for me of like, oh, man, this is gonna be so freaking awesome. It was so much fun. I did play the control DLC that ties in to Alan Wake. Didn't give it the respect it deserves. Definitely was zoning out. But, like, it was fun. It was fun enough. I think it's tough when you don't know Alan Wake.

[Greg Miller]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Where it's like you're reading some of this, you're like, I don't know what's happening. But then there was a couple aha moments. I was like, oh, shit. This shit is real cool. I see what they're doing here so very Excited to add Alan Wake two onto my list here soon enough. And then after that, I finished off the year of 2025 with Fire Emblem. Three houses. I wanted to get tactical, I wanted to get strategic, and I wanted to see an awesome Nintendo property that I've never played before. When I think of these games, I think of xcom and that is my Go to Tactics game. And I was blown away by this one. I had so much fun, not only on the tactics and gameplay side that I knew I would. Right. I love going to the grid. I love taking the units just like you're playing chess and moving them. Different pawns and kings and different units around and kind of playing with your opponent, playing with yourself to how fast can you clear this battlefield? But it was also the school side of things, right? Not being a Persona guy who's really ever dove into that. But I did like the school side at the monastery where it was, hey, you are teaching class as an instructor there and you are, you know, helping your units get stronger, kind of putting them into subclasses on where you want them to proceed and like, kind of get better at and excel at whether it's like, hey, my main man, Claude of the Golden Deers, I want you to jump on this dragon and become the ultimate dragon lord. Or Hilda, I know you're a beautiful soft flower, but I'm going to need you to get in this armor, okay? And you're going to become my fortress knight. And then going, oh, wait, Hilda, you're so badass and my ultimate tool of destruction. But you're so slow as the fortress knight. I need you to get on a horse and then training her at the stables to then be able to get on and become a night. Like, I really liked the instruction side of things. I liked exploring the monastery. If you love, like the bonding with characters, learning more about the world, just sitting back and like running around the monastery every day and being able to talk with different characters of different school or different classes, different characters that were instructors also, you know, sweet talking them to come onto my team. I had a list. Let me tell you what you're recruiting out there. I'm recruiting. I got nil deals out. You want some money? I need you, Bernie. Bernadette, get out of the room. I got a lot of money. Come hang out with me in the Golden Deers. She's like, no, no, I don't want to go out there. You know what I mean? I get it. It's scary out there. But yeah, I had a ton of fun Getting to know the world, the characters, all the different students were so much fun. And also on top of that of like building those bonds, all of a sudden I'm taking you from a D bond to an a rond or a bond. And I like that of like it's used through the combat of every time we attack next to each other, we're building those bonds. And I go back to the monastery and the teaching side and we get like those fun little cut scene moments of we're talking about our relationship, we're getting to know one another. I really dig that a lot. And so I chose the Golden Deers with stupid sexy Claude. He was great. I liked his vibe. I did fall in love with the girls and I think we had a really strong like, hey, independent ladies, we're all together. And so I started moving people off the list. If you were part of the boys team, you're on the back, you were being benched. So it's all girls out there. And from Manuela the nurse to Catherine the incredible flame knight, which was awesome. And also Samir, who was an incredible archer. It's like adding them in. Then I even went out and recruited Petra onto my team from the Black Eagles. So cool. So I had my dream squad and I liked every scenario. I really enjoyed going off like they breaking down into months. And so you have about four weeks to develop your class, strengthen your units, prepare for battle. Whether it be in the classroom doing side combat missions or like, you know, fishing, botany class. We'll talk about that. You know, the teacher ranking, it's fine. I'm excited to see what they do in the next one. Right. Because it's a different vibe. It doesn't feel like we're going to be students and teachers again. So it's like, how do you elevate that each month? But I really dug that. The battlefields I really enjoyed, except for one at the end of the Golden Deer campaign. It's very medieval knights, you know, fortresses. You're kind of out there in the fields. All of a sudden at the second to last level, you're in this dub step high tech sci fi fortress. And you're like, what is happening? And it's full womp, womp. It doesn't fit any of the stages that you were already in. And it's like out of nowhere. And I'm like, okay, well then that means the final boss will be in this. No, the final boss is not in that. And so like, okay, that was very weird that we all of a sudden Showed up to that. There's also missiles falling from the sky. Like it's goddamn God of War or Gears of War with the Hammer of Dawn. I don't know if y' all know about that. There's just like US grade military.

[Andy Cortez]

Oh.

[Mike]

Falling from the sky. It was insane.

[Andy Cortez]

They're gon to win. Amazing.

[Blessing Adeoye]

So.

[Andy Cortez]

So this really kind of like boosts your hype for the next fire.

[Mike]

Oh my God. And then again, I get to watch the fire emblem. Fortunes weave. And it's like you see the character from the previous game, you immediately jump out of your chair. You get excited. I'm an old school fan of these tactics games, but a lot of you, if you're on the Xbox side, might remember Gladius, which was like an old school tactics in the gladiator arena. The idea of like we're possibly in the gladiator arena in this next one I'm all about. I love this. Can't wait to see where they go. And so yeah, because of that, I got myself a little gaming journal. I got a very special gift over the holidays from a lovely person in my life and they made Snowbike Mike's Video Games Adventures.

[Greg Miller]

Wow.

[Mike]

As you can see, there's many of callbacks of my favorite games that I've played. Last year, Expedition 33, my Pokemon Nuzlocke, of course, Coach Mike and the Melon heads. You have Polter, her Poulter pup from Luigi's Mansion 3, Resident Evil 2 and 3 and 4. Yeah, I played a lot of Resident Evil Half Life, the Blitzball from of course Final Fantasy 10, and the cute bunny from Kingdom Come Deliverance too. And so yeah, you can take.

[Greg Miller]

You know, I love a gaming journal. Talk to me about how you're using

[Mike]

it a couple way. If you flip the pages a couple ways, I save it until I beat the game. So this will be.

[Greg Miller]

Oh, you save it till you beat the game.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Mike]

So I have the front two pages will be table of contents. And then like you aren't even journaling your scrapbook. Yeah, I'm doing it all sorts of ways. So I have.

[Greg Miller]

You know how much I love a good gaming journal. I got a sticker printer here.

[Mike]

Which is your handwriting. Yeah, that's my handwriting.

[Blessing Adeoye]

I take.

[Mike]

I found out. If you want a good handwriting, just take a real.

[Andy Cortez]

I legitimately thought he drew all these characters like, God damn, Mike, like you're fucking good again.

[Greg Miller]

One of the reasons I love journaling my games. Why? What happened? You have a page here. So you go through and explain exactly what happened?

[Mike]

And so I didn't know how it would go. This is my first test run of it.

[Greg Miller]

I love this.

[Mike]

But yes, take a look. If you were to ever open up my gaming journal on this front page, it has like the setup of the game. And Tim, I'm sure you would know, like, I literally end the front page of like, okay, that's the build up to the game. Now you know what's gonna happen. I gave you Met the Deers or Meet the Deers, which is all my students. I even have Petra here as the Black Eagles and the instructors that I recruited. So you know all of the members of the team that I had on just for fun. And then I was like, how do I want to do this right? And I actually wrote out the entire moment by moment, Game of Fire Emblem. So if you read this on the back, it has everything that happened. It's a longer game than that assassination attempt. There was a kidnapping attempt. There was some sort of like, if you, if you got green eyes and green hair, all of a sudden maybe like, you got the super blood, you know, they were looking.

[Andy Cortez]

Damn eugenics, who knows?

[Mike]

You know what I mean? It was really good. It's really good. And so I wrote everything there. Put my little good and bads. And then of course, my star, Hilda. Hilda's a queen. She's all of them. And so, yeah, that was just an incredible two weeks. I said 77 hours in 11 days. I need seven. Seven hours a day. Took me more like 50 hours. I think when you get towards like the second half of the game, maybe the final third, you have a moment of like, hey, are you really in it for the character development development? How long do you want to last in the monastery? And I felt like kind of a push of like, I'm good here. I don't want to do the side quests that they're giving me. Usually it'd be some kind of bullshit of like some guy would walk up to me, like, blessing, we got a lot of cats and dogs out here. If you feed them a fish that you get from fishing, maybe they'll give you something. You know what I mean? I'm like, I'm good on that. It's like the smaller quest, like, are you into that? You can build up more time. Of course, your teacher rating, which if you level up your teacher rating gives you more opportunity to do things in the day to day teaching, right? So you go from four to eight opportunities from having tea with somebody, making lunch with someone, took a lot of people out to lunch. Took a lot of, a lot of characters and I went out to and I'll tell you, it was really only one person. Okay. It was dad. Incredible awesome nurse. Okay. Me and that nurse, we had a connection.

[Andy Cortez]

Wow.

[Mike]

Look up the nurse. I'm going to, I'm going look up the nurse.

[Andy Cortez]

Before we move on real quick, Kevin, can you bring up the video that I sent through to Assets? This was during the pandemic. Me, Mike and Nick playing through Control. This is a three hour VOD and then switches quickly to War Zone about two hours in, quickly quit out of control, moved on to Warzone. So that's where Nick was with Control.

[Mike]

You know, we just try to, we try to keep him on a straight and path. You know, sometimes it takes a left on you. So yeah, I mean I'm happy that I was able to knock those two games out. They were so much fun. Something I'll remember and building into the next year and onward with the follow up sequels. Right now I'm gonna play Splinter Cell Blacklist because I played of course Conviction this year. So now I'll continue my Splinter Cell play.

[Tim Gettys]

I want to close out the episode with a couple super chats. But first off, I don't know if you heard, Mike, yesterday, Bless said something that I was like. Huh, really? What was it?

[Andy Cortez]

Bless, you said something like that to me too recently. So let's, let's hear this.

[Blessing Adeoye]

Interesting.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah.

[Tim Gettys]

Don't think it's the same thing.

[Andy Cortez]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Blessing Adeoye]

Well, I'm curious what I said to you, but you know, to Tim I mentioned that. I'm thinking about it, Mike. I'm thinking about booting up Final Fantasy 10.

[Greg Miller]

Oh.

[Blessing Adeoye]

I'm in a JRPG mood and so. But here's the thing. You talking about Fire Emblem three houses also kind of like lights me up a little bit. But then also I was thinking about Dragon Quest 11, echoes of elusive Age.

[Mike]

A lot of games.

[Greg Miller]

A lot of games.

[Blessing Adeoye]

But I'm leaning towards Final Fantasy 10 very strongly.

[Tim Gettys]

I think you'll love it. Bless.

[Mike]

Yeah, Bless brought up Fire Emblem before we went on break as well.

[Blessing Adeoye]

Yeah.

[Mike]

Loved Fire Emblem. Adore Final Fantasy 10. You won't go wrong with either one of those tropes.

[Blessing Adeoye]

Okay.

[Andy Cortez]

Well, the thing that Blessing said to me was, you know, the more I played Dark Souls, I think I like it more than bloodborne.

[Blessing Adeoye]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

I was like, whoa, like we have crossed the threat. Like that's so high for you because

[Blessing Adeoye]

I, I originally wasn't going to do the dlc. I like the game so much. That I'm like, I might do the extra 10 hours, whatever it is, because I Right.

[Andy Cortez]

I'm right there of like, you got to meet Artoria.

[Blessing Adeoye]

You know, I got a dungeon, I got the DLC. And then I'm probably barreling towards the last maybe 10 hours of the game and so special. Yeah, we gotta have a. Yeah, we gotta have a bigger conversation about consoles.

[Tim Gettys]

I love that.

[Blessing Adeoye]

You gotta have a bigger conversation.

[Mike]

Committed to it. I'm happy that you're following through with it. I hope that you keep going.

[Andy Cortez]

Right.

[Mike]

Andy just experienced Dark Souls 2 finally. And it's like you just keep going and it's just so much fun time after time.

[Andy Cortez]

And then maybe, you know, we lock ourselves up in the lab and we play the. The. What's it called? Seamless. The seamless co op mod for Dark Souls 2 or 3, where you don't got to do the summoning. It's just the way me and Nick and Mike played Elden Ring.

[Mike]

Official rankings for kind of funny of the best possible games

[Blessing Adeoye]

from Soft in Review.

[Tim Gettys]

Nimble Trent, super chat saying, long live Mike's Gaming Journal and Happy New Year's, y'.

[Andy Cortez]

All.

[Mike]

Thank you, homie. Very excited.

[Andy Cortez]

Happy New Year's.

[Tim Gettys]

Then send. Nuggie says, more gaming journals, less manifestos. Mike's the best. Cam says, please tell me any of y' all played Baldur's Gate 3.

[Greg Miller]

I feel like that's directed at me. Yeah, I had a whole thing on Greg way about. Hey, it's holiday break. Here's the list I need to get through for game of the year. I'm finishing Metroid. I need to get back to this. I need to touch that. And I was like, but I have this I craving for a story. And I know I could go to Fallout New Vegas, but I also think that maybe I want to jump into Baldur's Gate and see all the changes, you know, maybe now with my expectations so low from not liking the way it controlled before I could get in there. And so I downloaded on everything and I jumped in there and it took me just another. That same thing around.

[Blessing Adeoye]

Oof.

[Greg Miller]

I can. I just hate how this controls and I do.

[Blessing Adeoye]

This is what I'll say this January, the month that we're currently in, I've dubbed BBL January. Big backlog January. Sure. Oh, there's not that many big games coming out.

[Mike]

Quiet this month.

[Blessing Adeoye]

It is very quiet this month. I did a whole thing where I just sat down on releases.com, scrolled through to see, okay, what are the big games I got to, like, pay attention to or whatever. And it's High Guard and two xko. We got time to, like, dive into that backlog. That's all I'm gonna say. So we're trying to make Baldur's Gate 3 happen.

[Andy Cortez]

I started near Automata this.

[Blessing Adeoye]

Right.

[Greg Miller]

See, I went the other way, though. So once I was like, no, Baldur's Gate. I started a new Vegas thing. And I'm 15 hours into that.

[Blessing Adeoye]

Well, and you're playing near automata for

[Andy Cortez]

the first time, man. Like a full. Like, here's the thing, though. Here's the thing, though. You know, Greg, we're sick.

[Blessing Adeoye]

Who's at this company?

[Andy Cortez]

Greg. Making a lot of, you know, promises about Baldur's Gate and, you know, promise. He was like. He was very.

[Greg Miller]

I lived up to the promise. I tried it.

[Andy Cortez]

He was very much like, andy, I'm gonna give the altars a real shot over break. You want the story?

[Greg Miller]

I jumped into the altars, and then I went to that fallout shelter. I'm like, no, I'm good.

[Mike]

So good.

[Tim Gettys]

Giga Gian says beat Expedition 33 over break. Haven't had a game resonate with me this much on an emotional level since God of War 2018. It's a special, special game. Oral Sanchez play says, I played Super Metroid Zero mission, Fusion, Prime 1 and 4 the last two months for the first time. I loved them all. Do you think Prime 2 and 3 come to switch somehow? Damn, dude, that is what a generational run. I can't even imagine doing all those at the same time. I do think 2 and 3 will come eventually. I also, during the break, played through. I beat Zero Mission and Super again. And then I haven't beat it yet, but I'm making my way through Dread. And I'm just saying it, playing them back to back, I think Dread's the best. I think, like, I think if I have to be honest with myself, be honest.

[Blessing Adeoye]

Him.

[Tim Gettys]

Super Metroid, the design of the world is so good, but there is a level of old game is old that I. That really bothers me of just with the. How it controls. And I get that there's a beauty to that too. And of course, I still love it, but goddamn, Dread is fucking sick.

[Andy Cortez]

As. As I was streaming a lot of Pokemon's rank C now I'm almost there. Kept on getting a little notification. Tim Gettys starting, you know, starting the game on the top left of the Switch Game Boy Advance.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah.

[Andy Cortez]

And Chat would always bring it up, and I'm like, You know what, Chad? He's allowed to. Because he beats Silksong, he's allowed to play whatever he wants.

[Tim Gettys]

That was me playing.

[Blessing Adeoye]

Now that you've beaten Silksong, not gonna say this is anytime soon. Let's say sometime this year, if I decided I wanted to play a Metroidvania and I had to choose between Silksong and Prince of Persia, the lost crown, which one would you say I should play?

[Tim Gettys]

Prince of Persia, lost crown.

[Blessing Adeoye]

Okay.

[Tim Gettys]

Yeah. I mean, the thing is, it's really just a difficulty in time thing. You're a gamer though. You're really damn good.

[Blessing Adeoye]

I am.

[Tim Gettys]

And like Silksong is goddamn incredible if you're willing to lock in. But I think Prince of Persia, lost Crown, that to me is my favorite Metroidvania ever, you know? With that, we're gonna end this episode of the kind of funny game Skies. You should play both though. You know what I mean? Find the top.

[Andy Cortez]

That's a lot of hours.

[Tim Gettys]

It is a lot of hours. Let us know in the comments below what you played during Christmas break. And guess what? You have another bonus games cast. Right after this, me and Andy are gonna break down all of the CES announcements from Nvidia from their GeForce on presentation and that's gonna be a good time. Thank you gentlemen for joining us.

[Andy Cortez]

Thank you.

[Tim Gettys]

Until next time, I love you all. Goodbye.

[Blessing Adeoye]

Thank you to Vinster playing your automata.

[Andy Cortez]

This episode is brought to you by Athletic Brewing Company. No matter how you do game day, on the couch, in the crowd, or manning the snack table, Athletic Brewing fits right in with a full lineup of non alcoholic beer styles you can enjoy bold flavors all game long. No hangovers, no buzz, no subbing out for water in the second half.

[Greg Miller]

Stock the fridge for tip off with

[Andy Cortez]

a variety of non alcoholic craft styles. Available at your local grocery store or online at athleticbrewing. Com near beer fit for all times.