March 2024 Podcast: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and games that come out of nowhere

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, and welcome to the Digitally Uploaded.
Podcast, the companion podcast to digitallydownloaded.net.
My name is Alan, I'll be with you this week.
And with me on my lovely little brunch podcast, this little brunch date podcast,
is the Venerable Header-in-Chief, Matt Sainsbury. Hello, Matt.
Howdy, how are you doing? Yeah, you know, kicking along, kicking along.

(00:22):
What is your perfect brunch order? order i'm pretty
simple with my tastes i just like
a good bacon sandwich i mean i
was not a big bacon sandwich person until i came over here because they do bacon
sandwiches in scotland that are phenomenal like it's it's cooked they also do
this thing called square sausage where it's just a sausage in a square it's

(00:46):
really good yeah it's it's about as like basic as you can get but But yeah,
unfortunately. What about you?
What about you? In terms of egg, I mean, I'm annoyed, right? I love an egg.
My body does not like egg. Oh, no. Not anymore.
Yeah. So previously, there used to be this ramen place in, it was like a really

(01:07):
fancy brunch cafe, but they used to do breakfast ramen.
So it was like bacon, eggs, and like everything in ramen.
And it was so over the top, but hot dang,
bang that was the best stuff ever and like
the really really good high quality chili oil as well I think that they'd made
themselves and oh whoa that doesn't really a thing over here yeah it was fantastic

(01:32):
it was also like not too bad for the price but this is also before the entire
world caught fire and died so yeah probably that's probably now like four weeks
worth of rent just for that one bowl.
It's great, isn't it? Yeah. So it is a bit quieter.
Oh, yeah. That's why I can't afford a house. If it had smashed ever,
then that's it. You're out. Oh, I got furious.

(01:54):
There's an ad campaign in the UK right now for frozen peas that are like,
mix up your breakfast. Use frozen peas instead of avocado.
Like, what the f- Why? Yeah, that's- Why would you use mashed peas on a piece of toast?
That's like like i joke a lot about the fact that england has wartime food permanently

(02:15):
but like god damn that's that's the most wartime food i think i've ever seen in my life,
yeah that's bad i mean it's bad enough when they put mashed peas on your
your pie let alone i was thinking because when
i came over here again this is now just a culture shock
podcast the um they put
mushy peas on my plate and i'd never seen that before and

(02:37):
i had no idea what the hell it was was and my disgust
upon putting the tiniest little bit of it into my
mouth was tangible like it was so like
it was a visible reaction like you know when
you see like an old cartoon and my code gets hit in the head with like a frying
pan his entire body like shudders that was the vibe this is the moment where

(02:57):
you kind of had regrets about moving on i that was the point when i said maybe
i shouldn't have done this i miss barney lucky you got through that you're going
here because there There are other things that are good about England, right?
It's just not the food, right?
Ish. I'm trying to be positive here.
It's making me think about the negatives.

(03:18):
But yeah, it is a bit of a quieter podcast this week. Everyone else is a little
bit either busy or a bit unwell under the weather, so that's all good.
But it is going to be going on as usual, as we expect.
It is a quite large month, of course, as well, because a certain video game
is coming out or has come out by the time that you're listening to this.
So we're going to jump right into our games of the year and go from there.
Music.

(07:08):
It's time for the games of the month because there's always games releasing
and we must talk about them because we are nothing if not the unending train of capitalism.
Matt, let's jump into those video grumbles. Yeah, let's do that.
So, I mean, it does start a little bit slow in March, but I promise that by
towards the end of the month, it goes nuts.
It just goes absolutely nuts. It's crazy.

(07:29):
It's crazy. So just before, it's not quite March,
but as we record this this podcast it's not
out yet so we'll start with it on february 29 right
before march we've got final fantasy 7 rebirth out and
as we record this embargo has just lifted it's like two days ago it's currently
sitting on a 92 metacritic score which means pretty bloody good it's pretty

(07:54):
good it's actually i was to be honest i'm i was a little bit surprised i was not expecting it to.
Eclipse its form the previous game
but it has i think the other one uh remake
i think it has what a 99 or something
like that 89 metacritic score which is still good
obviously but yeah this one is i think it's the second or third highest rated

(08:17):
final fantasy game ever at this stage just behind nine and possibly seven itself
possibly i can't remember i saw it somewhere Somewhere on Twitter,
somebody put up the list of the meta-grips. Oh, yeah.
It was FFX that it's tying with and Final Fantasy XII.
There we go. So, at this stage, and as things go drastically wrong,

(08:40):
as some other reviews start to filter in, it is right up there with the best of Final Fantasy ever.
Which, again, was a little bit surprising to me. We will talk about that later on in the podcast.
Not that I didn't enjoy it, but yes, we've got things to say. Matt hates the game.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I had a worst experience. Did they not give it a 10?

(09:01):
They did not bring Jesse back, so I docked six points out of five stars for that. Good.
Assholes. It's what they get. They do that to you. Cowards. They have beach
scenes and everything, and they still couldn't bring Jesse back.
Anyway, moving on. It's just being weakened at Bernie's.
March 1, we've got Cricket Through the Ages coming to consoles and stuff.

(09:22):
I think that was originally an Apple Arcade game.
It's one of the Devolver Digital published things. it's a
silly charming funny game which is
exactly what you expect from devolver but yeah
it's coming to console which is good for people that don't have apple arcade
that's much one much five we've got shadows over loathing coming on to other

(09:43):
platforms i think just play session five it's already on a bunch of other things
shadows over loathing is that lovecraftian themed horror rpg with stick men, stick figures. Yeah.
Kingdoms are quite good. Yeah, it's good fun. I like stick men.
I like that series. I used to play, what was it? Kingdoms.

(10:04):
Kingdoms offloading the original web game okay back when i was in high school
and stuff it's been around for a long long long time and yeah it was just one
of those early html silly games,
that's yeah i got right into it for a while and it's
good that they're now doing standalone narrative things too which

(10:24):
is good it's all good everything's good life
is good that comes out on march 5 if
you have a playstation 4 and haven't yet played it on pc or switch
or wherever else it has been released on march
6 we've got cat and ghostly road don't know
much about this one but it's interesting title has
my attention and it says here that it is an atmospheric point and click where

(10:49):
you play as a white cat and you go on a dangerous journey to the world of ghosts
and demons i hate when that happens and yeah i'm pretty sure you know cats being
cats the ghosts of demons like, well, shit.
Like, we have to feed this thing now. It's never going away.
It's adopted us. I was going to say.

(11:09):
I have to, just a quick segue. My brother recently moved into a new house that he bought.
I don't know how he managed to buy a house in today's economy. Well done, yeah.
Yeah, he's bought himself a place in Canberra, Australia's capital, and he's moved in.
And within days, the neighbourhood cat had adopted him and now kind of sits
Sits at the door and meows constantly to be let in.

(11:30):
He has no idea who this cat even belongs to.
But we all think that now they belong to the cat. And yeah, that's what cats do.
So demons will be able to experience that on March 6th. With a cat just wandering around.
On March 7th, we've got fitness boxing featuring Hatsune Miku.
So bizarre. Which I can't wait for. I'm going to get so... I'm going to be absolutely...

(11:54):
Like, hell yeah. By the end of this game.
I'm gonna be like the gym junkies and
this is your peloton people will be like how did you get so fit i'm like that's
sunimiku but yeah they're pumped to make it oh yeah it's so weird that that

(12:15):
game's coming out but it's coming out march 7th.
Genuinely shocked it's real. Yeah, I thought it was a joke when it was first
announced, but it's a thing.
On March 7, we've got Top Racer Collection, which is a collection of old 16-bit
racing games, which were good back in the day from memory. They were fun.

(12:37):
And now you can have a collection of them. Top Racer 2 and Top Racer 3000, all in one pack.
On March 7, we've got Snufkin, Melody of Moominvalley.
Coming out i um played this at tokyo game
show last year and it's a okay it's a very it's weird that moomin's like a big

(12:58):
thing but not a lot of people know about at the same time if that makes sense
that's a little cow guy right looks like a hippo yeah yeah and he's very and so he's from um,
he's from finland isn't he finland or sweden one of the other yeah one of those
and he's massive Massive in Japan.
Absolutely massive in Japan. I actually went to a Moomin cafe that they'd set up in Japan once.

(13:23):
So they had all kind of big stuffed Moomins around and it was all Moomin themed
and it was fun. It was a lot of fun.
Anyway, yes, Moomin Valley is a point and click kind of adventure game style
thing with some light puzzling as you wander around.
It's very lovely because it uses the art style of Moomin, which is really nice.
It's very cute and little.

(13:44):
Yeah, it's good. I mean, it's not going to be game of the year or anything.
I'll say that up front right now. It's not going to be that kind of profile, but it is fun.
It's a lot of fun, and I think that it will probably impress some people when
it comes out. That's March 7.
On March 8, we have the first kind of big game, I guess, for the month.

(14:05):
I mean, Miku is probably the biggest game of the month. But after that,
we've got the first big one, which is an Atlus and VanillaWare game.
Unicorn Overload. Yeah. Which looks excellent.
Like, it just looks excellent. I haven't delved too deeply into it because I
guess I missed when they announced it.

(14:28):
But I've seen screenshots, and I've seen it on the list of things,
and the art style is lovely. And, I mean, let's be frank here.
It's vanilla. Anything that's vanilla-ware that comes from the mines that gave
us 13 Sentinels and Odin Sphere is going to catch my... Excuse me.
Catch my attention so yeah very much looking forward to that that's a march

(14:49):
8 on stuff i think it's just playstation or is it pc as well probably uh it's
on playstation switch and xbox oh it's coming on switch as well well there we
go look at that on your oled screen.
We've got a Warhammer game coming on March 8th, Warhammer 40K Darker Squadron.

(15:12):
Is that the Orc one? Darker Squadron is a fast-paced aerial shooter where you play as an Orc flyboy.
Yeah. Cool, I guess.
That could be fun. It's weird because there's so many Warhammer 40K games these days.
It's hard to keep track or be particularly enthusiastic about any of them.

(15:33):
But the quality of them these days is not actually not that bad like there's
a fair few good ones there's a few decent ones but there's.
Always the very obviously like we don't give a shit.
About this have the licensed ones yeah yeah absolutely
like for example the bolt gun was
excellent last year yeah and rogue trader
was excellent last year but then

(15:55):
i'm playing an x-com one at the the moment which is just not that enjoyable is
that the the mechanicus i
can't remember which one it is the one of
the necroids or necrons necroids i
have no idea which one it is it's just
very x like it's just x-com done but
warhammer 40k and the one that

(16:17):
that the one i'm talking about mechanicus is really really good i've
really enjoyed it it's like a mix of of like slay the
spire with um isn't that a much older one
yeah it's like four years old now yeah no this
is god i think okay i'm gonna look it up now might
as well the one i'm playing which is just not that engaging for
me is demon hunters

(16:39):
oh okay it's just not doing much for
me at the moment i mean it might pick up later on but it's just it's it's
no rogue trader rogue trader was really good really really
good road trader is pretty cool i want to try it it's it's
kind of a good game to bounce off from baldur's gate three it's very similar
if i ever get off boulders gate three yeah it's it's that top-down isometric

(16:59):
rpg with lots of decisions and all that kind of stuff it's not quite up to the
standards of that one but nothing is but it is still a very high quality one
and it's good good way to continue your isometric rpg experience.
But then moving on, moving on
through the month, we're not here to talk about what came out last year.
On March 12, we have Contra Operation Gallagher, which was announced,

(17:22):
what, two days ago or something.
And yeah, who knows? Who knows how this one could go? The last Contra was anything but a good game.
But it's also like it's a remake of the first one, isn't it? Is it? Yeah. Contra OG.
Oh, really? Yeah. So, wait, the first Contra took place on the islands off New Zealand? Yeah. Really?

(17:46):
Yeah. I did not know that. Yeah.
Okay. Well, there we go. It's a cloud, isn't it? Yeah. I think it's a remake of the first one.
We've got a remake of the original Contra here, according to- I've added in
new stuff to it, of course, but it's a remake primarily.
The trailer I saw of it, I knew all the levels.
Very interesting indeed. Yeah. Konami will find a way to mess it up. It's Konami.

(18:09):
Well, that's the thing. You're just not quite sure with Konami these days.
Mind you, I didn't mind that little horror game they did.
Oh, it's fine. It wasn't very scary. I didn't think it was great, but I didn't mind it.
That's the thing is like, it shouldn't just be fine. It's Silent Hill.
It should be pretty bloody good.
Yeah. I'm so nervous.

(18:30):
Oh, Bloober team. Okay. Moving on. Let's not bitch too much about Konami.
We could do that. We could be here all day doing that, but let's not.
Well, let's not. I think we need to move on. March 13.
Now, this one, you probably haven't been thinking about it, but when you hear
it, I think when it actually comes out and people kind of pick it up,

(18:51):
they're going to have their minds blown.
We have Llamasoft, the Jeff Minter story. Okay.
Now, this is, now it doesn't sound like much, I guess, but Jeff Minter is obviously
a legendary game creator.
And this is a collection of 42 of his games by Digital Eclipse being the guys

(19:12):
that did the Atari one, Atari 50.
And they've actually pitched this as an interactive documentary rather than
a retro game collection.
So you'll be looking at all kinds of historical records and probably video because
that's what they did with the Atari one.
And it's just going to be this really great piece of history from video games
because Digital Eclipse has just started kicking, kind of knocking it out of

(19:35):
the park with their retro,
their efforts to save retro stuff, but also contextualize it.
You know, they actually put it in, like, they explain the history of it.
You know, they explain why it's valuable stuff.
They really kind of go above and beyond. It's not just about playing the game.
It's about kind of understanding what this game meant and where it came from

(19:57):
and so on. So I'm really looking forward to this.
Like I said, I didn't even know it was coming out until I just said it.
But yeah, we're looking at stuff like Attack of the Mutant Camels,
Grid Runner, Tempest 2000.
I mean, Jeff is a really legendary name in the older era of video games. So that's cool.
That's out on March 13 on everything. Okay.

(20:20):
See, we're not quite halfway through, and we're still getting to the big stuff.
Jesus. Yeah. On March 14, we've got Crown Wars, The Black Prince.
Now, this one is a tactical turn-based strategy game set during the Hundred
Years' War, which is not that often.
We don't get that many games in that period. Not that many.

(20:42):
Pops up from time to time. I can't think of anything that's coming to mind of
it. But the only one I can think of is Bladestorm, which Koei Tecmo did a while back. Oh, God.
That's for the PS3. For the PS3 and PS4.
And yeah, they did do a remaster for the PS4. So that was the last time I can
think of the Hundred Years War being used as material.

(21:03):
So this one has my attention.
I'm quite a fan of the Hundred Years War as a period of history.
It was quite dynamic. It had Joan of Arc and all that kind of stuff.
And yeah, I'll try this. who knows it might be bad but i'll try it anyway on
march 14 we have star wars battlefront classic collection coming out now those

(21:23):
are the shooters aren't they yes it is i'm very excited about this because those
games extremely rock yeah they're really really developed in australia they were,
ps2 ones right and they were one of the early kind of mass multiplayer games
on yeah they were one of the first kind
of mass multiplayer games on console weren't they like you could actually hook

(21:45):
those up to the internet and play online yeah it was like 64 players i'm pretty
sure yeah which was pretty impressive for the ps2 era you know yeah i mean the
game actually looks like decent as well which is shocking like it's i was playing
it like maybe two years ago,
because um i was upset about battlefront the
new ones and was having like a pretty decent time of it so yeah yeah yeah so

(22:09):
i'll probably check those out too especially if they i mean i assume they would
have integrated multiplayer into this so it'll be like yeah a whole bunch of i think,
Cool. It was cool. Yeah, that'll be fun. On March 15, you got Kingdom Come Deliverance
coming out on Switch, which is- That's wild.
Technically impressive. Yeah.

(22:32):
Game's okay. Genuinely impressive. You know, I know the game had all that controversy
because of the developer that was involved back in a certain era of game discourse
that we won't talk about.
But yeah, the game's actually not bad.
It's totally fine. Yeah. Yeah. It's janky as hell and it's a bit cooked, but like, you know.

(22:53):
Yeah. But it does do a decent job, I guess, of representing Middle Ages aesthetics
and stuff in a fairly authentic way.
Like, if you think about Elder Scrolls as being a very fantasy take on medieval
Europe, this one's a quite authentic take.
Yeah. And that everyone's afraid of the Turkish. Yeah.

(23:15):
As they should be. Yeah. Yeah, watch out for that Holy Roman,
bro. It'll fucking get you.
We've got the MLB, the show for the year coming out on March 19.
So there you go. Baseballs.
They're all good. Reliable. It'll be fun. I'm sure I'll lose a bunch of time
to it and then wonder why I did that when the next one comes out,

(23:35):
because that's how a lot of times sunk into a game that's an annual release. But there we go.
You'll be able to enjoy that on everything. It's coming out on Switch as well,
isn't it? Yeah, it's still doing Switch.
So, yeah. Hi-Fi Rush comes out on everything else but Xbox on March 19.
It's been on the Xbox for a while. A lot of people liked it.
It's kind of that rhythm game, action game combination by Tango Gameworks.

(23:58):
It came out of nowhere. That was one of the ones that was announced and dropped
on the same day. Yeah, that was a surprise drop.
They did a Sega Saturn for some reason.
Yeah, and they had exactly the same response. Nobody ended up playing it because...
There was no hype leading up to its launch.
So I think Microsoft kind of overestimated how many people actually watched

(24:21):
their direct style shows.
And yeah, but it was actually a pretty decent game.
So I think it'll be good on Switch with the OLED screen because it's pretty colourful.
Like it's a vibrant, colourful, over kind of saturated looking game.
So I think on the OLED, it's going to be pretty neat. on

(24:41):
march 20 the much delayed alone in the
dark finally comes out and oh shit
again and i'm looking forward to this because this is a remake of the original
isn't it for a re-envision uh yeah it's a reimagining of the it's very like
resident evil 2 remakey yeah yeah completely top-down remake but that was good

(25:02):
because i the original alone in the dark was it was the first 3d,
survival horror game, I think.
It was like 92 or something like that, wasn't it? Yeah, really,
really kind of boundary-pushing game.
I'll be interested to see what they do with this one, because obviously Alone
in the Dark fell off the rails when Atari took over it.

(25:23):
It really fell off the rails. This has got David Harbour in it, too.
It does, and he's pretty neat for this kind of game, I would think.
I just hope they've kept the Lovecraftian subtle in
it if you know what i mean like yeah whenever
whenever a game developer tackles the lovecraftian style horror
i um i have questions because if

(25:46):
they go too over the top with tentacles and stuff then it just
kind of loses its edge but the original
alone in the dark was pretty good with that and i'm hoping that
they've kept that going for this one moving on
on now we're starting to get to the later half of
the month so things like i promised you things

(26:07):
pick up from here on march 22 we've
got legacy of the legend of legacy hd remastered
coming out on switch and playstation 4 and stuff this was
a i want to say 3ds rpg possibly yes no it was 3ds rpg and it was pretty neat
it was it was in the vein of four heroes of light and bravely default Volt and

(26:31):
that kind of approach to JRPGs.
This one kind of flew a little bit under the radar compared to those,
but obviously it's back now and hopefully it will get some attention because it is a very good game.
Also on March 22, we've got Princess Peach Showtime, which is Nintendo's big release for the month.
Now, I didn't think that I'd be so interested in this game when it was first

(26:53):
announced, but every time they do drop more information, I get more and more keen on it.
It just looks very cute. It does. It really looks like a lot of fun.
And if it is even a little bit as fun as it looks like, it's going to be a pretty good time.
Unfortunately, it's actually releasing at the same time as a bunch of other
games, so I don't think it's going to get cut through.

(27:14):
Not only is it getting released on the same day as The Legend of Legacy HD,
which is going to get some attention from the more hardcore JRPG fans,
it's going to have to compete with Dragon's Dogma 2, which comes out on March 22,
which is going to be a big deal.
I know Dragon's Dogma didn't exactly set sales charts alight,
but it has got an excellent reputation. It's following now. Yeah,

(27:37):
and it's got that reputation, just being a really bloody good game.
For good reason, it is a really bloody good game.
But, yeah, the hype going into Dragon's Dogma 2 is going to be pretty huge, I would think.
So, yeah. And on top of that, on the same day as Princess Peach,
Legend of Legacy, and Dragon's Dogma 2, we also have Rise of the Ronin coming out.

(28:00):
That's the Koei Tecmo one. Which is the Koei Tecmo take on Ghost of Tsushima, basically.
No it's um it's actually more souls like but it's set at the period where the
americans came with the big black ships and said open your country or we're
going to blow you to smithereens so after that they had a little civil war inside

(28:21):
of japan and then emerged as the country that it was.
Leading into the 20th century so yeah it's got primitive guns that's that's
the area kind of primitive guns but also people still carry it around swords
and stuff and we're we're going to be playing as i don't know which side we

(28:42):
play on actually i haven't followed it that closely but,
i'm looking forward to it it is from the same team team ninja as neo and wolong
so i would expect it to be of a similar quality plus a different historical
era to wander around so yeah yeah I would expect that would be good.

(29:03):
I'd be surprised if it's not good, put it that way. Yeah, Nioh's been pretty good consistently.
And Warlord was good too, once you got past the tutorial boss.
Yeah. Which was like the hardest boss in the whole bloody game.
Once you got past him, it was just pretty cruisy, fun.
Oh, the Lu Bu fight was ridiculous. Remember that being so...
And also, of course, it had to be.

(29:24):
Well, if the Lu Bu fight's not ridiculous, then they've done something very wrong. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, the Lubu fight was pretty tough, I agree, but yeah, other than that,
though, it was pretty, as far as Souls likes go, it was pretty accessible.
Just those two. We've got a new Daymare game coming out on March 26th,

(29:46):
which would be the 76th Daymare game, I guess. They just keep churning them out.
I was going to say, there's been like four of those in the last year. I know. I know.
I don't know what this one is about, but there you go.
They're actually, I think I did play one of them. I can't remember which one.
But they're a decent enough effort to do Resident Evil.

(30:10):
But not Resident Evil. They're not indie, cheap, nasty games.
They're reasonably put together and there's obviously some kind of audience
for them otherwise they wouldn't keep making them. Yeah. Yeah.
On March 26th... Someone's happy with that one. Yeah, somebody out there is
going, yes, I can't wait.
On March 26th, we've got South Park Snow Day coming out. Another...

(30:30):
That'll be silly and fun.
I'm sure some people will have good fun with that one.
That's not an RPG though. It's a four-player co-op. Yeah, it's a four-player co-op. Beat them up.
Rpg thingy a bit like like a good version of that
new boulder's gate game that came out the dark alliance game from what
i can understand gotcha it's set in the
same continuous world as the old ones gotcha yeah

(30:51):
interesting fun i guess i mean it could be fun it should be fun it will probably
be okay i mean they've not made a bad game in that series since they started
actually putting effort in i was going to say they used to be notoriously bad
south park games the ps1 South Park game.
Two frames a second. Yeah, I played one on the N64, which was like a shooter.

(31:14):
Yeah, that's the one. Oh, that's the one, is it? It was even worse,
I imagine, on PlayStation 1.
Oh, yeah. It ran okayish on the N64, but it was just not a good game at all.
No, it was like a terrible Doom clone. Or Clayton clone, I guess. Yep.
Yuck. We've got a horror game coming out for you, Alan, on March 26th. Oh.

(31:36):
New mata. So new as in, you know. Oh, like air. Yeah.
I mean, that sounds cool. But the description's pretty cool.
Let me just get to read the full thing out to you.
The tenants are going missing, screams echo, and blood seeps through the walls of Clover Hill.
As a detective, you unravel the truth that lies within and recover your fragmented

(32:00):
memories or succumb to the horrors that lurk in the shadows within this sinister
blend of survival and psychological horror. That sounds fun.
Yeah, it sounds like a time. that sounds like a thing let's do a little quick
google search and just see if it's like,
good graphics and stuff shall we oh yeah yeah it looks fine it looks like a

(32:23):
thing it looks like a survival horror game that's wild yeah never has it never
seen one of them before no no i don't know what those are,
we're getting close to the end of the month now we've got farming simulator
kids what the hell Yes, there is an actual Farming Simulator Kids coming out on March 26th.

(32:46):
What do they... What makes it a kids, like...
What? Is it like child labour? The children yearn for the mines, Matt.
Oh, my God. Luke, you've got to search for this, Alan.
Yes. Go onto Google and type Farming Simulator Kids into it.
You're in for an eye-opening...

(33:08):
Thing oh my god the hell is this oh
it's little no that's cute cute but
it's just i actually like that it's so it's so
off-brand for farming simulator it's odd
yeah it's it's really i don't know how to feel about this this is the most like
because farming simulator is like hardcore simulations of farming like it's

(33:34):
not harvest moon it's actual like yeah you go and And you have to buy fuel for your tractor.
Yeah, exactly. And you have to go through the full process to farm crops and stuff.
You can't just plant and then dig. It's like proper farming simulator.
That's the whole point. That's what people love about it. Farming simulator kids is not that.

(33:56):
Who is this for then? I don't understand who this is for.
Are they trying to like take kids, make them fans of farming simulator and then
turn them into fans of the real game?
Because I don't see how you go from this to
farm sim but I'm just
really confused like I don't

(34:18):
know and yet I'm intrigued I'm gonna play it now I
mean it looks cute that's like why we would pick
this over like scenes of
melody or whatever it's called now yeah yeah that's
that's the thing why you would would pick it over that or why did you pick
that over stardew valley which has cold as well that
is like it's just odd good to

(34:40):
them but yes if you are intrigued by
farming simulated kids then march 26 is the day for you on march 28th i'm really
looking forward to this on march 28th we've got touch detective three the complete
base files so it's it's a point and click detective,

(35:03):
puzzle game kind of thing but it was it was popular really popular in japan
uh on the ds and they did localize them into west that they didn't do particularly
well but the series kind of died off after the third one on the ds so they've
gone and remastered it for the switch here.
And yeah they're they're proper detective they're proper

(35:25):
detective games in that they don't hold hold your hand
you actually need to solve for puzzles and you
feel like a smart old person when you
get them right and it's just really cute with
a mascot the there's a little kind of sidekick character that's a fungus a walking
fungus and is it like a cute walking fungus or is like a oh yeah yeah yeah yep

(35:49):
because there exists two realms in which that could go one of them is horrific
the The other is neat and cute.
No, this one's cute. Namiko. Type Namiko into your Google there, Alan.
I'm typing Namiko into my Google. Yeah, N-A-M-E-K-O.

(36:10):
As in just phonetically spelled like Japanese style? Yeah, N-A-M-E-K-O. Namiko. Oh!
So this little character became wildly popular as a result of the games.
He's got his own games. He actually got a TV series anime spinoff as well. He's so little!
This is the most Sanrio-coded character I've ever seen in my life.

(36:31):
He actually had like- they even had pop-up stores for all kinds of merchandise
for this little character.
So he's actually a big deal in Japan. And he got his start thanks to Touch Detective.
So he was a spinoff character there. Really sweet. Yeah. He was a spinoff character
there, became really popular, and now they're bringing back the the game that
kind of made him famous and the household name in Japan.

(36:55):
So yeah, look forward to that. It's actually, it's actually a game worth looking forward to.
I love this little mushroom guy. Thank you for introducing me to him. You're very welcome.
On March 28, we have Felix the Cat coming out for some reason. Hell yeah.
I guess it's the old one. It's just the month of weird little guys. Yeah.

(37:17):
I haven't heard of Felix the Cat for such a long time. And there we go.
He's coming out. He's cute. I feel like Felix the Cat's another one of those
characters that I just have never seen actual pieces of media of.
Yeah, I know. I've never seen merch. Yeah, exactly.
Like, it's just, that's what it is. Yep. I did not know this,

(37:40):
but there's actually a Pac-Man game coming out in March, too.
We're talking, like, Pac-Man Ghostly Adventures Pac-Man. We're talking Pac-Man
Worldie. We're talking, like, original OG Star Packies.
No, nothing about it. Pac-Man Mega Tunnel Battle Chomp Champs is the name of
it. It comes out on March 31.
That's a very good name. it is oh

(38:01):
it's a multiplayer online party
game it looks cute actually i'm intrigued
i don't know anything about this game so but i'm intrigued now because you can
actually dress your they've done the four guys thing where you can dress your
pac-man up like with all kinds of weird stuff no i love that and i like that
a lot yeah i'm a fan of that and yeah so the description reads It reads,

(38:27):
Pac-Man Mega Tunnel Battle Chomp Champs is an online-only Pac-Man eating competition.
Eat your way through multiple interconnected mazes using power pellets and a
variety of power items to chop the ghosts and opponent Pac-Man players.
Be the last pack standing at the end of each match in the 64 battle royale.
It is four guys, the Pac-Man take.

(38:47):
So, there you go. That's all. I'm going to play this.
Sold on this concept it might be okay it might be a complete piss take but it
might be okay yeah no no i'm i'm genuinely interested now it could go either
way but i i'm i'm gonna give it a go on march 31 we got flashback 2 coming out

(39:08):
which is why is why is that coming out,
oh it's coming out on other platforms it's actually already out on
some things and it's got got a metacritic score of 36
so oh shit okay
it wasn't even like 2d it wasn't even
2d was it was like a weird two and a half d with like shitty aiming
is it yeah it was like shadow was

(39:31):
the game on xbox 360 everyone loved it
was like shadow complex or something like that wow yeah
it's not even lower rating on pc 35 on
pc 36 on playstation 5 god i guess i guess
it's coming on on like switch and xbox on march 31
but yeah i'm not interested in

(39:51):
anymore i really like the original flashback that was a game that my cousin
had it's a very cousin game yeah it's one of those ones that very like you're
not quite sure actually exists yeah that's right that's right nobody bought
it but everybody seemed to know somebody that had it and they played it somehow that way Yeah.
It's Earthworm Jim. Here we go. I did not know this was coming out either,

(40:16):
but all of a sudden I'm intrigued by this as well.
On March 31, we've got Still Wakes the Deep coming out.
Still Wakes the Deep is a first-person narrative horror from the Chinese room,
as in everybody's gone to the rapture, dear Esther, and amnesia, a machine for pigs. God.
I'm a fan of the Chinese room. I know that some people are on and off about

(40:38):
them and they're not everybody's favorite developer necessarily,
but especially everybody's going to the Rapture.
I absolutely love that game. That's probably their best one by far.
I can see why people would think that. I mean, I know Amnesia,
a machine for pigs, didn't get on.
A lot of people didn't get along with that. I think probably because they were
expecting more Amnesia and this one.

(41:00):
Yeah, 100%. It shouldn't have been called Amnesia. It would have been fine if
it wasn't Amnesia. Yeah, I think that's pretty fair.
And then Dear Esther was kind of their first game. So it was really just a breakout thing.
So yeah, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture is definitely their most solid release.
But yeah, I'm keen on Still Wakes the Deep. i'm
keen what's the concept of it let's have a read oh it's

(41:23):
like the it's like an oil rig that's being oh well that
is one of my that is actually one of my kind of horror
scenarios actually been on an oil rig so this
one probably before apparently it's awful sorry my dad's
been one of those before apparently it's awful yeah i can imagine so and
then it'd be so isolating like you'd feel like you're kind of yeah i
can see this one tapping into some deep-seated fears

(41:46):
for me and yeah that could be good it might
be okay again because it's an original thing i'm more okay with
it if it was called amnesia a dark
descent i'd be a bit pissed off yeah or silent hill it was a silent hill branded
game or something like that i know i would actually genuinely rather have them
make the new silent hill like other than a bloober team game i know god oh god

(42:08):
bloober team well they should stop making the worst statements ever,
and the worst games ever.
And actually, that kind of wraps things up. There is one more game coming out
on March 31, which nobody will play, Rich Man 11, which is part of the...
It's a Taiwanese developer's kind of Mario, no, not Mario Party,

(42:31):
Fortune Street, Boom Street style Monopoly board game thing.
And... They're fun. They're fun. I mean, they're translated horribly,
so you have to be able to deal with English. Oh.
But if you can get through that, then yeah, they're fine. But it's a very kind of niche game.
That rounds out the month, but it is a big month. Like, that's a lot of games I just read through.

(42:54):
There's a lot there. Yeah. And to be honest with you, like there's still a lot
of stuff coming out from last month as well. But like, I don't know how anyone
has time to play anything.
No, it's going to be, it's going to be pretty crazy. But of all of those,
which one would you pick if you picked one to play, Alan?
Well, I mean, I'm going to probably pick up the Battlefront games because I
mean, that's like childhood.

(43:14):
That's like, that has the vibe of going to bloody like Video Easy on a Friday
and your mum says you can rent a game for the weekend.
Like that's what, that's what I think of. so yeah
that's like exciting to me but yeah probably battlefront
what about you matt what would you pick up well i mean obviously hatsune miku
because i'm going to be ripped i'm going to be like the fittest person on the

(43:36):
planet after that game comes out but um come back and just be fucking like a
tekken character but more seriously i probably dragon's dogma 2 because,
yeah it wasn't the world it'd be great biggest fan
of all time of dragon's dogma but i did appreciate what
it did and i'm keen to see if they

(43:57):
can or if they've changed it in a way that kind
of clicks with me i mean the classes they've gotten it look
like i've never seen anything like it before like the incense person
who doesn't actually do anything but just
like sets up for other people to do all the work in a
single player game yeah it's very cool it's
interesting there's stuff going on yeah yeah i think it's you know deserves

(44:19):
it after all this time of him wanting to make it but well the other thing is
the time and place that it's come out isn't a very different thing so the original
dragon's dogma was a notoriously challenging difficult game,
at the time before or after dark souls if it wasn't before dark souls it was.

(44:41):
Before dark souls has become like the massive thing mainstream yeah so this
one is now coming in our post-Elden Ring,
and I imagine that if it is similar to the first Dragon's Dogma,
where it was this big, huge open world with a lot of challenging combat and
kind of an ambience rather than a direct storytelling mechanism,
then I think it might do better with, I think more people might get what they're

(45:06):
aiming for with it. So. Aye.
Yeah, it has potential. It has a lot of potential and I'm keen to see if they
can execute on that. So that's my pick for that.
Music.

(47:09):
Month because uh i mean at the end of february we have a very big game coming
out by the name of final fantasy 7 rebirth
which i mean if you're coming
to digitally downloaded.net you probably already know about you
probably read matt's review so you know
that's all up there go find the link on on the site
i'm sure we can put it into the the bio of the um podcast when

(47:29):
we upload it but yeah matt i want to actually ask you
to go a little bit more in depth for me like you
in one of the conversations we
had before mentioned that you were surprised it was
getting as good a score as it was why is that
yeah i think post final
fantasy 16 there are

(47:52):
definitely areas where the older engine of this game is clear so i mean final
fantasy 16 had this kind of really dynamic action combat system that was fast
and very fluid and it was it was a good combat system system that a lot of people got along with,
regardless of what they thought about the rest of the game.
And it also had those absolutely spectacular kind of boss fights that were just- They are so good.

(48:17):
I need to go back to that game. Yeah. Say that every time we do this podcast.
They're just so, like, the amount of detail and the amount of work that went
into those boss fights to make them set pieces was just spectacular.
So, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Earth feels like you're stepping back to a pre-Final
Fantasy 16 era with this thing, where the combat is still...

(48:39):
I mean, the combat is an action combat system,
but it is still designed around the ability to be able to pause and play it
almost like a turn-based game with the way that the ATB bar,
I guess, fills up to allow you to do your special attacks and magic attacks and stuff.
So, it has the rhythms of a more sedate-based, turn-based style classical Final

(49:02):
Fantasy, and I just was surprised that...
There wasn't more said about that because while I think Final Fantasy VII remake
and now obviously Rebirth, they have perfectly decent combat systems.
I just didn't think that that was the direction that people wanted to see Final

(49:22):
Fantasy and RPGs in general go. So I was a little bit surprised by that.
I was also surprised by the fact that it did so well given the way that it handled
its open world stuff so because it's not it's not an open world per se it's open maps,
that are connected it's a series of zones it's

(49:43):
a series of open worlds but the the the approach
that they've taken to each of those zones is open
world so you pull up a menu you'll see icons all
over the map you'll go to certain ones to you
know get side quests or to do little mini tasks
tasks with the main one i guess that you'll do
first being you'll run up to all the towers that you find

(50:05):
so you can unlock those towers because that's far cry well yeah
it's very far crying design in that once you unlock those towers
it kind of shows all the other icons in a region around that tower so you you
want to go and do those towers first so you know the full scope of what you
can do in the in the map and then you'll come across people that give you a
little mini mini quests and and stuff that you also need to follow which take you out of the main plot.

(50:30):
While you're doing those and I just I was surprised that people weren't more
critical of that because it ain't the Witcher you know it's not of that standard
of open world experience that.
Say that this is like a standout feature of the game yet it takes up

(50:51):
so much of your time while you're playing it's a hundred hour game so much
of that is spent wandering around this kind of massive series
of open worlds doing these little doesn't need to be an open
world game yeah that's that's my point i mean the thing is you
know remake was a very linear game right yeah
you pretty much i mean there was a couple of areas where you
had a little bit more openness to go and do some kind of side distractions but

(51:12):
for the most part you're wandering down corridors was following plot point
to plot point it was very 13 yeah exactly
very 10 yeah yeah and so
i know that i mean obviously with the original final fantasy 7 it was the same
same kind of deal you started out in this little little in this big city and
you're kind of restricted in terms of what you could do because you're in the

(51:34):
city and you're following a very linear path once you got out of that city all
of a sudden the world just you know exploded in size and it really felt like Like,
you have this massive space to adventure around.
And it was one of the kind of defining moments of Final Fantasy VII,
just that moment where you left the city and saw the- And you hear the music for the first time.
Yeah, and you see the world for the first time. And then all of a sudden,

(51:55):
you're like, wow, I've got, like, the whole world to explore from here.
Everything's nice and open now. So what they're trying to do is take that moment
and spin that into kind of the concept of the whole game. And it does to an extent.
I mean, I certainly felt the first bit where you- At the start of Final Fantasy
VII Rebirth, you're in the town of Kalm, and you do a little couple of things in that town.

(52:18):
Then Shinra shows up, and you need to escape.
Once you escape, then you suddenly see the open world open in front of you.
And it is very impressive, just the scope and the sense of world building.
It's a good moment. But after that, once you start getting into the nitty-gritty
of what you're actually doing in this open world space, space.

(52:39):
It became one of the lesser parts of the game for me.
I wanted to just kind of go through the story because the story is absolutely spectacular.
What they've done with it, the way they've written it. Same writer as Remake
and Stranger at Paradise.
The best Final Fantasy game. Yeah. This guy is still in great form in terms

(53:01):
of being able to take an original plot, an original Final Fantasy plot and kind of work with it,
but at the same time, subvert it so that you
know it's it's interesting to make you think about we've talked
about that guy in the podcast in the past he's a genius and he's done
the same thing with this one i can't do spoilers obviously but he
has done the same thing with this one and does

(53:21):
eric die i can't say i can't can't say these things i'm not going to say these
things but it's just the the narrative bits the great narrative bits that he's
got are just spread spaced out between all this stuff where you're then wandering
around this world looking for bloody towers to unlock.
Give you a good example of where it kind of really stuck with me just

(53:43):
how frustrating this is this is in the way that they've
designed the game yeah okay so there's a
point where you meet yuffy my favorite character
given that jesse's not around anymore her intro
is just great it's like vintage yuffy she's she certainly
puts uh puts on the show when she kind of enters and
then you fight a boss battle and that's a

(54:06):
spectacular boss battle it's one of the best in the game and then
there's a whole narrative sequence which goes
on for about 10 minutes and then shinra shows up and
a familiar face that is also a
great character from the original uh he also
shows up and there's a lot of tension set and they're
like okay yeah so now you're going to
go top side because at that stage you're kind of um in.

(54:29):
In the open world bit but you're going to go up to one of the
shinra bases and stuff and all so there's a
huge setup it's like yeah this is a really intense narrative moment this
is great i've just met a new character everything's progressing and
then you speak to a character and they
give you a quest which sends you chasing a dog for
20 minutes across the open world and

(54:52):
it's just follow a follow the leader kind of side quest which see
is it's completely unrelated to the narrative
the main narrative it takes you out of them and the that narrative
by the time you finish the quest you're now on the other side
of the map and you've got all these icons around saying you should do this
before you go back and it just breaks the flow
of the narrative completely and for me that was the that was the disappointing

(55:15):
thing about final fantasy rebirth it's not the quality of the game everything
about the game is just super high quality it's just that it doesn't need it
did not need to be an open world experience and in making it open world they really undermined.
All the great qualities about the game so that's
why i was a little bit surprised that it's done so well and it's got like a 92 metacritic it's

(55:36):
not that it's a bad game by any means i gave it a i gave it
a four and a half out of five so i gave it
a very positive review i think it's an excellent game it's just they
screwed with it yeah well
i mean this is my issue with a lot of open world games is that
unless there is a reason for my main character doing a side quest it shouldn't
be in the game like it makes sense in the witcher because you're a

(55:59):
traveling monster hunter you know what i mean in one hundred seven you're trying
to stop the world from ending yeah i mean and in in the witcher those side quests
were all kind of written as stories in themselves yeah like some proper side
stories yeah they they had a point like as world building and whatever they actually,
contributed to the whole thing they weren't just time taken up to to take up

(56:22):
time yeah i also think about Neon Demata a lot as a good example of a JRPG with
really good side quests. Yeah, exactly. Or have a purpose.
Yeah, exactly. If they've got a purpose, then that's great. But if it's just
chasing a dog because that's a side quest to take you to another part of the
world to do more side quests and stuff before getting back to the main narrative,

(56:43):
it's just, it's not right. Why am I here? Yeah.
And I think- Why is Cloud Strife, who is undergoing extreme mental stress because
of a ghost of a man who may or may not be alive, I don't know yet. Like...
Why is he collecting daisies? Yeah, exactly. Exactly so.
And I know why they did it because we're now in 2024 and this is how open worlds work.

(57:07):
And, you know, when you look at Final Fantasy, the original Final Fantasy VII
and that moment where you go out into the world, it is, you know,
it's open in a sense, like it's a big space to wander around.
So I can see why they translated that into open world gameplay design.
Design but when you think about Final Fantasy 7 in that open world bit is actually very linear.

(57:28):
You're still wandering to the next kind of narrative objective
you know that's the there are a couple of side things you can
do like very few side things you can do like for you
know hidden bonuses and find Vincent and all that kind of stuff but
for the most part you're just following the same
trail of breadcrumbs to the next major narrative yeah moment there's
not towers to unlock lock and wellsprings to

(57:51):
find and nonsense like that so
yeah i know it sounds
like i'm disappointed with the game that's not not it at all
i mean the thing is if you were fully uncritical of
it then like it wouldn't be a purposeful review like
what's the point and because like no game is perfect like i
hate when reviews are just like 10 out of 10 best game ever

(58:12):
and don't say why it's a 10 out of 10 or like say how how it's
realistically like flawed but is overwhelmingly
positive regardless of those flaws you know what i mean yeah like
it has there has to be something that's like not doesn't work quite as well
because that's just how art is yeah exactly i just yeah it's it's it's it's

(58:33):
such a weird one this it's just a metacritic score that throws me with this
game yeah because obviously square enix's takeaway for this is going to be final
fantasy 16 bad had Final Fantasy VII Rebirth good.
I so hope they don't do that. I don't think that's the takeaway they should
be taking from it. But I just want...
I've been really trying to figure out what it was about Final Fantasy VII Rebirth

(58:57):
that resulted in the score that it got from so many critics.
I mean, obviously, I've read some of the reviews and they talk about similar things, but...
I wonder if it's just like Final Fantasy VII. I just get the sense that,
yeah, I get the sense that the score has been inflated a little bit for some reason.
And if it didn't have the Final Fantasy VII branding, it would perhaps not have

(59:21):
scored the same for that exact game that people have been playing.
I guess it's also like the investment. You know what I mean?
Because people who liked a remake, they're already wanting to like Rebirth.
You know what I mean? yeah yeah yeah for sure so like it's it's the avengers
thing where everyone frothed divinity war but if you made me watch that movie

(59:44):
i'd be like i don't know who the hell these people are
like i don't know i don't care so seeing the characters that you know and love
and being like what's going to happen to them you're instantly like way more
invested i think yeah you're probably right like in the sense that the people
that reviewed final fantasy 7.
Rebirth would have been the ones that finished final fantasy 7 remake i would

(01:00:05):
be really interested If you didn't like Remake, you're not going to play Rebirth.
It's a direct sequel for one thing. It's not going to make sense to you unless you've played Remake.
So there's a filtering, I guess, in terms of the critical opinion that the people
playing Rebirth, the ones that were fans.

(01:00:25):
Yeah. Yeah, I think you're onto something there.
Whereas with Final Fantasy XVI,
it would have been a bunch of people that aren't necessarily fans of...
Well there's nothing to be a fan of beforehand going into it
necessarily because it's an original game yeah which
is why i guess making original games is so much more risky because like
why would you there is always that effect that there is always that

(01:00:46):
quality in final fantasy games that ultimately you're going to piss somebody
off with them like because every single final fantasy game is different there's
ultimately going there's always going to be at least one or two people who are
final fantasy fans who don't like this new one and it's the it's the final fantasy
effect where the newest game that comes out is amazing for a year.
Then everyone hates it after that for about four years until the next one comes

(01:01:08):
out, and then everyone says how good the last one was.
Yeah, it's what happened to Final Fantasy X, XII, XIII, and XV.
It's starting to happen to XV as well. I don't know if you've noticed that people
talking about XV. Yeah, people are now getting all about XV who despised that
game. Yeah, but all of a sudden... It's like, why?
People are much more positive on it now, you know? Yeah. It's always that thing.
Final Fantasy XIII was a great one. I remember people loathed that game.

(01:01:32):
And that was probably the least popular Final Fantasy game on launch. Yep.
But these days, if you talk about Final Fantasy XIII, everybody's like,
oh, that game was such an amazing, where's the remake or where's the re-release?
Why haven't they done anything with it? You know, it is a funny effect.
Whereas Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is probably insulated from that a little bit
because it's already a Final Fantasy game that people obviously love.

(01:01:56):
And yeah, I think probably a part of it as well is where remake was relatively
limited in terms of the characters.
I mean, I joke on about Jesse a lot, but Jesse was not a character of note in
the original Final Fantasy VII.
And they built her up into a major character in remake.

(01:02:17):
Remake so it was kind of a bit weird that all of
a sudden you know this character that i don't have
any existing relationship with is is taking
up a lot of the screen time while i play this game whereas with final fantasy
rebirth all the characters there are already characters that people kind of
you know love i mean i know as i was playing i was just waiting for the moment

(01:02:37):
vincent fanny showed up because he's kind of my favorite final fantasy 7 character
and so there There was that huge anticipation,
and then obviously the payoff once he does show up is pretty great.
You're a big Dirge of Cerberus fan.
I am. I am. I was a fan of Dirge of Cerberus, actually.
But the same, Yuffie's a very popular character. She was made more popular by

(01:02:58):
the fact she was the DLC character in Remake.
So when she doesn't start in the party in Rebirth, when she joins,
that's kind of, like I was saying when I was talking about the moment earlier,
that's a big moment in the game.
And it's a kind of a the final fantasy 7 rebirth
has all these moments of like extreme joy usually

(01:03:19):
attached to where there's narrative so when when there's
narrative there's just like this is a great moment this is this
game's doing some great things you know aries has amazing
personality you get to see young tifa in a kind of flashback scene and she's
great you know the the relationship between her and cloud as kind of kids was
was really kind of cute and touching in fact the The relationship between Cloud

(01:03:41):
and Sepiro when they were younger was done really nicely as well.
And again, that was kind of within the narrative part of the game.
So whenever the writer was involved with scenes in Final Fantasy VII Rebirth,
it was just the most spectacular thing.
Cool though i'm really excited about it because it's nice

(01:04:03):
to be back in an era where i can be excited about a grpg
again and like there's been so many good like single player
games or games in general that are just respecting like
just making you feel good you know what i
mean yeah it's just it's just
a cool thing it's exciting yeah i
think what things that make us happy i think you'll i'll

(01:04:24):
think you'll like i think most people obviously most people that have played final
fantasy 7 rebirth so far have loved it i think you will
as well and yeah
chocobos play a big role in the game too which is nice i love
that i did see you can like hunt them and stuff yeah
not hunting but like rear them every every
region can you can you go to spoilers for half a second how is the golden saucer

(01:04:48):
is it good yeah it's a good time as far as bits of the game where they take
you right out of of the narrative go because you spend a lot of time doing stuff
that isn't directly related to pushing the story forward.
The stuff that you can do in Golden Source is probably the best part of it.
Like it's, it's, it's a good time.

(01:05:09):
It's a genuine good time. I love that.
As far as that kind of, I don't know. I still think of all those kinds of moments across the two games.
I still think the the party town
in remake was very good
was the good time but I think I don't know the

(01:05:30):
the dance scene in that that section of the game was
just it's very much hugely hugely entertaining and very memorable I don't think
God no I won't say that God sort of got plenty of good moments and it's a very
memorable location in some right so I don't think that that anybody will be
disappointed with what they see in that bit.

(01:05:52):
But actually, to go back to what I was saying before, that's another moment,
because you obviously don't start in the Golden Saucer.
That's something you're working towards as you play. So when it does finally
show up and you do finally get to go there, again, it's one of those moments.
I think probably the best quality about Rebirth is it has all of those moments of anticipation.

(01:06:14):
Yeah. You know, something's coming. You're looking like, oh, oh, oh. you know
yeah yuffy's coming vincent's coming golden
source is coming and then on the other
side things i guess but you you kind of anticipate it because it's
such a cool moment what happens to aries aries that's
a that's a moment that you kind of spend the whole time playing just kind of
waiting for especially because you know who the writer is and you want to see

(01:06:37):
how he handles that yeah what's he going to do with it so there's just yeah
the anticipation that this game has as it is a very powerful motivating factor.
So even when you're kind of bored with the open world nonsense,
you're still going to keep playing because you just want to get the next bit,
the next bit, the next bit. Yeah.

(01:06:57):
Exciting. Again, it's that anticipation, the joy of being like,
I want to see what happens next.
Which is a good sign for a game that is so narratively driven, obviously.
Honestly, I have not played many games that have that quality.
Even Remake didn't have that.
Because the first chapter of Final Fantasy 7 doesn't have those kinds of moments.

(01:07:20):
I mean, you know that at some stage there's going to be, the city's going to
be kind of dropped on the poor people underneath but that's it for that section
and then yeah you're just waiting until they kind of,
escape the city and that's kind of the end of the game so you've got two moments in that to.
Anticipate sonic would have wanted it which which which is not much but this

(01:07:43):
again this chapter has just so many key moments and so many things to look forward
to that you'll keep playing uh and And the other thing is,
I don't know how much I can talk about without breaking embargoes,
because the embargoes on the character were pretty strict.
I'll play it safe. Everybody knows Zack shows up.

(01:08:04):
I was going to say, I'm assuming that's why you're not allowed to talk.
Yeah, everybody knows Zack shows up. The way that Zack shows up is via a kind
of side story that's unrelated to the main timeline of the plot when quite early on.
So you know Zach's in the game like within the introduction then

(01:08:25):
he disappears because he's not kind of related to the main narrative
at that point in time so then you spend most of the rest
of the game wondering what's Zach's actual role in the game and because Zach
is such a great character himself as we all know he is the best Final Fantasy
character because we all played the the remake of Crisis Core because we all
played that we all know who Zach is we all love Zach We spend a lot of time playing Rebirth,

(01:08:50):
waiting to see what Zack's role in Rebirth is as well.
They're just very good with that set up like that, like keeping that anticipation going.
So perhaps now that I've talked through all of that, I think that's probably
why this game has scored so high.
Because it just keeps setting up key moments and then the payoff every single

(01:09:10):
time doesn't disappoint.
It's really impressive, though. Yeah. Like, that's a good thing. Yeah.
Every single thing they set up, they don't disappoint. So, you can forgive the...
And, in fact, perhaps now that I'm talking through it again,
I'm starting to think more about it.
Perhaps that's kind of a positive quality of this open world.
Because you spend so much time in the kind of the emptiness of that space and

(01:09:35):
just kind of doing those little side quests.
Because it stretches the time that
you're playing so long the anticipation for the
key moments in the narrative just builds higher and higher so the payoff feels
bigger and bigger if that makes sense yeah there's
like okay so there's like a delay in release yeah there's
this kind of delayed gratification that happens throughout the entire game

(01:09:55):
okay so now i'm starting to turn around
on the open world i kind of see an argument for it
now there you go see look at
you in real time stuff in real time
we're having you're seeing me kind of change my opinion about parts
of the game but um i guess that's a
good quality of art isn't it if you can continue to think about it
and continue to reassess it when you look at it from different angles then it's

(01:10:19):
a good piece of art and i think ultimately rebirth is a good piece of art that's
really cool well i mean by the time you're listening to this rebirth will be
out so get ready definitely pick it up i'd say if you can And if you can't, that's fine.
But do put aside a minimum of 100 hours. It's a very long game. Yeah.

(01:10:40):
Don't start Shin Megami Tensei V and then co-start Rebirth because, oh boy. Yeah.
It's about twice as long in terms of raw hours as Remake. Like,
Remake was about 40 to 50. Jesus.
I was going to say, because I did everything in that game and I had a great
time, but like, bloody hell. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

(01:11:03):
Thank you.
Music.

(01:16:16):
Helldivers, as a brand, was a weird Vita game and weird PS3 game from 2011.
Now it's the biggest thing I think I've seen on the internet in quite some time.
Like, it's a Baldur's Gate-sized game, to the point where people were complaining
about servers because there was only 450,000 spots.
And it got me thinking about stuff that appears out of nowhere and all of a

(01:16:39):
sudden takes over the world.
Alan, before you do that, can you explain to me, why
is helldivers 2 so popular when helldivers 1 was so.
Niche like what have they done that's different down ah this
one's the who is over the shoulder yeah gotcha cool
so it's more more understandable the game is
also the most 2009 ps3 era

(01:17:00):
video game i think i've ever played in that
it feels like playing like horde mode
or is it just dynasty warriors but with sci-fi and
gums not really no it's it's it's more
like earth defense force but the bugs can all kill you
ah like it's not a swarm game it
is a swarm game but it's like it's not a there aren't really

(01:17:21):
fodder there are some little little guys but most
of these things will kill you in one or two hits gotcha and
it's the whole it's very starship troopers which is
also funny because whenever starship troopers discourse happens
on the internet you get to find out the dumbest people in the world exist
um yeah we record this
podcast on at the same week

(01:17:42):
where starship troopers was like a trending topic for a
week because yeah every everybody i
mean there were a bunch of people that couldn't work out that it was a satire
fascism literally a six a year six
child a 12 year old could do that but yeah it's the least sum of all time but
yeah i'm looking at this i'm looking looking at this um now because i must admit

(01:18:04):
i did not play i have not been following helldivers 2 it came out of nowhere
i'm one of the people that were surprised to hear or to find that something
everybody's talking about but it does look like a lot of fun it looks like a.
More a less a less funny earth defense force but also no it's funny in a different way okay,
because it's it's very very starship troopers in tone

(01:18:25):
so also it's actually starship troopers is in town as
well yeah like you know you're killing the
bugs because they're a threat to your exit like existence on super
earth but what is actually happening is you're killing them because their body
secretes oil and they want the oil oh my god that's awesome i love that yeah
and then the other faction that we've got right now the the robots but they're

(01:18:46):
socialist robots and they're trying to kill you and destroy democracy oh that's
great okay okay you're selling me on this very quickly, Al.
It's very very heavy in the satire. I named my ship, because when you load the
game you get a ship that you pilot.
It's like your mission hub. It's very Normandy from Mass Effect vibes.
And I named my ship the Patriot of Patriotism.

(01:19:09):
So it's that kind of vibe. And all the...
Little like quotes are like oh sweet lady liberty i can't feel
my legs like that kind of thing or like you throw
a grenade into a bug hole and your character shouts out
have a nice cup of liberty like it's
that that kind of vibe it's so over the top it's so ridiculous the the way that

(01:19:31):
it carries itself is it's just what you would expect from a starship troopers
style game so So how did it drop out of nowhere, then?
Like, how did it... It started off with word of mouth.
It's wild to me. The... Because the game wasn't big at all, but then suddenly

(01:19:52):
people were playing it, and they're like, oh, my God, it plays a bit like Left
4 Dead 2, or it plays a little bit like Gears of War Horde mode.
Oh, it plays a little bit like...
Like, all the games that we've been sort of wanting for a while,
because obviously the four-player co-op games, they're there,
but they're not as big as they were once before.
You know what I mean? Like, it's not as common to find, like,
Like a good sit down with your mates, get a pizza and play on Xbox Live until 2 a.m. games.

(01:20:17):
There's not that many of them anymore because usually they're like Suicide Squad,
Kill the Justice League or something like that, where it's just this horrible
mess of live service nonsense games.
This has some live service stuff, but it's in the coolest way possible where
you're trying to take back individual planets with all the other players in the game.
So you're trying to spread democracy to different planets from the bugs,

(01:20:41):
but then you might get a call from command saying, oh, we need everyone to focus
on the automatons because socialism is taking over those planets and we don't want that.
So you have to go over and you fly over and you see all the other ships of every
single other Helldiver who's doing missions in that area, trying to also liberate it.
So it's it's really really cool it's got all the best sort of like world building

(01:21:02):
stuff it's also got gunplay that's really satisfying as well like it's all friendly
fire so if you call down an airstrike and you are not far enough away your team
is going to explode and it's going to be bad.
Or if you're dropping in and you'll drop pod thingy and
you land on someone they're dead they explode a

(01:21:22):
bug will spit acid at you and you will die like it's it's
just very like you're done and there's a
lot of satisfaction in that this game was published by
playstation again why why did it drop
out of nowhere i mean i know why was there
no marketing for it it doesn't make any sense it's it
it completely blew up entirely just because people were saying you have

(01:21:44):
to get this game it is sick like it's actually really good and it also helps
as well that it launched at i think 30 pounds like 35 pounds maybe so 40 american
dollars which is i mean you think about it the two biggest games in the last
couple of months pal world which i hate and hell divers 2.
You could buy both of those games for the price of buying the suicide squad,

(01:22:07):
you know and like people don't want to spend 70 on a game that sucks ass that
you know makes you waste all your time on it it's actually like about playing
the bloody game which i think is really really fun so which is i don't know it's exciting to see.
Sister it's interesting because you know

(01:22:27):
it's obviously a fairly the production values are a fairly high
quality and as you
say the the scope of it and the complexity that went into it it's obviously
not cheap in the game but we used to we've always had instances of games that
have kind of dropped and and come out of nowhere and really impressed people

(01:22:50):
but historically But historically,
those games have been kind of modest in design and kind of indie games that have taken off.
So, you know, good examples of that, Among Us, for example, which kind of- Undertale.
Or Undertale or Stardew Valley, you know. I mean, Stardew Valley these days
is this massive thing, but it grew over a very long- There's a symphony in London.

(01:23:12):
It grew over a very long period of time. It was just a very modest thing when it was first released.
Least people played it and they kind of you know they liked it and
word of mouth and reviews and whatever else started
to spread it and it's become a very big thing but it was
it was one of those games these days
we're getting these things like hell divers which they just which people just

(01:23:33):
don't pay attention to until it releases despite it being of a scope that it
would have been a big game previously you know yeah and i'm just surprised it's
like a mid-budget ps2 game you You know what I mean? It's like a res.
Yeah. I'm just- You know what I mean? It's really cool. I'm surprised by this.
It's- I mean, me too. It just plays really well. It's difficult, so it's challenging.

(01:23:58):
Keeps you interested. There's a bunch of different difficulty levels as well, so everyone can play it.
And it's fun regardless, because even if you suck and you die,
you usually die in a really funny way that's, like, over the top and ridiculous.
I guess it raises- So, like, who cares? I guess it raises the question about
whether it's just a case of there being too many games and it becomes very hard
to follow the industry as a whole.

(01:24:20):
I had a similar thing. I don't think the game has anywhere near the same profile
as Helldivers, and it didn't release with the same hype behind it.
But it came from a developer and publisher that I really like and respect and
admire, and it's a very, very good game in its own right. Right.

(01:24:40):
So, Banishes came out just a couple of weeks ago.
That's the Don't Nod game. Yeah, it's a Don't Nod game.
Rpg with a really cool vibe it's takes place in kind of puritan era america
around boston area you know that kind of part of america yeah yeah and it's

(01:25:04):
you know all about ghosts and,
it's got all of date nods abilities around storytelling in terms of you know
asking you hard questions that make you put down the controller make a coffee
and really think about which decision you're going to make and all of that kind
of stuff is it more fleshed out in in Vampyr.
Oh yeah, it is much better done in every way than Vampyr.
It's actually a very it plays much better as well. It's actually a really nice playing RPG.

(01:25:27):
There's very little wrong with it. I actually gave it a higher score than Final
Fantasy. I gave it a full 5 out of 5 because it is creatively different as well.
It's a unique game in a lot of ways. It's one of those rare ones that's just...
The point is that it kind of came out of nowhere as well,
despite me knowing following don't nod and playing

(01:25:48):
pretty much all the games that i can and despite me
being a fan of the rpg genre and all of that i
didn't know about this until the review code landed with me so there seems to
be something even for those of us you know that are quite deeply immersed in
the video game industry it's becoming hard to track these things and a lot with

(01:26:09):
discovering you know a lot of games that we love literally in real time.
Yeah. As they get released.
I just wonder if there's something, I mean, I think that's an issue for the industry, right?
Because it means that people are not going to play these games.
If the people like us who are quite deeply immersed in video games are missing releases like this,

(01:26:33):
or just kind of catching them right at the last minute, just as the game kind
of comes out, then how many people who are not that deeply engaged with the
industry are even going to be aware of this one's existence?
Like Banishers only has 943 reviews. views so it's obviously that's wild to
me and it's a don't nod game as well like they were massive it's a don't nod
game and the reviews have been pretty pretty universally positive,

(01:26:57):
and yeah it's just a lot of people missed it because there seems to be some
issue with communicating games coming out so i wonder what that is you know
i wonder if there's something about how the games industry is currently communicating
and its marketing strategies allergies and stuff, if there's an issue there.
I think the big question for me is how is a game like Greedfall going to do?

(01:27:21):
Cause that's coming out, Greedfall 2.
Yeah. I want to know if that's going to get the same sort of niche response.
Cause it's, I love these double-A budget games.
Well, then they're probably not double-A budget anymore by like a general consensus,
but like, you know what I mean?
It's not like a, it's not a case of having to spend $70 on a video game. It's like a 40 or a 50.

(01:27:44):
That sort of thing i just find it bizarre that you know
the biggest games the ones that are making clearly the most money are
ones that are not the ones with aggressive microtransaction strategies
they're not the ones with the aggressive they're like anti-consumer practices
it's the ones that have very very good stuff in them already that are like interesting
as heck and just respect you as a player i wonder if i wonder if it's the i

(01:28:08):
wonder if it's the move away from events Vince.
Kind of showcase games i wonder if the
lack of an e3 is costing the industry in terms
of the ability to kind of promote these games in particular these kinds
of games that we're talking about because when you think about it
they do the nintendo directs or the sony state
of plays or the microsoft whatever the fuck they call them and in

(01:28:32):
those people get really hyped about the one or two kind of
headline marquee games that they're going to show off yeah but
everything else just kind of disappears very quickly it doesn't
get doesn't get covered it doesn't get
really talked about there's a couple of tweets about
it while they're showing it on the screen during the
presentation but after that it dies off whereas with

(01:28:54):
the likes of e3 or whatever yes again the
marquee the headline games got a lot of the attention but journalists
would still go and check out a game at a booth they'd talk
to the journalist sorry they'd talk to the the pr
person or the producer or whoever was there and they
would still write article about that game as part
of their coverage so that way it was

(01:29:17):
more available and articles get
shared and stuff so i just wonder if
they've actually narrowed these through these events which are kind of the the
number one way that they share information about games now i wonder if through
these digital events they're actually narrowing the range of games that we become
aware of well i mean that That sort of made me think as well.

(01:29:41):
Why do we not have the return of the demo?
I'm thinking about it yeah they've kind of big games demos now what
demos coming out after the game's been released for like six months yeah
well tekken second eight rather had a demo which let you play
as four different characters and like that's pretty good
because it sold me on buying the game on release and i
mean street did street fighter not have like four different betas or something like

(01:30:02):
that and that's basically a demo yeah i
mean those ones but i was thinking more like
for example i can guarantee this will happen the
skulls and bones the ubisoft oh god hardship game okay so that came out right
and there's no demo for that i don't think because this is ubisoft there will

(01:30:22):
be a demo there will be a demo but in a couple of months that's what a lot of
publishers do these days they do a demo after release and i think it's to try and,
catch people after they've already sold the game
to the initial wave because that initial wave is critical to game
developers and publishers now like the first three or four you need to get immediate
return yeah the first three or four days of sales are critical to the video

(01:30:46):
game being a success or not if and they won't do anything that will risk those
sales so technically yes a demo.
A demo will help you find some players but there's
also the chance that you'll get people cancelling pre-orders if
they play a demo and they're not and they don't like it yeah you're
right so unless you've got confidence that you're looking at a 100 year

(01:31:09):
review score over over 95 review
score kind of game there is actually a disincentive
to do a demo there are some examples of
genres where demos obviously help when fighting games are a good
example of that if you've got a good fighting game then you know
if you've got a good fighting game yeah if you can show it to people you get
people to play it then you know that they're going to buy the whole thing because

(01:31:30):
they're probably their favorite character is probably not one of the roster
of the demo so there is incentive there to pay up for the full thing but in
terms of these kind of games like.
And whatever. It's hard to show an RPG off in a demo, though, to be fair.
There is that as well, you know. You can't really show a JLPG off with an hour and a half demo.

(01:31:54):
You can't really show it off with like a 10 hour demo.
In saying that, Square Enix did do a demo for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, which was good of them.
They did one for 16 as well, which was also really good, because it showed you
the important parts that had changed.
Yes, so there are some, but you've got to be really confident about the game. I think it's the point.
You have to be be super super confident about the game to make a demo otherwise
you're much better off holding the demo as a

(01:32:17):
kind of post-release marketing yeah
because after that after you know you've already
got your pre-order sales and people have already bought the game and people have
been whinging about it and whatever uh after that the demo then can kind of
pick up the residual players that maybe were sitting on the fence and hadn't
really thought or might discover it through the the demo so yeah that seems

(01:32:38):
to be the strategy that publishers of lesser quality games run with,
ubisoft yeah sorry and uh 2k does it too actually and they do it with their
their basketball games the demo comes out after release to be fair that's kind
of just like if you're into basketball you're playing 2k.

(01:33:01):
Like it's not really what are the options think about
it if they if you if they put out the basketball game and
you didn't like what they've done this year and you discover
that through the demo then that's you know that's
a core sale they've lost yeah it's just interesting i'm i don't know i want
to see more mid-tick it's the meme it's always the meme of the i want shorter

(01:33:24):
games made by people who work less and i want it to look worse yeah i mean there
were we're at the the point now where the mid-tier games,
the difference between them and those kind of blockbusters is fairly limited.
Like Banishes, for example, doesn't look that much worse than God of War.

(01:33:44):
I mean, now we're getting to the point where game graphics, it's not about graphics
anymore for me. It's about what's the style. Like, does it look cool?
Yeah. Because photorealism, I've had this issue for years and years at this point.
But it's like, why would I want something to look like the real world?
I exist in the real world. I can go outside.
Do you know what I mean? Yeah. I want something that's really interesting to

(01:34:08):
look at. You're totally right.
It does need to be. And that's part of the reason that I like banishes was that
the setting was just, it was different,
you know, it's New England in America is, it's a unique aesthetic,
especially when you kind of layer it over with witchcraft style horror themes and stuff.
So I'll have to get that for my fiance. That sounds like her vibe so much.

(01:34:30):
She'll like it. I mean, you'll have your tears because it's,
it is a story about, you know, the two characters and one of them dies and comes
back as a ghost. And you've got three options then about how you kind of deal with that situation.
You can bring her back to life, but doing that means that you have to sacrifice a lot of living people.

(01:34:50):
So that's a hard decision to make.
And the way it positions it is, you know, you'll go through the stories of each
of these characters and then you'll have to decide whether they live or die
so that your, you know, your partner can be brought back to life or not.
So this sounds sick. It's a very good emotional, but also thought-provoking
game. I highly recommend it.

(01:35:12):
Don't nod. If we're going to get more of these games, then there really needs
to be something done to make people more aware of them.
Because it's getting harder and harder, I think. The saturation of video games is getting more.
There are more and more games getting released. The saturation is getting greater,

(01:35:33):
which means these mid-tier games, which have always struggled,
in fairness, to kind of get presence.
Historically, you'd go into a video game store, and the mid-tier games would
struggle to get a space on the shelf.
And that made it hard for them to sell. But if they were a good enough quality
game, the lack of saturation in video games meant that you'd be able to find

(01:35:55):
information about it fairly easily.
These days, they're not really struggling for shelf space because people are
buying digitally more than ever, but they're really struggling to get people to notice them.
And that's an even bigger problem
because people will actually seek out a game that looks good to them.
People cannot seek out a game that they're not aware of.

(01:36:18):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's a big problem. And I worry about that.
Studios like don't nod i mean you can't you can't
run a studio like don't nod and only have 900 reviews of a
major release yeah it's very it
makes me think about how important word of
mouth actually is at this point because it's probably the single most important

(01:36:40):
thing a dev can have in a social media era and it has to be quick i think part
of the reason helldivers was so successful if helldivers kind of had that slow
burn growth in interest like a stardew valley or or among us,
then it may not have actually ever got to the point that it is now.

(01:37:01):
Because that's, yeah, the success of Helldivers has been the fact that everybody
suddenly picked it up and started playing about it and talking about it at once.
Yeah, it's also a big sense of community in the game as well,
because if you couldn't get into the game, you got the, sorry,
you have to wait, servers are full.
So people go to Twitter and then talk about how the servers were full.
And if the servers for a game are full, that's a good sign for someone who's

(01:37:21):
looking at the game being like, is this worth my money?
Yeah yeah like it's a perfect storm of everything just going really well for
them and you know kudos to them they're a pretty small dev i don't think they've
made much i think they've literally
just made helldivers one of this yeah it's definitely good to see,
but the question is i guess whether they got lucky or not yeah probably it's

(01:37:44):
cool though i'm just excited that there's fun multiplayer stuff that exists.
Music.
In the world and i do hope that that do not succeed as well.

(01:38:20):
Thank you
for watching! Thank you.

(01:38:57):
Music.

(01:41:12):
Thank you for watching!
Music.

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