May 2024 Podcast: Weird, quirky games, Suikoden and literature, and the games of May

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.

(00:07):
Welcome to the digitally uploaded podcast the
companion podcast to digitally downloaded.net my
name is alan and i'm enunciating very clearly today for some reason and with
me this week as always is the editor-in-chief and confirmed women hater for

(00:28):
liking what's the game called what's What's the boobie game called that came
out that everyone's fucking pissing over?
Stella Blade. Stella Blade. Yeah, he hates women because he thought Stella Blade
was interesting. That's like the vibe, right? That's appropriate?
Did I think it was interesting? That's a question.
Was it interesting? I don't know. I don't know if that's the word I'd use. It's something.

(00:52):
I love how in the opening to a podcast, I accuse you of hating.
I don't know. I think Stella Blade is like- Matt doesn't hate women.
He just thinks that it's a thing.
Stellabate's like the non-interesting version of Bayonetta. No,
you're so right. Jesus Christ, you're right.
It's a good game, but it's not an interesting game. Think about that. It's a good game.

(01:15):
It's fun. It's fun. If there was a redhead, and she was cray-cray,
and she was actually in the game, like, had a main character,
that probably would make more concept if I said that first.
And then she was a redhead, and then she was a bogan, yes.
Trent's also here so what you want is an Australian version of Stellar Blade
how many trips to Bendigo are involved in the Bogan version of Stellar Blade

(01:43):
is my question it's the local pilgrimage,
you gotta get a dimmy from the local corner shop in Bendigo before you can ascend.
And also with us of course is It's Harvard. Hello, Harvard.
Hello, good morning. I've never been to Bendigo. Is North going?
Have you been to Bendigo?

(02:05):
Bendigo is the one with the churches in it, like the Buddhist temple, isn't it?
Probably. Yeah? I think I've driven through Bendigo. I think I've been there.
It's a place. It exists. It has a bank.
Speaking of Australia, though, you should all play Broken Roads. That's the game.
This is where I was going to actually lead into, because I have been following

(02:26):
your coverage on that game, and oh boy, I am very interested in it.
Do you want a little stinger for it, Matt?
Yeah, it's pretty sweet. It is, it's basically like, you know,
Fallout 1 and 2 before it went 3D, first person and all that kind of stuff,
you know, when it was top-down, post-apocalyptic, all that kind of stuff.
Right, so Broken Roads is basically that, but set in Australia, Western Australia.

(02:52):
Now, the main city as such is Kalgoorlie, which is not actually a city for anybody
who knows what Kalgoorlie is.
And yeah it's it's post-apocalypse so
everybody's kind of well not everybody most people are dead and the
survivors are kind of scratching by and and it's got that mad max vibe to it
as well and yeah it's just really interesting it's got a full it's got a full

(03:17):
morality system where every decision you make kind of adjusts how the world
sees you and how people respond to you and how you can respond to them.
And yeah, it's just a very well-written game as well. So I was actually very
surprised. It came out of nowhere.
I did not know it existed until I started to play it. I heard nothing about it. Yeah.

(03:37):
And yeah, then it landed. And it's not often that we get a game that's like
Australian, by Australians, about Australia.
You know, most Australian game developers make games which are kind of,
generic in setting and or just kind
of follow the the trend which is basically you know
european settings or american settings or whatever and yeah

(03:59):
it's just nice for us to have a a game that is authentically australian out
there that people i don't know matt was gonna like it when the whole internet's
like don't play this game for white reasons and then matt's like game of the
year gold star i think really the fact that it's it's just a case of like it
represents something for
Australians that isn't seen outside of Bluey.

(04:21):
Like, you know what I mean? Like, it's uniquely Australian. I do like that Bluey
has, like, finally pushed our Crocodile Dundee, like, that kind of, like...
Oh, no, it's so true.
Like, being in the UK, it's the biggest cultural export because it's just a
nice show for kids, and that's great. And it's also uniquely Australian.

(04:43):
I think, hopefully, I mean, at some point, i do hope that there are more australian
voices in games telling australian stories,
because i mean it's a fucking gold mine in my
opinion at least well it's just an absolute crime that we
haven't had a dark souls like game where they're like the the end boss
is a bunyip because drop bad

(05:05):
drop no bunyip would be the like the most terrifying thing that anybody's ever
seen the end boss is the pillager ghost you're a truckie you get stopped and
then you get tickled by the pillager ghost and that's that's the game there
was a time where there was a lot of,
australian game developers all making road trip games and

(05:26):
they were doing stuff like that it sounded awesome just that you'd go to a
new town and have a new kind of folk tale
or a superstition or something that you had to
work your way through and i feel like broken roads was
kind of showcased around that time as well like around 2020 or 2019 or so so
i don't want this to come across mean because it's going to come across mean

(05:48):
but i would really love if australian developers make make stories about you
know australia but also make it fun for people who don't want to read.
You know like it it feels really mean to say that because obviously like people
putting effort into the writing of their games but at the same time there are

(06:08):
times where i'm like i don't care,
and just give me the vibes give me the vibes make it feel like make it feel
my home well i mean there's also it's also it's also weird that an australian
game developer would make a game where you've got to read given that australians
don't read stuff but they read the ai chatbot,
they read the ai chatbot from queensland

(06:31):
they read that that's that's
really good for context it's it's anzac day two days ago from memory and like
a week ago from like the time yeah yeah like it's nine days ago and queensland
decided to release an ai chatbot from all the like texts from World War I, I believe.

(06:52):
May have been more than that, but people immediately broke it and got it to
give recipes for pancakes and shit.
So that was good. That was really normal, but also the most Australian way to
end that story of people just messing around and screwing with it.
You've got to respect the hustle.
Anyway, this is The Gaming Podcast. We are going to jump right into the games in just a moment.

(07:13):
But of course, before we do that, Matt, what have you been playing this month
that's been exciting you?
Yeah, pretty much that. Broken Roads was the one that really surprised me this
month. I really liked that. That was very good.
Oh, and the other thing I've been playing a lot is Oink Games,
which my brother's picked up copies of as well. It's been around for a couple of years now.

(07:33):
And, yeah, it's basically like Oink Games is this Japanese board game manufacturer,
and they make really tiny little boxes.
The games are like really portable, very small kind of concept games,
And they're designed just so you can take it around, you know,
wherever you're traveling and play in the pub or whatever.
And they're all very simple. They're all very simple, you know, short play.

(07:56):
They only take 15, 20 minutes to play through a game. And yeah,
so there's like 50 of them, I think.
Oink Games has been around for a while and they've just churned these things out.
So they've created an app which collects some of those games.
I think it's 12 at the moment and counting, hopefully.
And yeah, my brother's picked up copies of it. I've had it for a couple of years.

(08:17):
I did a review on it ages ago on DDNet. And yeah, we've just got really stuck into it.
So basically every weekend we've been playing that for a couple of hours.
And yeah, it's fun. They're good. Oink games. Very excellent.
Because I'm on Switch, but they only had, I think, four or five games.
Yeah, they've added heaps by DLC now.
And the other good thing is they're pretty generous with it so if one person

(08:40):
has the dlc they can share it with everybody so my brothers have the base download
only but i've bought the dlc so we can all play all the dlc games as well which is pretty nice.
That's fantastic. What a cool idea. Yeah, they're really nice,
and they're presented really nicely.
You don't have to be a board game fan to kind of enjoy them because they're that simple.

(09:03):
And, yeah, they're just good quality, fun, entertaining, well-made little games.
Yeah, they're really well-designed games. They're very competitive focus.
Yeah, they are. And the range of them is really good.
So one of the games is just spot the difference, but every person actually draws
in a couple of little differences into the picture.

(09:25):
And then you try and spot the other person's differences, which is pretty fun.
Right through to kind of basic card games. And then there's a basic board game
where everybody's diving for loot, kind of submarine diving, you know.
But everybody shares the same air tank. So the idea of the game is you've got

(09:47):
to grab the loot and get back to the submarine before all the air runs out and
everybody's kind of madly scrambling to try and get the loot before they run
out of the opportunity themselves.
So, yeah, they're all just very simple but competitive, like you say,
and endlessly replayable. I mean, that's really cool.

(10:08):
Trent, what are you doing playing this book? Well, I finally finished Final
Fantasy, so I've moved on to Like a Dragon, Infinite Wealth,
and I am currently just cruising around on the island and building that up rather
than playing the main game.
That's fair enough. It sounds like the vibe of that game in all honesty.
The people that I've seen playing it have been really enjoying just the...

(10:32):
It's such an awful term to use,
but the vibe of it. The way that the world feels just seems really cool.
It feels like every other game in the series.
Which is good. Which is great.
That's fair enough. Trent, before we move on,
would you recommend Infinite Wealth to someone

(10:53):
who has not played a yakuza game because i think that's a really important
thing to ask when it comes to a game that's like eight games in the
series down yeah okay so the general
consensus seems to be that it's one of the more better ones so if you're like
play zero play what was the other really good one seven and then play infinite

(11:17):
wealth like that would be like the top three kind
of thing so so it's a go saga you should play from the start of the saga in
your opinion yeah you probably miss don't miss out too much like i'm currently
skipping a bit of the text because i'm playing it like late at night and like
i'm bored but oh he's like me for real for real.

(11:40):
But yeah no it's it otherwise like it doesn't seem to be referencing too heavily
on the the old one, like the previous game, like you've got the fact that he
was like working for the job agency and stuff like that. And that sort of thing.
I feel like when I go back to Japan, that's when it will make time probably

(12:00):
more rather than at the moment I'm in Hawaii and it's just seems to be more
segregated from the previous game. Yeah.
Okay oh that's cool i mean the soul series is phenomenal i mean the one that
i would say to always start with is probably zero because zero is so good and
i don't think that's a hot take.
But the new ones also like it just looks fun and silly and very yakuza so give

(12:25):
it a go if you haven't done it yet but also if you're listening to this podcast
and you haven't played yakuza,
what are you doing you know what i mean anyway arvid what have you been playing
this month I've been playing YS8 like YS is that Lacrimosa of Dana?
Lacrimosa of Dana join me for

(12:45):
remembering that yeah yeah I respect that
the gameplay is really well designed as an action RPG that it can be legitimately
because I feel like a lot of action RPGs is just grind and press A and you'll
be fine whereas this one it's really fast but it's also quite reflex based,

(13:05):
quite poly based like there's lots of different ways to make the game more interesting
for yourself so I'm enjoying it.
That's really cool I mean I've never played an Ys game so I should probably
get onto that at some point I did actually, this will impress Matt,
I bought Hyper Dimension Neptunia Rebirth 1.
What on earth would you do that for?

(13:29):
Like of all the games
that are like a not alan game that one's a not
alanist no alan game i bought it i bought
it for a stream because i thought you know what if it's good it's good if it's
bad i will hate it and never play it again it was also very cheap so i was like
you know what i'm gonna get a shot i'm gonna go in i'm gonna try to enjoy it

(13:52):
i'm gonna try my best i don't think it's gonna help but i'm gonna try my,
I mean, it's good, but it's also good in a way that I'm not sure you're going
to particularly appreciate. I'm not going to lie.
I saw, because I bought the Ultimate Pack, which had all the DLC,
and I saw there was the Babysitter DLC, and I was like, okay, whatever.

(14:14):
You never know what that actually means, though, sometimes. No,
but, like, I looked at it, and it was what I thought it would be. Oh.
But, uh, it was... Also, to clarify, Ys and Neptunia are, like,
nothing alike. They're, like, at the front end of the spectrum.
It was more just, like, things that I thought Matt would be impressed with me for.
If I played a Ys game, I thought Matt would be impressed. If I played a Neptunia

(14:37):
game, Matt would be impressed.
Well, this time, Matt didn't like Ys because it was too fun.
It was too, like, gameplay-based and not story-based.
It's true. Matt does hate fun.
He's in the call and I'm not letting him speak. But he does hate fun.

(14:57):
In all seriousness, I am currently chugging along through a couple of things.
I've just picked up Pillars of Eternity, which is the Obsidian top-down CRPG,
which is pretty cool so far.
It's interesting. I don't know if I will finish it yet because I've not got
far enough into it, but it seems pretty neat And I'm also excited about the

(15:19):
idea that I'm into these sorts of games again because,
Since starting my first D&D campaign in years all of a sudden.
I'm really enjoying the idea of like role-playing a character and doing the
dramatic stuff behind it because I think that's what I like the most and And
Baldur's Gate 3 has a lot of options, don't get me wrong,

(15:44):
but it seems like this has a lot more in terms of being Hugh Grant's character
in the Dungeons & Dragons movie. I really enjoy that.
So, I don't know. I'll see how I feel about it later down the track,
but obviously I'm like an hour in. It seems neat.

(16:05):
It seems cool. I'm here for it. Nice. So, yeah.
Yeah, it's pretty good. You'll like it. I probably will.
Music.

(19:15):
Is may and if i
do say so myself it's probably
gonna be a month that's gonna be big because i
say this every month at this point realistically if
you are still up to date with all the games that
have come out i am impressed with you i'm very

(19:36):
pleased for you and here is
a list of games that are for you to play to enjoy
matt let's get going let's do
it sure thing let's do it so the
first up for may we've got pac-man mega tunnel battle chomp champ oh hell yeah

(19:59):
that'll be fun that's the that's the like 99 player one isn't it is it i think
i think so that's like the.
Battle royale pac-man yeah exactly and it's
got it's got lots of interconnected pac-man mazes
so you know people will be battling on one
maze and then there'll be a next maze that they can move over to

(20:19):
and take the battle or run into other players and yeah it's
a epic scale multiplayer pac-man thing
so i'm there for that it's weirdly
enticing like i don't
know why but i'm drawn to this concept well actually
i played one that was a little bit like that the the most recent

(20:40):
bomber man r2 yes it had
a very similar mode so you play a 64 player
or something and then eight players would be dropped onto each stage and then
you'd be able to move from stage to stage and run into other players and it
just got very chaotic very fast so if they do that with pac-man then cool just
cool that's all we need to know about that it's going to be cool.

(21:06):
On may 2 we've got
toho mysterious izakaya which is
a name but the concept is
going to be fun so i mysterious lorelei have a dream to become a barbecue star
working tirelessly day and night the barbecue shop finally started to gain attraction

(21:28):
among the residents of ginsokyo until stuff happened.
And it's going to be a dating game where we date, like, barbecue equipment or something.
Oh, God. It's going to be... It's from the Expanded Toho series,

(21:49):
which has been around for ages and is well-regarded and all that kind of stuff.
This one is, I believe, a restaurant management-style game.
Izakaya has been i mean they translate as barbecue here in this thing but it's
not really a barbecue thing it's more like a casual dining and heavily drinking
restaurant concept that is big in japan it's good fun so yeah that plus toho

(22:15):
should be good if you like that stuff if you like utah,
we've got our nintendo's first game for the month coming out on may 2
as well endless ocean luminous which should
be fun looking forward to that was that ever
a capcom thing or am i losing my mind no it
was well there's only one before which was on
the wii which was endless ocean which was nintendo i think

(22:38):
i'm pretty sure and yeah this one allows you to
go exploring through the ocean with up to 30
players i believe so it's not
a combat game it's just enjoy the ocean enjoy the
ambience enjoy the experience kind of thing so yeah
that'll be nice and relaxing i reckon on may
2 we've got trigger heart excel vika excel

(23:01):
vika yes trigger heart excel vika which is a vertically scrolling japanese arcade
shooter as in a shmup and that means it's going to just ruin you but i'm going
to say that's they're popular i hear those words and it stresses me out yeah Yeah, just shmup.
The anxiety rises.

(23:22):
So yeah, that'll be good for people that like that stuff. There's an audience
for those games that just never goes away.
Scrolling through a whole lot of shovelware. Hentai Tales Volume 3 comes out on May 2.
I'm sure that'll be Alan's game now that he's a Neptunia fan. Yeah, it's true.
He's been converted. He played it. He's been converted. Yeah.

(23:43):
I can't wait to play it. I'm going to hate it, but I'm going to play it a lot.
Scrolling through more shovelware There's a lot of shovelware coming out at
the start of the month of course.
On May 8th, there's Night of the Rabbit. It's a pretty cool name.
I don't know anything about it, but there's not enough games that have rabbits
in them. I was going to say, it's got bunnies. Yeah, that should be good.

(24:07):
It's a real theme of getting our attention on these lists, isn't it? Yeah.
That's the thing. If you get on the podcast here, your game sells a whole extra one copy.
So all the game developers out there are definitely doing their best to catch our attention.
And why do I why is this one standing out to me on May 9 there's a game called

(24:27):
Crow Country coming out I don't know why that's catching my attention I might
have seen previews or something for it let's have a look I've heard the name
but I wouldn't be able to tell you much more Crow Country,
it's coming out on PlayStation 5.
It's a cacophony it's a survival horror adventure game with interesting aesthetic

(24:49):
it looks like it's from the PlayStation 2 era.
It's one of those games that's deliberately designed to look like an old school
kind of survival horror game thing.
And yeah, I have seen this one. It looks interesting. It does look interesting.
So that comes out on May 9th. We've got Imagine Earth coming out on May 9th as well.

(25:12):
This sci-fi strategy sim allows you to build up global civilizations on distant
worlds, harvest resources and produce Reduce goods to establish space trade routes.
Imagine Earth. That sounds good, actually. Let's have a look.
Let's have a look. Does it? Oh, yeah. It looks fun. It looks like Anno or whatever, but set in space.

(25:34):
That could be good fun. I haven't played a city builder for a while, actually. Moving on.
Goddamn, there's a lot of shovelware coming out.
Neptunia Game Maker Re-Evolution. Revolution... No, Revolution.
Wait, Neptunia Game Maker? It's not what you think it is. Okay.

(25:57):
It's the newest Neptunia game, so it's not a game maker. It's just Neptunia,
and they've called it that for reasons.
Are they changing the theme where they're meant to be different game consoles?
Yeah, yeah. They still do that. So, yes, that comes out on May 14.
That's going to be good fun. I'm looking forward to that. It's been a while
since the last Neptunia game that wasn't...

(26:19):
A weird spin-off thing. This one is actually a proper Neptunia sequel,
I think. Or whatever it's called.
It's hard to keep up with that series. I was going to say, because I looked
at it on Steam because it was on sale for Golden Week.
And I was like, what the hell? Which one do I buy first? Yeah,
it is a little bit like that.
Yeah, it definitely is like that. Anyway, as somebody who's played them all,

(26:42):
I'm sure I'll play this one, and I'm sure I'll enjoy it for the same reasons
I enjoy all the other ones.
As long as it's... I mean, I prefer the Neptunia games when they do the turn-based
combat. I'm not such a great fan of when they try and do action combat systems.
Yeah, also, Alan, you'll find this out, is that the turn-based combat in Neptunia
requires an advanced math degree to fully understand.

(27:02):
Oh, fucking God, no.
No, but he's got the DLC. see so just equip the most overpowered
weapon to one of your characters and you just kind of you just cruise
through without ever losing a battle so i just love that
design philosophy of like if you're if you're buying this
game you're probably an otaku who has a lot of time to work out
mathematical formulas to to get what you want as well it's just it's just a

(27:26):
lot so much now you You just equip the character with the Inafune face sword
and just slice through the end boss with one attack.
It's much easier, too. It's a much easier way to play.
Just ignore every system. Yeah. To be fair, that's how I play every single game.

(27:49):
I will play the game how I need to play it.
Part of least resistance. Yeah, exactly.
Moving on. On May 16, we've got Arcadia Colony coming out, a 2.5D anime-style Metroidvania.
I guess we haven't had enough of those, but this one has an interesting box

(28:10):
art. Let's do a Google search.
Arcadia Colony. Arcadia. Arcadia.
Arcadia Colony. Game. There's too many games for me. I just don't know.
Don't pop anything. Oh, well.
Who knows? Could be good, could be bad. It's got a name. That's all I know.

(28:30):
Read Only Memories Neurodiver comes out on May 16, which is a kind of point-and-clicky
adventure game set in a very cyberpunk world, but an actual cyberpunk world, not an aesthetic,
which a lot of the cyberpunk games are.
This one's the sequel to 2064 Read Only Memories, and yeah, if you played that,

(28:53):
you probably know what you're in for with this one, and I think it's going to be pretty good.
Lindsay from the DDNet team has played it and she's enjoyed it.
So I am interested myself.
We've got Lorelei and the Laser of Ice. That's a great name.
Lorelei is not a name you encounter much. No, and the laser eyes.

(29:15):
I was not going to focus on that, personally. The laser eyes.
It has, like, an AI generator for, like, game names, makes up for games,
and just, like, we just assume that he's telling the truth when he's reading
this list out, and we're like, oh, yes, that's a video game name at this point.
Okay, so this actually looks pretty decent. The art style's all very black and
white and then red, so it's got that malarish look. Kind of art style.

(29:38):
Yeah, and the eyes really are red, laser eyes, which is awesome.
Actually, I'm suddenly interested in this game now that I'm looking at it.
It's giving Killer is Dead.
I should play that. It does have a vibe. It definitely has that kind of vibe, but darker.
I mean, Killer is Dead was pretty dark, but this one's like darker, darker.

(30:00):
Yeah, okay. I'm keen on this. I'm suddenly very interested. So,
Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, which has the most stupid name ever,
is actually a good-looking game, and it's coming out on May 16 for stuff.
What's it coming out on? Probably PlayStation.
Switch. There you go. There you go. It's a Switch game. Moving on.
We've got Horse Club Adventures 1 Plus 2 Lakeside Collection.

(30:24):
That comes out on May 17. Glad we spent time on that. Yeah.
Alan likes his horse riding. He's definitely into that one. I know that.
Okay. Okay, I have one memory of riding a horse as a child.
And I was a cocky little shit, as you can probably imagine.
And I watched a lot of Saddle Club because it was always on.
And we went to go ride a horse as like a primary school trip thing.

(30:48):
And I got on the horse and I was like, fine. And the lady was like, okay, cool.
And then at the end of the session, I got off the horse. And she was like,
you shouldn't have gotten off without me telling you to get off.
And I was like, I got off the fucking horse.
What's your problem this is like little eight-year-old me beefing with a with
a proper adult and thinking that he was in the right i was not i guarantee you

(31:12):
i was probably being a little shit however horses hate them now because of that
story yep do you like what's a you problem not a.
Sorry, that was really me. That's all right.
Alan knows what he's deserved. Yeah, it's fair. I can't argue with you there. I know.

(31:37):
Moving on. I don't know what that is. I guess that's a game where you ride horses.
It's a game. For some reason, it's that popular they put two of them together into one collection.
I don't know. I don't know. On May 17th, we've got a soulslight coming out.
Morbid, the Lands of Aya. The Lords of Aya.
Morbid looks like a b tier souls like so there you go i get the feeling people are sick of those now,

(32:07):
i feel like of all the genres to do a b tier in
a soul like is not i know why why when
it requires so much precision and you're up against like
elder fucking ring yeah why
would you just do one why why not just
do anything else do a roguelike metroidvania again
like it's just of all

(32:30):
the ones where you're just going to be pulled apart for not being as good
as the good ones the souls likes are it there's so many metroidvanias these
days like yeah but you don't get good for anything stop doing it anymore no
but if you do a metroidvania you don't get compared to anything except for maybe
symphony of the night but nobody expects you to be better than it because it's like

(32:51):
70 years old now but the minute you
do a souls like it's going to get compared to elden ring
and it's not going to be as good because of course it's not and you're
just going to get slaughtered for it why would you do that
to yourself why would you just kill your game like that unless you're like liza
p and somehow get your weird community of fans for some reason that i will never

(33:11):
understand but that's a great game no you're wrong there exactly you get some
weird Weird fans that defend it for reasons I just do not understand.
But other than that, you've got no chance. There's just zero chance your game's
going to be popular or well-received or well-regarded or anything.
Anyway, that's my little rant about More But Done. I've reviewed it already.

(33:33):
I've given it a zero out of five. I haven't even played it.
On May 17 as well, we've got My Little Pony, a Zephyr Heights mystery,
which is definitely going to be Alan's game.
He's a big Pony fan. He's got a tattoo of Pony on his arm. I've seen it.
He'll never show you, but he does. No, it's so true. It's the purple one.
I don't even know what the purple one's name is.
I don't even know what the purple one's name is. I know it was kids.

(33:54):
I have no idea at this point.
My Little Pony is not for kids. You should know that by now.
It's for weird men that never grew up. That's the entire audience for My Little Pony.
What else have we got? We've got System Shock coming out on May 21.
That's the remake. It's back.
I'm assuming Alan's played it a lot because it's an Alan-style series,

(34:18):
I think. So tell us about System Shock, Alan.
Is that the remake of one that's coming to the new-gen consoles?
Yeah, I mean, it's great.
Everything that I've seen about it... So I played the original System Shock, like
the the hd remaster thingy
of it that wasn't the the new version by night dive and i mean it's great it's

(34:41):
a cool game it's probably made a hell of a lot easier and more approachable
with the the remake it's shooting horror right it's it's bioshock but like more
open and like more annoying if
that means anything like it's more like
playing an old crpg versus

(35:03):
a more modern crpg like right it's
just a little bit like esoteric a little bit annoying to
play but when you get past that and you accept the
fact that it is made for nerds in
their bedrooms in the 90s on their family computer
like it's a good time that's a cool game
i have not played the the remake version though i will say that but i would

(35:26):
assume that night dive has done a good job because they've done good jobs in
the past so good for them right okay well that's that's going to be interesting
then to see how they remake it given that it's so it's more like deus ex style from
the original Deus Ex in the early days.
Yeah. It's the same thing. They made Deus Ex, like, more approachable.

(35:48):
And also, if Deus Ex wasn't in limbo hell.
Right. Okay.
Anyway, that comes out on May 21, so that's going to be a big game, I would assume.
We've got Hyperdimension Neptunia Rebirths 1, 2, and 3 coming out on Switch on May 21.
So those games have already been on every other platform. But if you haven't

(36:10):
yet played them, or you want to have them on your Switch, then you'll be able
to finally have the original trilogy on the go.
Actually, no, because they're on beta as well. But you'll be able to have them
on the go on a new console. So there we go.
We've got Cards RPG coming out on May 22, which is just the most generic name there ever is.

(36:33):
A roguelike style deck building and SRPG meet together.
So they're doing Cards plus Fire Emblem, I guess, which is probably going to
be a very generic game, I would think, just based purely on the name.
We've got Bread and Fred coming out on May 23. I have no idea what that is,

(36:54):
but that's a pretty cool name.
Anything with bread in it's a good name. Bread and Fred.
Bread and Fred is a penguin game. Oh, this is cute. I do like penguins and I do like games.
So this sounds like a one and done for me. It's like Ice Climbers but penguins.
It's like Happy Feet, the video game. No, it's definitely Ice Climbers but penguins.

(37:14):
That looks cute. That looks charming.
I'm going to play this. Yeah, it's a core Ice Climbers kind of game where you're
playing each other along.
Remember when the big thing on the internet was like, Like, Nintendo should
remake Ice Climbers, and everyone
had, like, some weird concept on how Ice Climbers should be remade.
Well, I think Bread and Fred's it, dude. Yeah, like this. It's great. Playing Bread.

(37:35):
Yeah, we should be getting Bread while playing Bread. It's great. You're going to love it.
It's the hustle mindset adapted to a video game format. Bread Climbers.
Ah, here's one that's interesting to me. That's a game for me.
On May 23, Crown Wars The Black Prince comes out. I've had my eye on this one for a bit now, actually.

(37:57):
It's strategy RPG set during the Hundred Year War.
Ooh, stoppies. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah, we don't get them that many games.
Based on that era for whatever reason
i don't know why because it is a era that
would be very interesting for video games and

(38:19):
yet we don't get too many of them but this one this one really does look interesting and
good so it's an isometric top-down style
rpg thingy and yeah.
You get to hang out with joan of arc and do
stuff but is she called joan of arc or is she called jean dark because there
is a difference in how i will perceive this i don't know did i put on the french

(38:44):
accent if they don't even try like what's the point like just say you love the english,
you never know that might be the end boss oh god
english and the black prince could
be or that's why it's called the black prince it's subtitled the black prince
maybe joan joan joan jaune
jaune yeah maybe jaune maybe battle princess is the end boss i think because

(39:12):
yeah or it's a liter harvard liked it that's all i did i wanted validation from
one person harvard gave it to me,
how far the how far each in the reference goes,
i didn't say it was good i said it was gonna be something.

(39:36):
On may 23 we've got nintendo second game for
the month coming out with paper mario the thousand year door which is
the hell yeah go off beloved paper
mario game most people would say that's their favorite paper
mario it's the best one by far like
obviously there you go to a point where
like if you disagree you either don't

(39:57):
like rpgs or you don't like fun games i mean i've been playing the original
because on the n64 it's really good i think it's good it's good but it's also
a thousand year door it's because it's funny it can just make the player do
a bunch of stupid bs as a joke,
which as a kid i would have respected and as an adult i'm like please don't

(40:18):
make me do this again it's like haha yeah great cool but don't yeah like climb
the tower again find find the thing this desert of 36 squares and i'm like this
is hilarious but also do not do this to me,
i have a job i've got i have bills to pay,

(40:40):
that's gonna be a great game though thousand year door is phenomenal yeah it's
always been phenomenal it's never not been seen as a pretty fun video game it's
just a nice time and i think I think after having the Mario RPG remake,
it's the perfect time to bring Thousand Year Door back.
Yeah. It makes too much sense, you know what I mean?
Which, might I just say, before we move on quickly, the Mario RPG remake is phenomenal. And...

(41:05):
Because of that, I have hope that this will fix some of the annoying little
bits of Thousand Year Door, because they did a hell of a lot of that Mario RPG.
Yeah, I don't know. I think it's a pretty much straight port.
Yeah, everyone's saying it's a straight port and there's nothing changed and
it's horrible, is what the current discourse is. For God's sakes.
It's not going to be horrible. It's just not as good as it could be,

(41:27):
because there are some parts that need ironing.
It's my hot take. There you go. on may
23 we've got wizardry proving
grounds of the mad overlord remake coming out
and i have been playing
this in early access it is excellent it's by
dot emu and it's

(41:48):
yeah it's it really is a full-on total
remake of the 45 year old game at this stage the original wizardry so there's
something there for the nostalgic but yeah it is actually very playable and
you don't have to be an old school dungeon crawler fan to get into this one

(42:09):
because you'll be able to,
appreciate its systems and stuff yeah if
you like your dungeon crawlers on any level then i highly recommend
you look at this one when it comes out on may 23 also on
may 23 we've got duck detective the secret salami coming
out which stop it what a delightful title
yeah what a delightful little title that is it looks

(42:30):
it looks as is wholesomely good fun as
the title too really does look like a fun little
game i'm very much detective whacks the case yep
very much that's very good it's very full of puns it better i'm pretty sure
it will be just take a quick look at some screenshots shot salad and you'll
see it's it's definitely going to be that kind of game i think it's having fun

(42:53):
with itself i don't make like a pun with mallard and it's very difficult.
On may 24 we've got pocket bravery coming
coming out pocket bravery is an original
fighting game with an sd style so there
you go is that is it 3d or
2d 2d i believe it's inspired by classics from the 90s so you know street fighter

(43:17):
okay well if it's not by third strike then i'm not interested in the in the
most mean way possible if it's not in taking inspiration from third strike Oh yeah,
it's definitely a 90s inspired brawler, for sure.
It looks good. It looks all right. If it's good, then I'll play it,

(43:39):
if it's not, then I'll ignore it.
Lots of fighting games out there. We know that Tekken has hemorrhaged its entire audience.
On May 27, we've got Seed of Life.
Seed of Life is an epic adventure game about the persistence of life.
Your Korra, the last known survivor of Lumia, a dying planet,
and you have to go on an adventure or something and save the world.

(44:03):
So there you go. Oh, now this is interesting for me.
On May 28, Cupid Parasite, Sweet and Spicy Darling comes out.
This is a visual novel sequel or follow-up.
I don't know if it's a full-on sequel, but it's in the same universe as the
original Cupid Parasite, which was a particularly entertaining comedy-octome

(44:25):
visual novel that I really enjoyed.
The art style in it was also really, really good and memorable.
So I've been looking forward to this for a bit, actually.
And it's coming out, which is nice.
Oops, I've lost my list of games. Here we go, I'm back. I think that's getting pretty close to it.

(44:47):
Moving on, just looking at the end of the month.
If you like your F1, right at the end of the month, F1 24 comes out.
So, yeah. And that's it. Yes, that's it.
That is the month of May. Yeah, I mean, the F1 game will be good.
It's an F1 game. I mean, it's Codemasters.

(45:07):
Yeah, that's what I mean. Like, it's fine. EA hasn't entirely screwed up Codemasters
yet, so. So give them time.
It's still relatively new in the acquisition. So it's going to happen.
But for now, the F1 games are actually good fun. They're fast.
And that's what you need with F1, which is kind of good. They've hit the brief. It's fast.

(45:28):
So, Trent, what are you going to play? Probably Endless Ocean.
I'm probably just going to play the monthly Nintendo game.
I know Paper Mario is also coming out, but I'll probably play Endless Ocean first.
Well, you would, because it's coming out a couple of weeks before Paper Mario. It is. Yeah.
So, yes. But I'm also... The linear nature of time means that you will probably

(45:51):
play in my solution first.
What about you, Harvard? I want to play the Penguin Tether game. I'm so excited.
Penguin Ice Climbers? Yeah. Penguin game. Yeah, that's one of those ones that
you just don't think about until you look at it and go, oh, yeah,
I'm going to like that. That looks so fun.
It's just very cute and little. It is, but it's also a hard ice-themed platformer

(46:12):
where you're tied to your partner. It's going to be so, so funny.
Yeah, the potential for multiplayer hilarity is quite strong with that one, you would think.
Yeah. What about you, Alan?
See, I don't know if I have an answer. I was listening to that the entire time,
and I was like, there's nothing that really jumps out at me,

(46:34):
because I will play Paper Mario at one point in the future, but I've already played that game.
So I'm going to be really, really annoying and say tentatively nothing.
Nothing, huh? know yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna be a big nerd and play play the
shit i've already bought.

(46:55):
So let's say matt what would you say that you
would like to play i mean crowd wars is definitely one that i'm keen on uh it's
a big history buff like i said we just don't get that many games that are set
during the hundred years war i you know honestly that's the one that i'm most
likely to play yeah it's that's cool i mean it could be terrible i'm not saying that it's definitely,

(47:18):
going to be a good game or anything like that but i am definitely keen on it
because if it is good then it fills a gap the thing is is that if even if it's bad it will fuel,
being made fun of so well the other reason was i was so damn disappointed by
the king arthur rpg thing that was released on PlayStation earlier this year. What was that? What?

(47:44):
King Arthur the role-playing game. I reviewed it. Hang on. Oh, God.
And anyway, it was actually not King Arthur for one thing.
You play as Mordred, who comes back from the dead for reasons,
and it's all very grimdark, skeletons and zombies, and the round table is just
a bunch of evil psychopaths that are trying to kill King Arthur all over again.

(48:07):
And it just didn't work for me on any level so i'm really hoping that crown
wars kind of fills that thing for.
European you know swords and knights ish
i know they're not really knights by this point in time but swords and armor
and horses and stuff i'm really hoping that crown wars kind of fills that gap

(48:31):
i just noticed it's actually a nakon published game so oh that really god that No,
it's going to be either really good or just the worst shit you've ever played in your life.
Well, no, it's going to be either just aggressively fun B-grade or just terrible B-grade.
That's what it's going to be it's going to be one or the other it's going to

(48:53):
be big right either way but right okay
i take it back i'm not going to play this game i'm not i'm not ruining my
day well you should wait for my review on digitally downloaded.net and
use that to decide perhaps i will perhaps i
should use digitally downloaded.net to
have an informed decision about my time
to see whether a game is worthwhile playing or not absolutely

(49:16):
and perhaps you dear listener should as
well of course you can always visit digitally downloaded.net to
find out the reviews of the major games that we've
mentioned here as well especially
the five out of five for the penguin game penguin game
yay see us journalists we're corrupt we've
already got the five out of five for the penguin game lined up yeah that's it

(49:39):
i've already done the review i wrote it as we're talking i i don't want to make
this too controversial but how are they gonna like are they gonna like ruin
the penguin game by like patching out the vagina bones.
Oh grums i hate that i'm deep enough into gaming culture that i know what you're talking about,

(50:03):
grums has done it again harvard i don't know if you saw that he has
actually done it he's done done it again with stellar
blade loser dude he's actually
done a vagina bones with with stellar blade yeah it's
my favorite new thing to look at and just be like you
need to like just like go video game yourself
oh you set up a petition to free

(50:25):
stellar blade yeah what what what is it gonna fucking do what the fuck is that
gonna do excuse me oh this fucking fucking balding freak This little fucking
gremlin is gonna sit on his fucking chair as he sweats and tells people on the
fucking Twitter that, oh,
we should petition to make Stellar Blade not gay.

(50:46):
What do you mean? It's got boobies!
It's got boobies on your face as much as it does, like, not masculine. Jesus Christ.
If my masculinity was so fragile that it couldn't deal with not seeing a boob,
I would simply just not exist.
I would, I would, I'm not going to say it.

(51:09):
I'm so close to saying it. This dude needs to fucking go outside and like have
a friend who has a real perspective.
Jesus Christ. I hate, hate it. Be normal. Be normal gamers. Anyway,
that's the games for the May.

(51:35):
I do it. It makes it great. Making mistakes is proof that you're challenged.
Music.
Takes me high there's some place I've never been I'm about to wake up let it
begin watch it burn like a flying bird I'm coming back until the world is yours.

(51:58):
Music.

(55:28):
The hottest game
of the year every year iggy's wrecking balls is finally after years of begging
pleading perhaps on our knees praying for some majestical figure to bestow it upon us,

(55:53):
is coming to Switch Online.
Oh, it's already here. And, oh shit, it's already here. Even better.
I'm going to drop the Beowulf style narration. That's all right.
Anyway, yeah, Iggy's Wrecking Ball came to Switch Online. That's pretty cool,
isn't it? Harvard, you like that game, right? I had never heard of it at all.
Harvard loves the game. Wait, you didn't know about it? No, I didn't know about it. Oh, interesting.

(56:17):
I like that N64 Online is at a stage where they've released the majority of the big titles.
And now they're just going to release some stuff that you're like,
there's no way this really existed in the 90s. Like, this game doesn't exist.
But that's the good thing about, like, that's what I was being waiting for.
I don't get why people are throwing a tantrum about this. So,
to fill people in who maybe don't have a Switch and haven't been playing the N64 app.

(56:43):
They released two games, actually. There was E's Wrecking Balls,
and then there was Extreme G Racing, which is...
Is also made up. super fast bike racer in
the vein of f-zero but
instead of being anti-grav plane thingies
you're on bikes so yeah they released those two and a whole bunch of people

(57:03):
threw a tantrum because it wasn't smash brothers or whatever but why would you
want smash brothers which everybody's already played or has the superior switch
version for anyway when you could be playing these kind of
quirky games from the 90s that very few people knew about.
And or didn't play back when it was released originally. And now they can.

(57:26):
I prefer the Switch or all those kinds of online platforms for those kinds of games anyway.
And yeah, so I was pretty happy to see these two come out.
I had never played Iggy's Wrecking Balls before.
I was aware of it from my days with the N64, but that was just one game we didn't buy.

(57:47):
So it's the first time I've played it and it is a stupidly fun delight to play.
It is just not a great game, but it is not a great game in a fun way.
I mean, I did look it up before we came on the podcast for this and it is the most...
You rent it for a week from Blockbuster
and you have a great time and then you never think of it again.

(58:08):
Yeah, it is exactly that kind of game. Yeah. Great.
We need more of those. Yeah, exactly. We need more of those on the Switch.
That was a really good...
It's good fun. on and then you get on you know use the switch online to play
with your mates and you play four player icky's wrecking balls and it's just
like a friday night back in the day after school and,

(58:30):
you just play a crappy game for for laughs so
yeah it's just such a bizarre
design as well like if you were to look at the screenshots you would think maybe
this is like a marble game where you need to to deal with with um momentum or
whatever and it is not that it's a it's a it's a 2d platformer-ish kind of game

(58:51):
where you stick at your tongue to grapple onto higher levels,
completely negating the fact that you are a ball just they just,
Yeah, you're a ball, but you just kind of float along, which is funny.
You bounce along? You don't roll?
Yeah, yeah. It's a weird one to describe, but I recommend you have a look at screenshots.

(59:14):
Yeah. It's not one that you'll be playing for a long time.
Let's put it that way. It's not exactly an in-depth single-player game with
a massive quest and narrative and all that stuff.
But in the multiplayer context that it was designed, it was good fun.
And Extreme G is much the same. I mean, it's no F-Zero.
It's not going to be remembered as a classic of the genre by any means, but it is fast. It works.

(59:40):
It's a very playable high-speed racing game. So the fact that you don't have
to buy it to play it on the Switch, I mean, you've already kind of got it as
part of your subscription, it means that if you only play it once or twice, then that's okay.
And it just kind of sits there in the library for when you feel like picking it out again.
In i would i would like to see more of those kinds of games coming out
on switch online and there is still a bunch that they

(01:00:02):
could do is cruising on it yet no christensen
yes we will cruise and have a bunch of car licenses yeah
car licenses are an issue with that one but the thing is they are they are starting
to that they are starting to work through licenses with a lot of these kinds
of retro games which is nice to see as well i mean i i never thought we'd see
these kinds of games because both Iggy's Wrecking Balls and Extreme G,

(01:00:27):
they're Acclaim games, and Acclaim went bust a fair while ago.
So somebody's picked up the licenses and started to work through all of that kind of thing.
Somebody at Nintendo had to go through the books and go, well,
if you have a look at the fake box art they put on the Switch Online,
they've actually replaced the Acclaim logo with a new logo.

(01:00:49):
I can't remember what it's called. a new label so
yeah somebody's picked up the acclaim license which
is interesting to see because acclaim has a very big library
of games too so that could be potential source for a lot more stuff coming forwards
and it's not just that one sorry probably thq i'm not sure it might be atari

(01:01:11):
for a little bit because atari's picked up the infograms label as well so they're
republishing stuff from infogrames.
Anyway, point is, I love this retro stuff is starting to work through the...
The issues with licensing and re-releases. So we could see some games that we
just didn't think we were going to see come out on the Switch yet.

(01:01:32):
And yeah, there's stuff that can happen. I'd like to see Bomberman 64 get a
Switch release. It's never coming back out because there's a fucking nightmare
with the whole... Because that was Natsume?
No, it wasn't. It was Konami. No, it was Konami and it was someone else as well. It was... Hudson.
It was another company that worked with them. I'm going to look this up.

(01:01:54):
Ignore me. Yeah, Hudson. It was Hudson. Yeah, the Hudson V. That's what I was
thinking of. Hudson V. I'm so silly.
Yeah. I don't know where the rights for anything from Hudson currently is right now.
Well, that's the point. That's what I'm saying. They're working through these licensing issues.
I mean, they brought BlastCore to Switch, and that's a rare thing,
and rare zone by Microsoft and stuff.
It's because Microsoft is losing the console race the most, and it's just like,

(01:02:18):
please give us money. And don't forget- We are betting you.
And don't forget, Konami's actually been surprisingly good with getting these licenses and stuff.
Like they did the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles collection, and they don't have
the Turtles license anymore. So where there's a will, there's a way.
It's the one time I've actually given Konami any credence. So yeah,

(01:02:38):
and there's a lot, like I said, there's a lot of N64 games that we'd like to see there.
I would like to see the N64 game that's kind of stuck in my head all this time,
and it's not a great game by any means, but it's also the one proper RPG that
ever got released on the N64.
Is Aiden Chronicles.
I would love to see that on the Switch. It's just, it's not a good game,

(01:03:00):
but for a console that had no RPGs ever, this one is there and it's, it is playable.
And it would be interesting to see how people responded to it today because
it virtually sold no copies. Like it just disappeared.
I remember seeing reviews for it come out on in the N64 game mags,

(01:03:22):
But yeah, never saw a copy on shelves.
Yeah, that's kind of the case, though. Like, a lot of these games from that
period just sort of faded into nothingness.
Well, there was no digital distribution back then. Oh, exactly.
It was only what was sold on shelves.
So, some of the time, with these more obscure games in particular,

(01:03:42):
you got really lucky if you found a copy or you just did not.
What well i mean this is a generation later but i remember having to scour about five different,
eb games in australia to find a copy of psychonauts on
ps2 i had to look for it and the only copy i could find was a boxless pre-owned

(01:04:04):
copy with a with no manual because the people in the shell in the shop just
could not find where it was and that was what i had and as a result well,
my game is worth a heck of a lot more to me now than it was as anything else,
as a download or whatever like that. So I think I still got it back at home.
I did, yeah, because the game magazine that I used to read as a child,

(01:04:27):
Total Gamer, which is a...
It was a shitpost as a gaming magazine, and a lot of my humor is now derived
from that because it was how I learned how to read properly.
It was like Dan Staines, Patrick... Oh, gosh, what is his name?
He's now like an artist a lot of

(01:04:47):
very very old school game journals
who worked in redford in sydney and so most of
the jokes were about redford in sydney and how shit it was and
for a young kid growing up and having
jokes that were a little bit like pitched above what i
was usually expecting it actually really helped me
to understand a lot of english so i have a lot of respect for them but they

(01:05:10):
recommended psychonauts as like one of the
best games on the ps2 and the 360 i
don't 360 the original xbox yeah and i picked
it up the best games in that system it's yeah but i mean
i would never have heard about it at that point and i think that game is it's
still shocking to me that they got a sequel out of it because it was not known
to any of my mates growing up like i just had this weird fucking game about

(01:05:32):
a dude called raz who jumped on brains and it's cool it's cool that's not good a resurgence.
But there are so many others that I think about that no one has ever heard of.
Have any of you heard of Motor Mayhem?
Nope. It is a...
God-awful twisted metal clone but i

(01:05:54):
played the shit out of it and i
thought it was the best game ever made because there was a
guy called grok who used to throw rocks at
you and i was like that's cool as hell like that's
what i want literally it's exactly
that it's so stupid it's the best
i missed the era of games that kind of

(01:06:16):
sucked but you loved anyway because there's
like a lot of gems in there there's like a lot of gems in there because the
one that i always think about the most is rogue galaxy a game that never really
got its own time and yeah the level five game yep it came out very late in the
ps2 era no one played it and then when it got released on.

(01:06:37):
Ps4 through backwards compatibility i picked it
up instantly because it is such a banger and
even to this day i don't think that game's no one's played it
a bad game though alan like you said i mean there
are parts of it that are pretty bad well there are
parts of it i guess that are products of its time but i'm pretty sure it's
remembered as particularly good game i

(01:06:59):
don't think anybody's remembered i think is the issue though
yeah yeah i mean
it's not the it's not the most high profile video game
that's ever been released like i definitely appreciated it
when it came out on the ps4 because i i'd
never seen that in the store i never heard of that
in any magazine i when it first came out no

(01:07:21):
one was talking about it and back then because
there was no digitally downloaded there's no there's no website we have no idea
what game we like right so if people weren't talking about a game then it just
as good as didn't exist for you and you weren't going to go to eb games and
buy something that you'd never heard of and has weird box art and you don't

(01:07:41):
understand what the game is like.
So I'm really respecting it. That one strange person that picked up that game
that no one else wanted and for whatever reason that it became their personality
for a bit, I'm really happy to see that game come back to what it is.
I did that. I did that once.
I think we all did that at some point. That's how I became the Dark Souls fan

(01:08:02):
before Dark Souls was a thing.
You played Kingsfield when it was...
Yeah, I picked up Kingsfield 4 in a complete whim. game in an EB game.
I was at an EB game store and I was looking for just browsing and I just saw
this one game and I don't know why it kind of intrigued me, but I picked it up and bought it.

(01:08:25):
It was on sale, so it wasn't too much of a financial thing for me and my pocket
money back in those days. And yeah, so I just...
Picked it up on a complete whim, knew nothing about it. There was no coverage
for that game anywhere in the media or anything like that at the time.
And, yeah, that's how I discovered Kingsfield. Since then, I realised that it

(01:08:46):
was absolutely slammed by critics.
The few critics that played it did not like it at all.
But that's one I would love to see come back in some way. I don't know if FromSoftware
could even do that, whether those licensing issues and all that kind of stuff.
Because the publisher that brought it out is gone.
On but i would love to see how people
respond to it today given the souls

(01:09:09):
thing because you're the only person i know when people
started talking about dark souls like when that was finally started getting
popular after prepared i came out
and a few years passed and the internet got a hold of it and then
you were always there going yeah but kingsfield kingsfield yeah
kingsfield was it was absolutely and yeah
i just wonder because i feel like

(01:09:31):
what happened with that series was demon souls came
out and not many people played it but those
few that did kind of liked it and then dark souls came out and then suddenly
everybody discovered it people then went back to demon souls especially with
the remake on the ps5 and realized that it was a very good game So I just wonder

(01:09:51):
if there would be that reinterpretation of the Kingsfield series now,
if they were somehow made available.
I get a feeling that they probably would because there's certainly clumsy things
about Kingsfield, like very clumsy things about Kingsfield.
But the soul that kind of powered the Dark Souls series, that's also there in this one.

(01:10:16):
Did you play the Kira game that was recently that I recommended to you, Lunacid?
Oh, yes, I did download that. I played it for a couple of seconds.
I just haven't had the time to get into it. that's fair
because i've heard that it's basically like pretty decent success
at kingsfield yeah from the couple of moments i've
played that it does seem like that it was made by people that have fond memories

(01:10:40):
of kingsfield and they wanted to do something very similar so did you ever play
the shadow tower series matt there was one like there was two of them one was
on the ps1 and it It was kind of terrible,
but also the same thing that you would expect from like the 17 frames a second

(01:11:00):
Kingsfield games on the PS1.
And then there was one on the PS2, which was the one where you had a gun,
like an M1911, and you just shot people with it.
So I don't know the second one, but the first one I think was actually called
Shadow Tower, but it was actually Kingsfield 3.
Really? Yeah. Weird. I have a vague- Is that like a PAL thing?

(01:11:21):
Yeah i have a vague impression that what
happened was kingsfield one and two got released in
english as is and then they named kingsfield three
shadow tower for some reason but i'm pretty sure
that it is a kingsfield game i don't
know about this they are extremely the same thing it's just that they had a

(01:11:42):
different name yeah speaking of um those kinds of obscure rpgs that may get
a may They may be re-evaluated if they've got another chance,
despite being slaughtered.
Another one that I'd love to see get some traction again would be Baroque.
I don't know if you've ever... What is that?
I'm going to look it up right now. It's one of those PS3 RPGs, right?

(01:12:05):
No, it was originally PS2. PS2? Roguelite?
Was it PS2? Yeah, PS2 and Wii. Or Dreamcast? No.
It was for the Sega Saturn. Sega Saturn, that's it, yeah. Oh my god,
this is cool as hell looking. I'm on board with this.
That is a level 5-ass menu screen.
Baroque is a really hardcore roguelike.

(01:12:28):
Like, really, really hardcore roadway. As soon as you start to play,
your health bar starts to tick down.
So, you've actually got to keep moving real fast to survive.
So, it's very, very dark. Like, really, really dark themed.
And it's very, how can I put it? If you like Shin Megami Tensei for the themes

(01:12:51):
and the storytelling, then you'll like what Baroque throws at you.
It's that very similar very very dark
take on christian kind of uh imagery and and
themes so yeah that one
i discovered what did i play it on originally i want to say you know i'd say

(01:13:13):
you don't know saturn no it was the week i played on the way originally and
yeah i really liked it but for some reason despite the fact it keeps getting
re-released on everything it's even got an ipad had to re-release at one stage.
It doesn't matter how many times they re-release it, nobody plays it.
I'd like to see it get another one.
I think it actually got a re-release in Japan on the Switch,

(01:13:34):
but it hasn't been localized into English this time around.
Well, going down the route of RPGs that really deserve another chance,
Koudelka. I've talked about it a lot.
That game is awesome, and I wish they would
just port it to anything and everything for those of
you who don't know it's the prequel series to shadow hearts
which is a much bigger series and also

(01:13:56):
half the team who worked on kodelka ended up
working on lost odyssey which should be a big plus to anyone who knows about
that it's just not approachable you can't buy it easily i spent the equivalent
of 80 australian dollars to buy a copy of it on playstation one and that was
cheap that was that was cheap as hell yeah yeah,

(01:14:18):
and the game is it's so good it's so flawed in the combat.
But the story is so worth it that, like, why is it not on everything? Why not? I need more.
So I feel like, again, this comes down to a whole discussion of,
like, why are we not preserving experiences in games?

(01:14:38):
Why are we holding them behind paywalls of artificial scarcity when there doesn't
need to be any scarcity in the first place?
It's frustrating because, again, like, Xenogears, you can't play that in Australia legally.
Legally you can't go out and purchase a copy of zendikus because it was never released for some,
ungodly reason it's crazy too because when they were re-releasing it they were

(01:15:01):
like they absolutely could have released in australia but they could have the
decision of going oh because it never came out in australia first so no one's
gonna know what it is i'm not gonna put out that,
i loved your way of describing them like they're
fading off into the abyss it's like a smiling friend's character
it's it is it is annoying that
at the moment the only way to get games preserved

(01:15:22):
as if there's some kind of commercial value in preserving them
because they're gonna you know as
a re-release or whatever they've got to make money so these kind of
really obscure cultish games cult kind
of hit games that have a very small audience that would
really love to see them you know playable again but then
they'll never get a chance because there's just no

(01:15:43):
commercial value in re-releasing them in traditional ways i think that's a little
bit switch online as well big problem but yeah it's not trying to sell it you
just chuck it on there well switch online's a really good example because on
the game boy section of that there's alone in the dark the new nightmare,
and terrible terrible game it's awful it's not i really enjoyed it no no it's

(01:16:08):
it's bad matt i really enjoyed it i like to enjoy it but you can say it's bad
like that's no i mean it's not a great game but i enjoy there we go okay he said.
But yeah those are good examples of a way to
preserve these games in a way iggy iggy's wrecking
balls to start go back to the start of the conversation is
another good one super nes uh section of

(01:16:29):
the online thing is just full of these really obscure games as
well it's a really good way of doing that and
i wish that it was for more platforms
like there's no reason that nintendo couldn't throw
throw a wii or in gamecube one on
there and preserve games like pn because that's for
the switch to maps you gotta sell something

(01:16:50):
pn03 i'm waiting for pn03 to to
come back i'm gonna hate when that is never coming
out and then chucks the whole virtual console
out the window and restarts from like super mario
and metro i believe it oh yeah they're definitely gonna
do that that's something like the worst version of metro.
One you can possibly imagine like it's the gba version yeah yeah

(01:17:11):
it's it's just i hate i've
done this like four times already now and
it's just so certain that we're near the end of the switch
life cycle they're gotta do it again to build upon this i
bought a playstation tv on ebay recently and
i can't play any of my games on it because they've cancelled
all the licenses for every single game so i

(01:17:32):
can't i can download final fantasy tactics the
war of the lions can't play it i can download
persona form can't play it it's horrific
like digital ownership is basically worth piss
all at this point so i'm i'm giving up
on the idea of mainstream companies actually releasing
things that we can have as preservation things because it's not going to happen

(01:17:57):
it's it's cooked everything's cooked we can't do it and it's a shame because
we won't be able to experience fucking zapper cricket with an attitude hey that
was and i want to experience That was a great little game.
Rickett with an attitude. That was a great little game.
Or Scaler, the scaly furry character whose dad is.

(01:18:18):
Music.

(01:20:21):
This month i think if anyone's paying attention to the
jpg scene in general is probably going to
be iuden chronicles 100 heroes the
reason being is that it is a spiritual sequel to suikoden which from what i've
gathered having not played the series literally at all people seem to like it

(01:20:42):
a lot so it's quite exciting and i guess you know matt's gonna be way more
knowledgeable about this and anyone else has played it's been way more knowledgeable
than i am so matt what makes you so interested in in this series particularly i mean i got into.

(01:21:03):
I i i got into water margin
which is the book that's stricken
and is based on thanks to
playing main suikoden so it's one
of those weird ones i've enjoyed the series a lot
and i've been really looking forward to iodine chronicle because it is
a spiritual sequel to a successor to the suikoden series so yeah i i have it

(01:21:28):
downloaded on my switch i haven't had a chance to play it much yet but it seems
to be a fairly faithful continuation of that that idea but yeah the the real reason that i got
into this the the real reason that i
love this series so much is because it got me into one of
my favorite books which i'd never heard of before

(01:21:49):
playing and then when you read all of water margin sorry did
you read all of water margin yeah i've read the whole lot i've read
i've read i've read two different translations well
i'm working through my second translation now there's a new translation which has
just been released relatively recently by sydney
university professor no less so that's that's a really
challenging whatever you call

(01:22:10):
it so that's really impressive it's a
yeah yeah it's it's an interesting book so for people to who perhaps not so
into the classical chinese literature there are four books that are considered
to be kind of the great works of classical chinese literature they are journey
Journey to the West, which is monkey.

(01:22:31):
Effectively monkey.
Everybody knows that one. And more commonly known as Dragon Ball.
Yes, Dragon Ball as well. And also the most JLPG.
It is probably the... Yes.
Journey to the West is probably like the most pop culture of the four in the
sense that it just kind of, it's pervasive.

(01:22:52):
Everybody's in some way or another experienced the Journey to the West inspired
story at some point. That's true in China as well.
You can get merchandise for Journey to the West easily.
And they're constantly releasing new films and whatever.
Featuring you know the monkey king and are either
inspired by journey to the west or some kind of continuation

(01:23:13):
of the story or the the characters uh within
anyway so that that's probably the most common one uh and the second one is
rum into the three kingdoms which is almost as well known mostly because the
dynasty warriors yeah it's massive brick of a book i think it's like 2 000 odd
pages for the full and unabridged version it's it's a big read the third one is Water Margin,

(01:23:35):
which is my favourite, as I said.
It's probably not, it doesn't have the same cultural resonance.
I can't think of too many other examples of efforts to do Water Margin in pop
culture beyond Suikoden, but it is a very good book.
And then the fourth one is- Dream of the Red Chamber, which is not talked about

(01:23:57):
very much. It sounds interesting.
It's not talked about very much because it is literally impossible to translate
into English. There is no English translation. Really?
Yeah, they can't. They've tried, but it's actually because of the way it uses
language and the way it's structured, it is actually impossible to translate into English.
But in China, it's actually probably the most respected of the four.

(01:24:22):
Like you can actually do entire degrees in the study of that one book. It's quite complex.
Yeah. I can't believe my idiot brain who could not read like grain five Chinese
heard that and went, that could be me.
I could be the guy who translates Dream of the Red Train.
Good luck. If you do, you'll be forever respected. I mean, aim for the stars,

(01:24:47):
you might land in the cloud.
So anyway, yeah, those are the four books of kind of classic Chinese literature and,
I find well-imagined 1400s, by the way. They're really, really old books.
They are very old books. I love that, though.
That's fantastic. What a great way of showing your culture is actually keeping

(01:25:10):
relevancy all the way through. I think that's fantastic.
When you think about it, though, those four books, right? Well, three of them.
Let's ignore the untranslatable one. But those three books and the amount of
video games that they've inspired, compared to, let's say, Shakespeare,
there are not that many games that have been inspired by Shakespeare,

(01:25:31):
right? That's the thing.
It's just that Shakespeare plays some shit, in my opinion, but that's fine.
That's a very controversial opinion, Alan. I don't think it is.
I think they are shit in terms of modern context, but I respect them very much
for what they have allowed others to build upon. Okay, let's come up with another
example that Alan's not going to go and be controversial about.

(01:25:55):
I'm sorry. Here's one. Dante's Inferno, right? One book. Oh, one game. Sorry.
Well, this depends on how you would argue for adaptations.
Like, setting aside the Dante's Inferno game, where do you put things like games
that are based around the Circles of Hell, right?
Well, okay, you could probably expand that to what's that series with the Four Horsemen?

(01:26:19):
Oh, Darksiders. Darksiders. You could probably say that that is inspired.
Yeah, that's probably inspired by Dante's Inferno, sure.
But, I mean, the point is that there's not that many games that are based on
a lot of great works of classic literature.
How many games have we got about war and peace?
You can compare war and peace directly to Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

(01:26:42):
There's a million games based on Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
There's not one that is based on war and peace. I think there is a fear in the
Western game market of creating something that requires you to read,
and I am the reason that fear exists.
You are the reason. And I'm fully aware of that.
I will read something if it's cool, but if it bores me and I've had a day of

(01:27:05):
having to read a text the entire day, I don't want to read more text that's
going to bore me. Make it exciting. Yeah.
And I don't think many people know how to make those classical texts from the
West actually interesting to read.
I feel like I'm shitting on the greatest works in Western culture.

(01:27:28):
I'm not. I'm just saying some of it's really boring.
And that's not what I really want.
I just think we're kind of missing an opportunity here, right?
It like to it's not about making
games educational whatever because again to compare
to to use the example of suikoden and water margin
you don't have to read water margin to enjoy suikoden and a

(01:27:50):
lot of people play suikoden and never realize that's based
on a on a book but that's there if you
then want to kind of explore it more deeply and i think that's a
oh i get what you mean now yes no no so i think i think sorry i'll just quickly
finish my thought i think we're missing a trick here so for example another
game that i've been playing recently or relatively recently was recently released

(01:28:11):
was rise of the ronin right which is the samurai or not samurai because.
Based later on but it's the historical fiction game that koei tecmo produced
it's based on real world events and it's based on you know real world characters
and personas and all that kind of stuff and you play that and then you can go
and if you want you can go and learn more about the

(01:28:31):
era and then you know you can fill in gaps and whatever and your appreciation
of the game can be enhanced by the material that it was based on compared to
ghost of tsushima which was almost completely made up from start to finish despite
the fact they claimed it was historical it's not.
I think there's a difference in how the west kind of try and look at making games compared to how,

(01:28:52):
the japanese do it and i feel like we're missing
an opportunity there to to do what they do
and use this material as a
basis of a game in a way that people that
then can go and you know find the text and become engaged in the text because
they found the game to be interesting not like straight up adapted but just

(01:29:13):
take take elements and make the game first yeah i mean to go back to the shakespeare
example if you were to do a game that was based on
the military campaigns of Macbeth or whatever.
There is so much opportunity to make a cool game out of that.
Yeah, you don't have to make a Macbeth game, but if you use Macbeth as the source

(01:29:36):
material and then build a game with that atmosphere and whatever,
people will then go and discover Macbeth.
Yeah, or even like the world of Macbeth, like the logic of the way that witchcraft
works in Macbeth, the way that kingship and succession works in that game.
And you don't need the actual events of Macbeth in there. It's just like,
it's drawing from that literary work.
Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what I'm saying. Like a Western RPG in the form of The Witcher,

(01:30:01):
but with like Gallic lore and Scottish folklore in general, with the backing
of Macbeth happening either before or after,
like what happens after the whole events of Macbeth, you choose.
That is a fantastic idea. idea that that wets
the appetite of my little goober brain that

(01:30:23):
is like i want to know what happens in macbeth beyond
macbeth like it that is sorry
it's cool no go for it it is cool i think
the western game development has been and and just as you were saying what you're
saying earlier matt i realize this western game development has been poisoned
by a particular attitude towards adaptations that I think comes from the licensed

(01:30:47):
game tradition where when they go,
I want to make a game based on this, like, well, Shrek is coming out.
So now I need to make a game based on Shrek.
The general way of doing that is to watch the movie and go, here are some scenes
that we can turn into gameplay, right? Like Shrek beats up some dudes in this scene.

(01:31:08):
So we can turn this into a combat sequence and Shrek rides a cart in that scene.
So now i can do like a cart ride sequence and it
leads to this terrible game because none
of the elements are cohesive but they technically do the
things they did in the movie yeah it's like um like aragon
you know aragon the oh god that was

(01:31:28):
such a good example of that right they went and they
they just copied the narrative of the film directly into
the game and it was just the most terrible game you've
ever played as as a result of that are you telling me that
making the film was not no the film
was dog shit too awful like having read those
books like the quality of aragon's writing

(01:31:49):
is about a level of the b-ray rpg right just ignore the fact you're adapting
something and just make it to the grateful developers make it a grateful game
give it to grim whatever they're called or or just do a panzer dragoon where
you're flying around on the back of oh no there you go do a drake where you're
flying around on the back of the dragon,
and then leap down and battle some dudes in combat and stuff, and then encourage.

(01:32:17):
People to read Aragon as a result of playing that game.
This would be a much better way of doing these things.
Do we think that perhaps it's the attitude towards monetization within the West versus the East?
I don't think so. I think it's more the production schedules.
Because the moment the development company sits down to say,

(01:32:38):
hey, we're making this game, this is what it's going to be,
that's when they start making decisions of, we're going to adapt it in this
way, so we're going to take existing mechanics and map them to plot elements.
I'm thinking more in terms of the idea of,
because I could not tell you, beyond the SNES,
i could not tell you a japanese made like

(01:32:59):
licensed tie-in game i could not
name one to you but i could released no like
from let's be real here that's a that's
a unique and unique one which also by the
way it looks very cool i want to play that i
want to read the manga for that i like i'm actually really interested in it because you
know it's the time to be excited about that bloke's

(01:33:22):
work i've forgotten his name i feel so awful how did
i forget that i literally bought i bought blue dragon the other day because
i was like i should play blue dragon because that's an akira toriyama yeah yeah
anyway uh you cannot see many like licensed properties that are made by japanese
devs at this point and it makes me anime has a game though but generally they are.

(01:33:47):
It's hard to say this because I've only played the Jojo ones.
Generally, they're good. Yeah.
Do you know what I mean? They're actually still games. And yeah,
they're the same game. All the Budokai Tenkaichi games were the same.
And that's something that we can complain about. It actually didn't even used
to be like this, right? You used to have unique games for anime properties, and it was amazing.

(01:34:09):
Yeah. But it just seems like there's a completely different attitude towards
adapting stuff in the East compared to the West.
Yes. in the west it's it's literally just a case of like oh this is the story we're doing the story.
Whereas like you know budokai tenkaichi would
let you play moments of the story but then it would have a weird story mode of
its own where you're going around helping bulma

(01:34:32):
for some reason because you are and like
that's cool that's great that's what i'm
interested in because that's not a story that's being told and i
think yeah i think i think about film adaptations in
general it's always the case of like if we don't
adapt the film a hundred percent accurately in the
story then everyone's going to

(01:34:53):
hate us like the the whole attitude of we're including five
minutes of film from the movie that you can watch on the ps1 game disc because
like i think of hercules and that game is trying to follow the story of hercules
but it's it doesn't and it's It's kind of shit as a result of that.

(01:35:14):
The gameplay is amazing.
I love it because it's very silly and PS1 era sort of vibe.
But it's never trying to actually tell a unique story that works in relation.
I think Avatar does it really well, and that's really weird for me to say.
This is the first time I'm actually going to praise Avatar.
I respect that the Avatar games are never telling the same stories as the film.

(01:35:38):
You're never playing as Jake Sully again.
You are playing as some other guy. I think the difference is that in a lot of
these cases, a lot of the kind of Western games, the goal is to recreate the story.
And that's... Here's something you already know. Because the license to the
property, you probably have that tied into it.

(01:36:00):
Like, for example, Lord of the Rings, they want to promote Lord of the Rings,
and the video game is seen as a way of kind of promoting Lord of the Rings.
So they made the Lord of the Rings games be quite similar to the story.
Except for the third age since once the
films were done once there was nothing to promote anymore then they
had the freedom to kind of use the license as they wanted to which is
where i think the third age came from but i think where the

(01:36:22):
difference is in a lot of cases is that a lot of the japanese stuff is more
based on the characters and so yeah the the narrative isn't so important it's
just as long as they're pushing the character forward because that's the way
that these kinds of things this is where the money is you know with the west
the money's in the property With Japan, the money tends to be with the characters.
We see that reversed a little bit with superhero stuff because superhero stuff

(01:36:46):
is very much about the character, which is why in Western superhero games,
their original narrative is wrapped around the characters. Spider-Man 2 is not a film.
It's an original story that's kind of wrapped around him. It wasn't always like that.
The Batman arcane games were also kind of original stories because it was about the character.
It wasn't always like that, like, yes, there were certainly a lot of video games

(01:37:10):
which were adapting the films, but I think what happened was at some stage,
they realised, Marvel realised that actually the strength of the property isn't
the stories that it's telling, it's the characters that it's pushing through.
And that's why we've got this kind of approach to that. That's part of...

(01:37:31):
Adaptations in the west is different i think to some of the other stuff so it is interesting.
But yeah i think it that's
that's kind of what it boils down to that in the west a lot of the time it's
about adapting the story if they're going to do that and they've got a very
limited way of looking at it so if you're going to do dante's inferno game then

(01:37:52):
you're just going to copy and paste the entire book into a video game form and
butcher it in the process yeah Yeah. And it's because it's impossible.
I mean, how do you take an epic piece of poetry like that and possibly recreate
it, you know, one for one within a video game?
Of course, there's going to
be compromises made, which is going to end up with an inferior video game.
Whereas I think with Suikoden and Water Margin,

(01:38:16):
the Japanese developers realized they can't do Water Margin because it's 900
page book with a billion themes and,
you know, literally a hundred characters 101 characters or
whatever number it is that are all superheroes in
their own right you can't take that and turn that into a video
game so what they do is they use that as
a source of inspiration but then make an original video game

(01:38:39):
which can be creatively free and then become
the kind of classic you know property that it's become in its own
right so i think that's the difference i do think that
that approach is superior i think yeah rather than doing a version of romeo
and juliet you would be better off doing a story set in verona and i don't know

(01:39:01):
i would i would love to be a grunt in the capulet army.
Look if it means like if i can get close to john leguizamo's tibble i will do anything.
Sorry harvard interrupted you with my lust for john leguizamo No,
no, I think you started the proper way to do it, whereas my idiot brain immediately

(01:39:24):
went to imagine the licensed game version of doing Romeo and Juliet.
It's like, Romeo needs to send a letter to Juliet. On the way,
there are some trash cans in the alleyway. Make sure he jumps over the trash cans.
Hey, if they did, I mean, the natural way to do Romeo and Juliet would be like
a vision of all right, but would the bad ending be they don't die?

(01:39:47):
Yeah. they live happily ever after is the bad ending because it's it would be
like one of those yuri visual novels where there's no good ending it's like
various forms of bad endings and you have to pick which one you're okay with
it's like school days oh but i have to do the the boat,
that's a nice boat romeo and juliet that meme is probably like 25 years old

(01:40:09):
at this point i know i'm showing my age the amount of yuri visual novels that
end like that are the gays okay,
I cannot speak on behalf of the games.
Because the amount of times i see visual novels
that are like a ff or mm

(01:40:29):
and they always end in oh they're both dead lmao it's it's wild and i gotta
respect the vibe it's cool as well i feel like the ones for or at least the
bl ones tend to be like there's a spectrum of of,
disastrously horrific to kind of cutesy they got together in the end,

(01:40:53):
whereas the Yuri ones I feel like almost as a genre go in that direction. It is a bit weird, hey?
Just be happy. Just be happy for once. Just find joy. There can be no happiness.
Why did you say that like the ghost children in Coraline? That's very ominous of you.
It was a lot. It was quite corny. Not what I expected in my gaming podcast,

(01:41:17):
but things we do to be happy.
Things we do to be happy. Play your visual novels where everyone dies in the end.
Great. Cool. Because death is the only true release.
Is there a visual novel that adapted a novel, or has no one bothered to do that?
That's a good question, isn't it? there of adapting like la

(01:41:39):
nausea into a visual novel your options are
drink smoke or drink and smoke there's
something really golden there is like you are in the bar
the bar lady who you've slept with before and feels bad for you is talking to

(01:42:01):
you what do you do i drink i smoke i drink and smoke or i i think about how
much better it would be if i was dead which option do you pick.
Now that you bring it up at harvard i think you're right
i don't think there's ever been an attempt to adapt a
book or novel into a

(01:42:24):
visual novel is it just because it's a bit trite like it
just eventually it's just an illustrated novel yeah i
have no idea like i don't know why no nobody would
even try like zero attempts i would
think that there would have been some pasta western
like she realized bang bang games so
a visual novel is too much extremely correct my brain only like clicking heads

(01:42:48):
i can't read well i mean kfc has more visual novels than western literature
and i will never read them which is just so it's a wild thing to contemplate.
I do wonder what would happen if they made a Cloud Street visual novel.
Because there is... For those of you who have read the book,

(01:43:10):
it is just impenetrable to read because there's no punctuation whatsoever. And if someone...
No, I hate it. I think it's one of the worst things ever written.
I think it's pretentious and annoying. No, well, clearly you haven't read In the Skin of a Lion.
I like In the Skin of a Lion. No, it is not a good book.
We've had this discussion before, Harbin. I find it very upsetting that you

(01:43:33):
haven't agreed with me yet. I think it's because I read it after high...
Did you read it for high school, Matt? Yeah.
Yeah, I read it after high school. Oh, if you're forced to read a book for high school.
If I read Your Lad Street now, I'd respect it to a certain degree.
No, it wasn't because it sucks. It does suck.
That is not true. I read Fowl Street as an adult and it sucks.
I read In the Stain of Light as an adult and it's actually kind of good.
I have the opinion. I'm sorry, Matt. I'm going to talk over you here. I'm so, so sorry.

(01:43:57):
Any book that sells itself as a classic Australian novel, I think,
is an instant. I will not read this.
There's only one book for that, and that's Nick Cave's In the House of the Angel.
Now, that would work as a visual novel. Alan, can I recommend you a book?
All right. go for it the swan book

(01:44:19):
by alexis wright is like an aboriginal australian
futurist okay you're already selling me
on this yes this sounds way more interesting than a man is in a house and has
some mates fucking sick it's a horrifically complex academically dense novel
about what's it called the swan the swan book about like political policy in

(01:44:41):
regards to Aboriginal Australians,
but set in the future, or set in a kind of surreal reality.
Alexis Wright? Yeah. All right, I'm buying it right now.
The extent of complexity they get into that topic for an Australian work,
focusing on Australian issues, is just genuinely so impressive.
Would it work as a visual novel about Harvard? That's the question. That is the question.

(01:45:04):
To be honest, it's about as dark as a Eurovision novel could get.
It's pretty dark. So, maybe.
All right, I'm buying it right. And then I bought it and we go, I'll read a book.
I'll adapt it to an individual novel for next time. Yeah, that's it,
Alan. You've now got to do, you've got, I expect a full adaptation.
Music.

(01:50:17):
You.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}May 2024 Podcast: Weird, quirky games, Suikoden and literature, and the games of May

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce

All Episodes

May 2024 Podcast: Weird, quirky games, Suikoden and literature, and the games of May

Stuff You Should Know