August 15, 2025 • 55 mins
Alex and Luke Talk The Plucky Squire.
What if a storybook adventure literally jumped off the page? That’s the magic trick The Plucky Squire pulls off. Developed by All Possible Futures and published by Devolver Digital, this imaginative action-adventure launched in July 2024 and instantly stood out for its clever transitions between 2D and 3D gameplay. With a charming visual style, punchy combat, and playful surprises around every corner, it’s a game that wears its heart—and its gimmick—on its sleeve.
At the time of recording, The Plucky Squire held a Metacritic score of 83 on PC and 72 on Nintendo Switch. According to HowLongToBeat, the main story clocks in around 8.5 hours, though that can stretch with exploration (and admiring the delightful art direction). It’s short, sweet, and stylistically sharp—but not without a few rough edges.
Alex played on Nintendo Switch, Luke on Steam Deck. Both made it to the final page and rolled credits. This is one of those rare games where the journey was as fun to talk about as it was to play—especially when it leapt from side-scroller to Zelda-lite to rhythm brawler to full-on tank sequence. You just have to see it to believe it.
This episode is unofficially brought to you in part by summer time ice cream runs.
Audio Credits:
“The Plucky Squire Theme” from The Plucky Squire Original Soundtrack — composed by Madeleine Wood — © Devolver Digital.
Original theme music owned by Low Five Gaming.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Alex (00:21):
Yo, what up, everybody?
Welcome back to another episodeof Low Five Gaming.
This is Alex, your host, and myco-host and brother Luke is
with me once again for the 45thofficial time.
Luke (00:33):
Whoa, 45.
Well, you accelerate 45 guy.
I feel like it's just wait till50, but you know what?
You're excited.
That's cool.
I'm always excited to see you,brother.
There we go.
What do you think, brother?
Alex (00:44):
Do you feel like can we still say brother?
Even though that you knoweverybody was reminded that uh
Hulk Hogan is douche.
Luke (00:51):
Uh yes.
Uh it's post-ironic and it'sfunny.
So like brother has transcendedthe Hulk, correct?
Yes.
All right.
Alex (00:59):
I'm here for it, brother.
Luke (01:02):
A parody of the parody of the Hulkster is not necessarily
always endearing.
Sometimes it's mocking.
It's a little, it's a littlebit of all of it.
So mine is mine's mocking,dude.
I like it.
I can dig it.
I can dig it.
Alex (01:13):
Yeah.
But we're not here to talkabout Hulk Hogan.
We are here to talk about agame called The Plucky Squire.
Luke (01:35):
Children's tail.
Alex (01:40):
We'll talk more about this, but that's one of the
things that I told or like I wasmessaging you about where I was
just like, I can't tell if thisgame's for children or adults
or a little bit of both.
And I think it's a little bitof both.
Luke (01:53):
It's definitely for adults and maybe a kid.
I wouldn't say it's hard, but Idon't know.
I don't know what kids play inthis.
They just want to playFortnite.
So it's for adults.
It's to prey on nostalgia, andit's just really cool and
unique.
So I see, I see what they'redoing.
Alex (02:07):
I mean, it's a mixture, dude, for sure.
I would say it's uh you can ithas some great accessibility
features that make it where ifyou were to introduce this to a
child and you flip some of thoseon, it it makes it so that uh
it is very it is verykid-friendly in that sense.
Uh, but it has it has a littlebit of that adult flair to it.
It's like it's like your storymode too, right?
(02:28):
Yeah, so the the story modemakes it so that uh I don't know
if it skips the mini games ornot in the story mode, but it
definitely makes it so that thecombat and everything is very
nerfed.
Sure, which is cool.
I love it when games do that.
I think that's cool.
I love accessibility.
I don't always use them, butsometimes I do.
Another developer, digitaljoint, and I chose this game for
(02:48):
this month because it was itwas announced.
I want to say that this cameacross my radar during a
Nintendo Direct.
It just like the art stylebehind this game is phenomenal,
like it's super cool.
And that even that teaser thatthey showed, like there was
something about it that I waslike, I mean, there's a reason
it was announced on a NintendoDirect.
It's like it screams likethere's something about it that
(03:10):
has Nintendo Flair, in myopinion.
And I don't know exactly whatit is other than this feeling I
have.
Luke (03:15):
It's uh it prays on a not praise, but it like you know, it
definitely leans on nostalgiapretty hard of various childhood
vibes, and uh the art isgorgeous, it's like candy.
It is very it's you're you'redrawn to it in a in a very
childlike way.
I mean, it just looks like theshiny toy you want to pick up,
so I I feel you.
And the revolver and theballver is a publisher.
(03:36):
That's gonna be pretty good, soyeah.
Amazing art combined with aZelda-ish 2D top-down Zelda-ish
style to it.
Like checks is a lot of boxes.
I can see why you picked it.
Alex (03:48):
And this game was released mid-September, September 17th,
2024.
But the physical copy didn'tcome out till February 21st,
2025.
So, quite a bit later.
Luke (04:00):
I was unaware, it was so new, honestly.
Alex (04:02):
Yeah, well, physical, physical copy is pretty new,
even 24.
Yeah, that's yeah, it's muchnewer game than I thought we
were playing.
Luke (04:08):
That's cool.
Alex (04:09):
Indeed.
But I I even though it was outdigitally, I I wanted it like
from the day that this game wasannounced.
I was like, I'm gonna buy thisphysical.
I want this to be part of mycollection.
This looks dope.
I love devolvers, likeeverything that they put out,
and then like it the teasers andeverything is is is good, uh,
or was good.
It was like really enticing,and uh, and the game itself, it
(04:30):
has it's it shines at points, ithas a little, it has a little
tarnish, I would say.
It looks really cool the wholetime.
It it sure does.
Uh, I also and like this is notI started digging after the
fact, after I bought the gameand everything, because I ran
into my biggest qualm on thisgame is that it I had some frame
(04:51):
rate issues on the switch.
So I played this on my switch.
You played on the Steamy D, andyou didn't run into that as
much, you're saying.
Luke (04:58):
No, it was really awesome on the Steam ED actually.
I do recommend if anyone wereto purchase this game to go that
route.
Alex (05:04):
I mean, you got what you got.
I haven't played that manygames on the Switch that have
like frame rate drops and stuff.
They're like so noticeable thatI'm like, this is ruining my
experience a bit.
And it was to the point on thisgame where that like happened.
Luke (05:16):
I wonder if this game just has sneaky better graphics than
I would imagine, or if it'sjust poorly optimized for the
Switch.
Alex (05:23):
Yeah, I think so.
It's like one of those thingswhere because of this animation
art style that it's got goingon.
So you're you kind of spoke toa little bit ago where you're or
just briefly ago, where you'resaying that it's got the 2D
top-down Zelda-like aspect to itgoing on, right?
But you're actually in thisstorybook, okay?
So we should probably we shouldprobably reel back in a little
bit and talk a little bit howthis game works.
(05:45):
These characters in astorybook.
Luke (05:47):
Uh you were the plucky squire, dude, who's uh the hero
of a mainline book, and alsowithin the book, an author of
another series of his ownadventures.
So that's a little confusing,but dude.
Alex (05:58):
Yes, very meta and some fourth wall stuff, all of which
I appreciate.
Lots of which I appreciate.
Plucky.
Do you know what that means?
The adjective.
Do you know the definition ofplucky?
This feels like a bit, so I'mjust gonna let you read it.
Yeah, I mean, it's not a bit inthe sense that it's got a like
a good punchline or anything.
(06:18):
I'm just curious.
The whole game's called PluckySquare, so I'm like, do people
even know what plucky means?
Luke (06:23):
Like plucky generally means like scrappy, right?
Like it's a parallel toscrappy.
Like if you're plucky, you'rekind of like skinnier teeth,
like uh creative uh adventurerkind of.
Wow, are you gonna read me thedefinition of plucky now?
Alex (06:38):
I'm enjoying this.
You scraping copies, Mr.
Mr.
Alex.
Gosh, having or sewingdetermined courage in the face
of difficulties.
Luke (06:46):
I'm not wrong then.
I'm gonna take a dub on thisone.
Alex (06:49):
Yeah, you know, I'll give you half.
I I'd give you, I'd give you,I'd let you you pass the test,
buddy.
You good enough.
You tried.
Luke (06:55):
I want to be, I want to be teach.
I want to be.
Alex (06:59):
I'd say you earn it, bro.
You earned the B.
Luke (07:06):
Cheeky, dude.
You see what I did there?
He's not caked up for our hornylisteners.
It's more of like uh the gamehas a very cheeky sense of
humor.
Alex (07:14):
It does, and that's like that comes out through the
gameplay itself, some of thedialogue, and then the tons of
the dialogue.
Especially the the yeah, tonsof the dialogue, the wizard is
quite cheeky, I would say.
Luke (07:25):
Yeah, or dude, he's got a silly ass moonbeard.
Moonbeard, yeah.
Alex (07:30):
Moonbeard is there's like music track behind him, is dope
too.
Luke (07:34):
Yeah, there's mini moonbeard, indeed.
Kind of his goofy sidekick, soI like it.
Alex (07:40):
Yeah, I dig it.
So you've got you've got jotthe plucky squire, that's the
main character and the personyou play most of the time, and
then he's got a couple sidekicksthat uh join him.
Uh a wizard, a troll, and alittle mouse, right?
They come they become biggerdeals, I would say, probably
half to three-quarters of theway through the game.
But the main character, youknow, is is Jot.
(08:02):
And it's interesting, like asfar as the story goes, none of
this is spoiler territory, butyou know, you're in this
storybook book, you break thefourth wall.
There's I can't remember thename of the kid who is actually
creating all of you or whatever.
The is he named he he may ormay not be.
I think he might be.
I think he's got his signatureon some stuff.
Oh, yeah, you're definitelyaware of him and his presence.
(08:23):
Not at not at first, but it'slike pretty quickly in the game,
you're like everybody becomesaware of the fact that the world
that they live in is animaginary book world or
whatever, and you have theability to transcend out of that
book into the real world, and alot of stuff.
Yes, yes, yes.
(08:44):
So hump grump is the main badguy, male poet, and butterflies.
Yes, you wrote credits, itsounds like, and he's also
spoiler territory.
Apologies, dear listener.
No, no, I don't think any ofthat needs it to be honest.
But so that's like that's likekind of the premise.
You're like these storybookcharacters, hump grump, main
baddie taking over the world,very like standard, like the bad
(09:06):
guy wizard wants all the power.
Luke (10:07):
Yeah, and I would say the storyline and how it interacts
with the gameplay is that youhave two main components
overall, which is the more2D-ish, like not totally
top-down, but almost like on atilt, uh, mostly top down,
though.
Alex (10:20):
And that would be like a book almost, right?
Luke (10:23):
Yeah, like you're in the book.
You quite literally are, yeah.
So you're you're quiteliterally in the book, and then
when you pop out, it is likethis 3D action platformer type
area where you go, you kind ofgo back and forth in pretty cool
ways for puzzles.
But you know what that remindedme of the most whenever you
went to the 3D, you're always 3Dout of the book, and then
you're like plopped out into hisroom, like this super
(10:46):
imaginative kid's room, andyou're like fighting these
stupid bugs, which I hated, anduh you're dealing with all the
things that are on like his verymessy chaotic desk, and
therefore like forts and thingslike that, and it was really
cool.
But you know a game it remindedme of from way, way, way back
in the day, dude?
Toy Story 2.
Dude, I was constantly thinkingabout Toy Story on the N64 and
how awesome a fuck that was as akid.
(11:07):
Yeah, for sure.
I grew up with a Toy Storymovie, but that game, I don't
even know if it's good, I don'teven know if I can get past like
the first level or two, but goddo I remember the first level
or two.
Alex (11:16):
That game is actually like as far as um you know license
IP type stuff goes, like that'sone of the better ones for sure.
Luke (11:24):
I bet you, yeah.
Alex (11:25):
I don't even know what's licensed IP, I don't know how
that works, to be honest.
But uh, but I think it's a dopegame for the 64.
It's probably on PlayStation aswell.
Dope game.
Luke (11:32):
Yeah, yeah, no, I and it's like that's what like this game
is at its best when you're ininteractions, both in the book
or out of the book, because it'sso beautiful in the environment
they put you in, and the artdesign and the sound design, and
all that's really cool and howthey all go together.
That's like this game is reallyshining when they're constantly
(11:52):
stopping you to over-explainthe dialogue and what just
happened.
I want to smack my fuckingscreen.
I'm like, I don't want to talkto that worm again, dude.
I know what just happened.
Like that's where I'm like, isthis game for adults?
Alex (12:04):
Adults are children.
That's what that's where it hasthat tension there where I'm
like, come on, who'd you makethis for?
Just embrace that this is forfucking nerdy ass adults like
me.
Luke (12:12):
Yeah, but like it must have it must have a but a kid
wouldn't want to read that much,so I'm just like, Well, yeah,
you're over-explaining it, but akid would also just be like, Oh
my god.
Alex (12:23):
So on both ends, I'm really confused as to who
they're serving here, but um Ithink they were confused about
it, man.
Like, so I did just some briefresearch, and it is dude, it is
a beautiful game, and part ofthat is I mean, this that's you
know, we had to give that uh theso the developers James Turner,
an ex-game freak art director.
(12:43):
So game freak, you'll you mayrecognize from I believe
Pokemon, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and a bunchof other stuff, but Pokemon for
sure, and then this fella namedJonathan Biddle, who to my
understanding, uh had createdthis concept at for a comic
book.
So they got together andthey're like, let's take this
(13:05):
plucky squire concept andtranslate it into a video game.
Okay.
And I think that that might beat the root of some of this,
like there's a little too muchdialogue or a little too much
like over-explaining text goingon because originally it had
this comic book uh origin story.
But who knows?
(13:27):
It's a little bit ofspeculation.
That's cool though.
Look at you.
It is cool research and stuff.
Indeed.
But uh, and you know what?
It's also some you know, when Iwas earlier when I was
introducing this game andsaying, like, you know, the
whole Nintendo Direct thing, andyou mentioned it's uh you
mentioned it has a 2D uh Zeldavibes.
Also, when you go into the thethe fourth, you know, the
(13:48):
whatever the real dimension is.
Whatever's going on on thedesk, yeah.
Yeah, so that would be uh thatactually that has very strong 3D
Zelda vibes, right?
And you know, I love Zelda.
You love Zelda, we're Zeldaboys.
Yeah, so a good Zelda like, I'mnot you know, it's it's hard to
do a good Zelda like in myopinion.
I was like, but I'm always veryintrigued when I see one that
(14:08):
looks good, I want to play it.
And this is one that I want toplay.
And I would say though, likethis one just has so many cool
ideas that aren't alwaysexecuted to full potential.
The Zelda stuff, the um likethe different uh puzzles and
like Zelda type puzzles you'redoing, like at the at the
beginning, way too darn easy,and towards the end, like it's
(14:32):
kind of hard, but still not hardenough, you know.
Luke (14:35):
I would say that I really liked when so specifically, you
can sometimes knock text off ofthe book being read, and then
you can find text elsewhere andit changes things in the
environment.
That's super cool.
That's but I can create utilizeit, it is super cute creative,
but like yeah, and sometimes youcan literally flip you can
through all these various powersyou get you can pick up the
(14:57):
book, you can flip pages.
Um, at the time, sometimes itfelt tedious, like you're
explaining, yeah, or oversimple, but like in hindsight,
it's all pretty cool now thatI'm that's just it.
Alex (15:09):
The the concept is fucking dope, dude.
But the the actual action of itis like a little too clunky.
Luke (15:15):
We joke about this all the time, but like just all the
games that we only beat to saywe beat them for the podcast,
and then we talk about how likeit was good homework, but it
felt like homework to get itdone, and I had to like set an
agenda.
I never would have beat thisgame, I would have like bounced
off it after like two, threehours.
But because I saw everything ithad to offer, I find it
(15:35):
incredibly charming.
I'm very critical of it, but Ifind it very charming in
hindsight, you know.
Alex (15:42):
Dude, I dropped a joke about that in the Discord.
Like, I've never I've neverplayed a game, I don't think,
that I like so much and equallydisliked at the same time.
Luke (15:52):
Yeah, this isn't even like control, where the whole time
we played control, you're like,I understand why this is so
awesome.
I just am burnt out already,and I just started.
This is more like, hey, is thischapter done?
I'd like to play something moreaddicting, and like, oh, I'm
gonna do another action seawould like you just throw your
sword at dudes and you just likewait and you just be like meh
(16:12):
meh, and then they'd be done, orlike, did you ever die?
Alex (16:16):
Uh yeah, during mini games, not really during actual
gameplay.
Luke (16:20):
Yeah, we could talk about those mini games.
You want to do the minigamesright now?
Alex (16:24):
Let's get into it, dude, because that's the other aspect
of this game that I think Iactually make super yeah, for
sure.
Sometimes annoying as hell, butit's like the text thing we
were just talking about, man.
I feel like it's underutilized.
Like, I mean, there'sdefinitely a good mix of mini
games, but it's just notbalanced, man.
It's just like I don't know.
Luke (16:40):
If they would have thrown any more of those, I would have
lost my mind.
So you have like a rhythmsection with your okay.
Alex (16:46):
That boss press was rough for sure.
Luke (16:48):
I loved that stupid metal loving character and people.
I thought all those jokes werelike thrash and like his
mountain troll people who lovemetal music.
I actually felt like a lot offun, and then the art lady, I
forget what her name is, thewizard trainee that you're with.
The beautiful art town.
Did you notice all the yeah?
(17:08):
Did you notice all the coolhidden little features?
Alex (17:11):
Of course I did.
They're all different likethis.
Yeah, it was like Bango Rash,the different painters,
different like all sorts ofstuff.
Luke (17:17):
Like Banks, he has his uh face blurred out.
I thought that was cute.
Yeah, um, not the point I wasmaking, it's just something
that's what I'm saying.
Alex (17:24):
You can tell like whoever the art direction around this is
phenomenal.
Luke (17:27):
Like I had better visual ideas than they did gameplay.
In the gameplay, they tried foryou to have fun while carrying
you through the story, and theymostly succeeded.
But you have like this rhythmsection where you gotta like
these things are coming at you,and you gotta press bop, bop,
bop with jot or not jot, but uhthrash, and that was kind of
annoying, but like kind of cool.
Alex (17:46):
Um, you basically expect yeah, yeah.
Luke (17:49):
Violet, you have this candy crush section and out of
here with that candy crushsection.
I need the I need to catch upone of my students' moms or
something, dude, and be like, Ineed someone to crush this candy
crush section, dude.
Alex (18:01):
You're in the game.
We already talked about likethe being on the pages of the
book.
You that's your 2D stuff,traversing around, looks really
cool.
You can come out into the realworld, but when you're back in
the book, there's also thesesections where it will basically
it brings you more, it changesthe perspective again, like a
whole on different game type.
And I think that they do thisin a few different ways, but
(18:21):
kind of hard to explain whenyou're looking back on all of
the different ones that thereare, right?
Luke (18:25):
But yes, that bird one where you're shooting with the
mo.
That shit was cool as hell,dude.
That was kind of tough.
How hard did you how bricked upwere you when you saw that
fucking card with that cool atthe top of the fort?
You had the little littlelittle card where you like
that's such a cool.
Alex (18:38):
It's like a magic of the gathering card or whatever,
yeah, for sure.
Yeah, I thought that's you makeyour U-traversal all the way up
there.
So there's a lot of like youmentioned it already, but the 3D
platforming stuff going on inthe real world.
Uh, a lot of times there's likeyou have to work your way up to
something or around whatever,and then the who the main baddie
that would mention, Hump Grump,like his minions have also like
he's like spread out into thereal world, too.
(18:59):
So there are the Beatles andthe bugs, which man, that kid's
room is dirty.
Luke (19:03):
Yeah, but he's messy.
Alex (19:05):
You got the you got the bugs and everything going
around, and then you've got likesome of the baddies out there
to fight and everything.
And it's it's cool out there.
I would that's where I hit alot of frame drops, is in that I
don't want to call itforgivable, but because but when
it was in the 2D area and itwould happen, like on the book
pages, I was like, Oh, I can'teven take that, like the jumping
around like that.
And it wasn't so bad, likeclearly they they co-signed on
(19:25):
like getting it out on Switch,so it's not like bad enough
where you can't publish it on onSwitch or whatever, like, but
it was bad enough where Inoticed it, and it was a gripe
of mine.
But these mini-games, dude,fucking dope.
I love how this game has somany games within it, and you're
always jumping around andplaying these different game
types.
So we've got the Zelda likesthat we mentioned.
You mentioned the Candy Crush,like puzzler with uh with
Violet, Thrash has got hisrhythm game, the little mouse
(19:48):
dude.
I think his name is Pip.
Um so Pip's got another like arhythm game thing.
Rhythm stealth.
That thing was like, oh, Ihated it, then I liked it, then
I hated it, and now I'm okaywith it.
Luke (20:02):
I'm just I think because now that I'm done with it, it's
but at the time I was like, Iswear to fucking god, if I ever
do this again.
Uh don't forget about the MikeTyson's fight night version that
you do twice.
Yes, very interesting.
And then one that's like oh,two things.
I think I realized why youpicked this game when you like
(20:22):
midway through do like ashoot 'em up in the middle of
it.
Alex (20:25):
I didn't know that was gonna be in there, but I was
quite pleased.
Yeah, that's the shmup sectionstuff is cool the during the
beginning and the end of thegame.
Luke (20:32):
The art, the art almost was like uh like like the final
boss battle is almost like uhStar Fox, dude.
Yeah, for sure.
You know what the fuck I mean?
Yeah, I do.
That was crazy, and thenthere's like this archery one
that you do that I found.
Alex (20:45):
I forgot about the archery one to be honest.
Luke (20:46):
Dude, I did too.
That was cool.
It's kind of cool in hindsight.
Uh that was like one of themoments I had with the game
where I was like, that wasreally cool.
This whole section is reallycool.
Alex (20:55):
So many cool ideas.
The gameplay is all like it'sall cool ideas.
The whole thing, the wholething's just riddled with cool
ideas.
The execution of them allthough, it just like falls flat
a little bit.
Luke (21:07):
Yeah, so the game took me about eight and a half to nine
hours.
Um, I'm assuming you're aroundthe same.
Yeah, how long how long to meetit clocks in at around 10.
I would say that you know ifyou're a dad and you're reading
a lot of these books and you gota weekend and you just want to
(21:29):
crush a game, this might be it.
Alex (21:32):
Dude, or if you're like me and you like like it's just the
art thing we've been talkingabout too.
Like as an art piece, this gameis stoked.
It's dope, dude.
Yeah, but as like a puregameplay, at least a little
something to be desired.
Luke (21:44):
Yeah, it's it's not going for the gameplay.
I feel like the gameplay isjust supposed to be like fun and
quick and get you to the nextbeat of the story and for you to
see more things.
Alex (21:53):
Yeah, there's got maybe that's great.
So it's got a little bit ofeverything in it, right?
I'm curious.
Did you make a point to to hitthe collectibles?
Did you get all the art pieces?
Did you get all the like thethings?
Luke (22:05):
And now I'm like, how in the hell them like I thought I
was being pretty thorough.
Uh yeah.
It's a bummer that you playedon Switch because you don't get
the uh achievements, but I gotone right away for just
wandering off the desk to mydeath, and they're like, Had to
try it.
Nice.
I thought it was pretty great.
Yeah, that's cool.
(22:25):
Um it's fun to collect the artbecause shocker, the art within
this game collectibles are coolonce again.
Um, and the saving those littledudes, uh is there a payoff for
that that you know of?
Is there like somewhere wheresometimes the games when you
save a bunch of those people andyou go to like a communal area
and they're like, Oh my gosh,and you can like see that the
whatever area has grown withthem returned, but with a Dutch
(22:49):
bird.
Alex (22:50):
I would assume that there's some sort of payoff, and
I don't know what it is.
I also assume that if youcollect all the art pieces as a
payoff, I don't know what it isbecause I didn't do it either.
But there is so like it's thisisn't uh it's neither a spoiler
nor is it too different fromlike other games like this, but
when you beat it, uh it and yougo back to the save file, it it
(23:11):
puts you, it's kind of oddbecause it puts you past the
final boss and it puts you at apoint where there's no continued
gameplay, like it just wouldreloop your conversation that
you have at the end of the gameand then go in credits, and
that's like the final savepoint.
So and you can also go back inand replay chapters once you've
(23:31):
once you've beat it, right?
So my assumption is is you cango back, replay chapters, do all
the collectible stuff, and thengo back to that last chapter,
and your conversation is likelydifferent.
But I don't know, yes, and Imay never know.
Luke (23:47):
I definitely definitely won't unless I stumble into
someone explaining it somewhere.
Alex (23:52):
Dude, I I hit you up, I hit you up on the Discord or
whatever, and I was like, dog, Ibeat the game, roll credits.
This thing's going back on theshelf where it belongs, and it
will stay there until my childis old enough to be interested
by it.
Yeah, it's it's cool, it'sgorgeous, it's creative, it's
and 10-hour romp though, likeeven though we're like I'm half
(24:16):
like hating, I'm not like hatingat it, but you know, I'm I'm
I'm giving it uh I'm pokingholes in it, right?
Even said like 10 hour fuckingto roll credits, man.
That's my that's my sweet spot.
I love it.
I love being able to rollcredits within 10 hours.
Luke (24:30):
Yeah, uh 10 hours that should have been six.
What is up?
Dude, like chapter nine, sothere's nine full chapters.
Well, I thought I looked it upand it said 10 chapters, so I
was what we're missing.
Alex (24:45):
I think that maybe we need to do more collecting and then
it'll maybe kick us off into a10th chapter.
Luke (24:49):
Yeah, I was I was like so worried.
I was like, this is a longdude.
Chapter 9 was penalty, bro.
Alex (24:55):
That's that's another pacing issue with this game.
It's like, you know, everythingis like cool, but then there's
just something where it's likeyou didn't execute it perfectly.
Uh but yes, that's let's let'stalk a little bit before we've
already kind of like laid ourcards on the table, I think.
But before we, you know, moveinto uh our next segments and
give this thing a grade.
(25:16):
I do want to know how you faredin that minigame bit at the
end, the boss rush that we thatwe had.
Luke (25:24):
What did I tell you that I wanted it to die or that I
hated the game?
What was my angry ass text?
Alex (25:29):
It was something like I fucking hate this game.
Luke (25:32):
Uh Thrash's metal rhythm game was hard as hell.
How many times did it take youto beat that?
Dude, uh four or five, six.
Alex (25:41):
Yeah, I was on four, five, six, and then I skipped it
straight up.
Luke (25:44):
Dude, uh, there's something about my pride
wouldn't let me skip it.
And then I find because atleast they're merciful.
Alex (25:49):
You have to like they are so there's a checkpoint
basically, like, right?
You can get halfway through it,and then if you die, it will
bring you back to the halfwaypoint, which I appreciate that.
Yeah, but I kept still dying uhon the second part of that so
many times that I was like, youknow what?
Screw it, I don't need to seethe winning screen.
Like, I'm just gonna move off.
Did you skip the candy crushsection too?
(26:10):
Hell yeah, I did.
Dude, after I lost that candycrush section, like I wasn't
playing it as hard because it'sone once you like once you break
the seal on something likethat.
Luke (26:20):
I was like, okay, that's why that's why I wouldn't do it.
I was like, I can't.
It's just a long game, it's nota bad game.
Alex (26:26):
It hurt my pride a little bit, it hurt my pride a little
bit.
Luke (26:30):
I hovered above it, I almost did it, so now I'm really
glad I didn't see you can feelit.
Alex (26:34):
I did it, I'll admit, I'll I'll admit to it.
It's whatever, dude.
Uh but that's a littleasterisk, little asterisk to my
credits.
Luke (26:41):
He might have beat Diablo, but I truly beat Plucky Squire,
dude.
Alex (26:46):
That's true.
You just weren't plucky enough,dude.
That's you're not wrong, bro.
You're not wrong.
Luke (26:51):
See what I did there.
Alex (26:52):
Do you want me to find Cucky?
Yes.
Got it already.
The embrace of adversity.
Yes, 100%.
Oh man, but the music in thisgame, beautiful, art, beautiful.
Uh man, the I did skip, I didskip the mini games in the end.
Uh, but not the not the punchout one, because those ones are
(27:14):
fun, which is also difficult thesecond in the in the boss rush
section towards the end.
Luke (27:19):
Disagree.
For some reason, I could hackmy way through that one.
Alex (27:22):
Nice, well done.
Uh, I mean basically did thesame, but like it was that I
actually found that that bout tobe easier than the first time I
did it, but I think it justlike I was so caught off guard
that they were like throwingthis mini game in there the
first time that I was like, ohshit.
Yeah, but no, so I got throughthat.
Um, there's uh as far as thestory goes, like I said, it's
(27:43):
kind of like you know, kind ofyour adventure trope.
It's there's nothing too crazyabout it.
I'd go ahead and say that.
Luke (27:48):
It's a fun story, it's cool.
It makes it or like Netflixshort series.
Alex (27:53):
I can see that for sure.
Yeah, the um I was just Ididn't want to give any story
spoilers out there, but it I wasyou know, it's kind of your
standard like adventure story,but it's it is good.
Uh, and there's some nicetwists in there, I would say.
There was a couple things thatI did not see coming, not like
it blew my mind type of twist,but I was like, Oh, that's nice.
I like what they did there.
Uh, and that happens a coupletimes throughout, so pretty cool
(28:15):
in that sense as well.
I told you off mic and I standby it at the time.
I was like, I I think I gottagive this game.
If I was being incredibly harshon this game, I will give it
two out of five brush strokes.
Luke (28:31):
Dude, you put that you put that can opener down, dude.
What do you threaten to my canopener?
Alex (28:36):
I keep a pocket knife on my desk and I pigeon with it
when I'm on calls, but which islike a dumb thing to do because
like if I'm on the wrong call, Ijust like playing with nine,
people are like, what you doing?
Luke (28:47):
What you're doing, badass.
Uh two out of five is crazy.
That's disrespectful.
Alex (28:51):
No, I'm not done.
I would give it two out offive, but because of how
imaginative and how beautifulthis game is, and like how
whimsical and all this otherstuff, like it's gonna go up to
three.
I gotta give it a three.
And I wrote credits, it's notlike it's broken, and two's not
like on a two to five scale.
Like, yeah, two would be theworst that we've ever done, but
I gotta give it three.
Like, I think there's too muchshit going on with it that I was
(29:13):
like, fucking eh.
Uh, but there's also so muchgoing on with it that like it's
it's bumped up to a three forsure.
Luke (29:19):
Dang.
Um, you ready for sometaxonomy?
Yes, always.
Uh, friend of the pod Tyler.
I think I think we have to givehis wife Ashley the actual
credit for it, but she calls ittype two fun.
unknown (29:31):
Okay.
Luke (29:32):
As a father, you would get this hardcore.
Everybody will, but a parent ofa young child definitely will.
Where sometimes you're havingtype one fun, which is obvious
in the moment, and later on funthat you remember fondly.
Type two fun is kind of likenot fun in the moment, and then
afterwards you have very fondmemories of it.
So, for example, let's sayyou're on a trip with your child
(29:53):
and you're just managing yourchild the whole time, but then
you know, he sees a waterfalland he thinks it's the coolest
thing ever, and you have a videoof it later.
You're like, that might havebeen type two fun.
Maybe it's type one fun.
But I think you get my point,which is type two fun is this
after the fact you reallyappreciated it, and it is really
fun when you look back on it.
But if you're really beinghonest with yourself, in the
(30:14):
moment you're kind of stressedthe whole time.
This game is a three out offive, but I will speak of it
glowingly because it's got tonsof type two fun.
I thought the environments wereso cool and the music, they are
sound effects, and I thoughtsome of the puzzles' high points
are enough where all I rememberis the really cool stuff, and I
have forgotten the boredom andthe tedium and being stopped too
(30:37):
much for dialogue that I didn'tcare to read.
Dude, but that's really a fewtimes.
That made me laugh at the onlya few times, so I'll remember
this great, but I'm not gonnaplay it again.
Alex (30:51):
I can dig it.
Luke (30:52):
That makes sense better as a memory than it is as an
actuality.
Alex (30:55):
So I think his balance is just awesome.
Dude, it's like because it'sway too easy in the end.
It doesn't get a point whereit's way too hard, but it's like
it just doesn't it doesn't rampup the way it should.
Like by the end, I was like, Ilove the way but what's that?
Luke (31:08):
So it's not Final Fantasy VII.
For sure.
It's not like Alex, so no,yeah, no, it's not Baldur's Gate
3 either.
But other than that, I think itwas really cool.
Alex (31:21):
For sure.
Uh, I just want to give itprops, but by the end, like I
think all the like brain teaserstuff that it was doing had
reached a level where I waslike, hey, that was good.
Like that actually made methink that got that like pushed
me to the point where I waslike, I could look this up
because I'm slightly stuck, butI'm like, dude, I'm not that
stuck.
And I appreciate that.
I feel like at the beginning itwas a little too easy.
And I was like, this is forbabies, and like there's just
(31:44):
like the middle ground sweetspot didn't last long enough, in
my opinion.
But still, three, three, threeof five brush strokes.
I think it was a pretty tightgame.
Luke (31:53):
Love it.
Alex (31:54):
Yeah, with that, let's take a little break.
Come back with our unsanctionsponsor.
Luke (31:59):
You want to try that one again?
Sure.
Unsanction sponsor that cameout of your mouth strange.
Alex (32:07):
Get out of here, dude.
You know how much that I cutfrom this podcast.
Used bumbling over your words.
Luke (32:12):
Never, never.
I one take, dude.
I'm Nas.
Legendary, nasty Nas, dude.
Alex (32:20):
Empire State of Mind.
Continue.
Unsation sponsor.
Let's go.
We'll be back soon, fellas,folks.
Geez, I'm broken.
This month we're brought to youin part by well, brought to you
(32:47):
unofficially in part, bysummertime ice cream runs.
Luke (32:52):
Dude, I'm the defender of the ice cream run.
If we we would never not be asin like, dude, Trisha's always
trying to get ice cream, and I'malways like, keeping the ice
cream from your boys and yourfamily, bro.
I should send you the picture.
Uh, to convince them to leavethe community night tonight.
We bought him some ice cream.
Uh, shouts out, got a soniclike ice cream bar Popsco
(33:13):
looking ass thing.
Hell yeah.
Uh, so my boy's face is stillblue, it is stained, can't get
out the blue.
Hopefully, that comes out forfamily photos.
And two, uh, Lewis wanted anice cream cone, and I just I got
some pictures looking back inthe car, and it's just ice cream
all over their faces.
And I'm like, I might be agrumpy old man who says no to
(33:34):
the ice cream, but you gottalove those memories, dude.
Alex (33:37):
Dude, I'm telling you, ice cream is good all the time, but
there's something aboutsunshine, ice cream, summertime.
It's the best, man.
And then you go, so you'retalking about like you got some
sonic and some ice cream.
That sounds like a that soundslike a truck situation to me,
like a high-end ice cream truck.
Luke (33:56):
I only say high-end because they had a pint of Blue
Moon, which is the wifey'sfavorite.
Um pretty pumped about that.
Alex (34:02):
See, that's dope.
That's dope.
Uh, the other day, so we got wegot two ice cream joints that
we like to like to go to.
I've also my uh my wife and Ihave been off the liquor for
almost nine months now, uh,which is tight, but you know
what comes with that?
It's like, where's this going?
No more sweet brother, or sweettooth brother.
(34:25):
Yeah, uh so like ice cream inthis house.
We're like, we should get someice cream, and I'm like, you're
gatekeeping.
I'm like, hell yeah, let's goget it.
Uh so we had to do ice creamruns.
So, like, I'm not gonna lie,like DQ.
I would like, I would be like,no, no, DQ, like that's like
McDonald's territory, butwhatever, man.
DQ that's a Minnesota company,bro.
Luke (34:47):
Dairy Queens uh cut above when it comes to most of their
products.
Then you know a Minnesotacompany?
You know, yeah, theheadquarters in like
Bloomington, yeah.
Yeah, so that's cool.
Alex (34:58):
And is that one of your spots in the neighborhood?
You can't fuck with yeah,there's like two, there's like
two dairy queens in my area thatwe could go to and have gone
to.
Three, there's a they're allover over here for some reason.
Luke (35:09):
Dairy Queens over there, dude.
Alex (35:10):
Uh, do you got any local joints?
Hell yeah, so that's what I wasgonna get to.
The mini haha scoop.
The mini haha scoop is actuallythe closest ice cream joint to
us, and that is like your it'sjust a little building, straight
up got the cooler ice creamthat's some like all you need,
brother.
High school to college-agekids, like our are man in the
place uh every time.
And it's dude, it's good assice cream, it's a little
(35:32):
overpriced, but you know what?
You're supporting a smallbusiness, so I'm all about that.
They got a punch card, so thetenth one's free.
unknown (35:39):
Shoot.
Luke (35:41):
Um big proponent of so you're off the liquor, but I
think you had the liquor longenough for an appreciation for
the proper level of dive bar.
Oh, yeah.
Um, so when I think back in mycode, go to a dive bar with
without drinking, you know.
Oh, no doubt, especially if wegot decent dive bar food.
Alex (36:00):
Hell yeah.
Luke (36:01):
But um it's interesting.
Two things that I really missabout the college town I went to
school in is that they havereally cool dive bars that I
miss.
But more importantly, to thisconversation, they have local
like drive-in style ice creamjoints that I fucking adored at
(36:22):
the time.
So um, you got the Penguinsestoand Lakeview in Winona.
And I used to always, when Iwas delivering pizzas, uh, if it
was later in the night and itwasn't as busy, I'd bring back
something for like me and themanager or whatever, or someone
else if they're like helpingclose down, dude.
And my favorite thing to do isyou get the slushies mixed with
the ice cream, dude, like likegrape slushie and vanilla ice
(36:44):
cream, then you blend that shitup.
She I missed that so fuckinghard, dude.
Make a little lean out of itfor great lean, sure.
Uh also got a huge boner for umthey had the different flavors
of the the ice cream coating.
What do you call that?
Just like the dip.
(37:05):
I don't know when they knowwhat to call just the flavored
dips, and they had like birthdaycake flavored dip that hardens
that shit goes so hard, and theyhad like blue raspberry.
Like I fucking love that shit,and then you can get like greasy
little burgers too.
So I love a joint like that.
So nighttime ice cream.
I feel you.
I used to drive to one, I usedto walk to another one because
there was two in town, and likeI miss I miss stuff like that.
(37:26):
I have an okay version outwhere I live, but it's not it's
not like that.
Uh dude, mini ha scoop ispretty fire.
Alex (37:34):
I mean I don't know.
There's room, like you know,they they they they could do
some things, like you know,maybe some fresher waffle cones
and shit, but I still fuck withtheir waffle cone.
But what are you gonna do?
What are you gonna do?
Yeah, you know, you know.
Oh, here's a here's a touch sothat you know what?
If the mini ha scoop folks arelistening, get some fucking
melted milk balls in the bottomof your in your waffle cone.
That's a pro move.
(37:54):
Yeah, it's such a nice littletreat.
Luke (37:57):
And it's like too the overhead on that, that was much
such a bonus as a kid.
My mind was fucking blown whenI was throwing it.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Alex (38:04):
Yeah, also you got any memories of uh being at the lake
with the family and going tothe ice cream joint, and I don't
even know the name of thelittle town, but that was like a
little thing that we did.
Luke (38:14):
Girl Lake, dude, and uh we went to the town, and that's
where I fell in love withSuperman ice cream because I'm a
video, and that's my favoriteice cream flavor, is still to
this day.
Superman they got Superman atMayhaus Coop, but guess what?
Alex (38:30):
Shoot, what superhuman this they changed it to
superhuman, uh it's moreinclusive.
Word so let's you ready to youready to like pivot to uh I
thought it was just because ofSuperman's colors, but all
right.
It is, dude.
It's like for sure, but that'slike I was there, dude.
This podcast about the jumpjump ship over to like bro,
(38:52):
Brotown, like me, you, and JoeRogan now.
I was definitely gonna throwsome Minneapolis jokes your way,
but alright, yeah.
No, no, no, no.
But like, dude, uh like thesuperhuman.
So I looked at it, I was like,What's up with superhuman?
You guys get like a cease anddesist.
And he was like, No, I thinkthey're just trying to be more
inclusive.
I was like, All right, well,that's weird, isn't it?
Just like supposed to be likebecause of Superman's colors or
(39:15):
whatever.
And he's like, Yeah, I don'treally know.
I'm like, I'm not gonna fuckinglike go into this much further.
With like a he's like, brother,I'm not paid enough to know or
care.
Yeah, for sure.
Luke (39:26):
Get your ice cream and get out of here, dude.
Alex (39:29):
But I remember that too, dude.
Girl Lakes, Superman ice cream,superhuman races, dude.
Luke (39:34):
Probably for our turtle races, too, but I don't care.
That shit was core memories,dude.
My turtle never won.
No, I cheated, so it did one.
We are homies.
Um, our very ice cream memoryis that uh I had a very not
trustworthy older brother whokept trading dipped cone flavors
and purposely with his fat assate a head and then trading
back.
Alex (39:54):
And I was we just had different flavors.
Luke (39:56):
We were just we were supposed to part of it.
She same dip.
Alex (40:01):
You were just stoked, you were just stoked.
That was like you want to tradecones?
You're like, Yeah, I mean, youwere like at this, you had to be
what like six, seven at thetime, max vulnerable.
Luke (40:11):
Yep, yeah, dog.
Alex (40:12):
So you're like stoked, like big bro.
He's trying to trade ice creamwith me.
I'm gonna go for it.
Trade, I work a little bit onthe cone, get down a little bit
past where you're at.
You want to trade back, buddy?
You're like, yeah, I got like aI got like at least a cone and
like a quarter out of that deal.
He's bad.
Luke (40:28):
Yeah, I always thought it's because we had different
flavors.
Now I feel dumb.
Alex (40:32):
No, you're just down, you're just down for trades,
man.
You're like that kid that'sjust like trading fucking energy
cards for Charizards.
Oh god.
Luke (40:46):
Always does.
No doubt.
But summertime ice cream, uh,pistachio, better as a gelato,
underlay underrated flavor,though.
Let's go.
Salted, salted caramel, big,big in my my book.
Textures guy.
Um, I'm also here for nuts inice cream.
I'll do that with the nuts.
Gotta get my nuts, dude.
Um I the wife, strongdisagreement in the house.
(41:10):
She doesn't think nuts belongin ice cream.
I don't I don't know.
They work the saltiness, dude.
And the crunch.
Alex (41:15):
The crunch is funny.
So important.
Luke (41:17):
Like an almond.
Alex (41:18):
I can dig it.
Summertime ice cream, bro.
All right, dude.
You've been side question?
No.
You say you know or no?
(41:40):
No.
Like, I don't have a life.
I just put S double Augustlifestyle, dude.
I'm not playing I'm not on theboard this year.
I don't even know.
I don't even know you gottatell me about this game.
Luke (41:54):
You know, um, I'll try to keep it to just this pod because
I'm sure my side quests wouldactually just be it for the next
few months.
I like having that uh a niceflow state style game.
I think a lot of people like tojust play like uh my
brother-in-law, he plays MarvelRivals, and I make fun of him
because I don't know if youfollow the discourse on that
game, but a lot of theunlockable skins are pretty
(42:15):
shamelessly horny.
Yeah, so I keep telling himhe's just trying to play his
horny Marvel game.
Uh but like he's always had agame like uh Counter-Strike 2 or
whatever, and then this is justfilling that niche for him, and
I have that with sports forsure.
Or some sort of management gamethat I can get like super flow
state into.
Um, the game is better.
Alex (42:37):
It's like kind of hardcore.
Luke (42:39):
Oh, yeah.
I mean, he's I mean, yeah, he'sa child, he's a Gen Zier.
Alex (42:43):
So I feel like Oh, I was talking about I thought you were
talking about big bro.
Luke (42:48):
That makes more sense.
Alex (42:49):
Oh, yeah.
Luke (42:51):
No.
But anyway, the game hasimproved in ways that the
sicko's like myself woulddefinitely appreciate.
Last year's game was like oneof the most selling games of all
time because people are just soexcited for college football.
This year they didn't make anybig leaps to the chagrin of
some, but they definitelyfine-tuned a lot.
And I I've heard twointeresting arguments, which is
(43:12):
just, you know, uh, if you wantto see one of the more toxic
subreddits, um, Madden, and thenthis one is just people
bitching.
And I'm like, all right, cool.
But some people are like, whywould I pay for this unfinished
game that keeps patching keeppatching all these things and
updating all these things?
Then somebody else pointed outthat like they actually
continuously listen to fanfeedback and continue to tune,
(43:36):
fine-tune the game and likerelease huge updates, like well
into its life cycle over theyear, which is true for last
year as well.
And I admire that.
I'm just gonna throw that outthere.
I'm in the middle of buildingup, uh just won a championship
with Oregon State.
That's pretty cool.
Rains all the time, that's kindof fucking annoying.
But welcome to the PacificNorthwest.
That's good they worked that inthere, actually.
Alex (43:56):
That's kind of interesting.
Luke (43:57):
No, it's actually a known issue with the game the
developers have been working onwhere it rains too much.
But now that I'm in Oregon, itat least feels less annoying.
Alex (44:06):
Oh, interesting.
So is this always like nomatter where you are, it's a
little rainy or whateversometimes?
More often than it should be,yes.
Luke (44:12):
It's kind of funny, actually.
Like, yeah, no, so there'sgoofy stuff like that.
Gameplay improvements andsystem improvements and UI
interface stuff improvements.
So I recommend it only for thesicko's because I don't know,
it's pretty much the same aslast year, but just updated
stuff.
Alex (44:31):
Sure.
You've been getting it inthough, playing in front of the
boys, teaching about football?
Luke (44:35):
This year I am not.
Last year they're a littleyounger, so we couldn't do a
whole lot and go a whole lot ofplaces all the time.
So, like at least you know, agame a day, they'd see me play,
and I'd give them uh unpluggedcontrollers, and they wouldn't
smack away on their controllers.
And this year I've they haven'tseen me play.
It's just when they nap andwhen they go to bed.
I just, you know, Coach Dukesis in the building, dude.
(44:56):
Coach Dukis, Coach Dukes, yeah.
So I mean, reading books andplaying that, and then Blucky
Swire was pretty much all I wasup to.
Nice.
I can dig it, man.
What about you guys?
Alex (45:12):
Uh not too much in the in the name of video games, like
not like not pouring a bunch oftime into any one specific game,
but jumping a lot a lot.
I've been continuing to do mystart screen and pocket picks
series, short form series on thesocial.
So by by nature of like pullingout a different Game Boy game
or 64 game to like showcase, Iend up playing you know at least
(45:34):
a few minutes of each, so it'sbeen fun to dabble in the
collection in that way.
Uh, one game in particular thatI'll that I've uh I mean I'll
be playing Tetris Pro, butthere's a new version of Tetris
that came with uh with uh one ofmy Game Boy toys or whatever,
the mod red the mod mod retrochromatic came with a new
version of Tetris for Game Boy,but it it has so it's basically
(45:58):
just I mean it's just Tetris,but it's it's new age Tetris in
the sense that it has all thequality of life improvements
that you get with like Tetris ifyou were to play on a new
system, but it's still on GameBoy, which is like that's dope
to me.
So that one gets a lot ofplaytime.
There's also a schmuck thatI've been playing that's a lot
of fun called Solar Striker thatcame out in the early 80s, I
want to say, or late 80s, Isuppose.
(46:20):
Uh, I think maybe early 90s.
Don't fucking quote me.
Go watch my fucking pocketpicture.
Your Mario Wear video was cool.
That one is cool.
Yeah, uh, WarioWare Twisted, sothat's got a little motion
sensor in it.
That's for the Game BoyAdvance.
Uh and that's like WarioWare,like, it's I'm not like I'm I'm
not a WarioWare fan in the sensethat like some people fucking
(46:40):
love those games.
I think they're cool, but I'venever been like all in on like I
need WarioWare shit.
Well, but I've I don't know whoare mini games ever for.
Me, I guess I'm gonna you'retalking about how I'm like doing
little short spurts of gamesand then I'm hating on mini
games, but like not really,dude.
Like it's it's fun, it'squirky.
Uh, and then it has a motionsensor in it, so you like tilt
it to do all the games, and it'sit's it's always like I feel
(47:03):
like WarioWare is like a reallygood, like what do you call
those like hardware, like umlike when it's like a like a
prototype of sorts, you knowwhat I mean?
Luke (47:12):
Yeah, prototype's probably the word, some sort of fancier
word than demo.
So prototype probably works, uhtech showcase, tech demo or
whatever.
Yeah, tech demo.
I just mean it as like they'refull priced games.
Like, I think they came outwith one for the Switch, but I'm
like, I'm not gonna pay fullprice for like just an
assortment of video, like smallgames, like with a kid, are
(47:33):
these for like color maybe likethey're cool.
Alex (47:38):
They're great multiplayer, like it's kind of got the the
well for not for not the GameBoy Advanced one, but like the
like the other ones like thatwere for the the Wii Um and that
kind of and like the Switch orwhatever.
I mean, it's kind of like MarioParty has like really fun,
quick mini mini games.
True, like Fireware is kind ofthose on crack, so like it's a
(48:00):
good party game, I would say.
Um, but yeah, no, it's a weirdone.
But yeah, that kind of stuff.
Solar Strike is a lot of fun,dude.
Uh, that's like actually areally good schmuck for a Game
Boy, like um for a Game Boygame.
Uh but outside of that, likeI've also played like just kind
of dabble a little bit on thePS2.
Um always kind of fun to fireup an old PS2 game downstairs on
(48:21):
the big TV with the with thefancy stuff I got set up with
that.
Um, but actually anotheranother fun side quest that we
uh recently completed was wewent to the movies and I saw it.
Yeah, I saw Fantastic Four theFirst Steps or First Steps.
Luke (48:39):
Pretty good.
Do you remember seeing theoriginal Fantastic Four movie?
Alex (48:45):
Uh so I know that I've seen it, but I don't like
remember much of it.
And I was actually likeYouTubeing some stuff around it
because I was curious, like, howmuch uh like I don't know, I
was just kind of curious, andman, uh, I'm tempted to revisit,
but not really.
Luke (49:00):
Um I mean you go?
Alex (49:02):
Did we did we go?
Luke (49:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You took you were in like highschool, and I was a very nerdy
young man who collected comicbooks.
They had Spider-Man that reallyworked, but this is definitely
the pre-current universe erawhere they kind of got huge
mainstream.
So Jessica Alba was in it.
Yeah, dude.
Uh that's really all Iremember.
Alex (49:27):
Uh Chris Edwards.
Captain America is in it, onlyhe's Johnny Flame or whatever,
and Johnny Torch.
Luke (49:33):
And then who they had for Mr.
Fantastic, and they actuallycasted all four of them pretty
well.
Yeah.
Um, and they just weren't goodat the movie, the superhero
movies, just yet.
I I would think watchingDaredevil 2 would be kind of
funny in hindsight, too, becauseI thought that movie was cool.
I just remember leaving themovie and being like, that was
really cool.
And you were like, sure.
Alex (49:54):
I'm glad you liked it, bro.
Luke (49:56):
You're like, yeah, it's all right.
But like when you're a kid andyou go to a movie, everything's
fucking awesome.
Uh and then when you're old,you're like, that was awful.
Why'd I sit here?
So it'd be kind of funny torevisit, but I'm sure it's dog
shit's not appropriate, but I'msure it's not great.
Alex (50:11):
Dude, who's in the Daredevil movie?
Is that Ben Affleck?
Is he Daredevil?
Garner, yeah, yeah, JenniferGarner, too.
Man's I think that was likewell, granted, Daredevil
Daredevil's Marvel, yeah.
Colin, yeah, Colin Farrell isuh bullseye.
Yeah, dude.
I'm pretty sure back in the daythey were like, who's the
hottest girl that we can get tolike sign up for this role?
And then that's just that'sjust how they did it.
(50:33):
I mean, that I mean, they'reall they're always that
whatever, yeah, yeah.
Luke (50:37):
Al's hot tip to get attractive people to be in
movies, yeah.
Alex (50:42):
Uh first steps one, man.
It's actually it's a reallygreat standalone like uh Marvel
piece.
I mean, Papa Pedro's in there,dude, and he does a great job.
Luke (50:51):
So Pedro, Jesus Christ.
I do like all the memes of likePedro seeing an attractive
woman while having a panicattack.
That's been a pretty funnysubculture meme.
Alex (51:04):
Uh Smeer campaign going on right now.
He's he's gotten too big.
There's like there's abacklash.
Luke (51:10):
He's overtly political, which I align with some of his
stuff, so I'm not notcriticizing him, but I there's
the inevitable backlash ofhaving an opinion as well.
Uh, that's probably what itreally is.
Um, but he looks awesome as Mr.
Fantastic.
Uh, looks like they did prettycool.
Uh, that's the first movie I'vebeen tempted to see within the
Marvel Cinematic Universe in along time.
(51:31):
Uh, and I've famously neverseen Endgame, it's a bit of a
bit now, but I uh I quit a longtime ago.
But that's one where because ofthat retro vibe, and I always
had a sweet spot for theFantastic Four.
Alex (51:42):
So yeah, it's fun.
They do a really good job withit.
I also I'm gonna throw this outthere too.
Uh watch uh more of an artflick.
Uh, this one was made in it's ait's an animated movie called
Son of the White Mare.
And for anybody that is going,I like Alex's taste, I think
I'll watch this movie.
I'm gonna throw a copy outthere.
No one literally ever.
(52:04):
I'm gonna throw a copy outthere that the the story in
itself it's not worth watching.
It's a Hungarian movie, it'sall so it's in Hungarian.
Uh so I watched it withsubtitles, but truly, like it's
worth just doing a quick what'sthat?
What the fuck is going on?
Why this because I saw a reel.
Oh, I saw a reel that wastalking about the art style and
(52:26):
this shit, and then the art isbeautiful, and that's why I
bring it up.
I'm not saying that's not cool,but like I'm just like, you're
like, all right, I'm gonna doit.
I was like, what the dude, it'sit's an amazingly, it's
amazingly drawn.
Like the animation in this isreally interesting, and it's
worth at the very least forfolks just to do a Google search
of Son of the White Mare andjust see what's going on with
(52:46):
the animation style of this.
Uh, because it's beautiful,it's like super cool.
I literally love what's good.
It's very psychedelic, verypsychedelic and everything.
But it's if you're like, Imean, if you're a person like me
and you're like, I just wantthis for the art experience, and
I'm willing to devote an hourand a half of my life to this
art experience, then then yes, Ico-sign 100%.
It's just a heads up.
Like, it's it's not like agreat movie or anything, but
(53:09):
fucking it's a cool art piece.
I'm just gonna throw that outthere for folks.
Do some Googling, check out Sonof the White Mare.
Yeah, mayor M-A-R-E, not mayor.
Right, right, right.
So, like uh like a horse.
Luke (53:23):
Yeah, wow, tricky stuff.
That's wild.
Very cool.
I didn't mean to make fun ofyou.
It looks cool.
I was just like, we're talkingabout it.
Alex (53:31):
I was a little bit out of left field.
I asked me, man.
And then you're like, here's mylet the people know that I'm
not just out here watching theMarvel Cinematic Universe.
Like, I got my art pieces too.
Luke (53:44):
It's too funny.
Hell yeah.
Well, well, go Google Son ofthe White Mare.
We have defeated Humphrey, andwe have rewrited, rewrote,
re-recorded the podcast in ourfavor.
Alex (53:56):
So we are the heroes.
After after it got all dark,we've we've gotten back to the
light.
Go Google Son of the WhiteMare, check out some pictures,
maybe a couple clips, thenGoogle Low Five Gaming, and then
click on over or just type inlowfivegaming.com.
There's a little invite to ourDiscord.
Feel free to join us in there.
That's the best place to catchme and Luke, our attention, chat
(54:16):
with us.
That's like the only place tocatch Luke.
Uh if he's checking it.
Even then, even though uh, butyeah, it's fun to fun to have
love to have you there.
There's also some other funstuff going on there.
Uh, you can buy yourself a funlittle t-shirt.
I'm wearing one today.
My basketball, my little Nestbasketball t-shirt I got going.
And what else, bro?
You can support the pod.
Throw five bucks at us if you'dlike.
(54:38):
That helps keep the lights onbecause they're flickering.
Keeps ice cream.
Appreciate y'all.
Keeps that ice that'ssupporting, dude.
That's not even just supportingme.
That's supporting fucking minihigh scoop.
And you need to be doing that.
And woke.
All right, everybody.
Much love.
Thanks for listening.
(54:58):
Till next time.
Beautiful.
Yo, what up, everybody?
Welcome back to another episodeof Low Five Gaming.
This is Alex, your host, and myco-host and brother Luke is
with me once again for the 45thofficial time.
Luke (00:33):
Whoa, 45.
Well, you accelerate 45 guy.
I feel like it's just wait till50, but you know what?
You're excited.
That's cool.
I'm always excited to see you,brother.
There we go.
What do you think, brother?
Alex (00:44):
Do you feel like can we still say brother?
Even though that you knoweverybody was reminded that uh
Hulk Hogan is douche.
Luke (00:51):
Uh yes.
Uh it's post-ironic and it'sfunny.
So like brother has transcendedthe Hulk, correct?
Yes.
All right.
Alex (00:59):
I'm here for it, brother.
Luke (01:02):
A parody of the parody of the Hulkster is not necessarily
always endearing.
Sometimes it's mocking.
It's a little, it's a littlebit of all of it.
So mine is mine's mocking,dude.
I like it.
I can dig it.
I can dig it.
Alex (01:13):
Yeah.
But we're not here to talkabout Hulk Hogan.
We are here to talk about agame called The Plucky Squire.
Luke (01:35):
Children's tail.
Alex (01:40):
We'll talk more about this, but that's one of the
things that I told or like I wasmessaging you about where I was
just like, I can't tell if thisgame's for children or adults
or a little bit of both.
And I think it's a little bitof both.
Luke (01:53):
It's definitely for adults and maybe a kid.
I wouldn't say it's hard, but Idon't know.
I don't know what kids play inthis.
They just want to playFortnite.
So it's for adults.
It's to prey on nostalgia, andit's just really cool and
unique.
So I see, I see what they'redoing.
Alex (02:07):
I mean, it's a mixture, dude, for sure.
I would say it's uh you can ithas some great accessibility
features that make it where ifyou were to introduce this to a
child and you flip some of thoseon, it it makes it so that uh
it is very it is verykid-friendly in that sense.
Uh, but it has it has a littlebit of that adult flair to it.
It's like it's like your storymode too, right?
(02:28):
Yeah, so the the story modemakes it so that uh I don't know
if it skips the mini games ornot in the story mode, but it
definitely makes it so that thecombat and everything is very
nerfed.
Sure, which is cool.
I love it when games do that.
I think that's cool.
I love accessibility.
I don't always use them, butsometimes I do.
Another developer, digitaljoint, and I chose this game for
(02:48):
this month because it was itwas announced.
I want to say that this cameacross my radar during a
Nintendo Direct.
It just like the art stylebehind this game is phenomenal,
like it's super cool.
And that even that teaser thatthey showed, like there was
something about it that I waslike, I mean, there's a reason
it was announced on a NintendoDirect.
It's like it screams likethere's something about it that
(03:10):
has Nintendo Flair, in myopinion.
And I don't know exactly whatit is other than this feeling I
have.
Luke (03:15):
It's uh it prays on a not praise, but it like you know, it
definitely leans on nostalgiapretty hard of various childhood
vibes, and uh the art isgorgeous, it's like candy.
It is very it's you're you'redrawn to it in a in a very
childlike way.
I mean, it just looks like theshiny toy you want to pick up,
so I I feel you.
And the revolver and theballver is a publisher.
(03:36):
That's gonna be pretty good, soyeah.
Amazing art combined with aZelda-ish 2D top-down Zelda-ish
style to it.
Like checks is a lot of boxes.
I can see why you picked it.
Alex (03:48):
And this game was released mid-September, September 17th,
2024.
But the physical copy didn'tcome out till February 21st,
2025.
So, quite a bit later.
Luke (04:00):
I was unaware, it was so new, honestly.
Alex (04:02):
Yeah, well, physical, physical copy is pretty new,
even 24.
Yeah, that's yeah, it's muchnewer game than I thought we
were playing.
Luke (04:08):
That's cool.
Alex (04:09):
Indeed.
But I I even though it was outdigitally, I I wanted it like
from the day that this game wasannounced.
I was like, I'm gonna buy thisphysical.
I want this to be part of mycollection.
This looks dope.
I love devolvers, likeeverything that they put out,
and then like it the teasers andeverything is is is good, uh,
or was good.
It was like really enticing,and uh, and the game itself, it
(04:30):
has it's it shines at points, ithas a little, it has a little
tarnish, I would say.
It looks really cool the wholetime.
It it sure does.
Uh, I also and like this is notI started digging after the
fact, after I bought the gameand everything, because I ran
into my biggest qualm on thisgame is that it I had some frame
(04:51):
rate issues on the switch.
So I played this on my switch.
You played on the Steamy D, andyou didn't run into that as
much, you're saying.
Luke (04:58):
No, it was really awesome on the Steam ED actually.
I do recommend if anyone wereto purchase this game to go that
route.
Alex (05:04):
I mean, you got what you got.
I haven't played that manygames on the Switch that have
like frame rate drops and stuff.
They're like so noticeable thatI'm like, this is ruining my
experience a bit.
And it was to the point on thisgame where that like happened.
Luke (05:16):
I wonder if this game just has sneaky better graphics than
I would imagine, or if it'sjust poorly optimized for the
Switch.
Alex (05:23):
Yeah, I think so.
It's like one of those thingswhere because of this animation
art style that it's got goingon.
So you're you kind of spoke toa little bit ago where you're or
just briefly ago, where you'resaying that it's got the 2D
top-down Zelda-like aspect to itgoing on, right?
But you're actually in thisstorybook, okay?
So we should probably we shouldprobably reel back in a little
bit and talk a little bit howthis game works.
(05:45):
These characters in astorybook.
Luke (05:47):
Uh you were the plucky squire, dude, who's uh the hero
of a mainline book, and alsowithin the book, an author of
another series of his ownadventures.
So that's a little confusing,but dude.
Alex (05:58):
Yes, very meta and some fourth wall stuff, all of which
I appreciate.
Lots of which I appreciate.
Plucky.
Do you know what that means?
The adjective.
Do you know the definition ofplucky?
This feels like a bit, so I'mjust gonna let you read it.
Yeah, I mean, it's not a bit inthe sense that it's got a like
a good punchline or anything.
(06:18):
I'm just curious.
The whole game's called PluckySquare, so I'm like, do people
even know what plucky means?
Luke (06:23):
Like plucky generally means like scrappy, right?
Like it's a parallel toscrappy.
Like if you're plucky, you'rekind of like skinnier teeth,
like uh creative uh adventurerkind of.
Wow, are you gonna read me thedefinition of plucky now?
Alex (06:38):
I'm enjoying this.
You scraping copies, Mr.
Mr.
Alex.
Gosh, having or sewingdetermined courage in the face
of difficulties.
Luke (06:46):
I'm not wrong then.
I'm gonna take a dub on thisone.
Alex (06:49):
Yeah, you know, I'll give you half.
I I'd give you, I'd give you,I'd let you you pass the test,
buddy.
You good enough.
You tried.
Luke (06:55):
I want to be, I want to be teach.
I want to be.
Alex (06:59):
I'd say you earn it, bro.
You earned the B.
Luke (07:06):
Cheeky, dude.
You see what I did there?
He's not caked up for our hornylisteners.
It's more of like uh the gamehas a very cheeky sense of
humor.
Alex (07:14):
It does, and that's like that comes out through the
gameplay itself, some of thedialogue, and then the tons of
the dialogue.
Especially the the yeah, tonsof the dialogue, the wizard is
quite cheeky, I would say.
Luke (07:25):
Yeah, or dude, he's got a silly ass moonbeard.
Moonbeard, yeah.
Alex (07:30):
Moonbeard is there's like music track behind him, is dope
too.
Luke (07:34):
Yeah, there's mini moonbeard, indeed.
Kind of his goofy sidekick, soI like it.
Alex (07:40):
Yeah, I dig it.
So you've got you've got jotthe plucky squire, that's the
main character and the personyou play most of the time, and
then he's got a couple sidekicksthat uh join him.
Uh a wizard, a troll, and alittle mouse, right?
They come they become biggerdeals, I would say, probably
half to three-quarters of theway through the game.
But the main character, youknow, is is Jot.
(08:02):
And it's interesting, like asfar as the story goes, none of
this is spoiler territory, butyou know, you're in this
storybook book, you break thefourth wall.
There's I can't remember thename of the kid who is actually
creating all of you or whatever.
The is he named he he may ormay not be.
I think he might be.
I think he's got his signatureon some stuff.
Oh, yeah, you're definitelyaware of him and his presence.
(08:23):
Not at not at first, but it'slike pretty quickly in the game,
you're like everybody becomesaware of the fact that the world
that they live in is animaginary book world or
whatever, and you have theability to transcend out of that
book into the real world, and alot of stuff.
Yes, yes, yes.
(08:44):
So hump grump is the main badguy, male poet, and butterflies.
Yes, you wrote credits, itsounds like, and he's also
spoiler territory.
Apologies, dear listener.
No, no, I don't think any ofthat needs it to be honest.
But so that's like that's likekind of the premise.
You're like these storybookcharacters, hump grump, main
baddie taking over the world,very like standard, like the bad
(09:06):
guy wizard wants all the power.
Luke (10:07):
Yeah, and I would say the storyline and how it interacts
with the gameplay is that youhave two main components
overall, which is the more2D-ish, like not totally
top-down, but almost like on atilt, uh, mostly top down,
though.
Alex (10:20):
And that would be like a book almost, right?
Luke (10:23):
Yeah, like you're in the book.
You quite literally are, yeah.
So you're you're quiteliterally in the book, and then
when you pop out, it is likethis 3D action platformer type
area where you go, you kind ofgo back and forth in pretty cool
ways for puzzles.
But you know what that remindedme of the most whenever you
went to the 3D, you're always 3Dout of the book, and then
you're like plopped out into hisroom, like this super
(10:46):
imaginative kid's room, andyou're like fighting these
stupid bugs, which I hated, anduh you're dealing with all the
things that are on like his verymessy chaotic desk, and
therefore like forts and thingslike that, and it was really
cool.
But you know a game it remindedme of from way, way, way back
in the day, dude?
Toy Story 2.
Dude, I was constantly thinkingabout Toy Story on the N64 and
how awesome a fuck that was as akid.
(11:07):
Yeah, for sure.
I grew up with a Toy Storymovie, but that game, I don't
even know if it's good, I don'teven know if I can get past like
the first level or two, but goddo I remember the first level
or two.
Alex (11:16):
That game is actually like as far as um you know license
IP type stuff goes, like that'sone of the better ones for sure.
Luke (11:24):
I bet you, yeah.
Alex (11:25):
I don't even know what's licensed IP, I don't know how
that works, to be honest.
But uh, but I think it's a dopegame for the 64.
It's probably on PlayStation aswell.
Dope game.
Luke (11:32):
Yeah, yeah, no, I and it's like that's what like this game
is at its best when you're ininteractions, both in the book
or out of the book, because it'sso beautiful in the environment
they put you in, and the artdesign and the sound design, and
all that's really cool and howthey all go together.
That's like this game is reallyshining when they're constantly
(11:52):
stopping you to over-explainthe dialogue and what just
happened.
I want to smack my fuckingscreen.
I'm like, I don't want to talkto that worm again, dude.
I know what just happened.
Like that's where I'm like, isthis game for adults?
Alex (12:04):
Adults are children.
That's what that's where it hasthat tension there where I'm
like, come on, who'd you makethis for?
Just embrace that this is forfucking nerdy ass adults like
me.
Luke (12:12):
Yeah, but like it must have it must have a but a kid
wouldn't want to read that much,so I'm just like, Well, yeah,
you're over-explaining it, but akid would also just be like, Oh
my god.
Alex (12:23):
So on both ends, I'm really confused as to who
they're serving here, but um Ithink they were confused about
it, man.
Like, so I did just some briefresearch, and it is dude, it is
a beautiful game, and part ofthat is I mean, this that's you
know, we had to give that uh theso the developers James Turner,
an ex-game freak art director.
(12:43):
So game freak, you'll you mayrecognize from I believe
Pokemon, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and a bunchof other stuff, but Pokemon for
sure, and then this fella namedJonathan Biddle, who to my
understanding, uh had createdthis concept at for a comic
book.
So they got together andthey're like, let's take this
(13:05):
plucky squire concept andtranslate it into a video game.
Okay.
And I think that that might beat the root of some of this,
like there's a little too muchdialogue or a little too much
like over-explaining text goingon because originally it had
this comic book uh origin story.
But who knows?
(13:27):
It's a little bit ofspeculation.
That's cool though.
Look at you.
It is cool research and stuff.
Indeed.
But uh, and you know what?
It's also some you know, when Iwas earlier when I was
introducing this game andsaying, like, you know, the
whole Nintendo Direct thing, andyou mentioned it's uh you
mentioned it has a 2D uh Zeldavibes.
Also, when you go into the thethe fourth, you know, the
(13:48):
whatever the real dimension is.
Whatever's going on on thedesk, yeah.
Yeah, so that would be uh thatactually that has very strong 3D
Zelda vibes, right?
And you know, I love Zelda.
You love Zelda, we're Zeldaboys.
Yeah, so a good Zelda like, I'mnot you know, it's it's hard to
do a good Zelda like in myopinion.
I was like, but I'm always veryintrigued when I see one that
(14:08):
looks good, I want to play it.
And this is one that I want toplay.
And I would say though, likethis one just has so many cool
ideas that aren't alwaysexecuted to full potential.
The Zelda stuff, the um likethe different uh puzzles and
like Zelda type puzzles you'redoing, like at the at the
beginning, way too darn easy,and towards the end, like it's
(14:32):
kind of hard, but still not hardenough, you know.
Luke (14:35):
I would say that I really liked when so specifically, you
can sometimes knock text off ofthe book being read, and then
you can find text elsewhere andit changes things in the
environment.
That's super cool.
That's but I can create utilizeit, it is super cute creative,
but like yeah, and sometimes youcan literally flip you can
through all these various powersyou get you can pick up the
(14:57):
book, you can flip pages.
Um, at the time, sometimes itfelt tedious, like you're
explaining, yeah, or oversimple, but like in hindsight,
it's all pretty cool now thatI'm that's just it.
Alex (15:09):
The the concept is fucking dope, dude.
But the the actual action of itis like a little too clunky.
Luke (15:15):
We joke about this all the time, but like just all the
games that we only beat to saywe beat them for the podcast,
and then we talk about how likeit was good homework, but it
felt like homework to get itdone, and I had to like set an
agenda.
I never would have beat thisgame, I would have like bounced
off it after like two, threehours.
But because I saw everything ithad to offer, I find it
(15:35):
incredibly charming.
I'm very critical of it, but Ifind it very charming in
hindsight, you know.
Alex (15:42):
Dude, I dropped a joke about that in the Discord.
Like, I've never I've neverplayed a game, I don't think,
that I like so much and equallydisliked at the same time.
Luke (15:52):
Yeah, this isn't even like control, where the whole time
we played control, you're like,I understand why this is so
awesome.
I just am burnt out already,and I just started.
This is more like, hey, is thischapter done?
I'd like to play something moreaddicting, and like, oh, I'm
gonna do another action seawould like you just throw your
sword at dudes and you just likewait and you just be like meh
(16:12):
meh, and then they'd be done, orlike, did you ever die?
Alex (16:16):
Uh yeah, during mini games, not really during actual
gameplay.
Luke (16:20):
Yeah, we could talk about those mini games.
You want to do the minigamesright now?
Alex (16:24):
Let's get into it, dude, because that's the other aspect
of this game that I think Iactually make super yeah, for
sure.
Sometimes annoying as hell, butit's like the text thing we
were just talking about, man.
I feel like it's underutilized.
Like, I mean, there'sdefinitely a good mix of mini
games, but it's just notbalanced, man.
It's just like I don't know.
Luke (16:40):
If they would have thrown any more of those, I would have
lost my mind.
So you have like a rhythmsection with your okay.
Alex (16:46):
That boss press was rough for sure.
Luke (16:48):
I loved that stupid metal loving character and people.
I thought all those jokes werelike thrash and like his
mountain troll people who lovemetal music.
I actually felt like a lot offun, and then the art lady, I
forget what her name is, thewizard trainee that you're with.
The beautiful art town.
Did you notice all the yeah?
(17:08):
Did you notice all the coolhidden little features?
Alex (17:11):
Of course I did.
They're all different likethis.
Yeah, it was like Bango Rash,the different painters,
different like all sorts ofstuff.
Luke (17:17):
Like Banks, he has his uh face blurred out.
I thought that was cute.
Yeah, um, not the point I wasmaking, it's just something
that's what I'm saying.
Alex (17:24):
You can tell like whoever the art direction around this is
phenomenal.
Luke (17:27):
Like I had better visual ideas than they did gameplay.
In the gameplay, they tried foryou to have fun while carrying
you through the story, and theymostly succeeded.
But you have like this rhythmsection where you gotta like
these things are coming at you,and you gotta press bop, bop,
bop with jot or not jot, but uhthrash, and that was kind of
annoying, but like kind of cool.
Alex (17:46):
Um, you basically expect yeah, yeah.
Luke (17:49):
Violet, you have this candy crush section and out of
here with that candy crushsection.
I need the I need to catch upone of my students' moms or
something, dude, and be like, Ineed someone to crush this candy
crush section, dude.
Alex (18:01):
You're in the game.
We already talked about likethe being on the pages of the
book.
You that's your 2D stuff,traversing around, looks really
cool.
You can come out into the realworld, but when you're back in
the book, there's also thesesections where it will basically
it brings you more, it changesthe perspective again, like a
whole on different game type.
And I think that they do thisin a few different ways, but
(18:21):
kind of hard to explain whenyou're looking back on all of
the different ones that thereare, right?
Luke (18:25):
But yes, that bird one where you're shooting with the
mo.
That shit was cool as hell,dude.
That was kind of tough.
How hard did you how bricked upwere you when you saw that
fucking card with that cool atthe top of the fort?
You had the little littlelittle card where you like
that's such a cool.
Alex (18:38):
It's like a magic of the gathering card or whatever,
yeah, for sure.
Yeah, I thought that's you makeyour U-traversal all the way up
there.
So there's a lot of like youmentioned it already, but the 3D
platforming stuff going on inthe real world.
Uh, a lot of times there's likeyou have to work your way up to
something or around whatever,and then the who the main baddie
that would mention, Hump Grump,like his minions have also like
he's like spread out into thereal world, too.
(18:59):
So there are the Beatles andthe bugs, which man, that kid's
room is dirty.
Luke (19:03):
Yeah, but he's messy.
Alex (19:05):
You got the you got the bugs and everything going
around, and then you've got likesome of the baddies out there
to fight and everything.
And it's it's cool out there.
I would that's where I hit alot of frame drops, is in that I
don't want to call itforgivable, but because but when
it was in the 2D area and itwould happen, like on the book
pages, I was like, Oh, I can'teven take that, like the jumping
around like that.
And it wasn't so bad, likeclearly they they co-signed on
(19:25):
like getting it out on Switch,so it's not like bad enough
where you can't publish it on onSwitch or whatever, like, but
it was bad enough where Inoticed it, and it was a gripe
of mine.
But these mini-games, dude,fucking dope.
I love how this game has somany games within it, and you're
always jumping around andplaying these different game
types.
So we've got the Zelda likesthat we mentioned.
You mentioned the Candy Crush,like puzzler with uh with
Violet, Thrash has got hisrhythm game, the little mouse
(19:48):
dude.
I think his name is Pip.
Um so Pip's got another like arhythm game thing.
Rhythm stealth.
That thing was like, oh, Ihated it, then I liked it, then
I hated it, and now I'm okaywith it.
Luke (20:02):
I'm just I think because now that I'm done with it, it's
but at the time I was like, Iswear to fucking god, if I ever
do this again.
Uh don't forget about the MikeTyson's fight night version that
you do twice.
Yes, very interesting.
And then one that's like oh,two things.
I think I realized why youpicked this game when you like
(20:22):
midway through do like ashoot 'em up in the middle of
it.
Alex (20:25):
I didn't know that was gonna be in there, but I was
quite pleased.
Yeah, that's the shmup sectionstuff is cool the during the
beginning and the end of thegame.
Luke (20:32):
The art, the art almost was like uh like like the final
boss battle is almost like uhStar Fox, dude.
Yeah, for sure.
You know what the fuck I mean?
Yeah, I do.
That was crazy, and thenthere's like this archery one
that you do that I found.
Alex (20:45):
I forgot about the archery one to be honest.
Luke (20:46):
Dude, I did too.
That was cool.
It's kind of cool in hindsight.
Uh that was like one of themoments I had with the game
where I was like, that wasreally cool.
This whole section is reallycool.
Alex (20:55):
So many cool ideas.
The gameplay is all like it'sall cool ideas.
The whole thing, the wholething's just riddled with cool
ideas.
The execution of them allthough, it just like falls flat
a little bit.
Luke (21:07):
Yeah, so the game took me about eight and a half to nine
hours.
Um, I'm assuming you're aroundthe same.
Yeah, how long how long to meetit clocks in at around 10.
I would say that you know ifyou're a dad and you're reading
a lot of these books and you gota weekend and you just want to
(21:29):
crush a game, this might be it.
Alex (21:32):
Dude, or if you're like me and you like like it's just the
art thing we've been talkingabout too.
Like as an art piece, this gameis stoked.
It's dope, dude.
Yeah, but as like a puregameplay, at least a little
something to be desired.
Luke (21:44):
Yeah, it's it's not going for the gameplay.
I feel like the gameplay isjust supposed to be like fun and
quick and get you to the nextbeat of the story and for you to
see more things.
Alex (21:53):
Yeah, there's got maybe that's great.
So it's got a little bit ofeverything in it, right?
I'm curious.
Did you make a point to to hitthe collectibles?
Did you get all the art pieces?
Did you get all the like thethings?
Luke (22:05):
And now I'm like, how in the hell them like I thought I
was being pretty thorough.
Uh yeah.
It's a bummer that you playedon Switch because you don't get
the uh achievements, but I gotone right away for just
wandering off the desk to mydeath, and they're like, Had to
try it.
Nice.
I thought it was pretty great.
Yeah, that's cool.
(22:25):
Um it's fun to collect the artbecause shocker, the art within
this game collectibles are coolonce again.
Um, and the saving those littledudes, uh is there a payoff for
that that you know of?
Is there like somewhere wheresometimes the games when you
save a bunch of those people andyou go to like a communal area
and they're like, Oh my gosh,and you can like see that the
whatever area has grown withthem returned, but with a Dutch
(22:49):
bird.
Alex (22:50):
I would assume that there's some sort of payoff, and
I don't know what it is.
I also assume that if youcollect all the art pieces as a
payoff, I don't know what it isbecause I didn't do it either.
But there is so like it's thisisn't uh it's neither a spoiler
nor is it too different fromlike other games like this, but
when you beat it, uh it and yougo back to the save file, it it
(23:11):
puts you, it's kind of oddbecause it puts you past the
final boss and it puts you at apoint where there's no continued
gameplay, like it just wouldreloop your conversation that
you have at the end of the gameand then go in credits, and
that's like the final savepoint.
So and you can also go back inand replay chapters once you've
(23:31):
once you've beat it, right?
So my assumption is is you cango back, replay chapters, do all
the collectible stuff, and thengo back to that last chapter,
and your conversation is likelydifferent.
But I don't know, yes, and Imay never know.
Luke (23:47):
I definitely definitely won't unless I stumble into
someone explaining it somewhere.
Alex (23:52):
Dude, I I hit you up, I hit you up on the Discord or
whatever, and I was like, dog, Ibeat the game, roll credits.
This thing's going back on theshelf where it belongs, and it
will stay there until my childis old enough to be interested
by it.
Yeah, it's it's cool, it'sgorgeous, it's creative, it's
and 10-hour romp though, likeeven though we're like I'm half
(24:16):
like hating, I'm not like hatingat it, but you know, I'm I'm
I'm giving it uh I'm pokingholes in it, right?
Even said like 10 hour fuckingto roll credits, man.
That's my that's my sweet spot.
I love it.
I love being able to rollcredits within 10 hours.
Luke (24:30):
Yeah, uh 10 hours that should have been six.
What is up?
Dude, like chapter nine, sothere's nine full chapters.
Well, I thought I looked it upand it said 10 chapters, so I
was what we're missing.
Alex (24:45):
I think that maybe we need to do more collecting and then
it'll maybe kick us off into a10th chapter.
Luke (24:49):
Yeah, I was I was like so worried.
I was like, this is a longdude.
Chapter 9 was penalty, bro.
Alex (24:55):
That's that's another pacing issue with this game.
It's like, you know, everythingis like cool, but then there's
just something where it's likeyou didn't execute it perfectly.
Uh but yes, that's let's let'stalk a little bit before we've
already kind of like laid ourcards on the table, I think.
But before we, you know, moveinto uh our next segments and
give this thing a grade.
(25:16):
I do want to know how you faredin that minigame bit at the
end, the boss rush that we thatwe had.
Luke (25:24):
What did I tell you that I wanted it to die or that I
hated the game?
What was my angry ass text?
Alex (25:29):
It was something like I fucking hate this game.
Luke (25:32):
Uh Thrash's metal rhythm game was hard as hell.
How many times did it take youto beat that?
Dude, uh four or five, six.
Alex (25:41):
Yeah, I was on four, five, six, and then I skipped it
straight up.
Luke (25:44):
Dude, uh, there's something about my pride
wouldn't let me skip it.
And then I find because atleast they're merciful.
Alex (25:49):
You have to like they are so there's a checkpoint
basically, like, right?
You can get halfway through it,and then if you die, it will
bring you back to the halfwaypoint, which I appreciate that.
Yeah, but I kept still dying uhon the second part of that so
many times that I was like, youknow what?
Screw it, I don't need to seethe winning screen.
Like, I'm just gonna move off.
Did you skip the candy crushsection too?
(26:10):
Hell yeah, I did.
Dude, after I lost that candycrush section, like I wasn't
playing it as hard because it'sone once you like once you break
the seal on something likethat.
Luke (26:20):
I was like, okay, that's why that's why I wouldn't do it.
I was like, I can't.
It's just a long game, it's nota bad game.
Alex (26:26):
It hurt my pride a little bit, it hurt my pride a little
bit.
Luke (26:30):
I hovered above it, I almost did it, so now I'm really
glad I didn't see you can feelit.
Alex (26:34):
I did it, I'll admit, I'll I'll admit to it.
It's whatever, dude.
Uh but that's a littleasterisk, little asterisk to my
credits.
Luke (26:41):
He might have beat Diablo, but I truly beat Plucky Squire,
dude.
Alex (26:46):
That's true.
You just weren't plucky enough,dude.
That's you're not wrong, bro.
You're not wrong.
Luke (26:51):
See what I did there.
Alex (26:52):
Do you want me to find Cucky?
Yes.
Got it already.
The embrace of adversity.
Yes, 100%.
Oh man, but the music in thisgame, beautiful, art, beautiful.
Uh man, the I did skip, I didskip the mini games in the end.
Uh, but not the not the punchout one, because those ones are
(27:14):
fun, which is also difficult thesecond in the in the boss rush
section towards the end.
Luke (27:19):
Disagree.
For some reason, I could hackmy way through that one.
Alex (27:22):
Nice, well done.
Uh, I mean basically did thesame, but like it was that I
actually found that that bout tobe easier than the first time I
did it, but I think it justlike I was so caught off guard
that they were like throwingthis mini game in there the
first time that I was like, ohshit.
Yeah, but no, so I got throughthat.
Um, there's uh as far as thestory goes, like I said, it's
(27:43):
kind of like you know, kind ofyour adventure trope.
It's there's nothing too crazyabout it.
I'd go ahead and say that.
Luke (27:48):
It's a fun story, it's cool.
It makes it or like Netflixshort series.
Alex (27:53):
I can see that for sure.
Yeah, the um I was just Ididn't want to give any story
spoilers out there, but it I wasyou know, it's kind of your
standard like adventure story,but it's it is good.
Uh, and there's some nicetwists in there, I would say.
There was a couple things thatI did not see coming, not like
it blew my mind type of twist,but I was like, Oh, that's nice.
I like what they did there.
Uh, and that happens a coupletimes throughout, so pretty cool
(28:15):
in that sense as well.
I told you off mic and I standby it at the time.
I was like, I I think I gottagive this game.
If I was being incredibly harshon this game, I will give it
two out of five brush strokes.
Luke (28:31):
Dude, you put that you put that can opener down, dude.
What do you threaten to my canopener?
Alex (28:36):
I keep a pocket knife on my desk and I pigeon with it
when I'm on calls, but which islike a dumb thing to do because
like if I'm on the wrong call, Ijust like playing with nine,
people are like, what you doing?
Luke (28:47):
What you're doing, badass.
Uh two out of five is crazy.
That's disrespectful.
Alex (28:51):
No, I'm not done.
I would give it two out offive, but because of how
imaginative and how beautifulthis game is, and like how
whimsical and all this otherstuff, like it's gonna go up to
three.
I gotta give it a three.
And I wrote credits, it's notlike it's broken, and two's not
like on a two to five scale.
Like, yeah, two would be theworst that we've ever done, but
I gotta give it three.
Like, I think there's too muchshit going on with it that I was
(29:13):
like, fucking eh.
Uh, but there's also so muchgoing on with it that like it's
it's bumped up to a three forsure.
Luke (29:19):
Dang.
Um, you ready for sometaxonomy?
Yes, always.
Uh, friend of the pod Tyler.
I think I think we have to givehis wife Ashley the actual
credit for it, but she calls ittype two fun.
unknown (29:31):
Okay.
Luke (29:32):
As a father, you would get this hardcore.
Everybody will, but a parent ofa young child definitely will.
Where sometimes you're havingtype one fun, which is obvious
in the moment, and later on funthat you remember fondly.
Type two fun is kind of likenot fun in the moment, and then
afterwards you have very fondmemories of it.
So, for example, let's sayyou're on a trip with your child
(29:53):
and you're just managing yourchild the whole time, but then
you know, he sees a waterfalland he thinks it's the coolest
thing ever, and you have a videoof it later.
You're like, that might havebeen type two fun.
Maybe it's type one fun.
But I think you get my point,which is type two fun is this
after the fact you reallyappreciated it, and it is really
fun when you look back on it.
But if you're really beinghonest with yourself, in the
(30:14):
moment you're kind of stressedthe whole time.
This game is a three out offive, but I will speak of it
glowingly because it's got tonsof type two fun.
I thought the environments wereso cool and the music, they are
sound effects, and I thoughtsome of the puzzles' high points
are enough where all I rememberis the really cool stuff, and I
have forgotten the boredom andthe tedium and being stopped too
(30:37):
much for dialogue that I didn'tcare to read.
Dude, but that's really a fewtimes.
That made me laugh at the onlya few times, so I'll remember
this great, but I'm not gonnaplay it again.
Alex (30:51):
I can dig it.
Luke (30:52):
That makes sense better as a memory than it is as an
actuality.
Alex (30:55):
So I think his balance is just awesome.
Dude, it's like because it'sway too easy in the end.
It doesn't get a point whereit's way too hard, but it's like
it just doesn't it doesn't rampup the way it should.
Like by the end, I was like, Ilove the way but what's that?
Luke (31:08):
So it's not Final Fantasy VII.
For sure.
It's not like Alex, so no,yeah, no, it's not Baldur's Gate
3 either.
But other than that, I think itwas really cool.
Alex (31:21):
For sure.
Uh, I just want to give itprops, but by the end, like I
think all the like brain teaserstuff that it was doing had
reached a level where I waslike, hey, that was good.
Like that actually made methink that got that like pushed
me to the point where I waslike, I could look this up
because I'm slightly stuck, butI'm like, dude, I'm not that
stuck.
And I appreciate that.
I feel like at the beginning itwas a little too easy.
And I was like, this is forbabies, and like there's just
(31:44):
like the middle ground sweetspot didn't last long enough, in
my opinion.
But still, three, three, threeof five brush strokes.
I think it was a pretty tightgame.
Luke (31:53):
Love it.
Alex (31:54):
Yeah, with that, let's take a little break.
Come back with our unsanctionsponsor.
Luke (31:59):
You want to try that one again?
Sure.
Unsanction sponsor that cameout of your mouth strange.
Alex (32:07):
Get out of here, dude.
You know how much that I cutfrom this podcast.
Used bumbling over your words.
Luke (32:12):
Never, never.
I one take, dude.
I'm Nas.
Legendary, nasty Nas, dude.
Alex (32:20):
Empire State of Mind.
Continue.
Unsation sponsor.
Let's go.
We'll be back soon, fellas,folks.
Geez, I'm broken.
This month we're brought to youin part by well, brought to you
(32:47):
unofficially in part, bysummertime ice cream runs.
Luke (32:52):
Dude, I'm the defender of the ice cream run.
If we we would never not be asin like, dude, Trisha's always
trying to get ice cream, and I'malways like, keeping the ice
cream from your boys and yourfamily, bro.
I should send you the picture.
Uh, to convince them to leavethe community night tonight.
We bought him some ice cream.
Uh, shouts out, got a soniclike ice cream bar Popsco
(33:13):
looking ass thing.
Hell yeah.
Uh, so my boy's face is stillblue, it is stained, can't get
out the blue.
Hopefully, that comes out forfamily photos.
And two, uh, Lewis wanted anice cream cone, and I just I got
some pictures looking back inthe car, and it's just ice cream
all over their faces.
And I'm like, I might be agrumpy old man who says no to
(33:34):
the ice cream, but you gottalove those memories, dude.
Alex (33:37):
Dude, I'm telling you, ice cream is good all the time, but
there's something aboutsunshine, ice cream, summertime.
It's the best, man.
And then you go, so you'retalking about like you got some
sonic and some ice cream.
That sounds like a that soundslike a truck situation to me,
like a high-end ice cream truck.
Luke (33:56):
I only say high-end because they had a pint of Blue
Moon, which is the wifey'sfavorite.
Um pretty pumped about that.
Alex (34:02):
See, that's dope.
That's dope.
Uh, the other day, so we got wegot two ice cream joints that
we like to like to go to.
I've also my uh my wife and Ihave been off the liquor for
almost nine months now, uh,which is tight, but you know
what comes with that?
It's like, where's this going?
No more sweet brother, or sweettooth brother.
(34:25):
Yeah, uh so like ice cream inthis house.
We're like, we should get someice cream, and I'm like, you're
gatekeeping.
I'm like, hell yeah, let's goget it.
Uh so we had to do ice creamruns.
So, like, I'm not gonna lie,like DQ.
I would like, I would be like,no, no, DQ, like that's like
McDonald's territory, butwhatever, man.
DQ that's a Minnesota company,bro.
Luke (34:47):
Dairy Queens uh cut above when it comes to most of their
products.
Then you know a Minnesotacompany?
You know, yeah, theheadquarters in like
Bloomington, yeah.
Yeah, so that's cool.
Alex (34:58):
And is that one of your spots in the neighborhood?
You can't fuck with yeah,there's like two, there's like
two dairy queens in my area thatwe could go to and have gone
to.
Three, there's a they're allover over here for some reason.
Luke (35:09):
Dairy Queens over there, dude.
Alex (35:10):
Uh, do you got any local joints?
Hell yeah, so that's what I wasgonna get to.
The mini haha scoop.
The mini haha scoop is actuallythe closest ice cream joint to
us, and that is like your it'sjust a little building, straight
up got the cooler ice creamthat's some like all you need,
brother.
High school to college-agekids, like our are man in the
place uh every time.
And it's dude, it's good assice cream, it's a little
(35:32):
overpriced, but you know what?
You're supporting a smallbusiness, so I'm all about that.
They got a punch card, so thetenth one's free.
unknown (35:39):
Shoot.
Luke (35:41):
Um big proponent of so you're off the liquor, but I
think you had the liquor longenough for an appreciation for
the proper level of dive bar.
Oh, yeah.
Um, so when I think back in mycode, go to a dive bar with
without drinking, you know.
Oh, no doubt, especially if wegot decent dive bar food.
Alex (36:00):
Hell yeah.
Luke (36:01):
But um it's interesting.
Two things that I really missabout the college town I went to
school in is that they havereally cool dive bars that I
miss.
But more importantly, to thisconversation, they have local
like drive-in style ice creamjoints that I fucking adored at
(36:22):
the time.
So um, you got the Penguinsestoand Lakeview in Winona.
And I used to always, when Iwas delivering pizzas, uh, if it
was later in the night and itwasn't as busy, I'd bring back
something for like me and themanager or whatever, or someone
else if they're like helpingclose down, dude.
And my favorite thing to do isyou get the slushies mixed with
the ice cream, dude, like likegrape slushie and vanilla ice
(36:44):
cream, then you blend that shitup.
She I missed that so fuckinghard, dude.
Make a little lean out of itfor great lean, sure.
Uh also got a huge boner for umthey had the different flavors
of the the ice cream coating.
What do you call that?
Just like the dip.
(37:05):
I don't know when they knowwhat to call just the flavored
dips, and they had like birthdaycake flavored dip that hardens
that shit goes so hard, and theyhad like blue raspberry.
Like I fucking love that shit,and then you can get like greasy
little burgers too.
So I love a joint like that.
So nighttime ice cream.
I feel you.
I used to drive to one, I usedto walk to another one because
there was two in town, and likeI miss I miss stuff like that.
(37:26):
I have an okay version outwhere I live, but it's not it's
not like that.
Uh dude, mini ha scoop ispretty fire.
Alex (37:34):
I mean I don't know.
There's room, like you know,they they they they could do
some things, like you know,maybe some fresher waffle cones
and shit, but I still fuck withtheir waffle cone.
But what are you gonna do?
What are you gonna do?
Yeah, you know, you know.
Oh, here's a here's a touch sothat you know what?
If the mini ha scoop folks arelistening, get some fucking
melted milk balls in the bottomof your in your waffle cone.
That's a pro move.
(37:54):
Yeah, it's such a nice littletreat.
Luke (37:57):
And it's like too the overhead on that, that was much
such a bonus as a kid.
My mind was fucking blown whenI was throwing it.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Alex (38:04):
Yeah, also you got any memories of uh being at the lake
with the family and going tothe ice cream joint, and I don't
even know the name of thelittle town, but that was like a
little thing that we did.
Luke (38:14):
Girl Lake, dude, and uh we went to the town, and that's
where I fell in love withSuperman ice cream because I'm a
video, and that's my favoriteice cream flavor, is still to
this day.
Superman they got Superman atMayhaus Coop, but guess what?
Alex (38:30):
Shoot, what superhuman this they changed it to
superhuman, uh it's moreinclusive.
Word so let's you ready to youready to like pivot to uh I
thought it was just because ofSuperman's colors, but all
right.
It is, dude.
It's like for sure, but that'slike I was there, dude.
This podcast about the jumpjump ship over to like bro,
(38:52):
Brotown, like me, you, and JoeRogan now.
I was definitely gonna throwsome Minneapolis jokes your way,
but alright, yeah.
No, no, no, no.
But like, dude, uh like thesuperhuman.
So I looked at it, I was like,What's up with superhuman?
You guys get like a cease anddesist.
And he was like, No, I thinkthey're just trying to be more
inclusive.
I was like, All right, well,that's weird, isn't it?
Just like supposed to be likebecause of Superman's colors or
(39:15):
whatever.
And he's like, Yeah, I don'treally know.
I'm like, I'm not gonna fuckinglike go into this much further.
With like a he's like, brother,I'm not paid enough to know or
care.
Yeah, for sure.
Luke (39:26):
Get your ice cream and get out of here, dude.
Alex (39:29):
But I remember that too, dude.
Girl Lakes, Superman ice cream,superhuman races, dude.
Luke (39:34):
Probably for our turtle races, too, but I don't care.
That shit was core memories,dude.
My turtle never won.
No, I cheated, so it did one.
We are homies.
Um, our very ice cream memoryis that uh I had a very not
trustworthy older brother whokept trading dipped cone flavors
and purposely with his fat assate a head and then trading
back.
Alex (39:54):
And I was we just had different flavors.
Luke (39:56):
We were just we were supposed to part of it.
She same dip.
Alex (40:01):
You were just stoked, you were just stoked.
That was like you want to tradecones?
You're like, Yeah, I mean, youwere like at this, you had to be
what like six, seven at thetime, max vulnerable.
Luke (40:11):
Yep, yeah, dog.
Alex (40:12):
So you're like stoked, like big bro.
He's trying to trade ice creamwith me.
I'm gonna go for it.
Trade, I work a little bit onthe cone, get down a little bit
past where you're at.
You want to trade back, buddy?
You're like, yeah, I got like aI got like at least a cone and
like a quarter out of that deal.
He's bad.
Luke (40:28):
Yeah, I always thought it's because we had different
flavors.
Now I feel dumb.
Alex (40:32):
No, you're just down, you're just down for trades,
man.
You're like that kid that'sjust like trading fucking energy
cards for Charizards.
Oh god.
Luke (40:46):
Always does.
No doubt.
But summertime ice cream, uh,pistachio, better as a gelato,
underlay underrated flavor,though.
Let's go.
Salted, salted caramel, big,big in my my book.
Textures guy.
Um, I'm also here for nuts inice cream.
I'll do that with the nuts.
Gotta get my nuts, dude.
Um I the wife, strongdisagreement in the house.
(41:10):
She doesn't think nuts belongin ice cream.
I don't I don't know.
They work the saltiness, dude.
And the crunch.
Alex (41:15):
The crunch is funny.
So important.
Luke (41:17):
Like an almond.
Alex (41:18):
I can dig it.
Summertime ice cream, bro.
All right, dude.
You've been side question?
No.
You say you know or no?
(41:40):
No.
Like, I don't have a life.
I just put S double Augustlifestyle, dude.
I'm not playing I'm not on theboard this year.
I don't even know.
I don't even know you gottatell me about this game.
Luke (41:54):
You know, um, I'll try to keep it to just this pod because
I'm sure my side quests wouldactually just be it for the next
few months.
I like having that uh a niceflow state style game.
I think a lot of people like tojust play like uh my
brother-in-law, he plays MarvelRivals, and I make fun of him
because I don't know if youfollow the discourse on that
game, but a lot of theunlockable skins are pretty
(42:15):
shamelessly horny.
Yeah, so I keep telling himhe's just trying to play his
horny Marvel game.
Uh but like he's always had agame like uh Counter-Strike 2 or
whatever, and then this is justfilling that niche for him, and
I have that with sports forsure.
Or some sort of management gamethat I can get like super flow
state into.
Um, the game is better.
Alex (42:37):
It's like kind of hardcore.
Luke (42:39):
Oh, yeah.
I mean, he's I mean, yeah, he'sa child, he's a Gen Zier.
Alex (42:43):
So I feel like Oh, I was talking about I thought you were
talking about big bro.
Luke (42:48):
That makes more sense.
Alex (42:49):
Oh, yeah.
Luke (42:51):
No.
But anyway, the game hasimproved in ways that the
sicko's like myself woulddefinitely appreciate.
Last year's game was like oneof the most selling games of all
time because people are just soexcited for college football.
This year they didn't make anybig leaps to the chagrin of
some, but they definitelyfine-tuned a lot.
And I I've heard twointeresting arguments, which is
(43:12):
just, you know, uh, if you wantto see one of the more toxic
subreddits, um, Madden, and thenthis one is just people
bitching.
And I'm like, all right, cool.
But some people are like, whywould I pay for this unfinished
game that keeps patching keeppatching all these things and
updating all these things?
Then somebody else pointed outthat like they actually
continuously listen to fanfeedback and continue to tune,
(43:36):
fine-tune the game and likerelease huge updates, like well
into its life cycle over theyear, which is true for last
year as well.
And I admire that.
I'm just gonna throw that outthere.
I'm in the middle of buildingup, uh just won a championship
with Oregon State.
That's pretty cool.
Rains all the time, that's kindof fucking annoying.
But welcome to the PacificNorthwest.
That's good they worked that inthere, actually.
Alex (43:56):
That's kind of interesting.
Luke (43:57):
No, it's actually a known issue with the game the
developers have been working onwhere it rains too much.
But now that I'm in Oregon, itat least feels less annoying.
Alex (44:06):
Oh, interesting.
So is this always like nomatter where you are, it's a
little rainy or whateversometimes?
More often than it should be,yes.
Luke (44:12):
It's kind of funny, actually.
Like, yeah, no, so there'sgoofy stuff like that.
Gameplay improvements andsystem improvements and UI
interface stuff improvements.
So I recommend it only for thesicko's because I don't know,
it's pretty much the same aslast year, but just updated
stuff.
Alex (44:31):
Sure.
You've been getting it inthough, playing in front of the
boys, teaching about football?
Luke (44:35):
This year I am not.
Last year they're a littleyounger, so we couldn't do a
whole lot and go a whole lot ofplaces all the time.
So, like at least you know, agame a day, they'd see me play,
and I'd give them uh unpluggedcontrollers, and they wouldn't
smack away on their controllers.
And this year I've they haven'tseen me play.
It's just when they nap andwhen they go to bed.
I just, you know, Coach Dukesis in the building, dude.
(44:56):
Coach Dukis, Coach Dukes, yeah.
So I mean, reading books andplaying that, and then Blucky
Swire was pretty much all I wasup to.
Nice.
I can dig it, man.
What about you guys?
Alex (45:12):
Uh not too much in the in the name of video games, like
not like not pouring a bunch oftime into any one specific game,
but jumping a lot a lot.
I've been continuing to do mystart screen and pocket picks
series, short form series on thesocial.
So by by nature of like pullingout a different Game Boy game
or 64 game to like showcase, Iend up playing you know at least
(45:34):
a few minutes of each, so it'sbeen fun to dabble in the
collection in that way.
Uh, one game in particular thatI'll that I've uh I mean I'll
be playing Tetris Pro, butthere's a new version of Tetris
that came with uh with uh one ofmy Game Boy toys or whatever,
the mod red the mod mod retrochromatic came with a new
version of Tetris for Game Boy,but it it has so it's basically
(45:58):
just I mean it's just Tetris,but it's it's new age Tetris in
the sense that it has all thequality of life improvements
that you get with like Tetris ifyou were to play on a new
system, but it's still on GameBoy, which is like that's dope
to me.
So that one gets a lot ofplaytime.
There's also a schmuck thatI've been playing that's a lot
of fun called Solar Striker thatcame out in the early 80s, I
want to say, or late 80s, Isuppose.
(46:20):
Uh, I think maybe early 90s.
Don't fucking quote me.
Go watch my fucking pocketpicture.
Your Mario Wear video was cool.
That one is cool.
Yeah, uh, WarioWare Twisted, sothat's got a little motion
sensor in it.
That's for the Game BoyAdvance.
Uh and that's like WarioWare,like, it's I'm not like I'm I'm
not a WarioWare fan in the sensethat like some people fucking
(46:40):
love those games.
I think they're cool, but I'venever been like all in on like I
need WarioWare shit.
Well, but I've I don't know whoare mini games ever for.
Me, I guess I'm gonna you'retalking about how I'm like doing
little short spurts of gamesand then I'm hating on mini
games, but like not really,dude.
Like it's it's fun, it'squirky.
Uh, and then it has a motionsensor in it, so you like tilt
it to do all the games, and it'sit's it's always like I feel
(47:03):
like WarioWare is like a reallygood, like what do you call
those like hardware, like umlike when it's like a like a
prototype of sorts, you knowwhat I mean?
Luke (47:12):
Yeah, prototype's probably the word, some sort of fancier
word than demo.
So prototype probably works, uhtech showcase, tech demo or
whatever.
Yeah, tech demo.
I just mean it as like they'refull priced games.
Like, I think they came outwith one for the Switch, but I'm
like, I'm not gonna pay fullprice for like just an
assortment of video, like smallgames, like with a kid, are
(47:33):
these for like color maybe likethey're cool.
Alex (47:38):
They're great multiplayer, like it's kind of got the the
well for not for not the GameBoy Advanced one, but like the
like the other ones like thatwere for the the Wii Um and that
kind of and like the Switch orwhatever.
I mean, it's kind of like MarioParty has like really fun,
quick mini mini games.
True, like Fireware is kind ofthose on crack, so like it's a
(48:00):
good party game, I would say.
Um, but yeah, no, it's a weirdone.
But yeah, that kind of stuff.
Solar Strike is a lot of fun,dude.
Uh, that's like actually areally good schmuck for a Game
Boy, like um for a Game Boygame.
Uh but outside of that, likeI've also played like just kind
of dabble a little bit on thePS2.
Um always kind of fun to fireup an old PS2 game downstairs on
(48:21):
the big TV with the with thefancy stuff I got set up with
that.
Um, but actually anotheranother fun side quest that we
uh recently completed was wewent to the movies and I saw it.
Yeah, I saw Fantastic Four theFirst Steps or First Steps.
Luke (48:39):
Pretty good.
Do you remember seeing theoriginal Fantastic Four movie?
Alex (48:45):
Uh so I know that I've seen it, but I don't like
remember much of it.
And I was actually likeYouTubeing some stuff around it
because I was curious, like, howmuch uh like I don't know, I
was just kind of curious, andman, uh, I'm tempted to revisit,
but not really.
Luke (49:00):
Um I mean you go?
Alex (49:02):
Did we did we go?
Luke (49:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You took you were in like highschool, and I was a very nerdy
young man who collected comicbooks.
They had Spider-Man that reallyworked, but this is definitely
the pre-current universe erawhere they kind of got huge
mainstream.
So Jessica Alba was in it.
Yeah, dude.
Uh that's really all Iremember.
Alex (49:27):
Uh Chris Edwards.
Captain America is in it, onlyhe's Johnny Flame or whatever,
and Johnny Torch.
Luke (49:33):
And then who they had for Mr.
Fantastic, and they actuallycasted all four of them pretty
well.
Yeah.
Um, and they just weren't goodat the movie, the superhero
movies, just yet.
I I would think watchingDaredevil 2 would be kind of
funny in hindsight, too, becauseI thought that movie was cool.
I just remember leaving themovie and being like, that was
really cool.
And you were like, sure.
Alex (49:54):
I'm glad you liked it, bro.
Luke (49:56):
You're like, yeah, it's all right.
But like when you're a kid andyou go to a movie, everything's
fucking awesome.
Uh and then when you're old,you're like, that was awful.
Why'd I sit here?
So it'd be kind of funny torevisit, but I'm sure it's dog
shit's not appropriate, but I'msure it's not great.
Alex (50:11):
Dude, who's in the Daredevil movie?
Is that Ben Affleck?
Is he Daredevil?
Garner, yeah, yeah, JenniferGarner, too.
Man's I think that was likewell, granted, Daredevil
Daredevil's Marvel, yeah.
Colin, yeah, Colin Farrell isuh bullseye.
Yeah, dude.
I'm pretty sure back in the daythey were like, who's the
hottest girl that we can get tolike sign up for this role?
And then that's just that'sjust how they did it.
(50:33):
I mean, that I mean, they'reall they're always that
whatever, yeah, yeah.
Luke (50:37):
Al's hot tip to get attractive people to be in
movies, yeah.
Alex (50:42):
Uh first steps one, man.
It's actually it's a reallygreat standalone like uh Marvel
piece.
I mean, Papa Pedro's in there,dude, and he does a great job.
Luke (50:51):
So Pedro, Jesus Christ.
I do like all the memes of likePedro seeing an attractive
woman while having a panicattack.
That's been a pretty funnysubculture meme.
Alex (51:04):
Uh Smeer campaign going on right now.
He's he's gotten too big.
There's like there's abacklash.
Luke (51:10):
He's overtly political, which I align with some of his
stuff, so I'm not notcriticizing him, but I there's
the inevitable backlash ofhaving an opinion as well.
Uh, that's probably what itreally is.
Um, but he looks awesome as Mr.
Fantastic.
Uh, looks like they did prettycool.
Uh, that's the first movie I'vebeen tempted to see within the
Marvel Cinematic Universe in along time.
(51:31):
Uh, and I've famously neverseen Endgame, it's a bit of a
bit now, but I uh I quit a longtime ago.
But that's one where because ofthat retro vibe, and I always
had a sweet spot for theFantastic Four.
Alex (51:42):
So yeah, it's fun.
They do a really good job withit.
I also I'm gonna throw this outthere too.
Uh watch uh more of an artflick.
Uh, this one was made in it's ait's an animated movie called
Son of the White Mare.
And for anybody that is going,I like Alex's taste, I think
I'll watch this movie.
I'm gonna throw a copy outthere.
No one literally ever.
(52:04):
I'm gonna throw a copy outthere that the the story in
itself it's not worth watching.
It's a Hungarian movie, it'sall so it's in Hungarian.
Uh so I watched it withsubtitles, but truly, like it's
worth just doing a quick what'sthat?
What the fuck is going on?
Why this because I saw a reel.
Oh, I saw a reel that wastalking about the art style and
(52:26):
this shit, and then the art isbeautiful, and that's why I
bring it up.
I'm not saying that's not cool,but like I'm just like, you're
like, all right, I'm gonna doit.
I was like, what the dude, it'sit's an amazingly, it's
amazingly drawn.
Like the animation in this isreally interesting, and it's
worth at the very least forfolks just to do a Google search
of Son of the White Mare andjust see what's going on with
(52:46):
the animation style of this.
Uh, because it's beautiful,it's like super cool.
I literally love what's good.
It's very psychedelic, verypsychedelic and everything.
But it's if you're like, Imean, if you're a person like me
and you're like, I just wantthis for the art experience, and
I'm willing to devote an hourand a half of my life to this
art experience, then then yes, Ico-sign 100%.
It's just a heads up.
Like, it's it's not like agreat movie or anything, but
(53:09):
fucking it's a cool art piece.
I'm just gonna throw that outthere for folks.
Do some Googling, check out Sonof the White Mare.
Yeah, mayor M-A-R-E, not mayor.
Right, right, right.
So, like uh like a horse.
Luke (53:23):
Yeah, wow, tricky stuff.
That's wild.
Very cool.
I didn't mean to make fun ofyou.
It looks cool.
I was just like, we're talkingabout it.
Alex (53:31):
I was a little bit out of left field.
I asked me, man.
And then you're like, here's mylet the people know that I'm
not just out here watching theMarvel Cinematic Universe.
Like, I got my art pieces too.
Luke (53:44):
It's too funny.
Hell yeah.
Well, well, go Google Son ofthe White Mare.
We have defeated Humphrey, andwe have rewrited, rewrote,
re-recorded the podcast in ourfavor.
Alex (53:56):
So we are the heroes.
After after it got all dark,we've we've gotten back to the
light.
Go Google Son of the WhiteMare, check out some pictures,
maybe a couple clips, thenGoogle Low Five Gaming, and then
click on over or just type inlowfivegaming.com.
There's a little invite to ourDiscord.
Feel free to join us in there.
That's the best place to catchme and Luke, our attention, chat
(54:16):
with us.
That's like the only place tocatch Luke.
Uh if he's checking it.
Even then, even though uh, butyeah, it's fun to fun to have
love to have you there.
There's also some other funstuff going on there.
Uh, you can buy yourself a funlittle t-shirt.
I'm wearing one today.
My basketball, my little Nestbasketball t-shirt I got going.
And what else, bro?
You can support the pod.
Throw five bucks at us if you'dlike.
(54:38):
That helps keep the lights onbecause they're flickering.
Keeps ice cream.
Appreciate y'all.
Keeps that ice that'ssupporting, dude.
That's not even just supportingme.
That's supporting fucking minihigh scoop.
And you need to be doing that.
And woke.
All right, everybody.
Much love.
Thanks for listening.
(54:58):
Till next time.
Beautiful.
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