Best Games of 2025

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:13):
You are listening to Video Games to the Max. Hello,
and welcome to a special edition of Video Games to
the Max. I am your host, Sean Grammer. Here with
me as usual mister Mark Morrison and joining us today,
Sir Randy isbel.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
You just have to bring me back so I can
talk about the lack of games I played this year. Thanks.
I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Hey, I I feel the same way. I didn't get
to play the length of games that I wanted to
play this year.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
I got the fifteen. I did get to fifteen. I'm
happy with that.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
And well it is time. It's our Game of the
Year episode. As Mark, Randy and myself have all in
our top fifteens in the dock, we have calculated the
numbers and we've figured out what our ultimate top twenty
five is. If you're following along live in the chat

(01:13):
wherever it is that you're watching, you can give us
your thoughts on the Game of the Year, what you
think it is. That's all we're doing on this episode,
and then talking about some stuff from the year, and
then next week we'll do our most Anticipated Games or
twenty twenty six, since it's already going to be twenty
twenty six the next time we see you here. So

(01:38):
with that being said, let's go ahead and get things started,
shall we. All right, so let's go ahead and get
things going here. We'll do the housekeeping a little bit later.
This year, or twenty twenty five was absolutely crazy for

(02:04):
the amount of games, the amount of great games that
we had come out. We're missing one game that probably
could have turned a lot of these lists upside down
if it would have come out, which is granted thought
was six, but that got delayed till almost the end
of next year. So depending on when your cutoff is,

(02:24):
that may not even make that.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
They delayed that to get out of the way of
Expedition thirty three. We all know it.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yeah, exactly, that's what That's what it was. So when
you look back at twenty twenty five, I guess, aside
from the games, which we'll talk about in this episode,
is there anything that kind of stands out of like
what you think about as a theme for twenty twenty
five in gaming?

Speaker 3 (02:53):
Mark not really, I mean kind of a good year
for independent I guess us like not Triple A games necessarily,
but in the rise of AI nonsense, which is just
going to get worse and worse.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
Yeah, Unfortunately, especially in the last it feels like a
month we've really gotten that come to a head with
the AI nonsense, which is going to bleed into next year,
I'm sure, as we'll probably figure out what's going on
with the console makers, the two that are supposed to

(03:31):
be having you consoles or console issues in that next
twenty twenty seven, are they actually going to delay them?
I guess we'll find out at some point. But Randy,
what is that that thing that stands out to you
about this year?

Speaker 2 (03:46):
And I think Mark hit it right off about at
the beginning with the indie games, like the smaller games
really dominated. I know during the Game Awards they talked
a lot about that, where they had three and D's
is up for Game of the Year, and a lot
of that was the indie really stood out and were fantastic,
and a lot of it was Triple A games take
eighteen years to come out, and we don't get him
his like we used to. So a lot of people

(04:08):
think this is a weak game, but if searched hard enough,
you find some amazing games out there, And there's a
reason why none of our lists were anywhere close to
the same because the variety of games that came out
this year from unexpecting studios and small studios just was fantastic.
There were too many games to come out and I
didn't have enough time. That's that's the story of every year,

(04:30):
but that was a big story of this year.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
Yeah, I didn't I didn't publish mine, but you and
I both made like top ten games that we wanted
to play. I don't know if Mark did that in
his head also, but the top tens of games that
both of us wanted to play could have been somebody's
top ten And.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
My list did not include anything Nintendo because I was
not planning on get to switch to this year, so
I wasn't hoping to play any of them because I
wasn't going to so they could all been on my
list as well. And still my top ten list for
games that I wanted to play but did not get
to is just nuts.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
Yeah, absolutely nuts for sure. I think also that is
kind of the theme of this year, is the indies,
and not only that, but I think of just also
how much it feels like PC gaming has obviously with

(05:29):
the bad news that has kind of come out in
the last couple of you know, weeks with the whole
issue with the RAMS shortage and all, that's kind of
put a pin in that a little bit. But it
feels like with the rise of the handheld, the PC handhelds,
you know, Valve was you know, debuted the Steam Machine again.

(05:51):
The numbers that are going up and up are you know,
people playing some type of on a PC platform and
people are you know, more people are discovering Steam, more
people are getting their games off of their and kind
of leaving not necessarily leaving, but also kind of like
adding that to their repertoire of where they play games,

(06:13):
and then seeing that becomes sort of like, Okay, this
is where I'm gonna play now. And you know, obviously
that's led to what Xbox has decided to do with it.
Looks like what their next console is going to be,
they introduce their own handheld. So that space is getting spicy,
and we'll see if that means it's going to go

(06:34):
backwards at all with this SRAM shortage and how much
that's gonna affect how much people can buy laptops. I
actually bought Essentially it's like a delayed birthday Christmas present
for myself and also because my other laptop is basically
almost at that point where it's like, I don't sometimes
I wonder if it's going to turn on today, and

(06:56):
I was just like, you know what I'm when I
bought the bullet, I'm just gonna buy it, and you know,
save myself. The headache of oh my god, what's this
going to look like in two or three months is
just going to be you know this, this laptop was
pretty expensive. Are we looking at like double that price
just for what this laptop is now? So yeah, it's

(07:21):
gonna be crazy. And that's not just latter that's PCs,
that's the handhelds. With those go up, where the consoles
go up again, that's gonna be interesting too. That's another
theme that I feel like is a big thing of
this year is console price increases. We have never seen
that in the history of video games. By this time,
every time we have decreases in console prices, and it

(07:44):
just shows how much the world around us, which a
lot of times video games has been immune from, is
really affecting video games now because of all the other
things combined. How it's affecting the consoles and you know,
affects people that want to buy them. You know, the

(08:04):
whole deal of twenty twenty seven is supposed to be
the year, and there's so many people that just be like,
I don't want that thing. Please don't give me a
PS six or Xbox whatever. I had enough just trying
to get this thing that I got right, and I
want to enjoy that, you know. So anyway, moving on
to I guess also, what is that game? Do you

(08:28):
feel like you missed out on this year that you
didn't play, that you really wanted to that for some
reason or another you didn't get to play at all?
What was that for you? Mark?

Speaker 3 (08:42):
Probably that Lunar Collection. I mean it was just a collection,
but still but by you know, if you want to
like a real enter by like Metric Prime for maybe,
but I have no like history with that franchise, so
it doesn't mean it's a whole lot to me necessarily, Randy,
what was that Mine was.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
At Shanobi game that came out and with August it
came out right around that same time the holl of
Night came out and Ninja Guiden came out or Ninja
Giden Ragebound, and I've made my choice, and then I
saw everybody went no, Shouldo be so much better than
Ninja Guide and Ragebound. Then I haven't gotten around to
playing yet.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
Yeah, I made the same choice you did, wound up
feeling the same way. That is one of the things
that I got on the holiday sal So it's just
sitting there. Let's see if I play it in the
coming days. My number one was the Trails and Sky
first Chapter remake. I really wanted to play that. I

(09:40):
did play the demo and then it's just like I'm
looking at it and going, man, do I have sixty
hours or whatever to dedicate to this thing right now?
I don't want to just go And I've tried to
avoid that this year. I've done that so many other years,
where I'll buy games just to be like, Okay, I'm
gonna play this. I'm gonna put this in my I

(10:01):
gotta play this before the end of twenty twenty five
or whatever. And I'm like, you know what, I'm just
avoiding that unless it's on a sale and I wait
long enough for it to show up on that holiday
soal that somebody's doing right now. So I got out
of a discount, and that'll be my mission to start
playing that in this time when we're waiting for the

(10:24):
twenty twenty twenty six releases to start showing up on
the release calendar and all that stuff. So but I mean,
I'm sure anybody watching and listening later has like their own,
like you know what Randy and I talked about, top
ten list of games I wish I had gotten to

(10:48):
this year. And also just another thing to know too,
is like the multiplayer indie games that were also like
big this year, like Peak and Schedule one, and uh,
I guess our creators you can call it indy sort of.
I don't know if you call it indy, but all

(11:10):
those games just kind of came out of nowhere and
just all right, got people playing. You know, our creators
are still absolutely up there in the peaking current counts.
So you know, just thought I give that a shout
out because I know it's not on any of our
list either. Is Battlefield six, which you know de throne
call of Duty this year, it looks like, so that's

(11:31):
a feather in the cap for EA there.

Speaker 3 (11:35):
One year for one year.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
Yeah, we'll see if that motivates, uh, whichever team is
working on Call of Duty next to really bring it
back to the Black Ops six time frame, but all right, uh,
just really quick. Also because Randy didn't get the switch to. Mark,

(11:58):
I know we did our Nintendo report card or whatnot.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
But.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
Just you know, for everybody watching the Navy didn't get
a switch to is looking into switch to next year?
Do you feel like, with what came out this year
and what we have looking ahead next year that the
switch to is work through people or they should still
kind of.

Speaker 3 (12:18):
Wait, no by it now? You can't want a decent
price before next year.

Speaker 1 (12:25):
Yeah, I would say, you know, I guess it depends
on if you already have a Switch one unless you're
dying to play Donkey Kong Binanza. I think you're good,
although you know, I don't know how good Pokemon and
Metroid technically run on Switch one, but you can play

(12:46):
them on there if you really wanted to kind of
save yourself the money. Plus also you got a few
of the big games that are coming on Switch one
next year also, so you know that's on you. But
I agree with Mark in that sense of the price thing,
because I'm just I'm waiting. If they raised the process
of Switch one it feels like inevitable, then Intenda will

(13:08):
raise the price of switch to at some point once
we get out of the holiday season, once they've already
said that they're not going to make them Mario Part
Bundle anymore. So it feels like we're just kind of waiting.
We'll intend to pull that button and go, oh sorry,
but switch to also has to go in price as well. Right,

(13:29):
But all right, let's go ahead and get into our
games of twenty twenty five. Are anybody have any like
big honorable mentions that barely missed their list that they
really wanted to talk about, or anything like that that
nobody that nobody else is going to talk about, right

(13:53):
if somebody else nobody has on the list and you
can just be like, Okay, this was for like number
sixteen or whatever, and we don't we can talk about
it later, But anybody have one.

Speaker 2 (14:02):
Of those the other thing that that missed my Listen?
It was for a bad reason. Little Night Merse three
is not good, and I'm very disappointed with it after
the first two. I know it's made by different people,
but man, man, it's missed the mark and.

Speaker 1 (14:14):
It's thankfully re animal looks like it's gonna be good.

Speaker 2 (14:18):
Fingers crossed mark.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
Was there any game there that.

Speaker 3 (14:22):
Not really for me. But the one game again just
got into and I think just beat like yesterday, it
was a dispatch. Okay, so that.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
Was another one that was kind of like there were
I probably would have played if I had time, because
I definitely love those narrative games. Uh yeah, I think
to me it was like, uh, there was a few
that I to the altars should have been higher for me.

(14:53):
I wish I would have had more time to play
that game. If I would have, I know it would
have been higher. But I felt like I couldn't put
it any all right because I didn't get to play
a bunch of it. But I liked what I played,
all right, So let's just start. You don't have to,
you know, talk forever about all these games and whatnot.

(15:16):
It's up to you how much you want to talk
about it.

Speaker 2 (15:18):
But you don't want our podcast to go as long
as min Max does.

Speaker 1 (15:21):
No, I we don't need that shout out to them
that they can do six hour podcasts cut off.

Speaker 2 (15:32):
And not even be done. I love that they're coming
out with their There are two tens and they listed
over one hundred games. I kept saying names like none
of these are going to get close come out.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
Yeah, they really needed learn to cut off the number
at a certain point, be like, you don't need to
list this because it's never going to go above a
certain note.

Speaker 2 (15:50):
It did make me laugh that it took them one
hundred games to finally get some of the games I
had in my top.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
Yeah, right, like some of the ones they had way out,
And it was like, wow, okay, it shows me how
much they did not care about that game at all.
All right, Randy, what is your I guess like fifteen
through eleven and whatever you want to say about them there?

Speaker 2 (16:16):
Yeah, I go super quick for those. Obviously, I'll skip
this below tail let you talk. I just didn't get
into it. I attempted to, but I think it's more
of the art style. It just kind of I couldn't
really get my teeth into it. And I didn't like
the controls either, But again, that's not my forte and

(16:37):
I know that kind of hits you in the fields
of different than it does me, So I totally get it.
I had Luto at fourteen. I've not heard anybody else
talk about this game in any other podcast.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
I have not heard about this game at all.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
I don't know why it came up in it was
on a PlayStation store thing as a spooky game that
I kind of has a weird Stanley Pair twist to it,
where it's basically the game maker starts messing with stuff,
so it's like pt So you're going through the same
hallway in the same sections of this house while the

(17:10):
story's being told to you, and then all of a
sudden you're in the basement and YadA YadA, and then
after a while the game just starts getting weirder and weirder.
But it's not spooky. It's more just like the game
developers start messing with things, so then like you open
a door and then you're starting to see like undeveloped
script that you weren't supposed to see, and it kind

(17:32):
of breaks down more and more. My son and I
got really into this game, but again, it's not very long.
The controls were a little rough. Very cool concept, but
I don't think they really hit the mark. But it
was just really interesting to me that nobody I've not
heard another podcast bring up this game, and we had
a good couple of hours with it. Sort of the

(17:54):
see I know a lot of people have talked about
I didn't really get hooked on it. I think it
was a PlayStation play skame earlier. The new skating platformer
is what everybody is kind of getting into. I brarely
got into Skate Story, so that didn't make my list,
but I'm only through one chapter. But it was kind

(18:14):
of like that where you're jumping around through different platforms
and stuff that The animations are great, the movement's smooth,
but I just never got hooked. I'll leave Powerwash Simulator
to to Mark. I absolutely love the Powerwash Stimulator. Games
a fun side game for sure, while you're watching shows

(18:35):
or listening to podcasts. And I just could not stop
playing that game. And then Bionic Bay was another one
that kind of snuck up on me. Looked absolutely fantastic,
but it came out at that same time where I
started playing it and Ninja guid In and Hollow Night
and August made me realize that I'm getting old and

(18:55):
I'm not a good gamer anymore and games are hard man,
and I got stuck on Biannic Bay. There's a puzzle
that stuck. I got stuck on for like a month.
I finally got by it, but then I got like
really focused on playing other games. But if you like
those limbo style of games. Inside this is a lot
like that, but a bit more faster paced than those

(19:19):
two games, And some of the puzzles they have in
it are really really fun, and I have a feeling
that once you get in game it gets really wild.
But just missed my top ten just because I kind
of got stuck on it and never gave it a
chance to get concluded.

Speaker 1 (19:35):
Fair enough. That was another that was a game that
was on my like I want to play that, but
same thing. Like you, it came to the point where
it's like I don't have time to.

Speaker 4 (19:44):
August hurt.

Speaker 1 (19:49):
Mark. What is would you like to say about your
fifteen through eleven?

Speaker 2 (19:53):
There?

Speaker 3 (19:55):
My fifteen was puzzle Quest Mortalistion. A lot of these
are just like remakes or like remasters, so it's all
a puzzle quest. I think they add like one or
two new things, but I didn't really notice a huge difference.
But it's more puzzle quest that's always fun. My number
fourteen is Sniper Elite Resistance. I played it with Yends.

(20:16):
It's more Sniper Elite. They haven't changed the formula and
at least three games, but you know, blowing up Nazo
testicles is always fun, so that's why it's there. My
number randys list. You can talk about it. Then. It's
just I thought it was fine. It just didn't click

(20:38):
enough for me, Like I thought, it takes two is
better even we have the even with the racist guy
in it, so we can Yeah, we'll get to that.
My number twelve was the marvel Rus Capcom Fighting Collection
only because of Marvelous Capcom two is finally on like
PC in a legal emulated form, so that's fun. And

(21:01):
my number eleven was to speak It in one and
two HD collection.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (21:07):
That's a little different from like Puzzle Quest or marl
Verus Capcom because they actually did like they you could
like run into game finally without equipping like a spid
room to it, and there are a few like quality
light improvements that make it a little easier to get
into and having like a trophy system to like actually
like make you want to do some of this weird

(21:29):
esoteric crap and speaking into is good. Like I didn't
even know there's a cookie Meunia game in that game.

Speaker 1 (21:35):
Wow? Really okay?

Speaker 3 (21:36):
Yeah? Or like you can like there's like a back
window that you can you can like go up and
like get to like the roof of the castle, and
I'm like, you can do that, Like so yeah, that's
about it. That that's kind of like my quick list
or like the bottom stuff.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
All right for me, let me go through. I was
trying to do with I said I mentioned the altars.
That's not a kind of game I play very much
like kind of the survival type. But I love the
narrative of it just being weird and having the different

(22:15):
like versions of himself that kind of talk to each
other and whatnot. It just kind of was one of
those things where it's like I wanted to go back
to it, but I didn't have time. But it was
like I left with the impression of I really like this.
I hope I can come back to it, and I
did not. Fortunately. Ninja Guiden Rage Bound. I loved Ninja Guiden.

(22:39):
It's one of the two Ninja Guidens on my list.
It's it's a return to form for the two D
Ninja Guiden and it was really well done. Love bringing
him back into this and just the level design, the
way that they did the calm in this was really

(23:01):
well done. Just love that like blast of the pass
and that you gotten really tremendous from them. Blueprints is
a game that I'm not a puzzle guy like Randy.
I appreciated it. I gave it the old college try
for a bunch of runs, and I kind of felt

(23:24):
like the whole orang of it. I was like, I
don't know how long it's gonna take me to get
to the next whatever you would consider that being, uh
like I got to this cool point, you know, or
if you ever get to that point, and I didn't
want to go and be looking up stuff, so I

(23:46):
was just like, you know, okay, I'll come back to it.
And then you know, April was pretty crazy, so also
didn't get to go back to it either. Uh Ninja
gut him four. Been waiting for this game for a
long time. Didn't know how it was going to feel
about having the other protagonists, but I ended up lacking

(24:06):
him obviously. The gameplay is amazing in that game of
just getting to slice through dudes, the stories, whatever, but
just the combat is so fun that makes me want
to keep playing. I didn't get to like, I think
I got about halfway, so that's why it's not further
up the list. But still I thought they did a

(24:28):
really good job with it, and you know, one of
the standouts for Xbox on the year South of Midnight. Look,
it's got its issues, okay with the gameplay and you know,
it's not heard, but the soundtrack is great. As somebody
that's from the South, I really really appreciate that they

(24:51):
told that story and they did it really well, and
it has all the fantastical stuff that you love of
that kind of like gothic horror stuff. It just I
wish the gameplay was better, but the rest of the
stuff about the game is great. And it's one of
those times where it's like, Okay, it's on game Pass

(25:12):
and it's one of those where I feel like, okay,
on game Pass, this is a terfect title. And it's
also it was a budget title, like they did a
good They didn't overprice it either. You know. I thought
forty dollars is fair for it for all the stuff
that was in the game, and for that I gave
my thumbs up. You know. And it's not overly long either,

(25:33):
so also great on that point. All right, Randy, what
was your ten through seven? Whatever you want to say
about it there?

Speaker 2 (25:46):
Oh yeah, we already talked about Ninja Guide and Rage Bawn,
I echo everything you said. It was a great return
to form. The combat was really smooth. Bosses were rough,
not in a good way. They were difficult. I say
that because I'm stuck in that game as well because
of a certain boss. But I do like that there's

(26:07):
a little bit of branching off that you can do
in choosing which way you want to go in the levels.
But for the most part, it's just kind of choosing
which level you want to do first for the most part.
But I do I'm a sucker for those old games.
We talked about Prince of Persia last year, and this
one was kind of in that same boat. Mark brought

(26:28):
it up with Split Fiction. I one hundred percent agree
with him. It takes two with so much better, and honestly,
to me, I was disappointed because you know, that's a
game that my wife and I always play are It
takes two with so much fun, and we would get
into Split Fiction and then it would just drag on

(26:48):
too long. Like the levels. I feel like we're just
they overstayed. They're welcome, and the concept of having the
two different worlds, the fantasy world in the sci fay
world was great, but it was like the sci fi
worlds were way too hard for my wife to play
because they're like they asked for too much, like precision

(27:09):
for somebody that doesn't play a lot of games. And
then the fantasy worlds were just they were the exact same.
Every time I had one abilities, she had another, and
we just waited for our turns. I think It Takes
To had far more creativity to it than split fiction,
but with that said, we still made it through. It
was a lot of fun to play with my wife
just after It Takes two. And of course Joseph Faris,

(27:33):
who continues to like overhype games, kind of oversold what
he was doing. Yes, the final level is really cool,
but I wish there was far more of that. I
also missed the mini games, Like the mini games from
It Takes Too is what set it apart. Here you
have side stories, but the side stories are just exactly
like the rest of the game, except for like the

(27:54):
first two if you have played it. My daughter made
us play the sausage level fifty times.

Speaker 1 (28:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (28:02):
I took the one like creative part, yeah, and it
was like.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
It's like the first one or second when you get
so I was super excited to start diving into it,
and then after a while it was not just a
side story. So uh, still a really good game from
those guys. Just after it takes to a bit disappointed,
I could not help myself. Guys, I've never played a
Benet Fotty game before, and I probably still won't, but

(28:29):
Baby Steps was far more fun than it should have been. Yes,
the controls were as frustrating as they were supposed to,
but it actually told a really sweet story and you
work your way through it. I am also just very
glad that I had the sense to put censor mode
on because I have an eight year old daughter.

Speaker 1 (28:50):
And yeah, there's a lot of well no.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
There's a lot of donkey dicks.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
Yeah, oh that too, Okay.

Speaker 2 (28:57):
Luckily it was just a lot of black bars on
my game, and there were a lot of scenes where
I just went, I am so glad that I'm not
saying what they actually wanted to show here. Uh oh,
some of these challenges are just rough. But honestly, I've
found myself laughing at this game far more than I

(29:20):
was expecting. If it ever ends up being on a
on a game pass or a PlayStation plus, just give
it a try, because it is as long as you
can kind of get through that first couple of hurdles.
It's they did that stupid staircase. Yes, this this game.
You're bringing back a lot of bad memories. Are Sean

(29:41):
have a lot of thing that happen. Uh number seven
might be criminally low, but Hollow Night six song goes here.
My son is far more into Hollow Night than I am,
and I'm gonna tell you, I don't like the diagonal
dashing when you do your attack in Soak Soong compared
to Hollow Night. So I kind of found off this.
But you can definitely tell that they just have polished

(30:03):
the original and added things to it to make it
even better and the world's more expanded. So I give
it credit, even though it didn't fully hook me in.
So Hollow Night six song Charity You want me started seven?
You want me to go to six?

Speaker 1 (30:18):
You can stop at seven there, I'll stop there again. Yeah.
I wish I would have been able to play more
halliways took song, but it's just like one of those
was like I I died a few times and I'm like, okay,
I'm not I'm already not the most metro Vania person
as it is, and then going back and forth thing
and I was just like, okay, I'm going to start

(30:40):
before I just hate the game.

Speaker 2 (30:42):
I guarantee you if I go around this corner and
open my office door, my son is playing Silk Song
right now.

Speaker 1 (30:47):
Hey, you know, the people that love that game really
did love it. So you know, I'm glad that it
lived up to the hype that people had for it,
for sure. What's your ten through seven?

Speaker 3 (31:03):
Well, one thing I was gonna say about splits fiction
is I think like the Winter or like the Town level,
and It Takes two was like so much better than
almost all split fiction, just because there was like this
big open area you could just kind of like mess
around in and it wasn't like this huge story and
you weren't like rushing to the end of the story, and.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
It had so and that's what I loved about It
Takes You. I think it was my game with the year,
with the year it came out. Yeah, because above a
level like that where Mark's exactly right, there's not a
lot of story to it. You just kind of wandered around.
And the amount of times either myself or my wife
would go, hey, look, come here, we got to do that,
and there's like many games all over the place, and
that's what I missed. Yeah, spits Fiction was very just

(31:41):
straightforward You're going down the path and taking a challenge.
That was too tough.

Speaker 3 (31:46):
Some of the some of the areas and Split Fiction
were it's like really brutal, Like especially there was like
one fantasy level where like me and Yen's got like
really stuck in. Yeah, and I wish the game actually
had like not maybe not a tutorial, but just like, hey,
skip this part or show me what I have to do,
because what I the guy what it's on YouTube is
telling me to do. I'm doing and it's not working,

(32:07):
So what's going on here?

Speaker 2 (32:09):
It was a tough game, that's for sure.

Speaker 1 (32:11):
I will say. Also, just uh, you know, because you
said your wife played it, my daughter loved it Takes two.
It was the one game that I've ever seen her
get aside from like the stuff she likes like you know,
five Nights for Freddy's and Minecraft and Roadblocks or whatever,
where she was like I got her, I told her
let's play a game together, and she's like, do we

(32:32):
have to stop playing this game? And then Split Fiction
it just it didn't do the same thing for her
at all, you know.

Speaker 3 (32:39):
So, but hey, you're looking forward to that Split sixtion movie,
Sidney Sweeney.

Speaker 1 (32:44):
Huh, you know as a movie. Maybe they'll make it
work more.

Speaker 2 (32:50):
You know, the story slip fiction wasn't great, but.

Speaker 1 (32:55):
Right, maybe it'll give I don't know if Joseph Fair
is going to be involve they're not, but if it's,
it's gonna give them a second crack at Now that
you have the reviews and people saying what they didn't
like about it, they can do the rewrite and perhaps
for the movie they can make.

Speaker 3 (33:10):
Yeah. But so my number ten was Once Upon a Kadamori.
It's more Kadamori and they finally made a new one
after fifteen years or ten years or whatever. It's not
gonna DODI, so it's not like the most like original game,
but they did add like power Up which are kind
of fun, and yeah, I played in that game. It's

(33:32):
kind of hard, but it's fun. My number nine was
Powerwall Simulator too. I think it's a fine game. I
think I like the first one more though there's a
few yanky parts in the second one, I thought, and
I didn't some of the levels are just like so

(33:52):
big and so overwhelming. Hum.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
I like the big levels, but again it's my perfect
I'm gonna watch a show and yeah, powerwa washing, So
the big levels to me, I'm like, all right, bring
it on. But yes, there are so many levels. Like
you get into it and you hit the whatever button,
it flashes was dirty and it just orange?

Speaker 3 (34:20):
Yeah. Sense, it's the grind sense oh man. And I
find I finished watching All the Golden Girls as I
beat that game.

Speaker 2 (34:30):
You know, I will say with the multiplayer worked a
lot better at this one because you could have split screen.
And again, a lot of my memories for these games
that I've played this year kind of go with who
I gotta play it with. I talked about Ludo before
because my son and I got into it. My daughter
got on Powerwatch emulator. I can't get her to clean
her room, but she was all about getting the wheels

(34:53):
on the truck clean.

Speaker 1 (34:54):
I'll give it, give her a power washer and exactly,
it's so much fun if you can just everything down.

Speaker 3 (35:03):
And I'm looking forward to the DLC like I'm not.
I don't care about adventure time, but if they come
out with like more fun of fantasy stuff or you know.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
Yeah, that's gonna be interesting. Now this Greenix is not publishing,
would they do a deal with them again?

Speaker 2 (35:17):
Honestly, I hope that they add stuff again. I never
played the first power Watch simulator when it came out.
I played it years later, but I was kind of
disappointed that there was no challenges and different time modes
and stuff. I feel like it was part of the
original because there were trophies hooked on it, but it
kind of.

Speaker 3 (35:36):
Similar to also has like that weird like home base
thing or like the decorative thing, and it's like why
is this here, or like you know, who cares so you.

Speaker 2 (35:47):
Can the little things?

Speaker 3 (35:49):
Yeah, I thoether I just have a bigger level or
like you know, maybe just like a randomizer level or
something like that.

Speaker 2 (35:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:56):
My number nine is ghosty Okay, I haven't did it yet.
It's good, you know, it's more the same kind of
like the kind of trimmed some of the fat from Tushima.

Speaker 2 (36:07):
Ah.

Speaker 3 (36:09):
I don't think the story quite hits though necessarily, Like
it's more of the kind of the same ah. And
it's fine, but it's just not like blowing me away necessarily. Yeah.
And my number seven, which is on high on Randy's
list is Sondhill F. We'll talk about that later. I

(36:31):
will say the impressive thing about Sondhill F is that
I managed to beat it, like it held my interest
enough to finish it, which.

Speaker 2 (36:41):
Is I'm excited to talk about it because.

Speaker 3 (36:43):
Something song Hell has done.

Speaker 1 (36:45):
Yeah, because it was funny, because last year Randy was
all about Silent Hill to reommake and you hated it.

Speaker 2 (36:51):
So yeah, we'll get into it because I'm very curious
thoughts on a few things, and I'm glad you finished
it because it's a great game.

Speaker 1 (36:58):
Yeah, all right, my ten through seven here, Mark has
this high on his It's like a dragon pirate Yakaza
in Hawaii. I don't have the you know, I don't.
I haven't played that many yakuss but Majuma is always

(37:19):
the super fun side character that when you meet him,
it's like, kind of do more stuff in Maguma. And
that's what made Zero great because you got to play
with him. It's like for half the game, and then
here's a full game where you get to play as
him and he's a freaking pirate and he's doing you know,
crazy stuff, and you get the ship combat and all

(37:39):
that I love doing all the ship challenges. Look it
to be fair, it doesn't get after a while, you
get just too much money and you get way too powerful,
and the game just never it doesn't scale up with you.
So it's like it comes it becomes a cakewalk after
a while. But I still had.

Speaker 3 (38:01):
Tons of fun.

Speaker 1 (38:02):
Yeah, I mean I had tons of fun because you know,
it's still the goofy yakas of stuff, but now you're
playing as somebody that's also just as goofy as the
goofy stuff. So it's a different contrast to like the
super serious like cure you you know, and and and

(38:24):
it's not uh, what's ichibond either, so it's still like that. Okay,
you're going back to the old school. He's doing the
beat him up stuff. It's not the RBG thing. And
I loved having the two different styles also with the
swords and then also the just his regular style too.
Unlocking all that that was fun. So the story was

(38:46):
kind of all right, you know, I thought it was.
It was better than I thought it was gonna be,
but it's not you know, I wouldn't put it up
there with the animals of Yakasa or whatever. But still
as far as the spin off games go, where a
lot of them are kind of like whatever sometimes, this
is probably one of the better lack of Dragon spin
offs for sure. Number nine for me is Ball x Pit,

(39:12):
which is higher on Randy's list. This game is just fun.
It's just you just put on the level, just shoot things.
It's like Brick Breaker, but uh, you know, faster, and
you have the roguelike elements. And I wasn't a big
fan of the build a town thing, but I still yeah,

(39:36):
h yeah, same thing. I just like would place things randomly,
like I want to get back to the part where
I'm like just shooting things like that's just it was
like a good like, Okay, turn my brain off. I
want to go just shoot stuff for a while and
and not think about it. And it was really fun
and it and it has that same kind of like
Vampire Survivor's quality of like oh just one more, right,

(39:59):
just one more, or I'll get it. I'll do it again.
And they just a fantastic job by the team. Look,
Devaalber always does these great trailers. They had a hilarious
Their entire presentation was this game for ten minutes and
from the moment I saw it, I was like, this

(40:19):
is going to be something, and then it comes out
and it's awesome, right, Like I love That's one of
the things I loved about this year is sometimes you
have those games that came out it's just like, Okay,
I don't know what to make about this, and then
just absolute greatness. You know. Number eight I just beat
it today was the game I'm the last game reviewing

(40:43):
for this year, Unbeatable.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
So the name of the title is wrong.

Speaker 1 (40:48):
Right, yes, exactly, the name of the titles are wrong.
It's a game that, like, look, if you love rhythm
games like I do, it's right up there. But this
game is also an adventure game because you could play
just the the actual like rhythm game stuff. It has

(41:10):
a whole arcade mode that that's all it is. But
if you play like the ten hour story mode or whatever,
it has like explorational kind of like point it click
adventure game elements where you're trying to go find stuff
and solve some like light puzzles. But to me, what
makes us work is the narrative between the four bandmates

(41:34):
and mainly the two main ones, Quaver and Beat, and
their story is just it takes it feels like it
takes forever to get there, but I'm glad I beat
the game because if I would have decided to just
sometimes this kind of proves the whole thing of like

(41:55):
why sometimes beating a game completely can make a different
SNS when you're reviewing it, and how it can change
what you think about it. Because I kind of had
like a sort of like, Okay, this is a fine game,
you know whatever, It's like a seven, right, and then
the story goes to the end and I'm just like, Okay,

(42:18):
that was worth the other nine hours. And sometimes I
felt like they were talking way too much and it
took forever, and it's like, Okay, this went somewhere. This
had something to say, and they did a really good
job with that, and it almost kind of maybe get
get a little teary eyed at the end when you
finally get that the reveal of what's going on with

(42:39):
the two characters. I don't want to spoil this, so
I'm not going to get into that, but yeah, just
actually well done. Tremendous for Decel Games, and that game
has been in development for like since twenty eighteen. It
was a different game at one point with the white
level demo and then four years after that's when this
game finally comes out. Like I thought, they did a

(43:01):
tremendous job by them. And another one of the standout
indies of the year number seven is Doomed the Dark Ages.
For me, I love Doom, and Doom the Dark Ages
delivered for me. I didn't. I thought maybe it was
gonna be like too slow, but actually it hits that

(43:24):
level of I felt like Eternal was like way too much,
like way too fast. It's like I'm jumping everywhere, going nuts,
and it's like it almost got to words like this
isn't that fun? Dune twenty sixteen is kind of like
that throwback to back to Doom kind of thing, And
then I liked it. This was different, like you're it's
kind of more like you're pairing going against the character.

(43:48):
You're still shooting stuff, you can still shoot and whatever.
There's a lot of collectivele's a lot of things to
find if you go around the map or whatever, and
it's just it's just fun to just kill all the
weird monsters and aliens and whatever. So I enjoyed it,
And you know, I don't know what that team's gonna
make next, because I feel like you just did a

(44:09):
trilogy of Dune games, Like maybe they can go work
on something else. Uh but yeah, see about that. But yeah,
as a finale to that trilogy, I think it was
very well done and deserved for that team for sure.
All Right, Randy, what's your six through four? I'm gonna

(44:30):
say right now. We all have to say number one, so.

Speaker 2 (44:34):
Don't spoil it for people.

Speaker 1 (44:36):
Mind's eye, Yeah, mine's eye exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
My number six is Lego Party. And I'm just gonna
say this right now. For the little bit that we
have been able to play as a family, We've been
able to play each map once, but we haven't really
gotten fully into it. I might like Lego Party more
than Mario Party.

Speaker 1 (45:00):
Oh no, wow.

Speaker 3 (45:02):
Yeah, but it still ranks lower than Sonic Shuffle.

Speaker 2 (45:06):
Yeah. A nothing can be that game, I mean yeah,
but they it just does things that I wish Mario
Party would do. Like the maps are a lot more interactive. Uh,
there's a space level where you have to work together
to take out the n alien at one point to
make sure you're not losing all your little bits. The

(45:28):
mini games are not just thrown at you like Mario Party,
where he's like, well, this is the one you picked,
and you're stuck with it. They give you an option
of three different mini games to vote on, and then
one that you can just say, all right, we'll just
give this a random one out of whatever. But I
like that because obviously, when you have a collection of
what sixty seven mini games, they're not all gonna hit,
and they're not all gonna hit for an eight year old,

(45:49):
and they're gonna be too tough for them. So after
a while we can kind of figure out which ones
are that the actual fun ones for us, so then
we're not stuck on, oh I hate this mini game,
all right, We're just gonna go through it. That's great.
The one thing I wish they would do with the
mini games, there's too many of them that make you
go one by one. Like in Mario Party, you're doing

(46:12):
a specific thing yourself, but it's you know, split's the screen,
so you're all doing it at the same time. This one,
it's everyone is going one at a time and there's
a couple of them. It takes a few minutes to
get through. I wish you didn't do that. The one
thing that you can do with Lego is you see
on the screen if you're watching the video version of this,

(46:34):
there's hundreds different costumes that you can make and then
you can mix a match. So my daughter has a
blast doing that as well. So Lego Party is just
an absolute blast if you have kids or if you
just want to have a good time, if you like
the Mario party stuff.

Speaker 1 (46:49):
This works well play online so you have online friends
far away.

Speaker 2 (46:52):
You can play on Netflix. Yeah, it's one of the
Netflix games. Now. I've not tried it, and I've not
played it with my phone, but a lot of those
mini games are simple enough. I feel a phone controller
would do just fine. Number five for me is Blueprints
and Sean, I was going to tease you about having

(47:12):
it too low, but I feel your pain. I don't
know if I've ever put a game out of the
years that we've done the podcast together, or back way
back at four on one or anything that I put
as a top five game of the year that I
have been so damn frustrated with. But we got so
hooked on it trying to solve the riddle of the

(47:35):
trying to get the room forty six. It's been months
since we've played, and all the different secrets that all
the different rooms have. The lower of this game goes
so damn deep. People that solved the deep lower of
this game are absolutely insane.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
But I totally Fulda got hooked on this game and
this is like the only game they've played for a while.

Speaker 2 (47:57):
There are still stuff being found. Are just like, I
don't know how they were able to figure it out.
The main mechanic of the game is, yes, it's a
rogue light. You open a door, you get three options.
You're trying to get all the way to the back
of this hallway that you're creating every single day, and

(48:18):
you're trying to be able to open up Room forty
six and find the secrets of it, and more and
more stuff opens up, and I am right there with you, Sean,
the randomness of the rooms that you get where you
finally feel like you're getting somewhere and this is what
we're going to do, and then it slams door on
you with some of the room choices.

Speaker 1 (48:38):
Or you have a plan of like Okay, I'm gonna
get to this room and it's like I'll never do
I just never see that room on this run, Like
what the heck?

Speaker 2 (48:46):
And that is why I get so shocked with the
people that have really go so deep into it, because
that's where I kind of it kind of fell off
for me. Was we beat the game, we got the
room forty six, we started opening up all these other secrets.
We found all of these extra things to start to
try to figure out, and this room connects with this room,
and if you put these two rooms together, then you

(49:08):
can flip this switch and then this whole new thing
will happen, and then you would just never get those rooms. Ever.
So as it got really frustrated going I'm going in
with this specific task and then that task never showing up,
we got better about going, here's ten things we can
do because we just started looking up things that people
did so we could extend the game. But the base
game an absolute blast. Some of the secrets and the

(49:32):
puzzles that you have to do is just the stuff
that my wife and I would get really into. So
this was an absolute surprise for me. And for about
a month that is all we played. We played so
many hours of Blueprints it was nuts. And then number
four Mark brought it up Silent Hill. F I do

(49:55):
love Silent Hill to remake a lot more than Silent
Hill F. I think the story for Silent Hill F
is phenomenal, and the way it kind of tells itself
is it's one of those games where you play it
for a bit and you're like, I don't understand what
is happening because it's so vague and you're just trying
to figure it out. Like they throw you into the

(50:15):
Silent Hill side of things so fast. See, you haven't
even been able to get like get your footing in it.
And I think that's all so well done. As you
get more and more and it starts to unravel her
secrets and what she has been going through in her
life and the struggles that she goes with as she

(50:36):
is kind of becoming of age of things, and like
early on it was like, all right, well, this girl
likes this guy that she likes and we're just going
to get into this bickerness. I think it's way deeper
than that. But the thing that really gets me, and
I haven't had a chance to fully dive into it.
I'm only about a third of the way through the
second play through, and you have to be hooked on

(50:57):
this game to have the medication for it. And if
you don't it's not me going what are you doing?
But you start playing it the second playthrough, and it's
not like under Terrible remembers the stuff you did. It's
just different. It's going, all right, we know you've played it,
you know what happens at the end of this game.

(51:18):
Now we're going to kind of unravel things a little
bit and dialogue changes where it makes more sense to
what's going on and just the way they're doing. It's
one of those games where I'm sure people have played
it ten times and are are still unraveling things. But
I guess it was one of those games where about
halfway through, I went, this is fine. Combat is old

(51:41):
Silent Hill like and it's bad, but that's what it
was there for. I mean, old timey Hill games had
the worst combat of any horror game ever, and it
was supposed to be that way because they want you
to be afraid of the monsters and run from them.
There's too many monsters in the game to do that,
so you kind of just have to suck it up
with the combat. But again, about halfway through, I'm like,

(52:02):
this is fine. And then by the time I finished it,
I went instantly to New Game Plus and have. I
got to keep playing this game. It actually hooked my
My hooked me for sure, and I'm glad to hear
that Mark actually got through this one.

Speaker 3 (52:17):
Yeah. So my problem is Haunt Hill f I got
an ancient at the time. That was fine, and I
didn't really have a ton of like resource problems except
in like a few specific areas like the one Japanese
house or like the monstrous work on the ceiling like
that kind of sucked. My big problem with the game

(52:37):
is they present so there's basically two worlds, like the
Sounthill town levels and then like the dreamy like nightmarage
levels and then night marriage levels just is like fox guy. Yeah,
and the way they present him as basically a villain,
and I know, like I understand the symbolism, like I

(53:00):
rather problem like the different endings and all that bullshit,
but the game doesn't make a case for him being
a villain like or like that the real guy, because
it's it's actually like the husband like that you're or
the fiance that you're like marrying in the real world.
But they don't present him as a bad guy or

(53:22):
like they like the game tries to make a case
for him being a bad guy, but it doesn't make
you show you anything about why he's bad or if
he's just going to become like your dad, or like
if you're going to be like in this like loveless
marriage like you you know, your mom. So that's my
kind of biggest criticism of that game. And then going like, oh,
you need to you need to replay the game three
times to get through alternate endings or whatever to see

(53:44):
like what's going on. It's like, I'm I'm not going
to do that, like.

Speaker 2 (53:50):
That that's totally fair. Yeah, I think they kept him
ambiguous enough where you kind of.

Speaker 3 (53:59):
Yeah, but then he's like out with you. He's like
cutting off your arm, and you know, you get like
the thought of the whole farm of the fox arm
and like he's always like.

Speaker 2 (54:08):
That made you a badass finally, right, but it finally
made comeback.

Speaker 3 (54:12):
Good with Yeah. But I'm saying, like they they really
I don't. They're trying to turn the needle of like
him being a bad guy or not, and he's not
like yeah, I felt like.

Speaker 2 (54:27):
It's one of those It felt like from what I
was interpreting through my play through in a third right
now that he's kind of somebody that's been part of
an arranged marriage for this this girl, and so a
lot of that is the unknown of who he is.
And I think that's what's going through her mind. Is
is he good? Is he not? I'm just gonna go

(54:47):
along with it. And then obviously stuff did not happen,
because that's why she is now in the Simon Hill
world because it seemed like she went not so at
her wedding. It's what putting two and two together. And
maybe he's not a bad guy, so that's but the
doll makes you feel that way and you're unsure, but

(55:08):
she's just mindlessly following. It was weird not to get
into spoiler. I guess we're already kind of semi spoiler,
sorry guys, But like she has the classmates that you're
around in the normal the normal world for half the game,
and all of a sudden they go through a door
and you never see him again. They're like, hey, we're

(55:29):
going up here, now see you, But what happened to
my side story?

Speaker 3 (55:34):
And the one female classmate who's jealous of you or
once like you're the male friend is like so over
the top. Yes, okay, but again, hey, Sion Hills over.

Speaker 2 (55:49):
Yeah, Simon Hill for well over a decade was.

Speaker 3 (55:53):
So dorrible.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
So to get remake last year and to get f
which was really good this year, Hills back baby, And
I say that with whatever that twitch thing was in
between and nobody liked that.

Speaker 1 (56:07):
Yeah that that wasn't we ignored that. It was like Shattered.

Speaker 3 (56:11):
Memories Chatter Memories was one of the better ones.

Speaker 2 (56:15):
I forgot what that Nope, we don't. We don't talk about.

Speaker 1 (56:18):
It all right, Uh, number this is higher for Mark
Haities two. I love the first Hades a lot. Hades
two was equally just as good. I didn't get as
far in Haites two. Is it for Hades one. It's

(56:41):
not a knock against the game. It's just I was
like viewing the next game a lot of runs to
be yeah, exactly, it requires a lot of time. I
was reviewing games at the same time that I was
playing this. Uh, the one that I'm going to talk about,
or you know, playing a lot of it, the two
I'm going to talk about above. It just I really

(57:03):
like the the new character. I liked, you know that
she was more of a magic user. So you know,
I play a lot of like wizards and stuff like
that when I do play like the Western arcise at times,
So like having that ability to play in a different
way than you did with with z and the first

(57:26):
game is really good on their part to kind of
have that. I think it's just it's just equally as
good as Hades Won. I don't know that it does
anything super special, but it's still really good, and you know,
and I mean, it's what like the highest rated game

(57:49):
I think of like Open Critic this year. So still
like a lot of people loved it, but if I've
been able to play it more, it might have been
higher for me.

Speaker 2 (57:59):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (58:00):
I try not to put remasters on my list just
because you know, you technically it is sort of the
same game. So I didn't put Dragon Quest three last year.
But this game Fall Fantasy Taeste with these chronicles benefits

(58:21):
so much from having the tremendous voice acting that they
added that it makes the game better, Like I understand
the story more because you have all of the tremendous,
awesome voice acting that's not in the original right, the
graphics were not. They had to basically remake the whole

(58:42):
game because you know, they lost the the original and
to be fair. You know, the gloss up that they
did for it is not great or whatever. It's just whatever.
But they equality of life features that they added, it's
a much more easier game to understand. Now. You still
have a lot lot of the same strategy stuff that
you have to do in the original, but things like

(59:04):
even you know, things that were really obtuse in the
original game are made much more simpler here. It does
feel like they wanted people to really be able to
get through this game, and very much so that you
can kind of like grind yourself to where it's not hard,
and that's what happened to me. I overgrind it and

(59:26):
so then it kind of like became where you know,
it wasn't as hard as it probably should have been
or what it's intended to be, but I still had
a lot of fun, like learning all the jobs and
getting through all of that, and the music is amazing still.
So like, I love the fact that Screenix really brought
this out and they did a tremendous job bringing it back,

(59:48):
And who knows, maybe we'll get a Tactics, We'll we
get a collection of the GBA games done the same way.
That'd be cool if we did and Authoprad Travelers zero.

Speaker 2 (01:00:00):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (01:00:01):
I didn't know what to think about when they said
this is going to be like a kind of like
putting the mobile game in a way so that you
can play it as if it was a normal game.
And they did tremendous job with this. I love that
sbaut Traveler too. It was my game of the year

(01:00:22):
the year that it released. Autat Traveler zero is equally
just as good. It takes all of the great things
that are in the first and second game, and this
might be the definitive version of Autobat Traveler. Now, if
you haven't played any of the other two, then you
can pick this up. Yes, there is that town building
element to it, but it doesn't beat you over the

(01:00:42):
head with it. It's very simplified. You just kind of
need to complete the little tasks so that you can
go on to the next quest or whatever. And because
you don't have all the eight of the characters all like, oh,
I have to do chapter one and with this character,
chapter two, with that character, whatever, it feels much more

(01:01:04):
like a cohesive experience. And when you meet obviously the
characters were all kind of written to be gotcha, So
that got taken away, but and but it's still fun
to kind of meet them and learn their abilities and
their jobs and all that stuff. And you have a
credit character in this game, which makes it easier for
you to kind of like feel like this is you
and you're inhabiting that enjoying it. So hats off to

(01:01:27):
the team of SnO team and the Mobile Game team
for doing this justice. They could have easily just gave
you the same game but on console, and they didn't
do that, and hats off to them for that. Yeah,
what's your number three and two? Randy?

Speaker 3 (01:01:51):
We didn't talk about it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:54):
Oh we didn't. I'm sorry, go ahead, sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 3 (01:01:58):
No. Number six was just just training two. Ah, my
number five Assassin's could shadows. Uh. It has problems, especially
was traversal, but it's all right, especially if you just
play as a girl. The guy is kind of worthless,
but you did not like I mean, it's a case
you find find a bus around like the kool Aid

(01:02:19):
Man through doors, but that's about all he can do.
So ah, but it's okay. I think the story is
really bad though. There's like no stakes at all. Uh,
and they kind of tie together and it was really
half assed away at the end when you're like trying
to get this piece of like the I think it's
like the regalia of Japan or something. But yeah, you

(01:02:43):
don't even know what it is, or you don't even
like to see what it is, so who cares? Ah.
And then number number four was like The Dragon of
the Pirate cusa game. It was fun. I thought ship
combat was a lot better than like, you know, Skull
and Bones, but so does everything known. I mean, uh,

(01:03:03):
and it was funny. It was fun to battle against
Joe in a game.

Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
Yeah. They did some of the Joe Justice in that game.
It's fun. It's fun to see him.

Speaker 3 (01:03:12):
Yeah. Uh, all right, now I can go go back
to Randy's three.

Speaker 4 (01:03:17):
Sorry, all right, Three and two, I mean you already
talked about a ballpit is my number three game of
the year.

Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
I got put on this game. This was my bilotro
this year. Number go up, brain, be happy that that's
what this game is. So many lights and stuff, and
it was one of those that legit for like the
first hour, so I played it like it was fine, No,
there's no big deal. But then you start unlocking things,

(01:03:49):
and then it starts opening up more and then you
have more powers to go with it, and then you
unlock new characters that have different side things that they're
able to do, and then you get to the point
where you can have two character and their powers combined,
and it gets even crazier than that, and the bosses
just get better and better, and after a while, I

(01:04:10):
just that's all I want to play at this point.
I'm trying to get their Expedition thirty three before this podcast,
but I just want to play Ballpit right now. And
it's just that mindless action that you see, and it's
just the same runs over and over to the point
where I'm now going back and getting the trophies for

(01:04:30):
beating each level with all the different characters and making
sure all the characters win at every single different kind
of level. And I'm with Sean. Once you get to
the town building, they give me a new building to unlock,
and you have to bounce your guys off at a
bunch to unlock it. So I just put it in
the front and I bounce them off of it until
it's unlocked, and then I move it off to the

(01:04:51):
corner somewhere and then I forget it ever existed. And
I know you can upgrade stuff and you can level
things up, and it's just that's way over my brain.
So I just do crazy stuff and the actual levels
and stuff are just so much fun. And that's the
other thing is I think it's my Vampire Survivors is
so fun and Billottro really took off. Is you can

(01:05:14):
be the level of fifteen minutes. Like most of these levels,
you get done quick or you fail really quick. And
then as Sean said, is I got time for one
more and then three hours go by and then you've
unlocked two characters that you want to try, and then
there's just rinse and repeat and so forth. They have
that formula down to a science. It's such a big game,

(01:05:36):
but I could not move it ahead of Death Stranding
to I talked about it a lot when we did
our halfway through the Year podcast. I absolutely love this game.
I like this a lot more than the original Death Stranding.
I think they connected things a lot more. I think
it being in Australia was perfect because the whole point

(01:05:57):
is connecting and bringing things together. And for or best
Stranding too, being in Australia, everything can connect so when
you're making your roads, you can all go all the
way back to the beginning part, and you don't feel
like you're going out of your way to do so.
In the first test stranding, it all felt like, here's

(01:06:17):
your pack of places that you're gonna go. All right,
you're through this stage, you've moved through the story, all right,
now you're gonna deal with mainly this these three or
four and then once you got to that that big area.
They connected a little bit more. But with this one,
you have your tutorial area in Mexico, you go to Australia,
and everything opens up and goes nuts. Obviously the Kajima stuff,

(01:06:39):
everything's over the top. I thought they made the combat
a lot better in this game as well. I still
will scream to the rooftops that the game awards but
Troy Baker nominated for Best Voice Acting for the wrong game. Yes,
he was a great Indiana Jones, but he was so
good in this game, and I think this would have

(01:07:00):
won some awards if it wasn't for a certain game
that we're all going to talk about, and a little
bit because I thought Kajima nailed it. It was so fun.
The story was way over the top and ridiculous. The
graphics were near flawless. I don't know if I've seen
a game look like what that Stranding two does in
an open world environment that they had, and yes, for

(01:07:23):
anybody before they get nuts, I know Kingdom Come Deliverance
too looks absolutely fantastic. That is not my style of game.
PlayStation gave me a five hour trial of that thing.
I deleted it after two just because I'm not saying
your game's bad. It's just not for me at too
many menus.

Speaker 1 (01:07:43):
It's a hardcore game.

Speaker 2 (01:07:44):
For sure. I respect anybody that can get it into
that game. But I got to a point where the
lady's like, all right, your pants are over here, and
then you had to walk over there grab your pants,
and then it brought up a ridiculous menu. Oh oh
and you need to eat, so go around the corner
here have your food. And that brought up another whole system.
But I can't.

Speaker 1 (01:08:04):
I can't.

Speaker 2 (01:08:05):
My brain's tewed up. That game looks fantastic as well,
so don't come after me. But for the games that
I like, that's Stranding two is the best looking game
I've I've seen as far as realism goes. And everyone
knows I love Virginia that was my number two.

Speaker 1 (01:08:25):
It's mark.

Speaker 3 (01:08:29):
Well I say, I mean it was on my list,
but des Handing two was on my list as number six. Again,
what's I managed to finish this one, so that's a
notable improvement of the previous one.

Speaker 1 (01:08:41):
Hey, Randy did say he liked it more of the
first one, and y'all made a big old fuss about
the first one for Game of the Year, so I didn't.

Speaker 3 (01:08:48):
Well, but like des Hayon too, like gets you into
like the actual game a lot quicker, Like it doesn't
spend five hours before you get like the first like bike.
It's like, here's the second comission and you get a
bike and it's all right cool, And this made it
a lot snappier. I got. Combat is still kind of

(01:09:08):
a chore, but it's a lot easier this time because
you're can just summon a big monster to take out everyone.
So that's cool. But my number three years Donkey Kong Bonanza.
Uh you know, good platformer. You can bust up the
world pretty well. I kind of wish it was more

(01:09:28):
Donkey Kong stuff in it, Like you only see like
Diddy Kong once basically, and like Kankye Kong is kind
of a cameo where he shows up occasionally, but that's
about it. But it's a big collectithon and it's good.
The only problem with Bonanza to me is like you
can transform on different animals and at least two of

(01:09:50):
them suck really bad. I think it's like the Ostrich
and maybe one of the other ones is like terrible.
I think it's like maybe the horse. It's like, no,
I don't want to dash around these levels because this
is extremely imprecise and way too quick for me to do.
So no, thank you. Ah. But it's a good Donkey

(01:10:13):
Kong game and a good showcase for the the switch
to I think, and then I'm under two hades too.

Speaker 1 (01:10:20):
Anything else you want to add.

Speaker 3 (01:10:22):
The only problem with Haites two to me is like
they really obscate the level, like the end of the game,
I should say, uh, and like I saw it was
like a month after the game came out. They're like, Oh,
we're going to patch the game to make it to
make the ending even longer. It's like the They're they're like, oh,
people are getting to the ending too quick, so we're
gonna extend it out. And I'm like, no, that is

(01:10:44):
the opposite way, like cause you have to you have to.

Speaker 1 (01:10:48):
Play well, like you know that there's like an ending,
like a late game reveal, like a you know, like
the secret ending.

Speaker 3 (01:10:56):
But it's like I don't I don't know if I play.
I don't like to play a game for one hundred
times necessarily, especially when these runs take a while, like
this isn't like a short game. Yeah, but I think
it's really good. Uh yeah, the combat was good. Story
it was pretty decent, you know, great voice actions music,

(01:11:18):
So yeah, way to go great.

Speaker 1 (01:11:21):
K Yeah, first time they made a sequel, and.

Speaker 3 (01:11:25):
Don't worry once they make prior two.

Speaker 1 (01:11:29):
Hey, I like to buy all right, my number three
is also doctor con Bonanza. Man. Just it was fun
just destroying stuff. Yeah, it's the same thing. Got like
ball Box Fit where it's just like turn my brain off,
just go destroy stuff for a while, and uh, you know, okay,

(01:11:51):
I'm finally gonna get through. I got done getting enough
treasure chess and bananas and ooh banana and whatever else.
You know. The music was really good as well, do
you know. I do like the different levels and whatnot.
I agree with you. I wish there was more like
Donkey Kong, like kind of right port of like ca

(01:12:14):
you know, cameos or or kind of like lore or stuff.
I guess I thought Pauline is really well put in
as you're kind of like psidekick and.

Speaker 3 (01:12:25):
Or then kind of tieing like doty Kong Island to
DLC was little.

Speaker 1 (01:12:29):
Yeah, that's kind of that was really annoying. It's like
and you're charging what it's like twenty bucks or whatever
and the other and it's like one island and then
it's like the stupid roguelike game that wasn't you know anything.
It's like, but no, in the game, you go ahead.

Speaker 3 (01:12:45):
Say I was gonna say order more, ask you to
go to the city itself and to destroy that.

Speaker 1 (01:12:51):
Yeah, but no, it's a tremendous like kind of first
big you know game that's uh in Doc y Kong
had its breadth of the wilder Mario Odyssey moment here,
and it's going to be interesting to see where they
go from here, because you know, Doc Kong was kind
of like in the adult rooms, like one of those

(01:13:12):
franchises where I don't know that kind of need what
to do with it.

Speaker 3 (01:13:17):
There there's a tropical frieze games, but no one cared
about them except for Dan Reichert.

Speaker 1 (01:13:21):
So topical frieze is great. It's just it's you know
that Donkey Kong, right, right, So it's cool that they
did something different with with Donkey Kong and they did
it really well. So we'll see if this turns into
like another kind of like franchise sort of thing for
them or not. Number two is despilote for me. This

(01:13:45):
one like really hit me on several levels, just because,
you know, not just from being a huge soccer fan,
but also being from Venezuela, which is close to Ecuador.
We haven't had that moment yet. I thought it was
gonna be this year, but even with forty eight teams,

(01:14:06):
Venezuela still can't get to the Rod Cup. But you know,
it's cool to have that moment of like, this is
the first time you've been to the World Cup. You know,
the US has been around in it since the beginning,
so it's kind of like, well, you know, and I

(01:14:27):
wasn't you know, in nineteen ninety it was four years old,
so I'm not gonna remember that when they finally got
to go back again after having all these years where
they didn't go, so like having them tell that story
and having them tell it from this point of view
of a little kid, and he tells you later that
it's like, I don't know if I really remember it

(01:14:50):
the way that I'm telling you, but you know, this
is what I would have thought, you know. And then
it's like it's a cool like just sort of you're
also kind of being in the time and and having
the chatter behind you of like real life things going
on and and whatever of all that environment that it's

(01:15:11):
just a very well done, not super long game that
from being like a almost it's not solo dev it's
like three or four people, but just they I thought
they did a tremendous job. And again, like I it
speaks to like how you tell a story and how

(01:15:32):
you renumber of stories, and I thought they did a
great job with that. So yeah, I guess we might
as well go ahead and talk about the number one game.
Our game of the year. The animous game of the
year will give you, you know what, Let's actually do

(01:15:55):
the whole list first, I guess, so just kind of
give people because the top twenty five list is basically
done in the whole sort of like you're number one.
It gets fifteen points your number fifteen gets one point,
and you know you could do the math from there
sort of. So basically how we tiered it depending on

(01:16:20):
where everybody put it. That's where it's kind of gonna
wind up. So you know, all of us had clear obscure,
expecially thirty three at number one, so that became our
game of the year. But as far as the I
guess the list goes here, I think it's Sweaking in
one and two. HD is number twenty five, Bionic Bay

(01:16:42):
twenty four, It's South of Midnight is twenty three. Once
Upon a Katamari It's twenty two. Go see Yota twenty one,
which is Crazy Baby Steps number twenty, Ninja Gotten Raged
Back at nineteen, then Unbeatable at eighteen, Hall and I

(01:17:08):
Saw Song seventeen, Dune The Dark Age of sixteen, Split
Fiction at fifteen, Lego Party fourteen, Sassas Creed Shadows at thirteen,
Parawah Simulator two at twelve, Paul Fantsay TATTESSI Polize Chronicles
at eleven, Auto Pass Travel is zero at ten, Blueprints nine,
Dispelote eight, Lack of Dragon, Pari Jakas and Hawaiian number seven,

(01:17:29):
ballocks Pit six Salon Hill f five, Hayes two at four,
Just Strending two at three, and Doctor Calmnanza is two
and Clara Sciris for this in thirty three is our
number one, our game of the year. Why is it
game of the year for you? Andy?

Speaker 2 (01:17:50):
Well, first off, I mean it was number one for
all three of us, and it was the only game
that was on all of our top fifteens. I don't
know if that's ever happened, where one other game all
three of us put in their top fifteens before other
than Expedition thirty three. And listen, we talked about it
again the halfway mark, and I had said before that

(01:18:12):
it was between Expedition thirty three at Desk Dreading two
and who was gonna kind of hit it home. And
the funny thing is I finished Desk Dreading two and
then Expedition thirty three kind of got sidelined for a
bit as life happened and work happened, and I was
playing other games. So I finally got back to it
here in the last couple of weeks. And man, the

(01:18:35):
Convent's so good. The thing that I will say, just
as a downside of things, people are over selling it
a bit and oh my god, this is like RPGs
of yours. Like no, they took the old RPG style
and then added stuff to it so you had stuff
to do. It was like the old legend of Dragoon

(01:18:56):
stuff or Super Mario RPG where you have to do
up in between the attacks. But this is far more
stylized and ridiculous, and the battles are over the top,
and the sound design just adds to it. The music
that happens when you're playing in these boss battles are
so over the top, so it just everything felt epic
the whole way through. Obviously, the art design looks fantastic

(01:19:21):
and it actually plays into the way that the story unfolds.
The characters are great. This is a fantastic game. I
will argue that for those that are saying this is
a game of a generation, we haven't seen anything like
this in years. I'm not a PERSONA fan, but I
feel like PERSONA five we heard the same thing. So

(01:19:43):
it's a fantastic game. Easily game of the year, no
question about it. But I will say that it will
calm down on greatest game of all time.

Speaker 1 (01:19:56):
I think it's fair for some folks that maybe you know,
I think this is this is doing the same thing
that Persona five did for people as far as j
rbg's go, as far as like, oh man, I've never
played at JRPG like this. And then also the fact
that this doesn't have the anime aesthetic to it, right,

(01:20:18):
so like it opens the door for a lot of
people that would never touch a Final Fantasy Game or
a Persona because it's too anime. It's too oh the
character stuff is too you know whatever. This has a
lot of silly moments in it, so like it's not
super serious all the time. But for me, I love

(01:20:44):
the fact that they didn't just take the stuff from
I mean, he mentioned Soakka, Gucci and uh you know
of course fond Fancy Creator all that stuff. I love
the fact that they allowed this to be what it is, right.
It's super French. They didn't try to make a have
French people make in a Japanese game, you know. They

(01:21:07):
made it in their own style, using the things from
rpg'sj RPGs that they love and then iterated on that,
you know, and had the luminous and the pictos and
how that all works together and the characters, how they
all work together and how they all had their own
like combat ascetic that how you can make that work

(01:21:30):
as a cohesive unit, and like the it's it is
the Super Mario RPG, but it's taken to a whole
other level with like you know, you had the souls
kind of pairing and dodging part of it, and then
having that like that when you get through the team
parry that is so satisfying. When you finally get to
do that, like it's so cool, or when you get

(01:21:50):
to like perry the shit out of a d that
you couldn't beat like ten levels of four, but you
get good at it finally and you can finally beat
one of those like secret characters or whatever, and it's
an awesome feeling, right, And I loved exploring around the
world map and they could have done that a little
bit better, you know, maybe, But I also got a

(01:22:12):
number to fifty dollars game. They don't have the super
super high budget of lack of File Fantasy or whatever,
but the fact that this game got made by for
ten million, and the way that a lot of these
people were found to become part of the core thirty
three person Tina. They have the of the outsourcing and whatever.

(01:22:32):
So it wasn't thirty three people, but it was a
core thirty three they were doing this and like you know,
finding the guy that makes a soundtrack on SoundCloud and
he goes and makes the soundtrack of the year, you know,
and it's like it's insane. It's insane. And you know,
her voice is Lisha's voice is amazing for this as well.

(01:22:54):
Like just every time I hear that opening song of
that game, it just it gives me chills of thinking
thinking about it again. Just I agree with you. I
think people are kind of like overhypeing it a bit.
But I can see where like if you don't play
a lot of these games and then this thing hits
you like a truck, Like it's like oh shit, you know.

(01:23:17):
And I I and I love the ending choice as well,
just making you really have to think about that. I
don't want to spoil people, but you know that's cool.

Speaker 3 (01:23:29):
Mark yep Uh. I never quite agreed that the whole
percent of five Game of Generation thing, because it's kind
of building off the backs of you know, percon of
three and four.

Speaker 2 (01:23:41):
Ah.

Speaker 3 (01:23:43):
I I guess you'd say the same about this game
with Expeditions one through thirty two. But uh no, I
think it's a really great game.

Speaker 2 (01:23:51):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:23:52):
It is building off of a lot of like systems
of previous games with my RPG or more really really
like lots of honesty especially Yeah, but I think, yeah,
I think it's is really great. It's memorable. I love
the fact that it's like French because it's not like
the usual dystopian future like Japanese feature cyberpunk thing or

(01:24:17):
weird you know, pastoral farmland thing.

Speaker 2 (01:24:22):
Ah.

Speaker 3 (01:24:24):
The characters are great. I kind of helped it under
the sequel. I just hope they do do something completely new,
But I wouldn't mind another game in the world necessarily though,
Like I'm more and I'm interested in the whole like
writers first artists war h Yeah, so who knows, Maybe
they'll do an Assassin's Creed game next.

Speaker 1 (01:24:43):
They did say that Expedition Claire Obscure is the like
franchise name, and then they will if they did another one,
they would just add an expedition number whatever, right, so
we'll see. I think they did go on record of
saying that they may may do something else instead first,

(01:25:06):
and then if they want to revisit it they will,
which I agree. I do think that I think it
would be cool to see them do something different and
not just feel like, Okay, well we got to go
do this again, because number one, it's like, try to
top that after you already did it once. That's going

(01:25:28):
to be super difficult, you know, So maybe go away
from it at first and then come back to it
later when people have had time to kind of sit
with it and not have just played it or whatever. So, yeah,
are you ready for Final Fantasy seventeen to have the
same comment round?

Speaker 2 (01:25:53):
This is what file fans you need? No, why do
all the games have to be the same? That s
what I loved about Expision thirty three. It was his
own thing. Mark nailed it. The French aesthetic like a
lot of the stuff that they brought up, I don't
know what that means, and that's great, Like, yeah, because
it felt different, it looked different, it sounded different, and
it's because we just have not had an RPG in

(01:26:15):
that kind of world.

Speaker 1 (01:26:17):
And also the voice I think is like top match
compared to.

Speaker 2 (01:26:21):
All the characters were great. Monoco was hilarious. I think
that's one of my favorite side characters that I never used.

Speaker 1 (01:26:28):
But his stuff Mono has to have like one of
the best theme.

Speaker 3 (01:26:31):
Songs that when I lost my mind.

Speaker 2 (01:26:36):
I so West hasn't been on this show in years,
so most people won't remember him, but he and I
have been talking back and forth because he's hooked on
this game. He's doing all this side stuff. And I
got to a certain boss I will spoil names or whatever,
and I went, I'm just gonna sit here and listen
to this theme because I'm not ready to fight this person.

(01:26:57):
And he goes, oh my god, it's so great. And
then five days later I went, oh, the second time
you fight this person really sactually goes, I'm not gonna lie.
I really thought that's what you talked about the first time,
and I thought you were there because the theme was
so much better. But yeah, the music is so good
in this game. It's that epic feel that you get

(01:27:18):
through all of this. And I think, so get through
this game, and I'm watching people react to it and
what they think of the ending and everything, and one
of the guys I always watch all the time, Maximilian Dude,
I think said it best, like this game does not
happen if the developers don't go off and make their

(01:27:39):
own studio away from the big wigs, because you can't
take a risk like this. And that's why I'm saying,
like File Fantasy can never do anything like this because
they have to stay in their lane and stay in
their box, and we have to make sure that this
group likes it, and this group likes you, to make
sure everyone pies the game. Even though Expedition thirty three

(01:28:01):
just showed we're gonna make the game we want, We're
gonna do it exactly how we want, and you're gonna
like it or not, and everyone went, you know what,
this is so original and fantastic. We all love it,
and that's great, and hopefully it sells just a ton
and shows the big studios that stop making Assassin's Freed
for the fifty seventh time re Call of Duty for

(01:28:21):
the ninety ninth time. Like you can come up with
an original story and it's gonna work. Try something different,
take take an idea like Lost Odyssey with their battle,
and you do this from your heritage and mold it
together and come up with something just different and fantastic
and then has to be good on top of it.

(01:28:42):
But that's the thing that the Expedition thirty three got me.
It's it felt absolutely like a game I've never played before,
but felt like so many other games that I've played
in my life, all molded together perfectly, and it's just
a fantastic game.

Speaker 1 (01:29:03):
Yeah, it's an absolutely amazing game. It's why it's winning
so many Game of the Year awards running away with
the thing, and with good reason. There's like so many
like little moments you can pinpoint too in the in
the game, with the story and everything. Just absolutely nailed

(01:29:27):
it from like every front as far as the game goes,
It's gonna be one of those that you when we
talk about like game of the decade, right, it will
have its place that we will then be something to go, Okay,
where does this rank? And we're only halfway through. We
still got you know, five more years of this decade.
So but all right, I mean that's Game of the

(01:29:51):
Year twenty twenty five for us here video games to
the max. Hopefully you have enjoyed this year us being
able to you know, do the podcast. Thank you everybody
that watches listens. Thank you to Crafty who always tells
me that he appreciates the show. Always like it's cool

(01:30:11):
when you have people reach out and tell you that
the show means a lot, even if it's one person,
because that makes me feel like it's cool, that it's worth,
you know, doing the show every week, because it is
a lot of work to do this. It's this is
actually a lot a little bit easier because I'm not
having to go get news and pay attention to stuff

(01:30:32):
all throughout the week and read things and stuff like that,
you know, Marcus well having to keep up with that stuff.
So you know, hopefully everybody had a great Christmas and holidays,
and now I have a happy new year. And we'll
see you on the other side of twenty twenty six
next week for our most anticipated games. And twenty twenty

(01:30:56):
six will granted Thoughtle six actually come out.

Speaker 2 (01:31:01):
Will number one on my list for the fourth straight year?

Speaker 1 (01:31:04):
Yeah right? Will it be high on that list again?
Will we see something in Fall Fantasy seven remake Part three?
In this year.

Speaker 3 (01:31:13):
We'll finally be the Data years star Citizen.

Speaker 1 (01:31:17):
Right well, Star Citizens, stop just taking money from people
and just being enough.

Speaker 2 (01:31:21):
That's what I can tell you that one right now.

Speaker 1 (01:31:25):
But all right until next week, everybody, thank you Randy
for being on always better when we can have you
on and thank you Marcus always to see you all
later later,

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