Can Capcom's Incredible Streak Continue? | Button Mash

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Hello and welcome into the ringerverse,

your nexus feed for all things fandom.

I am the very senior editor at the ringer

and button mash host.

I've got company today.

I am joined by a pair of podcast side kicks.

First, ringer deputy art lead, Craig Mata, James.

Hey, man.

That one was just right there for me.

I think I have to reach for that.

I thought you might go for that one.

Yeah.

It was pretty obvious.

Maybe it was the low hanging fruit,

but sometimes the low hanging fruit is pretty appetizing.

How many hours into Crimson Desert are you now?

What's the total count climb to?

Wow, right out the gate.

I think I'm at 165.

Oh, okay.

But I haven't touched it in five days

because of all the other games we've been playing.

I know.

I was expecting 200 for you at this point.

So I'm slightly disappointed.

Yeah, that's fair.

That's fair.

I'll do better.

We've been busy.

And so have the developers of Crimson Desert

just patching that thing daily, basically.

As we forecasted in our previous discussion,

they are updating this thing as if it's an MMO.

And a lot of the complaints that we touched on last time,

now Steve is producing this pod,

but he is unable to weigh in and speak.

And so we can just trash him here

and he won't be able to do anything without it.

But it turns out the critical response

was roughly right in the middle of what we predicted

and what Steve predicted.

But I think the popular opinion certainly was closer to our take.

And I think is only improving as the game gets better.

It's definitely getting better the game for sure.

But I think the things that certain people fundamentally don't

like about Crimson Desert are not really going to change.

It was never going to be a game for everyone.

But for us, Sykos, who just want to drop a billion hours

getting completely lost in a game world,

it is indeed getting better every patch.

Yeah, it was for us from the beginning.

We didn't need no stinkin patches.

That game was good right from the start.

We are also joined by a ringer contributor

and free answer extraordinaire powering through a sore throat.

Hopefully we will see Joshua Rivera.

Welcome back, Joshua.

Hello.

I have, you know,

inputted the sore throat solution hack pattern.

I have been solving mazes just to brew tea

and I'm ready to destroy some bots with you, gentlemen today.

Yeah, you can't patch out your hay fever.

Unfortunately, I guess is the problem.

Well, have you dabbled in the desert?

Oh, no, that's just one of those things where it's just sort of like,

you know, I can't do that, you know?

That's okay.

It's not really so.

I gave you Ken Dabbled.

You have to dive in.

Hull Hog, really.

We're getting Cheats, silent Cheats from Steve,

who is steaming that he cannot weigh in here.

How many times have you seen the Super Mario Brothers Galaxy movie

in theaters, Joshua?

Any?

Oh, zero times.

Wow.

Zero times.

Zero times.

Yeah, it was just like,

Are you even participating in gaming culture?

Come on.

I'm on, I'm, I have been voted off of gamer island for,

for the month.

And I'm hoping that like my pragmat of the paintings get me back in,

you know?

Good.

Good.

I'm just doing okay without you.

I don't think Nintendo is here.

Your box office dollars.

It's, it's about halfway to the total take of the previous Mario Galaxy movie

or not Galaxy, but Mario movie.

So it's doing just fine.

And I actually, I introduced my daughter, my four and a half year old daughter,

to the first Mario movie this past weekend.

Well, not the first one to be clear, not the 1993 one.

I don't think she's old enough for that.

I'm not sure any of us are old enough for that.

But the 2023 one and she was a little apprehensive about the Bowser parts,

but she stuck with it and she enjoyed it.

And now, of course, she wants a Mario themed birthday party.

So you win Nintendo.

Good work.

Doing good work.

Marketing accomplished.

Yeah.

To the, to the pages song went over.

You know, she wasn't that into the pitches song seemingly.

Sorry, Jack Black.

You got to even get a musical number in the sequel for whatever reason.

Even though that was the big breakout movie from the first one.

But she was already kind of inculcated into the cult of Mario,

because I've been playing Mario Kart with her and Mario tennis.

And so now we're going to different ways of marketing Mario to her.

And they're all working well.

So you've captured the next generation.

Well, it's been less than two months since the three of us got together on this

year show.

It seems like longer ago, because it was prior to Crimson Desert,

prior to the Mario Galaxy movie.

Can we even remember a time before those blockbusters?

But we got together on this year's show to talk about Resident Evil Requiem.

And we have reconvened the Capcom crew today,

because Capcom has yet another new release, Prachmata.

But that's not all we have in store for you.

In addition to discussing the new triple A-ish release from one of the oldest

most storied video game companies,

we're going to complete the triple play by talking about two high profile indie

debuts, mouse, PI for hire, and replaced all international studios from different

parts of the world, little international flavor on Butt Mesh this week.

And April is suddenly extremely busy.

And not just because of Crimson Desert and Mario.

And we're not even getting to everything.

Apologies to people of note, the musical RPG and Tomadachi life living

the dream, the Nintendo social simulation.

We haven't even had time for that.

We've had our hands full.

So we're going to tell you what we've been playing and what we have thought.

And for today, we'll put aside our cares.

Not only are real world concerns, but are concerns about the bloodborne animated

adaptation without from soft involvement and are concerns about the skyrocketing

console prices and RAM shortages.

Let's just talk about some good games or at least some games that have been widely

deemed to be good.

So you will have to listen on to find out whether we agree.

So we will play Mesh or Pass with each of these three and give you our ratings on the

Mesh meter.

Let's talk first about Capcom's latest here.

So we've all had our minds on the moon.

Thanks to Artemis II, congrats to NASA and the astronauts for a successful mission.

And you know what, congrats to Capcom for another successful mission too.

Also, we've had our minds not just on the moon, but also on Rogue AI coming for us.

And so this really is the perfect game for spring, 2026.

Capcom has its finger on the pulse.

All these games were released in the last few days.

Pragmata developed and published, of course, by Capcom for all current gen platforms.

In the game, it's actually pronounced Pragmata, like Pragmatic.

Though I have a hard time not pronouncing it like Stigmata.

Are you, are you Pragmata people or Pragmata people?

Well, yeah, I changed the language to Japanese how to speak through.

Yeah, so I completely forgot and how they pronounce it in the game.

And because, yeah, I just preferred listening to those voices than the English ones.

Yes, I think that was probably a smart call.

And when I wish I had zoomed it was Pragmata.

But then in the game, they very clearly say Pragmata.

And I assume that New York, then fucking Lindbergh would be called to Pragmata.

I know you think, but with my Mario roots, Mario.

Yeah, and then there's the, oh, yeah, I mean, I didn't even think about Pragmata.

Pragmata, they're multiple A's here that could be pronounced multiple ways.

Anyway, and you say Pragmata, I say Pragmato, what's called the whole plot off.

Let's just talk about the game and avoid saying the name of it for a while.

So we start on the moon where we have sent an expedition to find out what has gone wrong.

And suddenly everything goes wrong with the rescue mission to find out what went wrong.

So who's going to rescue the rescuers?

And we play as Hugh, the somewhat unlikely named Hugh.

And we are the sole survivor of this rescue mission.

And we quickly meet up with Diana, as she is nicknamed.

She is a robot of sorts.

She is a highly advanced anthropomorphic robot who looks disturbingly like

my aforementioned daughter, which made this whole experience kind of creepy for me.

But you team up with Diana who rides on your back in kind of classic old school platformer style.

Very, very Donkey Kong, Bonanza, you know, just climb on back.

I have to get one of those platforms for my daughter.

Because when she rides on my, my shoulders, it really puts a click into neck.

So I have to get something that she could just stand on the back of my space suit.

It seems much more convenient.

But bulky.

Anyway, this is intense combat puzzle solving in real time,

a little exploration though it is largely linear.

And this is a new IP, unlike the extremely old 30 year old IP that we were talking about

last time with Resident Evil.

This is a new venture, sort of a sci-fi thriller.

What did you make of it, Nat?

I absolutely love this game.

I felt like it was tremendously refreshing to have a new IP hit right out of the gate.

And it feels inescapably like a Capcom game.

It has, you know, unlockables, it has save rooms, it has all of the little touches that make

it feel like a Capcom game upgrades that you can unlock for your character.

Yeah, annoying little figurines that you have to shoot to collect them.

Yeah, it feels like a Capcom game, but the, but the gameplay is so unique.

The way that combat works where you are shooting and hacking at the same time,

the hacking, if you complete a hack, will open up the enemies and then they will be susceptible

to way more damage. So this kind of mix of managing all at one time, the shooting, the hacking,

and your sort of spatial awareness of enemies, it is a really multitask heavy game.

If you're someone good at multitasking, you're going to love this.

If you're someone who has a hard time listening to this podcast while doing anything else,

you might have a hard time with this one.

It's a brain bending experience and the way that they add new layers to it throughout,

just keeps it very fresh and satisfying throughout.

I thought that this was just a really excellent game with a good story

and decent enough characters in a compelling setting.

I think most people will, at the very least, enjoy this.

Joshua, did you enjoy it?

Yeah, I had a great time when I wasn't like listening to it.

Is that why you switched the language to Japanese so that you just would not understand the dialogue?

That's part of it. I was also tickled that your playing is a guy named Hugh.

Almost expected his last name to be Mann.

It's not a Kojima game, although it seems like one sometimes.

I think everything about the director's a former mechanical designer or something like that,

like our character designer. It's like a game may buy a gear head or a bunch of gear heads.

All that stuff looks cool. I just don't care for the story, but it's also not intrusive,

so it doesn't really bother me that much.

I love the central thing, or you're doing these hacking puzzles

in order to have permission to play a shooting game.

I like it.

I love it a lot. I kind of, you know how Metal Gear had the VR missions?

This game has a version of that, and there's a part of me that wish it was just that.

Yeah, it's funny because on our Dispatch Pods last year,

I expressed some frustration with just how many hacking minigames we have now,

and how every game has a hacking minigame.

And so you might think that I would be fed up with all the hacking that happens here,

because it's really not optional. I mean, I'm sure that some super-calented speed runner

or something will play this game and beat this game without hacking at all,

but it would be pretty darn hard, because once those shields are up, you know, you're really

like, you would be chipping away at the health bars here. It would be a big war of nutrition.

So you really have to do the hacking. It works for me, though, because it's not the sole focus.

It's not like the rest of the game stops, and then you do your little hacking minigame.

Everything is happening at once, as you said, Matt. And it's so frenetic, because you're jumping

around and you're trying to avoid attacks, and at the same time, you're hacking, and you're also

shooting, and it's just, it's so chaotic, but also in a good way. Like, you enter a flow state,

sort of, and there is, you can get an upgrade that does auto-hacking for you, and it's limited,

but I still sort of avoided that almost on principle, because it just felt like I should be doing

the hacking personally here. It would be kind of fun if there were a co-op mode in this game,

and one person were hacking, and one person were shooting, but it's single-player, and maybe it's

better that way, because that way you do feel almost overloaded, but not quite, just sort of overloaded.

So the hacking works for me because it's happening in tandem and in concert with everything else,

and it's not like super puzzly. Basically, you're just kind of pressing the face buttons on the

controller to correspond to directions, and you're just trying to go through various squares on this

grid to kind of unlock the enemy, open it up, and then there are also ways that you can upgrade

this, and you can get kind of modifiers, and you can get double damage, or you can confuse enemies,

and so there's a little more complexity to it, which is nice, but because it happens along with all

these other things, I think it's kind of like the sum is greater than, you know, the whole is

greater than the sum of the parts, really, if it were just the shooting or just the hacking,

if these were separated, I wouldn't be as into it, but because it's sort of a two-step,

it's just constantly frantic and fun, and it's not the sole focus. So I'm with you. Like,

the action here is top tier, and some of the boss fights are just incredible. I love the boss fights

of this game. Yeah, they definitely are, and the reason why the hacking system works so well with

the shooting is because they pace out the additions to it perfectly. They give you enough time

to digest, okay, at first, here's how the hacking works, and then they introduce a new kind of node

to you. Like, okay, if you go through this node, and then you get to the open section that'll open

the guy up, like this node that you pass through makes it so that the next time you hack this guy,

it'll do extra damage, and then a few hours later, you get another new node, and they really give

you time to process everything, and the same goes for the weapons. You will gradually be introduced

to new weapons, and the way that a new weapon might interact with a hack that you got a few hours

ago sort of brings new life into that, and maybe a new hack will do the same for the weapons,

there's this kind of interplay between the weapons and the hacking that is really satisfying,

and allows you to come up with your own way to tackle different enemies. Some of the enemies

are particularly susceptible to certain things. You can hack an enemy, and once you do enough damage

to it, all of a sudden it puts up these shields that stop you from hacking it anymore, and the only

way to take these shields down are to physically shoot those shields, and then you can hack again.

It just works so well, the way those systems all integrate.

Yeah, and there are a lot of systems, and maybe it would be a bit overwhelming for some people.

It almost reminded me of Hades II, which I thought worked well. Some people thought there was just

a bit too much going on, but I like it because there's always something to upgrade. There's always

some way to progress, and there's something to collect. There's sort of this central hub area,

because you're in this moon base that is mysteriously deserted, and there's been a moon quake,

and disaster has been falling, and there's a rogue AI. So you can retreat to this central safe

hub area, and from there you can go to the various hotspots as you're trying to contact Earth,

or escape, or rescue some other robot, or whatever. And each time you go back to that central hub area,

there's always something to do. And each of the levels has sort of sub-levels, so you can kind

of save and then go back to that central area, and whatever you've collected, you can upgrade your

own abilities. You can upgrade Diana's hacking abilities. You can equip different things. They're

all sorts of mods for all these different systems. And then there's like training simulator in the

central hub area where you can unlock other stuff. So you always feel like you're getting an

upgrade. You're always progressing and feeling more and more empowered. And then the game puts up

a different challenge, and there's great enemy variety, too. There are certain stock enemies that

you'll be fighting throughout the game, but it's always throwing new enemies at you. And yeah,

it just never gets old, and there's additional complexity added to the combat as you go.

Any other thoughts on the combat specifically Joshua?

I think that it's like much more expressive than it probably sounds, right? Because like part of

what you're doing, like he's known, Sam, Matt was talking about, is that you're sort of influencing

what these mazes do to the robots? So it's kind of like building your own playstyle, and a way

that feels like tickles your brain in a really fun way. And I think it's just like, again,

I'm talking to talk about it in a way that doesn't sound very dry. But I think they have done

something really cool and compelling. And not too frustrating, right? On the standard difficulty

right? Like they feel like the encounters are just right, right? Or it's just sort of like

just enough to get you like a little tense. And then like when there's a big fight, like you know,

and then you're able, like at least I was able to, you know, like pull it off. But I like,

not quite the skin of my teeth, but I feel like, you know, like, oh, I really could have,

you know, beefed that one, you know? So I don't know. To me, it felt like very

extremely well calibrated. And I'm not like, you know, pro gamer skills, no scope for 20

guy. But so like, I don't think I'm coming at this from like an extremely

abnormal place, you know? Yeah. Yeah. I had that same experience of it being perfectly

calibrated. No notable difficulty spikes. And some of the bosses, it inevitably, it seemed that

I would barely beat them. But before I failed so many times that I got frustrated. And so maybe

it would take me a few tries on occasion. But I would always get down to like some sliver of my

health bar. And also it's like there were a couple times where it was kind of a, you know, one hit

kill scenario whoever landed the next shot would win the fight. And so there was a great sense of

accomplishment without any accompanying frustration for me in some of these fights, which is part

of what made them so excellent. So yeah, I mean, on all those scores just perfection or close to

perfection. However, I did have some reservations about other aspects of the game as to do Joshua.

And it's quite linear, which is not necessarily a problem. And in fact, the exploration I thought

was sort of satisfying given the constraints of there are only so many places to go. But somehow

they did manage to hide some secrets and collectibles in ways where I felt some sense of accomplishment

when I found them. But the structure of the missions was very much toggle five switches to activate

this elevator to get to this other thing. And Rinson repeat basically almost everywhere you

went. It changes a little bit later in the game. But multiple long levels are very much of that

kind, you know, of that format where it's just like we have to flip this number of switches or

decode this number of things in order to open this door and go there. And sometimes the game even

acknowledges that, you know, like, because it doesn't make any sense, like, why would you have to

unlock all of these different things scattered all across the level to get through this locked door.

And at one point, he was like, you know, I'd love to talk to the brain that scattered all these

terminals around. And okay, but just acknowledging it doesn't actually change that that is still

the structure of the game. So as inventive and creative and perfectly polished as the combat felt,

I thought structurally it really didn't do much for me. And it felt just sort of, you know, not

pushing the envelope in any way. So I would have loved if the combat had been mirrored by

the innovation of other aspects of the game. And in terms of like the level design. And there's also

some monotony, I think, just because you're on this moon base. And they make an attempt to switch

things up. And sometimes you're out on the surface. And sometimes you're inside. And there's this

Luna filament that enables you to basically 3D print anything on the moon. And so there are some

biosphere here where, you know, there's like Earth like, there's like a New York level. And there's

a, you know, plants and trees and stuff. But ultimately it does just sort of feel like a moon base

most of the time. And it's kind of visually bland, I guess. So all of that, it felt a little bit

to me like when's the next fight. And maybe because the focus is on the fighting, that was okay.

But there was, I think, a disparity in just how engaging and engrossing those different aspects

of the game felt. Did you feel that at all, Matt? Not really. I mean, I think I was just so like

hit with the capcomness of this capcom game. This is a video game as video game, right? And

I just kind of instantly, especially coming off of Resident Evil Requiem so recently,

I kind of knew that this game would be unapologetically doing video game stuff.

So I didn't mind like the doors locked by five things that were spread out. Like, you know,

if it was all that, then sure, maybe that would get monotonous. I didn't think it was too

enveloped in that. And I also found that the moon base itself, I really liked looking at all of it.

And maybe this is partially because, you know, our imaginations were captured by the Artemis

journey while we were playing this game. But every bit of like being on the moon just felt really awe

inspiring. What timing for a capcom to release this game? I mean, just incredible. But those,

those, those like biomes that you're talking about that they can generate because they've used this

this idea of printing pretty much anything you want based on this moon or

that led to some really interesting things like the New York level that you talked about. Yeah,

it kind of looked like Times Square, but it looked like kind of a messed up. Like awkward looking

Times Square because as you find out in the lore of the game, they would kind of let

within the game, within the narrative of the game, the people on the moon would use AI to kind of

build out these biomes. So there's this really interesting thing of like of the AI

making New York and and it not being human feeling at all despite having very like human elements.

And the extra layer of thinking about Capcom, which is a studio that will not use generative AI

for their games, you know, the artists at Capcom, like making things to look like AI slop

without it actually using AI slop is this really fascinating layer that kind of captivated me

whenever I was in a new biome or whatever, I was I was very much paying attention to like

what they've done to to to make you feel like an AI has has run wild here. Yeah, yeah. And I think

the story itself, so it it reminds me a bit of death stranding. It's not as strange as stranding,

but just in the sort of unlikely dead aspect of it. And the nice thing about it is that there

aren't a whole lot of cutscenes. So as we alluded to earlier, it's not super intrusive,

but it does lead to these sort of, you know, Joel and Ellie kind of conversations that happen

as you're playing. And they're always sort of awkward and kind of shawarnded. It's like you'll have

this big battle against a bunch of giant robots and you'll blow them all up. And then suddenly

you will like pause to reminisce about life on earth or something. And I like the dynamic with

Diana being very curious about earth and human life and everything because she's she's very capable.

It's like a lone wolf and Cubs sort of thing, except that the cub is quite capable. And you would

be screwed if not for Diana helping him in I would. But the the heart felt chat moments because

he starts basically like the first cutscene. He's like, I hate to have kids or whatever, you know.

And then uh oh, he suddenly has a surrogate daughter here who is also a robot and kind of,

you know, despite her disturbing resemblance to my daughter also has like an uncanny valley thing

going on, I guess on purpose, right? But you do fight her in Deering at a certain point and you

can populate that hub area with like a swing set to Anna campfire and balloons and things for her

to play with so that she can be like a real human child. But it is a little, you know, just like the

the heartfelt moments are kind of shawarnded in it awkward times. But but the daddy daughter

relationship, I think was maybe even the stronger aspect of the story because everything else

where you're trying to piece together what happened on this base and why is it deserted.

It's one of the I think, dullar examples of the coming across hollow pads or holograms and

notepad sort of structure of storytelling, which works for me sometimes if the source material

and the lore is really compelling like with horizon games that that grabs me for instance. But here

pretty much every time you come across a memo or an email or you watch some holographic recorded

scene play out, it's just kind of kind of boring at least in my mind and and not really all that

revealing or interesting beyond the basic kind of, you know, corporations and machines run

a muck sort of standard story. So that didn't do much for me is what I'm saying. Joshua.

Yeah, I think every just about every plot beat is one you would expect, you know. I don't think

there's much going on to surprise you, which is kind of a little bit of a bummer because like

the implications of the space are wild. That like they found on the moon like basically a magic

resin that could pretty print anything and then something went wrong and like this whole colony

full of like scientists and whatnot like died or and like again the reasons for all that are

very predictable or very boring. But like there's all sorts of like interesting little like

asides like tensions that they're that they're that they're dealing with right like there was one

that like lingered in my head where they're talking about like testing this like printing up this

whole city section and they're like oh New York and and like no one's

Diana's asking you like oh have you been there how do you know it's New York and he was like oh

I have no idea you know like but like movies you know it's sort of like everywhere and then the

the scientists or that made it you find it like an email exchange which sort of like I guess we should

use New York as like a proof of concept but like they're not from New York either right like they're

like maybe next time we'll do something you know traditional from Japan and that feels like

something about like how these games are made right with like Capcom is like a Japanese company

and like having to make a game that still feels like the western you know even though it's not

yeah that's interesting because it felt like when Capcom went astray a decade ago and we should

talk about how it has found its way back to the light but maybe part of that was sort of

westernizing its games and and trying to adopt those mechanics instead of doing its own thing

and doing its own thing is clearly its strength and is paying off for it very well so yeah you don't

want sort of a simulacrum of of something you want something that is authentic and and this game

mostly does feel like that but I was mostly playing for the next fight in the next boss battle or

so then for the next lore drop sure but I thought that they they put in enough little details to

to flesh out the story in in interesting ways like you know you mentioned that at the top

there's a cutscene where he was like oh having kids like kind of and then the rights of the

game sort of about his father daughter-ish relationship with this robot but you know it's a nice

little detail that's dropped in pretty early on that like it turns out like he was adopted

and he still has views of family that that you know emanate from him being adopted and him being

able to call his mom and dad mom and dad despite being adopted and that is you know obviously

directly connected to the fact that he encounters this girl and is quick to essentially adopt her

and and it's a nice little detail to help explain why that bond might form so quickly

within him I think the character of you could have been a little bit more fleshed out we do get

some some tidbits here and there but he kind of remains a bit of a bit of a bighearted simple

and throughout most of this at times it kind of feels like Diana and Hugh have like an of

mice and men Lenny George relationship where they like trade off who's Lenny and who's George

depending on whether it's a sort of human condition or a computer condition that they're mulling over

I really liked that dynamic that they had and I think most importantly know the way that the

the corridors that need five keys to unlock didn't upset me in this video game S video game

the story not being like top tier video game story didn't bother me that much because I felt like

it didn't get in the way of of the main draw of this game yes but when I do agree that some of

those hologram conversations were a bit over long thankfully the notes that you would find and read

were fairly short unlike yes I just remember playing out of worlds two a few months back and being

checking like an email that was like five pages long for some random outpost that like

I was yeah it's not like that the rare case where I would say that email could have been a

conversation yeah exactly yeah yeah yeah I'm still reading some of those I think so

yeah it's almost like the hacking it's like yes I'm sort of sick of hacking mechanics and yet

because it's not the soul focus and it doesn't slow anything down it it becomes additive

and it's just something that you enjoy along the way so I think the whole game is just really well

put together and yeah there's some derivative aspects of the storytelling and it'll probably

remind you of a lot of games some of which we've mentioned or maybe a dead space sort of game

you know games from that era but it feels timely and topical thematically and it's just so

perfectly polished in the combat in the gameplay and this game was in development for six years or so

not that that's abnormal these days for a AAA-ish title but there was a lot of trial and error the

director said when it came to figuring out the puzzle hacking and combat and everything and it paid

off it just it worked out they nailed it so clearly this is not a pass this is a mash for us but

our respective ratings on the mash meter I think Matt you're probably the high man here so

where are you gonna go on the one to 10 scale on the one to 10 scale I think I gotta drop this at a

9 875 to 9 that's kind of where I'm at with it yeah just a just a joy not doesn't overstay it's

welcome sticks the landing and there's also a lot of great stuff to unlock after you finish the

the story that that can keep you going for even longer can we talk about that um because

spoilers I think we can talk yeah not like not like in a spoiler sense I just want to say they're

yeah you're right it's cool and it's like my favorite thing about the game it's a super capcom

ass thing where like okay what am I gonna get as soon as the credit's over I'm gonna get stuff

I'm gonna have like five pop-ups telling me all the cool stuff I just unlocked and that absolutely

happens yeah rocks dude like it's the it's the it's like they gave me the version of the games that I

wanted like it's like um you know how you play Super Mario 3D LAN you know the 3DS one and like

you're going through the thing and then like you know you play through the whole story and then

the actual sickle shit comes out yes it's it's it's good man like it's worth it just for that I think

yeah what's your score Joshua uh probably just because um I have uh I just like the 7 out of 10

me so I'm gonna give it an 8 yeah um yeah I'll go right between you guys I'll go 8.5 and maybe

that's fence sitting that is kind of the consensus that's where the metacritic average is but that is

how I feel it's just that the the combat stuff everything that's good about this game is so good

that it more than makes up for any of the drawbacks but there are some some drawbacks in my mind but

it is really impressive for an original IP and and I I guess I hope that this is the start of something

I mean if this were just a one-off experiment I'd be perfectly happy with that too but it seems

like there's franchise potential here when is there not franchise potential with some sort of

successful release so we'll see how successful it is financially but uh I got to think that we will

see more pragmatta at some point and that would be a bad thing yeah probably he's doing great in the

combine you know putting up good numbers yes yeah and and you know something to be aware of because

there was so much conversation around this with crimson desert and cliffs controls and how he felt

and part of that was just button mappings but also partly just how nimble or not he was there's

a little bit of that bulky lumbering happening here but it makes perfect sense because you're

in comfort you're wearing a big suit and you're carrying Diana on your back and you're on the moon

and everything so there is a little bit of lumbering around that you have to get used to you're not

kind of turning on a dime here but it it never felt like it was getting in the way of what I wanted

to do because you can also sprint easily and no you don't have to press the button repeatedly to

sprint as you originally did in crimson desert before that that was patched and and you know you can

also dash a lot so you're constantly dashing during fights so it didn't feel you know you're not

the most agile and you do have like jets that can help you do extended jumps but they're still

kind of a limited range to that so but it felt perfectly appropriate in how it controlled to me so

now to pro I also played on switch two did you get it run I played on ps5 it ran damn well

and like a friend's help and docked on in handheld there's like some stutter in a few places but

like nothing that will ruin the experience for you I don't think and it also I think is really

suited to the structure of the game where it's just like it's really generous with checkpoints and

giving you spots the plots and and save and stuff so like if you are remotely interested I recommend

it switch to good to know great to hear and and we do just have to say a word here about capcom because

street fighter six incest storyline aside capcom is just killing it and this is not new but it's

you know we kind of forecasted that this would be the year of capcom just because of how many

releases there are and that's not always a good thing sometimes that's a product of development that

went on too long and you don't actually want games to be going head to head against each other

and that sort of happened I guess with with Bethesda last year a little bit you know you mentioned

outer worlds and then there was grounded and there was a vowed and and that was not the plan to

publish all of those games in quick succession capcom though just has such an assembly line going here

and goes right from Resident Evil Requiem to Monster Hunter Stories 3 which was also extremely

well received and and now this game pragmata comes out and there's still onimusha coming

later this year so it's really pretty impressive onimusha way of the sword so they're doing it all

they're kind of firing on all cylinders and it's incredible to look back a decade or so to the

capcom era where everyone was bemoaning you know they were getting away from their successful formula

and a lot of series were in a little low and you know you had Resident Evil 5 and 6 and this was

sort of a low point creatively for the franchise and getting all action gaming and you had devil

may cry for and DMC devil may cry and it just felt like capcom had kind of lost its way and man

has it ever found its way since then and it's not just like non-stop flagship game bangers but it's

like you know a constant stream of remakes and remasters and re-releases most of which are handled

and received pretty well and then somehow they find time to create pragmata and it's the first

original IP and something like eight years when it was announced back in 2020 for capcom and then

also dredging up and revitalizing these long dormant franchises like onimusha or like mega man

next year right I mean it's just capcom's putting on a clinic clinic right now it's great to see

I'd like living in a world where capcom and canami are putting out good games and I never thought

that we would be back to this but it's great to be here yeah yeah I don't know if there's like a

replicable formula like what can other studios learn from this I guess it's just good yeah right

you know and like dragon's dogma too is a capcom game and it's just like so many different

genres and then they have financial hits like monster hunter wilds even if that didn't have

the staying power that people wanted it's just like you know they almost can do no wrong and then

there's some experiments there's something like exo primal for instance and you know not everything

hits but everything feels creative and like they're trying something new and when they're making

new games and old franchises even those still feel new I mean we talked a lot about how requeam

kind of felt like a greatest hits of the franchise and sort of intertwining different strands of

the series and maybe there wasn't anything really brand new to the franchise in that game but it

just perfected all the different kinds of resident evil games and so that was almost new in a sense

and then to work in something like progmana it's just it's really really impressive and obviously

it helps to be able to draw on the back catalog that capcom has going back decades and just tons of

fan loyalty to all these series so so not everyone can follow that formula I guess that's the

that's the sticking point it's like not everyone has the archive that capcom can draw on and yet

easier said than done as capcom itself showed in the mid 2000s early 2000s or you know late 2000s

early to mid 2010s that you can easily go wrong and you can kind of forget what people like or you can

just double down on things so much that it feels formulaic and you know street fighter five I guess

fell into that too at least on its original release and then street fighter six incest aside kind

of corrects course so it's really lot of both I guess and you know game development has gone

better in Japan than in the US in terms of like layoffs and and everything but capcom specifically

is just sort of the standard bear for how do you service these existing series that people love

and also find ways to do something new and break the mold a little bit so keep it up capcom well done

no and I think it's cool that like you have I think you also have because these companies are more

stable and the ones out here you know but like you have you know like Marvel comics from like Roy

Thomas and Jerry Connallay and all those guys started showing up were like the the people who grew

up on the older stuff are now you know sort of like taking it in their own direction while also like

yeah you know paying homage to the stuff that they loved so it's kind of like this new generation

talent that is still aware of what the older guys did because the older guys is still around you know

yeah yeah it's a real revitalization and we've talked about that with Nintendo too where you have

this generational model and there's kind of a mentorship and each person comes to each franchise

and brings something new to it while the OGs are often still there looking over their shoulders and

able to weigh in and assist okay so from Japan let us move to Poland and to something else that's

completely new and by the way Pragmata I would say it's maybe 15-ish hours 15 to 20 dozen to 20

depending on your playstyle and how much of a completeist you are and these next two games that

we're going to talk about also maybe a dozen hours or so the first one we won't talk as long

about each of these as we did about Pragmata but mouse PI for hire which is developed by Fumi Games

published by playside studios for all current gen platforms much like Pragmata which is also

available for all platforms Pragmata Pragmata maybe and mouse will also be coming to less

gen platforms at some point so this stood out from the vast swath of indie games out there in part

because of its look and because of its genre it's a first-person shooter it's a hard boiled detective

game with black and white rubber hose style art and animation it's interesting because when I sat

down to play this and my wife was watching it like the the touchstone for a lot of people now is

not going to be 1920s 1930s animation but Cuphead she was like oh is this by the Cuphead people?

no but it's a homage to the same era of animation which we've seen I guess in some other games like

Bendy or Epic Mickey or whatever but it's mostly associated with Cuphead at this point

although this is even bolder in a sense because it's black and white just really dedicated to the

black and white aesthetic and I guess partly this came to attention because of that look and synthesis

of genres also partly because Troy Baker is in this game Troy Baker voices the titular eponymous

mouse PI and he has a whole lot of lines so you will be hearing a lot of Troy Baker

Joel Miller Indiana Jones himself is now playing a mouse and clearly he felt very strongly

about this the whole cast just kind of wanted to be involved with this game I doubt it was the same

sort of payday that Troy Baker is accustomed to but this was sort of a passion project and

what did you guys make of this mat you're take on mouse PI for hire?

I think it very much is what it appears to be yeah if you are looking at this game and you think

you might be into it you're probably right and if you're looking at it and you don't know

you're you should probably stay away it's a fairly straightforward boomer shooter there is like a

sort of a hub area that you return to and an overworld map where you can drive your car to all the

different levels so it's not quite just like a linear like next level next level next level next

level there is a little bit more dynamism to it than that but as far as the gameplay goes it's just a

pretty straightforward shooter the level design is fairly linear there's a few interlocking sort of

short cutty kind of things the boss fights tend to be good there's some that are okay some that

are a little above average I think that this is just exactly what it appears to be with some fantastic

artwork and voice acting on top of it there's a great feel to this world I think that if they make

a sequel of this there are definitely some more interesting avenues to explore I think that the

mister the detective element of this is something I was really looking forward to and I think that

it's a little bit it's a little bit shallow on the detective elements yes than what I was hoping for

but I still appreciate that that that feel of that noir detective sort of thrown in there it's an

enjoyable game if it's what you're in the mood to play that's kind of my take on it yeah it's an

interesting match up mash up I just I like this era in this style and I like first person shooters

and so immediately I was grabbed by the premise and and yeah it pretty much does what it says on

the tin Joshua what did you think oh I did I was not in print it did nothing for me okay and like I

love that uh you know again I love that animation style I love the uh yeah um the pastiche that

there that there that they're that they're doing um I don't want to you know slight the the animation

work that goes on there and there's a lot of like character to it like the way that you're melee

works you put up your dukes and like you throw these wild haymakers and that's really cool yeah um one

thing that bothered me the only thing that bothered me about the animation is that the environments

and the characters and the weapons and everything didn't always seem well integrated to me it was like

the environments weren't as cartoony as the animated parts so you know the characters and the enemies

and the weapons are kind of bouncing around and then the environments are just kind of drab black

and white repetitive sort of and there was me bananas yeah there was a disconnect there like the

the world didn't seem like it was working from the same template I guess so that bothered me I

wanted everything to be as cartoony as the moving parts were yeah that would certainly be very

impressive if they were able to pull that off yeah tall order I get but still yeah what were

your other knocks on it I mean that was basically you know like it where it just sort of like like

you were saying I agree with you both that was hoping for more detective stuff then boomer-shooter

stuff there's like some fun flourishes I only played like an hour or two so maybe there's more of

this but like I love the little flourishes like you you break a lock with your tail and you have

to guide your tail through the tumblers and stuff and I think that's really fun and funny yep

but it it doesn't seem it seems more interested in being a shooter which is like fine I guess

but it's like you know you go through all this work making this texture and it's just sort of like

I kind of want to sink into it a little bit more than that you know yes yeah I had some of the

same concerns and I don't think it changes a whole lot you know if you played an hour or two I think

you you kind of get what it is and there's just much more of it and you know you get more weapons

and everything but but the basic structure of it is pretty apparent early on and I also was

disappointed by the detective aspect which is pretty undercooked I mean there's not much actual

investigating that goes on here not that I'm expecting some sort of like root trees or dead

obrden style depth to this but you know there's really not much to it other than you kind of question

characters sometimes but it's just your standard sort of dialogue options and then you get back to

your PI office and there's a board where you can put clues together and everything almost in like

an Alan wake two way but you're not actually putting the clues together you're just pressing a button

and then the mouse puts the clues up on the board and pieces them together and then you get the next

mission basically so yeah it's just kind of reminding you of the story you might have read

all you were shooting things yeah there's no actual detecting going on really aside from the fact

that you can pick up some clues in the missions and you can poke around and find secrets although

sometimes the text would come up and say like secret discovered and I'd be like that was a secret

it was like right there but that other times I wouldn't get credit for a secret what I did

like explore some back alley and thought I had found a secret anyway I do think like the shooting

is nothing special you know it's just sort of a standard doom style structure but like

not as viscerally satisfying as doom or many other shooters it's there's no real

pop to the guns like there's no real feedback to that I was playing on ps5 there's just no real like

haptic kick to the guns or anything like there was animation and there were sounds but

and when you would fire at the enemies sometimes in kind of entertaining fashion it got quite bloody

and graphic and you're just like decapitating these other mice and stuff but like I don't know the

weapons just didn't seem to pack the punch that they visually did so the actual like feel of the

shooting the feel that you get from you know a bungee game or something not that I'm expecting

this to be up to bungee shooting standards but that kind of kinetic aspect to it was largely lacking

I thought yeah I agree with that I should say I'm about eight hours in and I do think that there

is a little bit more depth than appears in the first couple hours because they don't actually let

you upgrade your weapons until you can do that what I would consider to be a little bit too far

into the experience so once you can upgrade your weapons they they gain some secondary abilities

that adds a little bit more more depth to it but especially like in a in a in a period of time

where I'm coming off of playing pragm pragmada and and and and just dealing with all of like the

different weapons in that game and all the different enemy types and the the ways that the

different weapons would interact with the different enemy types and how you'd have to strategically

you know approach enemies differently I it was especially highlighted for me in this game that

the enemy variety is not that extravagant I would say and even when there are different enemies

you know you kind of just go like what's my favorite gun right now yeah and then use that

until you have to use your second favorite gun and as you mentioned none of them

particularly like feel super great yeah but again melting mice with the acid gun

yes by far the what's it called the D the D varnershire I think D varnershire yes that's

that's the one that's the elite weapon yeah that's the BFG of this game as far as I'm concerned yeah

definitely a lot of doom parallels strangely enough but again I think like if you're in the mood

for that kind of shooter like it's a it's a cool take on that I think it's just I think most of the

criticisms of this game are are that it didn't end up being what we wanted it to be and but what it

is is fairly good enough for what it actually is yeah it's it's repetitive I think but it's

clearly made with a lot of love I would say it's also extremely easy on the default difficulty

and even I usually will play a default just because you know if I'm playing for the podcast I kind of

want to play it as it was intended to be played by most people but also because I'm not some super

gamer or something default is usually fine for me here I did actually have to bump it up to the

higher difficulty level because there was no challenge whatsoever on the default difficulty it's

like their save points every few rooms and there's just copious ammo everywhere and if you do get stuck

which you won't very often but you can press down on the D pad and it'll just have animated footsteps

that show you where to go so there's not much challenge here even on the harder difficulty and

it's also kind of overwritten in a way like I mean I get the noir stuff that they're going for

and I'm very much in the market for that but so many cheese puns like every single line is a

cheese or a mouse pun and you know the charm of that war off after a while but then also

it's silly on the surface and it has kind of this throwback almost Sly Cooper-esque vibe to it

which is a high compliment coming for me the world's biggest Sly Cooper-Fin RIP Sly come back to us

someday but also it has this sort of serious societal commentary aspect where you have like the mice

and the shrews and you have like police brutality going on kind of and like there's immigration

you know allegory going on here and everything and I'm all for games trying to do that but it felt

a little out of place to me just like kind of discordant in this game with like constant mice

and cheese jokes and everything is cartoony and then there's also this like no we're saying

something serious aspect to the game I don't know maybe that would work for some people and maybe

like getting that in under the guise of oh this is just silly and no actually it has a real

message to it maybe that would actually help but for me it felt a little like I don't know trying

to do a bit too much or do categorically categorically diametrically opposed things at the same time

I'm looking forward to see how that plays out yeah you might need to keep keep playing I'm gonna see

keep playing now yeah it might be a little of grim fendango at least in you know the

the the setting and and the the voice acting quality but I do think that the you know the writing

is not quite as sharp I think the voice acting is taking it to a level that exceeds the the writing

so far yeah for me we'll see yeah yeah and there is an in-game card game and you guys know I'm not a big

fan of those typically but I like this one because I was gonna I was looking forward to talking to you

about this is a baseball card game what is there is you there's like a turn-based baseball card game

and because it's a card game I don't care for it that much but I do enjoy collecting the cards

because the game it said in 1934 but there's like a lot of throwback stuff in it even further back

and so there's a lot of old timey baseball players like you could tell that they're kind of

modeled on specific players from earlier errors of baseball so that was really resonating for me

so I liked collecting the comics and the cards but not so much playing and reading them I guess

was the issue but mostly I think my takeaway from this which you know I found it fairly enjoyable but

also felt like okay I kind of get it after the first few levels and I did play on but I didn't

really feel driven too but I think my main takeaway is that I miss single-player first-person shooters

you know like they're I know I didn't rare breed these days I mean they're not extinct obviously

we talked about doom the dark ages just last year and machine games is working on wolf and

stine three but it's like the first-person shooter that is also a single-player game it's almost

the domain of indies now like there was a sort of psychedelic strange indie FPS that came out

last year called tamashika just because if you are a bigger studio and publisher and you're making

a first-person shooter then it's going to be live service and it's going to be online and it's

going to be an extraction shooter it's going to be battle royale or whatever it is and very rarely

now do we get like a full fledged single-player campaign even if it's a battlefield or a call of

duty if you even have a campaign now it's kind of often an afterthought and you know I used to

enjoy playing the single-player campaigns in college duty games and they were kind of whatever six

hours or something but it was just non-stopped like playing a Hollywood action movie or something

it was kind of fun even though his single-player campaigns have been either done away with or just

really haven't had a whole lot of love lavished on them of late so this made me wish for and

you know it reminded me of of slight coup d'etre but also like no one lives forever and it's

sequel that kind of it's a shooter but also it's sort of silly and a send up and pasties and so I

wish that the single-player shooter could make a comeback and maybe it will I don't know how many

of like live service games need to bomb in order to bring back the single-player first-person shooter

and I don't wish them ill but I do wish that they were room for more games in this genre.

After spending time with marathon I you know which which again I found elements of it that I really

loved but but ultimately it takes a lot for me to get into an online shooter it's just not

my vibe but the first thing I did after I kind of finished my marathon experience for now at least

was I installed Titanfall 2 because I remember I have not played through Titanfall 2 like yeah

man you're right yeah yeah I am so hungry for campaigns and shooters that call of duty from a

couple years ago had a really excellent campaign and then the most recent one apparently is just

straight trash I miss it bring them bring them back me too yeah maybe that's us being boomers with

our love for boomers shooters but I don't know but yeah no this is this is what we want I hope that

there's still space for that so it sounds like this is this is a mash for Matt and maybe a pass for

Joshua and I guess I'm gonna go mash but not as not as wholeheartedly as a professional mash yes

what scores are we gonna give this one Matt where are you gonna go well again I'm I

it's not a definitive score because I'm again only eight hours into I don't like really giving scores

before they're done but if I had to score it right now I would I would probably be like 7.25 I think

with like a little note that that could be much higher or much lower and yeah if you're kind of

already I have a style in which one of the two mouse people you are yeah yeah yeah I was gonna say 7.5

it's just I wanted to like it even more than I did I I applaud the effort and the look and also

the genre and the synthesis of different styles but it didn't fully deliver for me if there is a

mouse two then maybe that will be the game that we wanted and hoped but but it's it's fun you know

and I think it's it's worth checking out if you like this blend of things and Joshua I guess if

you want to give a provisional score just based on your your hour or two with the game obviously

it won't be high or we would have played on yeah I'm just going to open my mouth and let the cartoon

cats and chickens streak and all that stuff yeah um and let the few let the listener yeah determine

what that means yeah in addition to putting up your dukes I like that you can kick people that's

it's kind of a fun melee attack okay and our our final game to discuss today this time we are going

through a studio that was initially based in Belarus I believe though it's subsequently moved

to Cyprus due to war etc but this is a game called Replace developed by a sad cat studios published

by Cotesink and Thunderful for Windows and Xbox series I played it on Xbox not to be confused with

reanimal and indeed that we played in disgust in February which has very similar like logo and box

but this one is called Replace and this was in the works for I think eight years and it has been

highly anticipated for some time also largely because of its look because it's got this sort of 2.5D

pixel art ish cyberpunk style it's a mashup of platformer and kind of brawler you know hand-to-hand

combat with a little shooting and combat but also sort of this cinematic storytelling about a

post-apocalyptic setting and there is a wall that the corporation is keeping everyone else out and

there are storylines about organ donation and donation is maybe a generous way to put it because

it's not entirely voluntary and it wouldn't be 2026 without an AI aspect too so you are playing

essentially as the corporation super computer AI reach that got implanted in a body and is sort of

wondering the world now outside of the wall where the corporation is headquartered and you're

you know have nubbing with all these rejects and outcasts and trying to scheme your way back into

the wall via various platforming and combat and somewhat ponderous storytelling so

Matt what did you think of Replace? I am about halfway through Replace I believe

and I have a lot in the pros column and a good amount in the cons column when thinking about this game

I think that I absolutely love the world that this is in I love this story of corporate overreach

I love this like alternate reality setting I think that the characters are pretty memorable

the game looks absolutely incredible it sounds good I have been looking forward to this for a while I

think where struggles is especially in the platforming I think that my biggest criticism of this game

is that the platforming sections are fairly frustrating I think that maybe the art director one of

few too many arguments about you know not being able to they just don't really telegraph the areas

that are where you're supposed to jump or climb onto very easily this is because there is some yellow

paint sometimes even the yellow point paint doesn't really stand out so it's hard to tell what is

background and what is interactive it really is and and some of that is also is also because the

camera stays fairly zoomed out for most of the time yes yes so you might think oh I can play

this on my steam deck or whatever you shouldn't you should play this on as big as screen as you have

for that specific reason alone and also just the the mechanics of the platforming at sometimes

are frustrating in the sense that like if you're holding on to a wall and you're trying to jump to

something to your right there is a difference between holding straight up right and jumping and

holding sort of a diagonal up right and jumping there's a difference between those two jumps but

there's no visual difference while you're on the wall of of that being conveyed so you wouldn't

know that there's a difference between the diagonal up jump and just the right jump the little

things like that are are kind of frustrating it's got combat that I enjoy I think people are going

the main criticism I think people are going to have and correct me if I'm wrong here but I think

you guys are going to be like god damn this game is fucking slow yeah and add a run button just

let me go 25% faster by holding your gun and I'll feel like liberated yeah so is that how y'all feel?

yep so I have an affection for games like flashback I was going to bring that up I immediately

like I reminded a flashback yeah and the the way those games moved like slow but like fluidly so

like when I'm reminded of that I feel like fondness for it or sort of like a game recognize game

kind of thing yeah but at the same time I haven't played as much as you so I might get real annoyed

my halfway through you might yeah that was that was my issue among my issues with this game it's just

it sounds so unsophisticated of me but basically I didn't have fun playing this game

at some point I do want to have fun however high-minded and however much I appreciate the themes

and the storytelling and all of that and you know it's I guess sort of standard cyberpunk stuff but

like more western or eastern european than kind of the asian vibe that maybe you tend to get from

blade runner or something like that but you know the whole like the corporation is keeping us

down man and you know there's almost like it's not a fallout-esque setting exact exactly but there's

kind of a fallout-esque aspect to the you know corporations meddling with everything so

you know it was sort of like they put all those elements in place and told an original story but

all kind of familiar touchstones but that's basically it is that I just felt frustrated more than

I was having fun throughout all of this like it's it's there aren't there aren't many cutscenes

exactly but there are moments where you can't skip the text and it's so slow it's so slow I

not trying to brag about how fast a reader I am here but like no there's definitely like it feels

like you're you're playing like an old like a PlayStation 1 RPG without like just like the pacing

of the text that goes by it's just like 30% too slow the entire time without being in advance it

you can skip some text but some exchanges you can and there are a lot of them and and also a lot

of that is front loaded so the first hour or so of the game like essentially the intro tutorial

there's just a lot of that that gets bogged down and they're pacing problems so yeah it's like

long the text is unspooling slowly and then there are long pauses between each line of text and I'm

just like come on please just dispense the next bit of dialogue here and then yeah the running speed

is super slow too I mean you're not really running it's a like jog yeah and and then the platforming

doesn't work so much for me either so there are you know it's like all the influences for this game

I mean I know that the developer have cited things like inside and like uncharted and

Prince of Persia and then you know Batman Arkham style combat and you can kind of see the DNA

there but it does not feel as good as any of those things it's just it's very you know still

did and you'll just fall over and over in ways that you're not anticipating that don't really feel

like this was a skill issue this was my fault this was more like I don't know where exactly I'm

supposed to jump to or there's just like almost a lag like a delay input kind of and just they're

jumping over a box while running is like you have to do it like again this is like a 30% thing

which is a like 30% too early yeah I just like just stumble over it checking my settings like

is there some kind of input lag happening here and then it was particularly annoying in platforming

if there's like you know jets of steam or something that come out of a grate and then you have to

like anticipate when that will happen because you have to press the button so far before

Warren slash reached actually jumps that it just never fuels intuitive you know and that that

that smoke will kind of fade out yeah and and it's not always you know you you you figure like okay

that's gone now right and it's like now there's a tiny bit left in that animation cycle for

this team so you're dead yes yes yeah that really bugged me and so I don't know it just it sounds

more withering that I would want but it's like pixel art isn't a personality or I like you just

needs a little more not that there's no personality if anything there's maybe too much personality in

this game I mean it's it's distinctive it's got a distinctive design and clearly like there's a

story that they're trying to tell and there are a lot of you know notes and text that you're

picking up and scrolling through on your little old-fashioned phone thingy it's not super long it's

somewhere between outer worlds and pragmatto I guess in terms of length but that's how you learn a

lot of the lore here so yeah some of the characters are interesting the world is kind of interesting but

it's it's really maybe the opposite of pragmatto where it's just like it did not feel good or fun

to or polish to play at all and I know that there have been issues with stability and bugs which I

wasn't so much encountering on series x but I know that on series s at least when it launched they

were like some game-breaking bugs and missing cutscenes and stuff and even the the PR company that

sent us the codes they were like don't play it yet please so like just we're coming in hot here

like wait for the patch so that the game will work basically which is always a bit disconcerting

after eight years of development that it's two days before the game is coming out so yeah

clearly cutting it close here but you know assuming that stuff is all patched and there have already

been patched it patches and improvements I just don't know that the core gameplay is enough of a

draw for me and and it's fairly linear there's a little bit of exploration but then the exploration

takes you to more deliberate interminable dialogue and I just that kind of dissuaded me from wanting

to explore that much so it takes so long to explore is the issue when you get to that kind of hub city

you're like you want to go around and go everywhere and see if there's anything any mission side

missions you can pick up because those side missions will unlock some pretty important upgrades for

you but just the thought of like getting from one end of that hub city to the other is kind of

laborious and I will say I we've been very negative on this for the most part so far but I do

really love this setting and story and I think you know in that interminable dialogue that you

mentioned Ben I think that there are a lot of really nice little side stories of characters

and and experiences within this world to discover and I think that it's it's a really interesting

kind of idea to have an AI placed in a human's body who is kind of forced to walk through and come

to terms with the effects that the world has seen based on the human that the AI now inhabits

that's really fascinating and you know pragmatta has that kind of interaction between Diana and

Hugh you have that human and AI interaction and one of the most interesting thing to me about

replaces that you have that human and AI interaction like simultaneously in one in one character

um and their flashback scenes where you play as Warren who designed the AI so yeah it's it's

interesting I'm higher on it than Ben obviously I I think that if you don't mind the slowest

or sunshine and rainbows today Matt you're usually I'm usually like let's face it I'm usually

higher on everything than most people but if you don't mind a slower pace game and you think you

might be into this world then I think it is really there's a chance it's excellent for you

like your Joshua you brought a flashback like that game like changed that was an important game

for me as a kid when I found flashback and there's there's a lot of that sci-fi

feel to it and and and there's some like LucasArts adventure game feel to it too like the

inspirations like if you were that kind of person growing up then I think you're still going to

vibe with this heavy despite the flaws of it what were you going to say Joshua oh I was just

going to say how pixel art is not a personality might be the meanest thing I've heard Ben

is quite a put down but it just

uh but no no I I kind of like I had the exact opposite reaction I did with mouse PI

where um I was like um you know I only played like a couple hours but I was like

this is working for me but it might frustrate me you know where it was just sort of like like you

were talking about where like they they they put a lot of care into this art direction I wonder if I'm

reading um a script and translation because it's a little um um unclear to me um but uh not necessarily

in that thoughtless you know um and uh it's like one of those things where it's just sort of like I

don't know I think people um game developers are actually quite good at like creating a cyberpunk

setting and making it feel like vivid and and lived in and like to the point where you actually

really have to commit to the game to learn if they did anything interesting with it um and uh it's

like one of those things where I like I am supremely on the fence as to whether or not I will like

you know wrestle with this game because uh to uh to get there and like figure that out for myself

um it is uh as you all know an extremely busy year um this might this has a high chance of falling

by the wayside if I think for most people um but uh you know I wonder you know as a part of me I

think you know maybe that's a mistake maybe they're doing something interesting I almost wish that

this did fully lean into that slower aspect of things and just really embraced being a point

and click style you know old school adventure game as opposed to trying to have it all and tell

that kind of story and also have platforming and combat that just never feels fluid for me the

combat's okay you know it's it's kind of uh their visual indicators on the screen when you're

supposed to dodge when you're supposed to block and you get a gun that's kind of almost a one hit

kill but you have to power it up and and there's additional depth and complexity to it but it's

it's fairly simple it's simple on the surface it's just kind of you know seeing stimuli and

reacting to them I guess that describes most games but there's there's not that much complexity to it

and as uh you know kind of something to break up the other sequences it's okay but I I do almost

I think I'd probably enjoy watching a playthrough of this sort of sped up more than I enjoyed

actually playing it or or almost wish it were just a visual novel or something instead of a game

because those other more gamey aspects just weren't working for me unfortunately so Ben did you

play the drifter last year? No I did not the drifter is is kind of what you're describing you want

this to be it's it is like a throwback adventure game that is slower paced and it's like a point and

click kind of thing that has been adapted really well actually for like a controller uh and it is

sci-fi and it is pixel art and it it it sounds like what you want this to be and it's a great story

with with voice acting which I think made a big difference in that game and which I think could have

made a big difference in this game yeah I think that that text being interminable is probably because

it's text right yeah where were I bigger in this game yeah he has plenty of time he's not busy with

tons of projects or you know I don't mind some other voice actor yes or other others out there but

yeah I don't mind slow it's just when it feels uh like the slowness is getting in the way of my

enjoyment of the more platformy aspects of things then that's where it does it work so much for me so

unfortunately I must pass on replace I wish that I could mash but uh yeah no this is probably

more in the 6 6.5 range for me and I think a lot of people will like it a lot so it might be for you

unfortunately I couldn't get past the frustrations and I haven't finished it I've seen a whole lot of it

I don't know that I will finish it because there's just so much to play but I'd like to at least

consume the rest of the story in some fashion and maybe that will be enough to to keep you going

but yeah it's a crowded month it's a crowded landscape just quite didn't quite do it for me but I

I want to like it and I like what they were going for they just didn't quite get there as far as

I'm concerned and Matt clearly you're a mash where are you gonna go with a mash and everything yeah

it is right right now and again not finished with it uh this is a particularly

hard one to score before you finish with it because so much of of what this is is writing on the

story being told you know but right now halfway through it um it's it's kind of like a a 7.5

for me that I'm loving like something in the 8 range that's kind of where I'm at how about you Joshua

uh provisional mash uh twist though uh 10th score it basically the same as bands like

yeah um I'm like uh I'm like a a bullish 6.5 he's a bearish 6.5 yeah yeah

yeah go ahead set full go ahead set up deep all right well we've done it I've enjoyed this

you know we do a lot of episodes where we talk about adaptations or news we do a little bit of

everything here but mash but I kind of enjoy the ones where we just dig into the games themselves

and uh you know they never stop coming which is good and also bad sometimes but this really ran

the gamut of what video games offer a lot of different genres different platforms different ways

to game so I appreciate having all of these experiences some of which I enjoyed more than others

but nonetheless they were all worthwhile in a way as was talking to you too and uh thanks Matt and

thanks Joshua for soldering through of course thanks for having me all right it's kind of

extra horse there yeah until the last last line then you kind of broke it right at the finish line

well thank you for bearing through that yeah yes and we have much more on tap we will be back later

this month or perhaps the first of may with sorrows we have uh codes for sorrows and so we will

dive into that now that we have gotten this little pile of games behind us and we'll also be talking

I believe about invincible versus everyone has been asking for invincible coverage on the ring

of verse that's what you meant right the fighting game no uh we will also have coverage of the show

on ring of verse recommends followed in short order by coverage of invincible versus

and that will be followed by an equally busy may we have a mortal combat movie to talk about we

have forza herites and six we have lego batman legacy of the dark night we've got 007 first light

so the games keep coming the podcast keep coming to we hope your emails will keep coming to ring of

verse gaming at gmail.com thank you to steve almond for silently stewing and producing in the background

steve liked pragmatta by the way he's not a hater he really liked pragmatta and uh this was just

the one time when he wasn't able to talk because he was producing multiple podcasts at the same time

but he wanted you all to know it's go has no notes on pragmatta big fan thank you also to our

rank of palo for his senior podcast management and you will be back to mash more soon