transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:20] Hello, everybody, and welcome to a special live episode of The MinnMax Show, a place about games, friends, and getting better. Thank you for being here. I am Ben Hanson, joined by Kyle Hilliard.

Speaker 2:
[00:30] Hello.

Speaker 1:
[00:31] Joined by Janet Garcia.

Speaker 3:
[00:34] Hello.

Speaker 1:
[00:34] In a shiny new venue, we might add, the background doesn't look that different, but the lighting's different. That's, she's in a, she's in a new house, everybody.

Speaker 3:
[00:41] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[00:42] Are you like, you fully moved in? How you feeling?

Speaker 3:
[00:46] Yeah, I think so. I mean, it was, I'm feeling good because it's done. And I had about a week where everything I did after unpacking felt exponentially easier. I'm like, oh, I only have to do laundry. I don't have to set up a whole livelihood. Why did I ever complain? And I fear that's starting to slip a little bit, where I'm going back into my own crummy, lazy tendencies, but I'm trying to resist it. So I'm feeling pretty good. Feeling optimistic.

Speaker 1:
[01:12] Oh, good. We're also joined by Jeff Marchiafava.

Speaker 4:
[01:15] That's me.

Speaker 1:
[01:16] Welcome.

Speaker 4:
[01:19] I'm fully in the lazy. I don't want to do laundry, even though it's really easy and I don't have to set anything up.

Speaker 1:
[01:25] OK, well, welcome. Do you ever think if you move just like the level of cable management, you'd have to do, Jeff? I know you're like as rooted in as anybody has ever been rooted into a building, but at some point you might move and just think of the amount of cables have to plug back in. It is an absolute nightmare.

Speaker 4:
[01:41] Yeah, it's not the cables, dude. It's the 10,000 board games behind me that I would just I'd have to I'd have to Gilbert Grape it and we just have to burn it down when we left.

Speaker 1:
[01:53] I was wondering where that was going to just burn the house, lodge our mom out of a tub. Jacob Geller is also here. Welcome, sir.

Speaker 5:
[02:01] Hey, I'm back.

Speaker 2:
[02:03] We just came back from Spain. Boy, are my brazos tired?

Speaker 1:
[02:09] Words cannot describe how much time Jacob Geller and I have been spending with each other like this week.

Speaker 4:
[02:14] They gave you a birthday, a romantic birthday and everything.

Speaker 1:
[02:18] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[02:19] Birthday abroad. I mean, you didn't have beds that were basically pushed together this time. No, we had different beds. So it made it maybe that's why Ben did not mention a single time that it was his birthday. Well, we are spending 24 hours a day together.

Speaker 1:
[02:33] We were like traveling back and flying back from Madrid. And it would be weird to be like, by the way, Jacob, it's my birthday. So it would be nice to meet you.

Speaker 2:
[02:41] No, it's not much weirder that everyone started wishing you it on Slack. And I was like, what?

Speaker 1:
[02:47] Jacob gave me the best gift ever. We were in the Madrid airport, just sitting on some dumb hard seat. And then Jacob's like, boy, do I have something for you. I found a better place to sit. And there were recliners off to the side of the Madrid airport, looking out the window and it's like Spanish, snow covered mountaintops. We can just sit here reading a Game Informer magazine and that recliner, that was the greatest birthday gift I could ever ask for, Jacob Geller. You're so welcome. But we have a lot going on in this year's episode of the podcast. We're not talking Tomonachi Life. We're going to be talking about that next week after we have more time with it. But we're talking Capcom's Pragmata. We're going to dive into that whole new IP. Then we're talking Super Meat Boy 3D, talking Minos, cool new game that Jeff was excited to talk about. And then we're going to have... This is a live episode, so it's going to be extra tricky. But we have Haley, MacLean, and Sarah Podzorski jumping in midstream. And we're already talking about Zelda Twilight Princess. Hell yeah, I'm excited to talk about that. And then we're talking Hozy. And then back half the show of some wonderful community questions, which includes some discussion about Shenmue. So Shenmue fans, stay tuned. But yeah, Jacob and I, we just got back literally this morning from Spain. We spent several days there shooting a MinnMax Spotlight on Deconstruct Team on their new game, Virtue and Sledgehammer. It's weird, Jacob, like we spent so much time together. But I think it's kind of the beauty of the trip is that the team was so inviting and welcoming that like, I feel like we didn't get that much time. We had like one meal just for the two of us, and the rest was like with the development team.

Speaker 2:
[04:27] Yes, and I miss all of them already. It was truly, it was like, I want to go back and hang with those guys again.

Speaker 1:
[04:34] It was, it was like a dream come true. And so the beauty of it is like we recorded a lot, to the point that I think the last meal we had, Jacob finally snapped like, hey, can you put that camera down? Can we just eat some food without cameras rolling?

Speaker 2:
[04:49] It was a table of eight people and just Ben holding an Osmo pocket and like question and answer for like 45 minutes. We were at a restaurant that opened just for us to eat at it.

Speaker 6:
[05:01] It was like, we can do this anywhere.

Speaker 1:
[05:03] But that's true, but the owner is like, hey, make sure to film this and film this. We're doing him a favor by filming the restaurant even more. And the lovely discussion there. So anyways, look forward to a very thorough MinnMax spotlight coming out within the next couple of weeks on that team and that game. Like it is, they're a really unbelievably sweet team. And it feels like I am overflowing with excitement to edit that video. And it feels like, oh my god, Jacob, we are like, we are drowning in information and affection for that game's development. And it's like, I just can't wait to like share these personalities with everybody else. Cause like, we can talk about it forever. I'm sure we'll talk about it on a bonus pod coming up. But like, you know, they all work out of their homes. You know, there's two different couples as well. And so it just felt like the most inviting place possible. But not only they're like, yeah, come spend a couple days at our studio, but also our studio is our house. So just come like, sit in our living room and talk to us for two and a half days. It was unbelievably sweet. Yeah. And we had a big meetup. We'll talk about it later. But thanks to everybody who came to the big meetup in Valencia. I feel like it's a recurring thing for a lot of the meetups is people like, why are you here? You know, like in Portland, they're like, why were you in Portland? Like in Brazil, they're like, why did you come to Brazil? And this one was like, why did you come to Valencia? But we had like 27 people. I think it was my count for like the big group photo that we had. So it was like unbelievably sweet. Shout out to everybody who came out for that. And Jacob even got some custom artwork of him from Resident Evil 4, which was very awesome.

Speaker 4:
[06:29] That's right.

Speaker 2:
[06:30] And we should say, the game that they're making looks good. Virtue on a sledgehammer. It's not just that they're a nice studio. I'm excited to play the game when it comes out.

Speaker 1:
[06:40] Yeah. And it was so weird to be like, you know, I think we talked about in the travel video even of just being like standing on the beach of the Mediterranean and be like, it's weird to think that we're here right now putting our hands in the Mediterranean Sea because back in December we played Many Nights of Whisper which was the last game from this collaboration of studios and we were all like, this game rules. Where have you been all our lives deconstructing them in Selkie Harbor? And it's like just liking that one game, we managed to line up this whole thing for their next game coming out. So look forward to that in the very near future. Also Jacob, our flight was delayed coming back from Madrid, which was a whole nightmare because I had to like a chain reaction. I wasn't able to get home on my birthday and all that fun stuff. But like we ended up getting booked into a hotel for American Airlines. And it was like the equivalent of like 3.30 in the morning when I was like, all right, let's just get in there, go our separate ways. All right, set a nice goodbye. And then you went to your room, Jacob, and then I gave him my confirmation number. And they're like, they're like, oh, this is the same as Jacob's confirmation number. I was like, what do you mean? I got a text from American, like, just as I got off the plane. And they're like, oh, no, you're in the same room as Jacob. He should be in a double. You need to go get him and you share a room. And Jacob, I'll have you know, I spared you the hassle. I was like, just book me another room. I just wanted like Jacob to like spend some time by himself for a little bit for love of God.

Speaker 2:
[07:59] But it also, it sounds like my room had two beds.

Speaker 1:
[08:02] Look, I was so confused.

Speaker 3:
[08:04] Classic trope.

Speaker 1:
[08:06] I get it, it's the equivalent of like two.

Speaker 4:
[08:07] Oh no, they only gave us one big bed last night of the trip.

Speaker 2:
[08:11] Hansons are high, what will happen?

Speaker 1:
[08:13] But it was just this weird thing. I was like, I cannot begin to process how and why this happened because I don't know why we would be chained together in any way. But look, just give me a separate bed that Jacob's not into sleeping. We can have a lovely parting shot. Hey, Kyle Hilliard, you've been playing Capcom's new game Pragmata?

Speaker 2:
[08:32] Yeah, I played Past Tense at this point because I played it and beat it. And then there's a couple, like four or five hours that you can optionally pursue afterward. And I was like, hell yeah, absolutely, I want to play more of this game. I don't want to put it down. Give me an excuse to keep playing. I really like Pragmata a lot. I think it is currently my number one of 2026.

Speaker 1:
[08:53] That's so sweet. OK, I am like in the third area in this game. Jacob, you beat this game as well?

Speaker 2:
[09:00] I beat it. Yep.

Speaker 1:
[09:01] Janet, Jeff, where are you at roughly in this game?

Speaker 3:
[09:05] I'm close to the end. I'm in the fourth area. And I'm like, I don't know how many hours. PlayStation says 15, but they lie. It might be more.

Speaker 1:
[09:12] Yeah, the game hours, especially with these games, like Resident Evil, it's always like, game hours versus the system clock are always completely skewed.

Speaker 3:
[09:19] Yeah, my system clock's 15, and the game file says 11 or 12. It's probably 18 for some reason.

Speaker 2:
[09:25] My game file said 16. That was where I...

Speaker 3:
[09:29] In a mid 75% completion on the PlayStation UI.

Speaker 1:
[09:33] Yeah, that's much more helpful. Jeff, where are you at roughly?

Speaker 4:
[09:37] I'm in the second area. So I'm the little baby of the group. I'm the little girl of the group.

Speaker 1:
[09:43] Little Diana. Or should I say D-I-O-7763. I'm gonna call you Diana. So if you remember this game, we talked about it before. This is the new game from Capcom that they showed years and years and years ago. And when it was first teased, people were like, this looks like a Kojima game. It looks kind of like the Kojima Productions mascot in the spacesuit on the moon. And it went dormant for a while, came out swinging. And it is the third-person exploration shooter. But the big hook is you have the little robot girl on your back and you are hacking as you're shooting. There's a grid that you're navigating with the face buttons so strangely as you're firing at them. But I haven't planned on my PC here and a little bit on my Steam Deck, which was, you know, it chugs a bit, but it's playable in the Steam Deck technically. But I am over the moon about this. It is like filling me with so much enthusiasm. It feels like a miracle just to have a huge AAA swing for new IP. And I know there's a lot more of it in the past in the game industry, but it has me reeling about like, when was the last time we got like big budget, original weird swing from a publisher? And it's like, you know, this stuff like Elden Ring that wasn't that long ago, technically new IP. But like, I think back like, imagine if Forspoken from Square was good. It's kind of like how I feel about just like how rarely this comes around. But Jacob, how are you? Oh, please.

Speaker 2:
[11:06] Yeah, no, I want to hear from Jacob, please. Yeah, I mean, I feel like one of my feelings is we often talk about the completely indefinable, like video game as a video game.

Speaker 1:
[11:17] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[11:17] Which which this is where it's like this feels, you know, there there was a time in the video game industry when we got like five video games a year about being on a space station and shooting robots, and I miss that time. And I'm so glad to be back. Had some weird gameplay hook that the whole game was built around. The other element that it's like. But it's like when when I've been I've been telling people like, this is so good. And they're like, why? And I'm kind of like it is it is just like it's interesting to play a Capcom third person shooter that's not Resident Evil, I think is one of the big things. But I'm just like every button press feels good. You know, it is such a kind of Capcom game in that way of like, it's in some ways it's a really heavy UI game because so much of the game is navigating these like hacking puzzles and it could have so easily been annoying, but it is so perfectly dialed in and the complexity ramps up so satisfyingly that like you're always just being pushed a little more and being given one more tool and one more enemy type and it like it is just a real like. This is the joy of kind of mechanically interacting with a video game type game and we'll talk more about the story, which I think is remarkably fine, you know, like I was really I'm very charmed by it. You know, I wasn't it didn't make me think, but I was like satisfied at the end. I guess. No, I was I was preparing to wince through every cut scene and I didn't wince through any of them. You know, and that's that's really one of it's like I was pretty sure that the game would feel good to play. But the fact that I like enjoyed the setting and the characters, even if it's nothing revolutionary, is, you know, has made me just this hype.

Speaker 1:
[13:13] I'm with you. And it's like, you know, it's it starts out where Hugh is like, oh, kids, this seemed kind of tough. I don't know. It's like, oh, no, you might learn to like kids at some point, Hugh. And then it seems a little bit like a Jurassic Park storyline of like, hey, this little girl has taught me that kids are all right. You know?

Speaker 2:
[13:29] Yes. But I think an important distinction, and and Ken Shepard noted this in his review for Kotaku, he was like, this is a dad game for dads that don't hate their kids, where it's like God of War and The Last of Us.

Speaker 1:
[13:43] Oh, that's why I love it so much.

Speaker 2:
[13:45] You know, it's like so many things, it's like, God, I have to learn to respect this child as an individual, the hardest thing a father could do. And it's like pretty much immediately, Hugh's like, yeah, you seem great. I want to take care of you. You're not annoying. Like you are never like, come on, Hugh, just pat her on the back. Like they have a nice relationship for the whole game. He's never really put upon by her, because even like the Joles from The Last of Us of the World, who I think loves his kids and loves Ellie, like it's a struggle. Like he's put upon by this burden that he has to bear, where Hugh gets over that pretty much the first time he meets her. And it is just like they need each other and they've worked together and they have a good time. And like every time you give her like a gift, like where you find something out in the world and you can kind of put it in the sort of safe zone and she like gets all excited. It's like I love that little animation. There's only two. She's either quizzical or excited and I'm like excited to see either one, you know?

Speaker 1:
[14:43] I'm quizzical about it personally. Yeah, it is like I was a little skeptical about her voice, her writing and stuff. It's like, okay, wouldn't it be cool if they actually got a kid to voice this instead of this kind of adult voice actor? I'm like, oh boy, Hugh, here we go. But like the telling thing is like it's never taken me out. I am charmed for days when she does a little hack and he goes like, three, two, one, run, like rapidly says like code as she's like programming like R2-D2.

Speaker 2:
[15:09] She's not saying three.

Speaker 1:
[15:10] I'm sorry.

Speaker 2:
[15:10] She's just saying binary.

Speaker 1:
[15:12] I guess I'm actually, she's a quantum computer in some ways, you know? But then it's like the tell is whenever I go back to the title screen and I see the two of them sitting together at the title screen, I'm like, oh, I love these folks. You know, it's like, it's affection is squeezing out of me in places and expect for these two little weirdos on the moon. Janet, are you melting in love with this game? Or how do you feel about it?

Speaker 3:
[15:36] Yeah, I mean, I think it's really, really strong. I'm really enjoying my time with it. It really carried through what I think a lot of us, maybe like all of us followed SGF when we got to play it there, where it's like, this seems really cool. And I think the key point to make about this is like the sort of shooting hacking setup.

Speaker 1:
[15:54] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[15:55] It doesn't necessarily evolve. Like there's not a lot of depth to it, but there's width that's really satisfying, where like the gameplay does not really change. Like if you play 30 minutes or two hours, you know what this game is either way. But you get these like small little treats as you go in terms of hacking, where they'll add in something like, oh, this machine will interrupt your hacking. So you have to hack the machine first as you like jump over the rings. Like just little stuff like that is really engaging to me. And I feel like this game is such a comfort food kind of game. This kind of goes back to Jacob's video game as video game element, where there's stuff to explore, but not a lot. Like the spaces aren't that big. But it's the kind of game where it's like, if you enjoy turning around a corner to find a little item, boy, do they have little items around those corners. And I like it each time. I like it. And then they'll add like just a tiny bit of friction to some of them. They're like, this one's blocked by lasers. And I'm like, I found where I hack it. And then you just, and it keeps feeding into each other. I think they also just make a lot of really smart design decisions. Like, I think it's easy to look at this game and say, oh, okay, it's kind of basic fun, like cool. But I think there's a lot of really amazing stuff happening under the hood that makes that basic fun as fun as it is. Even just like how they do the progression. Like one area in, you feel like you've gotten every upgrade almost. You're like upgrading the hell out of these characters. If you've comb over the area just a little bit. And part of that is the smart design of instead, so many games overwhelm you with that initial UI upgrade system. And here they purposefully only show you so much of how you can upgrade it. So just as a fake example, if you can upgrade your hacking by 20 pips, they only show you like eight pips at first. And then they slowly unlock it. So you really feel like you're getting stuff all the time. You don't have that, I don't know, kind of crunchiness that other progression systems have. And it feels like it's going by really quickly, even though the game is a solid hour count, like 12 to maybe 20 depending on how much you're seeing of it. But it feels like it's all going by so fast because it's very tightly and smartly constructed, which I really appreciate. And the kid is cute. She draws you little pictures. That's adorable. I have a soft spot for kids in art. I used to work at a museum in the family program sector. That stuff's always cute. And I think it's nice that they were able to find charm to kind of refer back to what y'all were saying, despite it being like, okay, she is an Android in a not that well-written story, and yet she gets by. And that's nice to see that this isn't going to be a barrier for people.

Speaker 2:
[18:34] Yeah, I feel like one of the really telling things where I'm just like, I know I'm into a game if I do this, is like, there are a lot of kind of VR missions, basically. You get kind of like optional challenges. And as soon as I unlocked each of those, you will get them in like chunks of four. And it's like, I would do all of them right away. You know, that it was just like, you have optional combat challenges, you have optional platforming challenges, put me in there, you know? And it's like, I only do that if I am having enough time or having a good enough time with the game's systems to be like, I don't even care about narrative progression, I'll be in a white grid room and just let me fight more of these robots.

Speaker 1:
[19:15] It is weird.

Speaker 3:
[19:15] There's bingo in the game.

Speaker 1:
[19:17] It's got challenges. You do the challenges and then you play bingo.

Speaker 3:
[19:22] And you get stuff when you get bingo and then they have blackout bingo. I was like, more games should put bingo in there.

Speaker 2:
[19:28] There's so many little treats. You get so many little treats in the game.

Speaker 3:
[19:32] It's a big game for like, if you like little treats, like this, obviously this game, it's Capcom, and it was like heavily marketed by PlayStation. But in another era, like if you change a few of those factors, in 20 years, this would be like the hidden gem of the PS5. Again, it's not gonna be because it's like a massively marketed game, but it has that energy of something you normally would have skipped over in that like PS3 360 era that you'd find at a store years later and say, why are people not talking about how cool and interesting this game is?

Speaker 2:
[20:00] But now this is, Piano 3 is like the big point of reference for me because that's another Capcom game. It's the point where after I was like a few hours into Pragmata, I looked up Piano 3 and started looking up like in-world company names and stuff like that. I'm like, is this quietly a product number 3 like sequel? Or is there like a... I didn't find anything, but like it really, it feels like there was some connective tissue there, you know, where that Piano 3 did not work where this one does, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[20:32] And I feel like last time we talked about this game is kind of based on the demo and preview events and stuff of just like, oh, the hacking while shooting works. And it doesn't feel as weird as it looks from videos. And it's a really tricky, sneaky system. And I keep thinking about like, why is this so satisfying? It's like, it's a weird feeling to like be tested and be challenged to see if you're at the level of can I be good at two things? Like, it's the satisfaction of shooting and nailing those shots. And at the same time, the satisfaction of like, can I navigate this puzzle quickly and navigate the quick grid? And there's also something weird that happens where like, as your eyes are darting back and forth between the grid and the firing, like, I find myself like, as if it's people playing a game in a sitcom in 2008 or something. But I find myself going like, wow, and actually like leaning and moving. I feel like I'm reacting more to the combat because technically my eyes are off the target for, what, 40 percent of the action or something.

Speaker 4:
[21:29] You're you're half distracted.

Speaker 1:
[21:30] Yeah. But in a fun way.

Speaker 4:
[21:33] It yeah, exactly. And it's like the like this this the spacing is really interesting. It's not a shooter in like I enter arena. I'm, you know, air dashing and like super fast. And I got to like I know where everything is at all the time. Like it is a it is a slower at least what I've played so far. I guess the boss fights are a little different. But but it's like it is a slower kind of Resident Evil feeling type of shooter. Yep. Where like where you are in in position to the enemies really matters because half the time, like you said, you're not looking at them. You're trying to do this little grid mini game, which is which makes all the combat a lot easier. And I like that kind of different pace to it. I feel like the entire time I've been playing it, it's like, oh, this is this is kind of like Resident Evil in space. Like that is the first thing that I thought of. And it's and the immediate thought that went along with that was like, oh, yeah. And turns out like Capcom has been making killer Resident Evil games since forever. And like all of the remakes have been really great. And I guess I went into it with like not making that connection and not realizing that like, oh, this is going to be a really polished, you know, like exceptional experience in that.

Speaker 2:
[22:57] And yeah, it is interesting to see the Resident Evil 4 to Dead Space back to yes, sort of like loop.

Speaker 1:
[23:05] You know, I've been thinking a lot about that.

Speaker 2:
[23:06] You know, it's like it is. It's not a resource scarcity game. Your ammo regenerates. You're given lots of additional tools, but just that kind of third person shooter. Slow walking character feeling is where it comes from.

Speaker 3:
[23:20] I feel like the character doesn't walk slow though. Like, I don't actually feel like this place feels like Resident Evil at all. Like, I think it makes, I think maybe Gunn feel like the slowness of like some of the enemies, like the initial enemies, but it feels way different to me. And like back to the pacing of the character, too. Like, this is one of the only games where I don't run all the time, because I think the character actually moves fine enough where, like, I didn't hit the run button until like 10 hours in. Like, you really just don't need it. Like you, because I dash a lot, too, if you have to give me a dash, I'm just going to dash. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[23:50] Also, Jeff, you said you're not air dashing in the arena. I'm like, there is an air dash in the game.

Speaker 4:
[23:56] There is an air dash, and it does feel very good, but it's not like the fast paced kind of shooter that I like.

Speaker 3:
[24:02] It's not Returnal.

Speaker 4:
[24:03] Yeah. Like that is the thing going on in my brain of like, if I'm in a room with like three enemies, I'm a little scared. And I guess I associate that with Resident Evil more than more than most shooters where you would just blast your way through and not think about it.

Speaker 2:
[24:19] Yeah. I mean, specifically four. I've actually been thinking of four a lot, and Requiem because of the level design really makes me think of Requiem in a complimentary way. But like, it's also that, you know, we've kind of moved past this and you can move and shoot now. But the thing about four that was, Resident Evil four that was so effective is like, you had to plant your feet and you had to kind of like, let enemies like come at you. And then you had to sort of manage them coming at you. And then, Jacob, I've been thinking a lot about, you know, you've said it before, but like one of the most fun things you can do in a video game is in Resident Evil four where you shoot someone in the knee and then you kick him in the head. That's right. And to me, that's kind of what they figured out for this is like two things. You just do one thing and then a satisfying second backup follow up thing. And that's like the whole concept. So like, I've been thinking about Resident Evil a lot in a complimentary way. It's weird because it's like, if you like Resident Evil, you like this, but not for the reasons you might think, if that makes sense. No, it totally is that it's like, you know, for 20 years, I've been saying every third person shooter should let me kick a guy. And this is like one of, you know, this and Dead Space 2 specifically with the telekinesis, is like some of the only games I've played where it's like, you figured out the thing that is spiritually kicking a guy. That's not literally of just like, if I only had a gun, this game would be boring as hell. But because you have the hacking and because the hacking is so clever, where it's like, it's a very simple minigame. If it was the only thing on the screen, it would be a complete breeze. Part of the complexity is just that there are enemies walking at you. But also that it's not necessarily giving you a lot of ways to fail, but there are just a lot of different ways to succeed that you want to pick at different times. Because you're given kind of hacking power ups that's like, if you go through this one, the enemy will have less defense. If you go through this one, the enemy is going to like start attacking its allies. And you could hit all of those every time, but it makes sense to avoid them sometimes. If you're like, this is a weak enemy, I don't need to turn on friendly fire for them. So I'm going to avoid this thing, which would actually be good for me because it would be better if I use it at a different time. And so you're just making like lots of little decisions in this way that is like constantly fun, despite how simple the hacking is, which is fundamentally just move through a grid.

Speaker 1:
[26:40] Yeah, just to help myself as a complete baby boy, I've been slowly going through Requiem, slower than I wanted to. And I realize I have a tough time playing scary games by myself, I feel like every other quote unquote scary Resident Evil I've streamed or played with somebody and stuff. And so just like, I think part of the reason I'm finding this game so satisfying is like just the tightness of Resident Evil level design without really jump scares in it. Every once in a while, they might have a robot go blah. But like the fact that it's not scary, that it's like a cool world to be in is just like a breath of fresh air.

Speaker 4:
[27:15] And it's also and I don't know if this changes in the later areas, but I really like that it is a sci fi game that isn't that isn't the dead space, like grim, dark, everything's broken down. Like you're in these very nice, pristine, you know, almost like portal style future space places. We don't we don't get a I feel like we don't get a lot of that kind of sci fi settings.

Speaker 2:
[27:38] Well, if you listen to the Pew Pew Bang on sci fi, they're like everything is white walls and sliding doors.

Speaker 3:
[27:45] But I have some of that here, but it's not pronounced.

Speaker 2:
[27:49] There's definitely there's a lot of that, like there's a lot of clean sci fi. But I do think the game, for being set entirely on a space station, gets more mileage out of different environments than you would expect playing the first level. You know, it's like you do end up in places that you're like, oh, OK, this is cool. I didn't think I would be in this kind of place.

Speaker 1:
[28:10] And the hook there, without spoiling anything, is this moon base is very into 3D printing. Because I think before the game came out, we're talking about like, oh, you're fighting robots the entire time, like on a moon base, like how varied can it be? And it turns out, when you can print anything, thanks to magic, moon dust or whatever the hell is going on in this lore, it really is so exciting to be like, oh my God, like in the first kind of big area, you start to realize the potential, like, oh, we can kind of do anything with these environments. And so just make it so exciting. And it's so satisfying too, because you're taking like a tram system, and it's very kind of level based of like, all right, you're going to this area, then this area, then this area. And it almost feels like different Mario biomes. So like, yeah, 3D printer, do anything. It's like, the first time you see like even a, you know, taxi cab that looks like it's from New York, like half printed and half buried in the ground, like this looks awesome to see it kind of like digitally melting into the environment. It's sweet.

Speaker 3:
[29:07] It kind of reminded me of Scarlet Nexus, like oddly enough, a game that like, I wish I had played more of, but it was like combat sci-fi. I feel like kind of anime coded if it wasn't directly anime.

Speaker 2:
[29:16] Oh, there was an anime adaptation, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[29:18] Okay, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. But I do think, it's probably worth mentioning that maybe taking like that kind of Resident Evil Capcom design to the extreme, this is a game full of, I'm unlocking four things to open fifth thing. Yes, yes, totally. It is full of that, like which I don't think, it does not hurt the game necessarily, but it is like inherently repetitive. Like this is a game of repetition in terms of its structure and like I enjoy exploring the spaces, but the spaces are like far less intriguing to me than like typical like Resident Evil like Capcom design, at least in the modern era of like what they've made. It's not like a wild gap, but there is not as much going on, but I also don't need there to be because like the combat is really what I'm here for. So like I have little things that I do in between, and then I go into a combat scenario, it has a nice balance where I feel like when I'm pushed, I'm really pushed, but then I also have these little breaks. Even like to the point where the character remarks like, oh, another, what does he call it? Like cat, cat, rat trap or whatever. It's like, oh, another rat trap. And it's like, yeah, like you're walking into like arena after arena, you're, it is like very video game. Like I saw someone post it, I don't know if it was a sub post on Capcom, but it was like, oh, so much to make a game where you have to power something up. It's like, yeah, like this is a game where you're constantly like three things to power a fourth thing.

Speaker 1:
[30:44] Yes, yep, totally.

Speaker 2:
[30:46] Yeah, and it speaks to just how like fundamentally satisfying everything in the game is, that it's like, hell yeah, send me down that fourth hallway to hit the button on the fourth lock, I'm ready.

Speaker 1:
[30:58] Something I'm scared to test though is like, are there autosaves in this game? Can you only save in kind of your home base area? Like if I, in another mission, There are autosaves. There are? Okay.

Speaker 2:
[31:08] It's pretty frequent actually.

Speaker 3:
[31:09] Okay, because it's like, You can only manually save in the-

Speaker 2:
[31:11] Wow, humble brag, Ben Hanson hasn't died playing Pragmata.

Speaker 1:
[31:15] I guess I understand that, but it's like if I were to quit the game-

Speaker 3:
[31:18] Get up, Hugh.

Speaker 1:
[31:19] Yeah, like if I were to quit the game, like if it would always start me back at the home base portal area.

Speaker 2:
[31:26] Yeah, I'm pretty sure it saves in this level.

Speaker 3:
[31:29] I think it would start you back at the home base, but it would have saved like what you do. You kind of have constant checkpoints like throughout the level that are in the form of a way to fast travel back to your base, where you do like the upgrades. That's just for context for people listening. I know you know that, Ben.

Speaker 2:
[31:44] It's almost, and look, thank god we've talked about this for 25 minutes before I say this. It's almost a Dark Souls structure in that you are, there are these big looping levels that you're unlocking kind of shortcuts through, and you have a checkpoint that you can go back to your base. Specifically, it's a Dark Souls 2 structure for all the real heads out there, where it's like, you go back to your base, you can upgrade, you get all your health back. When you return, the enemies have repopulated, but you're not really having to redo fights very often, so it's not a big deal unless you are kind of going back into a level to be, you know, after every completed level, it will tell you, hey, you got, you know, four of the five chests. So if you want to go back, you can get the fifth chest. If you do that, the enemies will be back. But I think it's, you know, it's a structure that works really well. You do have Estus Flasks.

Speaker 1:
[32:40] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[32:41] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[32:41] And there's a barefoot woman. So I guess it is a Dark Souls game.

Speaker 1:
[32:45] We got to focus on that.

Speaker 3:
[32:46] It has canonical reasoning for why she's barefoot. I'm begging developers to stop not having clothes on various women and then coming up with a lore reason for why it's there.

Speaker 2:
[32:59] And then you can unlock shoes for her later.

Speaker 3:
[33:02] So like, but they're not really shoes.

Speaker 1:
[33:03] How are you?

Speaker 3:
[33:04] Like, no, no, you can't. Oh, it's like a full show. OK, I haven't a lot.

Speaker 2:
[33:06] But it's like the postman costume, right? Yeah, there's there is a costume that is like 100 percent like the style that my daughter, who when she was her age, would wear pigtails, like converse shoes, like you can think. I pulled up my daughter was like, hey, look, you're I unlocked you.

Speaker 1:
[33:25] And you were like, oh, it is just it knows how to tweak Kyle. It is getting into his brain. Unlock your daughter mode. Thank you for liking our game.

Speaker 2:
[33:35] Jeff and Ben, don't you guys want whatever that backpack is where she can kind of just like stand on her on his back? That would have been awesome. I would have loved that.

Speaker 1:
[33:43] That is pretty sweet.

Speaker 2:
[33:44] You've got you've got one who's ready for that soon, Ben. So see if you can find that. Get it like Pragmata branded.

Speaker 1:
[33:48] OK, yeah, can do.

Speaker 2:
[33:50] Do that for me.

Speaker 1:
[33:51] Yeah. Are all the boss fights as good as kind of there's kind of the one from the demo, which kind of the opening boss fight. That's cool and fine. But the first kind of like bigger world boss fight after that was like, if every boss fight is anywhere near this, this is like as good as boss fights can get. I love that.

Speaker 2:
[34:08] I I do think that big one is maybe a highlight. OK, but they are there are several that are quite good. And and without without any spoilers.

Speaker 1:
[34:19] End of the game.

Speaker 2:
[34:20] Big thumbs up. They they just kind of go crazy with it in particular.

Speaker 4:
[34:24] Right.

Speaker 2:
[34:24] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[34:25] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[34:26] Yeah. Yeah. OK.

Speaker 3:
[34:27] It's yeah, I love the boss fights like there's some of the most engaging boss fights I've ever done in games, which is both a compliment to Pragmata and a slight to other games. Like typically I just don't find boss fights to usually be that intriguing. It is a lot of jump over a ring hit glowing spot. And this still technically has that like construction like it is a formulaic like if you can close your eyes and picture any boss, you'll picture something not too far from what the bosses here are. But just that little bit of having the hacking element. And also we should mention the way you your main weapon auto refills ammo, but your other weapons are like very simplified pickups where like if they run out of ammo, it's just like kind of not in your inventory, but they like scatter other weapons around that you can get in like bins and things and like pick them up. So it's this wild mix of like watching these really big attacks, trying to avoid them hacking and then also thinking what's going on with like what guns I have and also the hacking nodes because like like Jacob mentioned earlier, you have like different nodes that do different things that will appear in the hacking matrix. But you like once you use them, they're kind of used and then you can like pick up more. So there's just like a layer of almost like resource management also going on on the boss fights on top of like typical boss spectacle. Like I find them to be very like exciting and thrilling and like just a little bit challenging where like I'm often not super low health, but like if I wasn't towards the end of the boss, I might hit another heel kind of situation. And I've really liked that. And I'm not done with the game, but they also have avoided something that I hate in boss fights, which is we couldn't make an interesting boss so we added a bunch of minions. Like there's one boss that has like a couple little guys, but largely it is like you are fighting the boss, which like I personally prefer, I always feel like the minions are just there because the boss isn't good enough. Maybe I'm just a hater. I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[36:15] No, I get it, I get it. It is weird timing, right? Like surely they talked about it at Capcom when this game has been in development for so long about the release date lining up at like peak moon excitement for planet Earth over the last 50 years with Artemis II.

Speaker 2:
[36:30] I thought you were gonna say like a month and a half after Resident Evil 9.

Speaker 1:
[36:34] I mean, that's also amazing timing of like people are wrapping up Requiem, here's another amazing entry from Capcom because we don't miss, but like do you think they had discussions about that? About like Artemis II timing like let's map out, they're coming back to Earth now and pre-order Pragmata right now.

Speaker 3:
[36:50] We didn't move that release date.

Speaker 2:
[36:51] Project Hail Mary is coming to theater.

Speaker 3:
[36:52] But that was before they like knew what was going on though, right?

Speaker 2:
[36:54] No, I actually think, I don't think they did. I think it's just a lucky coincidence. I mean like a Japanese studio lining up the thing with like an American rocket launch.

Speaker 1:
[37:06] I'm sure they talked about it at least because I was enthused.

Speaker 2:
[37:09] I think they were like, wow, it's cool that this is happening.

Speaker 1:
[37:12] Yeah, that could be. I gave like the opening shot of the moon. I was like, god, I freaking love the moon. And I feel like I was kind of a Johnny Come Lately to the Argonis 2 hype. I watched a couple of things here and there, but then like watched a livestream of them like crashing back down the ocean.

Speaker 3:
[37:24] Ban Wagon Moon fan.

Speaker 1:
[37:25] I do feel a little faint because like I was in tears watching them land back on earth. I was like, oh, I should have been watching all of these streams all the time if this is destroying me. But Pragmata, it is amazing to see, you know, one of if not the best publisher in the game industry right now, like take a big swing, new idea, lots of design issues that they had to work out. This thing's been in the oven for so long and for it to come out and nail it. And it's a weird thing where I want to like set everybody's expectations a little bit. Like it's not a new Resident Evil 4. It's not like a 10 out of 10, but it's just like rock solid, great, confident gaming. It's so good.

Speaker 2:
[38:02] It's really just like, man, I love video games. It's really just like, it's not it's not reworking my understanding of the medium. I'm just like, these things are fun, baby.

Speaker 4:
[38:13] This is why we do it in a time where we don't get a lot of those.

Speaker 1:
[38:16] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[38:18] I do. You guys run into this. We have the privilege of playing games early where I was playing so much Prague when I did not want to stop and I was like, do I like this too much? Like, is this like like, is it going to come out? It's going to be like sevens.

Speaker 1:
[38:30] Right.

Speaker 2:
[38:30] I'm just going to be like, oops, I liked this. That's that's how I felt about Expedition 33. And then it came out. I was like, oh, thank God.

Speaker 1:
[38:37] You've been validated just a little bit on that one. But yeah, I mean, it feels like new modern Capcom classic. You know, I think people are going to be talking about for a long time.

Speaker 2:
[38:45] I hope it does well. Like, I hope it is successful commercially. I think we can say it's already financial critic successful critically.

Speaker 1:
[38:53] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[38:54] It's interesting that it. You know what? I'll say this for a different time. Speculation about sequels is like it's just an interesting thing to think about. You know, once you're through the game and they give you so much bonus stuff and other things to do.

Speaker 1:
[39:07] Cool. Yeah. I think it seems like a ripe one for doing a spoiler cast and max spoilers in the future. So look forward to that on our bonus podcast feed on Patreon and all that stuff. Hey, Jeff, do you know what you can look at the moon through? A telescope. What kind of moron uses a telescope when you have kaleidoscopes, everybody? And you can head to the kaleidoscope factor review.

Speaker 3:
[39:31] You can point it at whatever you want.

Speaker 1:
[39:33] Yeah, you can aim it at the moon. But that's right, everybody, discoverpoco.com. I'm talking about Pocahontas County, Iowa, home of the kaleidoscope factory, our favorite organization to plug. It's not an organization. It's not a company. It's just the good folks of Pocahontas County. They want you to map out a trip and head there. If you want a lovely visit here, they say come discover the kaleidoscope to Pocahontas County, Iowa. Pocahontas County is home to 11 large kaleidoscopes throughout its communities and county parks. Our parks are home to several great outdoor amenities, including several playgrounds, the expansive three river trails, disc golf courses and more. As part of the state's tourism initiative to take some time discovering what Iowa has to offer, our kaleidoscopes and county parks offer an affordable yet fun way to vacation with your family, friends or even independently. Parks like Little Clear Lake are great for kayaking once you're done checking out its kaleidoscope. Speaking of which, each kaleidoscope contains its own distinct design, has its own color scheme that makes it completely unique. Whether you want to camp out at one of the several campgrounds or stay at a hotel while following the trail of kaleidoscopes, there's plenty to eat, shop, play and stay throughout Pocahontas County. You can add Pocahontas County, Iowa to your travel list this year. Visit discoverpoco.com to see suggested trip ideas and start planning your itinerary. That's discoverpoco.com. And they sponsored the last episode of Trivia Tower. And they're so sweet, they actually shipped out a kaleidoscope to the winner. And they're showing it off in the Discord and stuff. It's amazing. So discoverpoco.com. Check out the description for more. There's this other game that's been out for a little bit. And I'm so curious to hear your thoughts on it. But Super Meat Boy 3D. This game has had a fun journey, right? Like, Super Meat Boy, iconic early Xbox Live game that we all presumably loved. Then Super Meat Boy Forever was in development for a long time and were kind of like, not so much. Then they announced Super Meat Boy 3D, and it was like, I don't know if that really works in 3D. Jeff, you've been playing the most of this. How are you feeling about the current state of Super Meat Boy 3D?

Speaker 4:
[41:35] Yeah, it was definitely one when they announced that I did not care at all and thought I do not need a Super Meat Boy 3D. I don't see how it would work in 3D. I do not want this. And then when I tried it, and maybe it's going in with low expectations, I immediately realized it does work, and that's amazing, and that's the main reason I want to talk about it. But also just what a different format Meat Boy had and how well it works. And just the flood of memories of, oh yeah, like a level is 20 seconds, you will play it 30 times until you figure out how to get through it. Once you do, you have mastered this bite-sized bit of gameplay. And then you're going to do it again because you want to do it in the time limit that you have to get to unlock the Dark World version, which is a completely different, harder level. And then you're going to do it a third time in order to find the hidden power up units in each one, which unlocks new enemies or new playable characters once you get them in each of those. And all of that is exactly the same format here. And I think that's part of why I enjoy it so much. The other part, which I am realizing is more controversial as I've read some reviews and stuff, is I guess some people don't feel that it translates that well to 3D space and that they have trouble figuring out where you're going to land and especially going forwards and backwards in space. I guess that gets trickier for people. And I had some people commenting when I was live streaming it that they were like, you're doing a lot better at this than me. And I'm not sure why that is. And I'm not sure why that is either. But when I'm playing this, all the movement mechanics that you have running and jumping and doing, you have like an air dash basically. Yeah, like a special lunge through the air. They are so overpowered that like, you're just jumping. Like I feel like I'm a wizard when I'm playing this game because you will jump and you will fly and you'll be like, I have to land on that little spot on the bottom corner of that wall. And when I hit it, I'm gonna fly off in the other direction and I'm gonna do another jump dash over all of these spinning buzz saws. And I'm gonna land precisely there and then run. And it'll take you 40 times until you actually manage to do that perfectly. Yeah. But then once you have figured out that out, like that is the magic of this game. And I really liked it and I streamed it for like four hours. And then my wrists and my my forearms burned for like the next two days. And I'm like, I'm too old to play this game and I can't like I can't enjoy it because I will have permanent claw hands after playing it.

Speaker 2:
[44:33] But if you have it on what controller?

Speaker 4:
[44:36] I did the stream on well, I went through like three controllers because I was not happy with any of them. The most time I've been playing with it has been on the Steam Deck. And honestly, I never would have guessed that that is my preferred hand holding format for it. But it feels really good on the Steam Deck for some reason. Everything else, I was having problems with. That might be my old arthritic hands as well. So I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[45:06] You're certainly falling apart. Your meat, it needs to be bandaged. But that is basically my journey as well. I went in with pretty mixed to low expectations of this. And I am having such a good time with it on Steam Deck in particular. It's such a good game to have on Steam Deck just for tight, super tough challenging. I mean, you mentioned 20 seconds. Some of these runs, it's like three seconds, four seconds. Just do it again and again and again. And we should mention too, if you've never seen it and you're listening to the audio version, it's not Mario 64 here. It's an isometric perspective.

Speaker 2:
[45:38] It's Mario 3D World.

Speaker 1:
[45:40] Yeah, basically. Imagine the most challenging 3D World and 3D Land levels, which 3D Land is my favorite Mario game. I know it's not popular, but I am having a really, really good time with this.

Speaker 2:
[45:50] Does it do the Meat Boy thing of when you finish a level, it shows all the runs?

Speaker 4:
[45:54] All the Meat Boys, yes.

Speaker 2:
[45:55] And also one of the best video game features, period.

Speaker 1:
[45:57] Yep, it's so good.

Speaker 2:
[45:59] Up there with shooting dudes in the knees and kicking them in the face. That's right.

Speaker 1:
[46:02] Those are the two things you need to have. But also it's fun too, because it does the thing too, where the more you retry a level, it leaves the meat stains where you've gone through the previous runs. And somehow in 3D, that's like, as much as I'm enjoying this game, at the same time, it's like, well, should I just be playing Meat Boy again? Like, is the 3D really adding that much? And one of the areas where it is, it's like, oh, it's more fun to see all the places I have been and touched with my meat stain, because there's more possibilities of where I can leave my meat mark.

Speaker 4:
[46:28] And sometimes, sometimes it's legitimately helpful, because you'll get a part down and you'll be like, well, those are the blood spotches. You'll finish a level and then it will take you a couple of times to work back up to it on the replay, because it's like, I don't have my stains to remind me where specifically I was hitting on these runs.

Speaker 1:
[46:48] Yeah. Yeah. Now, we're positive, I know not to put words in your mouth, it seems like Janet and Kyle, you both are like, eh, whatever.

Speaker 3:
[46:57] Yeah, I didn't really care for it.

Speaker 1:
[46:58] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[46:59] It was one of those things where I could play more of it, and I'm sure there's some fun to be had. It is not a bad game by any means. I previewed this at GDC, but I don't think I got much of a chance to talk about it on the podcast. It is challenging, it is solidly made, it feels very sterile to me. It feels like this is designed by a team that, like when I think about what makes Surimi Boy Surimi Boy and what makes it special, it is a lot of what y'all talked about, right? Like how tightly knit it is, how exciting it is, like how challenging it is, like the way they like squeeze so much juice out of like the very like minimalistic mechanics it has. And this kind of feels like this is made by a team that thinks, when they think of Super Meat Boy, they think hard and it has sauce. This feels like visually it's like, oh yeah, this is Super Meat Boy. But I think the way that the like wall kind of clinging works and the dash works makes it where you can kind of jank your way through it in a way that feels like a bit of the antithesis to like the point of what Meat Boy is, which is like, you can kind of only do it this one specific way. I'm sure there's multiple ways to do things because you'll see like you'll think this is the only way and then you see someone else play and they play like slightly differently. But it felt a little like it feels like plastic on the sofa, you know, it's like I feel removed from it in a way that it's not bad, but it's like I don't have a passion to continue playing this. Like it's fine. It feels fine. But I don't want fine from this. I want I want something that I'm excited about. I want magic. I want to be lit up like is it a bad game? No. But it's like looking around. Like I don't want to spend my time doing this.

Speaker 1:
[48:33] I think you're totally right on a lot of those fronts. I hear that as well. And like as much as I'm enjoying the gameplay, it is like it's just nice to have something so simple. But where I feel where you're talking about the kind of the lack of soul in particular is like every time there's a cut scene, I'm like yuck. Like I do not want to see a 3D Dr. Fetus. Like I have to look away. It just looks like the Donkey Kong TV show level. Like I don't want to see this model in 3D.

Speaker 4:
[48:56] Yep. And also the levels are mechanisms. Like they're like they're there isn't you're not going to look back and be like, oh, remember that forest level? Like that was it is it is this is a platform. This is a wall that you're going to want to do something off of that. That level of like it is it is purely gameplay mechanics. And when I was streaming it, I got to a point where I'm like, I'm a sick person, like I I should be stopping here. Like part of it is a compulsion to nail that perfect run. And I stick to it way longer than I think is healthy. And if you don't have that affliction, God bless you and you're probably better off. And there may not be a lot here for you.

Speaker 2:
[49:48] Yeah. Yeah, I played through the first boss and it just kind of exactly met my expectations after seeing gameplay like in a trailer. I was like, oh, this is exactly what this feels like, what I expected. And yeah, Jeff, I just don't have that compulsion to like, I it wants me to like, hey, don't don't you want to defeat me? And I'm like, not particularly. I don't know if I have the time for that anymore. But like, well, to Janet's point, like it's thoughtful and well designed. It's not it's not like it.

Speaker 1:
[50:19] It feels like Meat Boy in 3D, like it's easy to bounce off of.

Speaker 2:
[50:23] The title is exactly what they're selling.

Speaker 3:
[50:25] You know, I think they struggle to create like a sense of urgency in the 3D space where like in Super Meat Boy, it's like I have to keep moving or I'll die. And here it feels like there's a little bit too much space to linger in a way that like unnecessarily drags out the level. And you could say, well, just play it faster. And it's like, well, you kind of do need to also scope out where you're going because of like how the camera works in the space works. So it just feels like it doesn't have the zip that I feel like is the core of Meat Boy. And then like, what are we left with? We're left with a challenging platformer that just feels like a bunch of assets thrown into a space.

Speaker 1:
[50:58] It's a notch above that. I hear you. I think like as you progress, I think like with the world is there starts to be like, okay, this level is defined by this, this level is defined by this. Like, Jeff, the level in the second world right before the boss has been the biggest pain in the butt, where you have to like run vertically up the wall. You know what I'm talking about? Do like a little hop, then you launch way down, you have to go over. Believe it or not, there's saw blades you have to dodge. But that was the first one that I hit where I was like, I see the flaws in the 3D design of just like being a little finicky about like, okay, I'm leaping over this edge, then where am I here? But the isometric nature of it, I think, kind of alleviates a lot of that kind of 3D jank. But every once in a while, I was like, I see what some complaints are saying just about kind of navigating the geometry here. But still, it's like, it's the same thing we said, I guess, about Lumineza Rise compared to Tetris Effect. You know, I've just like, if there's this game that gives me 70% of the thrills I had with Meat Boy, like, I'm happy to have that on my Steam Deck, you know? It's maybe too simple, but.

Speaker 4:
[51:56] And there is, like, I do feel pushed when I'm playing it. I don't feel like it's too slow, but I am going at max speed the entire time. And part of that is, like, I want to get that A plus timing. Like, that is enough for me. You have put that in there. So I'm just going to be moving at full speed the entire time and dashing it as much as I can. And like, be on that cusp of, I'm always just a little bit out of control and hopefully I can wrangle it long enough to land it. But that is like, I guess that is coming from a voluntary place and I wouldn't want to play it as just a normal platform or where I'm looking around and, you know, trying not to die. It's like, you're going to die a bunch. I am willing to burn through those little meat boys in order to get that perfect, you know, as fast as possible run that you can get and that feels good.

Speaker 1:
[52:54] Yeah, it's good for that. It's good for that. It is out on everything. It's 25 bucks too. So for the price of a Tindalston story, you could jump in on Super Meat Boy 3D if you're curious about that one. Jeff, I also checked out a game that you're recommending that you also streamed on twitch.tv/minnmaxshow, Minos, which boy, based on screenshots and trailers, I was like, what is this game? It was described as having rogue elements?

Speaker 4:
[53:22] We had a big conversation on how to pronounce Pragmata, and now you're saying Minos, and it's really throwing me off. I saw Dev Diary, though, where they were calling it a Minotaur. They were pronouncing Minotaur really weird. And so I don't know what they're going for. I was saying Minos the whole time. But whatever it is, interesting take on tower defense, which is a genre that I have no interest in ever. And so like really, it is a tower. Yeah, it's something that I know I've been. I've been trying to wrap my head around why I enjoyed this one so much. Because at first I was like, oh, it's so much different from a tower defense game. And as I was breaking it down in my mind, it's like, no, this is pretty much exactly like a tower defense game. But there's something different about like in it, you are a little baby boy minotaur who's growing up. You're a young adult version of a minotaur. And you are in a big labyrinth. And adventurers are going to come in. They're trying to get to the center of the place. And you have to build, you build out the walls of this maze so that they will go in a specific order. And then there are places where you can put deadly traps. And you're like, you're drafting those traps. There's like a rogue-like element to it of like the different traps that you're getting. You're creating a pool. You're like expanding that pool and you'll be kind of drafting those as you go along and putting them out and just trying to like optimize the path for them to go along so that they're all dead by the time no one actually gets to the center. Which is basically just a tower defense game. I think the thing that bothers me about tower defense games is it always feels like you're going to have a big train of enemies coming in and you're just going to do chip damage to them with all the turrets that you put out or whatever and you're just going to hope that their little green health bars are completely depleted by the time they get to whatever and that is just not a satisfying thing to me. Here, you're going to have maybe four or five enemies come in, you know exactly how much their hit points are, you know how much the traps are, so you are micromanaging and planning that down to the person, to the point where you will... I would set out my entire layout and I'd be like, okay, so we have seven people coming in, that one takes out every three people, so now we're down to five people that are going to get past that one, and they're going to go into the flame. The different traps are really interesting and they lend themselves to interesting combos and things like that. I think that is where the magic is happening.

Speaker 1:
[56:18] Yes, into the breach of the tower defense. You have a good sense of what's going to be happening where, and I think the magic too is being able to change the wall layout. It's a maze and I'm actually trying to navigate, okay, I have this ability, or something I can lay down as a trap, that's kind of like a siren song, that'll like lure them down a dead end and then like murder them in there. So it's kind of like, okay, they're gonna walk this way, they're gonna hear the song go down here, and then when they turn back around, there's gonna be a bunch of arrows firing at them there. And then also, Asterion, like the little guy that you're controlling, he can run around and also attack as well, so there's a little more action focus. But Jeff, you just, you feel like an Orcs Must Die game, and this really is, it feels like an Orcs Must Die game, but going back to an isometric RTS almost perspective. It just feels like your genre, man.

Speaker 4:
[57:07] Yeah, it almost feels like, the thing that I don't think I like about Tower Defense games is they feel more like RTS games, which I do not like that genre either. It's the real time aspect of it, and I like the planning aspect of this, where you're like, you have as much time as you want to meticulously figure this place out, this little maze. The other thing that's really interesting about it, you can move most walls, and there's no cost to it whatsoever, so you can move them around, but then there are some that are permanent, and then there are some that they keep introducing layers and layers to it. There are some that take a certain amount of energy, you have like five energies, so you can remove five of these extra tough walls per wave. And so there's like additional layers of strategy that you have to start figuring out, and that you have to kind of build around, and it ends up feeling more like a puzzle game than tower defense ultimately. The other thing that's really interesting about it, and that I was very skeptical going in, is you'll go through multiple waves of enemies, and they do the rogue-like thing where it's like, okay, pick between these three rooms which type of encounter that you want to have. And one of them is what they just straight up call a long battle or something. And it's like eight waves, it's like 30 enemies, it seems like just about twice as long as the normal one. And going into my first one of those, I was like, this is going to be too long, I don't want this expanded out that many waves against that many characters. And what's really interesting about it, that I've never seen in any kind of other rogue-like game or anything like that, is that all the heavy lifting that you do in the... When you start planning out your Labyrinth, if you do a good job of it in the first couple of waves, that will carry through and pay off dividends through the rest of that full encounter where it's like, okay, I have built the path that these guys have to go on, it covers all of the possible entrances, and then I've built in all these extra traps. So wave seven, now you're giving me seven guys, guess what? I'm already set for that. I'm immediately just going to hit the okay, go again, unleash the adventures, and we're just going to murder them all too, and you can fly through those. Designing something that stands up to multiple waves after that, just feels like makes you feel so much smarter than the core loop already makes you feel, and that's a really satisfying thing too.

Speaker 1:
[59:52] Yeah, so it's just out on Steam right now for Minos. Minos, Minos, Minos, Minos, Muscle Manos.

Speaker 3:
[60:00] It's a devolver at GDC as well, and I liked it a lot. Like I thought, Jeff, just to kind of echo what you said, obviously I played way less of it, but I'm not a tower defense person either, and I don't like the real time element that sometimes is associated with tower defense, but I liked just a simple planning of setting everything up. It was just like very satisfying to like tinker with and then like watch unfolds. Like there's something that I just think is very enjoyable about that loop. So yeah, definitely want to check out more.

Speaker 1:
[60:29] Yeah, it's from Artificer who released Sumerian 6, which is a game about killing Nazis. You remember just like not that long ago. Yeah, then Devolver published that game there. All right, Jeff Marchiafava, do you want to clap on out of here whenever you feel like it, buddy boy?

Speaker 4:
[60:46] Sounds great.

Speaker 1:
[60:47] Okay, live clap. Wow.

Speaker 4:
[60:51] Oh, this is live. I forgot. Okay, I actually see you guys for real. Bye.

Speaker 1:
[60:57] Wow, the magic of clapping.

Speaker 3:
[61:00] Just as mysteriously as he arrived.

Speaker 1:
[61:03] And lo, he has gone. If only some folks could jump on in if they're still watching us live. Uh, so Jacob, you're not too tired? You're not feeling jet lagged?

Speaker 2:
[61:16] I've been getting more tired being on this podcast, but overall, I'm good.

Speaker 3:
[61:21] Cut that part out.

Speaker 2:
[61:22] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[61:22] Is it just the genres when we talk about tower defense game, you find your eyes getting heavy?

Speaker 2:
[61:26] I like tower defense. I feel like it's like, here's my theory. Jeff, I'm too old to have played flash games, and like, tower defense really was a flash games kind of crux.

Speaker 1:
[61:37] Right. So he's like, oh, what is this whole new world? Sarah Podzorski, joining the show!

Speaker 3:
[61:41] Hello! Yeah, hello!

Speaker 1:
[61:44] Hello, chat goes wild. We've got you. How you doing, Sarah?

Speaker 2:
[61:48] We have two peach stained glass windows now, because you have one in Janet's. Oh, I was like, what are you talking about? Yeah, was that your old apartment as well?

Speaker 3:
[61:59] Not all the time. I had it up for at one point, but I've had it for a long time. It's from the same artist.

Speaker 2:
[62:05] Were you guys sad when it crumbled in the Super Mario Galaxy movie?

Speaker 3:
[62:09] I wouldn't know.

Speaker 5:
[62:10] Well, OK, spoilers.

Speaker 3:
[62:11] I'm watching.

Speaker 5:
[62:12] Wow, OK.

Speaker 2:
[62:13] Yeah, something breaks in the Super Mario Galaxy movie.

Speaker 1:
[62:17] Sarah, you were texting me begging for answers to spoilers in the Mario Galaxy movie, so I don't know exactly.

Speaker 5:
[62:21] I saw I saw a TikTok and I was so scared that it was real. I immediately was like, who can I ask about this? And Ben Hanson was the first person that came to mind.

Speaker 1:
[62:29] That's an honor.

Speaker 5:
[62:30] And I like I was like, this is really important. You to answer me immediately. Is this true? And he responded so fast. He was there when I needed him.

Speaker 2:
[62:39] What was it?

Speaker 1:
[62:40] It was about like a revelation, a revelation about Peach in the movie that has incredible implications for the future of Mario. That is a weird, that is a weird reveal.

Speaker 5:
[62:52] Yeah, but I heard about it and then I was like immediately texted Ben and it ruined my entire day. And were you upset about it? Yeah, I'm really upset about it.

Speaker 2:
[63:00] Wait, what's the now?

Speaker 1:
[63:02] What revelation are we talking about?

Speaker 2:
[63:03] Come on. It's the family lineage. Okay, yeah, that was upsetting.

Speaker 5:
[63:08] All right.

Speaker 2:
[63:09] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[63:09] Oh, is it anything with that or is it that?

Speaker 2:
[63:12] Rey is the Emperor's daughter. Everyone cool has to be related to each other.

Speaker 5:
[63:17] God forbid you're an individual.

Speaker 1:
[63:19] Yeah. Haley MacLean, welcome to the show.

Speaker 5:
[63:22] Hello.

Speaker 1:
[63:23] Hello. How are you?

Speaker 6:
[63:25] Good.

Speaker 1:
[63:26] Oh, good. We've assembled this panel here today to talk about the one and only, The Legend of Zelda, Twilight Princess, How Do You Plead panel.

Speaker 2:
[63:38] Good game.

Speaker 6:
[63:38] Guilty.

Speaker 1:
[63:39] I haven't won it.

Speaker 6:
[63:40] Perfect game.

Speaker 1:
[63:41] Perfect flawless experience.

Speaker 2:
[63:43] Yeah, I don't know. It is way up there for me that when I rank my personal Zeldas, I think it's higher on my list than I think most, except for maybe Haley, I'm learning.

Speaker 1:
[63:52] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[63:52] Ben wanted to pick me off the podcast right now. When I have a visible Twilight Princess poster behind me, he said, you don't care about talking about it that much.

Speaker 5:
[64:02] Not going to lie, I was wondering why you were still here because I thought both Jeff and Jacob were leaving.

Speaker 1:
[64:07] No, he spent most of the trip in Spain just begging, dude, don't kick me off the pod. I got to talk Twy Pry, which is what he calls this game. I was like, is it really? Yeah, hand to God, he calls it Twy Pry.

Speaker 2:
[64:18] He's making me sound dumb. No, he's making me sound dumb.

Speaker 1:
[64:24] But okay, there were a couple comments last week when we were talking about the Ocarina of Time remake that's rumored and all that stuff, and a couple of us, Smart Alex, were like, We've already made one, it's called Twilight Princess. Dunk, dunk, dunk.

Speaker 2:
[64:36] I mean, it is, Ocarina Link is in there. He's in Twilight Princess. Yeah, he is.

Speaker 1:
[64:42] Really?

Speaker 5:
[64:42] What denotes Ocarina Link? Is it the piercings?

Speaker 2:
[64:47] Oh, no, no, Link's pretty much always got earrings. It's the white. No, there's nothing.

Speaker 5:
[64:52] He doesn't always have earrings. Okay, that's a hill I'll die on.

Speaker 2:
[64:58] That he does or does not?

Speaker 5:
[65:00] Because Windbreaker Link doesn't have earrings. He's too young. No.

Speaker 2:
[65:03] Yeah, but like Skyward Sword, he does. Ocarina, he does. Twilight, he does as well, right?

Speaker 5:
[65:08] Doesn't he?

Speaker 2:
[65:10] Is Twilight the hottest he's ever been?

Speaker 6:
[65:11] I've looked at his model for a billion years.

Speaker 2:
[65:13] Yes. Yes. Well, what about that hair? The kingdom, though, like when you start the game before he pulls it back. Oh, that's good. Yeah, when he's got the shaggy hair. He's not wearing a shirt.

Speaker 6:
[65:24] Every character in Twilight Princess is the hottest they've ever been in Zelda. Ganon, Zelda, Link, everyone is the hottest.

Speaker 1:
[65:30] I was just thinking, I had a roulette wheel spinning in my mind of every Pee-Poo Bang episode. It is just, I feel like Haley is running down how every character is hot. The rupees are hot in Twilight Princess. I think you're just going through like a sexual awakening when you played this game, Haley. I think that's what's going on here.

Speaker 3:
[65:47] Isn't that how it was intended to be played?

Speaker 1:
[65:49] I don't know.

Speaker 6:
[65:50] Thank you, Janet.

Speaker 3:
[65:51] I've never heard of anyone play this game and not have a sexual awakening. You're saving mine for so long.

Speaker 6:
[65:56] If you didn't get to the end and have a sexual awakening upon the big reveal at the end of Twilight Princess, you're insane.

Speaker 2:
[66:03] If they didn't want me to feel that way, they shouldn't have released it when I was 11 years old.

Speaker 6:
[66:08] You're a monk who took a sacred vow or something.

Speaker 2:
[66:11] I was in college. I remember skipping college classes that day to go pick up my Wii and spend all day playing Twilight Princess. Kyle, is that the farthest distance apart in age we've ever been? Technically, I know we're always the same amount of years apart, but me being 11 and you being in college feels crazy. It does.

Speaker 1:
[66:34] It really does. But I think when thinking about the design of this game, it does feel like they were going for you, Kyle. They wanted people who were 18 who loved Ocarina of Time when they were a kid to be like, finally, here's your edgy Zelda, your badass take, your Prince of Persia warrior within tone that you're creating.

Speaker 2:
[66:54] Put Godsmack in the soundtrack. To be clear, I love Wind Waker. I was a big defender of it at the time, even among my small group of friends who didn't like the way it looked. I remember downloading footage of it off of Kazaa and stuff because this was pre-trailers. I think this looks amazing. The things that underwhelmed me about Wind Waker were that I didn't really like sailing and there weren't enough dungeons. There were only four dungeons in the game. But Twilight Princess, I do prefer its mood. I like the dark tone of Twilight Princess. It has way more dungeons. I like riding Epona more than I like riding the boat. I think this whole conversation is being prompted by the fact that I just... I don't know if it was just me, but I restarted it recently. I played through the first dungeon, which is funny because it's like six hours or something like that. It takes so long for that game to get started. But after contemporary Zeldas and Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, I was weirdly charmed by how long it was taken. At the time, when it was probably the most excited I've ever been for a video game ever, period, was Twilight Princess. I remember getting a phone call. I was working at GameStop and they sent out this automated call to share that it had been delayed. It just absolutely ruined my month. It was just like, oh my God, this is terrible. I remember being a little like, let's get going, let's get moving. When I was playing Twilight Princess, I just wanted to get into this world that I'd seen glimpses of. But now I'm kind of charmed by it.

Speaker 5:
[68:31] You're actually gonna catch a fish. You're gonna catch a fish, you're gonna find a cat, and you're gonna herd some cattle. Slow down there, cowpoke.

Speaker 2:
[68:37] You're gonna throw the bird at the baby carriage, bring it back over. There's a monkey here, but we're not gonna get into that yet. That's gonna be a little later.

Speaker 5:
[68:45] And like, lantern oil is gonna be a really big issue, but then suddenly it's gonna disappear sometimes.

Speaker 2:
[68:50] You're never gonna have to worry about it again.

Speaker 6:
[68:52] Sir, you have a pointed tone about Twilight Princess, and I'm gonna have to ask you to watch it.

Speaker 5:
[68:55] I love Twilight Princess. I feel like, okay, so I was also young when this game came out, and I hated that they gave Link like a pastoral love interest who wasn't Zelda. I love that. Like that one girl in the beginning who gets kidnapped, I think I was just obscenely jealous of her. So I don't like the beginning of Twilight Princess.

Speaker 2:
[69:15] How'd you feel about Maelon in Ocarina, or how'd you not play it in Ocarina?

Speaker 5:
[69:17] I was too young, too young to understand the jealousy.

Speaker 2:
[69:21] Also the great thing about Twilight Princess is like, Link, do you want like the country girl, or do you want the goth GF?

Speaker 5:
[69:27] Goth GF?

Speaker 2:
[69:28] Yeah, well, me too. Put your hands together. But like then you get to have that tension.

Speaker 1:
[69:33] That's gameplay, baby.

Speaker 2:
[69:36] Yeah, so it also like, to Kyle's point about like the dungeons, like, I think going back, what stands out is like, and the tone, which I think is like Twilight Princess's mastery of tone is one of the best things about it. But like, just how different they all are, and it's like how, you know, everything, it's like the room, the individual rooms in them are so memorable, but also just like what the doors look like in the temple is like different for every temple. And like, you know, that that is the kind of thing when when people talk about, like, missing them in the modern Zeldas. I don't particularly mind that they're like, you know, lots of little puzzles, and I think the Divine Beasts are fun, but it is that, like, this is going to be completely different than the thing that came before it, and you're going to, you know, this dungeon is going to be scary, and this dungeon is going to be kind of holy feeling, and, you know, it's like, that's the kind of thing that makes each of them feel so distinct.

Speaker 1:
[70:37] I mean, best dungeons, you think, in this series? I know people, despite Skyward Sword being controversial, like, I feel like people really go to bat for those dungeons, which I love those dungeons in Skyward Sword.

Speaker 2:
[70:49] I mean, yeah, I really remember Twilight Princess. I mean, I remember Ocarina of Time the most, but that was like, you know, I was, that was my 11 year old game, I guess. Right. But I do have, like, really vivid memories of Twilight Princess, despite being older when I played it, because the dungeons are so, they're weird. Like, there's like the the the Gorons are really scary in one of them. And there's the one that's like a house in the in the mountains. Yeah, the Wintel Passons. I think for me, I would, I would prop those up as my personal favorite, I think. Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[71:19] I feel like the tools you get are very interesting too in Twilight Princess. Like, I think my favorite is like the Beyblade. And I feel like one of my best memories is like the Beyblade boss fight, where you're like rail jumping this giant skull that's shooting fire at you. And I still feel like that's one of the coolest Zelda boss fights I've ever done was like rail jumping my Beyblade with a giant skull, like, hello?

Speaker 2:
[71:43] Did you guys run into when I had the Beyblade and I finished that dungeon, I got out and I was like, baby, we got a skateboard. I'm Beyblade-ing everywhere. But it's like, that doesn't actually. No, no, but yeah, the stuff where it, you know, I think, I don't know. I think the Ocarina of Time remake is very dismay, you know, that it's just like, it's just a Zelda game. They have similar things. But like, when you get the double claw shot, you know, and it's like, oh my god, this completely changes. And then they have they have a boss that is just like a shadow of the Colossus Dragon that you're like grappling onto these huge, tall towers and that whole got that whole dungeon where it's like the weird two headed chickens, like city in the sky that you're running around. It's yeah, it's so it is. I guess it is the edgy tone. But I also feel like it has it is like more than edgy. I think it's melancholy that the game has and is so, you know, and it's like, even though the wolf sections aren't that fun to play, it's so like the world is so interesting that everyone is just like ghosts and kind of like freaked out about what's happening around them. What's playing the sad music? Oh, baby. Haley, you want to talk about Midna's Lament, the piano song for like 20 minutes? Because I will.

Speaker 6:
[73:02] It's the best song. It's the best Zelda song ever. Yeah. Midna gets flash banged and then she's she's like dying on top of you as a wolf and you got to run across Hyrule Field to get her back to the castle to save her and just the best piano song in the whole world plays. The only bad thing about that is if you encounter a moblin or whatever, it interrupts the music for you to fight them and it keeps going. If they took that out, it would be a thousand times better.

Speaker 1:
[73:28] I'll shut up. Is it something like this?

Speaker 6:
[73:33] I listen to this 12 hour loop with rain as I work all day. Literally just that over and over.

Speaker 1:
[73:39] It puts you in a good mood? Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[73:43] Imagine genuinely being worried about your partner and running through Hyrule at night. It's effective. Jacob, wasn't it?

Speaker 3:
[73:52] That is stupidly good. I know for the first time. It's very, very pretty.

Speaker 2:
[73:57] Janet, it's also not that hard to learn on piano.

Speaker 3:
[74:00] It doesn't sound that hard.

Speaker 2:
[74:01] Yeah, you can.

Speaker 3:
[74:02] That'll be right next to my Final Fantasy main theme I've been working on for way more longer than I'd want to admit.

Speaker 1:
[74:08] I can't go.

Speaker 2:
[74:09] Was it not an ICO composer who got who moved over to Nintendo after ICO? Oh, I don't know. But that would be very cool. I'm going to look that up because it was someone who was like, I mean, Kondo was still involved in Nintendo's people. But I remember reading that it was someone pulled from like, yeah, I thought it was Team ICO, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm making that up. Maybe it just reminded me of ICO so much. Like at the beginning of the game when you're on the castle rooftops and the music's kind of like digital almost, which is like, yeah, it has that weird like, yeah, like up to that point, you'd been like the pastoral life had been very beautiful. But it's like when things get dark, it gets kind of electronic and it really is bizarre in like a really like effective way. Like I know I've used that term already, but it's yeah, it the soundscape of the game is among my favorites in the Zelda series. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[75:04] So is it a thing of just going back and replaying it? It's just it's climbing the ranks for you, Kyle. Like, damn it, I really appreciate this.

Speaker 2:
[75:10] No, no, it's always been very high for me. It's not like moving up. It's just been like a wonderful reminder of like, I just really love this particular Zelda game. And like as much as I absolutely adore Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, I am kind of ready to be back on rails a little bit with Zelda. Like I don't ever want it to go in one direction completely. You know, I want it to always surprise me. And I don't know what I want from Zelda necessarily, you know. But yeah, no, it's just a really great game that holds up because it just tonally, it's really good.

Speaker 5:
[75:45] Yeah, I've been thinking about it. And I feel like very spoiled when it comes to Zelda games. Growing up from like Ocarina to Wind Waker to Twilight Princess. Unfortunately, Skyward Sword was there. And it's like, I got so used to the games kind of like wildly swinging in tones and like in tone and vibe whenever they came out. That going like Breath of the Wild, Two Tears of the Kingdom was kind of like jarring to me a little bit.

Speaker 6:
[76:08] I agree.

Speaker 5:
[76:09] You know, as someone who got so used to like everything and then Four Swords was in there, you know, it was all like so different. So, yeah, that was kind of a weird bump for me.

Speaker 1:
[76:17] Right. And it's like there's still the echoes of wisdom in there to try and process. But yeah, I hear you, it's going to be exciting to see them kind of tear off the new page and try and make something. It's like, this is why, unless you all have some ideas, this is why we're complete failures creatively, because I feel like, well, Zelda's done everything. I have no idea what the tone of a completely new Zelda game could be, you know? This is fun to imagine. I'm ready to be wowed by one of the best teams in the world.

Speaker 6:
[76:44] And our rated Zelda.

Speaker 5:
[76:45] No, Haley.

Speaker 2:
[76:47] It's the Breath of the Wild concept art where he's the biker.

Speaker 1:
[76:51] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[76:52] Oh, gosh.

Speaker 3:
[76:53] I was kind of thinking of, what if they did a sunset over drivey, cell shaded.

Speaker 1:
[77:00] He's parkouring.

Speaker 3:
[77:01] Yeah, like the odds are coming back. Maybe they're just throwing him into the 2001.

Speaker 1:
[77:06] Hell yeah. Oliver Klozoff, wait a minute. I shouldn't have said that name out loud. They wrote in to the podcast and we'll jump ahead for this one community question. They say, I started playing Twilight Princess recently, or as I call it, Twy Pry. And I was really put off by how bare the world is. I expected Nintendo would have taken lessons from the great work building worlds in Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, especially given how much more powerful the hardware was. Am I crazy for thinking that the world is really barren? They say no reviews mention this.

Speaker 2:
[77:39] I mean, is he just talking about Hyrule Field?

Speaker 6:
[77:42] Yeah, there's a corner in Hyrule Field where there's nothing to do.

Speaker 2:
[77:44] Hyrule Field is like big and empty, but it was in Ocarina of Time too. It was just smaller.

Speaker 6:
[77:50] It's just to make it feel like the castle's further away than Ordon Village. Like, that's why it's big.

Speaker 1:
[77:55] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[77:56] Also, after Wind Waker, which like I just again, like I just the sailing always is always just kind of dull to me because it's mostly just open ocean. And even the small islands that you come across don't really have a lot going on. So like to me, that was like that felt dense after after the Great Sea.

Speaker 1:
[78:15] Give me a tree for Christ's sake.

Speaker 6:
[78:16] They do things to break it up to where like every other time you come into Hyrule, the short the marching band guy with short shorts runs up to you and it's like, oh my god, I have a letter for you. You're like, yay. So like things happen on it, but not not exploratively, I suppose. Yeah, it is.

Speaker 2:
[78:32] I mean, and it's like it will like any Zelda that you played when you were a kid. It's like some of my most specific memories of the game are like me as a wolf running through Hyrule Field at night and it's playing the like very pretty sad Hyrule Field music. And it's like now I love that. That's an important moment of the game. And you only get that if it's an empty field. But that's just kind of me saying like, hey, you should have been a kid when you played this.

Speaker 1:
[79:00] You all messed up. Well, there we go. Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess. Is this like a full playthrough, Kyle? Or you just wanted to like soak in the world in the beginning and then color quits?

Speaker 2:
[79:11] Kind of a lovely soak. I just wanted to get to a dungeon. I wanted to play through a dungeon.

Speaker 6:
[79:25] I'm quiet.

Speaker 5:
[79:25] No one look at all this shit. Just keep on going.

Speaker 3:
[79:27] Just look up TwiPri and leave it at that.

Speaker 5:
[79:29] Yeah, I'm going to call it TwiPri from now on. Actually, it's growing on me.

Speaker 1:
[79:32] It's better. I don't know if I like TwiPri.

Speaker 2:
[79:33] Can we use our platform as a podcast that we know all the Nintendo executives listen to?

Speaker 1:
[79:38] Yeah, no problem.

Speaker 2:
[79:39] Just be like, you made an HD edition. What's happening? It's been like 12 years.

Speaker 1:
[79:46] I know it was.

Speaker 2:
[79:46] File, export to Switch 2. It's simple.

Speaker 6:
[79:50] It's so simple.

Speaker 1:
[79:51] Do you think if you were a gambling man, Kyle, if you had 2,000 bones in your pocket, you had to put it on one option, do you think this is coming to the GameCube servers first or HD version is releasing? Are they going to do the Wind Waker move here as well?

Speaker 6:
[80:04] Oh. I hated that.

Speaker 2:
[80:08] That one's extra weird, though, because the GameCube and the Wii versions are different. That's the other thing, I'm playing the GameCube version, which I've technically never played. Everything's backwards, everything's reversed.

Speaker 6:
[80:20] I've played it too, and it makes me feel insane. It makes me feel like I'm in a dream, and I'm misremembering my favorite game.

Speaker 1:
[80:26] That's cool.

Speaker 2:
[80:28] Does everyone knows, I don't know if maybe the listener doesn't know this, but the Wii version, they just literally mirrored it between the two. I mean, the idea is that because Link is left-handed, and you needed to play-

Speaker 6:
[80:40] But every single other person in the world is right-handed, according to Miyamoto.

Speaker 2:
[80:43] And they can't experience being something different. I don't know if it's that basic, right? That's always the assumption. It's like, well, they had to make Link right-handed, so they mirrored the whole game, but is that true?

Speaker 1:
[80:54] Do you think it's just something that Miyamoto, king of the left-handers, think he just mentioned off-hand, and they're like, no pun intended, and they're all like, all right, flip the entire game, I guess Miyamoto said he prefers it, and it's got to be that way.

Speaker 2:
[81:07] Can I another bet to make with you guys? When they release the HD version for the Switch 2 or 3, do you think it will be $60 or $70? It won't be the $50 that it released at. To answer your original question though, Ben, I'm going to put my 2,000 bones on Twilight Princess HD on Switch 2 before it comes to the online.

Speaker 6:
[81:32] I would agree with that guess.

Speaker 2:
[81:34] And maybe it's just me pushing it in the direction I prefer, but I think that will happen first. I think they wanted a Zelda there day one for Switch 2, but I don't think...

Speaker 6:
[81:45] Will it be... Here's a question, Kyle. Will it be the Wii version original not flipped since it will have motion controls likely? Or the GameCube flip version, because they think more people will play it as a controller?

Speaker 2:
[81:58] Well, it will be the Wii U version, which was the GameCube version.

Speaker 1:
[82:02] Is that right, you guys?

Speaker 6:
[82:04] I actually don't know. Is the Wii U version? I think that's where I played it, and it was GameCube version on Wii U, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[82:08] Okay, yeah. I think HD is the GameCube version.

Speaker 6:
[82:11] Most recently.

Speaker 2:
[82:12] So it's that version, the Wii U version.

Speaker 1:
[82:16] Yeah, but I bet, Jacob, you're right, it's tying to the movie. I bet they're going to have a Direct later that's going to be like the Zelda 40th anniversary Nintendo Direct, and it would be like first teaser trailer for the movie, and then, God willing, well, the Ocarina of Time remake, in theory.

Speaker 6:
[82:31] A bunch of amiibos or something.

Speaker 1:
[82:33] Yeah, here's 14 amiibos, enjoy everybody. We're going to put you on an FBI list, if you're still buying this crap. But then also it's like, would they have the audacity to also be like, here's HD versions of Wind Waker and Twilight Princess. Like, if not now, when, you know? It's the anniversary.

Speaker 6:
[82:49] They'll probably do that Mario thing where they combine them in a pack.

Speaker 3:
[82:53] Literally, same. Yeah, that's my vote. It's going to be two in a pack. I feel like in a more cursed way, it's going to be Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword. So there's one that you didn't really want, but you had to get it anyway. And if you buy them individually, they're 40 bucks a piece because that's what they are. They love doing that. So I feel like they'd have to follow that. It would be a little weird to price it like way higher, but they can kind of do whatever they want because they made Mario and Zelda.

Speaker 1:
[83:16] So jokes on us.

Speaker 3:
[83:18] Unfortunately, they can do whatever they want to me.

Speaker 1:
[83:20] Yeah. Jacob, all right. Do you want to, for the first time in like a week, stop talking to each other and you can clap out and go enjoy your life?

Speaker 2:
[83:28] I don't know how to be on my own anymore.

Speaker 3:
[83:29] I wish I could, but I know you'll miss each other.

Speaker 1:
[83:32] I was saying, Jacob stepped up in a thousand ways. I was so appreciative of him being on this trip. He did a great job overall, and especially like, Jacob, travel alpha this trip for every Uber, navigating the trains, he was leading the way, and it is such a sigh of relief to be like, I'm just going to follow this person in front of me and not worry about this entire aspect of traveling internationally, it's huge.

Speaker 2:
[83:55] There was one day when we were going to make a train, and I said, I want to take the Madrid Metro. I think I understand it, it's really cool and easy. And then we did miss the stop, and we had to like take an Uber back, but we made the train, so it was all fine.

Speaker 1:
[84:09] That's right, and as I explained in the travelog, I am so chill when that type of thing happens, because like, hey, I wasn't stepping up and saying this is the wrong way. I wasn't looking at a map this entire time, so I can not say a word. But okay, Jacob, go spend time with your wife.

Speaker 2:
[84:23] Jacob, before you go, I just want to follow up. I did Google it, and so the trailer music for Twilight Princess, when it was revealed at E3, was composed by Michiro Oshima, who did the music for Iko. Awesome. I had no idea. But is he involved in the whole game, or just kind of the trailer music? I think it might have just been arranging the trailer music, maybe. I'd have to look into it more, but I knew there was some connection that I couldn't quite remember. So that's what it was. Isn't it crazy that Zelda has that thing where the best song will be in the trailer and then it's not even in the game? Yeah. Because that's true of Breath of the Wild as well, where it's like, oh my God, that song. And that's nowhere in the game. OK, bye.

Speaker 1:
[85:03] OK, bye.

Speaker 2:
[85:04] Bye.

Speaker 1:
[85:05] Oh, pretty smooth. OK, bye. For real, though. Seamless.

Speaker 5:
[85:11] So if Zelda Twilight Princess is Twi Pry, is Wind Waker Weehaw?

Speaker 1:
[85:15] Of course it's Weehaw.

Speaker 5:
[85:16] Zelda Weehaw?

Speaker 1:
[85:17] You guys weren't saying Weehaw? Zelda Weehaw? Come on now. Just like we said, Weehaw? What is this game? One of the best looking games I've ever seen in my life? Hozy? Ha-ha-hazy?

Speaker 6:
[85:28] Hozy sounds right, because it's supposed to be like cozy. It's hozier.

Speaker 1:
[85:32] OK, something like that. OK, so Hazel's been playing it, Jen's been playing it, Sarah, have you got a chance to check this out?

Speaker 5:
[85:37] Yeah, I jumped in.

Speaker 1:
[85:37] Sweet.

Speaker 5:
[85:38] For a little bit.

Speaker 1:
[85:39] What is it? A little house building game that just looks unbelievable?

Speaker 6:
[85:43] Oh, it just feels so good to my brain, cracks to play this. I love games like this. You clean the floor. There's so much attention to detail and how things get clean that while cleaning it, while I'm completely sedentary, sitting on my butt in a messy apartment, I just feel amazing. Like when you wash the floor, the mop moves like a mop, like it doesn't quite turn the way you want it to turn and stuff like that.

Speaker 5:
[86:06] You know those like weird head massagers that are all like wiry?

Speaker 6:
[86:09] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5:
[86:10] And they use them at the mall. It feels like that on my head. Like in my brain when I play this game. It's basically a like clean up decorate game where like you're given a room and it's really dirty and you have to like you know wipe the floors, pick up the trash, wipe the windows, paint it, decorate it. And then it's basically unpacking where you get a bunch of boxes and then you unpack and you arrange the furniture however you want.

Speaker 3:
[86:33] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[86:34] Oh, that's perfect. So like nice and simple. Like what was that other game we just talked about a couple months ago, Sarah, that you're really into as well. That was a bunch of organizing all those houses.

Speaker 3:
[86:42] Something of the house.

Speaker 5:
[86:43] Yeah. Whisper of the house. It's very similar to that. But I think that's a little bit bigger. And this I think is much more like you must live in the moment of Zen. Like they really don't want you to rush this game.

Speaker 6:
[86:55] They say it up front.

Speaker 5:
[86:56] They're like slow down. They say do not rush.

Speaker 6:
[86:58] Chill out.

Speaker 1:
[87:00] Please don't get a Steam refund after a while.

Speaker 5:
[87:02] We really want you to take your time.

Speaker 6:
[87:03] Literally though.

Speaker 3:
[87:04] There's something about this. They're so valid for that. On that note, one thing I think they fumbled on is you can, you can accidentally click the finish button, which that happened to me on the third level. And the way I was streaming it, I scream crashed out as if it was a game that had a fail state. Because in my mind, that was the fail state, not finishing decorating. Luckily, you can go back because I was like, if they don't let me go back and I have this garbage looking artist studio, I'm going to lose my mind. But yeah, it looks really beautiful. To add to what y'all are already saying, Sarah, I think you were getting at this. They add a bit of physics to most, if not all items. Specifically, it's really nice when you have stuff that has weight to it. One of the first place you clean and then decorate is like a catch-all room. It has a TV, it has a drawing desk, it has a fireplace, and it has a beanbag chair. And when you lift up the beanbag chair, all the weight is held at the bottom. And then when you drop it down, it floops and lightly unfurrows in a way that's just really nice. And I know that might, I don't know, sound silly to people who don't play these types of games, but this is the kind of analysis and thought that goes into not just making these games, but also appreciating and discussing them and breaking them down beyond just like, I don't know, you put stuff in places. It's so much more than that.

Speaker 1:
[88:31] It's the feel of it. And even just compared to a more 2D game, which I think Whispers of the House was, like Pixel Art, right? I'm trying to remember. But having 3D models here, we can just have the sun beaming through the window. It feels like you should be able to see the dust kind of flying around the room a little bit.

Speaker 5:
[88:46] Yeah, you can see the dust modes in the air. This is one of those games that I'm, you want to crank the graphics all the way up. I got my 5070 pumping out here. Because when you mop, the water appears and it slowly dries on the floor and it dries. And it dries.

Speaker 2:
[89:04] I like this as the metric now instead of crisis.

Speaker 1:
[89:08] Yeah, everything should be compared to, does it look as good as Hozy? Do I want to like eat it? Do I want to eat this video game?

Speaker 2:
[89:16] I'm going to lick that dust off of me.

Speaker 6:
[89:18] When you peel the plastic off a new piece of tech, the game, that's what you feel over and over and over and over for hours.

Speaker 1:
[89:25] So I mean, we've described it with every superlative possible. Is this just going to be game of the year or is it just like a cool novelty that is good on our brain for a couple of hours?

Speaker 6:
[89:35] It's a good novelty that's good on your brain for a couple of hours.

Speaker 1:
[89:37] Oh yeah, and God bless it for it.

Speaker 3:
[89:38] I mean, I think there's a world where, I mean, I don't want to evoke the 210s. There's a world where I could be in the 210s. It is a very well made game. And I think the only, I think there's two bigger dings against it. It doesn't have much for story and it isn't terribly long. But I don't think it needs either of those things. So I also feel like it's silly to ding it for that. But I think that is worth at least acknowledging because the number one thing people ask is like, so is it like unpacking and it isn't like unpacking that you are unpacking boxes, but it's not nearly like it's not puzzly like unpacking is. It's not story like unpacking is. It simply is a game where it's fun to take stuff out of a box. So I do want to caution people against being like, oh, well, is it like that? You might like both of those games, but you're going to like them for different reasons.

Speaker 1:
[90:30] Yeah, yeah, I totally get it. Yeah, it's $15 bucks on Steam. TinyBuild is the publisher, and then ComeOn Studio is the developer of Hozy. But that's cool. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. I just want to look at it all day. I just want to have it like-

Speaker 3:
[90:44] Can we also acknowledge little things it does that so many decorating games don't do? I can place a chair over a rug. Thank God. Because you would like so many, and I understand the coding challenges of this, even though I don't actually understand because I haven't coded it myself. But it's like I get why this isn't more widespread. But the frustration of like, well, the rug is its own asset, so it can't overlap with this other asset, even though in real life, obviously, I'm putting stuff over rugs. There's a lot of things that are stackable, and they're not just stackable in I coded so that I could put a mug on a table. You could put the mug on the pumpkin. You can put the pumpkin on another pumpkin. Now, you can't line them up perfectly, which I did find frustrating because I wanted to make a Jack O'Lantern stack and you can't. But it has a lot of little stuff like that. It's more than just like, it is pretty. It is well thought how the assets function. You can click on things to interact and you get the room of the motorcycle and certain things have light fixtures that you're not expecting. It has a lot of those other elements that add to the satisfaction and joy of creating the space because they give you the tools necessary to have enough power to bring your vision to life, which is the point of games like this.

Speaker 6:
[92:01] I weirdly thought of Max Payne when I was clicking things to make sounds like I do in Max Payne.

Speaker 1:
[92:08] Wait, just clicking things to make sounds?

Speaker 2:
[92:10] Can you explain that a little bit more?

Speaker 6:
[92:11] In Max Payne, if you walk up to something and interact with it, it'll be like ding ding, like you're a child playing with a little children's toy and that's exactly what you do in Hozy.

Speaker 2:
[92:21] Okay. Is there also a dead child crying in the distance?

Speaker 6:
[92:25] No, and Sam Lake's not in this one either, but that's some differences too.

Speaker 3:
[92:29] Things that will be a point against Hozy when it comes to the end of the year.

Speaker 6:
[92:32] Sam Lake all of a sudden started dancing in one of the rooms, Game of the Year.

Speaker 3:
[92:36] You have to use all the stuff. So many decorating games are like, here's your stuff you have to decorate with, you have to put it all in here, you can move it outside and like kind of re-box it up, which is a big deal to me. I don't know if it is, maybe it's not there by the way else, but like, I should be excited, Janet.

Speaker 6:
[92:50] I like that I didn't have to use everything.

Speaker 1:
[92:52] God, I'm frantically trying to look at where the studio is from because I'm like, this feels Finnish. This could also be in Finland feels.

Speaker 5:
[92:59] It definitely, yeah, you can tell that it's like, it's giving European.

Speaker 1:
[93:02] Yeah, yeah. Well, there we go. Hozy is the name of that game. And Kyle, you know what's cozy?

Speaker 2:
[93:13] Some kind of advertisement?

Speaker 6:
[93:14] A Twilight Soak.

Speaker 1:
[93:19] No, no advertisement here, Kyle. It's just some URLs are cozy if you try them in your browser, like for example, patreon.com/minnmax with two n's, which is where, you know, we're not telling you to do nothing, but if you want to just check it out, see if there's a benefit tier that's right for you. If you want to unlock early ad free versions of The MinnMax Show and support us directly, unlock the bonus podcast feed and listen to Haley each and every week with bonus pod. You can do that at the $5 tier. You want to try it for a month. If you like what MinnMax is, what we're trying to grow into, you can jump in and support it. We'd appreciate it. Just like we appreciate some of our biggest supporters, like the one, the only, IM8Bit. This is why...

Speaker 6:
[93:55] What about their wonderful online store?

Speaker 1:
[93:56] Their wonderful online store is great, and they have such good stuff in there, and they partner with the best of the best, including... This is fun. We just talked about this. You can get the Super Mario Galaxy soundtrack at IM8Bit in their wonderful online store. You can preorder it now. The preorders close May 4th. But if you want that soundtrack on CD...

Speaker 6:
[94:17] Great music in that movie.

Speaker 1:
[94:18] Oh, my God. Especially some music in particular that I guess is a spoiler that we won't mention, but hearing that in the theater, I cannot wait to have that vinyl. It's going to be so freaking fun. So get it on a little cassette. Whatever you want, you can preorder it now. It is the highlight of the entire film. So Super Mario Galaxy soundtrack, preorder it through IM8Bit. Check out their wonderful online store where they have so many other wonderful things, and you can use the promo code FIREFLOWERS. Very appropriate. FIREFLOWERS, no space, all caps of course, for 10% off of everything in their online store, not including preorders, not including Atlas stuff, everything else so you can get 10% off if it's under $100. And you should help support IM8Bit because they support the MinnMax community in a huge way. Some would say a big bad way by shipping in a prize each and every week. Whoever submits our favorite question over on Patreon. If you support us at any tier on Patreon, you can submit a question. We choose our favorite. This week, that person wins the vinyl soundtrack for Spiral Bound thanks to IM8Bit. So here we go. Look alive. We got Alon Zwick writing in. They say, after seeing some reviews, is Pragmata the most dad game ever? What do you all think are the top three dad games?

Speaker 6:
[95:31] God of War.

Speaker 1:
[95:32] Is it just starring a dad, so like God of War, Last of Us? Would that count?

Speaker 2:
[95:37] God of War more so than Last of Us, for sure.

Speaker 1:
[95:39] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[95:41] But my thing with this was, cause I posted like what my, my Bluesky review was like a dad ass game for dads, you know?

Speaker 1:
[95:48] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[95:49] And it's not even necessarily just because of Diana. It's also the space stuff. I just feel like that's like a, like, I don't know, dads of our age, Ben. I feel like we're just into like science fiction and going to space and stuff, you know? And 3D printers, you know?

Speaker 1:
[96:05] It is, you need to really be into 3D printers too, love Pragmata.

Speaker 3:
[96:09] You really clocked it with a 3D printer.

Speaker 5:
[96:11] Yeah, there's a real, I can see the vision. Man, I wish I was a dad.

Speaker 3:
[96:14] And I say that with a 3D printer in my home.

Speaker 1:
[96:16] It's not too late, Sarah. You can have one of my kids and get into 3D printing. It's pretty sweet.

Speaker 3:
[96:21] I think if most women could be dads, they would.

Speaker 6:
[96:23] And I'm just like, yeah, that's a good point. I'd be a dad if I could, but I do not want to be a mom.

Speaker 3:
[96:27] But like, that sounds awesome.

Speaker 5:
[96:29] Sounds a lot easier than the alternative.

Speaker 1:
[96:31] It is pretty good. It is the least fair thing on planet Earth, for sure. What about, like, are there any dad games that, like, don't star a dad or the narrative involves a dad? Like, for me, like, Age of Empires, Sarah, I feel like you haven't called this before. It's like the most dad-ass series.

Speaker 5:
[96:46] It's giving, like, when you're younger and you go into the basement of the family computer and, like, the dad is sitting there playing a game and it's probably Age of Empires. Like, you look at the screen and you're like, what is that?

Speaker 1:
[96:55] Yeah, what is that?

Speaker 5:
[96:56] Because, like, that happened to me growing up. Like, you know, the dad's playing his video game or, like, the older brother, and it's always some civilization-like game where there's lots of little armies.

Speaker 1:
[97:04] Yep, overhead camera.

Speaker 6:
[97:06] Weirdly enough, my dad's game that I think of, because it's the only game I have a memory of my dad playing on our PC in our little house in the basement, was Twinsons Odyssey, which is the oldest game ever.

Speaker 1:
[97:16] Twinsons Odyssey.

Speaker 6:
[97:18] And it's like this old PC game. No, it's, and, like, you fight with your remote, like, you make Twinsons angry and then he can throw rocks or you make him happy and then he can talk to people. It was a weird game. But I remember sitting on his lap.

Speaker 2:
[97:30] Wait, how do you spell this? I gotta make sure you're not making this up.

Speaker 1:
[97:32] It is the worst-looking character models I've ever seen in my life.

Speaker 3:
[97:34] It's so old.

Speaker 6:
[97:36] One of my first memories of sitting on his lap just staring at the screen and playing Twinsons Odyssey, and he's never played another video game in front of me ever in my whole life. Just this one Twinsons Odyssey.

Speaker 1:
[97:45] Geez, have you looked at these characters recently, Haley? This is like Veggie Tales on meth.

Speaker 6:
[97:49] It took me 10 years to figure out what this game was because he didn't remember. I was like, what's the game? And it's a guy, he has a bun and he's a weird, great dragon. It's kind of claymation, but it's probably just old. And he didn't know. And it took me 10 years and then someone randomly was like, I think that's Twinsons Odyssey. And I looked at it and I had an aneurysm. I was like, that's it. Like my child brain from.

Speaker 5:
[98:07] I'm surprised that you continued playing games after seeing this. This is what somebody showed me was a video game. I would never touch a video game in my life.

Speaker 2:
[98:16] That literally happened to Haley's father, as we've learned.

Speaker 1:
[98:19] He was turned off from this crap forever.

Speaker 3:
[98:22] Yeah, little things that we're doing with us now, is talking about Twinsons Odyssey, which you are, I guess, actually.

Speaker 6:
[98:28] He's like, how have you built a career around Twinsons Odyssey?

Speaker 2:
[98:31] You got to play this for New Show Plus. You can get both games for 15 bucks on Steam.

Speaker 6:
[98:34] I would love to play this, because I don't know what the heck happens. I remember a woman gets really mad at him in some... I remember he went to a building and this big woman kind of giving sassy bartenders, and got mad at him. I remember getting a little scared. I was that little that just a character going, wabba wabba, scared me. I was like, turn it off. How old was it? When did it come out?

Speaker 1:
[98:59] We all remember the day when Twinsons Odyssey came out.

Speaker 6:
[99:02] Well, you're Googling it.

Speaker 1:
[99:03] That's why I'm asking.

Speaker 6:
[99:03] I don't think you know what's on your head.

Speaker 1:
[99:05] I don't know, I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[99:06] The game says 97, but I don't know what that date corresponds to.

Speaker 6:
[99:09] It's out of it four years old.

Speaker 2:
[99:12] Well, actually, it says the description for the game says released. Well, I'm looking at the sequel, actually. So maybe that's a little crazy that this is the most dad game I never would have thought. No, it is 100 percent.

Speaker 6:
[99:24] This is actually the most dad game ever made, Twinsons Odyssey.

Speaker 1:
[99:28] Chandler writes in, they say, are you all strictly shoes off at the door kind of households?

Speaker 6:
[99:35] I'm asked, Americans?

Speaker 5:
[99:36] Yes, yes. No, I'm tired of this. I'm tired. I I'm sick of it. I'm sick of people thinking that all Americans wear their shoes in their house. I'm tired of people ask, like coming up to me and acting like this is some weird cultural thing.

Speaker 6:
[99:48] I've talked to so many Americans who say they do.

Speaker 5:
[99:49] Nobody wears their shoes in their house.

Speaker 1:
[99:51] Nobody? Nobody do.

Speaker 3:
[99:53] I think most people don't.

Speaker 5:
[99:54] I've never seen anyone wear shoes in their house. That wasn't like a specific indoor shoes because they have bad feet or whatever.

Speaker 3:
[100:01] When people come over, I don't make them, I kind of like leave it to them if they want to take their shoes off. Because also I feel like my floors aren't clean enough to make you take your shoes off, you know, like a cat. It's like, you know, if you don't want to leave your shoes on, that's like fine. Because I don't have like visitors that often anyway, except for my brother, because he comes over often enough. He has, I got him a pair of Crocs to wear inside when he's like over. But like if y'all came to like my apartment, you said, oh, she's on me. Oh yeah, if you want. And if you'd left them on, I wouldn't be like, what kind of jerk is that? I'm like, yeah, it's not that deep. I'll mop after. It's fine. You're here once every couple years. But yeah, we have cow slippers, chocolate.

Speaker 6:
[100:40] I've never seen that. Like here, if you wear your shoes past the front door, you're rude. Like no matter what.

Speaker 1:
[100:46] Really? Okay, what about hardwood flooring, main floor? Like I think I'm in Janet's camp. I'm just kind of like, if you want to leave them on, leave them on. If you want to take them off, take them off. I don't think I care too much.

Speaker 6:
[100:56] If you're coming in to like drop off a water filter for five seconds. Yeah, but if you're coming in to hang, you're not going to be like a dog scooting around the carpets or stepping on hardwood or something, right? You would just take them off.

Speaker 1:
[101:07] I guess so. I don't know. I bet even like my carpet upstairs, I bet if I had company and just like bring the shoes, I don't think I would mind.

Speaker 6:
[101:14] I would feel insane. I would say go back down, take your shoes off.

Speaker 1:
[101:18] Is it just like Japan, Sarah, this like got baked into your head because everyone's always-

Speaker 5:
[101:21] No, we've always been a shoes off household.

Speaker 1:
[101:22] Okay.

Speaker 5:
[101:23] What are you guys, animals?

Speaker 1:
[101:24] That's what I'm saying. You know, unless it's like a muddy ass day, everyone's shoes are typically fine.

Speaker 3:
[101:30] I agree though that the reason people think Americans don't take their shoes off is because when we go to school, we don't take our shoes off at school. That's the reason people think Americans just don't take their shoes off. Because like in Japan, you have your shoes inside the school shoes. We don't have school shoes. So thus part of the world said, oh, so you guys just don't take your shoes off inside. It's like inside is only inside when it's my home. So inside the school that's outside to us. And I don't think I could have been any clearer.

Speaker 1:
[102:05] No, no, you did not stutter. We understand exactly what you're saying.

Speaker 3:
[102:09] When I go to school, I'm outside.

Speaker 6:
[102:10] I don't take off my shoes at school, but homes are, and like schools are made with no carpet in them to account for that because it would suck to have kids trampling around with their shoes in school. But then at home, well, you know, past the 90s, I'm sure before that you had carpet everywhere. But like school is not your house where you live and are naked walking around and could get sick.

Speaker 1:
[102:32] What?

Speaker 3:
[102:33] What?

Speaker 1:
[102:33] It's kind of cesspool. You live in Canada.

Speaker 6:
[102:34] I said that weird.

Speaker 1:
[102:37] You think you're just walking through peepee and poo poo on your way into every house? Like feet are-

Speaker 6:
[102:42] If you walk across the grass, you stepped probably on a little bit of dog pee, guaranteed as a dog owner. My dog pee is all over the place. I can't see the pee.

Speaker 1:
[102:49] You get a little, little mat for scraping. You give a nice couple scrapes right when you walk inside, you wipe your butt on it.

Speaker 6:
[102:54] If you had pee on your hand, if you had pee on your hand, would you rub it against something and then touch your baby? Would you rub it against your mat on the ground?

Speaker 1:
[103:01] How dare you bring my baby girl into this?

Speaker 6:
[103:03] That's because that's the stakes, is a little baby girl getting sick if we have our shoes on.

Speaker 1:
[103:10] I make my baby wear shoes all the time in the house.

Speaker 6:
[103:13] Well, that's just cute.

Speaker 1:
[103:14] Yeah, it's adorable. Cass Wilkinson Seldanya writes in, they say, the announcement of Sunset Visitor's new capture-powered game, Prove Your Human, inspired me to replay 1,000 times Resist. It's taken me many years to discover the joy in returning to media. For me, it's usually the second play or watch or read that means the most to me. Sure enough, I'm out here crying even more at this dang beautiful game. So for the group, do you replay games? What have you learned about yourself as a replayer of games? Yeah, we should mention it. I think, forget if we mentioned it in last week's episode, but there was a Triple I Initiative Showcase last week, which was an awesome, awesome showcase of indie games. And we did a Reactions stream, if you want to check it out on YouTube. But the next game from the developers of 1000 Times Resist was revealed, and it's called Prove You're Human, which looks awesome. And then when they started introducing some full motion video stuff, it went from like, looks great to like, okay, if that's the double layer here is we're also working with real live video even more than they did in 1000 Times Resist, I can't wait. But yeah, also Haley is involved in those games, full disclosure.

Speaker 6:
[104:19] I'm Sunset's lawyer, so I don't do anything to make the game.

Speaker 2:
[104:22] I just help them.

Speaker 1:
[104:23] Sign paperwork. That's all.

Speaker 6:
[104:25] Sign paperwork.

Speaker 1:
[104:26] But in terms of replaying games, I mean, guess Kyle, I mean, with Twilight Princess, you kind of already hit that.

Speaker 2:
[104:32] Yeah. I mean, I replay the beginnings of a lot of games, I find. I do like to kind of like, I wish, I was thinking about this the other day because the Halo Master Chief collection, had like a system in it, I guess you could say, or like an option in it where you could just like, it would put together like playlists of like random levels for you.

Speaker 1:
[104:52] That's so cool.

Speaker 2:
[104:52] I wish like more like remasters like did that, in the sense where it's like, why don't you want to just jump into the like the last third of the game? Like, yeah, here's a save, like go for it. Like I, because like even Twilight Princess would have been a great, you know, like revisiting it recently, it would have been awesome to be like, yeah, let me go to like the third dungeon. Like, you know, that'd be fun. But I do find myself, I'll replay Zelda, weirdly, like when Minish Cap came to Switch, I was like, oh, let me boot up Minish Cap. And I played through the whole thing, you know. But I mean, it's pretty rare that I intentionally sit down and replay a full game just for fun.

Speaker 1:
[105:28] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[105:30] How about you guys?

Speaker 5:
[105:32] I feel like I need, yeah, like a certain amount of time to lapse. And I feel like I only really replay games that I played in my youth. Right. So it's like I replayed like Botan Kytos recently, because as an adult, I understand those mechanics so much better than I did when I was a child. Like a lot of JRPGs, like I redo and I'm like, oh, OK, this is, you know, how this was supposed to work on like the 10th tutorial. Like I finally, yeah, when my things actually click in my brain. Other than that, I only replay if I'm playing with like like a mod or something. Like I recently did like Elden Ring multiplayer, you know, like I've I've replayed Elden Ring only twice, one for the DLC, like if a DLC is coming out, I might replay a game to like prepare for the DLC. Or yeah, or if there's like a mod that I'm really interested in, I'll use it as like an excuse to replay the game.

Speaker 1:
[106:18] Yeah. How was the multiplayer experience for Elden Ring?

Speaker 5:
[106:21] For Elden Ring? I think it was really good. I think it's, you know, it's really well done where like you don't, you know, you each can die separately and like revive and then it kind of like debuffs you until you sit at a bonfire. Not as buggy as I thought it was going to be. The boss fights are obviously easier with two people, but I think they did a good, an okay job. Like they think they scaled the help on some bosses and stuff. So it was nice because you can, you know, play other builds and stuff.

Speaker 1:
[106:47] Yeah.

Speaker 6:
[106:49] I replay a ton of stuff. Less so since I joined MinnMax, like now that I'm trying to play new hotness to be helpful on the podcast. But nowadays it's mostly just games I played when I was a kid. But I used to replay other games all the time. Recently, I replayed. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[107:06] I was going to bring up. You played Urb, Sims in the City on Game Boy Advance? That's lunacy.

Speaker 6:
[107:12] I'm having a really good cathartic experience with, I'm saving it for future thing, but the AOA and Thor is great for this. I'm just playing games when I was a kid, and I couldn't beat them because I was a dumb kid. Coming back, like Sarah was saying, with my frontal lobe developed, I'm being like, this is so easy, oh my God. But having the nostalgia and actually being able to beat them. So I beat him, Taro's Ham Ham Heartbreak. I never beat that as a kid. I couldn't get in the castle. It felt insane. And then when I played it, I just had to talk to one hamster and he let me in.

Speaker 1:
[107:37] Oh, you cryptic sphinx. How do I get in here?

Speaker 2:
[107:41] I was like, let me in.

Speaker 6:
[107:44] This hamster was like, if you go this way, you'll get in. I was like, damn it.

Speaker 3:
[107:47] Where were you?

Speaker 6:
[107:48] He probably told me that. And then Herb Simpson's City, I beat and it was so easy, but it was just so nostalgic. My sister and I played that in the DS like crazy. And I beat daddy big bucks and I felt great. And then I'm replaying all the Pokemon because it's the 30th anniversary. But that's just kind of like a, those are easy to replay, the old Game Boy Advance ones and Game Boy Color ones.

Speaker 1:
[108:11] Well, you sold me on that too. And yeah, we're going to be talking about the Thor in a future episode here. But you're talking about playing those old Pokemon games where you can fast forward with this thing. It's like, oh my God.

Speaker 6:
[108:22] I finally caught a Chansey in FireRed, thanks to that, because Chansey has like a 4% spawn in the Safari Zone. And then she has like a 58% chance to flee. And as a kid, I went insane trying to get her. I probably wouldn't have even used her on my team. And I finally caught her, because I was just speed hacking and running back and forth until I got her.

Speaker 1:
[108:37] I'm going to be able to use a kid just like some Lovecraftian horror, like Chansey, what have you done?

Speaker 6:
[108:42] Well, she shows up, and you're supposed to throw food at her. So she goes, num num. But half the time you throw food, she just runs. And the other half, you throw food, you throw the ball eight times, then she leaves anyways. It's insane. It's so hard to count. That's why she's called Chansey. Because it's a chance to catch her.

Speaker 2:
[108:56] Yo, wait.

Speaker 6:
[108:58] That's why.

Speaker 3:
[108:59] Well, they say that in the game.

Speaker 6:
[109:00] They go, it's always a chance. See, like some guy says who has one or something. And I was like, that's why.

Speaker 3:
[109:05] I'm reading in those games. I'm kind of just glancing over the words, you know, like, if it's important, they'll tell me again.

Speaker 2:
[109:12] They'll make that word a different color.

Speaker 3:
[109:14] Yeah, exactly. But it's funny, because like there's that's how Pokemon is, though, like I started replaying. I'm not doing it very far, because I'm like, I don't feel like putting on all the work, like leaf green because they came out on the eShop. So I replay when Nintendo usually presents me a reason to replay through the remasters or whatever. And then same as y'all, like heavily childhood, like I don't replay a lot of games, but the games I replay, I replay like a lot ish. Like Jagged Exter, I've replayed a bunch. A lot of times, just the beginning just to taste it, you know, fight the depression off a little bit, you know, keep keep at another day of the counter, you know, like, but sometimes I will go like full through it. Sunshine is another one that I love to replay. Like I said, like I sat down the last time I replayed it, super close to my TV at the time, the GameCube, and I felt like I was just like on summer vacation that I made myself. Stuff like that's really fun. And then a couple of other games I replay. Those are kind of the main ones. It's like if if someone if a studio presents me with like a new way to replay, I'll do it. But I'm not doing a lot of, oh, I played this game as a kid. I'm going to replay it except for like my super favorites, like Mario 64, Yoshi's Island.

Speaker 2:
[110:24] Yeah, it's like a lot of Mega Man X for me. I still probably play through Mega Man X like once a year, just on some random platform, whatever I happen to have in front of me.

Speaker 1:
[110:33] Sorry, chat's lighting up Kyle saying stop talking about Mega Man X. It's a bad game. And I heard it's one of the 25 games you should play. Interesting. I don't know if I heard that. I guess like the game I've replayed more than any other in my life is Sunset Riders on the arcade, like average since age seven, I would say I have average beating that game at least twice per year. Like because I just have it on the arcade. And so I just like every summer it's like, all right, this is just the summer rituals. I need to play through this game. And everyone's from like, would it be a fun deepest dive? Like I just, I know it so well, but there's not that much to talk about yourself in an empty room. It really would feel like that. I'm like, let's talk about the American West. Like it'd be such a blessing.

Speaker 2:
[111:12] It'd be a lot of us as guests being like, oh, yeah, that's crazy, man.

Speaker 6:
[111:15] Yeah, and then in summer, oh, too. I beat it.

Speaker 1:
[111:21] But no, I am with it where it feels like there's like a part of my childhood that's flawed because of those games that I got stuck in, you know, thinking about like, oh, there was a puzzle in Garfield caught in the act on Game Gear that was about like moving totem poles that I was like, well, this is impossible. Like no human being can get past this. And I want to know as an adult, could I do it?

Speaker 3:
[111:43] Can we do it for New Show Plus? It would be hard to recreate the exact moment, but just like everyone picked their game that they were too dumb to play as a kid. And then you just kind of play it. That was me in Dark Cloud, a game that I got for no reason. I think my mom just randomly bought it for me, not something she would normally do. I don't really know how we had this. And me and my brother who like, Edwin, I'm going to expose you here because you're six years older than me. Like we got really stuck in like the first thing you have to do. Like it was just go through a door and I just didn't know like, I think we just had to talk to the hamster. That seems true. I tried everything but talk to the hamster. It was one of those things where like when you played a genre outside of your wheelhouse as a kid, it was like it made no sense. Like the reason I get stuck in a lot of games as a kid, it's because my games were like easy peasy platformers. It's like, I don't know, you just go, you get the thing. I was like, oh, wait, there's a door. I'm like, I don't know that I can interact with this. But it was easy if you grew up on, you know what I mean? So it's like, no, that was so confusing. I played it as an adult and I'm like, I didn't know to open the door. What am I, an 80? Dark Cloud is weird.

Speaker 1:
[112:46] Cause it's all like town building and stuff too. So you have to like place the town and talk to people in the town. It's like, I totally get being stuck.

Speaker 3:
[112:52] And like, what do I have to do? We just never went back.

Speaker 5:
[112:54] But sometimes you're like, am I dumb or was the game poorly made? Cause I do feel like a lot of those games I played as a kid were like slop games for kids. And they're always like, it's for kids. Like they didn't really have like a defined gaming for kids back then, I feel like. It's just kind of like, I don't know, just feed them slop. It doesn't matter. Like it breaks after three hours, but you know, no, they won't notice.

Speaker 3:
[113:17] I hate children. That Bluey game got dragged for like having a lot of mess in it as well.

Speaker 5:
[113:22] Sometimes I find that kids games are deceptively difficult because they're not designed well, because people are like shrug, it's for kids.

Speaker 3:
[113:31] Yeah, like who cares? You were never going to beat it anyway. And I was like, you don't know that. You gave me a good game, I could have beaten that. Exactly.

Speaker 1:
[113:38] Okay, no one be scared. Haley, don't be scared. But somebody wrote in named Bad Monster Man. Oh my god. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's just a name. So Bad Monster Man writes in. They said, I can't believe it's Minos Week. And we don't have Jeffem to give us his tasty insight. Oh, he was here. He just left Bad Monster Man. It's okay. They say, howdy y'all. I would like to ask, what is the most rewarding or sweetest moment you've had from fans? At a meetup, convention or just being out in the town? You know, when you're out in the town and swarmed by adoring fans.

Speaker 3:
[114:10] In dark cloud, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[114:11] Yeah, in dark cloud. Build it and let them worship you. Yeah, I mean, it's nice just having the Spanish meetup where it feels so much more internationally. I guess if it's just been Brazil and now Spain. But like it is so sweet to know that like, oh, there's an international audience. And there was one person there. Well, first of all, the Pew Pew Bank stickers that we had on the table, they went fast. They were like hotcakes. Everybody here. Including like, there was another art event in the space we were at. And it had like a more senior crowd. And I noticed like a bunch of women, like older women, were also grabbing Pew Pew Bank stickers. They would come look at the MinnMax stickers and Pew Pew Bank stickers. And without any context, they're all just grabbing Pew Pew Bank stickers and walking out with it.

Speaker 3:
[114:56] Thank you, Queen. The branding, it works.

Speaker 5:
[114:57] Yeah, our logo's good.

Speaker 1:
[114:59] Mission accomplished. But yeah, it's very sweet. People give us stuff which you absolutely do not have to do, do not feel any pressure, please. But it is so sweet. Like somebody at the San Francisco Meetup during GDC a couple years ago, I was raving about the two-player tabletop game, my favorite that's called Dustbiter's. And they made their own expansion and printed their own expansion to that game. And they're like, yeah, I only made two copies. I have one, and now here you can have the other one. And it's good, it doubles the scope of that game, in a game that the developers refused to make an expansion for. And that was just like, the level of production here is wild. But again, no expectations for gifts, but they're very sweet every once in a while when they come through.

Speaker 6:
[115:40] And my PO box is on the level.

Speaker 1:
[115:42] There is a PO box on our site, you can go to minnmax.com. But this time a fan came and they're like, hey Jacob, I brought Resident Evil 4 for you to sign. And they're like, and Ben, I wanted you to sign something too, I just didn't know what to grab. So, here's Horizon Zero Dawn on PS4, you want to sign that? I was like, yeah, sure.

Speaker 6:
[116:01] I will give you $1,000 for that copy of Horizon Zero Dawn signed by Ben Hanson.

Speaker 3:
[116:08] On the signing stuff, for the Pee-Poo Bang panel we did in Florida, someone brought the Death Stranding Baby for us to sign, which I think I still forgot to post that online.

Speaker 6:
[116:18] So we should post that.

Speaker 3:
[116:20] If I happen to remember it, I will post it. I think it's in my phone somewhere. That was really cool because it was, for those that don't know, it got brought up on the podcast that me and I say, I have this Death Stranding Baby in our room at the time. So it was just like, oh, inside joke signature. That was really cute. It was sweet. It was fun. It shows they obviously listen to the show and this, that and the third. Also the work of bringing it there because it's not a small collection.

Speaker 1:
[116:41] Yeah, that's intense.

Speaker 3:
[116:44] Someone at the Minnesota one, also again, I hate to do the GIFs thing as well, but it's just hard to not remember those things, but they gave me and I think a couple of other people, like our pets, crocheted. That was really sweet. It was a little head of my cat, super cute. That's so nice. And then not a gift, but a point out thing. And I'm sorry, I forget everyone's names, but someone was like, hey, they were talking to me at the meetup and they're like, by the way, check out my tattoo. And they had a tattoo on their arm of Jack from Jack 2 with Cyndaquil on his shoulder. And I'm like, this is so me coded. I was just very like, obviously, we all like games there, but it is like the simplest thing ever. And it'd be like, it's nice to talk directly to people and connect over games and get to do that in a one-on-one format versus people just listening to us and it's kind of like in one direction. Oh, and my last one is Pax. Not a meetup, but I was in line to play a game and the person in front of me said, are you Janet Garcia? I'm listening to The Minn Max Show right now. And I heard you talking over, like you talk in my voice. So that was just really like cute and cool.

Speaker 1:
[117:48] That's amazing. Bon, also the sweetest part of meetups, this is what I'm really into, maybe too much, is like just like connecting different people. You know, I was talking to like an indie developer in the Spain one. I was like, oh, Jordy from Deconstructed, he's over here. Like you should talk to him about developing in Spain. Or like I was talking to somebody and they're like, yeah, I'm moving from Germany. I'm gonna go to Vietnam and see what the indie game development scene is like in Vietnam. And I was talking to somebody else and they had moved to Spain recently and they're like, oh, you know, I love Spain. But I think in a couple of years, I kind of want to move to Vietnam. I was like, let me connect these dots. It feels like a little game of like, okay, now you two, now you two hang out for a while. And they talked about Vietnam for a long time. It was beautiful and perfect.

Speaker 3:
[118:28] You do like doing that.

Speaker 5:
[118:28] You're like a big coordinator. Ben loves to do that. You did that to me in GDC last year. You were like, there was a Japanese developer who worked on one of the Final Fantasies.

Speaker 1:
[118:39] Oh, Final Fantasy XV, a designer in XV.

Speaker 5:
[118:42] And you were like, but you were watching me like a hawk because you were like, don't say anything bad about Final Fantasy XV.

Speaker 1:
[118:47] What? I was not.

Speaker 5:
[118:48] You were like, and you were like, Sarah, they worked on Final Fantasy XV because you were worried I was going to say something bad.

Speaker 1:
[118:54] No, I thought, or no, it was the idea of like, oh, you worked in Japan as well. And I thought it would be a relief, like, okay, let this guy speak Japanese for a while was the logic there. And I thought, please don't talk about how you didn't like Final Fantasy XV. Banjan Bovi, oh, also the weirdest thing and this last thing about the Meetup, I swear, other than the travelog, which will feature the Meetup coming soon. But somebody was at the Meetup and he came up and he was speaking in Spanish, but like with an American accent in a thick way. I was like, what is this guy? He seems so familiar. I forgot that he was at the Portland Meetup. And then like last year, he's like, that's it. I'm moving to Spain. And then he's like, it's the weirdest thing then that we have like a Meetup in Spain. So he came to both and he's like a nice guy. I was like, what are the odds?

Speaker 3:
[119:41] Oh my God, you're following him.

Speaker 1:
[119:42] Yeah, I think we're kind of following him. We're obsessed with him. Banjan Bovi writes in, they said, not sure why Shenmue is on the discussion line up this week. Well, you'll find out. But I've been playing OutRun and I've come to the conclusion that it's one of the greatest games of all time.

Speaker 4:
[119:58] Yu Suzuki deserves to be more than just known as the Shenmue guy. He's got a whole library of games that he's on top of. Virtual Fighter fans, Kyle. I mean, Space Harrier is one of the sweetest looking games of all time.

Speaker 1:
[120:10] That's very cool.

Speaker 4:
[120:11] Haley, you ever seen Space Harrier? It is like just a 90s acid trip of a game. Look at a screen shot. The first screenshot you'll find is, you're flying, and it's behind the camera, and it's just a Cyclops mammoth. Yeah, it's so freaking sweet.

Speaker 2:
[120:28] This is giving, I'm four years old, playing on my dad's lap.

Speaker 4:
[120:32] Yeah, and it's less scary than whatever the hell, Twinson?

Speaker 1:
[120:36] Twinson's Odyssey, speak nicely of it.

Speaker 4:
[120:38] Oh, sorry.

Speaker 1:
[120:39] That game in particular does feel like just the mad ramblings of a child. It's like, what if you could like fly, and like you could go wherever you want?

Speaker 4:
[120:46] And it's like a mammoth, but it's cool, because it's a Cyclops. But, Sarah Podzorski?

Speaker 3:
[120:51] Yes, Ben Hanson?

Speaker 4:
[120:53] You're playing Shenmue 1? Was it just like a one-off weird stream, or are you sticking with this?

Speaker 3:
[120:58] Well, it was supposed to be an April Fool's joke.

Speaker 4:
[121:01] Of course.

Speaker 3:
[121:01] Because I have played all the Yakuza games, and everyone's like, oh, well, when are you gonna play Shenmue? Like, you know, the predecessor of the Yakuza games. Like, everything you love in Yakuza is in Shenmue. And I was like, I looked at it, and I was like, I don't wanna play that. I don't wanna play that. And I said that for like five years. And then somebody gifted it to me on Steam. I got a random email when it was on sale, and it was like, so-and-so gifted this to you. And I was like, well, you know, I have it. And then I was like, oh, ha ha. And then tell me why. Suddenly, I'm like, oh, this game's kinda good.

Speaker 1:
[121:31] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[121:32] But here's the thing.

Speaker 1:
[121:33] Wow.

Speaker 3:
[121:34] Here's the thing.

Speaker 5:
[121:35] It's Sarah the Shenmue Sicko.

Speaker 3:
[121:37] No, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 5:
[121:38] It's always the quiet one, Squared.

Speaker 3:
[121:40] No, no, no. But it's like, tell me why it's like, you know, the worst person has a good opinion. Because Shenmue fans, I've been, I've interacted with a lot of Shenmue fans. Yep, yep. All of them, a little depressing, I would say. Like they're, they always kind of like lament Shenmue. And they're like, you wouldn't, you wouldn't see what I see. You don't understand what I went through with Shenmue. You don't understand XYZ, blah, blah, blah, blah. So like, they're kind of annoying. And I, which is kind of what also put me off the game. You know, is like, they're very into Shenmue, which is, you know, totally valid, but you're a little weird about it sometimes. And then I played it and I was like, oh no. And then I played it as a joke and then I played it again. And then on the third playthrough, I was like mourning the loss of a Dreamcast future. And I've never played the Dreamcast. And I was like playing the game and I was like, suddenly I'm like, damn, what would have happened if the Dreamcast stuck around? You know?

Speaker 5:
[122:33] You have to do that trend of like, this is my first day playing Shenmue. This is my second day, third day. The Dreamcast was a beautiful machine.

Speaker 6:
[122:40] Literally, that was me.

Speaker 1:
[122:41] Band-aids on your face, you got the jacket.

Speaker 3:
[122:44] I remember Ben, one time you said, you said, Sarah, you would like Dreamcast games. Like you strike. And I said, I said, you are a doodoo headed idiot.

Speaker 4:
[122:53] Yes, correct.

Speaker 3:
[122:53] And you're not right. And then I was like, oh wait, I feel like these Dreamcast games kind of hit me.

Speaker 5:
[122:57] What else is he right about?

Speaker 1:
[122:59] One thing, though, is I would argue that Shenmue is like, is dramatically different than pretty much every Dreamcast game.

Speaker 4:
[123:07] But she also loves Sonic Adventure 2 Battle. And like, if you like that and Shenmue, you're a Dreamcast sicko. You just don't know it yet, Sarah. It is in your blood.

Speaker 3:
[123:17] When I found out you could like take your chow on the go, like you could like, I was like, what is this?

Speaker 4:
[123:23] Why do you think seven years ago, I was screaming at you about the Dreamcast?

Speaker 1:
[123:28] But I don't know. I don't know if there's a lot of other examples because it's a lot. I think of it as Crazy Taxi and Jetset Radio Future, where it's like very arcadey, like games that were the thing about the Dreamcast was like these were like arcade games that you could play at home. That looked pretty good.

Speaker 4:
[123:43] Right. Right.

Speaker 1:
[123:44] Right. And then, you know, Sonic's kind of its own thing. And then Shenmue is like continues to be like unlike anything else, like period, you know?

Speaker 4:
[123:53] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[123:53] So I don't I think you're I think you might just be like a Shenmue and Sonic fan.

Speaker 4:
[123:57] Don't limit it, Kyle.

Speaker 3:
[123:58] But who knows what the future could have held if the Dreamcast was still with us.

Speaker 4:
[124:03] Imagine if there was like a Shenmue 3. Can you imagine how wild that'd be?

Speaker 3:
[124:06] No.

Speaker 4:
[124:06] So what is it that's appealing? Just kind of like the slow pace of life stuff?

Speaker 3:
[124:10] Yeah, I love I'm in this big era of like playing these old games. Like I'm playing Chrono Trigger and playing Shenmue of like playing old games that just had a solid vision over whatever is going on in the industry today, which I find very depressing with like these big AAA games. It's like I'm kind of going back to like, what was it like when one person just had a really solid vision and no CEO stepped in and tried to tell them what to do?

Speaker 4:
[124:33] Right.

Speaker 3:
[124:33] Kind of vibe. It's like what I would say. And oh my god, Shenmue. If you told me it was like an indie game today, I'd be like, what a darling, what an amazing indie experience that we could have today.

Speaker 2:
[124:44] I love the way he said, oh my god, Shenmue. Shenmue.

Speaker 3:
[124:47] Shenmue. But it reminds me of like Arctic Eggs and they're having a new, there's a new game coming out called like About Fishing. Yeah, About Fishing. And they said it was inspired by Shenmue and it looks very similar. So like if Shenmue came out as like an indie game today, I'd be like, it'd be on my goatee list, honestly. Because it's just the game is such a vibe.

Speaker 1:
[125:12] Shenmue 3 did come out today.

Speaker 4:
[125:15] Yeah, but there's Shenmue like it's lacking.

Speaker 1:
[125:19] Shenmue is way more interesting than 2 and 3, for sure. Absolutely. Yeah. Like being in the city that you grew up in ostensibly, like makes a huge difference. Like once you leave, it gets kind of funky and weird, but still very interesting, for sure. Are you playing in Japanese or are you playing in English?

Speaker 3:
[125:38] I'm playing with the English voiceover, which is bad, like in a way that it's endearing me to it.

Speaker 1:
[125:43] It's kind of like required. Like it's bad in a way that's so charming and weird.

Speaker 3:
[125:47] And the writing is not good, but I think if the writing was good, I wouldn't like it as much, you know? And it's just something about the town. I feel so nostalgic for it, even though I've never been there. Yeah, it's a great way to put it. And I know that it's like a really good recreation of what it actually looks like in Japan. Cause like someone I knew went on like the Shenmue tour, cause you can go down there to Sakuragoka and you can like tour the whole area and see what it looks like, like the ports and everything. Yeah, that's really cool.

Speaker 1:
[126:14] But yeah, because you have to explore the town so specifically every day, you learn it and you do get endeared to it so specifically. Like even more so than like, oh, I love the second level of Pragmata. I think it's really well designed. Like the Shenmue is like, you just, it's just, it feels lived in, in a way that like not, I mean, it truly is like hard to compare it to anything else. It's like, there are the GTAs of the world that like, and Yakuza even, that feel realistic and like look right. But like Shenmue has a grime to it or something that like makes it feel like people actually live there. And it's, yeah, it's weird. It's very-

Speaker 3:
[126:53] Yeah, and it has so much like what I would consider like unnecessary, like the ability to pick up every single painting on the wall in your house and turn on every light switch, open every drawer and there's nothing in it. And it's just like, what are we doing? Yeah, you can see like, you know, the Yakuza, what came out of it, like the arcades there and you could play all the arcade games. You go to the konbini, you can like pick stuff off the konbini shelves. Like, I'm just like, I don't want to be a sicko. I don't, I don't want to be a Shenmue sicko. I'm not like you.

Speaker 6:
[127:23] I'm hot.

Speaker 3:
[127:24] And different.

Speaker 6:
[127:27] She finally says it. Just out with it.

Speaker 3:
[127:31] I knew it.

Speaker 1:
[127:32] Are you, have you gotten to the point where you have like a day job and stuff, like are you driving?

Speaker 3:
[127:36] No, I literally, I literally just got to the port and I need money because it costs money to get on the bus and the bus only comes over 30 minutes and I need to, I'm at the forklift part.

Speaker 6:
[127:45] Is it real time 30 minutes?

Speaker 3:
[127:48] No. But sometimes you literally do have to wait around because you're waiting for the clock. So I like that though. It's annoying, but like sometimes it's like in today's day and age, it's charming.

Speaker 2:
[127:58] Yeah, it's like, am I playing Shenmue tonight? What's going on? I did not anticipate this.

Speaker 3:
[128:02] The game kind of plays like a bus, like you're driving a bus with the controls and they don't tell you that you have to like hold a trigger down to look at things individually to interact with them.

Speaker 2:
[128:13] OK.

Speaker 5:
[128:14] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[128:14] And then do you think I always felt like maybe and maybe it's three is reflecting on me, like with the frustrations with three. But I feel like the combat is like too hard.

Speaker 3:
[128:24] The combat is a little bit because it's a like a place, like a fighting game with like the combos and stuff. But they don't put the combos on the screen when you're fighting or what the buttons do, because that would be on your little Dreamcast controller if I had one, which I don't.

Speaker 5:
[128:38] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[128:38] You have to like train like in.

Speaker 3:
[128:40] Yeah, you have to train up your moves. I mean, OK. My thing is like, if it gets to a point where it's too hard, I will just like install a mod, which I'm sure exists to like, you know, give him a gun or something.

Speaker 1:
[128:51] Right. Yeah, because I think that would truly like, that is a shortcoming, because I the first time I played, it was with Game Informer, like for like, we live streamed the whole thing, Andrew Reiner and I. And I played it on a proper dream cast. And I and there are episodes where I'm just like hitting my head against a wall of just like, I just want to beat up this guy. This is like so hard because it's like, yeah, it's like a fighting game. But I would I would love a version of it that just like scales back sort of the combat and just lets you focus on day to day stuff, because that's where that game sings, you know? Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[129:23] I remember thinking about if it came out as a modern indie game and stuff and like we did, Ben Reeves and I visited the studio in Tokyo for Shenmue 3 and spent way too much time with Yuzozuki. It's a long story. You're getting stuck in traffic, yada, yada, yada. But it was like just a sign that like, I don't think they have the right vision for this, where like he was so into like the graphics of Shenmue 3. And he's like, look how good Shenmue 3 is. Look at like the detail in the jacket on Rio here. And I was like, first of all, it doesn't look that good. But it's just like, you know, for an older developer to like make it their first HD game, you know, he just couldn't get over the fact that like, look, look how realistic their faces are. And I was like, I don't think that's what people want from Shenmue in this day and age.

Speaker 3:
[130:06] And I'm like, but I like how bad this looks.

Speaker 4:
[130:08] Right.

Speaker 3:
[130:08] It's charming. And I like how wack the faces are.

Speaker 4:
[130:11] Yeah. If it was just like a remastered kind of Dreamcast era look to it, I feel like that almost would have had more heart for Shenmue fans for Shenmue 3 than them trying to modernize it in some ways. But well, good, Sarah, welcome to the party, pal.

Speaker 3:
[130:27] I'll just never play 3 and then I'll never become bitter and jaded like the other Shenmue fans.

Speaker 1:
[130:32] It's, gosh, I'm trying to remember it now. It's not that like 3 is like this crazy departure. I think it's just like, it just feels out of time. Like it doesn't feel as like, wow, I can't believe this was happening at this time, which is like makes Shenmue 1 and 2 charming, where 3 just now feels kind of way behind. And it's also, I mean, not to scare you away, but it's narratively unsatisfying to the point where I'm like, why wouldn't you have just tried to finish this now?

Speaker 4:
[131:01] They had one more chance and they didn't take it to close the story. It's amazing. Oh, okay. Yeah, Chad, I need you to light up recommendations for Sarah on the Dreamcast. Space Channel 5, that feels Sarah Jason.

Speaker 3:
[131:12] I do like Space Channel 5. I love the Space Channel 5 clips.

Speaker 4:
[131:15] Yep.

Speaker 1:
[131:16] Okay.

Speaker 4:
[131:16] Like there's nothing.

Speaker 1:
[131:17] The Loose Stinger, weird horror game.

Speaker 4:
[131:20] I mean, if you like to explain some of the Resident Evil, that's conceivable. Toy Soldiers, of course. Samba de Amigo, there's some cute stuff.

Speaker 2:
[131:27] There's Power Stone on Dreamcast.

Speaker 4:
[131:29] Hell yeah, it is.

Speaker 2:
[131:30] That was the only Dreamcast game I ever played at my friend's house. Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[131:34] Oh, Kyle, I just read your preview for Dentsch Attack, where you asked and it's like, oh, clearly it was a Dreamcast-inspired game, right? Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[131:42] Yeah, I was like, you guys are trying to make a Dreamcast game, right? And they were like, yeah, yeah, that's who we're going for.

Speaker 4:
[131:47] Fun fact, you know who is the narrative lead for Dentsch Attack?

Speaker 1:
[131:51] Is it Ryu?

Speaker 4:
[131:52] It's Ryu himself. No, it's Jordy, who is from Deconstruct Team. They were just visited in Spain. Yeah, so he wrote Ninja Gaiden, Ragebound, and then Dentsch Attack as well. Nice. Blah, blah, blah. As Martin writes in, they say, can a game become less over time by adding more? I've been thinking about this a lot with how No Man's Sky has been updated throughout the years. Is it absurd for me to feel that the game is less exciting, even though none of the features that I liked from the early versions have been removed? But now that they have pet fighting and stuff in there, basically Pokemon battles, I know what they're saying. It does feel like you're adding so much at a certain point, it's just somehow more bland. I don't know.

Speaker 5:
[132:34] It is possible, though I don't have another example. I don't know if anyone else does, but I definitely agree that it's possible, where I've been playing games and been like, now they're doing too much. I liked what you had before, but it's hard to have lists for every conceivable question that can be asked. The No Man's Sky is a great example, though. I've heard that from a couple of people, that they're like, I liked it. Isn't Jeff here? There's someone here that has that take also.

Speaker 4:
[133:01] Yeah, he's into it. Oh, that take?

Speaker 5:
[133:03] I'm going to pass Jeff from Trivia. Great.

Speaker 4:
[133:05] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[133:05] No, that's his take. He's not here. Should I explain further?

Speaker 1:
[133:10] Haley mentioned Fortnite, which I think is an interesting one, because the version of that, Fortnite today doesn't even bear a resemblance to their original idea at this point, really. Like it was like a tower defense builder shooter.

Speaker 2:
[133:24] I bought that too, like an idiot.

Speaker 4:
[133:27] Did you buy like the- Remember when the physical version of Fortnite was released and Gearbox published it?

Speaker 2:
[133:32] I didn't buy the physical version, but I remember ordering Thai food and buying Fortnite the PvE game and playing it that night.

Speaker 4:
[133:39] And you were living it.

Speaker 3:
[133:40] Did you like it? I bet you liked it.

Speaker 2:
[133:41] Yeah, because I had a really thick girl character who was awesome, and I played her and she's like barely in the game now as a skin.

Speaker 4:
[133:48] What's up? What are they doing?

Speaker 2:
[133:51] I do have a Founders, what do they call the thing you fly down in? Glider? Glider. I have a Founders glider. I don't know if that's like a huge flux or not. I haven't looked into it, but I still wear it and hope that somebody on a stream with 80,000 people watching goes, a Founders glider. I hope that's happened once.

Speaker 1:
[134:07] A hero! Oh, by the way, can you even play the original game, that campaign? I don't think so.

Speaker 2:
[134:15] No, they recently did something with it, right?

Speaker 4:
[134:17] Yeah, they recently made it free, where I guess you had to pay to play it before, which seems insane, but they made it free for you.

Speaker 2:
[134:22] I need to refund then. I need to refund.

Speaker 4:
[134:24] Yeah, you should be pissed. That's it, Tim Sweeney. I've had enough of you. But everyone, delete your comment, by the way. I said Toy Soldier. I meant Toy Commander. I meant Toy Commander and the Dreamcast.

Speaker 2:
[134:35] No, right?

Speaker 4:
[134:36] Stand back!

Speaker 3:
[134:38] He's a fan. He's a fan. Dreamcast fan.

Speaker 4:
[134:41] No, come on guys, don't unsubscribe. Derek writes in, they say, this question is for Haley.

Speaker 3:
[134:47] Hi.

Speaker 4:
[134:47] When a big IP enters the public domain, why don't we usually see an influx of games or other media that make use of it shortly after? In other words, where's my Winnie the Pooh rogue like?

Speaker 2:
[134:57] It's kind of funny because it loses its value. Now everyone can use it, so nobody wants to use it. Because it's like the same reason why a little kid wants the toy someone else is playing with, but not the 80 toys on the ground. I think that's part of it.

Speaker 4:
[135:09] Yeah, but we see it in film. It's just like film is a quicker turnaround than games, and so they can make Winnie the Pooh horror movies within a year or so, and whereas games... This would take several, so it kind of loses the charm of immediacy.

Speaker 2:
[135:22] Yeah, no, you'll notice that there was a lot of Alice in Wonderland stuff the year that Alice in Wonderland became public domain. And there's some good Alice in Wonderland games. I think Winnie the Pooh is probably a bad example, because what are you going to make?

Speaker 5:
[135:35] Oh, there is a Winnie the Pooh, I'm like.

Speaker 4:
[135:39] I think you're right, Janet.

Speaker 5:
[135:40] Yeah, it's called Winnie's Hole.

Speaker 4:
[135:42] Oh, appropriate.

Speaker 5:
[135:43] I'm not joking. It's called Winnie's Hole. That's the name of the game.

Speaker 2:
[135:45] I scared the dog awake making that sound.

Speaker 5:
[135:47] And it's an early, it's a rogue-like dungeon crawler. I know several people that have played it, they said the mechanics are actually quite solid, but that it probably does lose a lot in that they named it Winnie's Hole. So who wants to play a game called Winnie's Hole, except for like people doing it for the memes? And I think that's also one of the problems, I imagine. Sarah, I don't know if you have a perspective on this from the development side of things, but I feel like a lot of developers are often talking about, they want to make their own stuff like their own original stuff. So I imagine that that's also a reason we don't see more games using public domain stuff.

Speaker 3:
[136:23] Yeah, but I did look into the Winnie the Pooh thing specifically, and I guess you can have copyrights, they have copyrights on other things besides Winnie the Pooh, like maybe Winnie the Pooh's red shirt is specifically a Disney copyright. So you can have a bear called Winnie the Pooh, but he can't look like Disney's basically.

Speaker 2:
[136:39] So they still look like the original one when he was first drawn.

Speaker 3:
[136:42] Yeah, there are other constraints around it. They put other rails.

Speaker 2:
[136:48] Steamboat Willie or whatever Mickey's other name is, is public domain but not Mickey Mouse in recent cartoons, his design there.

Speaker 1:
[136:56] Yeah, I think there's also the element of like not the not the literal legal ownership, but of just like Disney does like own even something like Aladdin. You know what I mean? Like if you release something called like Aladdin, people would just be like, well, this isn't this isn't the thing that I love. So I don't know. I'm not interested in this. You know, like they just kind of they put their stamp on it. And it's like even if they don't legally own it anymore, they kind of like, they claim it's sort of unofficial ownership over it.

Speaker 2:
[137:22] They probably have a trademark for Aladdin for movies as well. So that like you could create an Aladdin movie, but have to call it something else like Return of Jafar.

Speaker 4:
[137:33] Yeah, it's like maybe it is actually looking good. Pull, by the way, for Winnie's Hole, Janet, like looking on. If I just search Winnie the Pooh.

Speaker 6:
[137:40] When else can I use this for Winnie's Hole?

Speaker 4:
[137:44] I stand by the sentence. But like it's funny if you search Winnie the Pooh on Steam, like there are a handful of games, like Winnie the Pooh taste test, Winnie the Pooh hops for honey released, oh, is releasing in May, so we can look forward to that.

Speaker 2:
[137:57] Let's go, new show plus.

Speaker 4:
[137:58] 100 Acre Wood, okay, they have like scary Winnie the Pooh, they kind of got the same range. But like I think a big example is like Lies of P, right, for like Pinocchio. That's kind of maybe the biggest example of...

Speaker 2:
[138:10] I would think Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol has probably been used the most in the public domain than in any other IP.

Speaker 4:
[138:16] Oh yeah, but it's mainly in the video games.

Speaker 2:
[138:17] Every Christmas, oh not in games.

Speaker 4:
[138:19] There was that Christmas Carol roguelike, genuinely from like, was it two years ago or something? There was like a Christmas Carol roguelike, I'm pretty sure. It's called like Ebenezer something something. Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[138:28] Ebenezer's whole obviously.

Speaker 4:
[138:29] Ebenezer's whole.

Speaker 2:
[138:29] One of my favorite lines of all time is from the Muppets Christmas Carol, when he goes, and Tiny Tim, who did not die. Me and Michael say that like every day.

Speaker 4:
[138:43] Piet van Rosmelin says, Ben, I noticed last week on the podcast, you said bro twice. And every time you do, I will remember when you snapped at Kyle Bossman for saying that this is not a bro kind of podcast. Yeah, you know what? I'm not proud of it. But sometimes bro hits and it's like, it's always tongue in cheek, but I get it that it's jarring. It's a powerful word.

Speaker 2:
[139:09] Sarah and Janet, should we tell Ben about our discovery of the words he uses for when he says hi to us?

Speaker 4:
[139:16] Oh no.

Speaker 2:
[139:16] Donald needs to know.

Speaker 3:
[139:18] But yeah, you have a scale on ways you refer to other people.

Speaker 4:
[139:22] A scale?

Speaker 2:
[139:23] Yes. Yes. Please. Leo's aware of this as well.

Speaker 4:
[139:25] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[139:27] Boss.

Speaker 4:
[139:28] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[139:29] Everybody has that scale.

Speaker 2:
[139:30] Yes, but some people get boss more than others. We actually looked at our slack and saw how many times.

Speaker 5:
[139:34] Oh yeah, the analytics.

Speaker 3:
[139:36] So Ben, you're either a boss or a buddy. And there is a scale between the two.

Speaker 5:
[139:41] Yeah, but it's usually used buddy though. But boss buddy is like a common dynamic. No, I thought you were going to mention the ha thing.

Speaker 2:
[139:48] Oh, the ha thing.

Speaker 5:
[139:49] You often just say ha. You don't say ha ha.

Speaker 2:
[139:51] You say ha, comma. Yeah, that is my thing.

Speaker 5:
[139:54] But one time, I checked my messages with you. One time you did say ha ha. So I was like, obviously, I'm just funnier than everybody else.

Speaker 4:
[140:00] I think that was like funnier than everything else. Normally, ha is just...

Speaker 5:
[140:04] Yeah, you really thought a lot about it.

Speaker 4:
[140:05] Yeah. Sometimes the boss thing is interesting because I think sometimes it's like you got to pair it and do the math of what I'm messaging about. It's not just like, hey boss, great episode of Bonus Pod. I'd roll over in my grave before I ever said that. Normally, it's like that's usually used.

Speaker 6:
[140:20] What a nice thing to say.

Speaker 4:
[140:22] I know. But normally, it's used in terms of just like, oh, I have a request or like, hey.

Speaker 3:
[140:27] It's when you want something.

Speaker 1:
[140:29] Yes.

Speaker 4:
[140:29] And I'm trying to make it nicer.

Speaker 5:
[140:30] Oh my god. And it's buttering me up. It works because I'm ego maniacal.

Speaker 6:
[140:33] How did you know that?

Speaker 4:
[140:34] It's just a little, it's a layer of butter of like, hey boss, like you're in charge of this. What's the status of this thing? Did you reach out to that person?

Speaker 2:
[140:41] Or it's hey boss, listen, the boxes were bad last time or something to soften it.

Speaker 4:
[140:47] The boxes were bad?

Speaker 3:
[140:47] There was a pixel overlap in the video windows.

Speaker 4:
[140:50] Yeah. Yeah. Cause sometimes, I don't know, do you all get paranoid about how messages are received? Where like, I'll be like, hey, could you fix this? And then I look at the message and I'm like, if I was in a really bad mood, what is the most negative way I could read that sentence? Is the way that I do that math sometimes.

Speaker 2:
[141:05] I do that too.

Speaker 4:
[141:05] How do you deflate that in a way? I think you got to say, hey chief, I don't know what else there is. You got to have something out there.

Speaker 2:
[141:11] I think you was interesting.

Speaker 5:
[141:12] Ben, you can always just Venmo me $5. Is that right?

Speaker 4:
[141:15] Okay.

Speaker 5:
[141:16] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[141:16] I did.

Speaker 5:
[141:17] I'm like, oh, he was actually really nice. That's cool.

Speaker 4:
[141:19] Well, I'll be damned. It's like microtransactions for bugging people. Okay.

Speaker 5:
[141:25] Yeah, why not?

Speaker 4:
[141:26] That works.

Speaker 5:
[141:26] A little extra green salad on the side. Good for you, me and Mr. McGee, you know?

Speaker 2:
[141:28] A little extra green salad.

Speaker 4:
[141:30] I looked up on that Philmott site where you can search transcripts of YouTube videos. Turns out we've said the word bro. Sarah, how many times on MinnMax's channel do you think we've said the word bro in a video?

Speaker 2:
[141:41] How many?

Speaker 3:
[141:42] We're not like a bro-y channel.

Speaker 4:
[141:44] That's what you think, but the question stands.

Speaker 3:
[141:47] Is it over 500?

Speaker 4:
[141:48] It's 418 times.

Speaker 2:
[141:50] That's a lot.

Speaker 4:
[141:52] Yeah, I know. Let's see. Here we go. No one's like, clock's ticking, broseph, which I greatly appre- Broseph.

Speaker 2:
[141:57] Broseph's a little different.

Speaker 4:
[141:59] Broseph feels different. Let's see. What do we got here?

Speaker 1:
[142:02] It's like the- Your dad's right there, bro.

Speaker 4:
[142:04] Oh, that was Bossman, so that doesn't count.

Speaker 3:
[142:06] Why are these all, these are all Bossman. These are all Kyle Bossman, right?

Speaker 4:
[142:09] No, the first one was me.

Speaker 6:
[142:10] That's almost better. I'm like, that doesn't work.

Speaker 4:
[142:13] That was Leo. That was Leo for that bro. I think it's varied. All right, we'll try and minimize the bro in the future.

Speaker 2:
[142:18] Leo's bro's are always satirical, though. We take those with a grain of salt.

Speaker 4:
[142:22] Mine, I don't know.

Speaker 5:
[142:23] You do something ironically enough. It's just who you are, like Sarah and Chenmue, right?

Speaker 2:
[142:27] Yeah. No, she's hot. She's hot. It's different.

Speaker 4:
[142:31] You don't understand.

Speaker 5:
[142:32] Yeah, it's different when she does it because she's hot.

Speaker 4:
[142:34] The Juan Juan writes in, they say, Hey Min Max, have you seen Build a Rocket Boy releasing DLC for Mind's Eye? But it will have quote unquote evidence of the saboteurs supposedly ruined the game, including names. In a GamesBeat interview, CEO Mark Gerhard said the new mission will be called Blacklist and it will feature a female playable character. He said in the interview, we're also using that to share some of the evidence of the sabotage with the community. Let's tell the community the story before it plays out in court. So I think this is not us being the victim. We've taken a couple of punches. We kept turning the other cheek and while we got our house in order, and now it's time to start doing this right back at them. And, you know, so let's have some fun with it. At the end, oh boy, at the end of the day, we're storytellers.

Speaker 3:
[143:19] That's crazy. That's the craziest thing I've ever heard.

Speaker 6:
[143:24] At the end of the day, it's the words we weave.

Speaker 5:
[143:26] I will be locked in for whoever's doing that TikTok series.

Speaker 3:
[143:31] Is that their like, legally, like, allegedly, like, oh, I'm just a storyteller. Allegedly, this happened.

Speaker 6:
[143:37] Also, I'll be in court.

Speaker 2:
[143:38] We're storytellers.

Speaker 4:
[143:40] Haley, can they do this? Can he legally share information of a lawsuit and names in a video game update?

Speaker 3:
[143:46] Yeah, before the court case, apparently.

Speaker 6:
[143:49] Well, I mean, the first thing, that's so funny and stupid.

Speaker 2:
[143:54] The first thing I'm thinking of is you can't commercialize someone's likeness, right? Which includes their name, voice, all this stuff. So if they're saying that they're creating these people that have wronged them, putting them in the game and saying, this is John Smith, our former whoever in the game and then shooting him with a gun or something.

Speaker 6:
[144:15] I don't know.

Speaker 5:
[144:16] What's happening? This is so girly pop coded of them. This is what we were talking about in the system.

Speaker 3:
[144:19] It's so messy.

Speaker 2:
[144:20] This is messy.

Speaker 3:
[144:21] To me, I'm like, this is just marketing. Yes. This is just marketing. That's where my part is. It's just marketing and when you actually play it, it's just going to be like pee-pee-poo-poo. There's been a leak in our internals. Let's find the mole. It's going to be like not as good.

Speaker 4:
[144:38] Sarah, I'm totally with you.

Speaker 2:
[144:39] What's the drama? How are they wronged?

Speaker 4:
[144:42] They claimed that there is a saboteur.

Speaker 1:
[144:44] We don't know.

Speaker 4:
[144:45] Yeah. But the game's development was sabotaged by some forces. A lot of people are saying it was 2K because of Rockstar, because of the previous connection with Lesley Benzies.

Speaker 2:
[144:53] They're so litigious. Don't do that.

Speaker 4:
[144:55] Well, yeah. And so we don't know for sure that's who it was, but there's Bad Blood with the producer. He was at Rockstar for years and years and years, Lesley Benzies. Also in the Epstein file, so check it out, everybody. But so there's just a lot of weird confusion with it. But Sarah, I think you're totally right. And like, look, I didn't love playing Mind's Eye, but I do think I think it's a smart idea. It's a lesson of like, lean into what people know about your game. If you're making DLC, there is no DLC that they could possibly make for Mind's Eye that would make me turn my head. But it's like, hey, what's the one thing you know about this game other than it not releasing very well is like, there was some messy drama. We had a lot of headlines about saboteurs. Let's just make that the focus of the DLC. And now we're exploding with popularity all over again. Now every kid in the street is talking about Mind's Eye.

Speaker 5:
[145:45] Finally, a DLC that means something. It's more of the game, but different. Start spilling the tea in the DLC.

Speaker 3:
[145:54] I don't think it'll work. I think people will just read an article about it or watch TikTok about it. I don't think it will sell more DLC. But it has gotten them into the headlines, and it has me, like, what are these? I'm glad that I'm on the outside. And I can let people go, what are they doing? What are they doing in there?

Speaker 1:
[146:09] I think it will absolutely make them sell more DLC. Because the alternate was like, no one buys any of it. And the new version is maybe two people do.

Speaker 3:
[146:19] One person buys it to make a YouTube video about it. And split it into a bunch of shorts that I will watch.

Speaker 4:
[146:24] Yep, I think that's that. So yeah, I mean, you heard from the lawyers on this call. We say full steam ahead. Oh, sorry, okay, nevermind, nevermind.

Speaker 3:
[146:33] No.

Speaker 4:
[146:34] Ashley Dean writes in, they say, hey, experts, hello, local experts. I'm sorry, thank you, Ashley Dean. They say, I recently enjoyed playing Metroid Prime 4 a lot more than I expected. I bought it at launch and was frustrated that it wasn't the game that I wanted it to be. But playing it in March and April was a joy. I found it to be the coziest game I've played in years. The story is bland and the production feels weirdly disjointed. But the minute to minute gameplay of exploring, collecting and occasionally shooting was so deliciously satisfying. I had to ration my time with the game because I didn't want it to end. I love that, Ashley. I love the idea of just get out of the critical window of a game and just sit back and enjoy Metroid Prime 4 for what it is. I think that's a great way to go. I have two questions. Or I have one question because Ben cut the other one. What's the biggest turnaround you've had from first impression to completion of a game?

Speaker 3:
[147:22] Oh, like you pick it up and then put it down and then don't pick it up for like three more years, five years kind of thing?

Speaker 4:
[147:26] And then you're like, oh, look at this.

Speaker 5:
[147:27] Oh, that's what they meant.

Speaker 4:
[147:28] I think so.

Speaker 5:
[147:28] Oh, I have like a huge amount of time. Let me grab this. I have two that come to mind.

Speaker 4:
[147:36] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[147:36] I have Yoshi's Woolly World, which has to be like, I'm going to say like four, maybe five years. And this was like slowly every few months playing it, because I played that co-op with my brother. The theme here is me and my brother can't finish games, because once you become two separate adults with separate lives, it's really hard to sit down and play a game together. The other was The Quarry, which Haley, I finally finished The Quarry. It took me four years to beat this game. I'm so embarrassed. I started playing this game like the maybe even the day that it came out. Like when it launched, I was like, boom, I'm here. Four years later, I finished it. I had insane gaps in between. And I was the most humiliating part was like, I think the last gap we had was maybe like a year. And genuinely, we sat on a plate. We like we got the whole night. We're going to finish it tonight. Guys, we had maybe like 10 minutes of gameplay. Oh, no. We were both so humiliated. Like my brother went back to his apartment, his roommates like, What happened? I thought you were going to be like out all night playing this game. He's like, it ended. The game's done. And yes, I already started the other one. And then I put it down. And who knows how long that one will take. But I'll meet you in a bit.

Speaker 4:
[148:46] Janet, I was thinking of you recently over Easter, because we had like a whole Easter egg hunt in the house type thing with we had like another family get over here and stuff. And I was trying to think of like, all right, what music should I be playing? It's like, here comes Peter Cottontail. I can only loop that so many times. I was like, what video game has like an Easter soundtrack? I was like, Yoshi's Woolly World, and it is perfect. Perfect Easter vibes. I was more connected with you ever than Janet, just digging into the world of Yoshi's Woolly World. It's perfect.

Speaker 5:
[149:16] Which have you played it yet?

Speaker 4:
[149:17] I played a little bit, I believe, and bounced off a little bit. Sorry, it just felt like-

Speaker 5:
[149:22] You bounced off.

Speaker 4:
[149:23] I bounced off. It's just, it was a little bit of the Super Meat Boy treatment of like, I mean, I could play this, but why? I'd rather just replay Yoshi's Island, sorry, sorry. But I get that it's great.

Speaker 5:
[149:34] Are you trying to get all the flowers? Because that's where the real juice is, trying to get the flowers.

Speaker 4:
[149:37] I believe you, I get it. I honestly, I mean, I love Yoshi's Island five times as much.

Speaker 1:
[149:42] If we know anything about Ben, it's that he is a completionist when it comes to video games. And he's going to get them.

Speaker 5:
[149:47] I wasn't saying completionist, I said just get the flower, because there's like eight different things you could collect. The flowers are where the real level design juice is.

Speaker 4:
[149:54] I went to dinner specifically with that series.

Speaker 5:
[149:56] Thank you for starting it.

Speaker 4:
[149:57] No, no, I did back in the day. Because I loved Yoshi's Island when I played it in college for the first time. And then I replayed it and 100%ed it. That's when it was like, whoa, this Yoshi's Island is one of the best. So I get that idea for that series.

Speaker 5:
[150:10] It is the best one, which is kind of unfortunate. I don't know if this is a separate question, but if that's ever happened to you all, will you play something? Whether it's in the franchise or the genre, it's actually all downhill from here. And you're like, oh, well, that's awkward.

Speaker 4:
[150:23] I tried. Yeah, I guess Shenmue, that's the experience right there. Do you have one that they went back to and completed and appreciated differently?

Speaker 1:
[150:31] I had a quick one, which I think I've shared before, but Castlevania Lords of Shadow has a really great first five minutes. And then after that, it goes really downhill and I put it down for like two or three months. And I was like, let me try this thing again. And once I got past that second level, which was pretty rough, it ended up being one of my favorites of that generation. I really love Lords of Shadow. It starts strong, dips, and then really takes off around the third level or so. But that one, there was a gap of maybe a few months between me getting back to it and ending up, and it just being like, I love this. This is so good.

Speaker 4:
[151:07] We were talking about Mirrors of Fate, the 3DS game a while ago, I think it was at The Minnax Show. And I was like, that thing was surprisingly good. I think I was just remembering that. People hated the 3DS one. What was the reception of that thing?

Speaker 1:
[151:19] That's the one I played. I mean, it was, it was, it's okay. It doesn't quite, you want it to be closer to a Castlevania in the sense of, oh, we're on 3DS, you have the map and all that stuff, but it wasn't quite there. It's fine.

Speaker 4:
[151:37] Okay, okay. So what should I be using in DMs? Give me the language to use. I'm still, I'm dwelling on that.

Speaker 3:
[151:46] Are you lingering upon this?

Speaker 4:
[151:47] I'm lingering upon it, yeah. Well, it's weird knowing you're being judged for.

Speaker 5:
[151:51] Exactly.

Speaker 4:
[151:53] That's a level of perception I never want in my life, but just say their names only. Or you think-

Speaker 2:
[152:00] No, you're fine.

Speaker 6:
[152:01] No, no, you can say boss and buddy.

Speaker 4:
[152:03] $10 to $5.

Speaker 5:
[152:05] Guys, why are you talking yourselves down from this $10 to $5?

Speaker 2:
[152:08] We were just trying to decipher whether one of us was a boss or buddy, and what we figured out was you use both interchangeably for if you're asking for something or just saying hi and talking in general.

Speaker 5:
[152:17] Well, actually, you don't use buddy. You only use boss, and you use it for everybody, so I'm like, damn.

Speaker 4:
[152:21] OK, but it seemed like there was somebody that I called boss the most internally. You dissected.

Speaker 5:
[152:25] I think I was the one.

Speaker 3:
[152:26] I think Janet was the one that has the most DMs.

Speaker 4:
[152:29] OK, OK.

Speaker 5:
[152:30] Could have been Kelly.

Speaker 3:
[152:31] And then maybe also Haley.

Speaker 4:
[152:32] Mm-hmm, OK.

Speaker 2:
[152:33] Because you talk to me about bonus pods a lot. So you say, hey, boss, what's the point of bonus pods?

Speaker 4:
[152:37] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5:
[152:38] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you have your own little sector, so that makes sense.

Speaker 4:
[152:43] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[152:43] Side project.

Speaker 4:
[152:44] It's a bit of a side project. It's like her Beatles solo project. Graham Jones wrote in very appropriately. They read, How many episodes will it be before Ben is invited on to Pew Pew Bang?

Speaker 2:
[152:55] Sarah liked this.

Speaker 3:
[152:57] I liked it because I want to know. Ben wouldn't last 10 minutes on Pew Pew Bang before he wanted to crawl out of his skin.

Speaker 4:
[153:03] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[153:04] And disappear into a hole somewhere.

Speaker 4:
[153:06] I mean, I love. I would crawl into Winnie's hole.

Speaker 2:
[153:09] Kyle, you're invited to Pew Pew Bang.

Speaker 6:
[153:12] He gets the invite.

Speaker 4:
[153:14] Yeah. The barrier will probably never be crossed because like, I love Pew Pew Bang. But do you ever listen to this podcast where you're like, you try to imagine yourself on it and you're like, I would destroy this. Like, not in a positive way. Like, I would shatter this party. I would walk in and the record would scratch in the corner of the music and stuff. That's what it would feel like. I think if I was on Pew Pew Bang is, because I feel like even you guys on that show, you're like, oh my God, I hope Ben isn't listening. Because we're talking about sex for a minute and 12.

Speaker 5:
[153:42] So you are listening. I can sense you when we record. I sense your spirit.

Speaker 4:
[153:47] Sense the spirit.

Speaker 5:
[153:48] You know, I feel really cold.

Speaker 2:
[153:52] I think your energy would be a fun thing to bump up against, because I, sorry, I pulled a Kyle with the Twilight Soak. Because I think that like, it's always the funniest when we say something ridiculous. And one of the four of us is like, what the hell? You know, that's always the funniest. So if you were just there and always that person like, oh, I want to leave, that'd be funny.

Speaker 3:
[154:12] I feel like if Ben was on Pee Pee Bang, I would feel like a group of witches. And Ben was in the pot of soup, and we were just casting spells at him. He wouldn't know if it was good or bad. And he'd be like, so hey guys, what about? And then we'd be like, boo!

Speaker 5:
[154:26] To be clear, I feel like it'd be like we kidnapped him to the sleepover and forced him to put on mascara. You know what I mean? And he's like, I don't like it, it gets in my eyes.

Speaker 6:
[154:34] And I'm like, could you keep blinking?

Speaker 4:
[154:36] I mean, you forget, I have two sisters, I can hang, I think I could do it. I'm not some prude.

Speaker 6:
[154:43] We'll see buddy boy.

Speaker 4:
[154:45] You could not, you could not fust me.

Speaker 2:
[154:46] Look here bro.

Speaker 4:
[154:48] I'm only prim and proper on content. I could hang with the cool kids, I swear I could. I could drink beer with you guys, I swear.

Speaker 2:
[154:56] You'd have to crush like six beers and then go.

Speaker 4:
[154:58] All right, I do think if I were to go on it, I think it's like, I would need it to be in person. If you ever do an in person one, I could be, I don't know, I could come down and bring you two to go.

Speaker 3:
[155:07] I feel like you wouldn't be able to handle the winding, because when we work with PP Bang, it's a winding road. Yeah. Sometimes we're supposed to talk about something and we end up in a different zip code completely. Yeah, got to know Kelsey. And I feel like your producer brain, you would be like, we were supposed to be talking about, and it's like, no, we're talking about something else completely.

Speaker 4:
[155:27] And I can feel, every once in a while, Kelsey, I feel like is channeling my soul a little bit of, like, yeah, but we're talking about this, or let's move it along to this. You know, and it's like, I feel a little bit, just imagine that times like 20. And that's why it just would not, it would not work.

Speaker 2:
[155:43] But you wouldn't be in charge. You just get to passively flow along the river.

Speaker 3:
[155:47] Ben doesn't do not in charge.

Speaker 5:
[155:49] Yeah, does it feel weird being on a podcast and not running it?

Speaker 3:
[155:51] You know who you're talking to?

Speaker 4:
[155:53] Yeah, it is the worst feeling when I'm like, I guest on another podcast and I'm just like, okay, next topic, let's go. Because I do have this feeling in my mind. You do have that. Yeah, that whole thing.

Speaker 2:
[156:01] Which is helpful. Like when you do that on BonusPod, I'm like, let's go. I start turning my brain off, I just let you do it. This is relaxing.

Speaker 4:
[156:07] Yeah, it's like when I'm traveling with Jacob, just shove my head in an Uber and let's go, you direct it.

Speaker 3:
[156:13] But I wish we could unpack so much more like the bed and we went to a hotel and there's only one bed. They only spent like five seconds on that. And on Peepy Bang, we would have to unpack it, look at it from all angles, where would Ben sleep on the floor, with Jacob, who would take the bed? Between Ben and Jacob, only one bed in the room, who's taking it?

Speaker 4:
[156:31] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[156:32] Do they sleep together?

Speaker 2:
[156:34] Yeah, because when you were in our, me and Michael's room to have a shower, we came back and you were laying on the damn floor.

Speaker 6:
[156:42] Sit on the bed, you freaks.

Speaker 3:
[156:43] Which I said he would be. I said Ben will not move your clothes, he won't lay on your bed, you will find him on the floor. And guess what you did?

Speaker 4:
[156:50] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[156:51] He was on the floor.

Speaker 4:
[156:52] Yeah, I think like I back heard or something. But there was a couch in there, but you had like your underwear all over it. I'm like, well, I can't move this.

Speaker 6:
[156:57] Well, I didn't know you were coming.

Speaker 2:
[156:59] I didn't say, oh, Ben's coming later.

Speaker 4:
[157:01] I don't know why you didn't have a shrine to your underwear. It was weird. They're like candles.

Speaker 2:
[157:06] We were in a car driving somewhere and everyone was on the phone with Ben. And Ben goes, oh my God, I can't get in my room. And everyone was like, that's too bad. Long pause. And I said, go use my room. That's fine. And now I get told I get shamed and blamed on the podcast about my panties being in my hotel room.

Speaker 4:
[157:25] I just think it was rude of you to bring your underwear to your hotel room. It was uncool if I may be so bold.

Speaker 2:
[157:31] Every time I leave my room, I'm like, why do you need extra ones?

Speaker 5:
[157:34] You're only there for a few days.

Speaker 2:
[157:36] One pair.

Speaker 4:
[157:38] Come on. All right. Yeah, so we could have back at work. No, I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[157:44] How did that feel?

Speaker 5:
[157:45] Because that's like that's what it was.

Speaker 2:
[157:46] That was a little taste.

Speaker 4:
[157:47] I can do it. I think in person I could do it. I could do it remotely. I would not be able to show in person. I could because it's a different you'll have it recorded a Pepe Bang in person. I think it would be even better, you know, like it even be more chill. Of course.

Speaker 3:
[157:59] And you think you would get our first?

Speaker 4:
[158:01] No, I'd ask you for your first, like your third in person one or something. Please, I would never, never request a first in person.

Speaker 3:
[158:08] See, this is what Pepe Bang would be like.

Speaker 4:
[158:10] Yeah. Just imagine it, just imagine it.

Speaker 3:
[158:12] He's sprinting from the room.

Speaker 4:
[158:14] You guys couldn't make me blush. Anyways, Pepe Bang, subscribe on your favorite podcast.

Speaker 2:
[158:19] You're literally so red right now.

Speaker 4:
[158:21] I know, I blush so easily.

Speaker 5:
[158:23] But that's because you keep not using that color corrector that I think Sarah has mentioned before.

Speaker 4:
[158:27] I have. You know, I was talking to Sarah, but I use sunscreen every morning now. This is Sarah Podzorski.

Speaker 5:
[158:32] But is it color correcting?

Speaker 4:
[158:34] There's some stuff, everyone's telling me if I need it, my skin is acting weird, then I'll put some, was it BB or something? There's like some sort of-

Speaker 5:
[158:41] BB cream? BB cream?

Speaker 4:
[158:43] I put baby cream on my face. Yeah, BB something. And that's like, it covers up red spots if I got them. And I swear to God, every time I think like, my skin is doing okay. I shoot a little prayer to Sarah for slightly nudging me.

Speaker 3:
[158:57] I was trying to get you to wear sunscreen years ago. Years ago.

Speaker 2:
[159:01] And he was trying to get you to play Dreamcast.

Speaker 6:
[159:03] I was-

Speaker 5:
[159:07] Okay, one's deadly and one's the Dreamcast.

Speaker 6:
[159:09] I think Sarah got away from the segment.

Speaker 2:
[159:11] I'm sorry.

Speaker 4:
[159:13] Kyle, what's your question of the week?

Speaker 1:
[159:17] Replaying games.

Speaker 4:
[159:18] I think that might have been it.

Speaker 1:
[159:19] You got us down a rabbit hole.

Speaker 4:
[159:21] Yeah. I really like the Shenmue one too, though.

Speaker 1:
[159:22] A Winnie's hole, excuse me.

Speaker 4:
[159:23] Yeah, the- Don't go back to that well, Kyle. You can't top it.

Speaker 1:
[159:28] Well, I gotta do the third now.

Speaker 4:
[159:30] No, yeah, I'll save it. Yeah, I think the- Lot of good stuff. Yeah, I mean, Shenmue was kind of the biggest talker, but how are y'all feeling? What are y'all like?

Speaker 2:
[159:39] I'm leaning Shenmue, but I did really like the replaying games one too.

Speaker 5:
[159:44] I like the Ben on Pee Pee Bang.

Speaker 4:
[159:46] Okay. Sarah?

Speaker 3:
[159:50] I feel like my bias is the Shenmue one, but that was kind of just a conduit for me to talk about Shenmue. I cared not for the actual question, which was like, don't you think we should talk about things that are Shenmue? And I was like, no, no, because I just played Shenmue, so I can't really help you with this question.

Speaker 4:
[160:06] Yeah, but Sarah, once you become a hang on kind of gal, once you discover Yu Suzuki's other games, it's going to be so sweet.

Speaker 1:
[160:12] I've also played Yu Suzuki's most recent two games.

Speaker 4:
[160:15] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[160:16] And you know, it's great to have conversations about Shenmue.

Speaker 6:
[160:20] Oh!

Speaker 4:
[160:23] Okay, let's go for replay games. Congratulations, Cass Wilkinson-Seldana. Congratulations, you just won the prize from IM8Bit. Now, of course, it's time for something that we call Get A Lot Of This. Hey, get a load of this. Spain, you ever heard of it? Look forward to the MinnMax Spotlight coming soon. We learned so much. Maybe we can unpack it on a future bonus pod, but maybe other people are hip to this. But we're talking about how everything is really late in Spain. You know, it's like you have dinner at like 10.30 at night. You know, it's like, what? And, you know, they're talking about like, oh, you know, all the best shows when we were kids, they'd be on at like 11 at night. And so all the kids would be really tired the next day. So they'd have to take a siesta because everything is just shifted. You have lunch at like 3 p.m. Everything's just slid over. It's like, what is going on? Does anybody have a guess why? Well, let me tell you, Kyle, student of history, it was to appease Hitler. Because Franco, the dictator, in the 30s, you know, like Spain just had their big civil war, but he was trying to cozy up to Hitler and Hitler's like, hey, Franco, I think we might get along. And so Franco's like, hey, we're on your page, big H. And so they shifted their time zone. It probably wasn't that.

Speaker 2:
[161:41] Don't ever call me that.

Speaker 4:
[161:43] He said, hey, boss. No, and so they shifted. So they shifted to the German time zone in that era in the 30s and 40s to be more in line with Germany. So that led to everything being shifted later and they just have never shifted it back. And society just got used to that. Even this has a weird dark legacy. Weird stuff. Fun Spanish facts, but you all got something for a get a load of this?

Speaker 6:
[162:06] Get a load of this.

Speaker 3:
[162:08] I was going to invite you all on the Northern Lion Super Cruise. A cruise with everyone's favorite streamer, Northern Lion and some other streamers. And it was announced three days ago, but then when I checked this morning, it had already been canceled.

Speaker 4:
[162:22] What?

Speaker 6:
[162:22] Why?

Speaker 3:
[162:24] It got canceled. I guess like there's just a lot of internet speculation around it. And I guess it gave Northern Lion, who is like known as being the most normal Twitch streamer.

Speaker 6:
[162:34] Right.

Speaker 3:
[162:34] It gave him anxiety and it was just too much for him. So it got canceled. But then I thought, imagine a MinnMax cruise.

Speaker 4:
[162:42] Sarah, I have tried to line it up. I swear to God. No! Because I don't even ever seen it. But I was going through St. Paul a while ago and they have these big vikings cruise liners in the Mississippi that go to New Orleans and I was like that would be so fricking cool. And so I looked into it and I reached out and it was silence and response but I reached out to be like, hey, they have like on board entertainment and it's just like, hey, we're going to do puppet shows a couple of times.

Speaker 3:
[163:11] You tried to get us booked as like a podcast on a river cruise?

Speaker 4:
[163:14] Yes. And we could just like bring video games because there's a bunch of like senior citizens. Just bring a bunch of wheeze and then do like video game podcast.

Speaker 3:
[163:21] Set them up with wee bowling. Yes.

Speaker 4:
[163:23] Set those weirdos up with wee bowling on a boat. It sounds so fun. But looking into the price, it was outrageous. I'm trying to remember. It was like, however much I thought a cruise going from St. Paul to New Orleans would be, it was like quintuplet. It was something like $15,000 or something like that. What are you talking? It was ludicrous. So I guess they were too good for us and they never responded. But in my mind, I was like two week Minn Max cruised on the Mississippi. That would be so freaking sweet.

Speaker 2:
[163:49] Not us bringing wheeze and just doing elder care with wheeze.

Speaker 3:
[163:54] No, no, we don't. We just give them the wheeze and then we do whatever we want.

Speaker 1:
[163:57] Yeah, we've ruled the roost.

Speaker 5:
[163:59] Haley, would you get sick on that because of your motion sickness or is that just for like games?

Speaker 2:
[164:04] No, I'm not really motion sick with boats or whatever. Although there is an iconic moment in my childhood where I threw up on a whale watching tour in front of my entire class. And then shout out to my French teacher who was really nice to me. You laugh like such an asshole.

Speaker 6:
[164:20] That was like poor Ha.

Speaker 1:
[164:22] So he really was.

Speaker 6:
[164:23] So he can say more than one Ha.

Speaker 4:
[164:26] Is it true that you puked into the blowhole of a whale as it was coming out of the water?

Speaker 2:
[164:29] When I puked, the whale jumped up like free willy and ate my puke out of the air and then dived in.

Speaker 4:
[164:33] Are you serious? Oh my God, that's nasty.

Speaker 3:
[164:36] I would say they'll probably collect more sea life and they should thank you.

Speaker 2:
[164:39] I know, essentially I'm feeding the fish. You're welcome.

Speaker 4:
[164:42] Sarah, yeah, I looked it up, and I want to get back to the story. $16,000 to go on that cruise.

Speaker 3:
[164:46] But how long was it?

Speaker 5:
[164:47] $16,000?

Speaker 4:
[164:49] $16,000.

Speaker 5:
[164:50] Is it because for all of us, like all eight of us?

Speaker 4:
[164:51] No, one person, $16,000 to go to New Orleans.

Speaker 5:
[164:54] No, get out of here.

Speaker 4:
[164:55] Yes.

Speaker 5:
[164:55] Get out of here, get out of here.

Speaker 3:
[164:56] This is the city. What is the point in being someone who has this not cheap? How about this guys, we get our own boat, we run our own river cruise and we make money off of it. Yeah. This is a money making opportunity.

Speaker 4:
[165:06] Hell yeah.

Speaker 5:
[165:07] Wait, Sarah, I fear you're pitching what would be our fire festival is the thing. It's like, yeah, they didn't have any like life jackets in order of bathroom.

Speaker 3:
[165:15] We just have to make sure that the waivers are really good, you know, and nobody can sue us afterwards.

Speaker 4:
[165:20] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[165:20] Haley, get on that because that's the same as the law you normally do.

Speaker 4:
[165:24] I've got like a jet ski. We can just like tie a raft to a jet ski and then just get on the big muddy with a bunch of Minn Max fans on the raft.

Speaker 3:
[165:30] No, but then Janet will say we're not allowed to piss in the river or something.

Speaker 4:
[165:32] Well, that's true.

Speaker 6:
[165:33] That's legally binding.

Speaker 5:
[165:34] Because I can ski over it, so that's fine. That's just being on a jet ski. That's what being on a jet ski is. Get a little of this. Okay. We're still going in this segment. I'm going to use this to plug Sarah and Haley's Requiem Let's Play that's on YouTube because I just finished it like a week and a half or so ago. One, it was holding my mental health together as me and Isaiah were unpacking this apartment. Every day, he'd be like, let's put our girls on and it'd be Sarah and Haley on the big TV, and it was awesome. It's so funny. It was so entertaining. Obviously, I work here, so there's bias there, but I genuinely don't get a lot of time to watch Let's Plays or streams or anything. This was just so good. It had it all. It had the drama of the deepest dive and the stopping point being messed up and a bunch of funny things happening. Haley, I loved your bit about Dead by Daylight. I'm not going to say anymore. If you know, you know. Wait, watch it. Watch the whole thing. But yeah, and this is also my public ask that I am now like Sarah, you're a Shenmue person. I am now an annoying Sarah Haley Let's Play fan. We're like, when are you guys going to? You guys just did a bunch of work. When are you going to work some more? But literally, like, when will you work some more? How much does Ben have to Apple cash you to get this next Let's Play going? Because I finished it and was like, what are we going to do now? Like, I felt like I needed to detox into another stream. I'm literally about to start games just to watch you all play them. I don't want the games world for me, but then I also want to watch more of the content.

Speaker 3:
[167:06] So, shout out to that.

Speaker 2:
[167:07] Would you watch our Silent Hill 2 playthrough? Because we do need to be finishing that one. And if Janet wants it, that's a little bit of a nice kick in her pants.

Speaker 3:
[167:14] Oh, I guess we didn't finish that one.

Speaker 2:
[167:16] We got to the bowling alley and then we stopped.

Speaker 3:
[167:18] I was tired of that man. I was tired of him.

Speaker 1:
[167:21] He was annoying me.

Speaker 3:
[167:22] He was pissing me off.

Speaker 5:
[167:23] I'll see if I can finish it and then, because I don't want to finish it first. I know you all did Silent Hill F though to completion. So maybe I should start there and work my way backwards.

Speaker 3:
[167:30] To at least like the first ending.

Speaker 5:
[167:32] But I need, yeah, I need, I need more.

Speaker 2:
[167:36] Fun.

Speaker 3:
[167:37] Noted.

Speaker 2:
[167:38] Get a little of this. I was at a GameStop and they had Pokemon cards. For the first time in like a year and you could actually, they're actually there and they weren't going off the shelves like crazy. And so a parent, I was looking into it and also talking to the guy that works there. He had a very cute mime, a cute earring, shouts out the worker in Halifax, Nova Scotia, who works at GameStop. And they're over printing this set and this scalp. And I looked into this so much, I was in the pokey vesting Reddit, just reading them all, getting mad about it. Because they're printing this one so much that it's actually just readily available. And so for the first time in a year and a half, two years, they can't upcharge on it in a ridiculous way. And I was reading all the reasons why they're trying to say that it's not a good set and that's why they're not investing in it, just buy shares in companies. Holy s**t, please stop with the cardboard. And they're like, oh, it's because the cards are bad. It's because all the art's so bad. It's like some of the best art in the set in recent memory, in my opinion. And all the cards are cool. Like the chase cards are fun. It's like a really keep me out. They're just mad and it just makes me really happy. And I bought packs and I'm excited.

Speaker 4:
[168:45] Sweet. That's all.

Speaker 1:
[168:50] Hey, get a load of this. Not usually my genre. It's like a sort of a college drug movie. But there's this movie on Hulu called Pizza Movie that, like, shocked me with how funny it was and, like, bizarre and clever and, like, kind of Scott Pilgrim-esque even in a way. Like, I watch Scott Pilgrim about, like, pretty often. I'm like, how come every movie isn't like this? Well, Pizza Movie is kind of like Scott Pilgrim. It surprised me. I would recommend it. It's very dumb in a fun way, kind of like the recent Like a Gun, you know, like, just like a really good, dumb comedy that's, like, quietly, really quite clever. I really liked it.

Speaker 4:
[169:29] From the Community Discord, get a little of this. Miyabi82, they shared a YouTube video from somebody called Bowl My Shoes. It's one of those, like, yeah, this is YouTube. Somehow, this is exactly what YouTube was made for, which she made a video that's just called How Much Would a Mario Party Cost? And she just takes one game of Mario Party and tries to do accurate math for how much each of these things would cost, like buying the island because you got to do big renovations for it and each minigame itself that she runs into in one playthrough. So link in the description if you want to check that out. But that is it for this episode of The Minn Max Show. Thanks, everybody, for watching, listening, sharing all that fun stuff. More Minn Max stuff is out there. This is just the tip of the iceberg. If you want to check out more stuff like Peep Ya Bang, new episode all about The Sims. Diving in deep on The Sims, the loaded gun segment that you get if you're a $5 supporter was so twisted, it had the longest bleep session in recorded history. So Sarah's dark past was not revealed. But you get the reaction to people learning how dark Sarah's soul can be when she was a twisted, tortured child. Also, shout out to Janet, because I was so happy. Now that you're a Matrix One fan, because you made that reference about the world can't be too weird. It has to be flawed for it to be accepted by humans, just like the Sims. They can need to have flaws. I was like, please someone make that reference. And then for you to come in after seeing The Matrix, I was so proud of you.

Speaker 5:
[170:51] Making all my money back that I spent at the Kasa, I'm watching that thing in like the Matrix experience, which was sick as hell, by the way, if you can ever do that.

Speaker 4:
[170:59] Yeah. But the initial plus this week, Leo is on the moon lore wise. And thanks to Haley or some sort of robot character for jumping in and saving the day.

Speaker 2:
[171:09] Her name is Iris.

Speaker 4:
[171:10] Iris, thank you. So check that out on YouTube if you want. Also, we hit our goal for new show Overflow, which is our Twitch sub thing. So we're going to be doing a bonus episode of the new show plus. I think it might be streaming this Friday and then up on YouTube next week. And if it goes as planned, it's going to be a fun, nice surprise, perhaps tying into Mother's Day in a nice way on the horizon here. Is that next week? No, it's not coming up until like May, but just want to think of some loose connection for that whole thing. And then also the second win showcase we should mention. Janet and I helped pick out some indie games that are going to be in that chunk. So Second Wind, our brothers and sisters over there in the independent media world, they're putting together a big indie showcase that's airing April 23rd. And so we picked a couple indie games that we think look quite cool. And so it's going to be kind of like the MinnMax chunk and then like the skill up section of this larger showcase. So you can check that out on Second Wind's YouTube channel if you want. Also for the podcast next week, it's probably going to be delayed. I think the plan is we're going to put it up Friday so that we can talk about Soros from Housemarque. We're going to follow up to Returnal, the embargo is lifted on Friday. So we would probably hold the podcast and then just unleash all the thoughts then. So don't be alarmed next Thursday when the podcast isn't dropping in your feed. But all right, that's it for this episode. Anybody got something they're dying to say?

Speaker 2:
[172:27] Nope.

Speaker 4:
[172:29] If you had to say something Haley, what would you say?

Speaker 2:
[172:31] Twilight.

Speaker 1:
[172:32] Winnie's Hole.