Episode 965: LEGO Voyeurs

0:00. Hello and welcome to Radio Free Nintendo. It is February 26, 20, 26. Hey, look at that. And this is a don't don't help me. Don't help me. I could do this. All right. So, episode 965. You're crazy. Look at that. Look at that. I am James Jones. We're doing today by the returning, John Lunderman. Great to be here, James. Great to have you, John. Mr. Craig Lay. No way, everyone. And Mr. Guillaume Vallette. Hello. Two weeks ago, we said we were going

1:06to do our top five, but then John had to had to dip on us, which it's not not a big deal. We were able to kind of put a show together on the other side of that, but we're going to do it this week. So for those of you who are new to the RFN experience, one, I don't think you're real. I don't know that we've had new, I don't know that we get new listeners and the thought of new listeners coming into this 1,000 episodes in a terrifying. You've missed so much lore. You've missed so much lore. And it's for the better for you, probably. We sometime a long time ago decided it wasn't worth trying to do like game of the year. And this is something that I want to say we started here and then it matriculated into NWR writ large. But the idea is that generating a game of the year for an outlet, even an outlet with only four people is a god damn nightmare. John and I have both run that process and it sucks. So we didn't we didn't want to do that anymore. And so what we did in this that is we just sort of like came up with the like these are the games we really like. Philosophy,

2:08where we each kind of go around and give our top five games of the year in reverse new merit counting down we count down. We also give some some honorable mentions between two and one as is necessary. But last year was was it was a rough year for Nintendo fans because there wasn't a lot coming out. The rules around top five are personal that is to say you may have a John definitely has a different perspective on how to do this list than I do. I don't allow games from previous years. John is you will hear just not care about that rule. There's not a rule to him. So that is fine. I'm pretty good. I'm pretty good this year. I'm good this year. Okay, that's fine. But like, yeah, I mean, it's this has been a thing in the past that we've made jokes about. Like I think the only thing that is actually a well, I know I was going to say the only thing is that's actually rules that's on the Nintendo system. But that's not true either. We have had people picking on Nintendo games on this show. So yeah, like I said, this is very open to interpretation.

3:09Some of us are more religiously like no dogmatic about what it is and some of us are less. So we're not going to try to articulate everybody's positions on things. You'll probably figure it out as we go. But set the mood. Guillaume has grace grace gracefully. Jesus. I mean, I assume he was very graceful in the process. Sure. I don't know what I can loss what word I was going for now. Graciously. Graciously. Yeah, collected last year's top vibes for us. And Guillaume, if you would please share with the class. Sure. What games, what games we liked? Because I don't remember what games I liked last year. Yeah. So I'm going to start with Greg because he probably stuck closer to the assignment than anyone else. So number five for Greg was a Castlevania Collection. And of course, yes, it's a collection of older games, but the rationale there is that it also contains a new Castlevania game. So it counted. A reclamation of an old one,

4:10calling it a haunted castle sort of, which I mean, it was somewhat faithful, but equally it could be considered a new game because it's rather different, much, much easier and much, much more fun than the arcade game ever was. Number four was Shadow of Ninja Reborn. Number three was the Legend of Zelda Echoes of Wisdom. Number two was Prince of Persia, the Last Crown, which came out early in 2024. And number one was Animal Well, which is, I think, recognized as a great game by most people. Not all of our lists had games that are recognized as great by old people, I think. So well, no, but I'm mostly thinking about mine. I'm going to go with mine because I honestly ashamed of it. Like it really sucks. And really, what? It should have been a top two and it's not a strong two. So number five was what's it called?

5:14Netsumon, the game where you play as a little boy having a vacation in Japan. That's how much it's stuck in my head. Like I barely played that game and I don't remember the whole title. 20th century kid. Yes. I don't think it's really top five worthy, but that's what I went with. Number four was Arcade Archives Metamorphic Force, which is done in like 20 minutes, but it was pretty. I do remember that. Number three was Euphoria de Saga 2, which at this point in time, I don't really recommend to anyone. You already played it if you wanted to. It was not a top three game. I'm sorry. Number two was Little Kitty Big City, which is all right. I sure. That's good. That's good. And number one was Thank goodness here here, which really is the I think was probably the best game of that year for me. But yeah, so that's probably the only one I don't have any kind of misgivings about. Like I

6:19feel like it was definitely top five material. And I guess in a week here, it was top one material. I mean, it's it was a the year before console launch. So it does make sense. Things were a little weak. Yeah. James, your list was a I don't know. You said something like Sagrius, Sagrius, some some visual novel ring, right? Oh, oh, yeah, sagress. Yeah, it's the it's the sailing game. Okay. I had no idea. Sagress. Yeah, it's the yeah, it's the it's the game about sailing and exploration. Okay. Number four was echoes of wisdom. Number three was unicorn overlord. Interesting. Yeah. Number ahead of unicorn overlord, but you were replay you were in the process of replaying it back then, I think. Ah, when you were writing this list. Number two is East

7:1910. And number one, it was a thing goodness here here. Okay. Yeah. That's a good list. I'd forgotten about East 10. So I was going, what the hell be unicorn overlord? And now John had as as number five, Stardew Valley, which did not come out in 2024 Skyrim, which definitely didn't come out in 2024. Castlevania, Dominus collection, which I have to say qualifies because I already said that that's for Greg. A Skyrim probably came out in 2024. Probably. I guess, but not the switch one. Well, listen to the disappearance voice, right? Skyrim. This is the kind of thing that you know, Skyrim veterans like myself deal with, you know, I think it was not even Skyrim that you nominated as your fourth game of 2024. It was a particular build. Like it was your first time

8:19trying an archer or some shit. Oh, come on. Oh, that's right. I remember this. Come on. I mean, I said, everyone does this game differently. This is a personal ad hominem attack here. It's not at home. Maybe it's true. Yeah. No, it's I skimmed it. And that's what you seem to be saying. So it's true. So yeah, Castlevania is number three. Echoes of wisdom is number two. I didn't remember that I'm the only one who hasn't played that game. And number one was metron prime remastered. So yeah, that's a liberty is taken. Yeah. Yeah, some some years, I guess like we we try it to produce a game of the year, but sometimes we're like, you know what? That's just produce a game. And we'll see if there are years where it does feel like the goal is just come up with a fifth game. Jesus Christ. Yeah. Well, definitely like I wish I had gone to other to source from other years because I I'm not proud of the list that I did come up with. I mean, it is what it is. Like

9:21I I stick to like if I hadn't if I didn't have the rule around like it's got to be on antenna system, although it will be this year, I'd put an Indiana Jones up there way up there. That game's amazing. That game's amazing. You should play that game. John, why haven't you played that game yet? I just picked it up. I pick it's on sale and I just picked it up this week. Great. It's great. It's great. Yeah. Um, I really like that game and it's fun and it's and man, you get to kill so many Nazis. You can tell so many Nazis like just and when you're bored of that, you can go take out Italian fascists. It's great. Um, but yeah, I didn't put it on there because like I my I much more of like a no, I need just got to be on it to do a game. Um, but you know, so that meant that some years making this list was really fucking like we did this through the Wii U years. Just as a reminder, like we've had some dark years to do this activity. Those would have been dark. Yeah. Um, I think there was a lot of 3DS stuff that on a normal occasion would have come nowhere

10:23near the list, but it's like, this is a functional game that came out this year. I feel John Ademons crest on this list one of those years. I was pretty, I was pretty hard. That is the proper response to that situation. Yeah. Uh, I mean, he might be right. Like as as as nauseating a thought as that is, it's like, no, Ademons crest is the answer. Uh, but this year, I would love to tell you we don't have such concerns, but I'm sure we do. Um, if you felt like we were vamping a little bit, we were vamping a little bit. We're given John's time to finish up his list. Um, I'm good to go, man. All right. Well, then, then you know what, John? You know what? If you're so if you're so fucking ready, why don't you go first with John? What is your first game? Sure. My first game. Um, and a couple of these, uh, it's it's funny. Like there's a couple co-op games on my list here, and I haven't even talked about them on the show. It's just because I when I played them, I was like, well, I'm not done them yet. So I'll come back to them. I just never came back to them. Number one is, uh, well, number, my number five is Lego Voyagers, which is a really cool

11:27little game. Um, and it's, uh, it's where you are a little Lego piece and you roll through environments and you do a lot of, uh, do a lot of puzzle solving and there's a, and of course, you can pick up the Lego pieces and create bridges out of them and stuff like that. So a lot of it is sort of, um, going through this environment, which is very, very, which is all made of Lego parts, right? So it has, it looks perfect. Looks exactly like you would expect like real Lego to look, which is really cool. Um, and you're trying to ultimately reassemble a spaceship. And, uh, so you go through several different stages of that and you go through a factory and you do all this kind of stuff and you have to solve all these little puzzles. It's really cool, really, really cute. Um, just super fun to play through and, uh, and your little Lego guy is really, really adorable. Um, and just a well made game. Um, and it doesn't really, it doesn't overwhelm you with, it doesn't try to, it is cute, but it doesn't try to be too cute. It doesn't, like, you know,

12:30there's no dialogue whatsoever in the game, which is actually these days incredibly refreshing. Um, and so, uh, yeah, shut the fuck up. Yeah. Yeah. And John Lindemann, 2028, 2028. Well, that's the thing. It's, I feel like any kind of game like this, especially games are kind of geared towards kids, which this, this, this game is not, it's not really difficult per se. It has, you know, some clever puzzles and some things where it's not completely obvious, but usually, you know, you, you know, you're rolling through as a, you, you know, you can, you can roll to the left and, and you kind of like, you can just manipulate your little, your little guy, like, and attach to certain things in ways that aren't necessarily completely obvious. Um, and a lot of that, I feel like they try to hand hold you through a lot of things, typically in games like this. And Lego Voyagers, it really, it really kind of straddles that line between, you know, not being so heavy-handed that it talks you through things. Everything is fairly, fairly obvious until the end, right? It's not, like, it doesn't,

13:38it doesn't make it so hard that it has to talk you through. It keeps a very good difficulty balance. So if you're into Lego and just kind of want to breezy, it's a pretty short game, very easy to kind of get all the achievements and stuff like that. There's not really a whole lot of achievements. Um, but it's just, you know, very much kind of, uh, acute stuff like, you know, you can hop on a swing and just kind of swing there and you get an achievement sort of thing. It's like kind of environmental stuff that you can do. Um, you know, if, if there's, if there's an amusing thing to do, you're usually rewarded for it. If it's, if you're playing it, single player, is it worth it? No, I don't think there's no single player. Oh, okay, the fair enough then. Yeah, so it's, it's pure, yeah, it's pure co-op. Um, so, but that's good though, because it's, it's good in the sense that you, you know, you can go through it pretty quickly, right? Yeah, because I mean, it's, it's funny. Like, there's, I feel like co-op games, it's like, at a certain point, it's like, you're just ready to move on, you know, and we'll see. I have

14:40another game on my list where, where that happens, but I was saying on Deku deals that there's also a friend's pass, so someone can play for, you know, doesn't, you don't have, you don't need two copies, you can just, uh, yeah, play with whoever has the, the, the full moon. Yeah, Ghee, so you should, you should definitely, definitely take a look at it. It's, and it's, you can play through it and like, I don't even know how many hours, like, probably six, eight hours, something like that. So, sure, that's my number, my number five. Beautiful. Um, Greg, what's your number five? Yep. So, I'd say just as a general matter with this year's list, there's quite a few games I would have liked to get to that I didn't, that I could have had a, you know, I could envision, you know, could have been on the list, every, we mentioned last week, chin, I'd be, you know, the new one for, uh, the switch, uh, certainly would have been a candidate, but really, I guess the biggest feature of just the games that I did get to is that I would say,

15:44there's a bit of a separation at the very top and the rest of them, I, yeah, they're so close, like, between two and stuff that didn't even get on, there really isn't a big gap. So, you know, it's, uh, yeah, don't take these. And in some cases, you're doing very different games, right? So, is the, you know, there's, you give her an insight into the sort of incommensurability problem of like, you rank things that don't really satisfy in similar ways at all. But, uh, for number five, I'm going with Ertheon. This is the, uh, user-cashiro-headed, uh, retro shooter-mupp, uh, not just in the style of a Mega Drive game, it is literally a Mega Drive game. I think that probably the cartridge version has come out, right now, maybe, but, uh, obviously it launched digitally and, and, uh, I think with, like, physical versions as well in various territories on Switch and other platforms. And, yeah, I, I really quite enjoyed it, I think, because even though, you know, they've, they're sort of pushing

16:48the Mega Drive kind of hardware and the design constraints that come with that, uh, pretty hard, you know, probably harder than any, you know, sort of game authentically from that period, like, would have done. It's not in such a way that it's just like, okay, there's a million and one things going on, on the screen, and it's just completely overwhelming, and it's just, uh, aimed, uh, exclusively at the most kind of enthusiastic and capable shooter-mupp players, you know, I mean, certainly there are, uh, options when it comes to difficulty, uh, and, and what not, and I didn't choose the most difficult, uh, options, certainly. But, uh, just playing it kind of down the middle, it would felt like a nice balance in terms of, yeah, there is a lot going on. It is, you know, the fast and furious kind of action, but it's just not like to them completely overwhelming point. It's just, uh, kind of a nicely balanced game. You have somewhere in the region of, like, maybe the Mega Drive, you know, Thunder Force games three and four kind of, but with, uh,

17:48it's own kind of features, uh, especially, I think that's probably, you know, one of the more, kind of, um, welcome in aspects, maybe to people who are not just, uh, Verstein retro shooter-mupps, where, you know, like, getting hit isn't like an instant death. You've got, you know, you can, like, expand your health, and you've got these sort of aspects where it's like, okay, you know, you may lose, like, weapon power or specific weapons altogether, you know, by taking damage in a concentrated period, but, like, it's stuff you can kind of get back, you know, you're not in that situation where, you know, sometimes in your games, like, Gradius, uh, you know, where it's kind of like, if you die at a certain point, there really isn't a very plausible way back. Where it's just, okay, well, I did have everything. I had all the options, all the missiles, all the, you know, laser shields, all that, but now that I've died here, where you, you know, from that checkpoint, like, you can't really build up that much of an arsenal up until a point

18:52where you hit hazards and enemies where you really need that arsenal to overcome it, at least, you know, if you've got the modestly skill set that I have. So you don't run into stuff like that so much here. It's pretty kind of, uh, accessible in that way, but still feels pretty authentic, especially when you get, you know, the, uh, the Kashiro music, uh, you know, you're making that, the best possible sort of imaginable use of the Mega Drive sound hard, wearing that way, and everything, uh, you know, so the idea, I really quite enjoyed this one. Not, not, not, certainly not the game, one of the games I spent the most time with during that time, because again, you could, you see a lot of it very quickly, but, uh, you know, something you certainly can come back to, because it's satisfying, and it's just, you know, concentrated fun in that old school way. Cool. Guillaume, what is your number five? So this, uh, much earlier than it probably should be, but, uh, Mario Kart World, uh, which I did enjoy enough to, to put in my top five, but it's, I,

19:58I had to put it at number five just because I, I stopped playing it so quickly. Um, but I do enjoy the look of it. I think it's beautiful. I think it's still, you know, the same kind of the, Mario Kart fun that it's always had. And, uh, I do enjoy the, the kind of the, the, the stunt system. I mean, no, I'm not really that good at it. Uh, but I, I did feel myself getting the hang of it, as I played more and more, but not to the extent that I've seen some people online just, uh, push it, you know, just seemingly managing to grab on to, to, to flip off elements in the background. I just don't seem like you could touch it, you know, um, yeah, I'm just not that precise, you know, I can't, I, I don't have that kind of, uh, and I don't want to practice the same, the same, uh, tracks over and over again. But, um, yeah, no, like it, it's, it's good. Yeah, so,

20:59so part of it is that I, I, I dropped it fairly quickly and that's kind of surprising. And the other part of it is that like people were talking about like, oh, like how come there's no more, kind of support, you know, like they should have a, you know, they should have announced a DLC tracks and by this time. And I, I always thought like, well, didn't take forever for more a card eight to, yeah, but no actually didn't. I looked at the dates on the, uh, on Wikipedia. And just like within months, like the DLC was announced and it was released not that long after that. So, no, definitely, that was like really quite formative in the Nintendo DLC kind of approach, right? Yeah, don't forget that. And been doing this DLC for very long at this point. This, yeah, they used to have the policy of like, we ship finished games. It's all on the, the, the disc or the card or whatever it would be. And, uh, you know, that's that. But they, you know, especially when the situation that we you found itself in and just the realities,

22:05of, you know, this is too much money to be leaving over the table anymore. They, you know, kind of started to formulate an approach of like, okay, well, how can we sort of try and maintain the perception that the game is worth buying at launch, but still have these kind of DLC plans. And, yeah, this is where it was called. Oh, well, if you buy it now, you get your colors of Yoshi's and showy guys. Uh, you know, you get something now in the spirit later of, uh, link getting the red t-shirt or whatever. But, and then with promise of that, you know, a, a clear plan of like when the tracks are going to drop later. Yeah. I, I, yeah, there's a lot to like about Mario Kart World. I do enjoy like all the silly costumes. They're, they're, most of them are pretty fun to unlock. I, I do enjoy to some degree roaming around the open world map and doing some of the challenges there. Although I know where near, you know, I haven't finished any of that. But yeah, it baffles me that, you know, Donkey Kong Benanza came out and like surely Donkey Kong

23:13had only two costumes in Mario Kart World because they were holding them back for the release of Donkey Kong Benanza. We all thought that. Yeah. And that, that's, that what happened. No, there was nothing. No. So I can only assume that maybe the Mario Kart World team is working a bigger update than that. I don't know. Or maybe it's all hands-on deck to produce other stuff for, for the Switch 2. Like I, I guess that the excuse that they can have here is that, yeah, like it's the release year of the Switch 2. Whereas, uh, Mario Kart, uh, eight, sorry, brain fart. Mario Kart 8 came out, you know, when the Wii U was a little bit more mature. Yeah, sure. It was pretty much already over. Wasn't it even though Mario Kart 8 did very, very well for itself considering how, you know, poor Wii U styles were in general. There wasn't much it could do to move the needle at that point. And the more cynical side of me is like, oh, they're holding back updates for when people's online

24:16subscriptions are going to run out. Uh, we'll see. Uh, well, I hope that they announced something sooner rather than later, I guess, because at the core, I think, uh, at its core, it's a good game. Uh, but I, I think I'm ready for more of it, I guess. Did Tanda, Nintendo is now rubbing their hands together going, yes, more. Uh, what's your number five, James? Yeah, what's my number five, James? Um, I'm going to go with fantasy life. I colon the girl who steals time because it's an apt fucking name. Uh, this game is a time vampire. Uh, basically, it's got, I don't remember how many classes 10 classes and they're all kind of inner levied on each other. Oh, you want to craft better tools? Well, you need to get better wood. You want to get better wood? Well, you need a better lumberjack. Oh, you need to want to be a better lumberjack, huh? Well, you need better, better be a better backsmith. You'll be a better blacksmith. You better get better metal. And all of these jobs sort of just like one is your gateway into improving in another.

25:20And so you just go down the rabbit hole of like, well, I guess I'm going to build 800 pieces of furniture now to get my carpenter skills up. And then you do. And it turns out that that's kind of fun anyway, even though it sounds really repetitive. Um, there is something fun about like hearing a rumor that there's this super rare tree that's going to produce this wood that you need somewhere in this cave. And it's going to spawn in a little bit. You got to run there and get it and cut it down before it despawns. And then having a literal ass boss fight with the tree, which is to say that it's healing. And you need to be able to DPS it to death. Um, there's something about this game that it's like, it gives you just enough hooks to keep you engaged. And it's, it's made just well enough. It's not, it's not, it's not perfect. There's definitely issues. It's made just well enough that those hooks work. I'm going to be honest. I, when I started, heard they're making a third fantasy life game, I immediately thought this is going to be a disaster.

26:24Um, but it wasn't. They say that for in a zoom 11 remake or the end of zoom 11 reboot, but this game mostly okay. Um, does that increase my trust in level five, not in the god damn slightest. Yeah. But, um, this one kind of okay. And I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it more than it is good if that makes sense. And so it, it, it's sort of in this sort of, uh, milieu of a bunch of different games that could get the top five slot just ended up finding its way at the top of that pile. Um, there is a dividing line between number five and everything above it. But when we get to honorable mentions, you'll hear how this played out. All right. Um, I'm, I'm keeping notes on what everybody picks. And it's very funny that I felt like I needed to type, type my own choice when I have all my choices right above them. So I filled out the list for myself now. Ready? Uh, but I, I realized I had typed John's incorrectly.

27:27I had typed the phrase Lego Voyers, which I'm pretty sure is a different game altogether. Very different game. Yep. Uh, definitely. I, I, I, I, I, I would like to subscribe to your new, your newsletter. Stan, it still probably involves a lot of rolling around with a partner and I don't think the Danish would approve is my concern. I don't know, man. I don't know. I didn't make it. Don't be sure about about the, the guy with the prehensal penis. So I don't know, maybe the sweetest. So there puts a bit of a different context on that whole stepping on Legos thing. You're watching someone step on Legos. I don't, I don't really know enough about Lego terminology to make a joke here. It's fine. It does explain why the Lego games you collect studs. Oh, no, you know what? You got it. You got there. Um, I don't know. Maybe that's why every time I go by the Lego store, there's like 58 people in there. Like it's a goddamn Apple store, just across it, which is across the aisle. I, I'm not convinced anybody actually does anything in

28:31those stores. I think they're, everyone's just trapped there and their souls have been bound to that space and they cannot leave. Because I don't think I've ever seen business take place at the Apple store once. But John, I'm sitting here looking at an empty number four slot and I need you to put something in it. Yeah, I'm putting a split fiction in that spot. Another game that I have yet to talk about, but it's not a co-op game. I think I briefly mentioned I was playing through this. Yeah, this game is really good. I would say, but I mean, the game looks great. And again, it's, you know, basically two people trying to go through these different fantasy worlds that the whole setup is that, of course, there's an omega, there's an evil mega corporation who is using a machine to steal the ideas of authors. And so these two women authors, they get brought to this, this headquarters for what they think is a summit to talk about their ideas and pitch their ideas to get signed,

29:33to be authors, to be professional authors. And instead, their ideas get siphoned by this machine and they wind up through, you know, hilarity ensues and they wind up the two of them getting thrown into this story or their stories. And so they have to actually go through their particular stories that they've found and it kind of gets into their psyches and, you know, they go through their subconscious. And so they're kind of working through their own personal issues as they run through these levels and, you know, kind of build their partnership. So it's really, really well done. The game looks absolutely amazing and plays really well. My only real complaint with it is that it's a little overlong. You kind of get it. Like, the boss battles, by the end of it, you're like, how God, here's another boss battle. And the boss battles are pretty well done, but it's just like, you kind of get the point, you know, there's because you go through the main levels and there's also some sub levels as well, like some kind of side quests where you go through. And it's a lot

30:35of a lot of like platforming, but it switches in between sort of, you know, behind the shoulder sort of view, but it also sometimes switches into like a 2D kind of platforming sort of thing. And sometimes, you know, you and your partner have to go through stuff like, for example, like a large pinball machine like level. And all of these things usually relate to some traumatic experience that one of the women has had in their life. And, you know, like the one woman her father died of cancer. And so some of the levels kind of, you know, play into that and her fears and stuff like that. So there's a lot of kind of personal things that you have to work through with these two characters. It's really, really good. And I would, I would suggest again, Gilm, if you're looking for a co-op experience, but just be prepared that this is going to take probably maybe 15 hours somewhere in there. So it's, it's, it's quite a, quite a commitment. But it's well, well worth a playthrough. Even though, you know, some of the some of the

31:39interplay between the characters is a little bit annoying because you have the one character who's like really bright and cheery and the other characters are real downer and always, you know, just kind of, you kind of, you're like, okay, we get it, you know, you're kind of like an edgy cynical character. Like, you don't have to drill it into our heads for like 15 hours sort of thing. But nonetheless, very, very good. So I don't switch to. So I highly recommend it. So that's my number four. Cool. Greg, what is your number four? Well, again, I did have difficulty separating these. So you can blame this as much on numerology as anything else. I'm putting Metroid Prime for beyond in the number four slot. Again, for a time, that number four was all we had. So, you know, perhaps there was no other slot that the realistically could have gone in. But, you know, for me, I did enjoy this very much and there was a couple of elements behind it. I think certainly,

32:43you know, even though it's essentially just a switch game, I think it was still a pretty good, you know, experience in terms of showing off the switch to, you know, with the enhanced performance and just the nature of the kind of the art design, everything. It's kind of simultaneously, you know, brings you back to, you know, the feeling of playing the older Metroid Prime games back in the day because it is very faithful to that aesthetic. But of course, done, you know, with so much more detail and of course, the kind of the pre-baked kind of lighting thing that they did. I mean, again, I guess you could say, you already saw this, if you played Metroid Prime remastered, you know, you got the playbook, you know, was already kind of set out there with how they kind of updated those graphics. It certainly works very well when applied to, you know, these new locations and everything. I guess if I was going to kind of

33:43sub it up one way, it would be like sometimes when you see really cool like concept art in some behind the scenes thing for, you know, for games or it could even be for like movies or something. And you know, you see it and it looks really, really cool. And then when you see like the actual finished game or movie, whatever it might be, location in comparison, it doesn't seem as kind of captivating somehow. And I think a lot of the time it is because, you know, with that particular image, you know, you kind of can just draw you to evoke the sense of the location, you could just kind of draw it however you like, whereas, you know, did you have to make the maximum impact with that image, whereas when you've actually got to, you know, build a set or, you know, build a 3D environment in a video game, you're kind of asked to work, you know, from any angle and all this kind of stuff. But those, you know, the way what retro got going with this pre-baked kind of lighting thing, it does feel like, you know, sort of concept art brought to life, you know,

34:45in the game, you know, while you're actually playing it in real time, it sort of, yes, I guess it's not realistic, you know, you can poke holes in, you know, how much it feels like you're actually there. But in terms of creating some very like arresting imagery, I think it works really well, at least on me. Anyway, certainly, you know, it did that for the environments, the original metro prime and it's doing it, you know, here. So kind of having that again, I think was very effective. And then, you know, in terms of the design and everything, I think, you know, if probably, as you remember, when I spoke about it, two, you know, a few months back or whatever, the main thing that to keep striking me is just like, you know, how much they did feel like they were kind of a pains to go back to something that you could, you know, kind of find a place for in previous metro prime games. Sorry, it felt like it was very definitely wanted to make sure that, you know, this felt like it belonged in that lineage. Maybe it's not that much of a shock,

35:50if, you know, there was a lot of, it was a long and winding road to get to this place that, you know, in the end, they, they, they kind of, kind of came back around to like, let's just make sure, you know, that this does feel like a metro prime game to people. And for the most part, they were successful in that. I'd say probably the biggest thing, you know, that came up in terms of, you know, where it may be, I don't think it was as successful as previous metro prime games, perhaps, especially the first one considering that that's the one I replay most recently, courtesy of the remastered version, is, is kind of in the, the dressing up. Like, the thing about Metro games, and I've said it many times, one of the things I personally like very much about them is that they kind of, they pretend that there's this big space for you to go out and explore, but actually it's a lot more kind of, especially if you were just to focus mostly on progressing through the game and beating the final boss or whatever, rather than going and finding every,

36:54you know, intricately hidden power up, or the expansion that's optional. You know, it's actually quite a straightforward thing, right? It might criss-cross, you know, back and forth a little bit, but really there's a kind of path through the game, there's a particular journey, and yeah, you'll hit a dead end, and you'll have to come back and find another power up somewhere, but a lot of it is, you know, how the game dresses up that process and makes it feel organic, and like, you're finding your way naturally, when in fact, they're, you know, kind of, you know, prodding you in the right direction and closing things off, and it's not open, and it's not, you know, kind of, you can't really screw up that much, it's the truth of the matter. And I guess, you know, with four here, somewhat in line, I guess, with where they left off with three, you know, because that was disconnected, like, environments and stuff, it's a bit more naked about those sorts of things, you know, and it's just, oh, well, at a certain point, it's like,

37:54you need the, you need the, like, fire chip or whatever it is, for your arm cannon or whatever, so go and get that, and then we can go to the other place. It's a bit more bolt, and, you know, on the one hand, you know, I've played more than enough of these games to know that in the substance, it's not that big of a difference, really, but, you know, presentation and how things feel, it does matter, and I think it does, it's somewhat less elegant nature of that on top of, you know, the familiar elements probably means that it couldn't, you know, get a bit higher in the list, like, if they could really have made it feel, again, perhaps more than would necessarily be truly the case, like, it was all densely, you know, interwoven and, you know, kind of, disguise the seams a bit better, the experience might have felt a bit more kind of, it's all been rather than kind of, you know, because of the discrete nature of the areas placed

39:01in that desert overworld, and they're not there, they're not being terribly many interconnections between them, it ends up feeling like going through some levels, or, you know, Zelda Dungeons, right, we made that comparison plenty of times, but, you know, to me, to my mind is not drastic departure from the other games in that, and it was just really, really nice to have one of those, again, after such a long time, so that got it number four. Cool. Um, John, oh, no, excuse me, Keon, what is your number four? Uh, I think I'm changing my number four and number three. I mean, you could have done it and not tell us, we wouldn't know. Yeah, but that's how close I guess they are. My number four is going to be Pempus and Celine, a game that is from December 2024, but that I played in 2025. Yeah, I, you know, like if we were a, quote unquote, normal, uh, awards show, uh, probably like November is to cut off.

40:02There'd be an effort for a year. Well, yes, obviously, but also, you know, like games that come out in December might as well not exist, right? So, um, I, I, I think that I'm doing it just this or a favor, not a favor, but anyway, like I'm including a December game in there. Um, so, Pempus and Celine, it was just a, delightful, uh, co-op game to play. Uh, it is this little kind of old 2D and side scrolling adventure game that would be right at home on like the, uh, DMSX or, or something, you know, like, uh, kind of a slightly Metroid-E level design, um, where you have to go and explore and find the magic dude ads that will allow you to double jump or whatever so that you can, you know, ever see more of the, the, the game's world. Uh, you got that little coins that you're

41:04gonna, you know, spend at little shops. Uh, everything is little. Um, the, uh, but the, the, the twist here is that this is a simultaneous, uh, co-op game. And so, and you're, you're two characters, you're two, the two players are not, uh, you know, joined at the hip or like, they're not, they don't have to be on the same screen at the same time. Uh, you can be doing one thing and the other person can just, uh, do their own thing all the way across the, the game's world. There is a way to warp them to you if, uh, because there are going to be puzzles where you need, you need both of them or you need a particular character to be there. And, uh, so yeah, so you can just like zap them back to you. Um, but yeah, like it's just a, a ton of fun. Um, I feel like I kind of, I've kind of just described the whole thing right here. Um, but, but it is very well done. Like,

42:08it, it really, I think, understood what made those old games work. And the fact that they managed to turn it into such a great co-op experience is really fantastic. I, I, I think that the developers are like from the, uh, American South, I would need to check. Um, I, I, this game was so good. I wanted to go check their other games, but they've all got titles that are so not, the titles don't look like something I would get into that I, I just, uh, I haven't pulled the trigger yet. Like, they're, they're behind the unepic game and unmetal. And I'm like, I don't understand what you're doing there. I'm glad that this is not called the unpempus because I probably would have skipped it. Um, nice. But yeah, Pempus and Celine just, uh, like, if you've got someone, someone else to play with, like, this is fantastic. You can play it solo, but I wouldn't recommend it. And I, I did have

43:12some people online just like, oh, shit, like, that was really good. Do you have any other recommendations? Like, something like this. And I had to say, no, I don't. Like, this is pretty much like, the, the, it's pretty unique. So highly recommended. Um, and, um, I'm, yeah, you'll have a great time. Cool. All right. My number four is a Hyrule Warriors age of imprisonment. This is kind of a weird one because I, part of me is just like, man, they really needed to do more in this game. This is, this is a Zelda game about doing basically whatever the hell you want, even when compared to the previous Zelda game, which was a Zelda game about doing whatever the hell you want. And while they did do some stuff with like, um, combining items with your weapons, like you do in Breath of the Wild or with your arrows, which is a thing you can do in Breath of the

44:13Wild and tears, oh, it's, oh, tears the kingdom. Um, that makes your arrows super effective. And they did that here as well. It just felt like for a series that has infinite possibilities. They very much hung to the finite. Um, they could have done so much more with the construct, the construct concept. Um, the fact that our hero is essentially just Robo Link is kind of disappointing. Like it's, it's, it's unnecessary that they made a way to put Link in this context. And that yet they did, which goes down to me feeling like they were afraid to push the boat out too far. And this is me saying a lot of bad things about a game that I said is my number four game of the year. So I don't know what the fuck's happening here, but it doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it. Um, I feel like this is a game that squandered opportunity while still being really good, being a really good one of these. And so whilst I would have preferred, they try some things,

45:16take some swings. Um, you know, this is, this is a textbook case of telling someone they'd swing the bat. Um, sometimes you strike out when you swing the bat. And I still feel like this game would have been more noteworthy if they had swung and some of those had just been really embarrassing whiffs. Um, instead it felt like they kept things relatively close to home. And while it was very proficient and still quite enjoyable, that is the end of it. And I will not remember this game two years from now, which sucks because if you go back to the original Hyrule Warriors, that game is bonkers. And I remember it to this day. And it got more bonkers with time. The Hyrule Warriors from, uh, Breath of the Wild, I just remember Time Egg. Just Time Egg. That's it. Time Egg. Um, this one, oh, and bat performance. This one at least performs well because I was playing it on, uh, because uh, it forms, yeah, it forms well enough. Um, but yeah,

46:18it needed, it needed more. It needed more ideas, more, more bites of the apple, more weird stuff. And instead it's just a very competent game made by professionals. Uh, great. Uh, you know, John, you're next. What is your number three? Uh, my number three is Super Mario Kart World. Um, I mean, obviously talked about it at length, but you know, uh, enjoyed it. Um, I mean, it's really, I mean, it's expansive. I mean, what can you say about it? It's obviously high quality. Um, yeah, I mean, I just, I really liked it. It's just in terms of, you know, the, the way that they've expanded out. I don't do, I think it's perfect. Not really, but you know, for what it is, I think it was the next step, the next logical kind of evolution with Mario Kart, um, and I think for the most part, uh, they hit it out of the park and, you know, definitely will be playing it for years to come, but uh, not going to really to dig too much into it because we've already gone into it in detail. But yeah, Super Mario Kart World.

47:19Cool. And we got time. Yeah. So if you, if you got thoughts, feel free. Um, yeah. I mean, I'm kind of, I'm kind of with, with Guy sort of on the, you know, the, the, um, the stunt stuff. I mean, I think, uh, I think some of the things that I didn't like about it was, I always felt like it was very difficult. It was very easy. I will say it was, um, to flip that around. I think it was very easy to kind of get to kind of say, I want to go over there and you make one false move, especially when you're up in the clouds and, and in some of the aerial levels, you're falling down a long, long way and you really have to figure out how to get back up there. Sometimes, um, so I just feel like sometimes that gets in the way of really the open world, uh, the open world stuff that they obviously kind of hinge the entire gameplay on. Um, but, uh, you know, obviously a huge variety of things to do. Um, I think some of the kind of

48:20side quests where you're collecting this and that, like the, that probably I think could have been more interesting. But still, I mean, it's a heck of a package for any Mario Kart fan. I mean, I think it's, you can't really go wrong with it. There's just so much there, um, and so many tracks and, and so much, just so much stuff to explore in that game. So I really, really enjoyed it. Cool. All right, Greg, what is your number four? Three. Yes. Three. We must never forget. I had literally have this, the order and the numbers in front of me and I've gotten it wrong on the last three. I made it. I tried to make it easy both on myself and the others, uh, it's with Metro Prime 4, being number four. Yeah. You may as well. May as well. They'll take that when Ned was bunched up as it closely as these are. Uh, but my number three, I'll confidently say is the most obscure game on the last story, indeed, among the honorable mentions. This is Night Striker Gear, which is a sort of kind of a couple of those weird, like, um, into, um, complement games, like we already mentioned, uh, haunted

49:28castle, uh, you know, in that Castlevania Domino's collection or, um, indeed, Salamander 3 in the Gradius Origins collection from last year. But this was also released separately. Uh, so basically there was a, um, and a kind of a bit of a weirdo collection in itself called Operation Night Striker, which compiled a bunch of games that were kind of shooting gallery games, Operation Wolf and similar games, but also Night Striker, which, yeah, from Tito, quite different from those, because that was basically more of a space area kind of, uh, take, you know, an on rail, shoot them up, uh, but, uh, kind of in a vehicle rather than just, you know, a guy floating around, uh, but you're very definitely not a shooting gallery kind of game even, you know, but, uh, I guess when you're trying to put retro compilations together, sometimes it makes a strange bed for those, and, you know, in this case, it did. But, uh, also we had this, uh, Night Striker Gea basically, okay, let's do kind of a new one at the same time

50:35as the original Night Striker is being, uh, collected up with the shooting gallery games, and I really, really like this, even though it's probably even less substantial than Ertheon, you know, um, it's, it, it, some ways it seems like it's less substantial than the original Night Striker arcade game, because it, well, just in terms of like the number of, basically, you know, it's tighter, right? So if you know tighter from derayus, you might consider the way that they like that structure where the level's kind of fan out, you know, on a kind of, uh, decision tree, sort of scenario, and there's definitely more sort of, you could, you could think of it like, um, outrun a little bit. Yeah, in that way, which, of course, you get, this is kind of like a title mashing up outrun and space area, you know, when they did the original Night Striker game. And so, yeah, the original Night Striker game has more possibilities at least, uh, you know, in terms of how many different final stages you can reach. But here, you know, it's quite limited,

51:38but it's just, for me, I assumed such games exist, and I'm just not necessarily being all that cognizant of them. But for me, this is a really rare case of like, okay, we've got a super scaler type, which is, you know, that's what Sega called their sprite scaling tech when they were doing space area and hang on and outrun and all those games from the kind of mid to late 80s. Um, a super scaler style, on rail shooter, but with really high quality kind of modern sprites, uh, because obviously that tech went out of style pretty quickly, right? It was something that was, you know, the best approximation, I guess people could do of that sort of 3D space, you know, imitating things moving about in 3D space pre polygonal graphics. And of course, Sega themselves, right, in the early 90s, you get to the model one board, we get virtual racing, and you know, latterly virtual fighter and all that, you know, you get to like Daytona and

52:40Sega rally, all that stuff. It goes polygonal that that's the future, and this of course is something that's mostly left behind in the arcades. You did have a bit of a sort of life of course on Super Nintendo with its sprite scaling effects, uh, for games like FZ Row and so on. But, uh, you know, it became a bit of a relic of the past, and here it's like, okay, you know, a little bit like the game that to Gil mentioned I spoke about last year, the Shadow of the Ninja, Tango project kind of revival, where it's like, well, we go back to something and really do really high quality sprite work for it. And whereas with side scrolling games of that nature, that's something that seems to happen all the time. You know, uh, in this case, it's just for me, it was really, really cool to see a game, you know, doing all those tricks, but doing them with this kind of sprite work that's very, very nicely, uh, kind of rendered, you know, one of me like the, the, the, the kind of ability to invoke that kind of cyberpunky kind of aesthetic, you know,

53:47that was very popular around about the time that the original night striker came out, but with this great affordality, I think is really cool. And then just in terms of the game design, like it's, it's straightforward, it's simple, but it's all kind of, you know, executed very well. I'll also know that it has, and I'm not sure if this is something that was done in the original night striker or other on Raya's shooter, but it has a scoring mechanic, uh, sort of device that I can recall seeing most recently, which is not recently at all in the second sin and punishment game, which is where you can fly around where you're like, you're in this vehicle, but it can fly, but basically you get more points if you stay on the ground. Every moment you stay on the ground, you get the score racks up higher and they did the exact same thing in sin and punishment too, which of course was a divergence from the first game. First game you weren't essentially rooted to the spot, right, and you had to jump. Whereas in the second game, they said, well, no, you can kind of make it more like space area, you can float around, but if you stay

54:52on the ground, you will get more points. And so I always like that idea of like, okay, you know, basically you're supposed to try and stay on the ground as much as possible, and it kind of creates this risk reward element of like, well, that gives you less real estate to dodge about. And it's like, when do you decide to bail and you know, go into the air and sort of, you know, try and just stay alive that way before and decide in its safe to kind of go back in the box and go back on the floor and rack up more points again. I always thought that was cool and it's well deployed here. And, you know, yes, it was in the original game, by the way, I can confirm I have the collection. Yeah. So the original night striker had the same kind of device. It makes sense, right? It always was like a logical kind of scoring mechanism, you know, just kind of to have that like risk reward element, you know, for people who are really trying to rack up scores, you know, they can't have to put themselves in more danger. It's just, yeah, it doesn't

55:54surprise me that the original game had it. So, yeah, a cool idea implemented well in this game, what they do, you know, kind of, there's not meant that many unique stage themes, so because some of them might get, you know, you've got a relatively small like tree of levels and then, you know, some of those will be like alternate versions of each other. But you've got these sort of, you know, four unique, like, termination points. And then if you cut really, really snappy to run through. And then when you run through the fall and see the four sort of bosses there, it opens up a kind of fifth and final level to truly beat the game. So, yeah, they're stringing it out a little bit, I guess, but it's also fast. I really don't mind. I quite enjoy just coming back to, you know, get, you know, get another route done every now and again and see, you know, all of it eventually. And then you get the reward for that

56:54is kind of you can play, I think they call it the B side mode, where it just strings everything together in one big long kind of streak if you want to do that. So, yeah, very, kind of a modest package, but I think really, really well executed. And you have food for people, like me really like this kind of game and there's not that many of them. It was really satisfying to see. Guillaume, what is your third? Yeah, my third game, which could have been my fourth, but then I was thinking about what I was going to say and I was like more impressed by it. The third game is Absalom, the rogue-like beat him up by guard crush games, my beloved guard crush games, who made the Streets of Rachel, which is like the game of the forever, at least probably the game of the Switch for me. But here, yeah, so this is their, they're, you know, another beat him up from them.

57:55So of course, mechanically, like it's very satisfying, it's a ton of fun to play. And then there's the rogue-like aspect, which, you know, I thought was maybe inspired by Hades, but apparently they've cited Dead Cells as their inspiration, coupled with games like Dungeons and Dragons, Shadow of Hermistara, and Golden Axe. So like the, I guess they were looking at older games for their inspiration for the setting, which is more medieval. You can play as a dwarf, you can play as like magic user, a cool assassin. They don't have the, you know, the Conan stand in that Golden Axe has. They tried to make like put their own, create their own little, you know, fantasy world that's not a one-to-one match with like the usual Tolkien stuff.

58:56But yeah, like so, I guess the reason why it's not higher on the list is because maybe of those rogue-like elements. You know, I'm not sure. I recognize that it's a valid design, decision in games like Hades or Dead Cells or, you know, or this game to make it basically impossible for the player to finish it the first time that they play it. But it still feels a little bit kind of cheap, you know, like we're talking about ways to extend the games that are maybe slight. That's a problem, like there's a lot of content in this game. So in a way, I feel like having the people replay the game over and over again to just have a chance to level up enough to be able to finish it. It kind of diminishes the game a little bit. But at the same time, it does provide some way,

59:58so it's like an opportunity to do some cool things. Because in this game, you're basically brought back to life by your god who's at war with other gods in this realm. And so you are always, you know, there's like a continuity, you know, like you go beat up the wood, gremlins or whatever. Well, they're gonna be there next time, the goblins. And they're gonna, you know, remember that you beat them up. And maybe this time, like they won't open their doors to you so quickly, you know, maybe you'll face new opposition. Maybe there will be a new quest that you can find there because they asked our quest sometimes. You can find people who will give you, you know, ask you to find something for them. And you realize through the game, like you progress linearly through the levels. And sometimes you can select between like, you know, a few paths. And yeah,

1:01:04you'll realize that someone gives you a quest. And the thing that you can get is earlier. So you're necessarily going to have to either finish a game or die before you can go to that place and have a chance to go get the thing that they're asking you for. So like they do try to mix up things and to give you a reason to replay it more than just like, well, go ahead accumulate XP and, you know, make your character stronger to, you know, like there's more, like there are story reasons or like quests or like, you know, little cool things to discover that they put in there. So yeah, it's fairly well done in that way. In a way like Hades, again, was basically the same, right? And yeah, like the, the fighting is great. It's a little bit different from Streets of Rage 4 because it's a roguelike. So you do get to choose between, you know, they often give you

1:02:12two or three options of like, what's the, what next move do you want to unlock? And so yes, like maybe you picked, you picked Carl the dwarf because you wanted to play as a grappler. And he's the one who's going to become the grappler if you get the opportunity. But sometimes like you'll get a different, you'll have to build a different build with him and you'll have to, to, you know, make do with that and maybe like try to shift your strategy to be able to get anywhere. So the game does, you know, keep you, you know, you will have to vary up your strategy. You can't just always be doing the same thing because the randomness of the game demands that, you know, like you, you'll probably never have the exact same build twice. Yeah, I don't know, like it's super satisfying. I sometimes like,

1:03:13you get, you look into just the right build or like you didn't know exactly what you were working towards, but then like you increase your character's power just enough so that all of a sudden, like your, your punches just send the, the, the opponents flying cost a screen and just bouncing several times, you know, to against the, the edges of the screen and doing damage to every enemy that they hit in their way. And like it feels incredibly powerful, incredibly satisfying. You kind of feel like, oh shit, I broke in the game. But of course, like the, the, it's not quite the case of, you know, the game remains tough until the very, very end when you've upgraded or your characters fully. Anyway, like I, I, I'm kind of rambling here, but like it's an excellent, you know, cool up experience, an excellent brawler and a very good rogue like in its own right. So

1:04:15I'd say like if you're a fan of any of those genres, like go for it. Cool. All right. My number, we'll do my number three and then we'll take a break. My number three is once upon a Katamari, as we talked about this a few weeks ago, about a month ago. This is my first experience with the franchise, which definitely contributed to my enjoyment of this game. This is also a game that I got to play with the girlfriend extensively, which definitely helps. There is shit in this game if you are trying to do everything, which we did do, that will frustrate you eventually and having a person to hand it to, where you can just smile and say, this is your problem now. Definitely positively contributes to the experience, because oftentimes they've been giving you unhelpful advice. And I was guilty of this too, that will not solve the question of how the fuck do I get up there to get that crown.

1:05:18And now it's like, are you got theories? You try him out, Chief. I'm sick of it. And as a consequence, like it was, it was a very, an extra degree of interactive beyond just the game itself. It's the opportunity to kind of like make that into its own little social experience, because it's not a multiplayer game, it's a single-player game. But it's still like, the person who is sitting there with you is at least 60% as engaged in the play activity as you are. But mostly because the game doesn't really ask that much of you as a player, it's more just how do you make it do the thing you want it to do. Also, this is the game that gave us clip plot. And I I fully endorse clip clop. I feel like that is the idea of a prince that's actually two princes or cousins in a horse costume. And the king is quite possibly too stupid to recognize that that is not a single entity, but is in fact too unique people is excellent. However,

1:06:23this game also gave us, I can't remember the name of the other one, but it's an actual centaur. And it's deeply alarming because it has human, it has cousin legs instead of horse legs. So it's just a long tube with two cousin legs sticking out of it. It did not like that, it did not like that at all. But yeah, this this game is creative and ridiculous and everything that you expect this franchise to be. I understand people have had issues with where this franchise has been in the more recent past. But this game, maybe I'm missing the finer nuance of that that has been not present in the series for fans of it. But to me at this point, this game feels like it is extremely good. And it is and is like well made Kenta. Kenta is the centaur with human legs. I don't like Kenta. Kenta is bad. Do not do not do not with Kenta.

1:07:28So yeah, that's it's just a lot of fucking fun and having somebody to play it with definitely amplified that experience. So I'm glad she compelled me to buy it and that we spent, I don't know, we spent this is this is going to say we decided not to go out new year's Eve because it was cold is shit. And we played it for a while that night. And it was just a fun way to do stuff that night. Just just hang out and I can't remember if we had dragged that or not and just just like try to get all the stupid crowns in the Western level because it's a nightmare. It's a nightmare. One of them is a friggin nightmare. And all the ones where you have to make the the samurai fat did not enjoy those those were bad. But we did it. I think I got the last thing like right after she left like the day later and I got the last crown was like it's done. Put this game away. But you can make your own cousin. So that's that's fun. I've made a horrible horrifying clip clop. So that is

1:08:30what I planned. All right, we are going to take a break here because we are at an hour and we come back. We're going to finish off our list. So please stay to we are back with more of our the well, the conclusion of our top five games of 20, 25. And John, I need you to tell me what is your number two game of 20, 25? Uh, Xenoblade Chronicles X definitive edition. Um, very tough not to put this one in the top spot. Um, I have a feeling it's probably your number one James. Um, could be. I mean, there's there's two left that the audience should be able to guess both of them at this point. Yeah. But I mean, what does there say about this? I mean, just an incredible game again. Yeah. I mean, well, some of this stuff, I mean, like these are like, as you get higher up the list, uh, they're the

1:09:30stuff that we've just talked about ad nauseam, right? Because there's such games. Well, and this game in particular, because I'm pretty sure you and I both gave it number one like 10 years ago. It's so good. I mean, it's this game is just so amazing. And you know, it's like, I haven't even gotten that far into this again. I mean, um, but I did just pick up the, uh, the switch two upgrade. So I'm definitely going to this one's on my list. I want to get this done this year, along with a couple other ones. Oblivion. Um, but, uh, which I did actually pick up. I didn't have a chance to mention that, but Oblivion, Oblivion Watch is, uh, officially on, um, because I did get remastered just a couple days ago. Um, but yeah, so this along with Oblivion Remastered, um, definitely going to go through this. And I really, I'm really looking forward to seeing what the switch two does in order to upgrade the visuals for this one. Um, really looking forward to seeing it at, you know, at, uh, you know, 60 frames, that's going to be pretty sweet. And I mean, this game,

1:10:34it, this, it's just hilariously dumb in spots. Um, but also is the type of game where it just, the world itself is one of the best realized worlds. I mean, there's a lot of open world games out there. There's tons of them. But I feel like this one is the, is the game where I've wanted to explore the open world more than anyone and it's interesting playing through the, the first, the first parts actually, like speaking of Oblivion, like just playing through the very early part of that game and kind of walking around and stuff like that is great. But this game more than anything makes you feel like you're on an alien world. Oh really? I mean, even, even after playing stuff like Starfield and No Man's Sky and all that kind of stuff, this game is very unique in the sense that it's just the scope and scale of the world that you're looking at. It really feels alien and it locks things off in a very sensible way. So you may look at something floating in the

1:11:39sky, some floating rock formation and through the entire game, sort of doubt that you could ever get there. Like you think, oh, well, that's just up there for show. But nothing in this game is for show because I remember playing through it the first time and just thinking that there's no way that that can actually be a place that I can access. I mean, sure, any game I'd ever played up at that point, even if it was, you know, open world, it's always, it had always been, you know, this is there, but it's not really something you can access, but this game really just just blew that out of the water and the different zones all look beautiful. It's, it is impressive in how it manages scale. It's just, yeah, and I again, I keep saying this, I've never really played a game like it in that respect where it makes you feel small in a huge world. In most games, open world games, they're big, but they're flat. They're not, they don't have that scale and that kind

1:12:41of vertical sort of dynamism that this game has. And I haven't played anything like it since. So yeah, very hard not to put this at number two. But yeah, just a great game and I look forward to actually like digging into it and really playing through it. I'm very interested in how you react to chapter 13. Yeah, it is, it is, it is interesting. Yeah, because what I will say. Yeah, I mean, I played, I played through this whole thing first time through. So, yeah, so it's that new chapter at the end. How's it popping? Greg, how's it popping? What's your number two? Well, number two is going to be Maricop world. So yeah, I was covered quite a lot. So I probably try to keep it brief. I would just say, you know, I certainly did sort of take two messing about in the open kind of free roam play, you know, maybe more than some

1:13:41of the people. I'm up to 370 of the piece which missions are still. Oh my god. I'm all I think I don't think it's above 400. So I must be close. I'm not necessarily even though, you know, one of the things they have added, you know, is it the map where, you know, you can sort of quit warp to any P mission you've actually already done. And that means you can see, you know, all the areas that you have found one and it kind of gives you some ideas about where, you know, that you might have missed an area, you know, that you might not have explored as much. And that's helped to kind of close some of those gaps. But yeah, I think you're probably up to the point where I might have it would have to like consult a guide or something to me to actually, you know, kind of track down the last few. But, you know, and quite a few more of the medals, I think, relatively, are missing though, because those obviously are not as conspicuous by design, you know, when you're on the field like, you know, they're not the big blue lit up switches.

1:14:43But, you know, the, the fact is, I think it's quite, you know, quite an interesting choice for something, not just, you know, from the intent of themselves. And very often, you know, the, the sort of charge, you know, that's leveled at Nintendo is that they, they, this too quick to, you know, be very kind of hand-holdy or this sort of thing. And of course, you, you've seen them kind of push against that in certain areas like, you know, Zelda, you know, with the breath of wild tears, the kingdom kind of going to a place that's a much more open and allowing of, like, player creativity than where, you know, the series had left off with Skyward Sword. But, you know, certainly in other places, there's something as mainstream as Mario Kart, you know, the Mario Kart franchise. I think it's quite an interesting choice to just kind of say, well, you know, there's, there's all this, all these challenges out there that kind of in a, you know, quite a significant way will help train you of, to show what's possible with the new, the stunts

1:15:44and tricks that Gilm already mentioned. But you're just going to have to find it. You're just going to have to go out there, your own sort of, you know, initiative and, and find these witches. And, you know, some of them, I kind of, you know, as we said, there are many, many of them, nearly 400 or whatever. I'll just kind of something or nothing. But equally, you know, you've got some that are, you know, much more difficult. And then you, and just as the sort of, some total of them, it's getting you to think about, you know, what is possible with the, you know, the new kind of forms of like locomotion, I guess you could say, that are included in Mario Kart world. And so, you know, I think that's a cool choice. I think it's nice that it just kind of leaves it to play as to, to find it for themselves and to like delve into it as much as they have the, like the shrines and, you know, press of the wild. Yeah, there's, there's definite overlap with that. And it likes it. I think it's like an even more interesting choice to bring that into

1:16:45something like a Mario Kart game rather than, you know, Zelda. But, you know, I do think there's a couple of things that go along with that. One of them is probably, you know, some people who might have enjoyed this stuff engaging with it and just haven't, or certainly haven't engaged with it nearly as much as they might have done because it is so hands off. And I'm sure those people who just perhaps wouldn't have engaged with it anyways is not necessarily what they're looking for from Mario Kart, you know, but they're more just interested in, you know, racing. And they're caught, you know, they brought things to the table there, you know, with the higher number of players. And, you know, the knockout tour format and stuff. And so I just, you know, some of the entirely novel tracks and things. So it's not as if there wasn't more in that more kind of obvious like vein that Maricopa brought to the table. But for me, that was probably the biggest thing because Maricopa single player endeavors have been pretty like more abundant from why, you know,

1:17:48I mean, probably, you know, the DS game had the missions and the Wii game kind of had like successes to the missions with some online events, you know, but since then, you know, obviously online multiplayer, you know, from the DS game had it, but it was very limited. Wii game, you know, kind of had a much more substantial online mode. And that's kind of taken a lot of the emphasis of providing the last in appeal of Maricopa games since that time. And this obviously has that. It's a big part of it, you know, playing with more player simultaneously online than ever before in those in different formats with the knockout stuff. But this I feel was actually quite successful in providing, you know, some rewarding single player kind of content for it without, you know, in any way kind of forcing it on, you know, on players by like making it unlock, you know, a lot of

1:18:51stuff or whatever. I do think there's just some really simple stuff here that wouldn't have been too kind of overbearing or whatever to maybe make it a little bit more appealing or just, you know, to get people to engage with it. Like I've mentioned before, just like that kind of sticker album that you get for, you know, that you acquire all these stickers for doing things. But it just sort of amass in the order that you achieve them rather than like, okay, maybe we could have like an actual album and fill in, you know, specific sections and, you know, have that kind of draw people's attention to particular kind of challenges and maybe suggest somewhere they could go to look for a particular challenge even and, you know, want to fill in all these different, you know, kind of stickers, you know, organized by category or so, just just a little bit of structure, a little bit of breadcrumbing something. I think could have gone a long way, I think it was a

1:19:54legitimate criticism. And then with some other things, you know, I think it was a bit unbalanced the fact that, you know, it was kind of so difficult to get, you know, sort of traditional lap races up plain playing in the sort of casual, like online nut lobbies, you know, initially because, you know, it kind of was sticking so much to the like, okay, you are in this particular spot on the map. So the next race you can go to, you've got a physically drive there in a, you know, in a stichel sort of route and all that, you know, kind of switch again. I think those are interested in having different kinds of courses and it increases the number of unique combinations of like different kind of courses that you can get, but sometimes you just, you like to play a three lap race and, you know, they didn't sort of make that very easy. You could have got sometimes kind of got trapped into going in circles in that to playing online in the map and stuff. So the fact that they came around later and sort of say, okay, we'll put more in the rotor,

1:20:58in the sort of rotation where it's a location that is on the other side of the map and therefore, we're not going to do the interstitial thing and you'll just start there and you'll do your laps around it. I think was, you know, just, you know, the huge deal for that is some people apparently were very upset about it for me. It's just like, yeah, I would like to see that in the mix more and eventually they kind of got there. But again, a lot of ways, I think, you know, this did, it's kind of, Marica 8 Deluxe, where it ended up, especially with the booster course pass, you know, was so sort of, you know, to kind of tick to pretty much every box on this kind of maximum, you know, kind of scale of just like, we've got so many tracks from the CUS history, so many characters and all this kind of so like, what do you do, you know, after that, you know, it's a kind of a similar problem that what will face Smash Brothers one day, you know, when they try and pick up with it after Ultimate. And so what they sort of hit upon here, I think, was it was pretty satisfying and I've certainly enjoyed it. And yeah, I would sort of second what

1:22:04Guillaume said in the sense that, you know, I look forward to there being, you know, as we must assume, there will be, considering just how many people have already bought this and will continue buying it, you know, there's going to be a market for DLC, additional content. And, you know, I think that that'll probably, you know, kind of get me to go back to it, this will have been kind of hit a little bit of a wall, you know, like said, with finding, you know, things in the open world and all that now, at the moment, it's just kind of been every now and again, dropping in online and kind of getting a few games in, but I look forward to the point where they can expand it out. Hopefully, I hope there's a room for some 200 CC something that did love the stupid speed of that back in America, but yeah, whether that's really compatible with 400 CC. Is that really compatible with the kind of tricks focused, you know, kind of driving in this? I'm not sure. I'd love to see them try. I hear you're concerned, but I challenge you that it wasn't compatible with many of the tracks

1:23:07in Mario Kart 8 either. And that's what that was more felt so great about it. What do you fail by playing something from like debug mode, didn't it? And that, that, that was what was fun. They did not give a fuck then. I don't know what makes you think they'll give a fuck now. Guillaume. Yeah. Give us your, give us your the second. My second game's the year is Shinobi Art of Vengeance, a game where you can be a ninja and flip out and kill everyone. It's me after an RFNF recording. So yeah, like this is a very beautifully, you know, hand-drawn game. It's why is it my number two? I guess like it just something clicked and it just plays so smoothly. I did not feel that way when I first tried the demo, but eventually I

1:24:07you know, started to understand what it wanted from me. And like the the it just became almost addictive, you know. You explore these big stages. There's a lot of secrets to find. It almost looks Metroidvania-ish except that it's discrete levels and it's more like, okay, you you you find the you know, the power up somewhere in this level and then like maybe later you'll be able to go back to a previous level and you know, destroy this wall here that wasn't the way before. There's not much like it's it's not even though like it tries to add exploration to the game that's not really what the the main gameplay is. The main gameplay is a lot of platforming, sometimes very, you know, precision platforming. But the controls feel smooth enough that even though like I was dying over and over again in segments, like I always felt like it was

1:25:14fair and you know, mostly my fault and other games that I was dying. And the victory was always like achievement was always within my grasp, you know, like it always felt like I have the tools to make it past this platforming section. I can do this. And the the combat, which is pretty simple, but it just it works beautifully. It kind of reminds me of in a way like it's kind of a 2D take on like Doom 2016, you know, like people were like, oh, that's so cool. Like the way that you finish enemies gives you, you know, health or ammo, like it gives you the stuff that you need. Well, in this game, you can just swing your sword, you know, 3, 4 times at an enemy and kill it. But what the game wants you to do is to try to get the most enemies on screen possible,

1:26:17just on the verge of dying, using your Kunai or using your sword. Some enemies have armor, so you have to get that get rid of their armor because you can whittle down their health. And eventually when all enemies have this mark that signals that they can be taken out with like a super ninja flipping out move, then you do your super ninja flipping out move. And automatically the Shinobi just goes all over the screen and kills all the enemies and, you know, blood gushing out, but mostly health gushing out coins gushing out and Kunai recharges, you know, gushing out. And that is extremely satisfying. So yeah, like I, the gameplay in this game really clicked. I don't think I really cared for the story all that much. And there's a lot of it, but it's mostly skippable. So I'm not going to hold it against it. But I think that it could have

1:27:24used less story than it had to be honest, like they have a lot of exposition and a lot of explaining why you're going after the McGuffin that you're going after. And it's like, well, we, this is not super interesting. So I guess like if you have to find like a flaw in this game, it's that it probably overexplains itself. And this is, you know, kind of an action exploration game, but focus on action. And that's what you're there for. And if that's what you're there for, then this game really provides. So yeah, fantastic game plays great. And I do recommend it. We paid for the whole seat, but we only want to use the edge is what you're saying. Yes, absolutely. All right. My number two is what I so I noted that audience members should be able to figure out what my one and two are in what order. So I kind of am spoiling my number one by giving my number two.

1:28:29But my number two is Donkey Kong, but answer. I really enjoyed this game. So I actually was happy that the timing on this was fortuitous. I did the most recent challenge for the Emerald Rush mode. This is the February one. I think it's up now. I think it's over now, rather. And what it asks you to do is in the the ostrich layer, I can't remember what it's like forest layer, you have to collect the bunch of Emeralds, which is which is normal. But the the trick on this one is the multiplier is on the munch. I can't remember what they're called. The ones that have worms that come out of a hole. It's like a munch or we do it because they're all they're all something always. They're just like sort of a little snake type in this. The the merge they extend out of like a kind of base and you know a lot of that you might see them like a lot of the time in some of

1:29:34the kind of underground kind of parts and things. But there's always been quite a few for them. It was so yeah in the in the muck like yeah in the muck and then on the top of the plateau on the same and the middle part of it. I think it's like 802. And so I thought it was very easy. Oh well so the if you don't know the Emerald Rush challenges, you only get a very limited number of power-ups popping up. And that's sort of their hint for how you can get this multiplier where you need it to be. And they were all around the bird transformation, the ostrich transformation. So we really get the ostrich transformation or how they get your aft. But it's right in front of you. So that's a you problem. And you get multipliers for killing enemies while you're in the air. You get multipliers for flying. You get multipliers for dropping egg bombs. And you get multipliers for killing things with egg bombs. So the game is really telling you hey you should be glide gliding and dropping bombs on things. This is really strongly hinting you should be doing that. And there's a multiplier in it for killing the munchoids. And I thought to myself ah this will

1:30:40be easy. I know where there are multiple sets of munchoids and munchoids respawn. I've got you game. It took me two hours. And the reason is there's a secret mechanic in this game where if you kill the same enemy over and over again in Emerald Rush mode, the multiplier starts to drop precipitously. And so what you have to do is understand where all the munchoids are in this stage and go farm them in sequence. But only farm enough like try to get through only killing one of them ever to get you through stage like eight. And then spend all your time building power-ups. It's like stage one through four are just just like I just need to survive and get power-ups. Stage five you kill one to get enough that you can then grind out just get like don't even try to get any Emerald. Just get power-ups. And then finally in eight and nine you go do the sweeps through all the munchoids. And you remember where they all are. And that maximizes your output. And that's how you

1:31:41get it. And it's like oh that's way more tactics than I expected from this. But I shouldn't have because last last month was about the friggin turnips and understanding how to maximize your output from turnips. It's interesting they built a game that could be this mechanically diverse. It's what I like about this that we were having a conversation in the discord about about sunshine which God. But one of the things about sunshine is there's lots of places that are hard to get to. But the game doesn't really give you any kind of handhold once you get there. So the bay no key no key bay is a good example with the big scaffolding you have to climb in the middle of it or that's the harbor. And the heart in that scaffolding if you fall off guess what you get to swim to the shore which will take forever. And then you get to do it all over again. And if another challenge asks you to go up there guess what you get to climb up there again. Donkey Kong has

1:32:43some of that where like the verticality is the challenge but generally speaking once you conquer you've conquered it. Now there's a warp up there or you get an upgrade that makes it makes it easy or you change the level in such a way that the thing that made it a pain in the ass be it like spikes on a surface or whatever is no longer a thing. And you can just go there and Emerald Rush forces you to reexamine how you navigate some of those areas because sometimes places that you could get to before because of upgrades that knew you had you don't have anymore because Emerald Rush sets you back to zero and I have to figure out how to get there without the power-ups that you had previously. Oh and you do have fast travel but it's finite. Right. Yeah. So you know and I don't think they let you upgrade it. In your typical Emerald Rush that will be a perk right? Is like oh we'll get more warp cannons whereas in that one it's one per round and I don't think you were ever going to be able to. But they're pretty rare. They're pretty rare ones to look at cycle through. So like the round. Yeah I didn't get that much time in with this one. I didn't

1:33:44realize I forgot about it until it was quite right. So I got I got a few goes in but and then didn't get wasn't able to come back to it. So I never saw a wall cannon upgrade in that time. I think I think I only saw it once out of the seven or eight runs I did for twice. And then the fucking fossil radar one just refused to pop. It finally popped on the run I was successful which is good because it makes hunting for things a lot easier but yeah it was just just bad luck just bad luck on the random generator. But I'm talking about the DLC mode here. I hadn't even talked about the main fucking game and that's the thing. They built a game with mechanics that made me like a roguelike and I don't like roguelike. So that's saying something but they they built this game that just feels good to play. It feels so good to play that I have found every single collectible in this game. I have unlocked every single thing in Emerald Rush and in the Emerald Rush challenges I have cleared all of them. Like I just this game just feels really good and then that doesn't

1:34:45deal with any of the like the stage design which is mostly good. There's a couple stages that are a little bit dodgy. I would say the forest there's one of them. It's a little dodgy. But they're all incredibly creative. All of the layers are amazing and like they have neat ideas and fun visuals and just kind of like the culture they create in every layer is really interesting and funny and unique. Even the racing layer which sucks is still weird and goofy. But then you have like I I really enjoy this DK Polyn combo. There are a lot of fun together. I enjoy the power-ups you get. I enjoy building a better DK as it were. This is just a really well made I mean granted it's from the team that made Odyssey like yeah we expect this of them and they delivered with the character that isn't about platforming. It's about break and shit and there's something really satisfying about getting stronger at break and shit like yeah you can climb but what if you just

1:35:47punched instead. I really appreciate that it meant that a lot of the challenges I know people who got their people who were didn't like all the shines in Odyssey but like ultimately or the boons but ultimately like who cares just don't get them then. But in this one it's even more immaterial because many of the the platforming challenges they want you to crack or the puzzles they want you to solve you can just punch your way through instead and I really like that I just I just like oh god I don't know how to how to get to this banana what if I just punch and the game's like what if you just punch and I did I punch and I'm in and I get the thing it's it is it's it's a it's a great looking game that's using the switch too well it plays like a dream there's a ton of challenges that are a lot of fun to do there's some that aren't as much fun but it's the balance is very very tilts very hard in the positive direction and the DLC's great I like the new characters I like the new worlds I like all of it so yeah this is a really fun game

1:36:49and if you haven't played it what the fuck is wrong with you it's you're listening to an Nintendo podcast what do you do it maybe you don't know switch to yet all right take it back maybe you don't know switch to you I get that they're expensive that's fun if you want to switch to an app like this no I I reiterate my what the fuck is wrong with you just just do it just do it like what are you waiting for this is really really good this is really good and I I enjoyed it pretty much every minute I spent with that with the exception of the last Emerald Rush challenge there was like I said I realized it was due with two days left and I spent it took me two hours to clear it so there were some runs I did not enjoy very much but I I should have recognized these were gonna be bad runs that abandoned them like if Nintendo if you're listening which you're not please make it so I can just restart Emerald Rush challenge so I don't have to like quit come back and go just like reset please they'll save you so much time but yeah that's my number two it's great it's great best you don't want to say this yeah I want I do want to say this best

1:37:53decay game not and there's no copy out on that it's not best decay game that is I can see that this is the one where it's I feel like I mean this I think what it was it was IGN that gave us a 10 out of 10 I think I sure yeah I can see that you know I am so curious about this game but I am also 100% convinced that I would play it and be like yeah okay it's it's cool but I wouldn't fall in love with it you know maybe but I but I felt like that with like Odyssey for example well Odyssey's obviously a fantastic game but yeah it's just the platform for platforming sake it's not my thing anymore I wish it was but there's less of that though yeah so but there is that's why this intrigues me you know you get the break shit all the time yeah so I should probably give this a shot at some point because I think the boss battles are a little weak but this team can't make boss battles to save their life I don't get it I don't get it

1:38:54make a good boss battle challenge a possible I will say you there I feel like it's it's late enough now that I can spoil this you get the fight void again if you max out the the Emerald Rush mode and you fight him on the island and it's just it's just it's just it like the thing what the void fight is he can go everywhere but if the entire battle space is the is the decay island you just spend time trying to figure out where the boss is it's stupid boss just got like guys couldn't you box it man with invisible walls or some shit he's just gone where'd he go I appreciate this games sense of self is probably the best way of saying and I'm glad they didn't just make another market game they could have I'm sure it would have been great but by doing this they they did something unique that they couldn't have done otherwise thumbs up all right so before we get to our number one games we're going to do a little bit of honorable mentions and for the

1:39:56sake of time let's try to keep it to three we're going to kind of go through them pretty quick so Greg what are your honorable mention or excuse me John god damn it's literally in front of me the order John what are your honorable mentions my honorable mentions I would say just a couple of the switch two upgrades I did at one point pick up my party jebbery and so have it I've not been able to do any of the switch any of the the switch two stuff I don't have a camera yet even though I will get one so if anybody actually has any recommendations because apparently as much as I love the piranha plant camera it's apparently trash yeah yeah it's like 720p 30 frames per second yeah just get the just get the official one John come on yeah yeah but yeah so I will say that you know just you know been playing that a little bit it's I mean it's my party but it's it's pretty good and I would say the other one would be animal crossing with their upgrade they brought me back to the game and yeah it's pretty cool I've not done the same thing

1:41:01I haven't really done any of the switch two stuff yet but but yeah those would be my two honorable mentions nice all right now Greg what are your honorable mentions yet well again I get the few I feel like I wish I had got to play because I feel as plausible I could have entered into the conversation to get you know be very much one of those silksong it would be another you know it may be even the did you go in ragebound you know the loads of stuff I wouldn't like to get to but I just didn't but certainly a few things that to again were very very close to the games that I have listed that didn't quite make it out at Kirby Air riders was really quite close because especially the single player I feel like it was quite a lot more enjoyable than I was necessarily expecting out of that I think you know they did a really nice job of like stringing together different scenarios and again kind of showing you all the different kinds of things that that

1:42:02can happen in this like weird you know a bit sort of action racing hybrid thing that that Kirby Air ride disease so yeah that came close I would also say one that really really wanted to mention here but it's slipping my mind but yeah certainly I think Kirby would be like effectively number six you know what I mean like if we've gone that extra kind of game that that would have been it I think Hyrule Warriors would be just behind that somewhere I kind of you know agree with a lot of what James said in terms of it it felt a little bit safe you know and it couldn't argue with how slick it was you know it definitely felt like the slickest you know Hyrule Warriors experience we've seen with the sort of technical you know kind of prowess you know that it sort of achieved on Switch too but didn't especially with this all you know canonissity thing it didn't feel like

1:43:08it wanted to go too far or too hard and and also I guess it yeah just felt like it couldn't risk being a you know a Hyrule Warriors game that didn't have a link analogue at least as a major character so I got crowbar didn't know the construct thing so yeah I bet I still yeah I did very much enjoy you got plenty out of it cool um Geon what are your what are your honorable mentions yeah so I'm yeah I think I'm the only idiot here hasn't finished Metroid Prime yet I traveled for the holidays I probably thought like well I got to play this on a big screen I can't play it on the tiny you know switch to screen so I'm gonna save this for the big screen and then like I just lost sight of it you know I just I started playing something portably and then I kept playing it even once I was back home so and and then yeah one thing to another I still

1:44:12haven't finished it but it's not I enjoyed what I played so eventually probably like at this time next year I'm gonna say like well a Metroid Prime 4 should have been my you know number whatever on my list but right now it's not on the list uh there the other thing that kind of slipped through the cracks is a 20 24's game that I I didn't play in time to to add it to my list that's a 1000 times resist uh that came out in May 24 last year um I I did not pick it as my game of 2024 because I I was playing it while we were doing the uh the the top five of the year stuff and uh I said back then like oh it's really good you need to play it I just haven't played enough of it to put this on the list well you know what it would it definitely should have been on that fucking list like there's no way that you know most of those picks uh for 2024 uh hold a

1:45:19candle to 1000 times resist so again I guess I'm gonna call out 1000 times resist uh it's a fantastic game and you should play it and um yeah I guess that's that's that's mostly it like I yeah I'm playing the hundred line right now I'm not sure if it would you know like I'm still not at the big twist or whatever so I but it's doubtful it would have made the list um all those very good Kirby uh the the the expansion was quite nice I was afraid for a bit that it wouldn't up into this but thankfully I found better picks uh wow but but no but like I mean like it's it's quite nice you know and it did give get me to replay Kirby in the Forgotten Land and that was a really nice experience but it's you know it's like it was very funny um and yeah that's that's mostly it okay um

1:46:19I'm I I rolled around on this for a little bit um I'm gonna go with two I think I think I'm gonna know what I'm gonna go with three fuck it um in no particular order uh Metroid Prime 4 so again I talked about this last um because I I played it well not not not quite as last as gill but I played it after the other two had played it and I I basically came first time I talked about it I had played the whole thing so I came in in this weird state of like I'm not giving you anything in flight I have fully formed thoughts on it and games fine like we I don't want to get back in in my like what the fuck is wrong with the people why are you freaking out about this game it's fine um tantrum but like seriously what the fuck uh games fine games good it's just it's not great like it's it lost out to some weird stuff on my list but that's okay uh stories from Soul of the Gundog this

1:47:19is way back in the start of the year this is like deeply 1980s anime um kind of like uh what what PC 88 style adventure game uh it's got some weird twist stuff at the end but you don't really have any guidance on where it's going so that kind of hurts it a little bit and the fact that ultimately it's setting up other stuff for a sequel that we may never see is kind of a bummer but like I should the the degree to which it just committed to the bit of being in 1980s anime game on a PC 88 I really love and it looks really good at being one of those things and the characters we got I liked um I just wish we got to see where it was going more than we did and then the last one I'm gonna go in here is get the fuck out Mario Kart World you might be the better game but I want to talk to you about Nintendo Switch 2 welcome tour um is this a good game

1:48:23no it's a welcome tour it's literally like an instruction guide for your switch uh are all the mini games good no most of them aren't good most of them are just like they're just there though teaching you to use the mouse controls but at the same time at the same time I appreciated the package for what it was the whole like museum vibe the interacting with characters who are very excited to be on a giant switch to do you notice that these are the buttons from the face buttons and you know that they have that they have digital press instead of analog meaning when you press them it's like yeah of course they're fucking buttons like I don't know how buttons work but there is something like weirdly captivating about that very odd package they launched with Switch 2 completely unnecessary completely bizarre way to introduce Switch 2's features the fact that there's literally like museum guards that won't let you to areas of the museum that represent the hardware you don't have that this weird like we're gonna wrap it in the in the

1:49:26allegory of a museum I I just kind of appreciate how silly it all was and the package they put together and this incredibly Nintendo approach to introducing the features of this new piece of hardware was it a good approach I I cannot answer that question was it a worthwhile expenditure of $15 again this is a you question not a me question I've got $15 out of it I guess shrug but it's such a weird idea that I'm I I appreciate that it's there I just do I appreciate the weirdness of it all all right John it's time give us your most Grande game of 2025 most Grande I don't know but Metroid Prime 4 beyond is my number one just because you know it was good I think it did everything it had to do and I agree with you the whole the whole thing around people

1:50:27wanting it to be like oh just I just expected more it's like man it's a Metroid Prime game I I enjoyed it you know I'd say probably the biggest downside was that you know the hub was a little bit empty like the the kind of spoken hub model like the the middle map was just a little bit kind of perfunctory there just I felt like it was there just to kind of blow out the game world a little bit and they probably could have could have made it a little bit more streamlined by allowing you to just you know fast travel between the different areas but but I I liked it I mean I I played that whole thing through I played it you know it I mean I went through the whole thing and about two weeks you know made sure before I went back to Canada that I that I got through it and yeah I mean outside of the the final boss battle which was just absolutely infuriating for most of it just a really really solid entry and I think it's it's okay for this game to

1:51:28feel like it's from 2014 or something like that right that's I don't think that's a bad thing um and uh yeah I mean I I still have a couple more things to do in it I think I still probably have to get all the green crystals um but uh at no point did I feel like you know you know all of the stuff about the characters about oh this you know the you know the whatever his name is Miles or whatever is a chatterbox and everything um that actually falls away as you play the game um okay I felt that was completely overblown um and it just shows really it's this game is interesting because it actually it also shows the reactionary nature of everything online nowadays where I really wish that they actually wouldn't have even put out that early demo to the press because that just started a complete shit storm that wasn't even necessary um I just I felt like

1:52:30giving a preview to the press was actually the wrong thing to do because everybody was saying oh you know everybody was assuming that the whole game was going to be like that they effectively played through the tutorial and thought the whole game was going to be like that um and there's like most of that game you can't even talk to anybody back at home base um I thought the idea that you did have a home base was pretty cool um and also the fact that they did introduce these characters and they had these characters uh there was actually banter in between these characters so you got to learn a little about a little bit about um their past and you know how they've kind of how they they came to be on vuros and um and all of that sort of stuff and you know there's a couple there's a couple things in there I could have done without like having to like the the sniper guy having to you know search him out randomly out in the open world uh for really no reason to get just some power-ups that they could have given to you any other bit of ways a bit more padding it felt like that isn't it yeah there's there's there's you know the kind of uh customary to some

1:53:34extent like a quest at the end before you're ready to go and fight the final boss but uh yeah it was like well no we need more layers to it because evidently they were even more conscious of uh you know the hour camp I think which uh yeah yeah you I'm perfectly I mean loads I mean that uh you could see everything in night striker gear and about I don't even know 15 minutes I mean I don't give a shit of all that kind of stuff you know it's like if I like it it doesn't have to spend you know I have spent ages with it if it if it feels proportionate with the substance that's there then you know I'd be fine with just leaving it at that but that's a the problem you know that they've been dealing with those kinds of games and in you know the old when Zelda games are more similar to that you know pretty much that you're all through the from the first Metroid Prime game and like I said with the Zelda games all through the you know the arts and the 2010s so you know it's just I guess it's not surprising they fell into that

1:54:40trap that you still could have done without it yeah agreed um but yeah it's it's more Metroid Prime and I'm perfectly okay with that because I haven't seen any of this stuff since what 2007 I think that's what we launch yeah yeah so I was perfectly okay with this being another Metroid Prime game um I thought they tried a couple of new things um and for the most part we're successful uh you know having the bike to roll around on um I felt that was at the same time a little bit shoe horned just to have something new but I also liked the fact that they put it in there the way that they introduce it is really cool how you have to effectively build it was really neat not something I expected um but uh but yeah overall it's really solid game that's my number one is here cool uh Greg what is your number one well I would imagine people could guess what it is all I did intentionally leave something out of the honorable mentions to kind of leave a little bit of uh a question and that would be the the game I left out was then I played Chronicles X definitive

1:55:44edition because uh you know I just thought it'd be easier to leave something out that I've played before that I didn't go back and check but I'm pretty confident that would have been top that year uh you know when it came out in 2015 I'm not sure I would think so I'm not sure what a competition if it if it wasn't that if it wasn't number one it must have at least the two was up because that was definitely one of the best experiences one could have playing games on the 10 r wearing 2015 uh so but yeah I mean that was a great experience to be fair playing it again now uh because uh you know I've just um off TV play was you know a helpful a lot on were you and all that but uh proper portable play here we'd actually have a pretty decent um resolution uh for a change you know for portables and like I mentioned we've talked about just recently um if I really really enjoyed it got through it uh you're relatively quickly for me for a game of that length uh and it was it was great to to see it all again and then you know

1:56:48with with some of the stuff uh the new the new stuff sort of sprinkled in along the way before we get to the extra chapters and those uh great great experience but of course as you might have guessed the number one is Donkey Kong peranza for me and like I said that this had a little bit of separation from the others because even though I would say you know there's some elements of it where you kind of feel like this is not exactly aimed at like where I am you know in terms of like I think it emphasizes the you know the pure play aspect of just you know breaking things you know tunneling through things you know the the fact that you know the the commitment that there is to be able to kind of achieve things in a different way or whatever kind of way you feel like or at times it kind of models maybe like certain challenges you know how sort of um specific they can be or how challenging they can be and you know there's definitely some aspects of my

1:57:49kind of play preferences over the years that would favor so there was a bit more rigidly structured or a bit more challenging but on the other hand I'm a tired old man these days so sometimes the fact that it doesn't necessarily put up barely frictions is actually very welcome you know you got to have to accept that actually no this this this this does suit me rather well and so I played it to you know to exhaustion pretty much I guess there's still some stuff I could do I haven't completely exhausted the Emerald Rush the way James has I'm about like yeah it's more than it's like halfway through the amount of kind of point so you have to get to get the rewards but that's like you know because it's not literally geometric but it's like you know what I mean it I've got most of the rewards but I'm only halfway through the number of points it would take to get the last one so yeah I might get there eventually they're doing like dipping into it here

1:58:49and that of course the challenge mode the challenge events do not count towards that to them they're right because you're walk away with one point no exactly they are set and as we mentioned they are narrower right like they're essentially trying to funnel you into a very specific version of the Emerald Rush experience right to kind of you know get as a high score to get the the the stachy rewards for that whereas again with Emerald Rush even like in its regular form there's this commitment to like it you could kind of get high scores different ways right obviously there's the random element but then there's the discretionary element of like what do you pick what do you like to do that kind of goes by the way so I'd a little bit with the challenge so I understand kind of siloing it off but it does feel a little bit sometimes like oh you've played that for quite a while but that doesn't count towards you know any of the progress there through the regular rewards board or whatever but the main game I very very thoroughly

1:59:53enjoyed it I was a little bit sort of again get to go like you know can you have a character with this much sort of flexibility mobility you know and destructive power and have something that you know still feels interesting and kind of you know can it fun-lea in different directions but I think they pulled it off just that you know that every time where you maybe you felt like it could get a bit sort of tired they introduce new gimmicks I thought that helped freshen it up in the stages you know the things like you know where you can grab a chunk of a material and just throw it and it like makes a huge trail of like a new platform and you just kind of throw in stuff into the void building ladders to go to different places and all like they just have something like that that you know would freshen things up and you know like I said this real commitment to the a pure play sort of philosophy that almost made it feel like boom blocks at times you just kind of

2:00:56see in what you combine things and what how they're going to you know how's it going to blow up how's it going to sort of just react when you put these things together that I can only assume must be really great for for smaller kids but it's still you know pretty fun for the shambling husks of things pretending to be people like myself so you know it was yeah really really reward in and well worth the top spot this past year I think I've talked to Stephen about this you know what is like the positive comparison to boom blocks here well I mean it'll never have boom blocks as quality boxers so yeah no especially bash party was the one with the really yeah I can't the work because it had believe that they are like like boom blocks down the spine like next and the spot it was really weird so stupid like I I believe artists should be protected to practice their craft except for the person who made

2:02:00the boom box blast parties that person should be hunted um Guillaume what is your number one yeah my number one is once upon a catamari um I just really love that game uh I really enjoyed it it puts this mile in my face uh sometimes that that's uh you know sometimes that's a lot sometimes uh I like to be able to win a row where it's like it's hard to be happy but this game it makes me happy well yeah this game makes me happy uh you know stellar music as usual uh just uh fun colorful visuals they don't do all that much that's that we haven't seen before in a catamari game with the gameplay but um that I think that the level designs make sense you know like you find the your line you know like you find your optimal path to to to uh yeah to roll your ball and

2:03:01to just get bigger and like uh eventually you kind of develop some sort of catamari sense right where you're like okay I feel like I'm just just now I'm just big enough to go and and cut like those things over there that I couldn't uh that you know I would bounce off of before um the the game is funny in so many ways from you know the random shit that the the the the game designers put in there you know like the visual gags all over the place uh you'll you'll go to like prehistory you collect dinosaurs but there's also like dinosaur fans hanging around and when you roll them up they go dinosaur and uh that's exactly what dinosaur fans sound like in real life at least uh that's my new head cannon um the there's like a tremendous amount of writing and unlike other games that have tremendous amounts of writing that's not boring it's it's often very

2:04:06you know funny and witty and I fucking love the the the king of the cosmos um he is fun ESL I I I really like you know like the weird I don't know attitude that he has you know like oh cousin so and so you're you know you were swimming in the sea that sounds nice you know oh you were uh hang you know in a shootout with a cowboy I don't know what you're talking about um like I don't know like sometimes anyway like uh trust me the writing is good I can't recall the verb it is he is he is disconnected from reality to such a degree and so unwilling to accept fault for things that are clearly his fault like everything going wrong that it it's like talking to an all-powerful child yeah and and they do a very good job of capturing that in a way that

2:05:12is amusing but but like a very fine line of I just want to kick the king in the dick like it never quite gets there but it gets real close a couple times which is a hard line to walk well that's that's one of the things about this game like the in the in the in the first few games he's I think that they've sanded off a lot of the roughness there like because like it was kind of shitty to to fail a stage before an economy game because like he would really lay it into you and like there's that's part of the story you know like he was himself like his dad had impossible expectations from him and like that's kind of visited upon the prince and and so but there's been growth believe it or not and now at this point in the series uh yeah like he he's uh he's uh he's definitely um um yeah he's not as uh I don't know how to say this that's fearsome but yeah like

2:06:15less shitty I guess mean spirit is of it yeah yeah he's less of a shitty dad than he used to be so so that's so he's still a shitty dad but less of one well you know he's yeah he's not exemplary for sure um yeah and like yeah I don't know I think that they executed very well on this idea and the yeah like it's one more of these in many ways but I don't see that as a problem I I guess like I can always take uh more calamari like uh it's got some some new stuff that it does that I haven't seen before like uh it kind of a there's the the pirate stage where there's this uh the squid that flees from you and like if you catch it and if you don't catch it like they're like they're there there's like branching paths there and like at some point in the level either

2:07:16you're going to be pulled down under the sea by this giant octopus or you're not but you're gonna be attacked by another pirate ship and so yeah so like you're gonna be able to kind of like different items you're gonna be able to uh go after a different goals um so that that was kind of neat I I wish that the game had done maybe a little bit more of that but uh yeah outside of that like yeah perfectly executed it's just uh it's almost impossible to be grumpy and play this so uh yeah that's probably the highest recommendation I can give it unless you're grumpy at it which it which it can do with those those crown challenges oh well the antiquity maze level uh can go oh okay now you're right that one that one gets you just clearing it yeah that fuck that love yeah I did eventually get everything in it but god damn it that it sucks just the game would be better if they just patch that level out if it just

2:08:22didn't replace anything it's just not there anymore yeah um all right my number one I obvious it should be obvious at this point my number one is hey it's then a play chronicles ex definitive edition who could who could a thunk it um I'm not gonna go into too much detail on this one because one I've now recorded a second spoiler cast about the same game Greg and I did that back in December uh this is my second time playing this like 130 hour long game I once again did everything even though I've seen most of this content before that includes the we'll call it dance party at the water treatment plant that I desperately did not want to do but I did it because it's content in the game so I went and did it uh I did all this they made it much easier to make friends with the the non mainline party members meaning doing their quest lines was much easier this time um I can't remember the name of the character that's super missable

2:09:22you have to do all of her quests before you get a chance to unlock her oh yeah the one that's always uh she's always turning up in the various different places again the South of Detroit it's Mia yeah yeah I finally got her this time around and then I got to the uh the new content which is spread throughout the game um I like one of the new characters the um I can't remember her her name now the other alien the the alien princess basically um didn't really care for the other new characters I mean one of them is good good good jarg like he's he's not new they just made him playable um but the the the other new ones yeah but I got to the infamous chapter 13 um game famously ends with no conclusion in fact it ends with more extra cliffhangers uh we get we get resolution to all of those cliffhangers I don't necessarily know that it's stuck the landing I did some people really don't like chapter 13 I'm a little bit more open to what it's doing but I

2:10:25still feel like it it kind of missed the boat a little bit pun not intended um but I I don't really care that much like it has a definitive ending so that's something um they did things to expand the scope of the story that are curious and possibly ill conceived but they did them and now we live in the world in which they have been done and so I just sort of accept that those things have happened and then I'm going to have to potentially live with that in some future game that's fine um but ultimately the game's plot isn't really what keeps me going through this it's the fact that they built I mean John talked about it they built a world of unprecedented scale back when it came out and it still feels that way you like you walk up to a cliff side and even compared to Breath of the Wild you look up at it and you're like I'm not fucking getting up there crap all right what do we do and you just you just sit there and go like okay well I'm stuck

2:11:27in the valley I can't get out of the valley and no matter what you have no idea what's gonna be around that corner it could be a giant 80-foot tall Gonzalez which is a giant ape and he's just gonna one shot you no matter how fast you try to run the fuck away you're gonna die you're gonna die there's nowhere to go because you're stuck in this stupid cliff face or you're you wander into Silvellum and the music's all nice and cheery and you're like oh this isn't bad I like this place it's like a nice it's like a nice snowy thing it's not salt and then and then nighttime comes oh daytime is the crazy shit in Silvellum um and suddenly a giant robot emerges from the ground and nukes you with the laser from a thousand meters away and it's like well fuck me I guess that there is there is a a sense of like of place in that world where it's literally okay I need to get up on that cliff face but there's a land bridge I have to cross and on that land bridge

2:12:29are two level 50 jaguar looking things I can't fight them I cannot fight them I am not strong enough it will be a very long time but the game for story reasons wants me to go there right now how the fuck do I do that and the solution is literally well go at night when they're asleep and be very fucking quiet and hope nothing wakes them up it it it it is a problem solving exercise that most games don't ask you to do it challenge it repeatedly challenges you to solve the world yeah like the world is the enemy in this game yeah we talked about it mirrors the character and it's a temperamental tempestuous character that sometimes just wants to reach down and smack you in the face and there's nothing you can do about that it's gonna hit you yeah but sometimes yeah it consistently tells you there's something here that you want right but I'm not gonna give

2:13:32it to you yeah I'm not gonna give it to you but I'm not necessarily going to prevent you from getting it outright based on some abstract structure within the game design right if you figure out how to do it good job yeah I mean we talked about it we talked about this game the first time I gave it game of the year there's a second time do I get now um cold roast the game the the continent that the game expects you to reach last it is the least hospitable it is the most dangerous it has the most random shit flying in the air that's like level 99 that will just nuke you from space before you even see it also it's covered in lava so like there's nothing good happening in cold roast you should not be there you should not be there even in the end game cold roast is a bad place but they fully anticipated some absolute jackass is gonna walk off the side of primordia at the very beginning of the game swim for like 20 minutes yeah and reach cold

2:14:33roast yeah but it's not stopping you from doing it either you can do it no beast dumb as you want do whatever you want the and on the beach there's like level five enemies because they know some some assholes gonna try it yes now when you kill those level five enemies what happens you walk off the beach and then you're blown to pieces by a level 60 enemy but you can do it game doesn't care have fun I would say it lets you window shop if you yeah yeah and like there's this idea that the world is feels relatively alive because of all the enemies in it and the fact that like sometimes they're asleep sometimes they're awake sometimes they're not paying attention those giant gorillas like yeah going past them when they're asleep is ideal but sometimes like they'll just be literally scratching their ass and you can you can just like sneak around them and not have to have a thing happen but then you get you get the skills and like the whole world changes and all

2:15:34the interactions with the creatures in it change and then you start you get super strong and you start doing shit like trying to do infinite disc bombs so you can kill these these event enemies that are 20 times stronger than anything in the game it's ridiculous and I just I cannot fathom that they took them this long to re-release this game I cannot fathom that they didn't wait for the switch to to come out to release as a switch to game and I I have issues with the with the ending they're not as they're not as extreme as other peoples but I I it is baffling to me that this is a Wii U game still but it looks so much better on switch but this is ultimately a Wii U game and it's still doing things that I don't see elsewhere even even the Zelda games that are obviously reading from its terminal and that is a that some of those things that's not doing I

2:16:35totally get it they're weird and if you look at them from the outside you're going to think why the hell would you do it that way but it's it is it is just a massive impressive constantly changing game where even the city you're in changes based on the quests you do it feels alive in ways that very few games actually do and I really appreciated that Mira is a place and you get to experience it and you get to know it and you it becomes you become part of it like what you're what your party is doing is part of the calculation that is Mira and that's pretty fucking cool that's that is just pretty fucking cool all right that is going to do it for our top five of twenty twenty six I don't really have much else say on that email send them rfn at and send a roll to port.com that is rfn at and attend a roll to port.com I actually got a little worried for there that we had

2:17:39seen very little Metroid Prime and I was like I was like boy is it going to get blanked I got that was our top five of twenty twenty five that we are in twenty twenty six no it's our top five twenty twenty six we're just we're just good to do it yeah yes the top five twenty twenty five I don't know that is my fourth game I think that was that was early on you you you did you did no you did and for but no for a while there I was like oh is that going to be it is that the run is that it's a run um but yeah like it's uh I suspect that next year we're going to see a little bit more diversity because it looks like there's a lot of stuff coming out hope so hopefully we'll have some some fun lists for you all next year but in the interim email send them rfn at and roll to port.com but you could also send music music you want to hear played at the end of the show which Greg is responsible for selecting so Greg would you do us that honor today sure well as we record this I think we're only a matter of hours away

2:18:43from a pokemon presents to coincide with pokemon day the 27th of February the anniversary of the original pokemon red and green games in japan and of course this is the 30th anniversary so they're making a bigger deal of it you know than the ordinary wood and we've already had some stuff you know with the with the leaf green and fire red re release not as putty and but pretty predictably not just putting them on nso but instead uh having them as standalone purchases not a huge surprise there again it will be somewhat similar to when they did the virtual console game you know called it uh 10 years ago the virtual console releases of red blue and yellow you know were in america and europe and rea red green in japan back then so yeah not not a huge surprise there I see what else they'll have in store obviously everyone listening will already have

2:19:46heard about by the time they hear this but for closing music I'm going to actually go for something that goes stems from the you do plenty of different pokemon game soundtracks down the years obviously with the various occasions and tie-ins and whatnot but this time I'm going to go for something that's actually from the anime so yeah my my experience with the anime I kind of missed the you know I wasn't really squarely in the target demographic you know by the time it was you could see it over here I think it was probably about 14 going on 15 by the time it started airing over here but I didn't have a game boy so I wouldn't get one until the gba a couple years later so it was my sort of window into what the fuss was all about with what you've been reading about in magazines about this series that just absolutely blew up in japan and all that before it got localized and all that uh so you know it was always of interest and they had it on in a time slot

2:20:51that was basically when I would be having breakfast before leaving for school so yeah I saw you know bits not necessarily all of episodes but bits of episodes uh before I would set off and this particular song is basically what you get at the end of I would assume a number of episodes depending on how a given episode would end but your base is just like for me the association I came across this I think about again like five years ago when there was obviously a bunch of Pokemon 25th anniversary kind of stuff floating out there uh an episode where ash is sort of you know walking off into the sunset after saying goodbye to you know some you know pal where they kind of came across that particular week and so this is called meeting and parting and I would be very surprised if you've seen any of that originally are the first like series of the anime this did not register with you you were I'm sure it will trigger memories of that old show

2:21:57oh okay I think I know what it is all right well on that it is time for us to go bye everybody bye later bye bye oh oh oh